There again was that delicate tone Karina despised. Truth be told, she couldn’t have told Farid what was wrong with her because she herself wasn’t sure if anything actually was. It wasn’t just that the stormy season was approaching, though its arrival did make her restless every year. It wasn’t even the hollowness that ate at her whenever she remembered how Baba and Hanane had been more excited for Solstasia than anyone else, yet they’d never get to see one.
“You could let me participate in some of the events,” Karina suggested. “Then you’d be doing both jobs at once. Like wakama! I’m good at wakama.”
Wakama was one of the few sports Karina was allowed to play, as the Kestrel had decided not long after the fire that it wasn’t safe for Karina to train with actual weapons. Prior princesses, Hanane included, had all studied swordplay, but none of them had been placed in a cocoon of protection the way Karina had.
Farid shook his head, though there was a hint of pity in his voice when he said, “You know I can’t do that.”
Though Karina had made the suggestion in jest, a wave of disappointment flooded through her. She crossed her arms and looked away from Farid.
“Then I guess you’ll have to factor more time into your schedule for chasing me down.”
Enough time had passed now for Commander Hamidou to have alerted the Kestrel to their arrival. As Karina gazed at the door, she drummed her fingers against her leg in time to a new song she’d been learning.
Most girls had families—sisters to teach them, cousins to grow up with them, grandparents to tell them stories.
All Karina had was the Kestrel, and they didn’t talk. When her mother needed to speak with her, she usually had Farid or a servant pass along the message.
But the queen had personally ordered the Sentinels to get her. A chance for a face-to-face conversation between them was rare enough that Karina’s curiosity almost outweighed her fear of what her mother might do to her.
“In all seriousness, you worried me tonight,” said Farid.
Karina snorted and lazily examined the case of her oud. “I was barely gone an hour. Surely you couldn’t have been that worried.”
“I’m always worried for you,” he said softly.
An unnamed emotion welled up in Karina’s throat. Coughing, she replied, “I appreciate the sentiment, but no one’s asking you to do so.”
“It’s not something you can just stop.” Farid sighed again. “You know, Hanane always said that—”
“Don’t you dare,” Karina warned, her affection cooling at once. Hanane might have been Farid’s best friend, but she had been Karina’s sister. Amazing how people only ever wanted to talk about her when they were using her memory as a weapon.
Karina and Farid stared each other down, the history between them now a chasm neither could cross. Farid had been brought to Ksar Alahari after the deaths of his parents, the Mwale and Mwani of the Sibari family, years before Karina had been born, and he’d shared a close bond with Hanane. Some of her earliest memories were of toddling after the two of them and crying every time they left her behind.
But the decade since the fire had changed them both, and now almost all traces of the gangly boy Karina had known were gone.
The creak of ancient wood broke the silence, and Commander Hamidou’s head popped through the door.
“Your Highness, Haissa Sarahel is ready to receive you.”
The Kestrel’s garden had once been Karina’s favorite place in the world. It had been her and Hanane’s playground, Baba’s preferred space for practicing his music, and their family’s sole refuge from the ever-prying eyes of the court.
The garden was a small forest onto itself, full of low-hanging willows, sweet-smelling pines, and a host of other plants that never could have survived in such an arid climate if not for the Kestrel’s expert care. Karina rarely came here anymore; the only people who frequented the space were the Kestrel herself, five special servants who tended to the plants when the queen could not, and the royal council on the occasions when the Kestrel held meetings in her quarters instead of in the Marble Room.
Her mother was overseeing one such meeting when Karina and Farid approached. Seated around a long table beneath a wrought-iron pagoda wreathed with fragrant lilies, the royal council was engaged in a heated discussion, a map of Ziran laid out before them.
“The parade route must pass by the university, or the Chellaoui family is threatening to pull their funding from the new bimaristan! If it doesn’t get built, we won’t have enough hospitals to meet the growing demand.”
“But that would mean moving more guards to University District, which won’t leave enough to control the crowds to the west, especially considering how many soldiers were injured in the stampede today!”
Karina and Farid stopped at the edge of the pagoda. Every member of the council made a gesture of respect in her direction, touching three fingers first to their lips and then to their hearts. The Kestrel spared Karina only the quickest of glances before returning her attention to the argument.
“We cannot risk jeopardizing the parade over the Chellaouis’ ridiculous demands,” stated Grand Vizier Jeneba al-Bekhri, jabbing her finger into the map. From appearance alone, one might not guess that this tiny, heart-faced woman was the second-most-powerful person in Ziran, but when she spoke, what came out was a commanding voice that left grown men shaking.
“But the bimaristan must—!”
“Enough.”
With a single word from the Kestrel, the council fell silent. Her face betraying no emotion, she moved one of the figurines on the map.
“We will push the drum performance to the third day in order to give the procession more time to pass by the university. A contingent of one hundred extra soldiers from the southeastern garrisons will be added to the area to accommodate the change, and in exchange, the Chellaoui family will double the size of their donation to the bimaristan. What is next on the agenda?”
The Kestrel steered the rest of the conversation in this manner, always ready with a solution to every problem the council brought forth. In a matter of minutes, she adjusted the performance schedule, settled a dispute between two Eastwater tribes over their plot of land for the festival, allocated more funds to inns bursting past capacity with all the travelers, and drafted a declaration granting special passage of foreign diplomats through the Zirani Territories. It was a flurry of names and figures that Karina could barely keep up with.
Through it all, her mother never once looked at her.
“. . . and that will be all.” The Kestrel’s gaze finally landed on her daughter, and Karina shrank under the weight of it. “Unless anyone has any pressing matters that must be attended to at once, you are all dismissed. I will see you tonight.”
The council exited the garden, and Farid made a move to do the same until the queen said, “Farid, wait.”
Farid froze as the Kestrel made her way over to him. He was by no means a small man, but even he had to look up to meet the sultana’s gaze.
“You haven’t been sleeping lately.” It was a statement, not a question; Farid’s battle with insomnia was well-known throughout the palace.
“I’m sleeping about as well as ever, Your Majesty,” he conceded.