Mirage (Mirage #1)(62)

She stared down at the seal, thoughtful. “She disappeared in the end, didn’t she?” she said.

I nodded. “She was seen once after, but the popular opinion is her mother’s people took her back and after that it would have been impossible to track her.”

She smirked. “What’s the unpopular opinion?”

“That the tesleet bird she carried with her revealed itself as a spirit and offered her entry to its kingdom in the sky.”

The smirk turned into a genuine, wistful smile. The seal was worn, rubbed thin and smooth in some places. It was clear she kept it close to her whenever she could. Her mother had likely had it made and then given it to her herself. Parents designed their children’s daan, and I imagined among the nobility their children’s khitaam.

“I like the second one better,” she said.

“Your grandmother may know more about the seal,” I said instead of answering. “What I know is from history books. Your grandmother is royalty; she would have designed your mother’s seal.”

She said nothing, but stared hard at the pendant. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but I imagined asking me to explain the seal had been hard enough for her. Her mother had left her something precious and invaluable; I didn’t want to distract her from that. And maybe it would serve as a bridge, however tenuous, to her grandmother.

Eventually, she looked up, her gaze unfocused and a little lost, and shook her head. I said nothing, but gestured to her bowl. At last, she rehung the pendant around her neck and returned to her food.

*

After Maram left, I cleaned our dishes, packed away the food, then retired to my room.

I hated this place, I hated Nadine, I hated what had been done to me. I’d been transformed, reforged into a girl my family wouldn’t recognize. But I’d found—I’d found so much and I didn’t know if I would exchange one for the other. The girl I was for everything else. If—when—the rebellion succeeded, there would be no going back to my old life. What would I do? Where would I go? Where would Maram go?

And did the rebellion have to sacrifice Maram in the name of freedom? She could be a powerful ally—a figurehead no one would reject.

I pulled my own charm out of my gown and slid the communication tab behind my ear. It warmed quickly, and a moment later I heard a beep.

“Yes?”

“It’s me,” I said. “I have news.”

“Has there been a change?” Arinaas said. “Or have you missed me?”

I laughed. “There’s been a change,” I said. “Maram is joining the convoy to the Eastern Reach.”

“She’s not a target at present.”

“Nor should she be,” I said sharply. “But I am to go in her place.”

I could almost hear the gears turning in her head. “And you can bring the plans you smuggled out of the council meeting?”

“Yes.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “Amani. Carrying something like that out of the Ziyaana … you’ll be taking a great risk.”

“It’s all a great risk, isn’t it?”

“We’ll arrange a handoff,” Arinaas said finally. “Keep safe in the following days, hm?”

“You too, Arinaas.”





al hoceima, andala





31

Several days later I boarded a cruiser with Idris and a small retinue and traveled east to Al Hoceima. Though Idris’s real intent was to check in on the state of his family and his home, he had timed the visit to his great-aunt’s birthday. Three years had passed since his last visit and I could see the nervousness in him as the cruiser landed in the city with a soft hiss.

While most of the Salihi clan was extinguished, some of Idris’s aunts and uncles had survived. A clan that had numbered in the thousands now numbered a little over a hundred, most of them either very old or very young. He knew the young better than he knew the old—the Vath had allowed him to keep in contact with his cousins, but not anyone who might have retained their loyalist leanings.

His aunt had lived to one hundred and five years and was now celebrating her hundred and sixth. It amazed me that anyone managed to live so long. Most of the elderly in my village didn’t make it past sixty. Poverty and war did not encourage long life.

The guest of honor, Naimah, sat at the front of the gathering hall, flanked by sisters and nieces. She was a small woman, more like a bird, with sharp eyes and a sharper nose. Her shoulders were stooped and her mouth curled. The daan on her face were a faded green, having never been retouched. The room was filled with women—I imagined all the women left to the Banu Salih, old and young alike. Only the very old among them, like Naimah, bore daan. They, like their great matriarch, flitted around the room in brightly colored garb, whispering and giggling with one another. The men, as they normally did when faced with so many women, had gathered in the back and monopolized the tea.

For my part, I stood by a window, my back turned to most of them.

From the window I could see the run-down city of Al Hoceima. In antiquity and before the occupation, it had been one of the greatest cities on the planet. The Lions of Al Hoceima had ruled from the northern coast all the way to the south of the continent. And when they’d married into the Ziyadis, they formed the largest army the world had ever seen. They’d marched across the planet, conquering everything in sight until nothing was left. Now, there was more dust than people. No one could afford to fix the roads or the houses. The filtration system that purified the poisoned water had nearly broken the city with its cost.