Chapter 7
Samira woke with a jolt and sat upright trying to catch her breath.
It was another dream, another vision. She'd been plagued by strange visions: boats, men with golden hair, swords and blood.
Lots of blood. But in the midst of it all a figure, ever rising from the dunes, a man with eyes of the deepest, darkest blue.
He seemed to be speaking to her but his words were always lost on the wind. She recognized him as Viking.
Samira rubbed her chest and ran her hands through her hair, thinking perhaps she had been dwelling too much on Ibn Fadlan's tales.
She wrapped a cloak around her and ran outdoors and upstairs to sit on the rooftop. The dream was so vivid now, she even saw large fields made of frozen ice.
Her birthmark had been irritating her even more lately so she went to the one place she felt grounded enough to gather her thoughts.
The rooftop in the early morning, before the heat had settled into the stone, was where she could sit and watch the city wake.
That sense that something or someone was coming was strongest again.
As she watched the city she took comfort in the familiar.
From this vantage point she could see if there were threats, or a change in the air.
Fez woke in layers. The call to prayer first, then the smoke from the bread ovens, then the sound of the souks preparing for the day ahead.
Her father said she watched the city as though she were planning to defend it.
She had pointed out, the last time he said it, that she had been taught by her mother's kin, the Sahrawi, desert people.
She had learned to read landscape, the direction of wind, rumblings in the ground and signs across the sky.
The feeling burned even stronger that something inescapable was headed her way.
Call it destiny or the will of God written before she was born, it was about to be fulfilled.
And yet she did not know whether to dread it or welcome it.
The blue-eyed man came to her wrapped in slaughter, and she did not know if Allah sent him as a warning of what would descend upon her, or as the very thing she was meant to run toward.
A blessing and a reckoning could wear the same face.
She had learned that much from the desert.
Below her, the fountain in the courtyard started up, brought by craftsmen from Córdoba when Samira was a child, and the scent of jasmine growing along the southern wall scented the morning air.
She looked northward and pressed her hand flat against her sternum, where something had been stirring for months now. Waiting. Watching.
She whispered to the dark, "Who are you?"
The pre-dawn sky held its silence.
She sent a silent prayer, "Bismillah. Guide me and keep me, and let me know Your will when it comes to me," that whatever was hidden would make itself known, and then Samira pushed off from the parapet and went back inside to begin her day.
She had one more transaction to make for her saffron and this time would be sneaking out of the compound alone.
***
Fez, Morocco
THE SOUK WAS LOUD. It was layered, dozens of tongues braided together, spice and smoke and animal and dust.
Mathias had stopped at a leather stall. Njal had gone with them. Torstein had drifted along, following a narrower street away from the main marketplace.
He turned into a narrow passage between two tall buildings, where lines of drying laundry created a patchwork of shade and fading sunlight. He kept one hand casually resting on the hilt of his curved dagger as he scanned his surroundings.
The sounds came first. Shuffling footsteps, a muffled curse, the unmistakable thud of a body hitting a wall. Then a woman's voice, low and threatening, speaking rapid Arabic.
Torstein edged toward the alley entrance, keeping to the shadows. The scene that greeted him stopped him cold.
A woman stood with her back to him, facing three men in dark cloaks. Their faces were wrapped. Not against dust, he thought. Against being recognized.
But she was far from helpless. She was dressed in loose trousers gathered at the ankles and a long tunic belted at the waist. A scarf that had likely covered her hair had fallen to her shoulders, revealing a thick braid of dark hair that swung with her movements.
In her right hand, she held what he recognized as a telek, a wooden stick about two feet long, wrapped in leather at the grip.
In her left, she held a long blade low and reversed along her forearm, the curve of it turned outward, and she was not cowering.
She had put the wall behind her on purpose, so they could not circle.
Both weapons moved in a coordinated dance as she moved like water, keeping her attackers at bay. Torstein stood for a moment, mesmerized by the deadly grace of her movements.
One of the men lunged forward with a curved knife.
The woman sidestepped with fluid grace, deflecting his arm with the telek before driving the butt end into his solar plexus.
