Chapter 18 #3
They had nothing left, nothing but each other, and the knowledge that it might be their last night together. So it seemed as if it were a natural step to take, the only sensible option to bind themselves together.
“Yes.” she said, pulling him close for what she feared could be the last time.
He nodded, simultaneously appearing relieved and afraid of the answer.
But he wasted no time in placing both hands on her jaw, pulling her close and up towards him.
Aicha reacted on instinct, her body lighting up in a way that only Rachid could elicit from her.
Their lips met clumsily, despite the muscle memory in which both knew exactly where to seek the other out, and it came with desperation and fear.
His lips were dry, but she found she did not care, because it was a kiss that froze time.
When Aicha closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of his lips on hers and his hands gripping her face, the stars exploded beneath her eyelids.
Rachid kissed her with a confidence and desire that assured her only he knew her in this way.
Only he could leave her breathless enough for her lips to part, his mouth almost bruising her as his lips slanted against her own.
It was a kiss that heated her from within, crawling into her chest, and spreading over the emptiness with the power of the sun.
That erupted her into wild desire so that her grip on him tightened, feeling one of his arms wrap around her waist to pull her closer.
It was a kiss that existed long after it had ended.
Because when it did, when Rachid pulled away with the power of a god to do so, it left her delirious.
Her mind in a daze, breathless and in need of resting her weight on him.
His forehead rested against hers, his nose nudging her own as their breath mingled. “In this life and the next,” he said, grip strong.
Aicha’s hand came to rest on his shoulders, nodding as if it was a statement needing agreement. When really, it was a farewell, one that assured that somehow they would always find each other. “In this life and the next.”
They married that same day, in the late afternoon, with Mounir as a witness, Sidi Mohammed as Aicha’s wali, and Saladin officiating.
He stood in front of them, and Aicha heard the slight catch in his throat as he asked whether they both agreed to marry.
It evoked a small smile of amusement, with sorrow hidden beneath it, because perhaps he too believed this was their last moment of happiness.
“I accept,” Rachid had replied, repeating the words twice more before he allowed a smile so endearingly large to grace his stupidly handsome face.
When Saladin turned to her, she found herself unable to look back, fixed beneath Rachid’s gaze as she copied the words that were required to be said three times. “I accept.”
Slowly, following Saladin’s acknowledgement that they were now married, Rachid reached out to take Aicha’s hand.
Raising it until he placed a tender kiss in the gaps between her knuckles, his eyes never strayed from her own, not even for a second.
In the past, she would have rolled her eyes at such a gesture.
But in that moment, when she realised it was the first time he had shown affection in public, out in the open, she felt freed.
There was no more hiding, no more discreet looks shared between them and secret meetings in his stah, where he did nothing but smother her with kisses and ran his fingers through her hair like they were teenagers. He was her husband, and she his wife.
“Rachid.”
The interruption came from Sidi Mohammed, disapproval etched into his tone despite the softness in his old eyes.
“Apologies,” Rachid muttered, only pulling her hand away from his lips, but keeping a strong hold of it.
She could have laughed at Sidi Mohammed taking his role as Aicha’s wali with a seriousness that Fouad would have been proud of.
And just like that, at the fleeting thought of her baba, she felt the sudden drop of her heart.
A deep pain that felt as if her skin was peeling back from her flesh.
Aicha felt the darkness inside her rumble, waking from a slumber, ready to be called forward.
Rachid’s grip yanked her out; the mere shift of his hold and the gentle caress of his thumb across her knuckles had her head turning back towards his gaze. His eyes were sad, yet brimming with warmth.
“They are here. They are with us.”
As if it were as easy as breathing, he reminded her of how intrinsically linked they were, of how his nerves were intertwined with her own.
His heart tethered to hers. So that when she felt the aching pain of what she had lost, he felt it too.
Whatever she had done to be blessed with Rachid, she would never know, but she found that she would not linger on whether she deserved it.
She squeezed his hand back, their moment broken as Mounir stepped forward and placed a hand on Rachid’s shoulder. “Nikkah mubarak, brother.”
He then turned to Aicha, and offered a smile that appeared genuine, and without the sadness that had tainted them all since the executions. “May Allah bless your marriage and unite you until the end of time.”
Standing in the emptied, destroyed courtyard of Ilham’s Gardens, surrounded by spilt wine and destroyed chalices and fabrics on the sidaris, should have sullied the moment.
Should have made it feel as though it was tainted with an ugliness that she would not wish for on the day of her wedding.
Yet somehow Aicha could not help but find the moment befitting, to be on the cusp of battle, with a chance of success so minuscule that they had been forced to make peace with death and yet still decided to marry, seemed so incredibly predictable of them both.
So comically within their character that she found it bitter-sweet.
If this were to truly be her last moment of happiness, in which her sadness was soothed by unconditional love, then she would treasure it.