When the carriage finally pulled away, leaving deep ruts in the mud, the silence that returned to the house was different. It was no longer the silence of peace; it was the silence of a truce.
Malik, Zainab’s father, watched the departure from the doorway of the small shed where he now lived. He had seen the royal crest. He had seen the doctor’s hands. He approached the main house, his gait a pathetic shuffle.
“You could have bargained,” Malik hissed as he reached the porch. “You could have asked for your lands back. For my lands back! You held his son’s life in your hands, and you let him go for free?”
Zainab turned toward her father. She didn’t need to see him to feel the shriveled greed emanating from his pores.
“You still don’t understand, Father,” she said, her voice like a cold bell. “A bargain is what you do when you value things. We value our lives. Today, we bought our silence with a life. That is the only currency that matters.”
She reached out and took Yusha’s hand. His skin was cold, his spirit exhausted.
“Go back to your shed, Father,” she commanded. “The soup is on the hearth. Eat, and be grateful that the ghosts of this house are merciful.”
That evening, as the sun dipped below the mountains, painting a sunset Zainab would never see but could feel as a fading warmth on her skin, Yusha leaned his head against her shoulder.
“They will come back one day,” he whispered. “The boy will remember. The messenger will talk.”
“Let them come,” Zainab replied, her fingers tracing the scars on his palms—scars from the fire, scars from the years of begging, and the fresh nicks from the night’s surgery. “We have lived in the dark long enough to know how to move through it. If they come for the doctor, they will have to get past the blind girl first.”
In the distance, the river continued its tireless journey, carving a path through the stone, proving that even the softest water can break the hardest mountain if given enough time.
