Maram wandered from the beaten path and into the fields. She’d seen pictures of what this part of the estate looked like prior to the work she’d ordered. It was chaotic—beautiful but unordered. The grass was knee-high, but a few feet away from where she stood the dirt was overturned, and stacked neatly on small benches were flower bulbs. The world was in chaos and on the brink of civil war. Maram couldn’t fix that—she couldn’t fix the world. But she could do this, she could instill a little peace and beauty in these twenty square miles.

When she turned around, Fatiha was watching her, her dark eyes soft, as if she didn’t see Maram when she looked at her. No one looked at her as Fatiha did, not on purpose.

“What is it?”

She’d expected her to avert her eyes or look embarrassed, but the old woman met her eyes. She forgot, ofttimes, that Fatiha had been nursemaid to queens. She’d raised her mother Najat and served her grandmother Itou. There was very little that cowed her.

“You look very much like your mother, Your Highness,” she said when Maram returned to the path. “You remind me of her.”

Her gut twisted, half pleasure, half unease. “Children often resemble their parents.”

“Few could emulate a will such as your mother’s,” Fatiha replied, and then began to walk again. “Shall I show you the main palace?”

Maram watched as the great iron doors to the palace groaned open on their own power. The walls of the palace were high and sturdy, the stone a pale gold. She followed Fatiha inside and they in turn were followed by the twelve servants who’d greeted Maram at her landing. The walls were hung with thick tapestries; the floor a brilliant white stone.

“The palace is almost an exact replica of its pre-conquest predecessor,” Fatiha said. “Your assistance in providing holos and film from your mother’s cultural archive were a great asset, Your Highness.”

Maram fought the feeling of pride that unwound in her belly. This project—she loved and hated it with equal measure. It was her respite, as it had been her mother’s, and yet it was wholly alien to everything Vathek in her life. She should not have come, she should not have built it, and yet she followed Fatiha through the palace as if a string were tied to her breastbone and drew her through its bright and high-ceilinged halls.

“The courtyard,” Fatiha continued, leading Maram out into sunlight, “is the crown jewel of the palace.”