She wanted both. The state and her heart. And if her mother had found it in her to honor both, couldn’t she as well?

The control she’d exerted in the last few months over her hands meant that she’d rarely touched Aghraas. She touched no one, and when Aghraas touched her it felt as if every nerve path in her body sparked with lightning. But she stood so close to her now, close enough to see the gold flecks in her eyes, the dark daan inked into her skin clearly, the flutter of her pulse in her throat. Her hands came to rest on Aghraas’s face, and she saw the slight widening of her eyes.

“I—” The single word sounded like a croak. How many times had she found herself staring at Aghraas only for her to stare back? How often had Aghraas leaned her forehead against hers and said nothing and waited? How often had she sat beside her and wondered, aching, what it would be like to touch her without worry?

There were days when she was haunted by the little of Idris and Amani she’d glimpsed. Hands linked easily, shoulders bumping, his lips pressed to her forehead. Ease and love—two things Maram had never known.

Aghraas’s forehead pressed against hers, and her nose brushed hers, and for a long moment Maram closed her eyes and tried to breathe. But there was no center of contentment to be found in this moment, not with her throat in the grip of something, with her heart and body wound with heat and desire. Aghraas’s hands were on her, two firebrands, spread out between the lines of her ribs.

“Maram—” Her name sounded like a prayer, an exhalation. She didn’t often pray, but she knew the sounds and rhythms, and this—

Aghraas’s mouth was soft and still for less than half a heartbeat. Her fingers tightened around her waist, and Maram pressed back, the line of her shoulders, the length of her body. For half a heartbeat relief roared through Maram, and then a fire caught, as if it had waited all her life in the embers inside her. There was a soft cry—hers or Aghraas’s she didn’t know—and her hands clung to her shoulders as Aghraas lifted her up onto her lap.

Perhaps it is weakness or stupidity, her mother wrote. But I cannot sacrifice the needs of my heart for what people perceive to be the needs of the state. I will not.

The world disappeared and there was only the two of them, the sound of Aghraas’s cloak sliding to the floor, the soft chime of the gold pieces in her braids.

What do you want?

This, she thought. This.

three

FAKHR: SELF-EXALTATION

25

We had left M’Gaadir at last.