by Somaiya Daud
I poured all that feeling into this, my fingers tight in the folds of his robe as his hands found the tangle of my braid and undid it, as if he’d been planning to since I’d put it up.
When at last we parted, I struggled to breathe and laid my head on his shoulder.
“Every time I see you, Amani, feels like a gift and a reprieve,” he said, threading a hand through my hair. “But every moment together means that her confirmation, and our marriage, draws closer.”
The thought gave me pause, and I felt my earlier excitement drain away. Did we have a choice, I wondered. We lived in the world of the Vath, and their chains had tied him to Maram. He was welded to her and to the throne in the same way I was welded to her shadow.
“We have this,” I said, and laid a hand on his heart. “But the world will decide what becomes of us.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I am tired of being at the mercy of the world.”
the ziyaana, andala
27
“What is the matter with you?” Maram snapped, pulling back enough to get a full look at me. “Are you even listening?”
“What?” I was too distracted. As in most things, Tala was right; I could not allow Maram’s basic kindness to lull me into a false sense of security. I could not afford to not pay attention while in her presence. “I’m sorry.”
“What in the worlds could possibly be distracting you?”
“The dress?” I volunteered weakly, trying to marshal my thoughts. It wouldn’t do to be caught thinking of Idris, or what he’d revealed to me. That the more I helped Maram, the more successful we were, the sooner I would lose him.
She snorted.
For the second time in a row I would be required to dress in the Vathek style. This costume was not as stark as the last gown, but it had no sleeves, and a heavy cape that descended from the front of my shoulders instead of from the back. I felt exposed and uncomfortable, but I was expected at a Vathek council meeting. Maram could show up in Kushaila dress, but it made a stronger statement if she didn’t.
“Perhaps if you cut your hair?” she suggested, tugging on the cape.
“Then you would have to cut your hair as well,” I pointed out.
“Hm. No, this is fine. You pass muster.” She threw herself back into a seat beside the mirror. “Remember, you are not to speak. Listen, and nothing more. I can’t afford you saying something foolish and risking my position.”
“And if you were there?”
“I would have notes and be prepared to participate,” she drawled. “I will be queen—I need to know how to rule my planet.”
“Why is this meeting such a security risk for you?”
“Trade delegations are coming from outside the system,” she explained. “Everyone is screened, but Nadine deemed it an unnecessary risk.”
“Then why go at all?”
“It’s a test from my father … He wants to know I have the stomach for this kind of thing. If I’m to inherit, it will be one of my responsibilities.”
I nodded. Though Galene’s party had been a success, Maram’s father had said nothing about the state of her inheritance. Every day until her birthday was an opportunity to prove herself to Mathis and the rest of the High Vath.
“Besides,” she continued. “If I’m not present, it makes us look weak. If the Vath do not have enough security to protect the Imperial Heir, why trade with them exclusively, and on and on.” She waved a hand lazily.
“Exclusively? I don’t understand. Who else could they trade with?”
“The rebels,” she drawled. “If they gathered the funds, they could build an arsenal. Everyone must be dissuaded from doing business with them.”
I fought down a smile. I hadn’t realized others in the galaxy needed to be dissuaded from allying with the rebels—it always seemed like a fight we’d soldiered through on our own. That people needed to be dissuaded from helping us pleased me more than I could say, though I kept my gaze fixed on the floor.
* * *
The council chamber had been gutted and completely refurnished by the Vath. Gone were the red and orange pillars and the old script craved along the halfway point of the walls. The walls were white, carved with opulent gilt floral designs in the corners. There were mirrors all along the walls, and upholstered seats around an oval table. It was missing its center, and hovering over that opening was a holograph of the Ouamalich System.
The members of the council and their visitors milled around the opening, waiting for someone to call them to order. Several of Maram’s distant relatives were present, and greeted me with a small smile or a touch to the elbow. Galene, I noted, was also present, though seated at the far end of the table. She nodded when she saw me, once, a cool tilt of the head.
It was easy to pay attention and affect Maram’s usual sharp demeanor. The discussion crawled as the trade delegates argued and negotiated taxes, what they were legally allowed to import into the system, and what would be in direct competition with Vathek production. More than once I had to consciously keep my face impassive—there was no way to become used to the casual ease with which the Vath discussed our lives and our planet. We were numbers in a profit gained and lost column, nothing more.
It seemed to adjourn as slowly as it had started, but I didn’t rise from my seat. Some of the Vathek councilors left, while others procured drink. But all too soon the military commander, a man named Isidor, reconvened the meeting, this time with only the Vath in attendance. He was now flanked by several other lower directors, each wearing the midnight black jacket of the Vathek military, their collars pinned with the silver lightning bolt denoting their rank.
There was no more talk of trade. Instead, the image of the world hovering above us expanded until it focused on the eastern end of the main continent of Andala. The sharp Vathek letters spelled out the name of the largest city on the coast: Ghazlan. Before the occupation it had been a profitable city and a center for the arts, renowned for its beauty. It had been under the aegis of the Salihi clan, but without a central stronghold, and had been saved from the Purge. Under the Salihis it had been a cultural jewel and reminder of what we’d been. I kept myself still as those on either side of me leaned forward and began to murmur.
