Mirage (Mirage #1)(39)

It felt—I couldn’t express how it felt to sit with her and speak in Kushaila. Like slipping back into my old skin. I knew this girl who smiled and talked of her family without bitterness. Who canted her head when the music started in the courtyard and recognized the tune. Who laughed when a boy made a joke for her benefit.

Idris was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. His shoulders were loose and he kept smiling at the Dowager, refilling her tea glass without being asked. Had he been denied this during his visits with Maram?

“I haven’t seen you smile so in a long time, cousin,” Furat said.

He made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I smile all the time.”

“There is smiling,” the Dowager said, lifting her tea glass. “And then there is smiling.”

He lifted a shoulder but ducked his head.

“You are called Amani, yes?” Furat said. I nodded. “Was it you or my cousin I met at the Terminus ball?”

“Me.”

She leaned back, her eyes a little wide. “Consider me suitably impressed,” she said with a laugh. “You were every inch Her Royal Highness.”

I grinned. “Your cousin disagrees.”

She waved a hand. “We are not all looking for the next trap in a waltz.”

“We do not all have reason to be,” Idris chimed in. “But you were very good, Amani. I almost didn’t believe it until your incisive critique of my storytelling abilities.”

“Don’t be so excruciatingly boring, then,” I said, trying not to laugh.

If Husnain were with me he would be having a good time, I thought—he loved laughter and loved it more over tea and good food. He and Idris would get along. At the very least Husnain would enjoy making fun of him for his talentless translations and storytelling.

The Dowager watched us, at last relaxed into her seat, a soft smile on her face.

“You must miss your old life very much,” Furat said carefully. “Your old … self.”

“It has been difficult. More difficult than anything I thought to endure in my life,” I told her honestly. I had not been so relaxed, I realized, since my majority night. “Ouzdad has been a reprieve.”

“A deserved one,” Furat said. “We are happy to have you with us.”

The Dowager rose to her feet with a creak of old bones. Idris rose with her and reached for her cane. She waved him off.

“No,” she said. “The girl. Amani. It’s been some time since I’ve walked the garden.”

He held the cane out to me with a smile. I felt the corners of my mouth rising without my say-so in response. When I rose to my feet and took the cane, he squeezed my arm.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“No gratitude is required for what is freely given,” I said.

“It wasn’t free. I know that.”

For a moment we stared at each other, and I felt warmth flow through me, new and strong.

“Go,” he said at last. “The Dowager is waiting.”





20

I slept soundly that night. I could hear the whistle of wind through the canyon, and the babbling of our courtyard fountain, and a hundred other sounds of a large estate settling into sleep. Sounds largely absent from my wing of the Ziyaana. I woke refreshed before the sun had risen and the palace woke. I didn’t bother waking Tala, and dressed on my own. She would likely have a fit when she realized I’d gone out of my quarters in the simple steel-gray qaftan, with little jewelry, and my hair twisted into a simple braid.

I donned a cloak and made my way through the palace and toward the temple.

The Dihyaan temple was austere when compared to the rest of Ouzdad. Its entrance was an archway carved with script from the Book, borne up by two simple white pillars. The courtyard was laid with simple gray and green marble tiles, with a single stone fountain at its center, and ringed with benches and reed mats. It was lined on three sides by corridors, whose white columns were capped with dark wood. The roof tiles were a bright, cheery green and stood out even in the murky dawn light. It was a legendary structure. Half its walls had been hauled from the wreck of an ancient civil war and to the moon’s surface.

There were no icons here, no murals depicting our leaders or followers. The walls and pillars were carved with old script, verses from our Book, reminders of Dihya and peace and faith. I heard the patter of bare feet against stone, the whisper of robes, the rising murmur of people in prayer. On the other end of the courtyard stood a pair of dark wooden doors, carved with fruit bearing trees: the doors to the zaouia. On the other side of those doors anyone who needed shelter would find it, anyone who needed a place to rest or alms or help would be welcome.

I smelled incense, freshly burned, and the clear sharp scent of the temple itself that emerged from stone and people and worship. I couldn’t make myself enter the temple proper, so I took a seat in the courtyard beneath the awning, and breathed.

For the first time in months I felt something like peace settle over me. The tightness in my chest, in my muscles, unwound. When I exhaled it felt as though a hundred small pebbles fell away. For a sliver of a moment I wasn’t Maram or Amani. I was a girl in a temple, filled with nothing but want and expectation. The sun was rising, and the light carved its way across the courtyard, splitting it between light and shadow. A bird perched on the curved edge of the fountain, warbling at the water as though it might warble back.