Chapter 10 - The Letter from the North

The Silk of Fate

Chapter 10 – The Letter from the North

It arrived just after morning prayer.

A slim envelope, sealed in red wax, the edges still crisp from travel. The courier was a boy, no older than sixteen, trembling slightly as he stood at the threshold of Idran’s quarters.

“For you, my prince,” he said, bowing low. “From the royal court.”

Idran broke the seal in silence.

The script was official. Polished. Detached.

By decree of His Majesty Jayanegara,

You are hereby appointed to accompany the royal envoy to the Yuan Dynasty.
Departure in three weeks, via Tuban Port. You will represent Tumapel in matters of trade, diplomacy, and cross-cultural observation.

May you speak with the voice of the archipelago and return with wisdom the sea cannot wash away.

Idran read it twice.

Then a third time.

He folded it neatly and set it beside his tea.

And for a long while, he said nothing.

Outside, the garden was blooming. Frangipani, water lilies, the slow unfurling of hibiscus. The sky had that early blue—the kind that seemed too perfect to last. Idran stood by the pond, arms loosely crossed, watching a koi ripple the surface with its lazy path.

A posting to Yuan.

The Mongol court.

The northern empire that loomed in maps like a myth—silk and stone, towers and thunder.

Why now?

Was this his father’s way of sending him away without naming it exile?

Or was it something else?

An attempt to test him? To dilute his influence?

Or… had someone—somewhere—seen his heart and chosen a thread?

Karim arrived later that day, as he often did, with dried figs and a scroll on early Islamic jurisprudence.

“You’re quieter than usual,” he said.

Idran handed him the letter.

Karim read it once, then set it down.

“You will go?” he asked.

“Yes,” Idran replied. “I think… I must.”

Karim studied him.

Not with concern, but with something gentler. Almost reverent.

“Some journeys,” he said, “begin long before the road appears.”

That evening, Idran wrote in his private journal.

The sea does not frighten me.
But what lies beyond it—
The unknown, the foreign, the unspoken—
That is where my soul leans, like a boat drawn toward wind.

He paused.

Then added:

I do not know what I will find in the north.
But I hope it speaks the same silence I carry.

Far away, in a city he had never seen, a young woman would soon begin preparing for a celebration she did not want to attend.

But that was still weeks away.

For now, the silk had only begun to stretch.

And though neither of them knew it, the red thread had already tied.