Chapter 2 #2
“Are you all right?” he asked, low and with tenderness.
Her answer wasn’t automatic, and she stared at the necklace that peeked out from his tunic. A five-point star, the same star embedded into his weapons.
Aicha wanted to say no. She wanted to say that, in a moment of what felt like insanity, she had ached to draw her blade and cut out Duarte’s eyes. She wanted to tell him about the voice in her head. The one that had been an unwelcome companion since her youth.
Aicha wanted to tell him of the dark shadow she had seen in the souk, and the ones that had come years before it. Flickering in her line of sight before disappearing. She wanted to tell him she feared she was losing her mind to shaytan.
Aicha didn’t tell him any of that. Instead, she chose the safest option.
“I’d be a lot better if I didn’t have a stinging nape to match my cheek,” she countered, finally facing her father.
Where she expected to find a look of disapproval, she instead found that his eyes glinted with amusement.
She knew then that he was thinking of her mother.
It was a habit for him to always mention her when Aicha was being rebellious.
Apparently an inherited trait, it was the only link she had with her mama.
Aicha felt a flood of warmth in her chest when he looked at her that way.
Like she was the only thing that made his days worthwhile, because she offered him a glimpse of the love of his life.
He patted the dagger hidden beneath his tunic, a reminder of the protection he carried not only for himself, but for his daughters. It had been pure luck that he had been returning home from his personal errands.
The souk was a common route for him, he liked to say hello to the vendors they had all grown up with.
Though, lately, he had been much more discreet in his movements.
Despite both daughters being more than capable of defending themselves, Aicha knew Fouad preferred that the family drew as little attention as possible so close to a revolt.
A fact he spent every day reminding Aicha of.
“Why are you out so late in the day?” The pivot in subject threw Aicha, and the momentary surprise caused her to stammer as she tried to form an adequate lie.
Rachid had claimed once that when Aicha lied, she averted her gaze, and so she avoided doing just that. Looking Fouad squarely in the eye, she said, “To see Naima; she is not at the Gardens today.”
Fouad’s dark gaze narrowed just a fraction, but not in suspicion of the lie Aicha told.
She was prone to visiting the Gardens despite being explicitly told, on several occasions, that to do so was forbidden.
Allegedly, it was an environment that provided customers with a service her father deemed nefarious.
One that was dipped in the sin of magic.
Fouad did not look down on the women who worked within the Gardens—Aicha’s eyes often rolled at the repeated statement he made about them possessing an undeniable gift—but he did fear them.
He had argued countless times with Aicha, that who had bestowed that gift on them was the issue, and Aicha knew he desired to stay well away from the shawafas’ sorcery.
It was why she had never told him of her troubles. Her fear that he would brand her a shawafa kept her awake at night.
Shawafas were Maghrebi women, but they were not welcomed by all of their people.
Their abilities, and their desire to use said abilities, made them outliers.
Neither entirely welcome by Maghrebis or the Portuguese.
The Gardens—a riad that they resided in—straddled the divide between Maghrebis and Portuguese near the town square.
People feared the shawafas, but many sought them out in secret.
Missing a deceased loved one could drive even the most religious of people into the arms of a shawafa, desperate for one more moment with their beloved.
Aicha knew why Fouad worried so much for his youngest daughter.
The men and women who visited the Gardens were most commonly off-duty soldiers, poor merchants or the wives who had been brought to their lands once the invaders had conquered the citadel.
They were ones not known for being particularly fearful of what awaited them in the afterlife—despite erecting churches and studiously attending prayers.
The promise of riches, fertility and a prosperous marriage was too tempting.
A myriad of thoughts seemed to flash through her baba’s eyes, ones that she knew would be of disapproval and a desire to tell her to return home.
Yet, there was a hesitation that appeared on the tip of his tongue, as if holding back a truth he feared sharing with her. Like she was a child.
But she was twenty, an age she deemed old enough for gentle contradiction. Not that she had ever relented in her younger years, either. Fouad stared down at her with a crease between his thick brows, pursing his lips, then releasing a short sigh.
