The sun rose over the town like a white-hot coin, promising another day of relentless, baking heat.
For Ayon, the morning brought no relief from the night's terrors. It only brought back the familiar, gnawing companion: Hunger.
He stood outside his hut, swaying slightly. His vision blurred at the edges. He hadn't eaten in two days. His body was burning through its reserves, consuming muscle for energy.
Move, he commanded his legs. If you stop, you become stone.
He walked to the market. The contractor had fired him. The cart was broken. There was only one place left where a man might trade sweat for bread without being asked too many questions.
Fatima's Tea Stall.
It was situated at the busiest corner of the market, a small structure of bamboo and canvas that smelled perpetually of boiling milk, crushed cardamom, and strong tobacco.
Fatima was already there, a whirlwind of activity. She was a woman carved from granite and resentment, her face a map of deep wrinkles earned through decades of shouting at suppliers.
"You!" she barked as Ayon approached. She didn't look up from the massive kettle she was scrubbing. "You look like a corpse that forgot to lie down. What do you want?"
"Work, Mother," Ayon said, his voice rasping. "I have hands. I can wash. I can serve."
Fatima eyed him suspiciously. She saw the hollowness in his cheeks, the way his hands trembled slightly. But she also saw the crowd beginning to gather. Her usual helper, her son, was sick with fever. She was alone.
"Fine," she grunted, pointing to a mountain of dirty glass tumblers in a plastic tub of grey water. "Wash those. If you break one, I take it out of your hide. If you are slow, I kick you out. Payment is two loaves of bread and a glass of tea. Take it or leave it."
It was slave labor. But to Ayon, the promise of bread sounded like a king's ransom.
"I take it," he said.
He rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hands into the cold, greasy water.
High above, on the flat roof of a caravanserai overlooking the market, a shimmer of air twisted and condensed.
Princess Sumayra stood there, invisible to the mortals below.
She looked down at the tea stall. She saw Ayon, bent over the tub, scrubbing glasses with a rhythmic, hypnotic focus.
He is desperate, she noted coldly. He is working for scraps. Good.
It was time for the third test. The Test of Pity.
She closed her eyes. She reached deep into her core, suppressing her radiant Jinn aura. She dimmed her inner light until she felt small. Cold. Mortal.
She manipulated her form. Her silk robes dissolved, replaced by tattered, stained rags that smelled of dust and old rain. Her silver hair dulled to a matted, dirty grey. She hollowed out her cheeks, added dark circles under her eyes, and coated her flawless skin in a layer of grime.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer a Queen. She was a beggar. A wretch. The kind of creature people stepped over in the street without a second glance.
She looked at her hands—dirty, trembling. A wave of revulsion washed over her.
I hate this, she thought, her pride recoiling. I am a daughter of Smokeless Fire. I am royalty.
But the obsession with the Clay Doll was stronger than her pride. She had to know. Was his kindness real? Or was it just a luxury he afforded himself when it cost him nothing?
Let us see if you are still a saint when you have to choose between your own stomach and a stranger's, she thought.
She took a breath, adopted a stoop, and shuffled toward the stairs.
She was now 'Sara.'
The morning rush was a brutal assault on the senses. The stall was packed. Men shouted orders for tea, for buns, for cigarettes. The steam from the kettle hissed violently.
Ayon worked like a machine. Wash. Rinse. Dry. Stack. Wash. Rinse. Dry. Stack.
His back screamed in protest. His stomach was a tight knot of pain. But he found a rhythm in the work. The water was cool on his hands. The noise of the market was a wall of sound that kept his memories at bay.
"Faster, you mule!" Fatima shouted, slapping a wet rag on the counter. "Table four is waiting!"
Ayon nodded, moving faster. He didn't complain. He didn't speak.
And then, the crowd parted.
A woman shuffled into the open space in front of the stall.
She was a picture of absolute misery. Her clothes were torn, revealing skin that looked bruised and dirty. She walked with a limp, clutching her stomach. Her hair hung over her face in a greasy curtain.
She stood there, swaying, looking at the steaming kettle with eyes that were huge, dark, and filled with a terrifying desperation.
It was a masterpiece of acting.
Fatima saw her first. Her face hardened. To Fatima, beggars were not people; they were pests that drove away paying customers.
"Hey!" Fatima shouted, waving a ladle threateningly. "Get away! No begging here! Go to the mosque if you want charity!"
The beggar woman flinched, shrinking back. "Please," she whispered, her voice a dry croak. "Water... just water..."
"I pay for my water!" Fatima snapped. "Get lost before I throw hot tea on you!"
The customers laughed. "Go on, shoo!" one man yelled. "You smell like a goat!"
Sumayra, deep inside the role of Sara, felt a spike of genuine rage. These mortals, she thought, they are monsters. They kick the weak.
She let tears well up in her eyes. Real tears, born of frustration and the sting of humiliation. She turned to leave, her shoulders slumping in defeat.
Ayon froze.
He was holding a tray of dirty glasses. He heard the woman's voice.
It wasn't the words. It was the tone. The sound of a soul breaking under the weight of the world.
He looked up.
He saw the beggar woman. He saw the way she trembled. He saw the dirt on her skin.
But he didn't see a pest.
He saw a reflection.
He saw himself, wandering the ashes of the Pearl City, alone, hungry, and ignored by the universe. He saw the universal truth of suffering.
Hunger has the same face on everyone, he thought.
He set the tray down.
"Fatima," he said. His voice was soft, but it cut through the noise like a knife.
Fatima turned, glaring. "What? Keep working!"
