by Somaiya Daud
I climbed out of the bath and into the towel waiting for me and dried off efficiently.
The room was quiet as I dressed, with Tala taking lead on guiding the other serving girls. The qaftan was tea and dark gold in color, made of a luxurious velvet, its skirts slashed with silk panels. The bodice was embroidered in ivory thread, a spill of feathers from my shoulders and over my chest, and there was a slender gold belt that went around the waist. The back along my shoulders and down to my hips was made of delicate lace, dyed a pale, tea-like gold, and so too were the insides of the qaftan’s sleeves. My hair was smoothed back, the ends braided and threaded with strands of pearls then wound into a bun. From my throat hung several silver strands studded with gleaming red stones, and around my forehead was a silver coronet, with the same stone at its center. I hadn’t missed wearing Maram’s elegant finery during my time of seclusion. Plain and comfortable qaftans suited me, and I’d liked the way I’d slowly returned to myself in the last month and a half. I was not Maram, and a part of me resented that I would have to be her again, and under such circumstances.
Tala bade me stand and circled me for a moment before producing two hairpieces, a collection of a dozen thin pearl strands. She pinned one on the hair behind each ear. Then came the Vathek crown. Nestled in my curls was a gold wreath that wrapped around the crown of my head. Different flowers, all alien to Andalaan soil, all representative of the wishes of the Vath for their newly married brides. Health, longevity, endurance, fertility: not so foreign, and yet entirely foreign at the same time.
Maram’s wedding ceremony would likely be the first of its kind. When her parents, Najat, queen of Andala, and Mathis, her conqueror, married, Najat conceded to a wholly Vathek ceremony. I imagined in part because none of the Kushaila would be able to feign the joy inherent in our rites for such a marriage. But a marriage between Maram and Idris would be—or at least was meant to represent—a marriage between nations and cultures. The ceremony would have to reflect that. A part of me was glad. It would make it easier to live in the reality: this was not my wedding. I was not the one marrying Idris.
It was easy to forget when I was with Idris, but he—and all the children of makhzen families—were hostages. There was little they did—little that Idris did—that was not monitored. There were few choices available to him. And hanging over every choice he made, just as it hung over mine, was the safety of his family.
He had never been mine. We’d only been skilled in creating the illusion that we could belong to each other instead of the Vath.
If this were my wedding, if I were back in Cadiz, if I’d had the freedom to choose, to marry—all of this would be different. I would have worn henna for more than a day so that its stain was as close to black as I could get it, a complement to the sharp, geometric lines of daan that would still be on my face. My clothes would be heavier, brighter, in green or gold or blue. I would be surrounded by women: my mother, Khadija, all of the khaltous of my village.
I would not have been alone, reflecting on my impending marriage rites. My heart would not be filled with dread nor my fingers stiff with fear. If I’d been marrying Idris in truth—
Tala bade me stand and at last deemed my transformation complete. I stared in the mirror, my mind carefully blank lest I give myself away to the other serving girls. The woman who stared back was neither Amani nor Maram, but a princess who resembled neither. She was aloof and remote, without the great rage that characterized Maram or the innocence that had characterized me for a time. “Are you ready, Your Highness?” she asked.
I turned away from the mirror. “Yes.”
“You have done well,” Tala said. She lowered her voice and squeezed my hand, out of earshot of the others. “Your family remains safe.”
“For how long?” I said quietly, then shook my head. This was not the time or place. Whatever Dihya’s plans for me, they’d not yet revealed themselves. And in the meantime, I had to pacify both Nadine and Maram.
“I know this is difficult,” Tala began.
“It is inevitable,” I interrupted. “The dream is over, and the story finished, Tala.”
She looked, remarkably, as upset as I was. I covered her hand, which lay on my shoulder, with mine.
“There are worse endings,” I said, as much to myself as to her.
She smiled sadly. “There are better ones, too.”
