Chapter 2 The Woman Behind the Veil

The wedding took place three days later, exactly as the letter had promised.

But it was nothing like the weddings Ahmed had grown up imagining. There was no music to break the silence, no children running through lantern-lit courtyards, no tables overflowing with rice, lamb, and laughter. No uncles slapping him on the back with jokes about "finally becoming a man."

Instead, there was only stillness. Sacred. Heavy. Almost suffocating.

The ceremony was held at dusk, when the horizon was painted in bruised gold and indigo. A marbled garden, hidden deep within Zafirah's old quarter, became the stage. Ahmed had never noticed the golden gates before, tall and ancient, as though they had been carved for secrets rather than celebrations.

The car that collected him was black and spotless, its glass tinted so deeply the city outside vanished into shadow. The driver wore no name badge, no smile, not even the courtesy of a greeting. Ahmed sat in the back seat, dressed in a finely tailored thobe that had arrived at his home that morning, folded with precision. It fit his frame perfectly, yet the cloth clung to him like a skin chosen by someone else.

He did not remember giving anyone his measurements.

His hands trembled in his lap, no matter how many times he clenched them.

The driver remained mute. The guards at the garden gates never met his eyes. He was guided into the courtyard where the air was drenched in jasmine. It should have been fragrant, but here it smelled almost too sweet, almost sickly. Figures stood in silence, veiled in black or cloaked in crimson, their faces hidden as if the night itself had gathered to witness.

At the center stood the imam, a man robed in white, beside a table draped in silk. Next to him was a woman.

His bride.

She wore a crimson veil that cascaded down to the ground, layered and heavy, its beads catching the last of the sunlight so that it seemed as though she stood beneath a shower of stars. She did not move. She did not speak.

Not even when the vows began.

Her voice, when it finally spilled into the quiet, was soft, almost hesitant. Yet beneath that hushed tone was something unshakable. The quiet strength of a storm that had been taught to wait, to endure, to watch.

When the imam pronounced them husband and wife, Ahmed turned toward her, his breath catching.

"May I...?" he whispered, reaching toward her veil.

Before his fingers touched the fabric, a woman in black stepped forward. Her hands, gloved in silk, caught his own. She lowered it gently but with finality.

"Not yet," she said. Her voice was neither cruel nor kind, only absolute. "Your place awaits inside."

The crimson bride was escorted away before Ahmed could protest, leaving him with nothing but the echo of his own vows and the weight of a marriage that already felt like a riddle.

---

The mansion's receiving hall swallowed him whole. He had been led through corridors of stone and scented wood, where candles burned against walls etched with old verses. The place was alive with history, yet nameless, faceless, stripped of portraits or family banners. As if the house itself wished to erase identity, leaving only the silence of those who had passed through before.

A steward approached and bowed, a silver tray balanced in his hands. Upon it lay a folded note:

> Your quarters have been prepared. You are not to leave your wing without permission. Please speak to no one outside the designated attendants. Your wife will send for you when the time is right.

The words sank into Ahmed's chest like ice.

He was married.

But he was not yet a husband.

The days that followed blurred together. Time in the mansion passed like rain sliding down glass, quiet and strange. Ahmed discovered that an entire wing had been set aside for him: a private library stacked with books he would have chosen himself, a marble bathing room that gleamed like it had been carved for kings, and a garden where a falcon-shaped fountain whispered all night. Attendants brought him clothes that fit perfectly, newspapers curated to his taste, meals seasoned exactly the way he preferred.

There was nothing to ask for. Nothing to want. And yet he felt less like a groom than a prisoner in velvet.

He did not see her.

But he felt her presence.

At night, footsteps lingered beyond the garden walls. Sometimes, when he returned to his chamber, he would find slips of paper tucked beneath his door:

> Do you like poetry?

Are you a man of faith or reason?

What do you fear most?

He answered each one carefully, his handwriting steady even as his heart raced. He left the replies on the edge of the fountain. By morning, they were always gone.

The strangeness of it gnawed at him. He began to wonder if the wedding had been real, or if he had been trapped inside some myth spun out of silk and silence.

Until the sixth night.

That night, when he returned from the prayer room, she was waiting.

She stood at the corridor to the east balcony, her veil lowered to her waist. Her hair was still hidden beneath silk, but the curve of her face was visible at last. Moonlight washed her in silver, and for a moment Ahmed could not breathe.

"You're real," he whispered.

She turned. Her eyes were deep brown, unreadable, like ink that refused to dry.

"So are you," she said.

He stepped closer. His throat was tight, his heart thundering.

"Why me?"

Her lips curved into a small, enigmatic smile. "Because you were the only man who looked at the world the way I did. As if it owed you nothing, but offered you chances."

The questions on his tongue, her name, her secrecy, the rules that bound him...all tangled and died before they could escape.

"When will I know who you are?" he asked instead.

Her voice dropped to a near whisper.

"When you stop asking."

Then, as suddenly as she had appeared, she was gone. The corridor was empty, the air scented faintly with roses and mystery.

Ahmed stood frozen, heart aching, every part of him pulled between bewilderment and desire.

He was a husband now, bound to a house of shadows, his bride both stranger and sovereign. And though every instinct told him to run, something in his chest whispered the opposite.

Stay.

Because love, like a veil, only lifts when it chooses.

And she...she was worth the wait.