The sun rose slowly over Zafira, casting golden rays across the sand-covered rooftops and silent towers. The city buzzed to life with merchants shouting and donkeys braying, but deep in an old, abandoned stable on the city’s edge, the world remained quiet.
Lina sat cross-legged on a musty old carpet, still holding the ruby that had changed her life. Its glow had dimmed to a warm pulse, like a heartbeat beneath the stone. Across from her hovered Rumi, the genie bound in chains, his form swirling like smoke in a bottle opened too long.
He watched her, silent.
> “You said I have seven nights to break the curse,” Lina said finally, her voice still unsure. “What happens if I fail?”
> “Then your soul will be trapped within the ruby, just as mine was,” Rumi replied calmly. “You’ll become a whisper in the stone—alive, but not living.”
A chill swept over her skin, despite the desert heat. She glanced at the ruby again, then tucked it into a pouch and tied it tight to her belt.
> “Fine. How do I break it?”
Rumi raised one chained hand. A faint light flickered at his palm. From it, a parchment scroll appeared, aged and cracked with time. It hovered briefly, then fell into Lina’s lap.
> “This is the Map of Whispers,” he said. “It reveals the location of the three cursed shards that bind me. Only when all three are gathered and brought to the Lost Oasis can the curse be broken.”
Lina unrolled the scroll carefully. Strange symbols shimmered, shifting with her gaze. Then a red dot blinked to life at the bottom corner of the map.
> “This… this is south of Zafira,” she murmured. “What’s there?”
> “The Tomb of Queen Zala,” Rumi said. “She was the first to bind me. That shard lies with her still.”
Lina stood and paced the room. “So I have to break into a tomb, steal a cursed object, survive ancient traps, and somehow not get myself killed?”
> “Yes,” Rumi replied. “Exactly that.”
She glared at him. “You could’ve at least lied and said it’d be easy.”
The genie gave her the faintest of smirks. “You don’t strike me as the type who prefers lies.”
Outside, a hawker’s bell rang and the muffled sound of market life filtered through the broken walls. But inside, it felt like the world had shifted around her. Lina no longer felt like a thief hiding in the shadows. She was… something else now. Cursed, yes. But chosen, in some twisted way.
> “I’ll need food,” she muttered, counting coins from a secret pouch. “A camel. Maybe a sword. Or at least a sharp stick.”
> “And courage,” Rumi added. “That, above all.”
She looked at him again. Despite the glowing eyes and ghostly form, there was something sad in his face—something ancient. The genie had once been human. She could feel it.
> “You were like me once, weren’t you?” she asked. “Before all this.”
He didn’t answer. But his eyes softened.
> “We leave before dawn,” Lina said. “And if this goes badly, I blame you.”
> “That’s fair,” he replied with a small bow.
As the stars returned that night, Lina lay awake, the map clutched to her chest. She had no family, no home—but now, she had a purpose. A cursed genie, a burning ruby, and a trail into forgotten tombs.
She had stolen many things in her short life.
But now… she might just steal her fate.
