Mirage (Mirage #1)(52)

In the end, protocol won, and she came forward and sank gracefully to her knees.

“Maram,” she murmured. “You honor me with your presence.”

Her hair was near silver in the High Vathek way, her gown done in the style of antiquity, a long flowing gown, gathered at one shoulder. A large pendant swung from her neck bearing the crest of the Vath. She looked every inch a conqueror.

I drew on all my rage since coming to the Ziyaana, all the rage of being taken on my majority night—at losing my own inheritance—to harden my voice.

“Galene,” I replied coolly. “You remember the Lady Ofal and my fiancé, the Lord Idris.”

I had not given her leave to rise.

“Of course,” she said.

She raised her head and I let her stare, waiting for her eyes to drift down to my necklace. She was far more practiced in keeping her emotions in check. Her jaw tightened when she saw it, but nothing else.

“Thank you for your invitation,” I said, and at last gave her leave to rise. When she stood, I held out the near empty goblet, waiting for her to take it. “The food is delightful.”

And then I turned back to Ofal, dismissing Galene. Ofal for her part could hardly contain her laughter. Her lower lip trembled until she bit it.

I heard no footsteps marking Galene’s departure so I turned back and tilted my head.

“Had you need of something?”

Her grip turned white knuckled around the goblet.

“No, Your Highness,” she said through clenched teeth. “Enjoy the festivities.”

*

I spent the rest of the night giddy on my success, giggling with Ofal and a few other friends. It was easy to forget I wasn’t Maram, these weren’t my friends, this wasn’t my life. Easy to enjoy it all, especially when Idris took me out onto the dance floor. By the time we retired for the evening I was dizzy with success.

“You’ve had too much sugar,” Idris said as he led us upstairs.

“I have not,” I replied. “It’s only that tonight feels like a triumph.”

He sighed but said nothing.

I bathed, in the hopes that the warm water would pull me closer to sleep, but it did nothing. When I emerged robed, with my hair down, I could not force myself into bed.

I’d discovered that the living room attached to my apartment linked my rooms to Idris’s. He was standing over the table, his hair wet, arranging a shatranj board.

“I thought we might play,” he said. “If you’re not too exhausted.”

“Do we have to play at the table?” I asked. I hated the tall table and the equally tall chairs the Vath preferred. He was quiet as he moved the board to the floor and retrieved a pair of cushions.

“You look tired,” I said.

He settled on the floor and gave me a faint smile. “These engagements exhaust me,” he said. “I’m not as tired as I could be, though.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve never been able to look across the room and know I have an ally,” he said without looking at me. “It was … novel.”

“Really?” I said.

“Did you know none of my peers are friends?” he said with a sad smile, his eyes distant for a moment. “We tried at first. We thought—we thought that we were all hostages. But if we stuck together, eventually we would grow old enough to resist the Vath. We would take back our strongholds, avenge our families. The Vath had only won because we didn’t work together. Or so we reasoned.”

I reached out for his hand. His gaze grew more distant, but his hand gripped mine as if it were an anchor.

“It took three months for us to realize that fear was stronger than loyalty. A boy would disappear or a minor house would be raided, and we’d know the Vath had gotten to someone. Had pressed fear into them and turned them against the rest of us. By the end of our first year none of us trusted each other.”

I couldn’t keep the horror from my face. Imagining such a world seemed impossible, even though I lived in it now. I had never second-guessed any of my friends, never wondered if one would sell me to the Vath in exchange for safety or mercy. I knew in the early days of the occupation such a thing had been common, but by now—

“I’m sorry,” I finally said. It was all I could think of to say.

He shook his head and looked down at the board.

“And Maram … she isn’t an ally?”

At that he looked up as if to say, really?

“She … she isn’t reliable. Most days we’re friends. Or as close to friends as we can be. But she values the respect of her Vathek peers far more than mine. It puts me in difficult positions regularly.”

“More or less difficult than when you argue with her?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

He grinned. “I wondered when you were going to ask.”

I couldn’t help smiling back and brushed a curl behind his ear. “Well? I didn’t think she was the type one argued with.”

“Normally she isn’t,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know what got into me. She made a comment about Furat and I snapped.”

“You snapped?” I gasped.

“Furat’s and my circumstances are much the same,” he said. “You know that. I asked her if she felt the same about me and she became angry.”