Enter a world shrouded in the Years Of Affliction, a tale of Betrayals Of Power penned by Dariush Afshar. This is a story where nature itself seems to crush words, and an icy ruinous storm is closely under way. The very air grows dense, as if unseen hands are weaving an invisible shroud while shadows flicker and shift across the walls. Beneath the surface of gilded palaces and curated exhibits, threads are pulled. Water and oil are shaken, held together by ceaseless turmoil, orchestrated by someone making sure the shaking never stops. Prophecy unfolds, written in ink that defies time, naming those standing at the precipice. The curse of Kerman, tied to ancient writings and marked by a strange symbol carved into a tree, guides a journey that rearranges the essence of one's being in a city transformed. At the heart of the unraveling is Farah, the queen, the reformer, the patron of modernity. Her influence bleeds through the airwaves, bookshelves, and whispered decisions. Described as a poison ivy curling around its host, she moves in silence, drinking away life unseen, tightening her grip slowly, patiently. She is seen as the architect of her family's unraveling, a monstrous spider weaving a sprawling, intricate web of shadowy deceit, binding unseen victims with threads that shimmer beautifully but are suffocating upon closer inspection. This is a land where ancient covenants stir and the drowned kings rise, spectral figures with skeletal visages emerging from the Caspian's black waves, their voices wrapped in reverence and disdain. They are warriors, rulers, dreamers whose crowns were claimed by time. Shadows twist in dark corners, and figures lurk in alleyways, their pallid eyes gleaming with unnatural light. This is annihilation, not revolution. Forces like the Hydra of Farabana stir, their insidious agenda turning inhabitants of the forgotten territories into tools, igniting fanaticism and misplaced righteousness. They seek to warm the city with flames, stoke the embers of revolution, and turn the people's fury into a storm. Whispers of their allegiance echo in the storm, declaring loyalty to a force darker than the void itself. Amidst this chaos, souls descend from the heavens, each carrying a fragment of divine light, coming to fight, heal, restore, and serve. Paku Pakiz, the enigmatic soothsayer whose