Ayon walked out from behind the counter. He ignored Fatima. He ignored the customers.
He walked straight to the beggar woman.
Sumayra saw him coming. She tensed. Here it comes, she thought. He will chase me away to please his boss. He will protect his job.
Ayon stopped in front of her.
He didn't look at her with disgust. He didn't look at her with the predatory gaze of men who see a vulnerable woman.
He looked at her with a profound, crushing gentleness.
"Mother," he said softly, using a term of respect. "Do not go."
Sumayra looked up, meeting his eyes. And for a moment, her act faltered. His eyes... they were not looking at her rags. They were looking at her.
"I... I am thirsty," she stammered, sticking to the script.
Ayon turned to Fatima.
"Fatima," he said. "Give her a glass of tea. And two loaves of bread."
The stall went silent.
Fatima's jaw dropped. "Have you lost your mind, boy? That is your wage! That is your food for the day! You haven't eaten a crumb, and you want to give it to this... this trash?"
"She is not trash," Ayon said, his voice firm, hardening like clay in a kiln. "She is hungry."
"I don't care!" Fatima yelled. "If you give it to her, you get nothing! You work all day on an empty stomach! Do you understand? You will starve!"
Sumayra watched him. This was the test. The ultimate choice. Survival or Sacrifice.
Ayon looked at his hands. They were shaking from low blood sugar. He knew what the day would be like without food. The dizziness. The weakness. The pain.
He looked at 'Sara.' He saw her trembling.
I have lived a thousand years, he thought. I can endure one more day of hunger. She might not survive the hour.
He smiled. It was a small, sad smile.
"I understand, Fatima," Ayon said.
He walked back to the counter. He took the two warm loaves of bread that were meant for him. He poured a glass of hot, sweet tea—the tea he had been dreaming of all morning.
He carried them to the beggar woman.
"Here," he whispered, placing the bread in her dirty hands. "Sit. Eat."
Sumayra stood there, the warm bread burning her palms.
She looked at the food. Then she looked at him.
"But..." she whispered, her voice breaking, the acting forgotten. "This is yours. She said... you will starve."
Ayon shrugged. He adjusted his ragged tunic.
"My hunger is an old friend," he said softly. "We are used to each other. But you... you look like you are new to this pain."
He gently guided her to a crate in the shade.
"Eat slowly," he advised. "Or it will hurt your stomach."
Then, without waiting for thanks, without waiting for praise, he turned around.
He went back to the tub of grey water. He picked up a dirty glass. And he started scrubbing.
Sumayra sat on the crate. The tea was hot. The bread was fresh.
She took a bite.
It tasted like ash in her mouth.
She watched him. He was working harder now, his movements a little slower, his face paler. He wiped sweat from his forehead. He stumbled once, bracing himself against the counter, then straightened up and kept working.
He was suffering. He was in physical pain because of her.
And he had done it without a second thought.
A crack appeared in the ice around Sumayra's heart. A fissure deep and terrifying.
He isn't playing a game, she realized, the thought hitting her with the force of a physical blow. He isn't trying to be a hero. He isn't trying to impress anyone.
He just... cares.
She looked at the humans around her—Fatima counting coins, the men laughing, the world spinning on its axis of greed.
And then there was Ayon. A speck of gold in a river of mud.
She finished the tea. She ate the bread. She felt the energy return to her mortal disguise.
But her soul felt heavy.
She stood up. She walked to the counter where he was working.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Ayon didn't look up. He couldn't. He was focusing everything on not fainting.
"Go," he murmured. "Find a safe place to sleep. The nights are cold."
Sumayra turned and walked away. She limped out of the market, keeping up the charade until she was out of sight.
She reached the riverbank, far away from prying eyes.
She dropped the disguise.
The rags vanished. The dirt disappeared. She stood in her true form—regal, shining, terrifyingly beautiful.
But there were tears in her eyes.
She touched her chest. Her heart was beating a frantic rhythm.
"I failed," she whispered to the river.
She had set out to prove that he was weak. That he was selfish. That he was just a man.
Instead, she had proven that he was better than her.
"He gave me his life," she murmured, the realization settling in. "He gave a stranger his life."
She looked back toward the market, toward the tea stall where a starving man was washing glasses to pay for a meal he would never eat.
The obsession in her heart shifted. It was no longer the cold obsession of a scientist.
It was the burning, desperate obsession of a woman who has seen a light in the darkness and is terrified it will go out.
"I will not break you, Ayon," she vowed, her voice fierce.
"I will understand you. And then..."
She clenched her fist, a new resolve hardening her features.
"...I will save you."
She dissolved into the air, not to return to her palace, but to wait. To watch.
Because the game had changed.
The hunter had fallen in love with the prey.
Back at the stall, the day dragged on. The sun was a torture device.
Fatima watched Ayon. She saw him swaying. She saw the pallor of his skin.
She grunted.
"Hey," she barked.
Ayon looked up, blinking against the dizziness. "Yes, Mother?"
Fatima slammed a glass of tea and a stale biscuit onto the counter.
"I made too much," she lied, her voice gruff. "Drink it. I don't want you fainting and breaking my glasses."
Ayon looked at the tea. He looked at Fatima's scowling face.
He smiled.
"Thank you, Mother."
He drank the tea. It was sweet. It was warm.
It tasted like mercy.
The world is hard, Ayon thought, feeling the sugar hit his blood. But it is not empty.
He didn't know that a pair of grey eyes was watching him from the clouds. He didn't know that he had just passed a test that no Jinn had ever passed.
He just knew that the tea was good. And for now, that was enough.