Chapter 36 · Chapter 36

Ammi’s chest rose beneath his fine wool bisht, the golden embroidery stiff as his posture hardened against Majed’s rebuke. The silence in the northern majlis settled heavy, laced with the thin curl of cardamom steam rising from the dallah and the sharp resin of oud smoldering in the heavy brass mabkhara.

The men seated along the perimeter carpets remained motionless, their hands resting on their knees, neither nodding nor intervening. In this house, authority was not shouted; it was weighed by who held the floor.

"The boy speaks with the insolence of one who thinks a brass key makes him master of truth," Ammi said, his voice lowering into that calculated resonance meant to sway the elders seated near the sadr.

He turned his gaze slowly from Majed to me, letting his appraisal linger on the edge of my black abaya, where my hands remained folded quietly in my lap.

"And yet he builds his fortress upon the word of a guest. A woman brought into this compound under cloud, who spent the dark hours behind a bolt she had no right to touch.