Mirage (Mirage #1)(37)

There was a bower of incense on a table, newly lit, and its smoke rose into the air, curling lazily, its path lit by late-morning sunlight.

“Tala?”

She hummed.

“What happened to Idris’s parents?”

She paused in her braiding, and met my eyes in the mirror again. “You don’t know?” Her fingers began to move again.

“A farmer’s daughter from a backwater moon, remember?”

Her smile faded quickly. “You remember the second siege of Walili?” I nodded. “The Salihis—Idris’s family—led it. There were others, of course, but before the occupation they were the great military strength of the world. When they took a stand, it meant something.”

“They died during the siege?”

Tala shook her head. “They surrendered after Queen Najat died, to honor her last wishes. But we all knew that Mathis wouldn’t pardon them. He’d never exercised mercy, and it was early yet in the regime. It couldn’t stand.”

I nodded again, understanding, as dread welled up inside me. Whoever survived the siege would have inked the khitaam into Idris’s skin, knowing that a worse storm was on the horizon. That the Imperial Garda might come, that another war could break out, that Mathis would enact an irreversible cruelty.

“There was no trial. No warning. A year passed. And then one night Vathek forces stormed the strongholds of all the dissident families, pulled them from their beds, and shot them.”

My heart gave a single, painful thud. The Purge.

“Idris survived?”

“Idris was allowed to live,” Tala corrected. “Anyone who survived the Purge did so to serve as a reminder to everyone else.”

“He couldn’t have been more than—”

“He was ten,” Tala interrupted, tying a bright red ribbon at the end of a braid. Old enough to remember. Not the haze of knowing you’ve experienced something, but memory, bright and sharp in his mind. And in my ignorance I’d stirred up those memories. I’d given him a bittersweet taste of what he’d lost. His heritage, yes, but his heritage bound up in blood and misery.

It felt as though I’d discovered a bruise over my own ribs, new and tender, soft and waiting for blood to break through.

“Amani?”

I blinked, and focused, looking at Tala in the mirror. My bottom lip was caught between my teeth, red from worrying. She watched me with concern and a measure of her usual censure. The final braid was tied off, and she twisted the collection together into a bun low at the back of my head. Red ribbons fluttered and wove through it, and over it she draped a silver net hung with small coins. She rose from behind me and came to sit beside me.

“You cannot fix this,” she said, taking hold of my chin. “Do you understand? He is not yours to help—he belongs to another.”

“I know,” I said, rising from the vanity. How much was writ on my face for her to see? I supposed it was not a difficult guess to make.

Tala was silent as I dressed. It was only when I stood in front of the mirror and caught my expression that I understood her concern. I looked dazed, my kohl-lined eyes wide, my bottom lip red from worrying. I didn’t recognize the girl, as near to love struck as I’d ever been, staring back at me. When I looked at Tala she shook her head.

“Amani,” Tala called as I began to make my way down to the Dowager’s. She looked truly worried. “Stop. While you can.”

I thought of Idris’s hand over mine and felt something tighten painfully in my chest. Even if I could, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to.

Tala’s gaze didn’t leave my face, so at last I nodded and continued on.





19

I paced in front of the entrance to the Dowager’s wing of the palace. The Dowager’s quarters were in the far end of Ouzdad, their back walls flush against the canyon wall. To enter them, a person had to pass through an enormous pair of doors that sealed the entire wing off from the rest of the palace. Like much of the palace, they were beautiful, but they stood out for the paintings framing the doors. A pair of tesleet, each with a single wing extended, stood guard. The feathers in their wings glimmered, shining in jeweled tones: green, red, blue, purple, and their heads were crowned with white feathers.

Idris appeared behind me, silent as a shadow, and caught my wrist. I’d twisted my fingers into the chain of my necklace without realizing it, but even that couldn’t distract me. We were both quiet as he untangled the chain from around my fingers.

His voice was low as he said, “Thank you for doing this. I know you’re risking a lot. But I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

I nodded without looking up. “I know. It’s not any less—I still worry.”

The Dowager didn’t rise when we entered, but Furat did. I eased myself onto a floor cushion, and a moment later Idris and Furat followed suit. The Dowager didn’t shift her gaze from the open window or greet either of us.

Itou bint Ziyad’s resemblance to her granddaughter, to me, had shocked me into silence. The angular sweep of her chin, the wide mouth, the eyes framed by wrinkles. She could have been my grandmother, we resembled one another so.

I was still staring at her when she looked up and caught my eye. It was difficult not to flinch away from the look on her face—age and grief weighed heavily on her and I couldn’t tell if she always looked this way, or if she only ever seemed so when Maram was around. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for either Maram or the Dowager. One to be confronted with proof of her failure to defend her people, and the other with how much her grandmother must see her as a representation of that failure.