by Somaiya Daud
Idris found me like that, leaning back on my hands, my face upturned to the cavern’s ceiling. He said nothing, but pulled his shoes off as I had, and took up a spot on the rock beside me. Our silences too often felt weighted, as if we were both replaying the afternoon in the grotto or the morning in the courtyard. I shouldn’t have touched him, shouldn’t have let him touch me. I should have kept my distance. And because I hadn’t, I was now faced with a choice.
When I looked over at him, he was watching me.
“What?”
He smiled. “I could teach you to swim.”
I snorted and his smile widened. “Her Highness doesn’t swim,” I reminded him. “And I will only ever go where she needs to be. Besides, it’s a terrible idea.”
“You’ve never lived by the water?”
I shook my head and turned away. “It was a valley,” I said after a moment. “The Vath dammed up the river twenty years ago. There’s no place to swim.”
“Ah,” was all he said.
I hadn’t thought of the valley that had been my home in so long. Always my thoughts were with Husnain or with Aziz and my parents. I’d never thought to miss it, and yet here I was, my chest squeezing tight as I thought of its mountains and smoky skies.
“I have been wondering,” Idris started again, and I tried not to sigh.
“Yes, sayidi?”
“The song you sang that morning. What did it mean?”
I felt the flush working its way up my throat before I even looked at him. He truly didn’t know, that much I could tell from his expression. But what a fool I’d been, singing an old love song. He knew what it was, even if he didn’t know what the words meant. He’d been lulled into it as much as I had, had stared at me as though I were the only person in the garden, even as Tala berated us for being alone.
Don’t let your thoughts stray so, I told myself. There was no future for us together. Any and every end I imagined for the two of us was one mired in tragedy. No matter how beautiful or kind Idris was, he was not mine. And yet the happiness that had taken root in my heart refused to listen. I watched him as he watched me, caught and unable to look away.
I turned around just as he lost his balance on the ledge. I watched it as if in slow motion: his realization, his hand reaching out, his fingers grabbing the mantle. I hadn’t counted on his weight or his strength, so when he pulled me along with him, I screamed.
I fell into the pool with a splash. Somehow, it seemed, the water had gotten colder since I’d pulled my feet out. It was only knee deep, and after flailing and struggling against Idris I managed to right myself onto my feet. Idris followed suit a few seconds later. We stared at one another in shock, bedraggled and soaked to the bone. His clothes stuck to him now like a second skin, and when I looked down at myself—
I groaned. Tala would be so angry when she saw me. Simple as the blue qaftan was, it was ruined. When I looked up at Idris again he was grinning.
“What?” I snapped. I was wet and uncomfortable and his delight did nothing to help.
“Nothing, you just—” He laughed. “You look very angry. Come on, there’s a spot we can dry off.”
He led me away from the cliff ledge and down to the beach itself. It was warmer on the beach, below the open cavern ceiling, and the sun had fully risen, turning the lake a brilliant turquoise. The water rushed and pulled away from the shore with the soft shushing noise the orbs had made on our way here. There was a flat, wide rock a few feet away and that was where Idris led me. I stretched out the mantle against it, hoping it would dry quickly, and sighed.
A moment later there was a wet plop and when I looked up Idris had removed his shirt. In the morning light, his wet hair and skin seemed to glimmer. The khitaam on his arm looked bolder and darker than it had the last time I’d seen it. He looked at it as if remembering and then looked at me. His eyes widened a little and he froze, as if he hadn’t expected to catch me staring.
I should have looked away. But I was tied to where I stood, as I always seemed to be when Idris was around. His skin was warm beneath my palm, and I imagined for a moment that I could feel his heart beating beneath it. When his forehead touched mine I closed my eyes and breathed out a sigh.
