by Somaiya Daud
“About what?”
“Before the wedding I returned to Al Hoceima,” he started, voice soft. “There was a family who’d come from an oasis close to the city. The Vath poisoned the water to drive them out. They brought their daughter’s body—she was five. Maybe six. There was … nothing we could do. We could not demand reparations. We couldn’t purify the water. Nothing.”
The grief twisting his voice was palpable, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching to twine my fingers in his hair. I had never seen him cry, and he did not do so now, but his eyes glimmered.
“I cannot bear the guilt. And yet we are powerless. Paralyzed by fear.” He paused and swallowed. “Except you. You are not.”
He clasped my hand and rose to his feet. “I regret every day that you must think me a coward. Worse, that I have behaved as one.”
“You are not a coward,” I told him, bringing his face to mine. “Fear is natural.”
“But what I do in the face of fear determines the man I will be,” he replied. “And I will not kneel to it anymore.”
I searched his face as joy rolled through me. “You mean—”
“I will help you in whatever way you need,” he said.
The tentative joy flowered and surged through me.
“Idris—”
“It’s not only that I love you, Amani,” he said. “I love this world—and I cannot be a prince and stand idly by.”
Here then, I thought, was the boy I knew. Kind and brave, stubborn, who understood the weight of the world as it lay on his shoulders. I felt, in that moment, all the love and desire I’d ever experienced with him, churning through me, pressing against my fingertips. The Vath had taken enough from us, I thought as his lips brushed mine. They could not have this, too. He was mine as I was his, and we would stand together no matter what.
“Tell me to go,” he murmured.
“No,” I said, burying my fingers in his hair. His mouth was hard on mine, and his hands tightened around my ribs—I felt as if my breath had been stolen from me.
I could not track our movements between standing and reclining on the divan. I knew only that my heart seemed to beat so hard it would rend itself in two. That my skin felt hot and tight, and that wherever I touched him the fire spread. I had seen such a fire once when I was a child in the mountains. A small ember, barely the size of my littlest finger’s nail, blown up by the wind, touched one tree—it took seconds for it to be engulfed in flame. And so too I felt with Idris’s shirt first in my hands and then on the floor, and my jacket and gold belt beside it. His lips were on my jaw, beneath my ear, on my throat.
The world narrowed to the two of us, and the expanse of skin spread out over me, and his hands on my calves and then my thighs. The soft murmur of his voice in my ear and his mouth against mine, my fingers wound in his hair. Every moment we’d been together and every moment we’d been apart came to bear on me, and I don’t know where we might have gone if not for the bells signaling the end of the Mawlid.
“Wait,” I gasped. “Wait!” He froze, forehead pressed against my collarbone, shoulders heaving.
“Wait?” he asked, looking down at me.
I felt a new, deeper flush work itself over my still too-warm body. He looked wild, flushed, his hair mussed by my hands. And then he grinned, as if he understood the tenuous grip I had on my control.
“Wait?” he repeated, and pressed a kiss against my shoulder.
“Idris—”
Another kiss where my shoulder met my throat. The curve of my jaw. The corner of my mouth. I struggled to sit up and felt my gown slip from my shoulders. He’d undone the ties on the back.
“Dihya.”
“Indeed,” he said, still grinning. He sat back, reclined on his hands, easy and beautiful and all too aware of his effect.
“Put on your shirt,” I said, coming to my feet. He didn’t. Instead he drew me back onto the divan and did up the laces on the back of my dress slowly, as if he relished every time his knuckles brushed against my spine. When he was done he put his arms around me and pressed a kiss into my hair.
“I missed you, Amani,” he murmured.
He would have to leave soon. As a concession to the Vathek courtiers there was a ball later in the evening. He would have to be present beside Maram—a united, married front. For just a moment I let myself close my eyes and lean back against his chest.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered.
“I didn’t want to marry her,” he said. “And I don’t think she wanted to marry me.”
I sighed. “I know. But—”
“But the Vath watch us always,” he finished for me.
I turned around in his arms and for a moment I could only stare. He still hadn’t put his shirt on, nor had he fixed his hair. He looked, I realized with a start, like a prince out of antiquity. Browned by the sun, too clever for his own good, and well aware of it. He grinned at me as if he knew the progression of my thoughts; as if he were well prepared to take them to their logical conclusion.
“Focus,” I said.
“I am focusing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “On the wrong things.” I continued, softening my voice. “We cannot be together if the cost is other people’s lives. The legitimacy of your marriage to Maram secures Vathek rule. And it is what has brought many of the makhzen to her side. She needs you.” I pulled away from him and came to my feet. “Maram still expects all of that. She needs all of that.”
“What if we agreed to not be married?” he said. “Hear me out—I am more than happy to supply her with all of those things, and support her claim to the throne. But we—all three of us—deserve to be happy. Even if we have to hide it from the world for a little while longer.”
“You would do that?” I asked. I knew it was a silly question. If our roles had been reversed, I would have done the same.
He came to stand in front of me and rested his hands on my shoulders. “When the new world order rises, Amani, I mean to be with the woman I love.”