“Be back before curfew,” he said firmly, squeezing her shoulder in a bid to emphasise the severity of his order. Aicha nodded, patting the back of his hand before turning to walk away. “And make sure you keep that dagger within adequate reach.”
She smiled at his last warning, turning back to briefly catch his eye. “Yes, Baba!”
Climbing the stone steps towards the stah of Rachid’s home, Aicha took notice of the silence that engulfed the building.
It was located by the docks, on the edge of their Maghrebi sector.
The beige and red building stood tall, floors divided into homes that housed mostly sailors and merchants; a temporary, small space that allowed for little disturbance between journeys out to sea.
When the wind blew, it brought with it the scent of the ocean; fresh and cool and staving off the scorching heat.
When dawn broke, it brought the sound of fishermen and traders at the harbour, bustling around as they prepared to transport goods and sail out.
Rachid required it, in order to rise early for the day ahead.
The sea was always a wonderful sight from the correct vantage points, and Rachid’s guests were also granted a view of the harbour; a view especially glittering when the sun peeked out from beyond the horizon.
The staircases’ red and green zellige had begun chipping away long ago, cracks etched between the interwoven square patterns and corners.
She climbed the uneven steps two at a time until she reached the stah, the metal door unexpectedly open.
Aicha removed her shoes and let out a soft hiss as her bare feet touched the ground: the floor was hot after a day’s sun.
If she stayed, once the moon had instead taken residency in the sky, then it would become the coolest place in all of the citadel, the stone freezing and a breeze soothing her skin as she slept.
Makeshift canopies covered Rachid’s sleeping area, which became a space he shifted into a lounge once the sun rose.
There was nothing of value there; no weapons, no sentimental family heirlooms, no money.
It was a small space of bare necessity and anonymity, one that Rachid coveted with the utmost privacy, and Aicha was one of the few he had allowed into it.
She noticed the unnatural silence of his home when she entered, the soft breeze pushing against the canopies, and cast her eyes over the empty space.
The smell of khobz and b’sarra wafted up from the floor below, and it made Aicha’s mouth water, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since before midday. Lanterns had been lit recently in preparation for sundown. Rachid was home, he was just hiding.
Aicha stilled as the tip of a blade pressed into the back of her neck, and the grin that eclipsed her features was one only Rachid had ever been capable of eliciting.
“Allowing your hunger to cloak your assessment of your surroundings is a child’s error.”
Her hands inched towards the blade that was hidden beneath her tunic, resting under her breast. It allowed for quick access. Rachid could not see her actions from behind her.
“I could hear you from across the stah, ya hayawan,” she shot.
A chuckle escaped his lips, and Aicha took his moment of amusement to draw her blade, swiftly turning.
Rachid anticipated the move, free wrist coming to block the ascent of her dagger from beneath him, while she mirrored his actions from above.
They remained locked in that stance for a brief period, and Rachid grinned down at her, a hint of adoration in his gaze, as her strength pressed into her block.
She never held back, so neither did he. Aicha was not a short woman, but Rachid’s lithe frame from childhood had followed him, the years of training with her father broadening his shoulders and arms until he towered over Fouad.
His aquiline nose was dented, courtesy of the brawls he had taken part in over the years with the invaders.
His skin, darker than her own, glowed with a sheen of sweat from the day’s excursions.
His head of dark hair curled at the ends, falling into his eyes ever so slightly.
The facial hair only made his high cheekbones more prominent.
He was the most handsome man Aicha had ever seen.
A dance of daggers between them had always ended in a draw, both parties unwilling to surrender out of stubbornness and amusement.
Yet, in that moment, it seemed to Aicha that Rachid found himself incapable of continuing.
A week-long excursion relaying messages to the Maghrebi army beyond the wall had evidently made his yearning for Aicha settle deep within his stomach, she assumed.
He released her, twisting the blade within his grip until the handle faced her. “I concede.”