Between the Grapevines

5. Khamsa

Riyad's dark eyes glimmered with a reflection of the rising morning sun that painted shades of bright orange and clear blue across the stretching skies above him. A gentle breeze blew through the tree leaves to fill the silence between each occasional call of waking roosters with a soft flutter of brushing greenery. Beneath him, Ta'ira walked calmly so they could both enjoy the peace that came from the early hours of the morning when the streets were silent and the blissful gentleness of the earth could be felt at its most pronounced.

He lifted his head toward the colors surrounding the rising sun with his eyes closed, letting his heart rest for a few moments in which he'd allow everything that weighed him down to slip away—his past, his present, his future. Without all of it, Riyad could be light. Every few weeks, a heaviness sat on his chest as if his own body was calling for their routine walk at the earliest hours of the dawn that separated him from all the duties, people, and worldly matters he spent the rest of his days worrying about. The disconnect from the universe around him allowed him to continue on with a sound, composed mind.

Once the minute of solitude found his searching mind and fleeted just as quickly away, Riyad forced his eyes open while drawing in a breath of the distant sea's fresh scent. He would like to visit one day, but the sea was only pleasant in its distance. The memories that came from the sight of the rippling water and sound of each gentle slosh against the pure sand were best kept at a distance.

Even Riyad knew the limits of his own mind.

His gaze slipped to the reins held delicately against his palms and the silver ring that rested comfortably around his finger. He was married now. Married to a woman whose existence he had no knowledge of last week but who had entered the oath of partnership with him last night. She was a strange woman, one whose eyes were filled with far more than he wordlessly understood, but one that intrigued him. The way her gaze darkened at the mention of moments he couldn't foresee or how she'd nearly smiled at him last night. Only a few moments after cleaning herself of the dust and blood that had stained her clothing and skin, she'd had her own fleeting moment of intrigue with a man that she equally did not know but had still trusted enough to choose out of the others.

Riyad's curiosity peaked as he wondered why she'd agreed to marry him but refused all the others. Could it really have only been because he was the one to find her? Had Kader or Amer found her, would she have chosen them over him?

The sheikh's words from the night before echoed in his mind. "God's blessings, my boy, reveal themselves in ways that we as human beings cannot always understand."

A loud clang interrupted his thoughts as Ta'ira's hooves clomped to a stop, both of their ears listening into the silence to decipher the sound echoing from a street a few homes ahead. For a second, the only sound that filled the morning were the rustling of the dancing leaves and high calls of the loud roosters to wake the city.

Then another sound came.

It was that of a man whose voice cracked with youthfulness and frustration as he shouted an expression of his anger, but it was interrupted again by another clap of metal against asphalt. He yelped in pain.

"Ta'ira, go," Riyad ordered.

She hurried forward so that her hooves cracked briskly on the dirt roads that lined the backs of the rising homes. The dust rose into the air behind them before she moved onto the flat and neatly laid out bricks of a narrow alleyway, cutting quickly toward the sounds of muffled conversation and scuffle. Soon enough, they arrived at the sight of four men attacking another who lay on the floor, covering his head with his hands as they rained on him hits of bats and metal fences they'd lifted from their places. Between them, the brown uniformed man struggled to protect his face and abdomen.