Maram was good at not thinking, at ignoring the great things that her conscience required her to see. And so it was with practiced ease that she turned away from the facts: she had not stood on that stage, she was not the one who’d faced a child turned killer. Amani, her body double, had. It was easy to settle into the selfish fear and anger that cared only about herself—the child had been trying to kill Maram, not Amani, after all. And so it was easy to shed the difficult feelings of being afraid for another person, of fearing for them, of caring about them. She did not think about the risk Amani took for her, or the complicated situation they now found themselves in. She did not think about how desperately she missed Amani’s friendship or the gulf that now stood between them because of her betrayal.

She thought of the horse beneath her, and the sky above, and the cry of a ghazal falcon. Nothing else.

Maram’s heart beat a staccato rhythm behind her ribs. The woman stood in the open field between four hills. She was well into the estate, but she didn’t creep the way Maram expected someone who had trespassed on royal property to creep. She stood tall, her broad shoulders straight. She was beautiful, her skin a dark copper, her black hair bound into hundreds of braids and held in place with a silver clip. Her cheekbones were sharp, her mouth wide, her face stoic. On each arm was a silver vambrace nearly the length of her forearm; she held her left arm aloft, and as Maram watched, a small young falcon alit on her wrist.

Maram’s grip tightened on her horse’s reins as she realized the impossible: it was a wild falcon, without bells or leash or hood. It had come to the woman of its own volition and settled on her wrist without bait or prompt. It remained there, its wings outstretched for balance, and when she lifted a hand and stroked its breast, it cooed, as if it were a tame nestling.

Wild falcons had no tolerance for people, less tolerance for being treated like pets. Maram’s grip tightened on the reins further, sure the falcon would attack the woman at any moment, and the horse neighed and shook its head in protest. The falcon startled—it gave out an angry, sharp cry, and launched itself into the air in a flurry of wings and talons. The woman watched it climb in the sky, her expression bemused, seemingly unharmed. In truth, the woman’s encounter with the falcon should have left her with several large wounds, and perhaps even a missing eye or finger.