The rain didn't fall in the valley; it drifted by, a cold, gray shroud clinging to the jagged stones of the ancestral estate. Inside the house, the air tasted of stale incense and the metallic scent of raw silver. Zainab sat in a corner of the living room, her world a tapestry of textures and echoes. She knew the precise creak of the floorboards that heralded her father's approach—a heavy, rhythmic thud that carried the weight of a man seeing his own lineage as a crumbling monument.
