Mirage (Mirage #1)(20)

The dance ended with Idris bowed over my hand. The only sounds I could hear were of my earrings swaying and my heart pounding in my chest. The rest of the room came to me in flashes: people clapping; a mix of Andalaan and Vathek courtiers passing us by; Idris’s frown, there and then gone in a second; and Nadine’s watchful eyes from where she stood on a riser, observing me.

“Ah,” Idris said, and settled a warm hand on my waist again. “Here comes your most ardent admirer.” His hair brushed against my cheek and for a moment I could not help staring, he was so close.

“Your Highness,” someone said from behind me. Remember why you are here, I told myself, and turned around. Maram’s smile was reserved for a precious handful of her cousins, and she’d been sure to educate me on just how much of her goodwill was spread through court so that I wouldn’t accidentally compliment one of her disliked peers.

“Corypheus,” I murmured as the Vathek man bowed over my hand. It was not difficult to imitate the barely veiled disdain Maram had expressed toward him. I was hard pressed not to wipe my hand on my skirts when he released me at last. “You remember my fiancé, His Grace of the Banu Salih.”

“Yes, of course,” he said and straightened. It seemed Maram’s lip curl was a trait shared by all her distant kin. “The Upstart.”

I bristled, but held my tongue when Idris tightened his grip around me.

“How are your holdings faring, Cor?” Idris asked.

The vak Aphelion family held the oldest excelsior mine on Vaxor, the planet around which their own terraformed moon orbited. But its source was thinning after many centuries of mining. They were close to their end if the king continued to ignore their emptying coffers.

Corypheus, for his part, looked furious. Two red spots flamed to life on his cheeks. I said nothing because Maram would have said nothing. She enjoyed watching Corypheus twist in the wind. He’d had hopes, she told me, that his family could finagle an engagement out of the king. But nothing had come, and he’d become increasingly desperate.

At last, he turned his eyes back toward me. “May I have a dance, Your Highness?”

There was some satisfaction in letting Maram’s smirk settle on my face.

“You may not,” I said.

The bright spots on his cheeks grew brighter in embarrassment, a sight, I thought, Husnain would have enjoyed seeing. All the Vath we’d seen in our village had evidenced a terrifying emotionlessness. To see one so worked up—and at my doing—would have felt like a small, irrational victory.

“Shall we?” I added, turning to Idris, and closed the door on the image of my brother’s face.

Idris tucked my hand into his elbow, his grin barely contained. “Of course. We owe the vak Castels felicitations for their marriage.”

I felt as though I were walking on air as we made our way around Corypheus and to another cluster of young nobles. Theo, the vak Castel scion, held out his hands for me, a welcoming smile on his face.

“Cousin,” I said, and let him pull me close and kiss my cheeks in the Kushaila way, one on my left cheek and two on my right. Theo was seldom on Andala, but he and Maram had spent a great deal of time together on Luna-Vaxor. A younger son, he’d been as at the mercy of their large horde of relatives as she had.

I let Idris take the lead, interrupting only to murmur pleasantries with as much of Maram’s distaste as I could manage. Few of Maram’s Vathek cousins had love for her, though as far as I could tell, they were good at pretending. At one point during the conversation, I looked up to Idris to gauge how I was doing. His smile was warm and open, indulgent, and he brushed a stray curl of hair behind my ear. His fingers stayed there for a moment before he linked our hands.

I said nothing, but my heart beat a fast rhythm. Idris was a practiced actor, that much was obvious. But Maram and Idris’s engagement was a matter of the state, not the heart. He didn’t love her—did he? Did he know her well enough to know an impostor?

I tugged my hand out of his without comment and tucked it into the crook of his arm. He said nothing; his conversation with Theo didn’t miss a beat.

“Another dance?” Idris asked, though it sounded closer to a command than a suggestion. He was already stepping close when I looked up at him. He was very tall, I realized suddenly, more than a head taller than me, with broad shoulders that dwarfed my frame.

I had not realized how much I had missed looking into faces I understood, faces that looked like my kin. Some of Maram’s attendants were Andalaan, but in my new day-to-day life, I was surrounded by droids and Nadine. Save for Tala and the few times I’d listened in on Maram’s small court, I’d been deprived of this—of the comfort of familiarity. Though I knew, viscerally, that there was nothing transparent about him, there was something instantly calming in his features.

Be careful, I reminded myself. There were few within and without the Ziyaana who knew Maram better than Idris. He was engaged to her, and not a dissident but a lord in the Vathek court. He looked like my kin—he was not. He was just as Vathek as the rest.

“Yes,” I murmured, and held myself carefully as he wrapped an arm around my waist and linked our hands with the other.

As we moved through the steps to the complicated dance, I barely heard our conversation, so focused was I on the movement. Any missed step could reveal me. Idris’s hands burned like fire where he touched me, constant reminders that the slightest error would be noticed. But the weeks of lessons didn’t fail me. My body knew its way through the dance, even as my mind whirled.