Court of Lions

by Somaiya Daud

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  For those who pray for wanting and wish to be seen.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  KUSHAILA

  Amani bint Tariq: a young village girl from Cadiz kidnapped to the imperial palace. The body double to the Imperial Heir, Maram, and temporarily a rebel.

  Maram vak Mathis: the half-Kushaila, half-Vathek daughter of King Mathis and Queen Najat, and the Imperial Heir to Andala and the Vathek empire.

  Idris ibn Salih: the scion of the Banu Salih and Maram’s fiancé.

  Tala: Amani’s handmaiden and confidante.

  ‘Imad Mas’udi: one half of the ruling pair of the Banu Mas’ud; I’timad’s twin brother.

  I’timad Mas’udi: one half of the ruling pair of the Banu Mas’ud; ‘Imad’s twin sister.

  Khulood al-Nasiriyya: the ruler of the Banu Nasir.

  Tariq: Khulood’s younger brother and heir.

  Itou al Ziyadia: the exiled Dowager Sultana of Andala and former Ziyadi queen. Maram’s grandmother.

  Najat al Ziyadia: Maram’s deceased mother, the last Ziyadi queen of Andala. Brokered the peace between Andala and the Vath.

  ZIDANE

  Rabi’a bint Ifran: the newly risen ruler of the Banu Ifran.

  Buchra bint Ifran: Rabi’a’s younger sister.

  Furat al Wattasia: the last living Wattasi, living largely in exile with the dowager sultana. Maram’s distant cousin.

  TAZALGHIT

  Arinaas: Massinia reborn and the leader of the rebellion.

  Tinit al-Hurra: Massinia’s mother, and the queen of the Tazalghit.

  THE VATH

  King Mathis: king of the Vath, committed patricide to gain control of the empire. Father to Maram and her elder half sister, Galene.

  Nadine cagir Elon: the high stewardess of the Ziyaana and Maram’s caretaker.

  Galene vak Mathis: Maram’s half sister and aspirant to the Vathek crown.

  Ofal vak Miranous: Maram’s cousin and one of the only family members she gets along with.

  one

  NASIB: PRELUDE

  PROLOGUE

  Once upon a time, there was a girl—a nestling—and she was a glorious creature. Born of sacred fire, cloaked in jeweled feathers, she could pass from one realm to another, could cross the space between stars as easy as breathing. She was raised in a crystalline palace wreathed in sacred flame.

  When the nestling was a child, long before she’d ever been sent out into the world, her mother told her the story of her long-ago ancestor, Tayreet.

  Fi youm minal ayaam …

  Once upon a time …

  Like the nestling, Tayreet had grown to strength in the heart of their sacred city, and like the nestling, she’d been sent down to their lost kin as a symbol of strength and war. High above a battlefield an arrow pierced Tayreet’s breast and knocked her from the sky. When the prince hunting her found her, her body had loosed its natural bird shape and taken on a human one.

  The prince loved her from the first, and Tayreet him.

  The nestling was always astonished that anyone might fall in love with their hunter, and her cousin had scoffed and tugged on a white braid.

  “Not a real arrow, nestling,” her cousin said. “Love. Love knocked her from her lofty perch.”

  How awful, the nestling remembered thinking.

  * * *

  In the center of the palace was a room with nothing but windows and mirrors. From there the nestling could see everything. They showed her life far away, across galaxies and in places hidden away by star dust. In the far corner of the room, wreathed in shadow, was a great mirror, many times as tall as she was. Consigned to shadows but for the great crack that ran through its center, she nonetheless sat in front of it for hours. Its gilt frame was carved with images of birds and lions and spears, and any time she stepped close she felt a pulse of life.

  Until at last, one day, it woke and showed her the image of another girl. A princess.

  She was young and stone-faced, cloaked in black. Around her forehead was a gold coronet, studded with a single green gem. Her small hand was engulfed by an elder woman’s larger one, and she didn’t move—she seemed to not breathe at all. A moment later, a procession passed in front of her bearing a coffin draped in green.

  She didn’t see the princess again, not for many years, though she went to the mirror nearly every day. It showed her other things: the cost of war on the princess’s planet, loss of life, rebellion and the rebellion’s end. The nestling thought that, perhaps, the stone-faced girl had died. And then one day the nestling returned to the mirror, a woman grown, and found that the princess had grown too, and that she had a twin. Somehow, she knew which was the princess she’d seen all those years ago at the funeral and which was her double.

  Please, the double said. Let me explain.

  Nothing you say will fix this, the princess said, and though her expression was as stone-faced as it had been at the funeral, the nestling could hear a world of grief buried in that single sentence.

  I was sincere, the double said.

  A viper is never sincere.

  Please, Maram. I took your place and risked my life for you.

  Maram, the nestling repeated softly to herself, tasting the name for the first time.

