The Last Fire

Eranshahr, 632 CE. You are Yazdegerd III, sixteen years old, and the last man alive of a dynasty four hundred years old. Your grandfather conquered Jerusalem and Egypt, lost all of it in a single winter, and was strangled by his own nobles. Your uncle murdered every brother he had, including your father. Four years of civil war followed — twelve claimants, two queens, and a general who crowned himself and lasted forty days. The grandees chose you because there was nobody else left, and because a boy is easier to steer. You inherit an empty treasury, a drowned heartland, a priesthood that believes the dynasty is cursed, and a court split between two factions whose private armies are larger than your guard. Your western frontier stands wide open. And in Arabia, a new faith has united every tribe of the desert under a single command — which your court has filed away as a local cult. History says you have nineteen years, and that you will die hunted in a mill at Marv. Hold the throne. Rebuild the canals. Buy back the tribes. Restore the fire, or let it go dark. Everything before June 632 is written. Nothing after it is.