Homay (همای)

Homay, also called Homay-e Chehrzad, daughter of Bahman and, somehow, also his wife. Which is already the kind of family structure that makes you want to stop asking follow-up questions for your own sanity.

Bahman, son of Esfandiyar, realizes he’s about to die and appoints Homay as regent while she’s six months pregnant. The future heir, Darab, isn’t even born yet, but the succession plan is already complicated enough to guarantee problems.

Meanwhile, Bahman’s son, Sasan, reacts to being passed over with what can generously be described as “annoyance,” and what is more accurately a full exit from the entire situation. He just leaves. Which, honestly, might be the healthiest decision anyone makes in this story.

After Bahman dies, Homay takes the throne and rules for about 30 years. Not briefly. Not symbolically. She actually governs, which already puts her ahead of most people who inherit power in this narrative.

Then comes the problem she creates herself.

She gives birth to Darab, but instead of presenting the heir, she hides him. Because power, once held, has a way of making even obvious duties feel optional. When he’s eight months old, she places him in a box with jewels and sends him down the Euphrates River.

Yes, the classic “hope the river raises him better than I can” strategy.

He survives. Of course he does. He’s found and raised by a washerman, growing up completely outside the royal world that should have been his from the start.

Meanwhile, Homay continues ruling. Rome attacks Iran’s western borders, because external threats never wait for internal clarity. She responds decisively, appointing Reshnavad to lead the army. The campaign succeeds.

And in that army? Darab. The abandoned child, now fighting for a kingdom that doesn’t know it’s his.

When the army returns, Reshnavad recognizes him for who he is. At that point, the secret collapses. There’s no more room to pretend this was a manageable decision.

Homay finally does what she avoided from the beginning. She acknowledges him and gives up the throne.

So after decades of holding power, hiding truth, and delaying the inevitable, she hands the kingdom to Darab.

Homay’s story ends not with defeat, but with a delayed correction. A long rule built on control, undone by the one thing she tried to send away and forget.

Turns out rivers don’t erase consequences. They just deliver them somewhere else until they come back.