  And then a woman with silver hair entered.

  She saved a rebel, the woman said, and laid her hand on the princess’s shoulder. A person hired to kill you.

  Her heart skipped a beat, startled at the idea that the princess might have died, and she never would have known. Would the mirror have shown her? Would it have revealed a second funeral procession?

  * * *

  Fate intervened as it always did, and for the first time the nestling was commanded from her sacred city and into the war-ravaged world below. It should have surprised her that she was directed to the double she’d seen instead of Maram herself—it didn’t. Despite her fascination, there was something about the double—even as she’d begged she’d seemed regal.

  The double had saved someone’s life. She’d taken the princess’s place in the line of fire.

  Sacred fire only ever came to the brave and courageous. Hope was given to a person who might reshape the world. The nestling watched it take root in the double, watched the way light returned slowly and chased out the shadows that lived in her now. Saw the double draw in the heat that was a matter of course for someone like her, saw it give strength to her spine and speed to her will.

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

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

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

  The nestling’s wings unfurled and the double gasped as she cried out and launched herself up and into the sky.

  She was meant to return to her sacred city.

  She did not.

  1

&n
bsp; In a city in the heart of the world, in a palace in its very center, was a slave—a girl. Once upon a time the girl had borne ancestral markings on her face and danced happily among family and friends. She’d been kidnapped, as all girls in stories were, and brought against her will to the royal palace to serve as body double to a princess. Once upon a time, the girl—I—had been a rebel, and forced to make a choice between the rebellion and a princess who had undergone a spell of transformation herself. I’d chosen the princess and saved her life. The price had been high—my family was beaten, and I was threatened with their lives.

  On ancient maps of Andala, Walili was the center of the world—all the world on the map was oriented to it, and all roads led to it. The palace had once been its exact center. The “center” was, of course, relative. The world was a globe, and unless Walili had once lived in its core, it was no more central than Shafaqaat or Al Hoceima. And yet it had become the center of my world, cut off as I was from the rest of it. Six weeks had passed in the center of the world. Six weeks of being cut off from the rest of it, being cut off from news, from everyone and everything, save Tala. Tala, my first friend, who even now in the shadow of my greatest mistake, remained with me. Remained kind.

  A near impossible feat in a place like the Ziyaana.

  In my isolation I’d requested a loom and wool to weave. I’d missed the old comforts of my village, and though as a child I’d resented turning wool to yarn, and yarn into tapestry, my days in the Ziyaana were empty unless I was called upon to serve. Tala obliged me and sometimes joined me when I offered to teach her.

  In Tanajir, the village of my childhood, I would have made the loom myself, would have heckled my brothers Husnain and Aziz as they attempted to shear sheep the next village over, would have helped in spinning and dying it. Here, all those steps were taken care of by someone else, so I could begin designing the tapestry almost immediately. In the last six weeks I’d managed to produce a tapestry of Massinia, the prophet of Dihya, with her tesleet companion behind her. It was a poor replica of the mural on Ouzdad, but I’d done the best rendering I could.

  If I could, I would have worked on the tapestry all day. But the third bell of the morning roused me from my reverie, and despite the enclosure of this wing, the desert chill still managed to seep in early in the morning and late at night. The autumn months were finally here. On Cadiz the first frost would be appearing, coating windows and whatever was left in the orchards and rose fields. I would be darning my winter cloaks, and likely arguing with Husnain over whether we wanted to risk poaching the small foxes that lived at the foot of the mountains. A small crime that I would have gladly gone along with in the past, but with the burning of the orchards before my abduction, would have seemed foolhardy—tempting the Vath soldiers for more trouble.

  A small smile stole across my features, then faded. I was lucky he yet lived—Aziz had likely had to tie him up to keep him from reaching out to the rebels the Vath suspected of hiding on our small moon.

  I was still thinking of him and the rest of my family when Tala came to collect me.

  “The high stewardess has commanded your presence,” she said softly. I set the loom down, throat dry.

  “Now?” I asked. She nodded.

  “Come. Let’s get you dressed quickly.”

  I dressed, and once done, Tala draped a hooded mantle over my shoulders and drew the hood over my hair. Our walk was short and quiet, and at last we returned to the aviary where I’d held my first audience with Nadine. The high stewardess sat on a chair as she had on our first meeting, flanked by four droids and with Maram to her right. Maram didn’t acknowledge our entrance, but the droids came to attention and Nadine smiled.

  All these weeks I’d dreaded my next meeting with Nadine. She was the shadow cast over my internment, my jailer and kidnapper, determined to break me by any means. I expected to feel small and afraid as I sank to my knees before her.

  I didn’t.

