Mirage (Mirage #1)(71)

I turned at the sound of a scream just behind me, animal and in pain. The Garda were dragging the gunman up onto the platform against his will. He struggled, kicking his legs out and twisting his body this way and that.

He could not have been more than fourteen. He reminded me too much of the boys in my village, of my brothers when we were young, face dirt-smudged, cheeks hollowed from hunger. He didn’t even have his daan, I thought again. If it had been Maram, would he have gotten away and back to his family? Did it matter? I’d had a choice between him and Maram. His life or hers, and I’d chosen hers.

I’d chosen her.

“Maram,” Nadine said, and urged me toward the steps, but I resisted.

The Garda forced the boy to his knees, and I realized what they meant to do. His hands were behind his back, his face hard as he stared at the ground. The Garda pulled out a sidearm and aimed for the back of his head. I’d known and I’d done this and still alarm roared through me, as loud as the gunfire still ringing in my ears. I twisted in Nadine’s arms before I could think better of it, my heart beating so hard I could feel the blood drumming in my veins, and came between the boy and the Garda.

I knew no one saw me, whoever I was now, they saw Maram. And they couldn’t harm her. She’d been named inheritor of the realm, future queen. They’d all kneeled and witnessed it.

“Your—Your Highness,” the Garda stammered. “What are you doing?”

“You can’t kill him,” I said.

“But Your Highness—”

“Are you trying to start a riot?” I asked. My voice didn’t shake, and I managed, somehow, to channel the strongest part of Maram inside me. Aloof and haughty, with a lifted chin and a calm demeanor. I remembered all too clearly the cost of interfering with the Vath and their business. But I was one of them, today. I ruled over them. “He’s just a boy. Think of what will happen if you kill him here.”

He hesitated, but then to my relief he tucked away his firearm and gestured to two of the other Garda.

“Take him in,” he said just as Nadine caught me by the arm and pulled me off the stage. The last thing I saw was Maram’s future throne, shattered to pieces, its beauty riddled by holes standing a strange sort of witness as the Garda shoved the boy toward a prison transport.





35

A droid brought me to the glass-domed aviary where I had taken some of my first lessons in the Ziyaana. Roosting in the trees above was the roc, feathers fluffed up, warbling to itself softly. I was led beyond the places I was familiar with, to an alcove thick with vegetation. There Maram stood, alone, cloaked in a severe black qaftan, without ornament except for the royal seal she’d asked me to decipher hanging from her neck.

She didn’t look up when I arrived, nor when I sank to my knees. For long moments, we remained still, master and servant, future queen and current subject.

“Tell me,” she said at last, her voice even, “that it was simply bad luck on your part that had you standing in for me today. Tell me you had no prior knowledge of the attempt on my life.”

I lifted my eyes from the floor just as she looked away from the fountain. I knew what she would see in my face—grief, loss, but most importantly, the truth. I could deny it all I wanted, but Maram wouldn’t believe me. She’d lived her life in fear of her sister usurping her and now I had done—or seemed to do—just the same.

I rose to my feet slowly. “I never meant…” I began.

“To hurt me?” She scoffed. “Don’t lie. It’s beneath you. It’s all anyone has ever done, my whole life. Lied to me, used me for their own aims. Until…” She stopped and looked at me, furious at herself for letting the word slip. Her hands shook, bunched up in the folds of her gown, white knuckled with rage.

She was not angry that someone had tried to kill her, I realized with a start. She was angry that I’d known, that I hadn’t confided in her, that I’d manipulated her. She was angry at everything it implied. I had secured her trust, I had befriended her and joked with her and cooked for her. I had offered to take her place in engagements and advice when she was sad and confused.

But it was all a lie. In her eyes, I was a serpent who’d stolen into her heart and then attacked when her defenses were lowest.

“I—” she began, her voice breaking on the word. She shook her head and stiffened her jaw, as if that would rid her of her hesitance.

“Please, let me explain,” I tried again.

“Nothing you say will fix this,” she said. “Nothing. You have shown yourself to be like everyone else around me.”

I flinched as she spoke. I’d plotted against her in the beginning, knowing that any success I had—the rebels had—would end in her failure. Our aim from the beginning had been to disinherit her, to dismantle the Vath, to run them out of our system. Did it matter if my opinions had changed, even if only about Maram? That I truly cared for her, that I saw her as a sister? That I’d risked my life for hers? Would any of that matter to her?

It had to. Didn’t it?

I reached out to her, and watched her flinch from me as I had from her.

“Whatever you might think,” I said at last, “I was sincere.”

“A viper is never sincere,” she spat.

Anguish caught fire in me, and I stepped back, nearly a perfect mirror of her, my hands fisted in my skirt.