The rain in the valley did not fall; it drifted, a cold, grey shroud that clung to the jagged stones of the ancestral estate. Inside the house, the air tasted of stale incense and the metallic tang of unwashed silver. Zainab sat in the corner of the parlor, her world a tapestry of textures and echoes. She knew the precise creak of the floorboard that signaled her father’s approach—a heavy, rhythmic thud that carried the weight of a man who viewed his own lineage as a collapsing monument.

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.”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.