Chapter 47: Assalamu Alaikum

Through the gap in the palanquin curtains, Latifa watched the desert give way to a settlement she had no name for.

Tents rose in clusters—some no bigger than a single room, others sprawling and staked with heavy rope lines that marked out whole family territories, boundary poles hung with woven charms. Between them stood squat structures of dried mudbrick, sun-cracked and patched over generations. People moved among it all—tall, broad-shouldered, dark-featured, unhurried in the heat the way people are when they've never known anything else. A few turned to watch the palanquin pass, but nobody stared for long.

They stopped before the largest tent Latifa had seen yet. Its heavy dark wool drapery was lined inside with deep red silk that caught the afternoon light along the seams.

Halima turned to Yahya as he helped her down. "Latifa's sleeping in my tent tonight."

Yahya's face didn't argue. Something behind his eyes went quiet and a little sad, the look of a man setting down something he wanted to keep holding, but he only nodded and pressed a kiss to her temple before stepping back. Faris lingered a moment longer, his gaze finding Latifa's over Halima's shoulder, unwilling to leave until he had to. Then he turned and followed his brother, and both men soon vanished between the neighboring tents.

Halima held the flap open. "Come on."

Latifa stepped through—and stopped.

It didn't look real. Carpets layered three deep over the packed earth floor, patterns woven in colors she had no words for. Chests of dark wood banded in brass sat along the heavy woven fabric walls, carved with looping script. Oil lanterns hung from the tent poles, throwing warm amber light into every corner, and under it all sat the smell of dried herbs and something resinous and sweet—frankincense, she'd learn later, though right now it was only impossible, a smell out of a story someone might tell a child at bedtime.

"Yes," Halima said, watching her face. "It really is like this."

They ate something simple together, flatbread and a soft cheese, and lay down on cushions thick enough to swallow a body whole. Latifa stared up at the dim curve of the tent roof and still couldn't convince herself any of it was happening.

"Can I ask you something?" she said into the dark.

"Mm."

"Yahya. Faris. The skin, the hair, the eyes—is that just them, or is that everyone here?"

"Just them. Just their line." Halima's voice had gone soft with sleep already pulling at it. "It's called the Rayyan lineage. The line of the Prophet, they say—Mansur's line. Only they carry those markers. Everyone else looks more like us, more or less."

"That's..." Latifa searched for the word and didn't find a better one than the truth. "Surreal."

"I know." A small, understanding laugh. "Ask me anything. I'll tell you how it all fits together."

And she did, low and unhurried, until her sentences started trailing into nothing and her breathing evened out. Latifa lay awake a little longer listening to a world settle around her behind the thick tent flap before sleep finally took her too.

Latifa woke before the light did.

It was reflex, not choice. Twenty-nine years of a life built on order, shaped by a strictly disciplined family where the day began at a fixed hour with no exceptions, had carved the habit too deep to unlearn. She opened her eyes to grey half-dark and Halima dead asleep beside her, one arm flung over her belly, breathing slow and even.

Latifa lay back down. It felt like the polite thing to do.

It lasted about four minutes.

Lying still with nothing to occupy her hands had always been its own kind of punishment. In her family, idle hands meant you weren't disciplined enough to be doing something—reading, studying, working. Just existing, unproductively, on a cushion in the dark, made her skin itch. She glanced around the tent for something to straighten, organize, fix. Nothing. Everything was already immaculate, folded, in its place, and it wasn't her place to touch a single thing that belonged to someone else's home. The minutes crawled. She counted her own breaths to stop from counting anything else.

Then the sound came.

A single voice, rising somewhere out over the settlement, calling out in long, unhurried syllables that carried over the tent roofs and the sleeping camp like something poured rather than spoken.

Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar.

Latifa went completely still.

She hadn't heard the Adhan in—she didn't even know how long. Years, maybe, since the last time she'd stood near a mosque with the windows open. She hadn't expected to hear it here, on a planet with two moons and creatures with too many legs, and something in her chest cracked open at the sound of it, warm and sudden and almost too much to hold.

