📌 Previously in Chapter 17:
Zayd attended a high banquet hosted by Ustadh Daoud al-Yunan, where Layla bint Samirah was present. Amid diplomacy and performance, Zayd recited a quiet poem laced with veiled emotion. Layla smiled — once. A silent connection was born. Now, Zayd turns back to the shadows of business… and the mystery of the lion-marked crates.
📍 Scene: Damascus – Dyer's Quarter – Early Morning
The air hung thick with the stench of mordants and steam. Bales of silk soaked in vats of indigo, saffron, and crushed rose. Children with stained fingers carried dripping cloth between tents.
Zayd moved carefully, disguised again in a merchant's apprentice garb — worn boots, dusty scarf, and a dull bronze ring he used to signal neutrality.
ZAYD (to himself):
"No guards. No records. Too many colors… and not enough questions."
He slipped between steaming vats until he found the workshop bearing the lion sigil — three tails curling like smoke. A symbol carved in the back beam, where only an insider would see.
Inside, workers dipped bolts of fabric into violet dye. But one roll stood apart — stitched shut with silver thread.
Zayd loosened the seam. Inside: a thin layer of silk… hiding small sealed pouches. Spice? No. Powdered dyes laced with opium resin.
ZAYD (softly):
"They're using the silk routes… to ship poison."
He took a fragment and tucked it in a parchment. Just then, a rustle behind him — Nimr fluttered from a rooftop and cried out.
Zayd turned. A man was watching him from the alley. Then two. They closed in.
📍 Scene Change: Rooftop Escape – Moments Later
Zayd leapt over clay barrels, grabbing onto a stone ledge. He ducked behind a terrace cloth as footsteps clattered below. Nimr screeched above, signaling clear sky.
ZAYD (breathing hard):
"Not thieves… enforcers. Someone owns that dye house."
He climbed higher, pulled a reed pen from his sash, and scribbled a coded message in his journal.
At the bottom, he wrote a single word: Sidon.
📍 Scene Change: Courtyard of House al-Yunan – Late Afternoon
Back at his quarters, Zayd scrubbed the dye stains from his skin. As he dried his hands, a servant approached with a folded envelope sealed with a golden jasmine bloom.
LAYLA'S LETTER
"There are threads only the patient weaver can untangle.
A map lies in riddles, and riddles in spice.
Come to the Perfume Street at dawn — not as a merchant, but as a listener.
— L."
Zayd's breath slowed.
ZAYD (to Nimr):
"Not a business invitation… a test."
He folded the letter. Tucked it into his sash. And whispered a line from his own poetry —
ZAYD:
"Some verses aren't meant to be read aloud. Only… to be found."
📍 Closing Narration
As the sun dipped behind the minarets, Zayd understood something:
This wasn't just trade. This was war in silk and spice. And beside it… a woman who offered him neither shield nor sword — only a challenge wrapped in mystery.
And Zayd ibn Suleiman, forged by betrayal and rebirth, smiled. He liked challenges. Especially beautiful ones.
🔜 Next in Chapter 19:
Zayd meets Layla on Perfume Street — where instead of deals, she offers him stories… and asks questions no one else dares. At the same time, the trail of the lion-sigil deepens into foreign ports and false guilds. Nimr senses something in the wind.