Mirage (Mirage #1)(19)
I was put in a series of chambers meant to be Maram’s, as opulent and luxurious as anything I’d seen in the Ziyaana. Dark wood and thick fabrics decorated the room. There was a gilded mirror set just above a vanity covered in glittering pieces of jewelry. And at the far end of the room a table bore a tea set, the pot made of precious excelsior, the glasses gilded and traced in gold. Hanging on the armoire was what I was meant to wear tonight.
I was to be the winter queen to Idris’s waning autumn prince. It was a tradition cobbled from Vathek and Atalasian ways. Before the occupation, Atalasia had venerated a series of seasonal monarchs and the Vath had feasted under the eyes of a summer queen on their home world. Now that Andala was the capital of their empire, they had reversed the tradition to ingratiate themselves in the country that fell first on Andala.
I couldn’t resist touching the gown. It looked heavy, silver with wide sleeves, buttoned up to the neck, the skirt shot through with bright white thread and studded with tiny, glittering rocks. They weren’t diamonds, were they? Hung around the waist was something closer to the Kushaila waistband, which ran from just below the chest to low on the hips, made to wrap around more than once. And hanging from the shoulders was a sheer, gauzy cape that was feet longer than the skirt of the dress, studded with embroidered snowflakes.
I’d suffered and trained for this moment, and at last I would have my chance at success. A flutter of nervousness rose in my belly. I was confident of fooling her cousins and courtiers. I was less sure about fooling her fiancé. I’d seen them together—always close, like confidants. The dress wouldn’t be enough to fool him.
I didn’t think Maram really had friends, and if she were believed, her engagement to Idris was a matter of the state and nothing more. Nevertheless, I worried. What did he expect of Maram? And if she’d kept secrets about their relationship from me, how would I manage?
Why would she keep secrets? I thought.
Why did Maram ever do anything?
Tala made sure I ate before she helped me out of the gown I wore and sat me in front of the vanity to do my hair. She braided the ends and twisted them against the back of my head, then caught them in a silver net hung with ornaments shaped like small raindrops. She looped a chain across my forehead, from which a dark blue gem swung. I watched as the face already alien to me grew even more so.
“One last thing,” she said, and lifted a pair of enormous earrings, flattened silver from which hung two smaller gems of the same color.
The end product, with the gown and its cape, was someone who looked as if she’d been born into wealth, someone beautiful, someone sure. I couldn’t help remembering the last time someone had adorned me with beautiful jewelry—my mother, on my majority night—and felt a pang of guilt and longing deep inside my chest.
Tala smiled behind me and squeezed my shoulders. “You can do this,” she said. “I have faith in you.”
I nodded, and set my shoulders. Tonight, I would be Maram before the entire Vathek-Andalaan court.
I could not fail.
*
The Kushaila of Andala didn’t really hold balls, not the way the Vathek did. We held large banquets that went far into the night, where we sang and played instruments and conversed. But Vathek balls involved dancing, and, despite my training, I was nervous. Dancing with a human was different from dancing with a droid.
Idris waited for me in the entryway. His dark hair was dusted with gold, and he wore a Vathek military uniform—black jacket and black trousers—with red trim. His only concession to Kushaila dress was the sash tied around his waist. It pained me to look at him, the leader of the bravest of Andala’s houses, dressed as one of them. Turned into one of them.
He smiled when he saw me. “Your Highness,” he said and held out a hand. “Ready?” I slipped a ringed hand into his, which he squeezed as if he sensed my nerves. My heart pounded a steady rhythm in my chest.
The doors yawned open before the two of us, revealing a balcony that led down to the ballroom floor, and beyond that, a dining area. It was decorated like a winter wonderland with an enormous ice sculpture at the very center of the room of a tesleet rising into the air, wings outspread. Tesleet were creatures of heat, made of fire with molten gold in their veins. Despite the incongruity, its presence comforted me.
“The High Princess of the Vath, Protectress of Andala and her Moons, Maram vak Mathis and her escort, Idris ibn Salih.”
He held my hand tightly as we descended the stairs together. Everyone was dressed in varying shades of gold and silver and blue, and it seemed to me as if the entire cavernous room shimmered with their jewels and the ice and a nervous energy, as though they all expected some axe to fall tonight.
Idris led me immediately to the center of the floor for the inaugural dance we had to lead. Just as the instruments began to play he tugged me against his side and settled a hand on my waist.
“Ready?” he asked again, but this time with a lifted eyebrow, testing me. I didn’t flinch when he leaned in close, and his mouth brushed against my ear. “This can’t be harder than last year, can it?”
He was so close, and I could feel my face warming, which was not like Maram at all. He was far more beautiful in person. His eyes were ringed with thick lashes, and his face—stoic now—looked as if it had been carved out of antiquity. I swallowed my fluster and lifted my chin. A hint of a smile reemerged when I looked up, determined, and the arm around my waist tightened in support. His continued poise in the face of hundreds of court members watching us helped me to remain upright and steady. We stepped easily into the waltz, one step and then another, the trail of my gown whispering against the marble floor. I could hear the music as if through a roar, and the titter of other dancers and members of court watching us. Idris’s hand on my waist was ever present and warm, and every now and then he would lean in close and his hair would brush my cheek.