The morning sun did not rise gently; it invaded. It pierced through the cracks in the mud walls of Ayon's hut, painting stripes of blinding white light across the dusty floor.
Ayon was already awake. He had not slept. Sleep was a luxury for those who did not have ghosts for company.
He sat outside his hut, in the baking heat, staring at the corpse of his cart. The wheel was shattered, the wood splintered like a broken bone. To any other man, it was a pile of trash. To Ayon, it was the only anchor keeping him tethered to the illusion of a normal life.
He had no money for a carpenter. He had no tools.
He stood up and walked to the riverbank. He searched until he found a flat, heavy stone, smoothed by centuries of water. He found a discarded, rusted nail in the dirt.
He sat down and began to work.
It was a slow, agonizing process. Clang. Pause. Clang. The sound of the stone hitting the nail echoed in the silent morning. He aligned the splintered wood with a precision that was almost supernatural. His hands, calloused and scarred, moved with the grace of a master artist.
He could have snapped his fingers. He could have whispered a single word of the Old Tongue, and the wood would have knit itself back together, stronger than steel. He could have turned the cart into solid gold.
But he didn't.
Magic is easy, he reminded himself, wiping sweat from his brow. Being human is hard. I must feel the effort. I must earn the repair.
By midday, the heat was a physical weight, pressing down on his shoulders. His hands were bleeding. But the wheel was fixed. It was ugly, a patchwork of scars and rusted nails, but it turned.
Ayon smiled. It was a small, genuine smile. He felt a flicker of pride—not the pride of a god who creates worlds, but the simple, fragile pride of a man who has fixed his livelihood.
He washed his remaining vegetables—three eggplants, a few gourds—in the river. He arranged them on the cart as if they were precious jewels.
"Come on, old friend," he whispered to the cart. "One more day."
The evening market was a swirling vortex of noise. The air smelled of roasting corn, sweat, and desperation.
Ayon pushed his wobbling cart to his usual spot—the dustiest, darkest corner, far away from the prime locations. He stood there, silent and still, a calm island in a sea of chaos.
He had been there for an hour when the atmosphere shifted.
The shouting died down. Laughter was cut short. A ripple of nervous silence spread through the crowd, starting from the main gate and moving inward like a cold wave.
"The Warden," someone whispered. "Bilal Khan is coming."
Bilal Khan was not a man; he was a walking appetite. He was the Market Warden, a man bloated on corruption and cruelty. He moved through the market with a heavy, rolling gait, flanked by two armed guards who looked at the vendors with predatory boredom.
Bilal didn't just collect taxes; he collected fear. He stopped at stalls, taking an apple here, a coin there, laughing loudly at jokes no one else found funny.
And then, his eyes fell on the dark corner. On the Clay Doll.
Ayon saw him coming. He felt the man's aura—a greasy, suffocating cloud of greed and malice.
Bilal stopped in front of Ayon's cart. He blocked out the remaining light of the sun.
"Well, well," Bilal boomed, his voice wet and heavy. "The Clay Doll has returned. And look... he has fixed his trash heap."
Ayon lowered his head. "Greetings, Warden."
"Greetings won't fill my belly," Bilal sneered. He held out a thick, sweaty hand. "The levy. Pay for your spot."
Ayon looked at the hand. It was covered in rings, paid for by the sweat of poor men.
"Warden," Ayon said softly. "I have not sold anything yet. I have no coin."
The market held its breath. To refuse Bilal was dangerous. To refuse him when he was bored was suicidal.
Bilal's face darkened. His jovial mask slipped, revealing the shark beneath.
"No coin?" Bilal asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You take up space in my market. You breathe my air. And you tell me you have no coin?"
"I will pay you tomorrow," Ayon promised, his voice steady. "When I have earned—"
"Tomorrow?" Bilal laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound. "You think you have a tomorrow? You are a stain on this town, Ayon. A waste of space."
He looked at the cart. He saw the patchworked wheel, the rusted nails, the evidence of Ayon's hours of bleeding labor.
"You think you are a carpenter now?" Bilal sneered.
He lifted his heavy boot.
"Please," Ayon whispered. It was the first time he had pleaded. Not for himself, but for the effort. For the human experience.
CRUNCH.
Bilal's boot slammed into the repaired wheel.
The rusted nails gave way. The wood screamed and shattered. The cart collapsed sideways, spilling the vegetables into the filth of the street.
But Bilal wasn't done.
He stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with a cruel joy. He began to stomp on the vegetables. He crushed the eggplants into purple paste. He ground the gourds into the dust. He destroyed the meager hope of a starving man, simply because he could.
"There is your payment!" Bilal roared, spitting on the ruined pile. "Next time, bring money, or I will break your legs instead of your cart!"
He turned and walked away, his guards laughing behind him.
The market was dead silent. The cruelty was so raw, so unnecessary, that even the hardest hearts felt a twinge of pain.
Hidden in the shadows of a nearby alley, two women watched.
