And when she did feel herself faltering, she thought of Zalmai, from whom she had taken the love of his life,
whose days now would be shaped by the sorrow of his father's disappearance.
And then Mariam's stride steadied and she could walk without protest. An armed man approached her and told her to walk toward the southern goalpost.
Mariam could sense the crowd tightening up with anticipation. She did not look up.
She kept her eyes to the ground, on her shadow, on her executioner's shadow trailing hers.
Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for the most part had been unkind to her.
But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.
She wished she could see Laila again, wished to hear the clangor of her laugh,
to sit with her once more for a pot of chai and leftover halwa under a starlit sky.
She mourned that she would never see Aziza grow up, would not see the beautiful young woman that she would one day become,
would not get to paint her hands with henna and toss noqul candy at her wedding.
She would never play with Aziza's children. She would have liked that very much, to be old and play with Aziza's children.
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