There were many outside waiting to witness Maram’s purification, her ascent from adolescent girl into a woman willing to enter a savage’s home in the name of her empire. Nadine stood in the doorway, her silver hair gleaming in the bright sunlight. There were no embellishments on the dark gray gown she wore, and from her neck hung a pendant signifying her class: High Vathek, and stewardess to the king.
“The water is ready,” she said.
Beyond the preparation chamber was a flat open-air pavilion hung with lightweight scarves, all in white, and lined with creamy marble columns. Cut through the middle of the pavilion was a pool of still, crystalline water. And standing all around were women of the highest echelons of Vathek and Andalaan nobility. Beyond the pavilion, in the open air, were high-ranking city folk—merchants, magistrates, and so on. People high enough to warrant an invitation, but too low to merit a front-row seat.
I stepped into the water, no more than an inch deep. As I walked, Vathek and Andalaan alike flicked sanctified oil toward me.
Finally, I reached the end of the pool. I stepped out and knelt on the waiting cushion as Nadine and Maram’s elder half sister, Galene, came to stand over me.
“Be blessed,” they said, as Galene tipped a small vase of oil over my hair.
Be blessed echoed back from the crowd, reverberating and out of sync. I felt a chill rush up and down my spine. Sometimes it was easy to forget that the Vath were aliens to our world. And the soft, rising murmur, like wind ripping through grass, so different than any wedding celebration I’d ever attended, reminded me. No crying out, no expressions of joy, no singing. Only stately whispers.
Be blessed.
I didn’t think, no matter how much all those attending believed in those words, that it was possible.
A pair of serving girls came forward with a great blue veil of sheer cloth, its edges stitched in the Kushaila style with gold thread. In the Vathek style it would have been white and not so sheer, and as a compromise it was as large as a Vathek veil. The two held it carefully over the gold wreath atop my head and draped it just so, as another serving girl came forward with a pair of gold slippers for me to put on.
I rose to my feet and caught a glimpse of my reflection—of a woman preparing to face a planet that hated her to marry a prince they loved. I loved—we all had loved—stories of clever girls of little means who’d risen high above their rank to marry a prince. Khadija and I had spent hours telling and retelling them to each other, imagining a world where it was possible. I’d imagined—
The dream was over, the story done.
I was grateful for the veil. For the first time in many months, I felt as I had during my first days in the Ziyaana. Not even Tala’s presence beside me carrying the trail of my gown could alleviate the loneliness. The crowd was silent and hushed, though I heard the whir of camera probes and the soft murmur of journalists narrating to their liaisons across the galaxy.
The first words of a Kushaila wedding song rang out over the crowd and at last my tears fell as the whole city seemed to echo in song.
* * *
I didn’t remember the ceremony. I was conscious of the fact that Idris never let go of my hand. That we knelt side by side as the ceremony progressed. That at some point the wreath was drawn from my head and set on a pyre. I knew that I looked up at him and recited Vathek and Kushaila vows and that he repeated them gravely. I knew that I saw the same pain at this final separation in his eyes that I felt in my heart. Neither Vathek nor Kushaila custom demanded a kiss, and for that I was grateful. I could not have endured it.
But at last the applause and cheer of
Vathek and Andalaan nobility both pierced my mind, and I looked up as if waking from a dream.
The next I knew, the veil was lifted and at last I could breathe. I was alone with Tala as she touched up the kohl around my eyes and replaced the pins on my shoulders with Kushaila brooches, preparing me for the feast.
She was straightening the folds in my gown when the doors opened. Mathis, King Mathis, stood framed in the doorway, his tall and broad form blocking out the light of the other room. Tala dropped to her knees instantly, and I joined her a little more slowly, as Maram would.
“Your Eminence,” I murmured.
He flicked his hand at Tala, who shot me a quick glance before all but fleeing the room. I couldn’t blame her. There was a malignance to the Vathek king’s presence, as if terror spawned in his wake. I didn’t know if he’d been informed I would be taking Maram’s place, and I would not risk the discovery of a plot that would anger him. Instead, I remained perfectly still, waiting for his leave to rise.
