“Your Highness,” a serving girl murmured, entering the tent. She bore a cushion, which in turn bore a crown. It was more delicate than the imperial crown I’d worn to Maram’s coronation, dotted with emeralds, and at its center a bird rose up, her wings unfurled so that the tips met over her head. I knew it had to be a tesleet, but the design was such that the average viewer would not be able to tell if it was the Andalaan tesleet or Vathek roc. She settled it over my head, then gestured to the mirror at the other end of the room.

I didn’t look entirely Kushaila, though I desperately wanted to. There were enough Vathek qualities about the dress—the epaulets, the way the skirt gathered at my hips—that I straddled the line between the two worlds Maram occupied quite well. But if I’d had my daan—I missed all the markings, but the crown of Dihya most of all. It was my link to Massinia, to her poetry, to her life. And the markings on my cheek would have marked me as my parents’ daughter, would have preserved all their well-wishes for me.

I had not thought about them in so long, but suddenly, wrapped in wedding finery, I wanted them desperately. It would have been undeniable: who and what I was, my heritage inked into my skin. My fingers tightened in the folds of my gown as I made myself a promise. When all of this was over, when Maram was queen and I was free, I would get them back. I would return to Cadiz and have the tattoo artist remake them on my skin.

I could claim that much of myself back.

I was not prepared for the wall of sound—muffled as it was by the thick cloth walls of the tent—when I emerged from the tent. It wasn’t only the parade getting itself back into order. Idris and Maram’s marriage had made planetary and galactic news, and journalists, their assist-probes, and cameras all whizzed around, trying to capture the moments leading up to the final wedding feast.

I froze when I saw Idris. I was so used to seeing him wearing clothes that were either entirely Vathek or straddled the line. I don’t think in the time I’d known him that I’d ever seen him in entirely Kushaila dress. He wore a black jabadour, with a velvet black jacket embroidered in gold. Along the sleeves and hem were maned lions, their mouths open in a roar. Between the lions were pairs of crossed scimitars. His hair fell down, curling around his ears and at his neck. At his waist was a janbiya dagger, and a scimitar, its sheath bejeweled. The leather gleamed in the noonday sun.

He grinned. “What do you think?”

I let out a strangled laugh. “I’ve never—” then stopped.