All our time at Ouzdad we’d been inching our way toward one another, fingers brushing, tucking back strands of hair, stealing glances at one another. I knew what I wanted. My own happiness, not tied to his, but alongside it. I could see what I could have, secret, furtive, but real. He’d shown me a little of who he was and now—
His hands tangled in the wet mass of my hair. I could feel the whole world between us waiting for us to choose. For me to choose. His smile wasn’t so wide as his grin, but it was slower, sweeter, and pulled an answering one from me. I tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear and let my thumb brush over his cheek.
I felt as though my whole body were waiting for his kiss. My fingers tightened in his and I rose up on my toes to meet him. His hand cradled the back of my head just as his mouth brushed over mine once, then again. It felt like an entire conversation unto itself—questions I had but couldn’t articulate, answers I wanted to give but didn’t know how. He drew me closer until the lines of our bodies were pressed against one another, until I had to put my arms around him to keep my balance.
I had kissed other people before and the things I remembered were strange—the taste of a mouth, the bee humming around our heads, the sun beating down on us.
I thought of none of those things with Idris. The sharp heat I’d felt every time we were together, the tightness in my breath, the pinprick of need over and over—they roared to life, pushing me closer to him, opening my mouth beneath his. They told me to answer his questions, tell him what I wanted, how I felt, give him the respite he sought and I would have mine, too. The world disappeared even when we parted. All I heard, all I felt, was the two of us and the little space in between.
For the second time that day, Furat’s words came back to me. Happiness is rebellion, I thought.
23
The morning of our departure came before I was ready. A strong wind blew through the canyon, howling angrily, warning everyone of the sandstorms to come. Ouzdad itself was hushed, shadowed by the clouds in the sky. I stood in front of a mirror in the early morning as Tala dressed me in a gift from the Dowager. The serving girl who delivered the qaftan stood aside, eyes critical as Tala’s hands moved here and there, adjusting the belt and the cape.
It was a beautiful dove gray qaftan with elbow-length sleeves cuffed with dark crystals and dark purple embroidery. A sleeveless, floor-length jacket of the same purple sat over it, with a stream of layered gray silk chiffon falling back from my shoulders to pool on the floor behind me. Tala had stripped the henna from my hands the night before, and they looked naked in the mirror, even though they were laden with rings.
“There,” Tala said, coming around to look at me. “Beautiful.”
“The Dowager has requested her presence before she leaves,” the serving girl said in Kushaila.
Tala translated before I could respond, and after a moment I nodded.
I made my way to the Dowager’s quarters, and paused at the entrance. It would be a long while before I saw the image of the tesleet bird again, and I wanted to commit the way they framed her doors to memory. Massinia had carried such a bird for most of her long life, its crown of feathers a shocking, brilliant emerald green. Some thought the bird Azoul, the tesleet she’d encountered in the desert, and that the mark she bore was its gift to her, tying them together. I didn’t know if I believed that, but the bird had always heralded change and power. And now it was gone from the world.
“My lady?” the serving girl said in accented Vathekaar.
I nodded and the doors groaned open.
The Dowager Sultana sat in her customary throne-like seat, her face turned to an open window.
“I will be sorry to see you go, girl,” she said in Kushaila. “I should have liked to walk the garden paths a little lon
ger with you. The few afternoon walks weren’t enough.”
I made myself smile and leaned over to kiss both her cheeks and the backs of her hands.
“If I am still living,” I said in Kushaila, “you will likely see me again next year.”
She grunted and waved her hand. “A year is too long for an old woman like me.”
Furat swept in, still in her sleeping robes, her hair flowing behind her. “I thought I’d missed your departure.”
I barely had time to stand before she pulled me toward her for a hug. Gratitude flowed through me as I hugged her back. We’d not spent much time together, but what I’d learned about her comforted me. She was a good ally to have, here and in the Ziyaana. And now I felt we were sisters-in-arms, too. She would watch my back as I watched hers.
I wished, briefly, for a true sister—one who watched my back for no other reason than she wanted to. But I didn’t live that life, and the wish came and went, flashing and dying as quickly as lightning.