Zoya and Laila stood frozen. They were highborn Jinn, accustomed to power, but this… this casual, ugly brutality was something else.
"Why?" Laila whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of horror and rage. "Why does he just stand there? Why doesn't he burn that fat pig to ash?"
Zoya didn't answer. She was watching Ayon.
Ayon stood amidst the wreckage. His hands hung by his sides. He looked at the crushed eggplant—the one he had washed so carefully in the river.
Inside him, the storm woke up.
For a fraction of a second, the air in the market grew thin. The shadows lengthened, reaching towards Bilal's retreating back like claws. Ayan's pupils dilated, swallowing the whites of his eyes. The memory of Azrak, the demon he had chained, whispered in his blood. Kill him. Snap his neck. It would be so easy.
But then, another memory surfaced. A soft hand on his shoulder. Ilma.
"Strength is not in breaking, Ayon. Strength is in holding together."
Ayon closed his eyes. He exhaled. The shadows retreated. The storm settled back into the deep.
He slowly sank to his knees. He didn't cry. He didn't curse. He simply began to pick up the pieces of his shattered wheel.
The crowd dispersed, eyes averted in shame.
Ayon was alone.
Or so he thought.
Two shadows fell over him.
He didn't look up. He continued to gather the splinters of wood.
"Why?"
The voice was demanding, sharp, and ringing with power. It was Laila.
She stepped into the light, her human disguise flickering with the intensity of her emotion. Zoya stood beside her, her face a mask of cold curiosity.
"Why did you let him do that?" Laila demanded, her voice rising. "You stood there like a stone! Do you have no pride? Do you have no blood in your veins?"
Ayon paused. He held a piece of broken wood in his hand.
He looked up.
His eyes met Laila's. And in that moment, the Jinn princess felt a chill run through her immortal soul.
There was no fear in his eyes. There was no defeat. There was only an exhaustion so vast, so ancient, that it made her own lifespan feel like a blink.
"Pride?" Ayon whispered. "Pride is a luxury for those who have full bellies, lady."
"He destroyed your work!" Laila shouted, pointing at the mess. "He humiliated you! And you did nothing! You should have… you should have fought!"
Ayon slowly stood up. He dusted off his knees.
"Fought?" he asked softly. "And then what? If I hit him, his guards beat me. If I kill him… then I become him."
He looked at the crushed vegetables.
"Pain is felt when hope breaks, lady," he said, his voice a low murmur that seemed to vibrate in the air. "When you have no hope… what is there to break? I am just clay. You can step on clay. It does not scream. It just… reshapes."
Zoya stepped forward. She was the wiser of the two, the observer. She saw past the rags. She saw the terrifying stillness in him.
She realized that this man wasn't weak. He was controlling something.
"Forget the cart," Zoya said, her voice dropping to a whisper, her eyes glowing with a faint, golden light. She decided to drop the pretense. She wanted to shock him. She wanted to see the fear.
"We saw you in the ruins," Zoya said. "We are not human. You know this."
Ayon looked at her. He didn't flinch.
Zoya leaned in, her presence expanding, the air around them crackling with static electricity. "We are Jinn. Daughters of the Smokeless Fire. We could snap this town in half."
She waited for the gasp. She waited for him to fall to his knees.
"Tell me, Clay Doll," Zoya asked, her voice weaving a spell of intimidation. "Are you not afraid… of Jinn?"
The question hung in the night air, heavy and charged.
Ayon looked at her glowing eyes. Then he looked up at the moon, pale and indifferent above them.
A smile touched his lips. It wasn't the empty smile of the beggar. It was a sad, knowing smile. The smile of a man who has seen the monsters under the bed and invited them for tea.
"Afraid?" he whispered.
He stepped closer to Zoya, invading her personal space. The heat radiating from his body wasn't the heat of anger; it was the heat of the earth, solid and immovable.
"Jinn live for thousands of years," Ayon said softly. "They see empires rise and fall. They see the beginning and the end."
He looked deep into Zoya's golden eyes, his gaze piercing through her disguise, through her power, straight to her soul.
"If you have truly seen time, lady… then you know that fear is for those who have something to lose."
He spread his empty hands, showing his dirt-stained palms.
"I lost everything before your grandfather was born."
He picked up the broken handle of his cart and began to drag it away into the darkness.
"Go home, children of fire," his voice drifted back to them, tired and final. "Your sparks cannot burn a man who is already ash."
Zoya and Laila stood rooted to the spot. The bustling market had faded away. They were left alone in the silence of his wake.
Laila looked at her sister. Her hands were trembling.
"Did… did a human just call us children?" Laila whispered.
Zoya didn't answer. She was staring at the darkness where Ayon had vanished. Her heart, usually cold and imperious, was beating a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
She had come to find a toy. Instead, she had found a void.
"He is not a man," Zoya whispered, fear finally creeping into her voice. "No human speaks like that. No human feels like that."
She grabbed Laila's hand.
"We must tell the Princess," Zoya said, her voice urgent. "Sumayra must know. This… this Clay Doll… is dangerous."