The Promise Debt

The smell of wet earth always made Amina think of the fields where she used to play with Bashir. They had been no more than children when her father agreed she would marry him. She had been ten, he twelve, the son of Alhaji Musa, a man whose word in the village carried more weight than the chief's. The arrangement was not about love; it was about the debt that had chained her father's pride for years.

"You will be safe with Bashir," her mother had whispered that night, her voice a mix of reassurance and resignation.
Safe. That word would take on strange meanings in the years to come.