“When we return to the Ziyaana we will be enemies,” she said, pulling away.
“But we will know the truth,” I replied, squeezing her hand. The next time we saw each other, I would be spying on the Vath. The notion sparked both fear and excitement in me, but the idea that I would have an ally—that mattered to me more than anything else.
We set off soon after the same way we’d come, with Nabil and his guards leading us out of the canyon and through the desert. I felt a pang in my chest and forced myself not to look back. I’d spent three weeks in the shadow of those canyon walls, happy, and safe. I was used to feeling that way now, and the prospect of returning to the Ziyaana, a place wreathed in suffering, frightened me.
Far in the distance I saw the shape of half a dozen Tazalghit women astride their horses. One of the horses reared up on its hind legs, whinnying angrily. I didn’t know if it was Arinaas, if she’d even sent those women to watch as we departed the palace. But the sight of them heartened me nonetheless.
I knew I wasn’t alone.
* * *
I retired to my chamber once our cruiser took to the air. I had no desire to spend the next few hours constantly aware of Idris, to wonder when I might see him next.
I dozed on and off until Tala woke me and helped me to freshen up.
“Alright?” she asked.
I nodded and settled the light cloak over my shoulders. “I don’t think I’m ready to go back.”
Tala smiled. “I would find it strange if you were.”
The cruiser had begun its descent to Walili and the Ziyaana landing by the time I emerged from the chamber to the receiving room. Idris was already there, standing at the large window, framed by a stream of clouds and the planet’s afternoon light. His hair was held back as it always was in the Ziyaana, and his navy blue jacket was buttoned up to his throat. He struck a severe figure with his clean-shaven face, wiped of expression. The sarcastic rise of his eyebrows and small creases at the corners of his eyes were absent.
When he turned away from the window and saw me, something in his expression eased. I found myself smiling, just a little, in response. And when he held out a hand to me I took it without hesitation.
His hands were dry and warm, the hands of a makhzen with few scars and no callouses. Idris had likely never plowed a field or hauled wheat into a warehouse. His struggles were altogether different.
I stilled when his hand brushed against my cheek. His fingers slid over the hairline behind my ear and into my hair. “The next time we see each other,” he began, “we won’t be ourselves.”
I wound my fingers around his. I’d known from the beginning our moments would be stolen and few. Hoarded and measured out between engagements, while all the world watched me thinking I was Maram. I knew it wouldn’t be enough, but right now it was something, and that was more than I’d had before I’d gone to Ouzdad.
“We all have parts we must play,” I told him. “It doesn’t change—”
“Anything,” he interrupted and smiled. “The ties they forged have broken and Fate has led our feet to freedom.”
I couldn’t keep my grin off my face. “That was a very good translation. And from a lesser-known poem, no less.”
“The Dowager helped.” My laugh was stopped by a wave of emotion. By his own admission he couldn’t read Kushaila very well, but he’d struggled through it to find something to bring to me. It was a gift more precious than he knew.
My hand tightened around his. I didn’t know when we’d see each other again, how many weeks or months we’d have to wait before we were brought together next.
“We will see each other again?” I said softly, leaning my forehead against his.
“Yes,” he replied, his words a promise. “Yes.”
the ziyaana, andala
24
“Will you swoon like Bayad?” Tala muttered to me one afternoon, startling a laugh out of me. I blinked at her, clearing the daydream from my mind.
“That ends happily, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Bayad and Riyad’s story was one of a love that had managed to transcend and conquer class and difference. Bayad, a merchant’s son, fell in love with Riyad, a girl serving in a vizier’s court. It was not a favorite of mine—Bayad swooned more than I liked—but it was beautiful nonetheless.
She snorted. “The question still stands.”
The Ziyaana had felt quiet since I’d returned from Ouzdad three days ago. Maram, surprisingly, had left me alone, nor had I seen Nadine. I wasn’t lovesick, or so I told myself, but I spent an inordinate amount of time daydreaming and missing Idris. The longer I was away from Ouzdad, the more my time there seemed like a beautiful dream.
