Mirage (Mirage #1)(36)

He lowered his gaze to examine the charm again.

“Do you dislike it?” I asked.

“I don’t trust in such things to protect me.”

“Then in what?”

“Myself,” he said, letting it slip from his fingers.

“None of us can survive alone, Idris,” I said.

He watched me for a moment. “You were alone.”

“Not entirely.” My fingers wrapped around the charm. “I had hope.”

“Amani,” he started. I went still. It still felt novel to hear him—anyone—say my name. “I have a request.”

“Yes?”

“I want you to reveal yourself to the Dowager when you meet her today,” he said. “And to Furat. I’ll keep your secret. We all will. But they deserve to know. This is their home.”

I’d already risked my life trusting him with who I was. To tell others was— It didn’t bear thinking on. “You know you ask too much—so why ask at all?”

“The Dowager is as a grandmother to me,” he said. “I love her very much. And she’s suffered a great deal. She is Kushaila, but none of her descendants speak her mother tongue. None of them know the old songs or stories. It’s too dangerous. She has given up her home and her throne to aliens.”

We’d all given our homes over to aliens. That was the state of the world. But most of us had family to comfort us in difficult times, grandparents or grandchildren, friends who’d suffered through the war. We had our language to give us respite and our stories to keep us warm.

The Dowager had none of that. And she hadn’t been queen on a small farm—she’d ruled the world and was now trapped on this moon. I felt my heart soften—a dangerous thing.

“And Furat?”

“Surely you know how Maram feels about her,” he said. “When Maram visits Ouzdad … She hates being here, and she takes it out on Furat. My cousin feels like every moment is a landmine waiting to go off. I want to give her respite from all that.”

He laid his hand over mine and lowered his eyes just a little.

“Don’t do that,” I said with a laugh. “We aren’t in the Ziyaana.”

He grinned and squeezed my hand. “Is that a yes?”

“Has that ever worked with anyone?”

“Amani.”

I resisted the urge to bite my lower lip.

“It’s such a risk,” I said softly.

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

“How gallant,” I said dryly, and his grin widened.

“Is that a yes?” he said again.

“Yes,” I said at last. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me,” he said, his grin near blinding in its brilliance, and kissed my cheek.

I froze, my hand still in his, and stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending. It took him a moment to realize what he’d done. He raised a hand to my cheek, his thumb brushing over the spot he’d kissed.

I didn’t move, nor could I tear my gaze away from his. We seemed balanced on a knife’s edge, in territory I’d warned myself away from. He watched me as closely as I’d watched him, his hand still on my cheek, his eyes locked with mine.

“There you are,” Tala said, out of breath. “I have been looking for you everywhere! You’re expected at the Dowager’s for lunch. Dihya, you’re not even dressed.”

Idris helped me to my feet as Tala waited, but didn’t release my hand when I made to walk away. He looked at me as he had yesterday, as if he meant to find answers in my silence. His fingers were feather light on my cheeks as they drifted down and over my throat. There was a hot, tight feeling in my belly, my fingers itched, and I couldn’t look away from him. The sharpness had gone completely from his gaze, but I liked what had replaced it even less. It was the look of someone gone too far.

It called to its sibling in me, waiting for it to reply.

“Your Highness,” Tala snapped. Even that couldn’t shock us apart.

“You will tell the Dowager today?” he asked, voice low enough that Tala couldn’t hear.

I nodded, still unable to speak. I took a step back but he held fast to my hand.

Idris smiled, and gestured to Tala. “She is becoming impatient.”

I did not look back as I walked away.

*

Tala oiled and combed my hair. I saw her glance at me in concern more than once, but said nothing.

“Shall I braid it in the Gibrani style?” she asked me, setting the comb down.

“What does that mean?”

“Smaller braids, wound with fabric,” she explained.

I nodded.

For a long time the rooms were quiet except for the sound of the comb going through my hair and faint music, strings and drums wafting through the air from a distant corridor. I felt a knot in my chest ease as the moments ticked by. In the Ziyaana it felt as though I spent half my time splitting the world between Maram’s and mine. The lines were never clear, or at least never seemed so to me. I knew part of this was because I could not remove myself from the part I played. Every time I emerged from my room as Maram, I felt more pieces of myself woven into the fabric of Her Highness. But this moment felt as if it belonged to me. Idris knew me now, by name, and soon, the Dowager and Furat would too. The request frightened me; it was a risk, no matter how much I trusted Idris. But a part of me was excited, too, at the thought that more people would know who I really was; that I could be Amani again, that this seed of relief and contentment that Idris had planted could flourish.