“Where shall we start?” Isidor said, his voice gruff.
“Ghazlan is our immediate problem. Though the whole of the Eastern Reach is brewing with dissent.” The woman who spoke was called Kora. Maram didn’t know her well; she was normally stationed at another planetary outpost.
Isidor gestured for her to continue. Kora’s hands moved quickly over her workstation and the image of the Eastern Reach faded and was replaced with a holoreel. Ghazlan’s stone towers were stark against the ocean just behind them. Smoke plumed up into the air, curling its way around the pale blue of the Vathek flags flying from the towers. I held my breath as a small figure climbed quickly up the side of the tower, an assault rifle strapped across his back. There was no sound but I could imagine the screaming—raucous and loud—in the streets below him as he tore the Vathek flag down. The old Andalaan flag, before the occupation, had been white, with a green crescent moon pointing up, and a spray of stars rising up like a fountain from between its two points. White for prosperity and longevity. Green for rebirth and growth. This was not the flag the rebel hoisted onto the tower.
Since the occupation, the flag had been replaced by the Vathek one, and the rebellion had refashioned themselves a new flag. A green full moon with the silhouette of a bird streaking halfway across its surface against a red field.
Green for rebirth and growth. Red for blood. Our blood.
No one had flown the rebel flag since the Purge, almost a decade ago. The bloodshed that followed their surrender was catastrophic, and most of us believed that it was over. There was no resistance to be had against our new masters. Cruel as they were, as hard as life was, they’d won. Gooseflesh rose on my arms as the image of the flag became clearer, as Kushaila letters formed just below it.
The ocean wind picked it up, straightening the fabric so that everyone below could see it. Beneath the full moon in green was Kushaila script.
The blood never dies.
The blood never forgets.
The same part of me that froze when long misshapen shadows appeared in the fields, when I heard the whiz of Vathek fighters in the air, screamed at me now. I had agreed to spy for the rebellion, but while they celebrated their first victory, the Vath were here, plotting their undoing.
How could they—how could we—survive such a thing?
“So far they’ve managed to take Ghazlan and Sidi Walid, a city on a major trade route, and a collection of estates with acres of verdant farmland.” The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Sidi Walid was a holy city. The first Dihyan temple was built there and it was the last place Massinia was seen.
“They’re peasants,” Galene spoke for the first time, her voice dripping with disdain. “How is this possible?”
“They’re clever,” Kora sighed. “They never hit a place with a large Vathek presence. And it’s two cities, hardly the rebellion we’re worried about.”
“If we don’t crush it…” Isidor started.
“Yes,” Kora agreed. “For now it’s contained to this region. But if they get hold of the entire region? It will become a bigger problem.”
“Why was it not crushed from the start?” Galene insisted once more.
I still hadn’t moved. In fact, I feared to breathe lest I give myself away. They were right; it was only three cities. But no one had succeeded in taking anything back from the Vath in more than twenty years. What they took, they kept.
“We are stretched thin,” Isidor said. “Andala requires a heavier military presence than we anticipated. Between that and the losses we suffered during the second siege…”
“The siege is eight years past now,” the minister of finance said, frowning. “It’s high time we repair the holes in our military.”
“With what? We have neglected the infrastructure of this planet in favor of quashing dissent. And Luna-Vaxor does not have the resources to build us back up. Not in the numbers we need.”
Isidor raised a hand, forestalling the minister. “How long would it take to get the resources we need in place?”
“With droids, and assuming no sabotage? The mines would take six months, the factories three or four. To replace what we lost in the war, a year perhaps. But that doesn’t account for the bodies we will need to man our ships.”
A chill spread through me as they spoke. Was this how our fates were decided? By cold High Vathek directors who were not interested in the planet itself but the resources we might yield? They had said nothing of this world, or Gibra, or even the whispers of Massinia’s rebirth. The rebels would become more than a problem for the Vath, that much was clear. And yet they skirted the issue, as if to speak of it would give it power.
The ministers continued to quibble among one another, citing cost and loss of Vathek life for and against campaigns in reclaiming the Eastern Reach.
“Bomb the coastal cities,” a voice said. It cut through the rising tide of argument as clean as a sharp knife, and as one our heads swung toward the source.
Mathis, king of all, sat at the far end of the table, his broad form leaning back as languid as a lion. None of us had seen or heard him walk into the meeting room, so absorbed had we been in the arguments. Not for the first time, I thought of the story Maram had told me. Mathis had committed patricide to secure his throne; he’d done worse to secure this system.
I was not a child, I knew that the very beautiful could hide evil. But Mathis’s strength, his menace, seemed to radiate from him. He cast a long shadow, frigid and dark; it seemed as though I could feel the chill of it all the way down the table. Even Galene seemed to pale just a little in her father’s presence.
“Your Grace?” Kora said.
