The air shimmered with the heat of the African sun
The air shimmered with the heat of the African sun as bells chimed from the harbor’s Zoroastrian temple. Tanit’s marketplace was electric—a frenzied mosaic of traders, warships in dry dock, and diplomats peddling alliances like trinkets. In the heart of it all, Lysana adjusted her camel-colored fibula-clasped palla, the shimmering silk rippling down her tall frame. It was tailored not in the loose robes of the Carthaginian elite, but in a style oddly regimented—an anomaly, even within the eclectic city. Her fit tunic underneath, black as the obsidian traded in Carthage’s shadows, bore woven patterns that whispered secrets of distant empires. Around her neck: a hammered gold crescent-shaped torque, its spikes subtle yet sharp—both a warning and a statement. She carried no slave to bear her things, no guard to watch her back, just a small onyx-studded satchel slung close to her hip. In this moment, amid the chaos of merchants and sailors, she was invisible, though few women like her ever stayed unnoticed for long.
“Five hundred scrolls of papyrus. Guaranteed not to rot with the damp air of Britannia,” a Sumerian scribe boasted nearby. The words barely registered. Lysana’s dark eyes scanned the crowd with methodical precision, mirroring the disciplined temperament beneath the elegance of her ensemble. She was here for one thing—the stolen tablets of Melqart—and nothing, not even her beating heart, could distract her. That’s what she told herself, anyway, as a tall Numidian emerged from the crowd.
The man’s appearance hit her like a sea storm. Folded across one shoulder was an indigo-dyed himation, which he wore with the confidence of a battlefield aristocrat. His arms were etched with scars, marks of a life spent carving history in the wastelands. The dagger on his hip gleamed menacingly in the golden light. For a fraction of a second, their gazes met, and the market fell away. She knew that piercing stare—the one that simultaneously saw through you and chiseled your armor apart. Hannibal.
Lysana turned on her leather heels, her coat-like palla fanning dramatically as she blended into the crowd. She maneuvered between Macedonian mercenaries inspecting wares and Phoenician priestesses praying over salt. Above her, the smell of garum mingled with the metallic odor of loose gold. Yet Hannibal moved after her with the inevitability of an avalanche, his heavy sandals crunching over sandstone till they fell into rhythm with hers.
In the midst of the square, she paused by an olive trader, debris-strewn barrels casting shadows where the heat couldn’t penetrate. She kept her back to him, but she could feel his presence like an ember at her shoulder. She wouldn’t run. She’d long since learned to weaponize the arrogance of men who thought women with bright fabrics didn’t carry daggers. Lysana adjusted her torque, fingers brushing quickly against the hidden stylus needle tucked into the folds. She prayed she wouldn’t spill blood today.
“Still wearing your insignia of Tyre. A bold choice for someone lying low,” Hannibal said in flawless Punic. His voice was a lion’s purr, soft yet betraying untamed power.
Lysana slowly turned, her smile venomous and mocking. “And you, Hannibal, still wear the arrogance of someone better off dead.”
He smirked, though not with humor. “You’ve always been clever, but clever doesn’t explain why you’ve decided to honor Carthage with your return. The Magonid family thought you expired…” He gestured to her stretched out palla, “…but now you’re stirring the dust and don’t even attempt disguise this iteration. You flaunt tan, by gods—contemptuous girl.”
“What do you want?” she snapped, adjusting one of the stud earrings hidden by her plaited black hair. Her heart pounded, threatening to unravel centuries of discipline honed at establishing calculated detachment.
“I want what’s owed,” Hannibal replied. “The courts won’t honor property returned unless fast proof proactively honors us via naval lorded intermediary estates. You turned tablets tied clandestinely never resurface. What eclipses truth Lysan brother grapes wimps chained far-typed ancient magical/navy database
The Source…check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Sleek Camel Coat and Black Outfit for Autumn: Modern Urban Chic Fashion with Timeless Elegance
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