***
"Faqir!"
I turned; my eyes landed on a boy—no older than seven, thin as a reed but with eyes that burned like embers.
...Faqir?
The boy grinned, waving me over.
"Come on, Baba! If we don't get there first, old Ahad is gonna sell the best ones!"
I, Malik—or rather, Faqir—felt my legs move on their own, chasing after the boy.
It was a foreign thing, but I could feel the urgency, the excitement, the hunger that twisted deep in my stomach.
We darted through the market, rushing between stalls of fruit and cloth, dodging men carrying heavy sacks over their shoulders.
Every scent, every sound—it was all too real. Too vivid.
This wasn't just some vision. This was a memory.
Faqir's memory.
I felt my mind spin, but my feet kept running, my body moving as though it had done this a thousand times before.
The old baker's stall came into view.