Instead, he came in front of me and slid a gloved hand beneath my chin.
“You are the image of your mother,” he said, his voice low. “Without her softness or her doubt.”
Nothing he said was a threat, and yet I felt the threat of violence in the single movement, in his refusing to give me leave to stand, in the way he spoke of the late queen. And I feared, viscerally, what he would do if he realized that I was not his daughter.
“You will suffer a Kushaila spouse as I suffered a Kushaila spouse in order to do what is necessary,” he said quietly. I felt a spark of rage rise up in me on Maram and Najat’s behalf. If anyone had suffered it had been Najat, whose marriage had robbed her of her life. She’d survived the civil war that predated our conquest, and all the ills and difficulties that came with it. She’d survived the war of conquest, the occupation, the siege of Walili. Her marriage had sapped the life out of her, or so public opinion believed.
How would Maram have reacted to the maligning of her mother, who she—we—so closely resembled? In all likelihood as she had suffered everything from her father. In dignified silence.
“Come along,” he said. I moved as if I were a droid reduced to its base programming. My hand slipped into the crook of his elbow, and his large hand in turn first adjusted my veil so that it fell correctly. I could hear Tala falling in line behind us, straightening out the folds of my gown so that they trailed behind me just so.
The doors to the hall boomed open, and somewhere a herald announced our entrance.
The reception hall was a grand ballroom, with a high glass ceiling, and fortified glass walls all around. This, I knew, was the center of the center of the world. The light refracted off white clouds, so that everything had a pink, orange, and red cast to it. The sun would be entirely gone from this side of the planet soon, and in its place would be a hundred shining orbs of light, and many strung over the ceiling, to mimic the stars.
The king guided me to the center of the room, and I sat demurely on the divan. A moment later his fatherly hands lifted the veil from my face and crown and pinned it to my shoulder.
“Feast,” he said softly, “for tomorrow is a new world.”
3
Up until the ceremony, I’d been surrounded only by women. And during the ceremony itself, I could not focus on anything but Idris—on avoiding his eyes, on trying to make sure he did not see me, realize that it was not Maram who stood across from him. But now, I was aware of all the Vathek and Andalaan men who were present. Those who’d been denied Maram’s hand and access to the throne, and those who mourned the loss of the last heir of the Banu Salih, at last absorbed into the Vathek family structure. By Vathek and Kushaila law, Maram had been absorbed into Idris’s household. But in practice, Idris was more tightly bound than ever to the Vathek throne and their aims. Every now and then I would look out at the crowd feasting and laughing and singing and I would find more than one pair of eyes fixed on me, contemplative and hostile.
It was no wonder Maram didn’t want to attend her own wedding.
Mathis stood behind me with a few other dignitaries and directors. Ambassadors from planets conquered by the Vath, generals in his imperial war, high-level representatives from the galactic senate. Maram’s inheritance of the planet, and therefore Mathis’s hold on it, relied on her marriage to Idris, or so I understood. Here Mathis could survey the work of the last twenty years: his daughter, born of a marriage to a savage he had stomached in the name of the state. The makhzen who, in another life, might have supported her against him now suitably afraid of him and the cost of dissent. Their children firmly in the grip of empire, hostages in all but name, raised in the Ziyaana against their will. The Vathek aristocrats vying for his favor. All the wealth of the worlds laid out at his feet, carousing at his daughter’s wedding.
I could barely stand to look out at their faces, to see evidence of his triumph. It was a twofold triumph: Najat’s marriage to Mathis all those years ago, and now Maram’s marriage to Idris. The Vath and Andalaans were now more tightly bound than ever.
I hated these people. Even those who had suffered in the war of conquest, even those who had no choice about the people they’d become. Few had known the hunger and disease of a siege, much less understood the terror of the sudden appearance of the Imperial Garda. Here they were, wreathed in finery and jewels, celebrating the seal of our doom. And here I was, a slave, alone, trotted out as a shield. I was in the center of the world and I was alone.