26
Idris returned to take his place among the makhzen, and I returned to planning. We were only a few days away from Qarmutta and the end of the tour. To that end, I needed to secure the tablet from Nadine, which I had not yet done, despite handing her a second name. I knew what she did—she would take everything she could from me while using the information to assert power over what little of Maram’s household she could and keeping me from what I’d asked her for. But I couldn’t afford to wait for very much longer, and so I handed Tala a note to give to Nadine and waited.
It took her little time to arrive. Though she would never admit it, being locked out of the princess’s circle of power stung a great deal. She relished the little information she could siphon off of me, though I was sure she had an extended network of her own.
The doors to the chambers opened and I sank to my knees, as practiced as ever.
“My lady,” I murmured.
For long seconds she said nothing, and at last I looked up and went cold. I’d missed the soft whirring sound the imperial droids made. This one was a model I’d not yet encountered—the distinctive metallic fan spread out over its skull was in place, but it had four arms instead of the regular two. It was not a defense droid—its thin, sharp fingers ended in hooks on one hand, and I could see that one of its arms was denser, as if it hid yet more tools in its hollow tube.
An interrogation droid.
I stared at it, frozen.
“Did you imagine you could outsmart me?” Nadine said softly.
“Outsmart you, my lady?” I said, not bothering to steady my voice. I had to be surprised. I had to be frightened. She could not guess at what I did.
“Are you a mimic, now?” she said, coming closer.
My eyes didn’t move from the interrogation droid—the fear of that, at least, was real. I’d heard the stories of what they were capable of; sophisticated enough in their engineering that they could keep you alive even as you suffered excruciating pain.
> “My lady … why…?” My eyes darted from the droid to Nadine and back again.
“Why?” she repeated. “Because Andalaans, and Kushaila in particular, are vipers. Don’t think I trust you.”
“I—” I paused and swallowed against a weight in my throat. “I have no desire to deceive you, my lady. I think only of my family.”
“Yes,” Nadine said thoughtfully, and the droid moved forward. “What would you do for your family, Amani? Is there a limit to it? Would you do anything?”
My eyes widened and I stumbled back. “Please—”
The droid lurched suddenly, the movement too fast for my eyes to follow. Its fingers wrapped around my throat and between one breath and the next I was suspended in midair. My vision filled with spots, my throat ached, my heart pounded. Nadine could not kill me—she couldn’t. And yet I hadn’t counted on her hatred of me and my race outweighing her sense.
It wasn’t until the droid released me and I collapsed on the ground that I realized I’d clawed at its fingers around my throat as a matter of survival. I kept my face down as I tried to drag in as much air as possible. If Nadine saw my eyes, she would see hatred instead of fear and all would be lost.
“What have I done,” I rasped, “to incur your wrath, my lady?”
“Yes,” she said archly. “What have you done? Tell me.”
“I have given you six men and women—two among them Andalaan—working against the crown,” I said, looking up at last. My hand was still around my throat. “Have I not shown deference?”
“Curious that you do not say loyalty.”
“Would you believe me?” I asked softly. “I want to see my family. I have debased myself for it. What more would you ask of me?”
“You think yourself very clever, don’t you, Amani?”
I trembled and my eyes closed as she trailed a hand over my cheek, her nails gentle against my skin. The threat was clear: she would gouge my skin if provoked. I said nothing, but a tear rolled down my cheek. I had come too close to my end today. My fear was real.
“What do you imagine you have discovered for me today?”
I blinked rapidly and forced myself to focus.
“I want a promise—”
“Remember your place,” she snapped. The droid whirred, its two lower arms widening.
“You’re threatening to kill me,” I said, my voice still low. “I need to be alive if I’m to see my family.”
And just like that, some of the tension eked out of her.
She doesn’t know, I could see her thinking. How could she know when she is foolish and young and too Kushaila to be clever?
“It is impossible to take you to them,” she said carefully.
“I only want a recording,” I replied, voice soft. Let her see, then, the demure and frightful village girl.
A nod, sharp and hard.
“The information, girl.”
“Izaara bint Brahim,” I said. “A spy in the hills of Qarmutta.”
Every meeting I’d waited with the small gel-like tab pressed against my thumb, waiting to connect it to the tablet. It was not a thing anyone would expect a handmaiden—kidnapped victim of the Vath or not—to have. It was a hacker’s tool. As far as Nadine was concerned, there was no reality where I might procure such a thing and use it against her. When she withdrew the tablet from a clip on her waist I remained perfectly still, waiting. She held it out, then pulled it back before I could reach for it.
“You understand,” she said, her voice severe. “If your information is wrong, your family will pay for it. You will pay for it.”
I looked up at her from under my lashes. She wasn’t bluffing. I thought perhaps if she found my information to be wrong that she would hunt my family down, no matter the cost. All to make a point to me. And then … then the droid would return.
“I understand,” I said softly.
“Next time,” she said, and my eyes widened.
“Next time?” I said, unable to control my rage.
