Want to know more about how Sophia and Zagan met?
Maybe some time in the (near) future Stephanie will give us some more information, but a summary of how they met is featured at the end of Two Kings. Dominic reads a passage of the Shahnameh to Keira, and later reveals that this story is a mythological retelling of Sophia and Zagan’s story.
In the tale of Zal and Rhudaba, Zal is an albino who was rejected by his father and cast out as a child. On the Damavand mountain (in modern day Iran), the gods send down a phoenix called Simurg to guard the child. Zal lived in the mountains until his adulthood, until his father Sam was found guilty of Zal’s mistreatment. Zal is given Sam’s kingdom and he goes off to war.
He wanted to find Rhudaba, princess of Kabul, daughter of Mehrab Kaboli and when he did they fell in love. As an early telling of the Rapunzel legend, Rhudaba ‘let down her hair’ so that Zal could climb up to her tower. In Afterlife, the truth of Zal and Rhudaba’s story was a bit more complicated. Rhudaba had been possessed by a demon because her fiance had been killed in battle so she gave herself to the gods to be reborn. When Zal had found Rhudaba, he killed himself to be reborn with her.
The Shahnameh, also known as ‘The Book of Kings’ was written by the Persian Poet Ferdowsi between 997 and 1010 AD. It is one of the world’s longest epic poems written by one author, consisting of over 50,000 couplets. The book tells a fusion between the mythical and historical past of the middle east until the muslim conquest in the seventh century. The poem mentions the Arsacid dynasty (the dynasty that Arsaces was ruling in), mainly focussing on the end of the dynasty, around the time of Alexander and Ardashir I, the founder of the Sasanian empire.
Zal and Rhudaba’s story is however mentioned much earlier in the heroic age in which legend and history are combined. However, this setting may not be the exact timeframe for Sophia and Zagan to meet.
In Sacrifice of the Septimus Part 2, we meet a Persian version of Sophia (or Saphira) who we know has not met her Zagan yet. So we know they meet somewhere around or before the completion of the book. This puts their story somewhere between 193 AD (the year of the five emperors) and 1010 AD. Even still, the Shahnameh is a celebrated book in Iran and some of its neighbouring countries. This beautiful piece of Persian history is celebrated in Afterlife through the creation of Sophia and Zagan as characters.
Sophia and Zagan's story is written in the Afterlife Saga- you can read the first book here: https://geni.us/AfterlifeSaga
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