The sun hadn’t fully risen, yet the courtyard was already alive with movement. Children ran between stone buildings, carrying baskets of food, their laughter tinged with a forced lightness that never reached the eyes of some.
Zahra stood apart, her hands clenched at her sides, eyes scanning the familiar faces of her community. Fifteen years old, but with the weight of a dozen lifetimes pressing down on her.
The agate community was a place that demanded obedience. A place where girls were trained, from the moment they could walk, to obey rules that suffocated. When they turned eighteen, they were expected to leave the compound, go outside and get pregnant, they come back and they are paired with their siblings or someone in their family. They believed this allow them to remain pure blood
