He settled me against him on the couch and said little, though his hands ran up and down my back and every now and then he would press a kiss into my hair. I thought of the joy I’d felt holding his hand, making our way to the Salihi tent. So secure in my belief that victory was near at hand. Of the terror of realizing we had lost. A loss so cataclysmic it had nearly cost me my life.

At last, it seemed, all emotion had been run from me. I rested my head against his shoulder, and wound my hand in his.

“I will call for food—”

“No,” I said, my voice rough, and tightened my grip on his hand. “I do not wish—I couldn’t keep it down. Just stay with me.”

He settled back down beside me. “Amani.”

“Hm?”

“Maram has left me to you.”

That made me smile. “Like a family heirloom I must inherit.”

He smiled back. “Something like that. Will you have me?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

31

The next few days passed as if I were dreaming. Fighting continued in some places, but what I found most remarkable was walking through the palace side by side with Maram. On the third day we left the Court of Lions and returned to M’Gaadir. Kushaila custom dictated that Maram spend a month there before proceeding in a caravan to Walili for her coronation. It would be a hard road, I knew. The coronation was symbolic—a gesture to the galaxy that our planet was united behind her. But what had begun in the Court of Lions throne room would not end there. The reconstruction effort would be long and difficult.

And yet, I was grateful to be back by the sea; it felt like a reprieve.

Being back in the palace as myself was novel. I dressed how I wished, and after my long sojourn as Maram I found that my tastes had changed. I liked jewelry, when in my life before the Ziyaana such a thing would have been impractical. I liked my hair down, braided, threaded with jewels. Getting up in the morning to select my own clothes, my own rings, to sit patiently while Tala did my hair as I liked instead of in as close an approximation to Maram’s preferred hairstyles was strangely delightful. Maram had claimed me as her cousin to protect me from the ire of the makhzen; none of them had liked being tricked, and I didn’t like to think how they might have treated me without her protection. I’d understood on some level that it meant I was a Ziyadi, but with it came both responsibilities and freedom. It meant there were days that belonged to the state in its nascent form and days when I could do as I pleased.