The moon had vanished behind the gathering clouds, a deliberate act of the sky to blind the world below. It was a suffocating darkness, the kind that thieves prayed for and watchmen feared.
In the camp, the silence was heavy, broken only by the low, rhythmic chewing of the camels and the snap of a dying cooking fire.
Khalid stood inside the main tent for what he knew was the last time. A single oil lamp burned low on a brass stand, casting long, wavering shadows against the goat-hair walls. The air smelled of stale coffee, wool, and the musk of his father's old hawk, perching asleep in the corner.
Sheikh Walid slept on the raised divan. His chest rose and fell with a rasping rattle, a sound like dry leaves scraping over stone. In sleep, the Lion of the Nafud looked small. Stripped of his robes of state and his commanding voice, he was just an old man wrapped in layers of wool to keep out the chill of his own bones.
Khalid stared at him, feeling a fissure open in the center of his chest.
I am not just leaving a father, Khalid thought, the guilt tasting like bile in his throat. I am leaving a king without an heir. I am leaving a roof without a pillar.
He moved silently, his bare feet sinking into the thick carpets. He did not take the gold—he had left the pouch for the tribe, a poor trade for a son. He took only what was essential.
First, the journal. He pulled it from its hiding place beneath his saddle. The leather was worn smooth by his hands, the pages thick with the ink of his soul. He tucked it into his tunic, pressing it against his heart. It was the only map he had.
Second, the sword. Al-Shams—The Sun. It hung on the tent pole, its scabbard inlaid with mother-of-pearl that caught the dim lamplight. It was a blade of Damascus steel, watered and folded a thousand times, sharp enough to cut a silk scarf floating in the air. It was his birthright. To take it was theft; to leave it was an insult.
He took it. The weight of it at his hip felt foreign, a reminder of the violence he was fleeing, yet the protection he would need.
He stepped out of the tent. The wind hit him, cool and smelling of ozone. The storm was close.
He moved toward the edge of the camp, where the shadows were deepest. He had tied two horses there an hour ago—swift, sturdy mounts, not the prize war-mares that would be missed instantly, but reliability wrapped in brown hide.
He checked the saddlebags. A skin of water. A bag of dried dates. A heavy woolen cloak for Layla.
He swung into the saddle, the leather creaking softly. He looked North. Somewhere in that dark void, beyond the city walls, was the shrine. Somewhere, Layla was waiting.
For the first time in twenty-six years, the horizon did not look like a wall keeping him in. It looked like a door swinging open.
Inside the city walls, the silence was different. It was the silence of held breath.
Layla moved through the corridors of the Al-Zahra house like a shade. She had shed her silks. She wore the coarse, scratchy woolen dress of a scullery maid, a garment that smelled of woodsmoke and lye. Her delicate embroidered slippers were gone, replaced by rough leather sandals that chafed her heels.
She reached the servant's entrance at the back of the overgrown garden. The jasmine vines, usually her friends, seemed to grab at her cloak, begging her to stay.
Amira was waiting by the heavy wooden door. The old housekeeper held a rusted iron key in hands that shook like leaves in a gale. Her face, illuminated only by the starlight, was a map of worry.
"The streets are quiet," Amira whispered, her voice cracking. "But the patrols are doubling near the main gates. You cannot go that way, child."
"I know," Layla whispered back. "The Tanner's Gate."
Amira nodded, tears spilling into the deep wrinkles of her cheeks. She reached out and pressed the key into Layla's hand. The metal was warm from the old woman's grip.
"I have packed you bread," Amira said, fussing with Layla's hood. "And a little salt. To remember the taste of home."
Layla hugged her, burying her face in the old woman's neck. She smelled of rosewater and years of labor. This was the woman who had combed her hair, who had dried her tears when her mother died, who had taught her that a woman's silence could be louder than a man's shout.
"I will send for you," Layla promised, her voice thick. "When we are safe. When we are free."
"Just run, little bird," Amira said, pushing her gently through the door. "Don't look back. Looking back turns people to salt."
Layla stepped into the alleyway. The door clicked shut behind her—a final, decisive sound.
She was alone.
The city at night was a labyrinth of shadows and threats. She kept her head down, walking with the hurried, purposeful gait of a servant sent on a late errand. Her heart hammered against her ribs, loud enough, she feared, to wake the neighbors.
She reached the Tanner's Gate. It was a small, ignoble exit used for carting out waste and animal hides. The smell was overpowering—ammonia and rotting flesh—but to Layla, it smelled of hope.
A single guard sat on a crate, dozing, a lantern sputtering at his feet. His scimitar leaned against the wall, neglected.
Layla approached. She didn't speak. She didn't breathe. She reached into her sash and dropped a heavy silver coin—stolen from her father's secret box—onto the crate.
Clink.
The guard's eyes snapped open. He saw the coin glinting in the lantern light. He saw the servant girl, head bowed, face hidden. He grunted, looked left, looked right, and then kicked the small wooden door open with his heel.
Layla stepped through.
The moment her sandals hit the dirt outside the walls, the air changed. It was wilder here. Sharper.
She began to run. She ran toward the line of cypress trees that marked the shrine. The wind tore at her hood, pulling her hair free. She didn't care. She was out. The cage was behind her. The bird was flying.