Mirage

by Somaiya Daud

  She was struck a final time, so hard she fell sideways and her shoulder hit the floor with a resounding crack. My family was left to nurse their wounds with more questions unanswered and new fears to entertain in the dark.

  Every family lived under constant threat of the Vath. But now my parents and brothers would fear the Vath and what the Vath was doing to me. What new thing had I done to incur their wrath? What horrible things did I suffer, or how badly had I angered them that now they suffered alongside me? My mother had searched for her siblings for years before realizing they were dead—and now she would wonder every night if I were alive or dead. Or if I was suffering something much worse.

  I shook myself to exhaustion at the thought of my family living under such terror.

  It could have been worse, I told myself.

  For whatever reason, Maram had kept my secret. Nadine still believed I was useful, that I was still necessary to ensure Maram’s safety. But there was nothing stopping Maram from revealing my secret, from sentencing me and my family to death or worse. And the Vath could always do worse.

  My family would always be in danger now. Because I had dared to dream of a world without the Vath. Because I’d dared to put that dream into action.

  And the danger would never fade.

  36

  I sat in the center of my bed, knees pulled to my chest as the light orbs murmured back at me. I spoke so little here that I forgot how they picked up sounds and parroted them back to their listeners. But now they whispered back at me, hushed, tight breathing and hiccupping sobs.

  I tried, too, not to think of what would happen to Maram now that Nadine had gotten to her. She trusted so few people to begin with, and now—the fragile bond I’d formed with her was broken beyond all repair, and all things I’d hoped for gone. The softening of her heart toward Andalaans would reverse. She would flinch back from it, convinced that I was proof of a base, traitorous nature in our race.

  The small and great tragedies weighed equally on my heart, and at last I fell into an uneasy slumber, pulled down into half dreams by the weight of what I’d done.

  * * *

  I don’t know how long I slept, but when my eyes opened again the room was still dark. For a moment, I stared into the gloom, confused. The orbs pulsed softly back into light, illuminating Tala’s form curved over me, a hand outstretched to my shoulder.

  “Tala?” I croaked. “What are you doing here?”

  And then the world came rushing back and I sat up, heart beating painfully in my chest.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Amani,” Tala repeated. “Idris is here.”

  I jerked around. “What?” I pushed myself away from her and tried to stand. I was shaking, I realized, as I tried to digest what she’d told me.

  How could Idris be here? This wing was sealed off from the rest of the Ziyaana, and to try to breach it—to be here. Dihya, it was such a risk to take. I felt as if I were hallucinating as his shape resolved in the courtyard.

  He crossed the space between us then and I let out a soft cry, heartbroken and heavy with grief. My heart gave a painful thud as he leaned down and kissed me. We stood like that, wrapped around one another, for long moments.

  At last he raised his head, and laid his forehead against mine. His thumb swept over my cheeks, wiping away tears I hadn’t realized were falling.

  “What … what are you doing here? How did you even know how to find me?”

  He smiled just a little. “I took a risk and asked Tala,” he said softly. “Then she took a risk and helped me.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Tala—she hovered in the doorway to my chamber, eyes cast down, fingers twisted in the folds of her skirt.

  “You shouldn’t have—” I began and cut myself off. The danger now more than ever was beyond imagining—and he knew that. If Nadine or one of her droids came in, if Maram stormed in still furious, it would be not our lives, but the lives of our families.

  “I’ve been so afraid, Amani,” he continued. “I knew it was you the moment you stood up for that boy.”

  I let out a sound, half sob, half laughter, and he smiled.

  “I’ve never known anyone so brave.”

  “Not brave,” I whispered. “Foolish. Filled to the brim with stupidity.”

  He pressed a kiss to my forehead and combed his fingers through my hair. “What did they do to you, Amani?”

  I pressed my face against his shoulder, unwilling to speak. I would begin to cry if I told him, and I wanted this memory untouched. I wanted to be able to hold this close to my heart—his arms around me, his chin in my hair, the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear.

  “I’m fine,” I said at last. “But Maram is furious.”

  “Yes,” he laughed. “Of course she is.”

  “No,” I said, and pulled away. “She found my family, Idris. My mother and father. My brothers—”

  He hushed me softly and pulled me back.

  “It was all my fault,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

  There was nothing to do—for either of us. I laid my head against his shoulder and listened to him breathe, hoping it would calm my mind.

  “I wish,” he said finally, settling his hands on my waist. “I wish we’d been born in a different time.”

  I smiled. Such a statement seemed almost too fanciful for Idris. “Me too,” I replied. “Or that the Vath had never come.”

  “Would we have met?”

  I rested my head on his shoulder and sighed. “Sometimes … sometimes Dihya means for two people to love one another, no matter the circumstances.”

  He chuckled. “But He doesn’t engineer it so they will spend their lives together.”

  I tried to smile. “Trial and tribulation is how poems are penned.”

  He laughed. “Being with you,” he started, and I shut my eyes again. “Amani … being with you is like being home. I haven’t felt this way since … since before.”

  I’d never felt about anyone how I felt about Idris. When I was with him it seemed that the entire galaxy was open to possibility, that we could do anything, achieve anything, if only we tried.

  “Run away with me,” he said softly.

  I gripped the lapels of his jacket. I wanted to. Dihya only knew how much. But I couldn’t—my parents, my brothers. They would always been in danger now. Anything I did the Vath would take out on them. I had to be here. I had to remain here. I had to obey.

