Mirage (Mirage #1)(44)

Don’t let your thoughts stray so, I told myself. There was no future for us together. Any and every end I imagined for the two of us was one mired in tragedy. No matter how beautiful or kind Idris was, he was not mine. And yet the happiness that had taken root in my heart refused to listen. I watched him as he watched me, caught and unable to look away.

I turned around just as he lost his balance on the ledge. I watched it as if in slow motion: his realization, his hand reaching out, his fingers grabbing the mantle. I hadn’t counted on his weight or his strength, so when he pulled me along with him, I screamed.

I fell into the pool with a splash. Somehow, it seemed, the water had gotten colder since I’d pulled my feet out. It was only knee deep, and after flailing and struggling against Idris I managed to right myself onto my feet. Idris followed suit a few seconds later. We stared at one another in shock, bedraggled and soaked to the bone. His clothes stuck to him now like a second skin, and when I looked down at myself—

I groaned. Tala would be so angry when she saw me. Simple as the blue qaftan was, it was ruined. When I looked up at Idris again he was grinning.

“What?” I snapped. I was wet and uncomfortable and his delight did nothing to help.

“Nothing, you just—” He laughed. “You look very angry. Come on, there’s a spot we can dry off.”

He led me away from the cliff ledge and down to the beach itself. It was warmer on the beach, below the open cavern ceiling, and the sun had fully risen, turning the lake a brilliant turquoise. The water rushed and pulled away from the shore with the soft shushing noise the orbs had made on our way here. There was a flat, wide rock a few feet away and that was where Idris led me. I stretched out the mantle against it, hoping it would dry quickly, and sighed.

A moment later there was a wet plop and when I looked up Idris had removed his shirt. In the morning light, his wet hair and skin seemed to glimmer. The khitaam on his arm looked bolder and darker than it had the last time I’d seen it. He looked at it as if remembering and then looked at me. His eyes widened a little and he froze, as if he hadn’t expected to catch me staring.

I should have looked away. But I was tied to where I stood, as I always seemed to be when Idris was around. His skin was warm beneath my palm, and I imagined for a moment that I could feel his heart beating beneath it. When his forehead touched mine I closed my eyes and breathed out a sigh.

All our time at Ouzdad we’d been inching our way toward one another, fingers brushing, tucking back strands of hair, stealing glances at one another. I knew what I wanted. My own happi ness, not tied to his, but alongside it. I could see what I could have, secret, furtive, but real. He’d shown me a little of who he was and now—

His hands tangled in the wet mass of my hair. I could feel the whole world between us waiting for us to choose. For me to choose. His smile wasn’t so wide as his grin, but it was slower, sweeter, and pulled an answering one from me. I tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear and let my thumb brush over his cheek.

I felt as though my whole body were waiting for his kiss. My fingers tightened in his and I rose up on my toes to meet him. His hand cradled the back of my head just as his mouth brushed over mine once, then again. It felt like an entire conversation unto itself—questions I had but couldn’t articulate, answers I wanted to give but didn’t know how. He drew me closer until the lines of our bodies were pressed against one another, until I had to put my arms around him to keep my balance.

I had kissed other people before and the things I remembered were strange—the taste of a mouth, the bee humming around our heads, the sun beating down on us.

I thought of none of those things with Idris. The sharp heat I’d felt every time we were together, the tightness in my breath, the pinprick of need over and over—they roared to life, pushing me closer to him, opening my mouth beneath his. They told me to answer his questions, tell him what I wanted, how I felt, give him the respite he sought and I would have mine, too. The world disappeared even when we parted. All I heard, all I felt, was the two of us and the little space in between.

For the second time that day, Furat’s words came back to me. Happiness is rebellion, I thought.





23

The morning of our departure came before I was ready. A strong wind blew through the canyon, howling angrily, warning everyone of the sandstorms to come. Ouzdad itself was hushed, shadowed by the clouds in the sky. I stood in front of a mirror in the early morning as Tala dressed me in a gift from the Dowager. The serving girl who delivered the qaftan stood aside, eyes critical as Tala’s hands moved here and there, adjusting the belt and the cape.

It was a beautiful dove gray qaftan with elbow-length sleeves cuffed with dark crystals and dark purple embroidery. A sleeveless, floor-length jacket of the same purple sat over it, with a stream of layered gray silk chiffon falling back from my shoulders to pool on the floor behind me. Tala had stripped the henna from my hands the night before, and they looked naked in the mirror, even though they were laden with rings.

“There,” Tala said, coming around to look at me. “Beautiful.”

“The Dowager has requested her presence before she leaves,” the serving girl said in Kushaila.

Tala translated before I could respond, and after a moment I nodded.

I made my way to the Dowager’s quarters, and paused at the entrance. It would be a long while before I saw the image of the tesleet bird again, and I wanted to commit the way they framed her doors to memory. Massinia had carried such a bird for most of her long life, its crown of feathers a shocking, brilliant emerald green. Some thought the bird Azoul, the tesleet she’d encountered in the desert, and that the mark she bore was its gift to her, tying them together. I didn’t know if I believed that, but the bird had always heralded change and power. And now it was gone from the world.