Chapter 36 · Untitled Chapter

The echoes of departing footsteps faded into the vast stone threshold of the courtyard, absorbed by the dry night air of northern Riyadh. With the iron gate locked, the silence that flooded the central hall was sudden and absolute.

The cousins, the collateral claimants who had spent weeks trading veiled grievances over coffee and ledgers, were gone. They had left behind only cooling finjans on brass side tables and the thin, settling drift of Taif rose and aged oud from the mabkhara in the corner.

Mansour did not move immediately. He remained standing before the tall arched doorway, his silhouette framed against the courtyard lamps. His white thobe was immaculate, the stiff collar unyielding, his ghutra draped back over broad shoulders in quiet, unhurried composure. In the absence of an audience, the heavy stillness of his presence—the sheer weight of his heba—seemed to expand until it occupied every corner of the majlis.

I stepped forward from the shadow of the colonnade, the hem of my black abaya whispering against the cool marble tiles.