  My fingers tightened their grip, trying to come to terms with what I knew I had to do.

  “You know as well as I do,” I said, “that the risk is too great, now. My family—”

  “Amani—”

  “Please,” I said, my voice cracking. “They don’t even know why they were beaten—” I wanted to shut my eyes so that I didn’t have to see my grief mirrored in his gaze. He looked alone, as alone as I felt standing in front of him. I could see the future unfolding, forlorn and bleak. Idris had become one half of me, and now I had to cut that half away.

  “Can you turn your heart away from mine, Amani? Can you cut me away so easily?”

  “Never,” I said fiercely, and drew his face back to mine. “Never.”

  “Then run away with me,” he whispered. “We’ll go anywhere you like. I beg you, Amani—”

  “Could you do it?” I asked. “Truly? Abandon your family to the mercy of the Vath?”

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them again I knew his answer.

  “No,” he said hoarsely. “No more than you could abandon yours.”

  “We wouldn’t be who we are if we could run away,” I said, pulling his hands into mine. “We wouldn’t love each other if we’d been those people.”

  For a moment, I pictured it. Not running away—but a world without the Vath. A world where I might have crossed paths with Idris, where I could seek patronage in a magistrates salon, where I could write poetry without fear of reprisal, where we might have loved one another freely and happily, without
worry or censure.

  I drew him down for a kiss, hoping he might taste the dream on my lips, hoping I could keep this memory. His mouth against mine, his hands cradling my head, his broad chest pressed against me.

  I pulled away at last and drew in a breath. “We … can’t take a risk like this again,” I made myself say. “We can’t risk—I can’t risk what will happen to my family. We can’t … be together … anymore.”

  “Amani—”

  “We knew from the beginning,” I said softly, looking up at him. “We knew this would happen.”

  “Is it foolish that I began to hope?” he asked.

  “Then we were fools together,” I said. “I don’t even know how to say goodbye.”

  “Don’t,” he said. “We’re apart. But nothing will change that I love you.”

  I kissed him again, then said, “Lamma bada yatathana, hubi jamalah fatanna … man li raheem shakwati … fil hubi min la’watee.”

  He laughed. “What…?”

  “It’s the song I sang,” I said, feeling an answering smile on my mouth. “That day in Ouzdad.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “When he first approached me, his beauty seduced my heart,” I whispered, pressing my forehead against his. “Who will soothe my complaints, born of suffering a love unfulfilled.”

  “Amani…”

  I didn’t want to cry again. I didn’t want the last time I would let myself touch him as mine to be tainted by it, to remember this moment always broken up by my tears.

  “I love you,” I said, pressing my face against his chest. “I love you.”

  Walking away from him, it felt as though my feet were weighed by stones. Every step took all my willpower, and it seemed to take an eternity for me to reach the door to my chambers. Don’t look back, I told myself even as I turned my head. He stood where I’d left him, his hands at his sides, flanked by pulsing orbs. Dawn’s first light was peeking in through the roof, and it haloed him against the doorway.

  I forced myself to turn away.

  Tala was waiting for me in my chambers. She said nothing as she eased me down onto the bed.

  When she laid a hand on my head, I broke. I curled up as though hunching over my heart might save its pieces from flying out, and I wept. I would likely never see Idris again, and if I did it would be at public functions where we were watched. I would never again know him in private, and the hazy future I’d hoped for had disappeared.

  Tala said nothing, but gathered me up in her arms and rocked me slowly. There was nothing she could say to ease what I felt; there was no solace to be had.

  This was life under the rule of the Vath.

  37

  I could hear the bells.

  They had rung so loudly and for so long only once before in my lifetime—on the morning of Maram’s birth. Now they rang five times at the top of every hour, reminding the citizens to rejoice. Our princess had at long last secured her inheritance. And though the public was barred from this ceremony, the truth was still the same: she was now the Imperial Heir.

  I sat in my window seat, joyless and without direction. The gate had not opened in a week, and I had been visited by no one. No droid or human passed through the courtyard except for Tala. Even Nadine had not come to gloat over her accomplishment. For the millionth time I fought against my tears. I slipped between grieving Idris, Maram, and the boy from the Reach, whose fate was unknown to me.

  I should have tried harder to convince Maram. I should have pleaded more, demanded she listen to me. I should have been able to convince her how much I cared, that I’d willingly risked my life for her. That I’d wanted to secure her inheritance, not steal it. But now—I would never get the chance. Nadine would ensure it. Under her sway and with the crown finally in her grasp, Maram would revert to the girl she’d been when we met. Cruel, thoughtless, hateful.

  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.

  There is an endless string of people who kept my head straight during this process. Much love and gratitude to the Snek Pit: Anna Prendella, Ronan Sadler, and Isabel Kaufman, thank you for yelling with me daily. To Karen Chau and Alex Cauley, thank you for griping with me about translation and being awesome. To the Salt Mates, Ashley M. and Catherine B., y’all know what you did. To Amanda Shah and Pauline Heejin Kim, who listened to my fears patiently even when I began to repeat myself. To Nur, your biting sarcasm and mathematic wit powered me through so much of the last year. To all my Demons: Aja, Sassy, Meg, Max, Gray, Zach, Noelle, Annie, Tropie, Rawles, Anna, Lys, Rachna, Nicole, Shruthi, Carrie, Jordan, Zara, Michele, Ari, and Riley, thank you for listening and bearing through my all-caps yelling as I worked through this book.