Her lips moved before she told them to. La ilaha illallah. The words came back to her whole, unbroken, like they'd been waiting under her tongue the entire time. The anxious hum that had been building in her chest for the last ten minutes simply went out, like a hand closing over a flame. She wanted to lie there and listen to that voice go on forever.

It ended too soon. A moment later, a voice she recognized called low from outside the tent opening.

"Halima. Wake up." A pause. "Latifa—forgive me if I've woken you. Time for morning prayer." Another pause, more urgent. "Halima..."

"It's fine," Latifa called back, sitting up. "I'm already awake. Come in."

Yahya ducked through the flap, murmured a polite greeting to her, and crouched at his wife's side. "Halima." Nothing. He shook her shoulder, gently. Still nothing—she didn't so much as stir, breathing on, undisturbed as stone.

He dipped two fingers into the water jug by the cushions and flicked droplets onto her face. Halima's nose wrinkled. She slept on.

Yahya glanced up, a little sheepish. "She sleeps like this now. The healer says it's the pregnancy. Nothing wakes her."

"It's fine," Latifa said, biting back a smile. "Really."

He lifted his wife's shoulders with the same careful ease he did everything, and dabbed his wet fingers along her cheek until, finally, her eyes fluttered and opened, right into his.

Halima blinked up at him, still half in sleep. "What a beautiful view," she murmured, and reached up to touch his jaw. "I thank Allah every single day for giving me such a handsome husband."

Yahya cleared his throat, the tips of his ears darkening visibly as blood rushed to them, and Halima's gaze slid sideways, landing on Latifa sitting a few feet away, watching the whole thing with open amusement. Halima's face went bright red and she shoved weakly at Yahya's shoulder. "Get up, get up, we have company!"

He laughed—a short, warm sound—and rose without complaint, leaving them to prepare for the morning.

Halima rose for her prayer, and afterward she and Latifa shared a quiet breakfast in the amber morning light, unhurried, the tent smelling of tea and bread and something green.

At midday they crossed to the great family tent for the shared meal.

It was larger than any structure Latifa had seen yet, its interior hung with woven banners, the air thick with the smell of roasted meat and cardamom. Seated on cushions at the head of the low table was a man who could only be Chief Mansur—broader even than his sons, silver hair loose to his shoulders, eyes the same molten gold. Beside him sat a woman with a kind, weathered face and dark, warm eyes: Amina.

Halima made the introductions, and when she mentioned Latifa's hair—that pale yellow color Earth called blonde—Mansur and Amina both leaned in with open, unguarded curiosity, as if she'd produced something out of a myth. Neither of them had seen the like in their lives. But her eyes, dark and deep brown, matched theirs closely enough that something in the room settled, some unconscious recognition passing between them before a word was spoken.

Mansur looked at her, placed his right hand over his heart in an ancient gesture of respect, and spoke in a deep, unhurried voice:

"Assalamu Alaikum."

Latifa blinked, slightly uncertain. She recognized the words from her childhood, but she had never truly understood their deeper meaning beyond a standard formal greeting. Before she could stumble over a response, Mansur smiled warmly, his golden eyes softening. Through Halima’s gentle, quiet translation, he explained what those words meant in his house.

"It is not merely a greeting, my daughter," Mansur said softly. "When we say Assalamu Alaikum, it is a sacred vow of sanctuary. It means: Peace and safety be upon you under this roof, inside this home, and from every blade carried by my people. You are protected here."

The words landed heavily in the quiet tent. Weeks of running, constant fear, technical disasters, and grieving for a home she might never see again—and here was a chief, a stranger on a distant planet, offering her the very thing she hadn't realized she was still bracing against losing: absolute safety.

Her shoulders came down half an inch, and she didn't notice they had until they already had.

By the time the food was passed around, her hands had stopped hovering and started reaching, and she ate with something close to ease.

Across the table, Faris watched her laugh softly at something Halima said, watched her reach for bread without flinching, and felt something in his chest loosen that had been wound tight for weeks.

Beside him, Amina said nothing at all, only watched the two of them with her own quiet, knowing smile, thinking that perhaps, God willing, this girl would stay.