Chapter 29 · Chapter 29

The silence that settled over the majlis after my uncle’s departure was thick with the residual scent of cardamom and smoking agarwood. I did not move from my seat, nor did I set down the finjan until the faint vibration of the corridor doors had entirely ceased.

Yet the hall was not emptied of arbiters; it had merely shifted their rank.

From the recessed archway near the glass-walled courtyard, another figure emerged. It was Abu Mansoor, the eldest arbiter who had sat impassively through the morning’s proceedings, observing every flicker of allegiance like a merchant weighing unrefined gold. His white thobe was immaculate, his grey beard trimmed with precise austerity, and his gold-trimmed bisht rustled softly across the woven silk runner.

He did not look toward Nayef, who remained leaning against the far cedar console, impassive as carved marble. Abu Mansoor kept his gaze entirely upon me, stepping forward with the measured cadence of a patriarch who believed every human grievance possessed an exact settlement price.

"Haifa," he began, his voice lowered to a confidential rasp that barely carried across the expanse of the room. "A house divided against itself will bleed its capital before the quarter ends.