She let out a short laugh. “Truthfully? I thought the Ziyaana would break you before you had a chance to do anything at all. And now—”

I remembered the day we’d met—the day my life had changed irrevocably. How long ago was that?

“Truth be told—I didn’t think I would survive either,” I said softly. “I don’t think that girl would recognize herself in me.”

There was a certain tragedy in that, wasn’t there? If I couldn’t recognize myself, would my parents? Would my brothers? It wasn’t only that I looked different, I was a different person. What I was capable of enduring, what I was capable of committing to—Amani the farmer’s daughter had wondered what her trial by fire would be. She could not have imagined this.

“A shadow sovereign,” Tala said softly.

“Hardly that,” I replied uneasily. “I would need to be a much better shatranj player. And I haven’t the aspiration.”

Tala laughed again. “Aspiration or not, you are guiding us. Or at least you are guiding her.”

“Protecting her—it’s different.”

She hummed. “Perhaps. The question is: Can you protect yourself?”

“Myself?”

She gestured toward the courtyard. Idris stood by the pool, watching the two of us. He had changed out of festival dress—the feasting outside must have ended and the gates shut while Tala and I talked, though the city still celebrated.

“Did you invite him?” I hissed at her.

“You know I wouldn’t dare,” she whispered, coming to her feet. “Perhaps he comes to beg.”

“Princes do not beg,” I snapped.

“When they’re wrong, they do,” Idris cut in. He’d closed the space between us and now stood in the entryway to the salon.

Tala bowed to him, then squeezed my hand. “I will leave you two alone.”

She closed the salon doors behind her as she retreated to the courtyard. For a long time, there was only silence. I could feel Idris’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t bear to look at him. How well he had done before the people—the doting husband, the beloved prince. A prince who would not commit to doing what was necessary to protect and emancipate his people.

I startled when he sank to his knees in front of me. “I have come to beg.”

I struggled against the urge to step away from him. I hadn’t been so close to him in a while, and part of me hated the effect he had on me. Nothing, I thought, would erase the memory of him. Nothing would erase the way my heartbeat quickened and my skin prickled when he was near. As if I had an internal sensor keyed to his proximity.

“There is nothing to beg for.”

“For your forgiveness.”