Aminah laughed, a high, sharp sound that startled a nearby crow. “Gold? Oh, you poor, sightless fool. You think he’s a beggar because he’s poor? You think this is some tragic romance?”
Aminah leaned in, her breath hot against Zainab’s ear. “He isn’t a beggar, Zainab. He’s a penance. He’s the man who lost everything in a gamble he couldn’t win. He’s not staying with you out of love. He’s staying with you because he’s hiding. He’s using your blindness as his cloak.”
The world went silent. The sounds of the birds, the water, the wind—all of it vanished, replaced by a roaring in Zainab’s ears. She stumbled back, her cane striking a root, nearly sending her sprawling.
“He’s a liar,” Aminah whispered. “Ask him about the ‘Great Fire of the East.’ Ask him why he can’t show his face in the city.”
Zainab fled. She didn’t use her cane; she ran on instinct and agony, her feet finding the path back to the hut through sheer desperation. She sat in the dark for hours, the cold earth seeping into her bones.
When Yusha returned, the air felt different. The woodsmoke scent of him now smelled like burning deception.
“Zainab?” he asked, sensing the shift. He set a small parcel on the table—bread, perhaps, or a bit of cheese. “What’s happened?”
“Were you always a beggar, Yusha?” she asked. Her voice was hollow, a reed snapping in the wind.
The silence that followed was long and heavy, thick with the things left unsaid.
“I told you once,” he said, his voice stripped of its poetic warmth. “Not always.”
“My sister found me today. She told me you are a lie. She told me you are hiding. That you use me—my darkness—to keep yourself in the shadows. Tell me the truth. Who are you? And why are you in this hut with a woman you were paid to take away?”
She heard him move. Not away from her, but toward her. He knelt at her feet, his knees hitting the packed dirt with a dull thud. He took her hands in his. They were shaking.
“I was a physician,” he whispered.
Zainab pulled back, but he held on.
“In the city, years ago, there was an outbreak. A fever. I was young, arrogant. I thought I could cure everyone. I worked until I was delirious. I made a mistake, Zainab. A calculation error in a tincture. I didn’t kill a stranger. I killed the daughter of the provincial governor. A girl no older than you.”
Zainab felt the air leave the room.
“They didn’t just strip me of my title,” Yusha continued, his voice cracking. “They burned my home. They declared me dead to the world. I became a beggar because it was the only way to disappear. I went to the mosque to find a way to die slowly. But then, your father came. He spoke of a daughter who was ‘useless.’ A daughter who was a ‘curse.’”
He pressed her hands to his face. She felt the wetness of tears—not hers, but his.
Leave a Comment