[AMAL POV]
The morning came gray and bitter, the kind of autumn day that whispered promises of winter's cruelty. I woke to the sound of sleet against the single barred window high above our heads—a sound like fingernails scratching against stone, like the palace itself was trying to claw its way out of the earth.
Halima sat in her usual corner, her knees drawn to her chest, humming one of those wordless lullabies that had become the soundtrack to our suffering. Her voice was softer than usual, cracked around the edges like old parchment. She had been getting thinner, I noticed. We all had, but Halima seemed to be disappearing from the inside out, as if grief were consuming her bit by bit.
"Halima," I whispered, crawling across the straw-covered floor to sit beside her. "Did you eat yesterday?"
Her eyes focused slowly, as if she were returning from a great distance. "Eat?" she repeated, the word foreign on her tongue.
"The bread. Did you eat the bread?"
Her fingers moved in her lap, ghostly gestures as if she were combing invisible hair. "He loved bread," she said, so quietly I had to lean in to hear. "My Ahmad. Loved the crust especially. Would save it for last, like treasure."
My throat tightened. Ahmad—the son torn from Halima's arms the day she was marked. A boy of perhaps six, with his mother's gentle eyes and a gap-toothed smile that had been his crime. Too beautiful, the guards had said. Too pure for a marked woman's child.
"Tell me about him," I said, settling beside her. It was dangerous to encourage these memories—they made Halima weep for hours afterward. But today, something in her face looked so distant, so fragile, that I feared what might happen if she retreated any further into her grief.
"Smart boy," Halima continued, her voice gaining strength. "Could count to a hundred. Knew all the prayers by heart. Made me flower crowns from weeds." She looked at me with eyes that held the light of remembering. "He would have been seven last month. Seven years old."
"Would have been?"
"Is," Halima corrected quickly, fiercely. "He is seven. My Ahmad is seven."
I nodded, though something cold settled in my stomach. In the months since Halima's arrival, she had never spoken of Ahmad in the past tense. Never admitted to the possibility that he might not be waiting for her somewhere, growing taller and stronger and more beautiful with each passing day.
"Where do you think he is now?" I asked carefully.
Her face transformed, lit from within by a terrible hope. "Playing. Somewhere warm. Someone is taking care of him—I know it. Someone kind. Someone who gives him bread crusts and tells him stories and..." Her voice broke. "And who tells him his mama is coming back."
The lie hung between us like a physical thing, heavy and suffocating. We both knew what happened to the children of marked women. We both knew why the guards had laughed when they took Ahmad away. But Halima needed this fiction like she needed air, and I would not be the one to steal it from her.
"He's waiting for you," I said instead, the words ash in my mouth.
"Yes." Halima's smile was radiant and heartbreaking. "He's waiting."
That afternoon, as we scrubbed the stones of the outer courtyard in the driving sleet, Halima hummed continuously. Other women glanced at her with worry—such displays of emotion were dangerous here, likely to draw unwanted attention. But Halima seemed lost in her own world, her cracked hands moving automatically while her mind wandered to wherever Ahmad lived in her imagination.
"She's getting worse," Najwa muttered, casting nervous glances at the guards who paced the courtyard perimeter.
"No," I said, watching Halima's face. "She's getting ready."
"Ready for what?"
But I couldn't answer, because I didn't fully understand the certainty that had settled in my chest like a stone. I only knew that something was shifting, that the careful balance Halima had maintained between despair and hope was finally tilting toward something irreversible.
That night, as the others settled into their restless sleep, Halima sat up against the wall, her eyes wide and staring into the darkness. I lay on my straw mat, listening to the rhythm of breathing around me, but I could not sleep. Something in the air felt charged, expectant, like the moment before lightning strikes.
"Amal," Halima whispered across the dark.
"Yes?"
"Do you think... do you think Allah forgives mothers who fail their children?"
The question hit me like a physical blow. "You didn't fail anyone, Halima."
"I let them take him. I should have fought harder. Should have died first."