As he doubled over, she pivoted to face the second attacker, the tip of her blade drawing a thin line of blood across his cheek as he barely managed to jerk backward.
Torstein felt a surge of admiration at her technique. Each step precisely placed, each strike economical and purposeful.
"Your master will not be pleased that you failed again," she taunted in Arabic, her voice steady despite the exertion. "How many men must he send before he realizes I cannot be intimidated?"
The first man had recovered enough to circle around, attempting to flank her.
Torstein remained watchful. He had no context for this conflict, no way to know who stood on the side of justice. Yet something in the woman's demeanor suggested she was not the villain in this encounter.
A shadow detached from the wall at the far end of the alley. A third attacker, waiting for the perfect moment to intervene. The woman, focused on the two men before her, remained unaware of the new threat.
Torstein made his decision in an instant. Drawing his dagger, he moved swiftly toward the hidden figure, covering the distance in near silence.
The third man had just begun to move, a throwing knife glinting in his hand, when Torstein reached him. One arm snaked around the attacker's neck from behind, while his other hand locked the man's knife arm in a rigid grip before slamming him face-first into the stone wall.
The noise alerted the combatants. The woman glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening briefly at the sight of Torstein and his now-unconscious opponent.
Samira's breath caught when she saw the man who had come to her aid.
His eyes were a deep, dark blue, and she knew them.
She had seen them in her dreams, always watching her from somewhere just beyond reach, and each time she had woken with a warmth in her chest. That same warmth rose in her now, slow and certain, and settled deep within her soul.
"It is you," she whispered, before she could stop the words. For one heartbeat the alley, the blades and the men at her back all fell away, and there was only him.
In that moment of distraction, one of her attackers charged.
"I?tarisī!" Torstein shouted. Watch out.
Samira reacted instantly, dropping to one knee as the attacker's blade sliced through the air where her head had been. From her crouched position, she drove her blade upward, catching the man in the thigh. He howled in pain, staggering backward.
Torstein vaulted over a stack of wooden crates, landing beside her as the second attacker renewed his assault. They fought side by side now, their movements naturally coordinating as if they had trained together for years. When one advanced, the other covered; when one defended, the other struck.
They did not speak but instead moved as one.
When he stepped forward she was already covering the ground he had left.
When he turned to meet the first man rising off the wall, she had already turned the other way to hold the lane behind him.
Back-to-back in a space too narrow for either of them alone.
Torstein had fought in battle with men he had known since boyhood. He had never once fought like this with a stranger.
Eventually the attackers fled, but not before dragging their fallen colleague away.
Not one of them looked back. Not one of them let the wrap slip from their face.
In the sudden quiet that followed, Torstein turned to look directly at the woman for the first time.
Her face struck him. High cheekbones, full lips set in a determined line, and those eyes the color of dark amber that assessed him with equal intensity.
Sweat glistened on her brow, and a smudge of dirt marked one cheek, yet she radiated a fierce beauty that transcended such imperfections.
He felt his heart beating rapidly against his chest as his breathing became shallow.
Followed by an emotion he could not quite fathom.
It was a quiet knowing from deep within his soul that after years of longing, he had finally found her.
The answer to his restlessness. The missing piece.
His destiny. Alive, vibrant and in the flesh. Not just a shadow dream.
She wiped the blade clean along the inside of her sleeve without looking at it, the motion so practiced it seemed to require no thought at all, and refastened her scarf. Only then did she lift her eyes fully to his.
She was breathing hard.
"You understood me," she said.
"Na'am," he replied. Yes.
"An ajnabi who speaks Arabic." Her chin lifted very slightly. "That is not common."
"I had a good teacher. He was old and he was patient and I was not."
Something twitched at the corner of her mouth. Not a smile. Close to it.
"You fight well, for an ajnabi, but I did not need you."
"No," Torstein agreed. "But you were in danger, and I did not care to watch."
She glanced toward the end of the lane where they had gone. Whatever had eased in her face closed again.
"Who were they?" he asked.