  A hot anger sat in the pit of my belly, churning. Anger at the stewardess and everything she represented, and anger at myself for my ignorance. She was an adversary I’d never accounted for, the hand on Maram’s cradle, the snake in the grass, the whisper in her ear. If not for Nadine, perhaps, I might have convinced Maram of the truth: that I was her friend, her sister. Nadine’s arrogance and hatred had stolen my home, hurt my family, and finally turned my friend away from me.

  “How penitent you seem,” she drawled, coming to stand over me.

  “My lady,” I murmured, then raised my head a little. “Your Highness.”

  Maram did not meet my gaze. There was a dazed look to her, as if she had slipped somewhere deep inside herself. She had no desire to be here, I realized with a start. Did she not want to see me? What had transpired in the six weeks since we’d seen each other last? I knew her, though Nadine, I was sure, wished I didn’t. I knew greatness and kindness lay in her. I knew that if given the chance, she would be a great queen. That if given the strength, she would stand up for what was right. Maram understood the weight of her mother’s legacy, as much as she had shied from it in the end. If she were out of Nadine’s shadow, I knew—

  “Do you know why you are alive?” Nadine said.

  “I am Maram’s only twin,” I said, rather than hold my tongue.

  “The penitence was a ruse, then?” Nadine said. The droids raised their arms as one. “Some contrition would be worth your while, girl.”

  “I have done my duty,” I replied, still looking at Maram. “She is alive.”

  Maram stared at me, her eyes blank, her chin propped up on the heel of her hand. She looked as a traumatized child might—she had endured this particular horror before, and today she had shut down and refused to engage.

  “She’s right,” she said dully and made a gesture with her hand. The droids retracted their weapons and returned to standing attention. “Get on with it, Nadine.”

  I frowned in confusion. It?

  “In a week,” Nadine said—was that glee?—and returned to her seat, “Her Highness will be getting married. The wedding is a public affair. You will take her place.”

  My eyes widened in horror. Never would I have imagined that I would have to go through her marriage on her behalf.

  I had given Idris up after seeing what Nadine would do to my family. Like my connection to the rebels, the cost of our relationship was too high. I loved him—Dihya knew how much I loved him—but there was no world in which we could be together.

  “It’s a sacred rite,” I gasped out. “For the Vath and the Kushaila. You cannot mean to have me proxy for you?”

  Proxy marriages were an old and antiquated tradition. In the past they were the product of distance and necessity. In some places, parents proxied for their children. But we all of us understood that regardless of who went through the ritual, it was the people on whose behalf we enacted those rituals that were married. And so, though it would be me standing there, Maram and Idris would be the ones who were wed.

  She raised an eyebrow, and the Maram I’d known at the beginning of my sojourn in the Ziyaana appeared.

  “Yes,” she drawled. “It is entirely reasonable that I should allow Idris, my political shield among your people, to marry my shield, a farmer’s daughter.”

  I struggled to not lower my gaze, even as I flushed hot with embarrassment. “Then why?” I whispered.

  “Sending a proxy in place is perfectly legal. It will not take away from its sanctity and legitimacy. He will still be married to me.” Her face was now entirely blank, her voice flat. I was in the grip of a panic, my chest tight with anxiety. I did not want to see him again, to watch those feelings rise up, to have a hand in giving him to someone else.

  “But—” I started.

  “It is public,” Nadine repeated. “And this is why you yet live. If you will shirk your duty, then I will march you to the executioner.”

  I almost reached for Maram, almost begged. The intervening weeks had healed the wound of letting him go,
of tearing him out of my heart. This—going through the motions of a marriage to him for someone else—would undo it all.

  Maram stood from her chair as silent as a ghost and walked to me. The hems of her skirts brushed over my knees.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked softly. “Or are all your words hollow?”

  I drew in a shuddering breath and closed my eyes.

  “No, Your Highness,” I said. “I am capable of fulfilling my duty.”

  Her hand came beneath my chin, the hold gentle, as if she were cradling a child. As if the look in her eye—that she might take my head at any moment—was not there.

  “Understand, Amani,” she said softly, “I would do anything just to spite you.”

  And then her hand was gone, and she swept out of the room, an orchestra of fluttering skirts and the chime of jewelry following in her wake.

  2

  The weeks passed in a blur of fittings and preparation. I had taken in some crucial part of Maram in our time of knowing each other, so falling back into her mannerisms and speech felt like slipping into an old gown. The day of the wedding dawned like any other—I was in the center of the world, but I was not its center. No one cared that my world was about to collapse. No one cared that I was about to go through an unimaginably cruel thing in the name of a sovereign nation that had colonized mine.

  I sat in a stone tub, its surface covered in flowers. Tala stood in the entryway, hands folded in front of her, an eyebrow raised. Serving girls waited quietly in the dressing chamber just beyond the entryway.

  “Daydreaming?” she asked, voice mild.

  “No,” I said softly. “Just … preparing for the inevitable.”

  “Come, Your Highness,” she said. “We have much to do today, and not very much time to do it.”