Chapter 22 · Chapter 22

The silence that settled after Faisal’s departure was not peace; it was merely the stillness that precedes an audit. The gallery remained cold, the gray Najdi dawn seeping through the high clerestory windows to wash the pale limestone in unforgiving clarity. My hands rested folded beneath the wide sleeves of my dark crepe Abaya, my back straight against the cedar frame of the closed wing behind me.

From the lower colonnade, the measured footsteps of another man broke the quiet. It was not Faisal returning, nor was it Saad yet. It was Mansour, the estate’s head steward, whose family had kept the outer gates of the Buqami estates since before the perimeter walls had grown steel reinforcement and digital sensors.

Mansour stopped three paces before the archway, holding a leather-bound logbook in both hands, his white Thobe pristine, his eyes lowered in the customary deference of a house that handled its affairs without raised voices.

"Abu Tariq," the steward murmured, addressing the elder who lingered at the balustrade.

Ammi did not turn his head immediately. He ran the amber beads of his Masbaha between his thumb and forefinger with a dry, rhythmic click. "Speak, Mansour.