Mirage (Mirage #1)(76)

You are not responsible for the cruelty of your masters.

And yet, in this, I felt I was. If I’d been more careful, more diligent, Maram would have grown, not regressed.

The bells continued to ring.

What ambitious plans I’d had. To mold a queen, to shape her as I’d reshaped myself. Foolishness. I had anticipated none of my enemies, none of hers. And so I’d lost the game before it ever began.

I tried to choke down a sob, unsure what had elicited it. There were mornings I woke up trying to grasp the fading sound of Idris’s loutar in vain. Mornings where my chest felt tight, as if there weren’t enough room in my lungs for grief and air both. Mornings where I couldn’t stop berating myself for loving him, for caring about Maram, for the suffering I’d brought onto my family.

My only triumph was the rebels’ success, and even that was marred by the fate of the boy the Garda had captured. How did one go on under the weight of such grief? How had my mother and father?

I tried to breathe.

You do not kneel or bend, I told myself. To anyone. You continue.

I raised my head from the window a moment later. Something had broken through the sound of bells, a sharp, discordant cry. There was nothing living here, nothing but myself. I prepared to settle back into my seat, but it came again, louder and sharper than before, in the half second between bell peals. This time it was followed by a wing beat, heavy as a thunderclap.

I couldn’t be bothered to pull my mantle up my arms and over my shoulders. It whispered as it trailed behind me in the grass, and the orbs echoed the sound, hush-hushing as I made my way through them. The cry came a third time, muffled by the door to the queen’s garden. No one had sealed that section away from me, because there was nowhere to go from there. There was the garden, a chamber, and no other way out.

The air inside the garden was cool. The end of summer was upon Walili, and so the cool nights would turn cold, and the days mild. I breathed, and the orbs illuminated a faint puff of steam in the air. Tonight there was no moon, and the black sky that pushed through the cracked dome was oppressive, without stars or light.

A soft warble pulled my eyes from the sky and further into the garden, toward the tree.

“Dihya,” I breathed.

Nesting on a branch high in the tree was a tesleet. Its body was black, different from the sky, streaked with darker jewel tones of purple and green. Its crown was white; it sprouted from its head and curved over its body. The tips of it brushed its tail, and looked as if it had dragged it through a pool of liquid gold. It was enormous—nearly as tall as I was—and I couldn’t begin to imagine its wingspan.

And from His first creatures He made stars, glowing hot with their fire and warmth.

The air around it seemed to shimmer as if that space were not of this world. As if I were looking through a glass to another realm. It spread its wings, twice as long as its body, and pumped itself off the branch.

I stared, my mouth slack with shock, as it made its way down from the tree with a soft cry, and landed on a bench at its base. It examined me, tilting its head this way and that, its dark eyes intelligent and discerning. My hand trembled as I reached out to it. Its beak was cool to the touch, its feathers glossy and warm. Real, I thought.

I wasn’t hallucinating.

It spread its wings again and gave another cry, sharp and piercing, and launched itself into the air.

All may see the stars, but few will see their forebears. And to those whose eyes see golden fire We say heed Us and listen.

It winged its way around the dome, its crown streaming behind it like a banner, and then disappeared through the crack in the dome.

For long moments I stared at the space it disappeared through, mesmerized and in awe.

It had left no feather behind, but then, a feather was not needed.

For We have sent unto you a Sign. See it and take heed.

I could not give up hope. I had been commanded to hold to it, to find a solution to my impossible problem.

No matter what it took, no matter the cost, I could not waver and I could not give in.

Hope might have set fire to all things, but out of those ashes the resistance to the Vath would rise. I would make sure of it.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It truly takes a village, though some days it felt like a small town.

Eternal thanks to my sister Ruqayyah, who insisted I needed to write this book. I wouldn’t have taken the leap otherwise. Thank you to my mother, who believed from the time I was small that I would one day be published. To my mother again, and my aunt Naima, both of whom spent many hours on the phone with me lending me their knowledge of the Arabic poetry canon and their aid in walking me through the translations present in this book. To my youngest sister, Tasneem, who gave me unending emotional support and belief. And to my nieces, India, Haniyyah, and Hajr, who have been fans since day one.

This book would not have come together if it weren’t for #teamMirage! Endless thank-yous to Annie Stone, who trusted me with this book; Joelle Hobeika and Sara Shandler, who helped ferry it into a complete draft; and Josh Bank, who was always present with a plot solution. Sarah Barley, my dream editor and the best champion an author could ever wish for, I don’t know where this book would be without you. Everyone at Flatiron Books: Patricia Cave, Nancy Trypuc, Molly Fonseca, Jordan Forney, Amy Einhorn, Liz Keenan, Keith Hayes, Erin Fitzsimmons, Bill Elis, Anna Gorovoy, Lena Shekhter, Emily Walters, Lauren Hougen, and Liana Krissoff. Thank you so much for loving Amani and Idris as much as I do; I couldn’t have asked for a better home for Mirage. And of course, team New Leaf: I don’t know where I would be without agent extraordinaire Joanna Volpe and Devin Ross.