Khalid was halfway to the shrine when the night shattered.
He was riding the ridge of a dune that overlooked the main road—the Sultan's Road—that led from the city's primary gate. His heart was a drum beating a rhythm of anticipation. Just one more mile, he told himself. One more mile and I am no longer a son, no longer a Bedouin. I am just a man.
The shatter did not begin with a scream. It began with a laugh.
It was a loud, slurring, arrogant laugh that carried on the wind, distinct and jagged.
Khalid pulled on the reins. The horse danced nervously, sensing his rider's sudden tension. Khalid knew that laugh. It was a sound that had followed him since childhood—a sound that usually meant a broken vase, a frightened servant, or a brawl.
Hamza.
"Curse you," Khalid hissed. He should have kept riding. He should have dug his heels in and galloped into the dark. But the bond of blood was a heavy chain.
He steered his horse to the crest of the dune and looked down.
Below, illuminated by the flickering, chaotic light of three torches, a disaster was unfolding in the dust of the road.
Hamza stood in the center of the track. He was swaying. His ghutra was missing, his hair wild and matted with dust. He was surrounded by four of his friends—young, hot-blooded men from the tribe who worshiped Hamza's recklessness and drank his wine.
Facing them was an Ottoman patrol on horseback.
Leading the patrol was a young officer in a pristine white uniform that glowed like a ghost in the torchlight. Khalid recognized him instantly from the whispers in the souk: Yusuf Bey. The Pasha's favorite nephew. A boy of twenty who had never known a day of hunger, playing at being a soldier with a saber that cost more than the Al-Fayid's entire herd.
"Go back to your tents, filth," Yusuf Bey sneered, looking down from his white stallion. His voice was high and thin, dripping with disdain. "Before I have you whipped for obstructing the Sultan's road with your stench."
"The Sultan's road?" Hamza stepped forward. He stumbled, catching himself. He looked up, his eyes glassy with date wine and rage. "This road was here before your Sultan was born! This sand knows my name! What does it know of you, boy? Only the smell of your French perfume!"
The Bedouins roared with laughter. Yusuf Bey's face went crimson. The insult had landed.
"I will take your tongue for that," Yusuf spat. He spurred his horse forward.
It was a clumsy move. Yusuf swung his saber in a wide, theatrical arc, meant to scare the peasant, to make him cower in the dirt.
But Hamza was not a peasant. And Hamza did not cower. Even drunk, he was a warrior of the Nafud.
Hamza ducked the swing with a predator's instinct. In one fluid, practiced motion, he drew his khanjar.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. He reacted.
He lunged upward as the horse passed.
The sound was sickening. A wet, heavy thud, like a butcher's knife hitting meat.
The khanjar buried itself to the hilt in Yusuf Bey's chest, piercing the heart.
The young officer gasped. It was a small, surprised sound. He looked down at the handle of the knife protruding from his white tunic. A dark stain blossomed instantly, spreading like black ink on snow.
He slid from the saddle. He hit the dust with a heavy, final silence.
For a second, the world stopped. The wind held its breath. The torches flickered. Hamza stood over the body, his hand still raised, blinking as if waking from a dream. The alcohol seemed to evaporate from his blood in an instant, leaving only cold, stark horror.
"He is dead!" one of the soldiers screamed, his voice breaking. "The Pasha's blood is spilled!"
"Run!" Hamza shouted to his friends, panic cracking his voice into a sob. "Back to the camp! Run!"
The Bedouins scrambled into the dark, vanishing into the dunes like frightened jackals. The soldiers did not pursue immediately; they were too stunned, dismounting to check on their fallen commander.
Khalid watched from the ridge, his blood turning to ice. He saw the soldier check for a pulse. He saw the soldier shake his head.
Then, a sound cut through the night, louder than the shouting, louder than the wind.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
The great alarm bells of Damascus began to ring from the watchtowers. It was a mournful, terrifying sound, a heartbeat of iron that echoed off the mountains.
Khalid looked to the city.
He saw the heavy iron gates—the main gates, and the smaller gates—begin to move. Chains rattled. The massive doors slammed shut with a boom that shook the earth.
Torches flared to life along the walls like a ring of fire. Shouts echoed in the distance. "Seal the city! Mobilize the garrison! Death to the Al-Fayid!"
Khalid sat on his horse, suspended between two lives.
He looked North. The shrine was a mile away. Layla was there. She was waiting. She was shivering in the dark, clutching her small bag of salt, waiting for the sound of his horse. The road to the North was still open. He could turn his horse now. He could ride to her. They could disappear into the hills before the sun rose. They could live.
He looked South.
Below him, the soldiers were mounting up, drawing weapons, screaming for reinforcements. They were turning toward the camp. Toward the sleeping women. Toward the children. Toward his father, who lay defenseless in his tent, unaware that his youngest son had just signed their death warrant.
Hamza had fled, but the trail led straight to the tribe. The Pasha would not ask who threw the knife. He would not care for justice. He would slaughter them all.
The bells rang on, tolling the death of the night, the death of the silence, and the death of the dream.
Khalid gripped the reins until his knuckles turned white. His chest heaved. He felt a scream building in his throat, a scream for the unfairness of it all, for the cruelty of a Qadar that would give him the world and then demand he burn it.
He closed his eyes. He saw Layla's face.
"Forgive me," he whispered, the words lost in the wind.
He pulled the reins hard to the right. He turned his horse South, toward the fire, toward his family, and away from his soul.