DRAMATIS PERSONAE
KUSHAILA
Amani bint Tariq: a young village girl from Cadiz kidnapped to the imperial palace. The body double to the Imperial Heir, Maram, and temporarily a rebel.
Maram vak Mathis: the half-Kushaila, half-Vathek daughter of King Mathis and Queen Najat, and the Imperial Heir to Andala and the Vathek empire.
Idris ibn Salih: the scion of the Banu Salih and Maram’s fiancé.
Tala: Amani’s handmaiden and confidante.
‘Imad Mas’udi: one half of the ruling pair of the Banu Mas’ud; I’timad’s twin brother.
I’timad Mas’udi: one half of the ruling pair of the Banu Mas’ud; ‘Imad’s twin sister.
Khulood al-Nasiriyya: the ruler of the Banu Nasir.
Tariq: Khulood’s younger brother and heir.
Itou al Ziyadia: the exiled Dowager Sultana of Andala and former Ziyadi queen. Maram’s grandmother.
Najat al Ziyadia: Maram’s deceased mother, the last Ziyadi queen of Andala. Brokered the peace between Andala and the Vath.
ZIDANE
Rabi’a bint Ifran: the newly risen ruler of the Banu Ifran.
Buchra bint Ifran: Rabi’a’s younger sister.
Furat al Wattasia: the last living Wattasi, living largely in exile with the dowager sultana. Maram’s distant cousin.
TAZALGHIT
Arinaas: Massinia reborn and the leader of the rebellion.
Tinit al-Hurra: Massinia’s mother, and the queen of the Tazalghit.
THE VATH
King Mathis: king of the Vath, committed patricide to gain control of the empire. Father to Maram and her elder half sister, Galene.
Nadine cagir Elon: the high stewardess of the Ziyaana and Maram’s caretaker.
Galene vak Mathis: Maram’s half sister and aspirant to the Vathek crown.
Ofal vak Miranous: Maram’s cousin and one of the only family members she gets along with.
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NASIB: PRELUDE
PROLOGUE
Once upon a time, there was a girl—a nestling—and she was a glorious creature. Born of sacred fire, cloaked in jeweled feathers, she could pass from one realm to another, could cross the space between stars as easy as breathing. She was raised in a crystalline palace wreathed in sacred flame.
When the nestling was a child, long before she’d ever been sent out into the world, her mother told her the story of her long-ago ancestor, Tayreet.
Fi youm minal ayaam …
Once upon a time …
Like the nestling, Tayreet had grown to strength in the heart of their sacred city, and like the nestling, she’d been sent down to their lost kin as a symbol of strength and war. High above a battlefield an arrow pierced Tayreet’s breast and knocked her from the sky. When the prince hunting her found her, her body had loosed its natural bird shape and taken on a human one.
The prince loved her from the first, and Tayreet him.
The nestling was always astonished that anyone might fall in love with their hunter, and her cousin had scoffed and tugged on a white braid.
“Not a real arrow, nestling,” her cousin said. “Love. Love knocked her from her lofty perch.”
How awful, the nestling remembered thinking.
* * *
In the center of the palace was a room with nothing but windows and mirrors. From there the nestling could see everything. They showed her life far away, across galaxies and in places hidden away by star dust. In the far corner of the room, wreathed in shadow, was a great mirror, many times as tall as she was. Consigned to shadows but for the great crack that ran through its center, she nonetheless sat in front of it for hours. Its gilt frame was carved with images of birds and lions and spears, and any time she stepped close she felt a pulse of life.
Until at last, one day, it woke and showed her the image of another girl. A princess.
She was young and stone-faced, cloaked in black. Around her forehead was a gold coronet, studded with a single green gem. Her small hand was engulfed by an elder woman’s larger one, and she didn’t move—she seemed to not breathe at all. A moment later, a procession passed in front of her bearing a coffin draped in green.
She didn’t see the princess again, not for many years, though she went to the mirror nearly every day. It showed her other things: the cost of war on the princess’s planet, loss of life, rebellion and the rebellion’s end. The nestling thought that, perhaps, the stone-faced girl had died. And then one day the nestling returned to the mirror, a woman grown, and found that the princess had grown too, and that she had a twin. Somehow, she knew which was the princess she’d seen all those years ago at the funeral and which was her double.
Please, the double said. Let me explain.
Nothing you say will fix this, the princess said, and though her expression was as stone-faced as it had been at the funeral, the nestling could hear a world of grief buried in that single sentence.
I was sincere, the double said.
A viper is never sincere.
Please, Maram. I took your place and risked my life for you.
Maram, the nestling repeated softly to herself, tasting the name for the first time.
And then a woman with silver hair entered.
She saved a rebel, the woman said, and laid her hand on the princess’s shoulder. A person hired to kill you.
Her heart skipped a beat, startled at the idea that the princess might have died, and she never would have known. Would the mirror have shown her? Would it have revealed a second funeral procession?
* * *
Fate intervened as it always did, and for the first time the nestling was commanded from her sacred city and into the war-ravaged world below. It should have surprised her that she was directed to the double she’d seen instead of Maram herself—it didn’t. Despite her fascination, there was something about the double—even as she’d begged she’d seemed regal.
The double had saved someone’s life. She’d taken the princess’s place in the line of fire.
Sacred fire only ever came to the brave and courageous. Hope was given to a person who might reshape the world. The nestling watched it take root in the double, watched the way light returned slowly and chased out the shadows that lived in her now. Saw the double draw in the heat that was a matter of course for someone like her, saw it give strength to her spine and speed to her will.
And from His first creatures He made stars, glowing hot with their fire and warmth.
All may see the stars, but few will see their forbears. And those whose eyes see golden fire We say heed Us and listen.
For We have sent unto you a Sign. See it and take heed.
The nestling’s wings unfurled and the double gasped as she cried out and launched herself up and into the sky.
She was meant to return to her sacred city.
She did not.
1
In a city in the heart of the world, in a palace in its very center, was a slave—a girl. Once upon a time the girl had borne ancestral markings on her face and danced happily among family and friends. She’d been kidnapped, as all girls in stories were, and brought against her will to the royal palace to serve as body double to a princess. Once upon a time, the girl—I—had been a rebel, and forced to make a choice between the rebellion and a princess who had undergone a spell of transformation herself. I’d chosen the princess and saved her life. The price had been high—my family was beaten, and I was threatened with their lives.