Chapter 25 · Chapter 25

Saad did not wait for the stewards to step between them. He moved across the carpets with the quiet deliberation of a man whose authority was carved into the stone of the house itself. His white thobe was immaculate, the crisp collar standing firm beneath the line of his jaw, his dark bisht gathered over one arm as he stepped toward the threshold to receive my brother.

"Hala wallah, Tariq," Saad said, his voice level, carrying no defensive tremor, no rushed warmth. It was the greeting of an equal who yielded no ground within his own walls.

Tariq came to a halt two paces before him. My brother was a man shaped by lineage and scrutiny, his dark eyes sharp beneath his ghutra, his posture carved from the expectations of the Al-Shahrani name.

His gaze cut across the majlis, passing over the low tables and the drift of Taif rose and oud rising from the brass mabkhara, until it pinned me where I sat. I did not avert my eyes. My black shaila remained drawn over my hair, falling straight across the dark silk of my abaya, my spine locked against the carved wood of the chair.