"You had no choice."
"There's always a choice." Halima's voice was steady now, resolved. "I chose to live without him. That was my choice."
"Living isn't a sin."
"Isn't it?" Halima turned her head toward my voice. "What kind of mother chooses her own life over her child's?"
"The kind who hopes to see him again someday."
"Hope," Halima repeated, and there was something terrible in the way she said it. "Hope is just another word for cowardice."
I wanted to argue, to find words that might anchor Halima to this world, to this moment, to the possibility that tomorrow might contain something worth surviving for. But the certainty in Halima's voice stopped me. This was not despair speaking—this was decision.
"Halima—"
"I used to dream about him every night," Halima continued, as if I hadn't spoken. "At first, they were good dreams. He was playing, laughing, growing. But lately..." She paused, her breathing shallow. "Lately, I dream of him crying. Calling for me. And I can't reach him."
"Dreams aren't real."
"No," Halima agreed. "But they're true."
The conversation ended there, but I lay awake until dawn, listening to Halima's breathing, memorizing the sound of it. Somehow, I knew I would never hear it again.
The morning brought no relief from the sleet. If anything, the weather had worsened overnight, turning the palace courtyards into a maze of puddles and mud. The guards were irritable, their uniforms soaked and their tempers short. They barked orders with more violence than usual, their hands quick to strike anyone who moved too slowly or looked up at the wrong moment.
I watched Halima during the morning meal—if the thin gruel we were given could be called a meal. She ate nothing, but she smiled more than she had in months. It was the smile of someone who had made peace with a terrible decision, and it made my skin crawl with premonition.
"You have to eat," I whispered, pushing my own portion toward her.
"No need," Halima replied, her voice light, almost cheerful. "I won't be hungry much longer."
The words were spoken so matter-of-factly that it took me a moment to understand their meaning. When I did, ice flooded my veins.
"Halima, no—"
"Shh." Halima reached over and touched my hand—the first time she had initiated physical contact in months. Her fingers were cold as marble. "Today is a good day to remember that I was once someone's mother."
Before I could respond, the guards were hauling us to our feet, shouting about laundry duty and the stables. We shuffled into line, our bare feet splashing through puddles that had formed in the corridor's uneven stones.
We were halfway to the washing courtyard when it happened.
A nobleman in silk robes was inspecting the servants' quarters, his nose wrinkled with distaste as he examined our work. He was young, soft-looking, with the kind of face that had never known real hardship. His fingers were heavy with rings, and he carried himself with the entitled arrogance of someone who had never been told no.
"This is filthy," he announced, holding up a handkerchief that one of the women had been washing. "Absolutely filthy."
The woman—her name was Fatima, I remembered, a girl barely eighteen who had been marked for the crime of reading and writing—looked up in confusion. "Sir, I—"
"Don't speak to me," the nobleman snapped. "Marked women don't address their betters."
"But the handkerchief was already dirty when—"
His hand moved faster than thought, striking Fatima across the face hard enough to send her stumbling backward. She hit the ground with a splash, muddy water soaking through her thin dress.
"Thief," he said, his voice carrying the finality of a judge's sentence. "She's stolen from me. Look—" He held up the handkerchief. "My initials, embroidered in gold thread. And it's ruined."
It was a lie. I could see that from where I stood—the handkerchief was plain white cotton, with no embroidery at all. But lies spoken by noblemen became truth in this place, and truth spoken by marked women became blasphemy.
"She'll be flogged," the nobleman continued, his voice bright with satisfaction. "Twenty lashes. In the center courtyard, so all can see what happens to thieves."
The guards moved forward to drag Fatima away, but something unexpected happened. Someone moved.
Halima stepped forward.
It was such a small movement, just two steps out of line, but in our world it was an earthquake. The guards froze, uncertain how to respond to this unprecedented act of defiance.
"No," Halima said, her voice clear and strong. "Stop it."
The nobleman turned to stare at her, his face cycling through surprise, outrage, and something approaching delight. "What did you say?"
