The laughter stayed in the tent like incense perfume, an odor so fine and strange it was holy. Tariq's ideas about the future, his simple, joyful hunger, the quiet rhythm of his breathing—these were balm to Dawud's spirit, soothing the bruised places of failure and loss. For a moment, a few golden hours, the world had not been a dusty, diseased world, but a world of possibility. Dawud indulged, reveled, and felt the weight of his brother's faith in him, the sting of his own revitalized purpose.
It was a lie, and the System reminded him.
The noise was not a chime now, but a clashing chime, one shattering note that echoed through the marrow of his skull. It was a sound of unrightness, a rip in the material of his new serenity.
[> Alert: Follow-up Analysis Complete.]
[> Warning: Evo
