Nadine stood by the throne, and behind her were the droids she favored so. Lined up along the walls were several directors and generals I recognized from my time in the Ziyaana. It was either an executionary tribunal or a war council. Rabi’a was where she was meant to be, by a side entrance to the room. Her face was pale, her mouth tight, but her chin was raised and her shoulders straight. She was the picture of elegance. Beside her was another Tazalghit in armor.

There was a wide window behind the throne, and I watched as a Vathek vessel, free of rebel colors, hurled itself toward the ground while aflame. Behind me, the doors to the throne room were still open and the sounds of fighting in the palace carried through.

“Now, daughter,” Mathis said, standing on the steps. He made a gesture and the droids came to attention behind Nadine. “Call off your troops.”

He cast a striking figure. Tall, broad-shouldered, plumes of smoke and fire rising up behind him on the mesas beyond. He was cold, his features hard—a conqueror of the stars. But something was wrong.

I released my hold on Idris’s hand and walked to the steps leading up to the throne. The droid’s weapons tracked me, but none of them fired. Where was Maram?

I tilted my head just as she would have, curious and aloof. “Why haven’t you arrested me?”

“You are my daughter,” he said, coming down to meet me. “Shall I humiliate you with chains?”

A shadow of Maram’s smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “You have another daughter. But not one with a legitimate and lawful claim to this planet.”

“Shall I humiliate you on the battlefield, then?” he asked.

“Who do you think the galactic senate will support?”

His eyes turned cooler still and his mouth flattened. “That assumes you will get off planet.”

My mouth rounded into a sarcastic “o” of surprise. “So, I am under arrest.”

“Your Highness—” Nadine interrupted. I turned a cool gaze to acknowledge her. She didn’t recognize me, I realized with a start. Had she ever been able to tell us apart? She always knew, beforehand, which of us she would be speaking to. Was she like Mathis, unable to discern between us? Or was the Kushaila regalia so obfuscating she couldn’t see past it?

“If you would only call your army off and return to us—” she continued.

I walked slowly up the steps toward her, each strike of heel against stone followed by the ongoing sound of the battle raging in the air outside and above us. I was stalling, hoping that Maram would arrive. Was she alive? Had she survived the fighting in the palace? Was she coming to take her place?

“You mean: return to you. So you can go back to being my puppet master, preying on all my worst fears?”

“I would never presume—” she began.