Mirage (Mirage #1)(46)

“That ends happily, doesn’t it?” I asked.

Bayad and Riyad’s story was one of a love that had managed to transcend and conquer class and difference. Bayad, a merchant’s son, fell in love with Riyad, a girl serving in a vizier’s court. It was not a favorite of mine—Bayad swooned more than I liked—but it was beautiful nonetheless.

She snorted. “The question still stands.”

The Ziyaana had felt quiet since I’d returned from Ouzdad three days ago. Maram, surprisingly, had left me alone, nor had I seen Nadine. I wasn’t lovesick, or so I told myself, but I spent an inordinate amount of time daydreaming and missing Idris. The longer I was away from Ouzdad, the more my time there seemed like a beautiful dream.

The only proof I had that it wasn’t was the communicator Arinaas gave me. I tested it my first night in the Ziyaana, as she had instructed me, to make sure the signal worked. I’d hidden it against the lettering on the back of the charm, so that the quote from the book seemed to be alive with nano-circuitry.

Believe, for We know things you do not. And We see what you do not.

It was a strange thing to carry around my neck, its tiny gel-like surface pressed to my skin. But it felt safer to keep it there than to risk Tala or a droid noticing it.

The reading of fairy tales I’d started at Ouzdad continued in the Ziyaana and branched out to include whatever poetry I could get my hands on. I had more time than I knew what to do with—there were no goats I needed to attend to, no orchards to pick, no food to be made in the village oven. My success, first at the ball, and now at Ouzdad, meant that Nadine and Maram largely left me to my own devices. I spent as much of my time as possible avoiding thoughts of the next engagement. Thus far, they’d been uneventful—but I knew that the rebels and the world hated her. I knew I’d been brought to die in her place. My mind sobered and my thoughts grew grim whenever I remembered.

I kept Husnain’s gift close to me as often as I could, and oft-times I thought of what he’d said to me the last time I’d seen him. Part of me wanted to try my hand at writing my own poetry—in the old days there would have been salons full of Kushaila competing to produce the best verse for rewards from the town magistrates. But here, there was only myself, and no one to hear. Still—I tried.

Destiny shadows her footsteps …

“I won’t swoon,” I assured Tala now, and patted her hand. And then, “Are you the go-between for divided lovers, then?”

She shuddered, but was smiling. “Dihya forbid you should ever truly be divided lovers, and that I should be your go-between, Amani.”

I was still grinning when the droid appeared to summon me to Maram.

The light in my heart dimmed just a little as I drew the cloak over my shoulders and took the veil from Tala’s proffered hand. I knew I wouldn’t receive a lesson; Maram and Nadine believed I’d performed admirably at Ouzdad, and they had no way of knowing what had transpired between Furat and I, or the Dowager and Idris.

Still, if my mind’s distance was so easily discernible to Tala, what would Maram glean from looking at me?

All the while we walked toward her quarters I tried to ready myself for another assignment. It would likely be in Greater Walili; I could not imagine that she would need to journey somewhere as far as Gibra a second time. There were enough scorpions hiding in the desert around Walili. The droid led me past her door, and down a set of steps. We emerged into the courtyard I’d glimpsed when I visited her last.

We continued toward a secluded bower surrounded by trees, and filled with floating orbs of light. Maram was seated on a cushion on the grass, a low table set with a shatranj game spread out before her. She was clearly lost in thought, but as soon as the droid stepped into view her gaze cleared and she lifted her eyes to me.

“You may go,” she said to the droid.

After a moment she gestured to my veil and waited for me to pull it off.

“Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Shall you sit or must I command you?”

My mind swung back and forth between fear and suspicion. But as I settled down onto the cushion and shrugged the cloak from my shoulders, I had the impression she was bored. The board was set in the middle of one of the problem puzzles Idris had shown me while at Ouzdad, only half solved.

“You and his lordship enjoy this game, then?” I asked.

“You played at Ouzdad?” Maram’s bright smile didn’t set me at ease.

“It served as a distraction,” I said. Not a total lie. It had certainly produced a distraction for us both.

She hummed her ascent. “So—how did you like him?”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Like him?”

She balanced her chin on her fist. “I’ve heard my fiancé is quite the Kushaila catch,” she said. “Do you disagree?”

Like so much with Maram, this felt like a trap. I turned my words over carefully before I spoke. “His lordship was kind and gracious. Very easygoing.”

“Diplomatically stated,” she said dryly. “And not a word to his handsomeness.”

“Does his lordship need reassurance?” I asked in the same tone.

She laughed. “I could stand to be warmer, or so I’ve been told.”

“Why?” I said, surprised. “It’s a matter of state. Not love.”