The only proof I had that it wasn’t was the communicator Arinaas gave me. I tested it my first night in the Ziyaana, as she had instructed me, to make sure the signal worked. I’d hidden it against the lettering on the back of the charm, so that the quote from the book seemed to be alive with nano-circuitry.
Believe, for We know things you do not. And We see what you do not.
It was a strange thing to carry around my neck, its tiny gel-like surface pressed to my skin. But it felt safer to keep it there than to risk Tala or a droid noticing it.
The reading of fairy tales I’d started at Ouzdad continued in the Ziyaana and branched out to include whatever poetry I could get my hands on. I had more time than I knew what to do with—there were no goats I needed to attend to, no orchards to pick, no food to be made in the village oven. My success, first at the ball, and now at Ouzdad, meant that Nadine and Maram largely left me to my own devices. I spent as much of my time as possible avoiding thoughts of the next engagement. Thus far, they’d been uneventful—but I knew that the rebels and the world hated her. I knew I’d been brought to die in her place. My mind sobered and my thoughts grew grim whenever I remembered.
I kept Husnain’s gift close to me as often as I could, and oft-times I thought of what he’d said to me the last time I’d seen him. Part of me wanted to try my hand at writing my own poetry—in the old days there would have been salons full of Kushaila competing to produce the best verse for rewards from the town magistrates. But here, there was only myself, and no one to hear. Still—I tried.
Destiny shadows her footsteps …
“I won’t swoon,” I assured Tala now, and patted her hand. And then, “Are you the go-between for divided lovers, then?”
She shuddered, but was smiling. “Dihya forbid you should ever truly be divided lovers, and that I should be your go-between, Amani.”
I was still grinning when the droid appeared to summon me to Maram.
The light in my heart dimmed just a little as I drew the cloak over my shoulders and took the veil from Tala’s proffered hand. I knew I wouldn’t receive a lesson; Maram and Nadine believed I’d performed admirably at Ouzdad, and they had no way of knowing what had transpired between Furat and I, or the Dowager and Idris.
Still, if my mind’s distance was so easily discernible to Ta
la, what would Maram glean from looking at me?
All the while we walked toward her quarters I tried to ready myself for another assignment. It would likely be in Greater Walili; I could not imagine that she would need to journey somewhere as far as Gibra a second time. There were enough scorpions hiding in the desert around Walili. The droid led me past her door, and down a set of steps. We emerged into the courtyard I’d glimpsed when I visited her last.
We continued toward a secluded bower surrounded by trees, and filled with floating orbs of light. Maram was seated on a cushion on the grass, a low table set with a shatranj game spread out before her. She was clearly lost in thought, but as soon as the droid stepped into view her gaze cleared and she lifted her eyes to me.
“You may go,” she said to the droid.
After a moment she gestured to my veil and waited for me to pull it off.
“Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Shall you sit or must I command you?”
My mind swung back and forth between fear and suspicion. But as I settled down onto the cushion and shrugged the cloak from my shoulders, I had the impression she was bored. The board was set in the middle of one of the problem puzzles Idris had shown me while at Ouzdad, only half solved.
“You and his lordship enjoy this game, then?” I asked.
“You played at Ouzdad?” Maram’s bright smile didn’t set me at ease.
“It served as a distraction,” I said. Not a total lie. It had certainly produced a distraction for us both.
She hummed her ascent. “So—how did you like him?”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Like him?”
She balanced her chin on her fist. “I’ve heard my fiancé is quite the Kushaila catch,” she said. “Do you disagree?”
Like so much with Maram, this felt like a trap. I turned my words over carefully before I spoke. “His lordship was kind and gracious. Very easygoing.”
“Diplomatically stated,” she said dryly. “And not a word to his handsomeness.”