The palace was quiet, unnervingly so. It was the kind of quiet that settled deep into your bones, the kind that came before a storm. For years, the royal compound had echoed with the sound of hurried footsteps, the low murmur of courtiers whispering in the hallways, and the rustling of silk gowns and crisp uniforms. Now, it felt as though the air itself had grown heavy, thick with anticipation and fear.

Nazanin stood in the grand hallway, staring out at the vast courtyard where the last rays of the sun flickered over the marble fountains. She had been a part of this palace for as long as she could remember, her mother a maid to the Queen and her father a trusted aide to the Shah. Now, it felt as though the weight of history was pressing down on her, too heavy to bear.

The revolution had been building for months. First, it was small protests, whispers in the streets, people marching in Tehran’s winding alleys, voicing their discontent. But the whispers grew louder, the marches turning into shouts, into riots. They had all watched from within these walls, sheltered from the chaos outside, pretending that it wouldn’t reach them—that it wouldn’t touch their lives.

But now, Nazanin knew. It was here.

She glanced over her shoulder as a young servant hurried down the corridor, her face pale. “Nazanin, they say the Shah is leaving tonight.”

The words hit her like a slap. She had heard rumors—had known for days that the Shah’s departure was imminent—but hearing it spoken aloud, hearing it confirmed, made the reality settle like a stone in her chest.

In the courtyard below, the staff moved like shadows, gathering luggage and boxes. There was no excitement, no joy in the air—just an anxious, restless energy as the pieces of a crumbling regime were packed away and carried to waiting helicopters.

Nazanin stepped toward the window, her eyes trained on the high walls of the palace grounds. Beyond them, she could hear the distant chants, the screams that had become a constant backdrop to her life. Revolution. It had once seemed like a distant word, something for history books and foreign newscasts. But now, it was a living, breathing thing, and it was swallowing the world she knew whole.

A door creaked behind her, and she turned to find one of the senior aides, Mr. Farzad, a man who had served in the palace longer than she had been alive. His face was drawn tight, his usual calm demeanor replaced with the quiet panic that seemed to infect everyone now.

“They’re preparing to leave,” Farzad said softly, his voice low and urgent. “The helicopters will take him to the airport. The regime is finished.”

Nazanin nodded, though the words barely made sense to her. The Shah was the king of kings, the ruler of Persia. How could he simply leave? How could everything they had known for so long vanish in the span of a few days, a few hours?

Farzad’s eyes met hers, filled with something she couldn’t quite name—sorrow, resignation, maybe even shame. “You should leave too, Nazanin. It’s not safe here anymore. They’ll come for us—anyone who was loyal to the Shah. You need to go.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest. “Where would I go?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “Everything I’ve ever known… it’s all falling apart.”

Farzad stepped closer, his hand gripping her shoulder, as though trying to ground her in the midst of the storm. “You’ll find a way. The world is changing. You can’t stay here and watch it burn.”

The palace seemed to shake with the weight of his words, the very foundation of it all crumbling in the face of revolution. She knew what Farzad said was true—nothing could be salvaged. The Shah was leaving, the end of an era, and with it, all that had defined her life.

She turned back to the window, watching the final preparations unfold below. The helicopters, the soldiers, the guards all moving in slow motion, like actors on a stage they had no control over. Everything was happening too fast, too quietly, as though they were all caught in a dream they couldn’t wake from.

A voice echoed down the hall—low, authoritative, the sound of someone who had seen too much of this world. “Nazanin,” it called, and she turned to see the Queen’s chief attendant, Mrs. Roshan, approaching her. “The Shah has left. The palace is to be evacuated immediately. You need to come with me.”

The words felt final, the last sentence in a story she had never expected to end this way. Nazanin hesitated, glancing one last time at the emptying courtyard. She had always thought she would serve here forever, that the palace would remain unchanged, an eternal symbol of the monarchy.

But it wasn’t eternal. The Shah was gone. The palace was no longer a sanctuary, but a crumbling monument to a past that could never return.

As she followed Mrs. Roshan down the hall, she knew this was the beginning of something else. Something uncertain. Something terrifying.

Outside, the last of the helicopters lifted into the night sky, carrying with it the last remnants of the royal family. The revolution had arrived, and with it, the dawn of a new world. But for Nazanin, the world she knew was gone—shattered in an instant, like glass dropped to the floor.

And she was left to pick up the pieces.