Damascus did not whisper. It roared.
After the weeks of rhythmic silence in the Nafud, the city was an assault on the senses. The air here was heavy, not with clean dust, but with the cloying scents of crushed jasmine, roasting lamb, sweating bodies, and the sharp tang of donkey dung. The streets of the Souk al-Hamidiyah were narrow veins, pulsing with a life so frantic it made Khalid's head spin.
He walked alone. Hamza had stayed at the caravanserai outside the gates to guard the camels and haggle over the price of wool, a task he enjoyed for the shouting it involved. Khalid had slipped away, claiming he needed to purchase a gift for their mother. It was a half-truth. He needed to see if the city held the poetry he had imagined.
Sunlight filtered through the wooden slats of the souk's high arched roof, slicing the dusty air into beams of gold. Dust motes danced in the light like tiny stars. Khalid moved slowly, his desert instincts making him wary of the pressing crowds. Men in fezzes pushed past Bedouins in dust-colored robes; women drifted by like ghosts, draped in black, their faces hidden; merchants sang the praises of their wares—spices from India, carpets from Persia, brass lamps that promised to hold trapped djinns.
He found himself drawn to the Street of Silk.
It was quieter here. The sound was softer—the rustle of fabric, the snip of shears, the hushed appreciation of texture. He stopped before a stall that seemed to overflow with color, a waterfall of woven light.
The merchant, a man with a beard dyed with henna and eyes that calculated profit in a glance, stepped forward. "For a wife? A sister? Or perhaps a bride not yet won?"
"For my mother," Khalid said, his hand hovering over a bolt of deep crimson brocade. It was thick, heavy, embroidered with gold thread. It looked like the blood of a king.
"Ah, regal," the merchant nodded. "A strong color. It commands respect."
"It screams," a voice said.
It was not the merchant. The voice came from the shadows of the stall's interior, cool and melodic, cutting through the heat of the afternoon.
Khalid turned.
A young woman stepped out from behind a hanging tapestry. She was dressed in the modest dark cloak of the city women, her face veiled in sheer black silk. But her eyes were visible. They were dark, framed by thick lashes and rimmed with kohl that made them look like deep wells. They were not looking at him, but at the red fabric in his hand with distinct disapproval.
"Screams?" Khalid asked, surprised by her boldness.
"It is too loud," she said, moving closer. She did not lower her gaze as was proper. Instead, she studied him, taking in his wind-burned skin and the silver khanjar at his waist. "It is the color of anger. Of heat. You have brought enough heat with you from the desert, Bedouin. Why bring more into the house?"
The merchant looked nervous, flapping his hand at her. "Ya Layla, please. This is a noble customer..."
Layla ignored him. She reached out, her hand pale and slender against the riot of colors. She bypassed the crimson and pulled out a bolt of silk from the bottom of the pile.
She unfurled it.
It was blue. Not the pale blue of a washed-out sky, nor the dark blue of the ocean at night. It was the vibrant, piercing blue of a desert twilight just before the stars break through. It shimmered as she moved it, catching the light like water.
"This," she said, her voice softening. "This is the color of the breath after a long run. It is the color of peace. If your mother lives in a tent of goat hair, surrounded by beige sand and brown earth, would she not wish to hold a piece of the sky?"
Khalid stared at the cloth. Then he looked at her eyes. He felt a strange jolt in his chest, a sensation of falling while standing perfectly still. He had spent his life looking for words to describe the world, and this stranger had just painted a picture with a single gesture.
"The sky changes," Khalid said, finding his voice. "Clouds come. Night falls. The sky is treacherous."
"Everything changes," Layla countered, her eyes crinkling at the corners—she was smiling behind the veil. "That is why we bind the beauty in silk. To keep it still. To hold it when the world turns dark."
She held the fabric out to him. "Touch it."
Khalid hesitated, then reached out. His calloused, rough fingers brushed against the cool smoothness of the silk. It felt like water running through his hands. It felt like mercy.
"You speak like a poet," Khalid murmured, meeting her gaze.
"And you listen like one," she replied, her voice dropping to a whisper, intimate in the crowded stall. "Most men would have been offended by my interruption. They would have bought the red to prove their pride."
"My pride is not so fragile that it cannot withstand good counsel," Khalid said. He looked at the merchant. "I will take this one. The blue."
The merchant beamed, relieved. "An excellent choice! The Lady Layla has an eye for the finest wares. I shall wrap it for you."
As the merchant bustled away to cut the cloth, silence stretched between them. It was a charged silence, heavy with things unsaid. Khalid wanted to ask her name, though the merchant had already spoken it. Layla. Night.
"You are not from the city," she stated. It wasn't a question.
"No. My home is the Nafud."
"The land of wind," she said, a hint of longing in her tone. "Where there are no walls."
"Walls protect you," Khalid said, gesturing to the stone arches above them.
"Walls also imprison you," she shot back, her eyes flashing. "They decide where you can walk, who you can see, what you can be. In the desert... I imagine the horizon is the only master."
"The horizon is a cruel master," Khalid said, stepping half a step closer, drawn by her intensity. "But it is an honest one."
"Honesty," she sighed, the word sounding like a prayer. "That is a rare commodity in Damascus."
The merchant returned, handing Khalid a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. The spell broke. The noise of the market rushed back in—a donkey braying loudly nearby, a child crying.
Layla stepped back into the shadows. "Go in peace, Bedouin. May your mother find joy in the sky you bring her."
"Will you be here again?" The question left Khalid's mouth before he could stop it. It was improper. It was dangerous.
She paused, half-hidden by a hanging carpet. She looked at him, and for a heartbeat, he saw the fear and the thrill warring in her eyes.
"I come for thread on Tuesdays," she whispered. "If Qadar allows."
Then she turned and vanished into the deeper gloom of the shop's interior, leaving Khalid standing in the shaft of sunlight, clutching the blue silk to his chest as if it were a living heart.