“This is your fault, girl,” she said, smiling. “Had you not meddled I would not need to barter. And I will not give you what you want only to lose what I need.”
Her hand trailed over my cheek.
“Another name, girl,” she said. “Who can say what will happen between now and then.”
* * *
Nadine left and I remained motionless, still on my knees. Fury roiled inside me. At Nadine but at myself, as well. I had counted on every aspect of her personality, except her cruelty. She enjoyed toying with those beneath her as a cat toyed with a mouse. And she had relished my fear and despair as much as she had relished the new and heady power the names I’d given her had bought. She would never give me the recording, and therefore I would never secure the tablet.
Dihya.
I closed my eyes and breathed. I needed it. We needed it. There was no new world without it, no dawn for justice. I swore and slammed my fist against the ground. She had to give up the tablet. She had to—
My eyes widened. There was someone who could force her to give it up. Someone who didn’t need permission and would not be trapped by games or manipulations.
Maram.
She wouldn’t agree to taking the tablet unless I told her the truth. And if I told her the truth—what then? The last time she’d learned I was a rebel had destroyed our friendship. But this time, this Maram, was changed. She was at the precipice of understanding what was necessary.
She only needed a push.
27
We had crossed the Bay of Ghufran and come to its titular port city. Ghufran was a beauty and a wonder with its colorful buildings, and its bright-green-and-gold palace facing the bay. It was not only a seaport but a spaceport as well, and even after the sunset I could hear the whirr and hum of sky-cars and stellar transports landing in the airfields just beyond its walls. The sky was dark but the city itself looked like its own firmament, silver and gold, with lights flickering on the surface of the bay, reflecting the city back to itself.
The good will from the Mawlid celebrations still lingered, and so Maram took a chance and included more Vathek courtiers in her immediate party. In Ghufran they visited the ports, and she and Idris christened a new spacefaring vessel. As the tour progressed, invitations had begun rolling in from makhzen families that, in the past, had done their best to avoid the eyes of the crown. It exhausted Maram, and so for a day we switched. I’d encouraged her to take her place among the makhzen, for they loved her and now she could see it. But I took the opportunity—I didn’t know when I would be able to see Ghufran, or look upon its beautiful bay, or see its crystalline towers again.
I stood now on the royal balcony facing the bay, just as the sun set and lit its surface on fire. One of the men we’d met today said that on the moons of Balor when the sun rose the surface of its oceans caught flame. I did not believe him, but looking at the bay I thought perhaps such an illusion existed.
It was quiet as I left the balcony and returned to the main bedchamber. The bed was raised on a dais to the left, and the rest of the room was taken up with a sitting area. Serving girls were still preparing the room for bed, and all paused and bent their knees when I entered. I waved a hand, allowing them to return to work, and made my way to a seat by the fire.
I was so absorbed in my thoughts I didn’t hear the serving girls leave or Idris return. I jumped when he laid a hand on my shoulder.
“Sorry,” I said as he sat down beside me. “Where were you?”
He grinned sheepishly and I rolled my eyes. There was hay on his clothes.
“Talking to your horse, I take it?”
“If you rode him—”
“Not even if it were your dying wish,” I said with a laugh. “That horse respects one master, and it is you. I won’t risk such a thing.”
“Maybe.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes a second time. There was no “maybe” to be had about Al-Hays—Idris had barely broken him, and he would tolerate no other rider.
“Why are you so enamored of the horse?”
“Is it silly to say he reminds me of my brother’s mount?”
My smile softened and I reached out to touch his hand. “No. That’s not silly.”
He turned his hand over so that our fingers were linked together, and for a little while neither of us said anything.
“Shall we play a game?” he asked, gesturing to a shatranj board. It was set up in mid-play, on a table on the other side of the room. I nodded and waited while he brought the board over and set it on the cushion between us, then rearranged the pieces.
We were quiet as we began to play and fell into our rhythm. But not even shatranj was enough to distract me from the way my thoughts whirled.
“Amani?”
I looked up from the board, distracted. “Yes?”
“Do you miss your family?”
My eyes widened in surprise. “What?”
“Sorry—I know the answer is yes. You don’t talk about them.”
I swallowed around a sudden lump in my throat. “It’s easier not to. That’s all.”
“Tell me about them.”
For the first time I realized that perhaps Idris would get to meet my family. That brought a surprised grin to my face. “Husnain will probably hate you at first.”
His eyebrows flew up in shock and I laughed. “What have I done?”
“Nothing,” I assured him. “Although—well, it’s different from the last time. Maybe he won’t.”
“Last time?” he said, his voice choked.
“I was young,” I said, voice calm.
“You were young,” he repeated in the same tone he’d used when he objected to my offering up the necklace in competition. “You will have to tell me the story from the beginning.”
I was still grinning. I had been young—or rather, younger. Fifteen, in the first flushes of adolescence, exhilarated at what a smile might yield. And then of course horrified that anyone would take that smile too seriously.
“He worked in a bookshop in the capital,” I said, lifting a shoulder dismissively. “I didn’t think it was possible he was serious, and then he was, and instead of going to my parents I went to my brother.”
