The city did not cheer.
It sighed.

After fire, after blood,
after betrayal and grief —
what remained was dust.
And dawn.

Paris woke slowly.

Children played with broken bricks like toy swords.
Women swept rubble as if it were just another Tuesday.
Old men leaned against crumbled statues and lit quiet pipes.

Ziya walked alone through the streets.
No crown.
No guards.
Just ash on her boots and silence in her breath.

No one stopped her.
But they watched.

On the walls, someone had painted her eyes —
Sharp. Feline. Burning.

Beneath them, scrawled in coal:

“We don’t want a Queen. We want Ziya.”

She paused there.
Not proud. Not afraid.
Just… still.

Across the bridge, the sun touched the rooftops.
She kept walking.

And the people, one by one,
began to follow.

Not because she commanded.
Not because they were ordered.
But because they remembered.

A girl who stood when no one else would.
A girl with cat eyes who didn’t blink when the towers fell.

From ashes, she rose.
Not as a queen.
As a spark.

.

📘 End of Chapter Eleven
End of ZIYA – Book One: The Girl With Cat Eyes