Where Blood Burns

Chapter three

The villa awoke earlier each morning as the wedding drew near. The scent of baking bread and simmering broth floated through the halls, chased by the hum of relatives moving from one task to another. Tables were draped, lanterns hung, flowers woven into garlands by nimble fingers.

Khalid moved through it all like a ghost. He smiled when spoken to, offered polite answers to questions about work, life, Istanbul. His father’s name carried a weight in this house; he bore it carefully, like porcelain balanced in his palms.

But Zariah was everywhere.

She drifted through the villa as if it belonged to her alone, her laughter carrying from balconies, her footsteps padding softly along corridors. Some mornings he caught her spinning a cousin’s child in her arms, both of them shrieking with joy. Other times he found her leaning against the stone balustrade, smoking a stolen cigarette, her gaze turned toward the horizon where the sea glittered mercilessly under the sun.

Always, she found him.

This time, it was in the courtyard, where he had been asked to string lanterns from one olive tree to another. The ladder wobbled beneath him as he reached up, steady hands betraying the faintest tremor.

“You’re not built for this kind of work,” Zariah’s voice teased from below. She was barefoot again, a glass of lemonade in hand.

“Apparently not,” he muttered.

She tipped her head back, watching him with narrowed eyes. “Careful. You fall, I’ll laugh first and help later.”

“You’re kind,” he said dryly, stretching higher.

The ladder shifted. For a moment his balance faltered, and in that moment she moved forward instinctively, one hand brushing his calf to steady him. The touch was nothing—light, casual—but his body betrayed him, every nerve sparking at the contact.

He climbed down too quickly, needing distance. But when he turned, she was there, lemonade glass pressed against her lips, eyes glinting with amusement.

“You’re too serious,” she said. “You move like a man carrying bricks on his back. Doesn’t it get heavy?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted before he could stop himself.

Her smile softened, just slightly, as if she hadn’t expected honesty. “Then put them down.”

She walked away before he could answer, leaving him standing beneath the olive tree with the lanterns swaying gently overhead.

⸻

That evening, the house filled with music again—guitars strummed, voices raised in song, children clapping to rhythms older than memory. Khalid lingered at the edge of it, a glass of wine untouched in his hand.

Zariah appeared beside him, her perfume cutting through the smoke and spices of the room. “You don’t dance,” she said, not as a question but as an accusation.

“I don’t.”

“You should.”

Her hand brushed against his arm, deliberately casual. “Sometimes dancing is the only way to breathe.”

He turned to her, and for the first time since arriving, allowed himself to truly look—at the unruly strands of hair framing her face, at the curve of her mouth, at the quiet fire in her eyes.

For a heartbeat, he nearly asked her. Nearly gave in.

But his uncle’s voice boomed from across the room, breaking the moment: “Khalid! Come, join us. Tell us about Istanbul!”

The spell shattered.

Zariah stepped back, her smile shifting into something sly, practiced. “Duty calls, cousin.”

⸻

Later, long after the music had faded and the villa had gone quiet, Khalid found himself unable to sleep. He wandered to the balcony outside his room, where the city stretched beneath him in a constellation of lights.

And there she was.

Across the courtyard, on her own balcony, Zariah leaned against the railing, hair tumbling down her back. She hadn’t seen him yet; she was staring at the sky, her face tilted toward the stars.

For a moment, he allowed himself to watch. To breathe her in from afar.

Then, as if sensing him, her gaze shifted—and their eyes met across the distance.

Neither moved. Neither looked away.

The night held its breath between them, and Khalid felt it—the slow, inevitable pull of something greater than either of them.

Not yet. Not tonight.

But soon.