Mirage (Mirage #1)(69)

“Yes?” I said hoarsely.

A sharp breath, almost like relief, sounded through the communicator. “Thank Dihya,” Arinaas said. “I was worried we wouldn’t get to you in time.”

Unease pricked at my neck. “In time for what?”

“We’ve sent an agent to Walili, to attend the inheritance ceremony,” she said. “He’s our best shooter and his job is to kill Maram. Mathis is likely to be present and he’s been instructed to kill him first, of course, if he has the chance.”

Unease turned into panic. My fingers numbed and my breath went short. Kill Maram? No—not when it seemed, at last, that she could be persuaded into being a truly Andalaan queen. Not when we could save lives and avoid bloodshed.

“You can’t!”

“This is war, Amani,” she said, voice hard. “We can and we will.”

“No,” I said, thinking quickly. “It won’t be Maram at the ceremony tomorrow. It will be me.”

Arinaas sucked in a breath. “Get out of it, Amani. Do you understand?”

“Call the assassin off!”

“You are not a princess to command me,” she snapped. “And I may not be able to. He is traveling from the Eastern Reach. The message may not reach him in time.”

“Please, Arinaas,” I said softly.

I heard her take in a breath. “Dihya help us all.”





34

I greeted the next morning with a single thought—I couldn’t live with myself if Maram’s blood were on my hands. She was a cruel girl who had been raised among crueler relatives, but she wanted to do the right thing. She was capable of it, more so than any of the Vath. And if the rebels succeeded in killing her—even if they killed Mathis as well—they would have to contend with Galene, a girl who did hate Andalaans as baselessly as Mathis did.

I dressed quickly, thoughts racing, desperate to find a way around this. The only way, I knew, was to do as I’d told Arinaas I would do. I’d been bluffing, but the possibility that Arinaas wouldn’t be able to call the assassin off ate at me. I would have to take Maram’s place and hope I could get a signal to the assassin in time. And I could only do that by convincing Maram to let me. I summoned a droid to take me to her.

Maram was alone in her room, standing in her wardrobe and examining herself. Her hands twitched over the folds of her skirt nervously, then flattened as if she were willing herself to be still. When she saw my reflection in the mirror her eyes widened in surprise.

“What are you doing here?”

I forced myself to smile. “You aren’t the only person who gets bored,” I said. “And I thought you might want help getting dressed.”

She looked relieved at the idea. “Yes, please,” she said. “I can’t decide between three gowns.”

We fell into our ritual quickly. She, sprawled over the divan, and I pulling one then another gown from the wardrobe and modeling it against myself. She calmed, but only a little. Despite her stillness on the couch, her frantic energy, her nervousness, bled through.

“Your Highness?”

“What?”

“Would you prefer I go in your place?”

Her eyes jerked up from the jewelry box she was sifting through. “What?”

“I could go in your place,” I repeated.

She shook her head. “No. It has to be me this time. It’s my inheritance ceremony.”

I didn’t sit beside her like I wanted to. Instead I inclined my head. “You just seem nervous. And I am here for a reason.”

She let out a disbelieving laugh. “Are you offering to enter the crossfire for me again?”

I was, I marveled. How quickly our relationship had changed in the span of a few months. This time I did sit beside her. “Older sisters protect their younger siblings,” I said. “Remember?”

She bit the corner of her thumb, worried and deliberating. “Alright,” she said softly, then lay a hand over mine. “Thank you, Amani. I— Thank you.”

I inclined my head again and breathed a sigh of relief. One problem solved. Now I only had to figure out how to communicate to the assassin not to kill me.

*

I was used to the heavy weight of Maram’s gowns and jewelry, but this was the first time I’d ever worn her crown. I eyed it on the velvet cushion. What I was expected to wear today in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of Andalaans on the edge of riot was the old Andalaan crown, last worn by Maram’s mother, Najat.

It was beautiful—a golden tesleet with outspread wings looped around in a wide circle, its chest an enormous green jewel. It looked impossibly heavy. Most people now assumed the bird on the royal crown was the Vathek hunting bird, the roc. But the tesleet had been on the Ziyadi royal seal centuries before the Vath came to our world.

Maram said nothing to me. The two of us stood there quietly, the crown between us. I was silent as I knelt and waited for her to settle the crown on my head.

Dihya protect me, I thought.

*

Nadine led me to the north end of the palace. The air felt heavy, as though someone had lit too much incense to mask something far worse. There was a growing murmur the farther north we went, and I was reminded of the stories my mother had told me about the Ziyaana. Everyone spoke of it as if it were a living, hungry thing, waiting to devour those who passed beneath its shadow. In the old days, it must not have been so hungry for blood. But now it squeezed out every drop, ground down every bone. When the large double doors to the wings parted, the Ziyaana’s murmur transformed into a roar.