The doors opened again and a herald announced Idris. Maram’s husband.
He was haloed by the brilliant light shining in through the windows like some sort of prince out of legend. His hair was shorter than I remembered, his face clean-shaven. He wore black trousers and a black jacket embroidered in gold, with a tea-gold shirt beneath it. I remained perfectly still and drank him in as if I were a woman denied water all her life. He was as I remembered—tall and broad-shouldered, his face gentle, his mouth tilted into a half smile. I saw the moment his smile faltered when our eyes met—how quickly he recognized me. Electricity zipped along my skin as he took my hand and bent over it, as his mouth brushed over my knuckles.
“Lady wife,” he murmured.
I had forgotten and not forgotten, thought and not thought about Idris and this moment.
I lowered my gaze and folded my ringed hands against my skirt. I was a fool—I’d spent no time preparing for this eventuality, for having to see him again like this. The stakes of our separation were real; I could not risk the safety of my family, nor he his. But it made it no less a bitter pill to swallow, no easier to watch him play the part of a man happily wed to someone else. I’d never felt as if I needed to flee his presence, but today the air seemed to suffocate me, and the reality of my situation came to bear down on my shoulders.
He leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. My eyes closed and I inhaled, savoring this one moment in time. The reception continued around us, but for this half heartbeat he was mine and I was his. We had duties to perform and our families depended on our success. I could not wallow or weep or linger. So I steeled my spine and committed this sliver of a moment to memory.
“We have ministers to greet,” I said softly.
His eyes met mine again for a moment, and then he took up his spot beside me.
* * *
The light filtering through the glass was now red—the sun was setting, the day was ending, and the orbs of light strung up high across the ceiling were flickering to life like distant stars. Idris and I had sat through a receiving line of ministers, dignitaries, and directors, then passed a circle through the room, greeting his cousins and friends. Mathis had taken the time to announce with a great deal of gravity that the Salihis would host continuing wedding festivities at M’Gaadir. I had never been, but now my mind was occupied by images of quiet rest at a seaside city.
A chime sounded through the air and Tala tapped my arm gently.
“Wardrobe change,” she said softly. I squeezed I
dris’s hand in warning and departed with her a moment later. She led me to a small parlor stocked with a mirrored vanity and a wardrobe filled with clothes for this occasion.
“How do you feel?” she asked as I slid out of my slippers.
“Stretched too tightly,” I said, watching her reflection as she unbuttoned the back of my gown.
She hummed in response. “We have some time before dinner begins. Once you are in your new gown, the orchard is through that door. You can rest.”
I closed my eyes. “Thank you, Tala.”
I shrugged the tea-gold gown off and stood still as she drew a black undergown over my head. Its sleeves were cinched tightly at my wrists, but the rest of it flowed down to my feet. When I shifted this way and that, thin threads of gold glittered in the light. Over it went a gown of ivory lace, studded with tiny champagne-colored beads and silver thread. Its sleeves were wide and its neck was low, so that one saw the black-and-gold gown beneath it. Around my waist was a leather belt, a hand wide, stitched with a tesleet, its wings spread to wrap around my waist.
“There,” Tala said. “I will collect you when it’s time.”
The garden was an orange orchard. I recognized the trees—their fruit was perennial and its scent was sharp in the air. It reminded me of my majority night. There were lights strung through these trees and somewhere in the garden a fountain flowed, babbling cheerily into the silence. There were no birds—no animals at all, and it gave the orchard a still, hushed feeling. I breathed deep and lifted my face to the sky.
When I lowered my face, there stood Idris, framed by the trees and the light of the setting sun. I knew it was only my heart that made him appear more than he was—not just a prince for this moment, but a prince out of legend and antiquity. A man who belonged at the immortal center of the world.
“Amani,” he said softly. He’d crossed the orchard without my hearing, and now slid a hand beneath my chin and raised my face so that he might look at me. The breath I took lodged itself beneath my breastbone like a knife and I couldn’t stop myself from covering the hand now pressed against my cheek with my own.