“Was I unclear in my meaning?” he asked. “We can no longer afford such bald dissent. Not if we mean to continue to control this and all the other planets within our empire. We began the Andalaan conquest for profit and resettlement, and we’ve lost more money than is acceptable.”
His voice was even tempered, his face impassive. Despite that, I felt fear rope its way around my neck, as if at any moment he might explode into violence.
“Leave Ghazlan,” he said. “We cannot afford to rebuild its infrastructure. But we can afford to lose Tairout and Sidi Walid.”
I forced myself to think even as I felt grief twist in my chest. This was why I was one of Arinaas’s spies, so that I could pass information on to her. And it was all here, sitting in a data packet plugged into my workstation. Galene smiled at me from down the table, cool and mocking, as if she could sense my weakness.
I knew what I had to do, though I was terrified to do it. My hands worked, fiddling with the console, as I kept my eyes on the king.
“Sidi Walid is home to one of the oldest zaouias on the planet,” I said. My voice came out clear and as even as the king’s. Galene looked at me in surprise, as if shocked that Maram might speak at all, much less with authority. “It will be a moral blow to the dissidents.”
I felt ill suggesting the destruction of the zaouia. Even after the occupation, most of them had fulfilled their duties—giving shelter to the poor and needy, offering a place for respite and prayer. But Maram had to seem hard, and I needed people to focus on my words, not what I was still doing with my hands.
Mathis stared at me, and smiled. “An excellent point, Maram.” He turned back to the council. “Deploy the fleet.”
* * *
I returned to my apartments in a fugue. Tala offered me food and tea, but I shook my head and returned to my room. Somehow I got out of the Vathek gown and Maram’s circlet and jewelry and into my own clothes. The chill had not gone, and I found I had to wrap myself in a heavier robe to stave it off.
“Amani?” I jumped when Tala laid a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
I stared up at her, wide eyed. What could I tell her? Only, I imagined, what she already knew. That the Vath did not see us as people. That any method to keep us down and obedient was and would always be used. That the conquered people were not the priority, only the resources we sat on.
Bile burned in my throat. I’d helped them—given them advice on how to conduct a campaign that would kill yet more of us. They would target the zaouias, I thought. Because I had pointed them there. The places were ancient, and still home to the poor and needy. I’d done that.
I’d done that. Oh, Dihya.
I drew in a deep breath. “Nothing,” I said at last. “The Vath are … overwhelming. The council meeting was … I was not prepared.”
It was necessary, I reminded myself. I’d needed the information. The rebels needed the information.
She smiled in sympathy. “Shall I bring you in some tea?”
I shook my head. “I just need to rest, is all. I may stay in my room the rest of the day.”
“Alright,” she replied. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
I waited until her footsteps faded away before I rose from my seat and locked the door behind her. My hands reached for the charm I’d worn at Ouzdad, peeling back the thin, gel-like tab attached to the back. It emitted a brief, blue light when I pulled it off, then stuck it beneath my ear. It did not take long for a voice to speak.
“Yes?”
Something like a smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. “Have you given me your direct line?”
Arinaas laughed. “I can reroute the call to someone else if you like.”
I leaned back into my cushioned seat, and allowed myself a true smile. “No, thank you.”
“Ah,” she said, an echo of laughter still in her voice.
I liked Arinaas, I realized. She seemed straightforward and had a dry sense of humor I enjoyed. I never questioned where I stood with her and she never rode circles around what she wanted out of me. I had so few of those relationships
now.
“What news?”
I sobered. “The Vath are going to bomb the coastal cities in the Eastern Reach.”
She muttered something under her breath that sounded like a swear. “Mouha!” A name. “Get me Sa’ad. Quickly.”
A low murmur.
“Drag him across the desert if you have to.”
“Arinaas?”
“Amani.” Her voice had gentled.
“It’s as bad as I imagined?”
“No,” she said. “Not yet. There is still time to weaken their assault. You have proven very useful, my friend.”
“I have a data packet with troop numbers and weapon depots, but I need someone to collect the information from me.”
“Well done, Amani,” she said warmly, despite the news I’d given her. “We’ll find a way to get it from you. I’ll be in touch.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “They’re … they’ll be targeting the zaouias in Sidi Walid.”
Arinaas swore. “We’ll take care of it. Contact me if you learn more.”
“I will,” I promised.
The line went dead without a goodbye.
28
It felt as if the data packet were burning a hole in my pocket and in my mind. Nothing could keep me still, and my mind went round in circles, cataloguing what I knew—the bombing campaign, the cost in life—against my helplessness as I waited for Arinaas to arrange a handoff. I needed something to distract me, to occupy my time.
I thought I might have forgotten how to cook, especially in a strange kitchen. But the moves and measurements came to me easily. My family always ended the summer with a sweeter tajine—instead of olives, my mother added figs or apricots, whichever was more handy that year. I wondered if she would do so this year. If Aziz would hover as he did every year, trying to sneak a taste. Or if it would be harder for them to acquire the fruits with all the setbacks the village had suffered this year.
I’d set the tajine to simmer and was kneading dough, lost in thought, when a droid’s whistle echoed in the kitchen.