Mirage (Mirage #1)(49)

“You dislike her so much?”

“Do you like all of your siblings?” she asked archly.

I managed to stifle the desire to laugh. “Yes.”

A strange look came over her face, as if she were reliving a memory. “Galene was—is—the height of imperial breeding. Everything in her life was assured until I was born, and she’s never forgiven me for that, nor for being a half-breed. She turned the Vathek court on Luna-Vaxor against me before I ever set foot there.”

“Blood is so important to the Vath?”

She cut me a withering look. “You say that as if blood is unimportant to Kushaila. But to Galene, yes. She hates foreigners, and my mother’s people most of all.” There was still a shadow in her gaze, as if the things Galene had done were worse than what Maram wanted to say.

Her own sister, I thought, and fought the creep of pity. It was no wonder she trusted no one. I kept my thoughts to myself—Maram would never condescend to accept my sympathy.

Instead I said, “And you can’t decline?”

“To decline would be to appear weak.”

I frowned. “Weak?”

“Is the word beyond your comprehension?”

I struggled not to scoff. “It is not. But if you don’t want to go to the party, then don’t go.”

“Galene would have been a natural contender if the galactic treaty hadn’t locked my father into having to declare me as heir,” Maram said.

“Alright,” I said, skeptical.

“You don’t know anything about the history of your own world, do you?”

I said nothing, lest I snap.

“When my father conquered Andala, he violated galactic law. The only way to keep the planet—the whole system—was to legitimize his rule. Marry the queen or one of her children, and ensure that her line inherited the planet.” She waved a hand. “At any rate, Galene is still convinced that she has a chance to inherit the protectorate of Andala over me.”

I took a seat beside her. “But—”

“But it’s my inheritance?” She looked away. “It is not the Vathek way to let those conquered rule themselves, and with my Andalaan fiancé—people say … things. They say my father will have to sign over the center of Vathek rule to someone else.”

“Ah,” I said, ignoring the uneasy turn in my stomach. This was how Vathek rule worked—we, the conquered, were prizes in a game to be won or lost among people who didn’t care about us. “This is a bid to unseat you.”

“Yes,” she said. “And I cannot avoid her. If I don’t go, my father will know I didn’t have the stomach for it, and it will prove them all right—that I’m unfit to be the heir.”

I was too much a fool not to laugh. It seemed in keeping with the absurdities of my life that it now included a rivalry between sisters played out on a cosmic scale.

“What?” she asked, furious.

“I just,” I said, coughing. “I didn’t expect such a problem from you.”

“Such a problem?” she said coolly.

“You’re rivals,” I said. “It happens.”

“You’ve had this problem?”

“No. But I never had anything anyone coveted.”

She sniffed and leaned back. “Then how do you know? That this is such a normal problem?”

I shrugged. “I had friends, hard as it may be for you to believe. And in a village as small as ours, rivalries happen.” Khadija had often found herself the target of one girl or another’s ire. She was beautiful and loved to smile—heads turned for her, sometimes when they should have been looking at someone else.

“So what would you do?”

“Really?”

“I’m asking, aren’t I? Don’t make me repeat myself.”

I hesitated, searching her face to see if she would take it back.

I worried at my bottom lip, searching the room. “The best way to unsettle her is to behave as though you’ve already won. You’re the one living in the Ziyaana. You’re the one born here and meant to inherit. She is the foreigner. Do you have jewelry that would remind her of the Andalaan royal seal?”

“Like a crown?”

It was difficult to restrain my skepticism. “Something more subtle.”

“The royal tesleet is not very subtle, village girl.”

“Birds have feathers,” I reminded her. “And you had a necklace—a talon gripping a jewel.”

“And she’ll associate those things with the inheritance?”

“She wants to inherit the whole planet,” I said. “She’s spent her life resenting your birth. She’s likely spent hours imagining her wardrobe and the seal and all the things related to the office in the event of her success.”

“Hm,” was all Maram said, but she rose from her seat. “You are not as stupid as you seem, village girl.”

I tamped down a smile, and returned my eyes to the holopad still clutched in one hand. The list of guests was quite long, but I recognized them all. All Vathek, all silver-haired and pale. Maram would stand out in such a crowd.

I frowned. “His lordship isn’t on the guest list.”

She made an unprincess-like sound. “He is skulking and so was removed,” she said without turning around.