Mirage (Mirage #1)(10)

I tried to keep my breathing even and my eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. Whatever she had planned, I would not cower. She couldn’t make me.

Maram whistled, a high-pitched, thin sound and lifted her right arm. For the first time I noticed the long leather glove she wore. The sound of wings beat against the air, drawing closer and closer.

To her credit, Maram did not flinch or waver when the roc alighted on her arm. The bird was half her height at least, and when it spread its wings for balance, they spanned as long as she was tall. Its talons and beak were bone white, a stark contrast to the near midnight black of its plumage. It regarded me with one eye, as dark as its feathers, unblinking and fixed on me as if I were prey.

I swallowed.

“Nadine used to tell me stories,” Maram said. She stroked a spot against its chest, and it warbled, an eerie sound from so frightening a creature. “The roc used to be large enough to carry grown men off to feed their nestlings.”

When I met her eyes her smile widened. Fear beat in me, louder than my heart, and drowned everything out. I did not jump when she lifted her arm up and the roc launched itself back into the air, but it didn’t matter. Keeping my composure would not stop what I knew was coming next.

“You will learn a great many things in the Ziyaana,” she said. Her smile was sweet now, nearly congenial. There was a dimple in her left cheek. “Here is your first lesson: do not presume to speak back to me.”

She whistled two short, sharp bursts. The roc cast its shadow from high above as it circled the ceiling, gave out an angry cry, and dove with its wings tucked against its sides.

I could not stop the scream of terror that tore itself out of my throat.

I had seen feral hawks and the like on Cadiz, watched them take down prey and feast with a detached fascination. I had never allied myself with the prey, had never imagined I’d be on the receiving end of claws and beak and terror. You could not be anything like prey and survive our village or our moon.

The roc was silent as its claws slammed and then dug into my shoulders. They clenched, digging into flesh and bone, before it lifted me off my feet and dragged me back several feet. It was not large enough to lift me more than few inches off the ground, but when the earth disappeared from beneath my feet I screamed louder than before.

What little composure I’d had broke when it dropped me on my knees. My majority night gown was soaked through with blood already, and I felt the thick, slow crawl of blood coming out of the wounds. I hunched over on the ground, sobbing.

You learned a different sort of fear when you grew up in a village like mine. Fear of hunger. Fear of Imperial droids. Fear of the low hum that came with Imperial probes. But that fear taught you endurance—you could let its unwavering presence wear you down, or you could learn to stand up despite it.

But there was nothing like this. I’d never experienced the bone-shaking terror that a roc might wing around for a second chance at my flesh. Nor the fear associated with the soft click of slippers on a courtyard floor.

I forced myself to meet her gaze when Maram came to stand over me. This time I could not understand her expression. It was disorienting to look up at her, at myself, and not understand what the different tells I understood on my own face so well meant on hers.

“What a dark, pathetic creature you are,” she said at last.

Despite my wounds, I smiled. “Do you look in a mirror, Your Highness?”

She struck me again and before I could fall over caught me by the shoulder and squeezed. I cried out in pain and she squeezed tighter, looming over me, her face grim.

“You will not laugh in the days to come,” she promised. I said nothing, but I hoped she saw my determination.

She released me and shoved me away with a sound of disgust. She made a gruesome picture now, with her blood-covered fingers and gown.

“The king,” Nadine began, unconcerned with the pair of us, “values his daughter’s life. And too often, of late, she has come under threat. She can rarely leave the Ziyaana for fear of rebel attacks.” I held my tongue, though it seemed little wonder to me that she’d inspired such ire. “The advent of her eighteenth birthday and the confirmation of her inheritance will necessitate more public appearances. Our king has commanded that you will risk your life where she cannot. You will train, and you will become Her Royal Highness. You will speak like her, walk like her. You will even breathe as she does.”

“If I do not?” I asked, trying to keep hold of my disgust.

“You will,” Nadine said.

“Your very life depends on it,” Maram added with a chilling smile.

*

I concentrated on walking, on placing one foot in front of the other, as a droid led me from the courtyard back to the side of the palace where I’d first arrived. We crossed no one, not even other droids. No one to see me, I realized. No one to see my resemblance to Her Highness.

Just when I felt I would collapse, the droid ushered me into a set of chambers where Tala waited, a small table in front of her and a cushioned bed just behind. She shot to her feet, her face ashy and colorless. Her eyes were wide, and her hands shook.

“Dihya,” she breathed, and caught me around the waist as I swayed.

I cried out, pain radiating through my body. When she pulled her hand away, it was covered in blood.

She whispered a rapid prayer in Kushaila, and then helped me down to the bed.

“Thank you, Unit 62,” she said to the droid.