“He’s a liar,” Aminah whispered. “Ask him about the Great Eastern Fire. Ask him why he can’t appear in the city.”
Zainab fled. She didn’t use her cane; she ran on instinct and in agony, finding her way back to the cabin with her feet in despair. She sat in the darkness for hours, the cold earth seeping into her bones.
When Yusha returned, the air felt different. Its scent of wood smoke now smelled of burnt deceit.
“Zainab?” he asked, noticing the change. He placed a small package on the table: bread, perhaps, or some cheese. “What happened?”
“Were you always a beggar, Yusha?” she asked. Her voice was hollow, like a reed rustling in the wind.
The silence that followed was long and heavy, laden with things that were left unsaid.
—I told you once—he said, his voice devoid of its poetic warmth—. Not always.
My sister found me today. She told me you’re a lie. She told me you’re hiding. That you’re using me—my darkness—to keep yourself in the shadows. Tell me the truth. Who are you? And why are you in this cabin with a woman you were paid to take?
She heard him move. Not moving away from her, but coming closer. She knelt at his feet, her knees hitting the hard earth with a dull thud. She took his hands in hers. They were trembling.
“I was a doctor,” he whispered.
Zainab backed away, but he held her.
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