Mathis stood behind me with a few other dignitaries and directors. Ambassadors from planets conquered by the Vath, generals in his imperial war, high-level representatives from the galactic senate. Maram’s inheritance of the planet, and therefore Mathis’s hold on it, relied on her marriage to Idris, or so I understood. Here Mathis could survey the work of the last twenty years: his daughter, born of a marriage to a savage he had stomached in the name of the state. The makhzen who, in another life, might have supported her against him now suitably afraid of him and the cost of dissent. Their children firmly in the grip of empire, hostages in all but name, raised in the Ziyaana against their will. The Vathek aristocrats vying for his favor. All the wealth of the worlds laid out at his feet, carousing at his daughter’s wedding.

I could barely stand to look out at their faces, to see evidence of his triumph. It was a twofold triumph: Najat’s marriage to Mathis all those years ago, and now Maram’s marriage to Idris. The Vath and Andalaans were now more tightly bound than ever.

I hated these people. Even those who had suffered in the war of conquest, even those who had no choice about the people they’d become. Few had known the hunger and disease of a siege, much less understood the terror of the sudden appearance of the Imperial Garda. Here they were, wreathed in finery and jewels, celebrating the seal of our doom. And here I was, a slave, alone, trotted out as a shield. I was in the center of the world and I was alone.

The doors opened again and a herald announced Idris. Maram’s husband.

He was haloed by the brilliant light shining in through the windows like some sort of prince out of legend. His hair was shorter than I remembered, his face clean-shaven. He wore black trousers and a black jacket embroidered in gold, with a tea-gold shirt beneath it. I remained perfectly still and drank him in as if I were a woman denied water all her life. He was as I remembered—tall and broad-shouldered, his face gentle, his mouth tilted into a half smile. I saw the moment his smile faltered when our eyes met—how quickly he recognized me. Electricity zipped along my skin as he took my hand and bent over it, as his mouth brushed over my knuckles.

“Lady wife,” he murmured.

I had forgotten and not forgotten, thought and not thought about Idris and this moment.