A heart of glass

Long ago, when the sands sang of gods and wonders there was a city of splendor. Its name was Al'Zujaj, the city that never slept. Here, silence was a stranger, for by day its streets were filled with the laughter of children, the playful banter of vendors and a hundred songs from all lands known to men.
By night, the western winds sang the city a crystal lullaby. Every spire, every house and even the very streets were shaped from iridescent glass, forged in the earthen fire of the Ashen Wastes. And when the loving caress of the winds walked the streets, each part sang a single, crystal note. So hauntingly beautiful was its song that people came from faraway lands to hear it, and not a soul left untouched, weeping with sorrow or crying with joy .   Yet for all its dazzling beauty, a deep and mournful silence had fallen , one that stalked from the Sultan's palace like the cold breath of a desert night and veiled the singing city in a shroud of darkness and despair.

In the most beautiful of all the buildings in that city, the wise Sultan Safir lived, now a ghost haunting his own opulent home. Driven mad by grief, born of the tragic loss of his beloved queen, his warm and soaring heart had turned into cold, frozen glass so much like the spires of his home. But where the winds sang of love and beauty to all, his heart remained silent and still. His face, hidden behind a veil of deep amethyst glass, betrayed nothing of the agony and turmoil within. His voice, a low rumble like stones shifting in a wadi, was rarely heard, but when it was, the whole palace held its breath.
One day, a palace servant might be gifted a purse of gold for a perfectly spiced dish; the next, a royal guard would be banished to the desert for the crime of humming a cheerful tune.   It was at the outskirts of this fateful city, far from the palace's watchful eyes, that a royal messenger arrived at a humble home. Tucked between two larger mansions, it was home to Malyra, a young glassshaper with hands nimble and wise far beyond her twenty summers. She did not just work glass, she felt its soul, sang in harmony with its song carried on the winds, forming new, perfect notes to add to the symphony. A broken vase would not simply be mended, it would be reforged, wonders and tales woven into its reborn form. And in the soft, ethereal glow of kiln and air, each piece sang its song anew.
"The Sultan requires your service," the messenger grimly announced, his voice clipped like a snapped branch, a sneer riding on his lips. "A matter of utmost delicacy. A mosaic, shattered beyond repair - and he wants you to mend it. Now."   A flutter of unease, like a trapped bird, rose in Malyra’s chest. To be summoned to the palace was a great honor, but the stories of the Sultan's capricious grief had spread far and wide. Yet, there was no choice at all.   When she arrived, the palace was quiet as a grave. The void of silence was broken only by the soft whisper of her sandals on the cool glass floors. She was led to a chamber at the heart by a veiled servant that never spoke a sound. Before her eyes, a domed room lay where shafts of light filtered through panels of shimmering sapphire. And there, covering an entire wall, was what remained of the mosaic. It was a colossal piece, twice her height, with a gaping, jagged wound in the middle where a beautiful garden had once been. Thousands of tiny shards lay scattered across a velvet-draped table, each one a broken word in a song of joy.   "This was my beloved's most cherished possession," a coarse voice rasped from the shadows. Malyra spun around, not having noticed she wasn't alone. In the darkest corner of the room, the hunched form of the sultan sat, burdened by grief, face hidden behind a veil of amethyst crystals that rustled with the melody of a broken heart. "It was her vision of paradise, the garden she yearned to build. It shattered the day she…was taken to the river of souls. And you.. you will mend it."