"I said stop it." Halima's voice was growing stronger, more certain. "She didn't steal anything. You're lying."
The silence that followed was deafening. I could hear my own heartbeat, could feel the collective held breath of thirty women who had just witnessed the impossible—one of our own, speaking truth to power.
"You dare—" the nobleman began.
"I dare," Halima interrupted, and now she was walking forward, her movements sure and purposeful. "I dare to say that you're a liar and a coward who feeds on the suffering of defenseless women."
The guard's baton caught her across the face before she could say another word. The sound was like breaking wood, sharp and final. Halima's head snapped back, and she crumpled to the ground like a discarded doll.
But she was still breathing. Still moving. Still trying to speak.
"She... didn't... steal..." Halima whispered, blood flowing from her nose and mouth. "She didn't..."
The second blow caught her in the temple. This time, the sound was different—softer, wetter. The sound of something breaking that could never be repaired.
Halima's eyes went wide, staring up at the gray sky where the sleet continued to fall. Her lips moved soundlessly, forming words that only she could hear.
"Ahmad," she whispered. "Ahmad, mama's coming."
And then the light went out of her eyes, and she was still.
I felt something tear inside my chest, something that had been holding me together for months suddenly snapping like an overstretched rope. I moved without thinking, without caring about consequences, dropping to my knees beside Halima's body.
"No," I whispered, my hands hovering over her still face. "No, no, no..."
The guards were already moving, already reaching for their batons, but I didn't care. I gathered Halima's head into my lap, smoothing the tangled hair away from her face, trying to close the eyes that stared sightlessly at the weeping sky.
"She was just protecting her," I said, my voice breaking. "She was just—"
"Move away from the body," one of the guards ordered.
"She was a mother," I continued, as if I hadn't heard. "She had a son. His name was Ahmad. He was seven years old. Seven years old, and she loved him more than life, and you—"
The boot caught me in the ribs, driving the air from my lungs and sending me sprawling across the muddy stones.
For hours, they left Halima's body in the mud while the sleet continued to fall. The guards stepped over her corpse like it was debris, and the nobleman continued his inspection as if nothing had happened. We were forced to continue our work, scrubbing and cleaning while our friend's blood mixed with the rainwater at our feet.
I knelt beside the body, my knees sinking into the cold mud, my hands never leaving Halima's face. I prayed aloud—the first time I had done so in months—my voice hoarse from crying.
"La illaha illa Allah..." I whispered, the words of the shahada flowing from my lips like water. "Ash-hadu an la ilaha illa Allah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadun rasul Allah..."
The other women joined me, one by one, their voices creating a chorus of grief that echoed off the palace walls. Even the guards seemed unsettled by the sound, shifting uncomfortably as the ancient words washed over them.
When they finally came to take Halima's body away, I fought them. I clawed at their hands, screamed until my voice gave out, tried to shield Halima's corpse with my own body.
"She was my friend," I sobbed as they dragged me away. "She was my friend, and you killed her for telling the truth."
They threw me back into the Southern Chamber and locked the door. The other women gathered around me, their faces streaming with tears, their hands gentle as they cleaned the mud from my clothes and the blood from my scraped knees.
"She's free now," Najwa whispered, her voice thick with grief. "She's with Ahmad now."
"She didn't want to be free," I replied, my voice hollow. "She wanted to live. She wanted to see her son grow up. She wanted to hold him again."
"She couldn't live with the guilt," Sabria said softly. "Sometimes love is too heavy to carry."
That night, as the others slept, I lay awake staring at the empty space where Halima had once curled up with her invisible son. The silence was wrong without her lullabies, without the soft whisper of her prayers.
But in the darkness, I made a promise to the ghost of my friend, to the memory of a mother who had loved too much to keep living.
I would not die in this place. I would not let Halima's sacrifice be meaningless.
I would escape, or I would die trying.
The third attempt was already forming in my mind, as inevitable as dawn.