Mirage (Mirage #1)(34)

I’d guessed right; it was a khitaam. I brushed my fingers over his arm, and he flinched, then stiffened.

“I don’t even know what it is,” he said. His voice was hoarse, and his right hand was clenched tightly in his lap. I was seeing him without a mask, without his usual polish and distance. I wanted to avert my eyes, as if I’d caught him in a worse state of undress than when he’d emerged from the water.

I took his arm instead and redirected my gaze to the tattoo. It was beautiful and elaborate, clear despite the abundance of lettering crammed into such a small space.

“It’s a khitaam,” I said. “A royal seal.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Those are usually on your back.”

“They are,” I said. “This was done just after the surrender, wasn’t it?”

He was quiet, staring at the chess board.

“Idris?”

“Yes,” he said. “Just after.”

“They probably put it on your arm to hide it from the Vath. They would be looking for daan and khitaams on your back. But barbaric writing on your arm would go unremarked on.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said.

“You still have it,” I pointed out. “And you’re engaged to the Imperial Heir.”

He had no reply to that.

The seal was split into three parts—the top half was broken in two while the bottom remained whole. I traced the left corner.

“This is ancestry. Descent from an ancient house, always royal.” I smiled. “Half the families claim to be direct descendants of Kansa el Uwla.”

“Mine as well?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, and pressed a finger to the narrow point of that section. “This is her name, here. All the writing flows from her.”

He nodded, as if it made sense.

“Here,” I said, touching the right section, “is your immediate descent. Mother, father, grandmother.”

“Their names? They’re there?”

“Yes,” I said again. His eyes closed. “This bottom half—your name is in the center, here. There’s a Dihyan blessing. These are the hopes of your family—kindness and justice. I think this is for health.”

“Enough,” he said, and tugged his arm out of my grasp. He wasn’t rough or abrupt, though I would not have blamed him. The color had drained from his face, and the tendons in his throat stood out from the tension in his jaw. He scrubbed his hands over his face and raked them through his hair.

“Idris,” I said, and hated that my voice came out so soft. He was not a wild animal I could spook.

He looked so tired with his elbows balanced on his knees, slouched forward as if suddenly bowed beneath the weight of what he’d learned. I shouldn’t have offered, I thought.

“You should know,” I said. “Whoever inked that khitaam for you loves you beyond imagining.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a crime to ink daan or khitaam on royal skin. Someone risked their life so you would always know where you came from.”

I reached for him without thinking, placing my hand over his and leaning in close. He let out a slow breath. For a moment, I was transfixed by the image of our hands, mine covered in henna over his larger one. I’d indulged, despite Maram disdaining the practice. When I looked up he was watching me, his face close to mine, openly curious. I had the feeling he was seeing me as I’d seen him—as me, not the person I had to be as Maram, not the girl in between. His hand turned beneath mine, and our fingers intertwined.

The winged pulse at the bottom of my throat beat its wings faster, hard enough that I could feel it echoing through the rest of me.

“You have given me a gift,” he said when I lifted my eyes to look at him. “I didn’t know I carried them with me. A hazard of having forgotten your mother tongue.”

Don’t stare, I thought. He hadn’t shaved, and he looked more Kushaila for it. Like a boy I could see walking down a road in my village.

He brushed a touch over my cheek and trailed his thumb down to the corner of my mouth. It felt as if he had as little control over his hands as I did.

His hand settled on my neck, and his thumb grazed just over the pulse in my throat. It beat faster, fast and hard enough, I knew, for him to feel it.

“I…” he started.

“Cousin?”

It wasn’t a spell broken, but I saw him remember just as I did where we were. Who we were. We pulled apart easily, without comment or fluster, though I could feel the flutter of my pulse at the base of my throat, like a bird trying to escape.

Furat stood on the steps to the pavilion, smiling as though she’d discovered a secret. When our eyes met, her smile widened.

“Are you teaching her to play shatranj?”

“Teaching her to get better,” he said, and managed a halfhearted smile.

“Were you betting clothes?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

The heat of embarrassment returned twice as strong.

“Yes,” Idris said, managing a real grin, and leaned back on his hands. “I lost the first round.”

“I think,” I said, rising to my feet, pulling Maram’s brusque manner over me like a second skin, “that is all I care to play today.”

Idris didn’t look at me, though his lashes trembled just a moment when I gathered up my book. I—we—were playing a dangerous game. Idris was as Tala had said: beautiful and tragic. But he wasn’t mine, and there was no world or reality where he ever could be.