Khalid did not enter the camp as a hero. He entered as a fugitive.
He had ridden his horse into the ground, pushing the beast until its heart nearly burst, circling wide through the dunes to find a gap in the closing net. He had slipped through a dry wadi just minutes before the Janissaries sealed the perimeter, abandoning his horse and crawling on his belly through the dirt until he reached the cover of the main tent.
He burst inside, his chest heaving, his face caked with mud and sweat.
The scene that greeted him was a tableau of ruin.
The Sheikh, his father, sat on the divan, his head in his hands. He looked shrunken, a king whose crown had been crushed.
And in the corner, curled into a ball on a pile of rugs, was Hamza.
The warrior. The fire. The favorite son.
Hamza was sobbing. He was covered in dust, and his tunic was dark with dried blood—not his own. The smell of stale date wine still clung to him, sour and sickening. He looked up when Khalid entered, his eyes wide and vacant, like a child who has broken a precious vase and waits for the stick.
"Khalid," Hamza whimpered. "I... I didn't mean..."
Khalid didn't look at him. He couldn't. If he looked at Hamza now, he would kill him.
"Father," Khalid said, his voice rough. "The Pasha's men. They are everywhere."
"I know," the Sheikh whispered, not looking up. "They want Hamza. They say he killed the boy. The Pasha's blood."
"He did," Khalid said coldly. "I saw it."
The Sheikh let out a long, shuddering breath. "Then it is finished. We cannot fight them, Khalid. There are too many. If we refuse, they kill everyone. If we give him up... they will torture him until he begs for death."
"They will kill everyone anyway," Khalid said, walking to the tent flap and peering out through a slit.
He saw the ring of fire. He saw the faces of his cousins, his aunts, the children he had taught to read the stars. He saw the fear in their eyes. They were looking at the Sheikh's tent, waiting for salvation.
He looked back at Hamza. Hamza, who had mocked his poetry. Hamza, who had called him weak. Hamza, who was now shivering in a puddle of his own cowardice.
Khalid reached into his tunic. He felt the leather book against his skin. Layla.
She was waiting. She was one mile away. If he slipped out the back of the tent now, he might—might—be able to crawl back through the wadi. He could leave them. He could leave Hamza to the fate he had earned. He could leave his father to his grief.
He pulled the book out. He looked at it for a long second.
To love a thing is to admit it can be lost.
He closed his eyes. If he left, he would have Layla. But he would have her with blood on his hands. He would wake up every morning in Aleppo knowing that his happiness was bought with the massacre of his kin. The ink would turn to poison. The love would rot.
He could not be the man Layla loved if he let his family die.
He walked over to the wooden chest in the center of the tent. He opened it and placed the leather book inside, burying it beneath a stack of wool blankets.
"Khalid?" Hamza asked, his voice trembling. "What are you doing?"
Khalid turned. His face was calm now. The terrible calm of a man who has jumped off a cliff and is simply waiting to hit the water.
"Get up, Hamza," Khalid commanded softly. "Wash your face. Hide your tunic."
"Why?"
"Because you were not on the road tonight," Khalid said, unbuckling his sword belt. He didn't drop the sword. He held it. "You were here. You were guarding the camels. You have been here all night."
"But the soldiers... they saw..."
"They saw a Bedouin in the dark," Khalid said. "They saw a son of the Sheikh."
Khalid looked at his father. "Father. You must forbid the tribe from speaking. Hamza was here. Do you understand?"
The Sheikh looked up, confusion clouding his eyes. "Khalid... what are you saying?"
Khalid didn't answer. He turned and walked to the entrance of the tent. He tightened his sash. He smoothed his beard. He stood tall, pulling the dignity of his ancestors around him like a cloak.
"I am the tent pole, Father," Khalid whispered. "I hold the roof up."
He stepped out into the night.