I almost reached for Maram, almost begged. The intervening weeks had healed the wound of letting him go, of tearing him out of my heart. This—going through the motions of a marriage to him for someone else—would undo it all.
Maram stood from her chair as silent as a ghost and walked to me. The hems of her skirts brushed over my knees.
“Is there a problem?” she asked softly. “Or are all your words hollow?”
I drew in a shuddering breath and closed my eyes.
“No, Your Highness,” I said. “I am capable of fulfilling my duty.”
Her hand came beneath my chin, the hold gentle, as if she were cradling a child. As if the look in her eye—that she might take my head at any moment—was not there.
“Understand, Amani,” she said softly, “I would do anything just to spite you.”
And then her hand was gone, and she swept out of the room, an orchestra of fluttering skirts and the chime of jewelry following in her wake.
2
The weeks passed in a blur of fittings and preparation. I had taken in some crucial part of Maram in our time of knowing each other, so falling back into her mannerisms and speech felt like slipping into an old gown. The day of the wedding dawned like any other—I was in the center of the world, but I was not its center. No one cared that my world was about to collapse. No one cared that I was about to go through an unimaginably cruel thing in the name of a sovereign nation that had colonized mine.
I sat in a stone tub, its surface covered in flowers. Tala stood in the entryway, hands folded in front of her, an eyebrow raised. Serving girls waited quietly in the dressing chamber just beyond the entryway.
“Daydreaming?” she asked, voice mild.
“No,” I said softly. “Just … preparing for the inevitable.”
“Come, Your Highness,” she said. “We have much to do today, and not very much time to do it.”
I climbed out of the bath and into the towel waiting for me and dried off efficiently.
The room was quiet as I dressed, with Tala taking lead on guiding the other serving girls. The qaftan was tea and dark gold in color, made of a luxurious velvet, its skirts slashed with silk panels. The bodice was embroidered in ivory thread, a spill of feathers from my shoulders and over my chest, and there was a slender gold belt that went around the waist. The back along my shoulders and down to my hips was made of delicate lace, dyed a pale, tea-like gold, and so too were the insides of the qaftan’s sleeves. My hair was smoothed back, the ends braided and threaded with strands of pearls then wound into a bun. From my throat hung several silver strands studded with gleaming red stones, and around my forehead was a silver coronet, with the same stone at its center. I hadn’t missed wearing Maram’s elegant finery during my time of seclusion. Plain and comfortable qaftans suited me, and I’d liked the way I’d slowly returned to myself in the last month and a half. I was not Maram, and a part of me resented that I would have to be her again, and under such circumstances.
Tala bade me stand and circled me for a moment before producing two hairpieces, a collection of a dozen thin pearl strands. She pinned one on the hair behind each ear. Then came the Vathek crown. Nestled in my curls was a gold wreath that wrapped around the crown of my head. Different flowers, all alien to Andalaan soil, all representative of the wishes of the Vath for their newly married brides. Health, longevity, endurance, fertility: not so foreign, and yet entirely foreign at the same time.
Maram’s wedding ceremony would likely be the first of its kind. When her parents, Najat, queen of Andala, and Mathis, her conqueror, married, Najat conceded to a wholly Vathek ceremony. I imagined in part because none of the Kushaila would be able to feign the joy inherent in our rites for such a marriage. But a marriage between Maram and Idris would be—or at least was meant to represent—a marriage between nations and cultures. The ceremony would have to reflect that. A part of me was glad. It would make it easier to live in the reality: this was not my wedding. I was not the one marrying Idris.
It was easy to forget when I was with Idris, but he—and all the children of makhzen families—were hostages. There was little they did—little that Idris did—that was not monitored. There were few choices available to him. And hanging over every choice he made, just as it hung over mine, was the safety of his family.
He had never been mine. We’d only been skilled in creating the illusion that we could belong to each other instead of the Vath.
If this were my wedding, if I were back in Cadiz, if I’d had the freedom to choose, to marry—all of this would be different. I would have worn henna for more than a day so that its stain was as close to black as I could get it, a complement to the sharp, geometric lines of daan that would still be on my face. My clothes would be heavier, brighter, in green or gold or blue. I would be surrounded by women: my mother, Khadija, all of the khaltous of my village.
I would not have been alone, reflecting on my impending marriage rites. My heart would not be filled with dread nor my fingers stiff with fear. If I’d been marrying Idris in truth—
Tala bade me stand and at last deemed my transformation complete. I stared in the mirror, my mind carefully blank lest I give myself away to the other serving girls. The woman who stared back was neither Amani nor Maram, but a princess who resembled neither. She was aloof and remote, without the great rage that characterized Maram or the innocence that had characterized me for a time. “Are you ready, Your Highness?” she asked.
I turned away from the mirror. “Yes.”
“You have done well,” Tala said. She lowered her voice and squeezed my hand, out of earshot of the others. “Your family remains safe.”
“For how long?” I said quietly, then shook my head. This was not the time or place. Whatever Dihya’s plans for me, they’d not yet revealed themselves. And in the meantime, I had to pacify both Nadine and Maram.
“I know this is difficult,” Tala began.
“It is inevitable,” I interrupted. “The dream is over, and the story finished, Tala.”
She looked, remarkably, as upset as I was. I covered her hand, which lay on my shoulder, with mine.
“There are worse endings,” I said, as much to myself as to her.
She smiled sadly. “There are better ones, too.”
There were many outside waiting to witness Maram’s purification, her ascent from adolescent girl into a woman willing to enter a savage’s home in the name of her empire. Nadine stood in the doorway, her silver hair gleaming in the bright sunlight. There were no embellishments on the dark gray gown she wore, and from her neck hung a pendant signifying her class: High Vathek, and stewardess to the king.
“The water is ready,” she said.
Beyond the preparation chamber was a flat open-air pavilion hung with lightweight scarves, all in white, and lined with creamy marble columns. Cut through the middle of the pavilion was a pool of still, crystalline water. And standing all around were women of the highest echelons of Vathek and Andalaan nobility. Beyond the pavilion, in the open air, were high-ranking city folk—merchants, magistrates, and so on. People high enough to warrant an invitation, but too low to merit a front-row seat.
I stepped into the water, no more than an inch deep. As I walked, Vathek and Andalaan alike flicked sanctified oil toward me.