Mirage (Mirage #1)(14)

And again and again.

*

With my physical transformation complete, Nadine doubled down on my training. In the days that followed, I spent my mornings being tested by Nadine or being taught to dance by a droid, then retreated to my quarters in the afternoon to study. I spent hours frantically memorizing names and facts and histories. After lunch I met Nadine again for behavioral lessons. More often than not, Maram attended these sessions.

This morning, it appeared, I wasn’t worth either of their attention. Perhaps Nadine was too impatient to deal with me and my painfully slow progress. In any case, I was being trained by nothing more than a droid.

“Let us begin,” it said, “with the old families of the Ziyaana. Recite.”

“There are five great houses who have resided in the Ziyaana for four hundred years,” I began.

It rapped a hand against the wall. “No,” it said. “As Her Highness. We have no interest in your knowledge; only in how well you can imitate.”

I swallowed around an angry reply. I had been at these lessons for two weeks now, and I still could not affect the haughty tone the princess used, despite my life depending on it. Despite everything I felt no closer to being a stand-in for Maram. I lacked something that resided so deeply in the princess—her arrogance and pride rendered her voice as it was. I had none of that—and I didn’t even know where to begin pretending that I did.

I straightened my shoulders, lifted my chin, and continued. The sun was high in the sky, and I could see the heat wavering in the air outside the palace dome. Most of the Ziyaana was taking its midday slumber.

“There are four houses,” I began again. “Ziyad, of whom I am a direct descendant. Pledged to them are Agadaan, Ouij, and Fars. There are the Banu Salih, of whom my fiancé is the last. Pledged to them are Mellas and Azru.”

The droid rapped against the wall again, a horrific tic-tic-tic that reminded me of spiders rushing their way across the floor.

“You have failed to meet her vocal register,” it said.

“I don’t know what that means,” I snapped, finally giving in to anger.

A giggle rent its way through the air. It made my whole body stiffen in fear.

Maram carried her bejeweled slippers in one hand. Her dark hair spilled around her shoulders, a gorgeous torrent of curls threaded with gold. Today she wore a deep blue gown, and, like her hair, it too was threaded with gold. Between the two of us, I realized with a churn of envy, she was the more beautiful. Logically, I knew we were now identical. But round-cheeked, flushed with delight, the corner of her mouth turned up just so, she seemed leaps and bounds above me.

“I don’t know why anyone should expect you to be successful,” she said. “What does a lowly village girl know about being a royal princess?”

The droid, ever dutiful, stuck a finger against my neck and zapped me, a sharp electric shock to remind me to sink to my knees before her.

I kept my eyes on the ground—Maram’s moods were as difficult to predict as desert storms. But I remembered my mother’s stoic face, my disappeared crown of Dihya. Whatever Maram thought she could do to me, I could endure. I would endure and survive. I wouldn’t let her break me. No matter how hard she tried.

When I looked up again, she was watching me with a curious look on her face. As if she found my existence as strange as I found hers. Our eyes met and a cold mask slipped over her features.

“Do not gawk, village girl,” she said, voice soft. “It is unbecoming.”

*

As the weeks passed and my training continued, my fear did not abate, but neither did my determination. My only hope for freedom lay in excelling in what they asked me to do—a failing village girl would incur their wrath. A successful one might be allowed enough freedom for a chance to escape. As the days passed, my will did to my voice what pride did for Maram: deepened it, made it ring with frigidity whenever I spoke. My vowels firmed, the ends of my sentences turned clipped, the words that might have been raised as questions were now enunciated as demands. I became so used to being shocked between my shoulder blades or rapped on my ankles that my back was constantly straight, my head high. Besides, it was easier to avoid Maram’s gaze if my chin lifted just so, my line of sight falling just over her shoulder.

Together, these things made me into a better copy of her, and as some of the wounds inside me scarred over, I began to succeed.

Maram watched me with mute fascination as I sank to my knees at the end of our daily meeting and flicked the folds of my gown so that they were spread out behind me like a bird’s fanned tail. The droid stood beside her, its eyes hooded, whirring softly in warning.

“You’re quite the little princess, aren’t you?” she said. I remained silent. “Do I ever look so demure, Nadine?”

“Only before your father,” the stewardess replied. “Which is to the good. I imagine she will not kneel for anyone else.”

“Do you think she’ll pass?”

“She should certainly hope so,” Nadine said, and my fingers curled in the folds of my gown. “For her own sake.”

There was a rustle of fabric, and then Maram’s fingers under my chin, tilting my head up as she so often did. She wore an expression I’d seen more and more often on her face of late. Curious, contemplative, with an edge.

“I wonder which of us is more cursed,” she said, soft enough that Nadine would not hear. “You for looking like me, or I for looking like my mother?”