Author's Preface
A few months had passed since her visit to Fazia. Standing in front of the mirror, Halima ran a hand over her stomach and looked down. It had rounded out. Noticeably.
Yahya, catching her studying herself in the mirror, looked up from what he was doing and came over.
"What are you looking at?"
Halima opened her mouth to answer, then stopped short — something small and faint moved inside her.
She remembered what Fazia had told her, the stories her relatives used to tell — this was how the first kicks felt. Faint at first, like the brush of a moth's wing, then stronger.
She grabbed her husband's hand and pressed it to her stomach, trembling with excitement.
Yahya looked lost, but left his hand where it was — and then he felt it too. A soft, barely-there movement under her skin.
Maybe her stomach's just upset, he thought, uncertain. But why was she looking at him like something miraculous had just happened? What was she waiting for?
Halima tilted her head back, smiling as she studied his face. She always had to look up to meet his eyes — she barely reached his chest. But right now there was no joy in his expression. Just hesitation, and something close to embarrassment.
Right, it hit her. In this world, men don't know the first thing about this before marriage. And Amina, raised in strict tradition, had probably never shared these kinds of details with her son.
Looking straight into his eyes, Halima said it, unable to hold back the happiness any longer.
"I'm pregnant."
Yahya froze for only a second before pulling her into a tight embrace.
"We're going to have a child!" he breathed, his voice cracking. "What a blessing... Alhamdulillahi rabbil-'alameen!"
The words of gratitude came out on their own. Pulling back, he gripped her shoulders, worried.
"Are you all right? Nothing hurts?"
She laughed.
"I'm fine."
Yahya, still unable to wipe the happy smile off his face, said, "Ask me for anything. I'll give you whatever you want."
Halima's eyes narrowed playfully.
"Then I want to be Seyyid instead of you. Heir to the throne. Chieftain."
Yahya's expression turned serious for a second.
"That would be difficult... but not impossible. We'd need Father's blessing. Although," mischief flickered in his eyes, "by then he'll probably have joined our ancestors. Won't much matter to him either way."
Halima couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.
"I was joking!"
Yahya laughed with her.
"But seriously," she asked, catching her breath, "would you really hand the tribe over to me?"
"Yes," he answered without a trace of doubt. "If that's what you truly wanted."
Touched by his answer, Halima leaned into his chest. They stood there a while, enjoying the quiet closeness, until the noise outside the tent picked up — the family meal was approaching.
"We should go," Yahya said gently. "The others are waiting."
Everything was ready for the meal in Mansur and Amina's tent. But Faris, sitting by the hearth, seemed somewhere else entirely. He hadn't been able to shake the image from his mind since the day before — golden hair, warm brown eyes. The girl from the waters of the Sacred Lake stayed with him, her face leaving a quiet longing in his chest for someone he didn't even know yet.
He helped his mother set out the food mechanically, while his father peeled fruit without hurrying. Finally, gathering his nerve, Faris broke the silence.
"Mother. Father. I saw the face of my soulmate. In the Sacred Lake."
Mansur's knife stopped mid-motion. Amina's wooden spoon slipped from her hand, her startled expression breaking into radiant joy.
"Alhamdulillah," she whispered, pressing her hands to her chest. "Another sign. The blessing of soulmates is returning to our line. We lost it to our ancestors' sin, and now it's coming back. First Yahya. Now you."
Mansur set the fruit down and pulled his son into a firm embrace.
"Congratulations, son."
But the joy faded fast. The same unspoken question landed on both parents at once: Yahya had waited five hundred years for his soulmate, alone the whole time. How long would Faris have to wander before finding his?
They exchanged a worried look, neither willing to say it out loud and spoil the moment.
Just then the tent flap lifted, and Yahya and Halima walked in, still whispering to each other, faces glowing with some private secret — but the thick silence in the tent caught up with them fast, and they went quiet, moving toward the rug.
"What happened?" Yahya asked, his tone shifting serious.
"Your brother saw the face of his soulmate in the Sacred Lake," Mansur said.
Yahya's face lit up, and he turned to his brother.
"Really? What's she like?"
Faris smiled, that same dreamy light returning to his eyes.
"Her hair's yellow. Like gold thread. Never seen anything like it. And her eyes — deep, brown.And her frame... close to your wife's, actually." He nodded toward Halima. "Maybe she's from where you're from too.”
Halima had already opened her mouth, ready to tease her perpetually serious brother-in-law, when she stopped cold.
"From Earth?" she asked, leaning forward. "Wait. Are you sure?"
The conversation around the table died.
"But how could she be from there?" Anxiety tightened Halima's voice. "Maybe... another escape capsule went down somewhere?"
She turned to her husband.
"Yahya, you remember my capsule. Has anything else like it turned up?"
"Not us, not the neighboring tribes," Yahya said, shaking his head. "We'd have heard."
Halima's eyes dropped, thinking it through.
"So she's not here yet. But if she's from Earth, how would she even get here? Another ship? Or..." she looked up, her voice dropping to barely more than a whisper, "a search party?"
"A search party?" Faris repeated.
"Another ship," Halima explained. "A rescue ship. They send them out to look for people who go missing." She paused. "I still don't know why my ship broke apart. I got into the capsule in time. I don't know what happened to anyone else on board."
She looked around at everyone at the table.
"What if her ship goes down the same way? What if she gets pulled here exactly like I was?"
The tent went completely silent. Mansur set his knife down on the tray, the fruit still half-peeled. Amina's fingers tightened around her husband's hand, and Faris stared at Halima, unable to hide the fear rising in his eyes for a woman he hadn't even met yet.
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