Chapter 38 · Untitled Chapter

The state scribe sat cross-legged near the edge of the carpets, his portable writing desk resting upon the heavy wool pile. He did not look up from the parchment sheets arranged in precise rows before him, his fingers steady as he dipped his reed pen into black ink. Between us, the air carried the cooling scent of cardamom from the silver dallah and the sharp, resinous bite of aged oud smoldering in the mabkhara.

No one spoke. In this house, silence was not an absence of power; it was the form power took when all debates had ended.

"The testimony stands as given by Sheikha bint Fahad Al-Balawi," the scribe murmured, his voice low, measured to the cadence of legal record. "The minute witnessed from the upper gallery is neither retracted nor modified. The claims of joint stewardship over the northern holdings are dissolved under the authority of this hall."

Across the expanse of the majlis, the cushions once occupied by the extended family remained vacant.