Malyra knelt, trembling, her fingers hovering over the fragments. They sang with a strange energy under her fingers, not just with the magic of their creation, but something deeper, more potent. It was sorrow, to be sure, but beneath it, like veins of gold hidden in deepest, blackest mountains, were flashes of something more.   Her work began, meticulous and slow. She used not glue, but a fine silver wire and the soft, gentle touch of gold. Each shard had been a piece of the puzzle once, but Malyra wasn’t just fitting shapes together; she was listening, learning. The first piece she touched, a tiny shard of iridescent, celestial blue, hummed under her hands with a gentle warmth. As she held it, a fleeting image danced before her eyes: the queen, her hand tracing the outline of a nascent flower, her laughter pearling like the highest chime of Al'Zujaj. Malyra held her breath, startled by the vision , then set the piece into its rightful place.   Days bled into weeks. Malyra worked tirelessly, from sunrise to the first star, while the sultan kept watch. Each shard was a whisper from before, a memory etched in glass. A fragment of crimson brought forth the taste of spiced dates, shared under a starry sky. A sliver of shimmering gold revealed the queen's joyous cry as Safir gifted her a rare desert bloom. A piece of amethyst showed her thoughtful gaze as she planned the garden's design, her fingers sketching in the air. And as the mosaic slowly, painstakingly began to re-form, subtle changes rippled through the palace. The mirrored halls, once reflecting only emptiness, began to show faint, ghostly images of a vibrant past. The wind chimes in the garden outside began to stir, touched by a breath of hope. Even the air itself felt warmer, as if touched by the gentle breath of a hopeful sun.   One evening, as Malyra carefully placed a particularly radiant shard that hummed with a love that ached her heart, she heard a soft gasp. She looked up to see the sultan, his veiled face turned fully toward the mosaic, his usual stillness broken. "The… the scent of jasmine," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion, "I remember it. She always wore jasmine." Malyra looked at the shard; it was a tiny, perfectly formed jasmine blossom, its petals glowing. She knew then that the mosaic was not just a depiction of a garden; it was a chronicle of their life, of their love.   The final section, the very heart of the celestial garden was where even her skills met an end. It was shattered, a chaotic storm of a thousand miniscule fragments and broken memories. This was the fragment that remembered the moment of her death, a maelstrom of grief frozen in time. Malyra hesitated, her heart aching. "It is too broken," Safir rasped from the shadow as if reading her thoughts, his voice flat with crushing finality. "Some things cannot be mended." His words hung in the air, heavy and true as stone. And for that moment, in the beautiful, shimmering city of Al'Zujaj, there was no music at all.   Malyra, heartbroken, looked down at the pile of shattered memories before her. The Sultan was right: some things could not be made whole again. But a broken thing can be forged anew.   Filled with quiet resolve, she gently gathered the fragments - those that held the deepest grief - in a silken bag and walked out of the palace. Back in her workshop, the fire's roar was somber, its flame a quiet, heartbroken echo of the sorrow that stalked the city. As the shards melted, Malyra worked the molten glass, shaping it not to restore the past, but to find a new meaning in the memory of loss.   When Malyra was finished, a single, perfectly formed teardrop, the color of the endless sky, lay in her hands.   She returned to the palace, passing through the mournful, silent halls. The Sultan still sat where he always had, before the gaping wound in the garden mosaic. With a silent prayer to the heavens, Malyra placed the teardrop at the celestial garden's center, setting it into place with fine threads of gold and silver.   "My Lord," she said, her voice a soft caress, "some things are too broken to be made whole again. But even from the deepest sorrow, from the darkness of despair, something new can be born."   The Sultan, his veiled face turned toward the mosaic, reached out and touched the glass tear. A single, silent tear slid down from beneath his veil, the first he had shed in years.   It fell upon his hand, and as it touched the glass teardrop, a single, silver note rang out, bittersweet with both love and loss. The note echoed through the silent palace halls and the wind chimes in the garden outside began to sing. It rippled through the city's lanes, a melody of sorrow transformed into hope, echoing out to the quiet desert and toward the distant sea.   The Sultan reached up and, with a slow, deliberate motion, removed his veil. Beneath it was a stern, gentle face etched with grief, but no longer consumed by it. He looked at Malyra, and a new warmth, another dawn, shone in his eyes.   And with that, within the city of broken shards, the long silence was finally lifted... and a new tale began.