“I am a shield, not a doll,” I said.

“Amani—” I ignored the way her face had drained of color, the way my name came out of her mouth: small and frightened. I’d rarely felt rage as I did then, but my grief had given way to it, at long last. Had I become so small in Maram’s mind that she might barter my body for her own peace of mind on her wedding night? She didn’t know that I loved him—and even if she had, the marriage was done. The marriage bed belonged to Maram, and I would not enter it.

“Idris is your husband,” I said, forcing my voice to be even. “It is your duty to consummate the marriage.”

“You don’t understand—!”

“Explain it to me then.” I was dangerously close to yelling. “You are asking me to be you on a night you are expected to bed him. Have I fallen so low in your mind that you would prostitute me?”

My rage had at last eclipsed my sense.

Her eyes glimmered in the light of her room and searched my face as if she might find softness or weakness. She would find neither.

She stepped back. Her shoulders sagged as if strings that held her up had been cut, and she sank down onto a bench on the balcony.

My rage did not disappear entirely, but I felt fatigue take its place. I sighed as I sat down beside her.

“Why don’t you want to go to your wedding night?”

She huffed a nervous laugh. “I just … I can’t explain it. All my life I’ve known I would have to lie with a man.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “I can’t do it.”

My eyebrows rose. “Idris is widely regarded as one of the best-looking young men on the planet,” I said. “More importantly for you, he is kind and cares about you. He would never harm you.”

“You don’t understand,” she whispered and shook her head. I watched her hands, twined around one another, white knuckled in their grip. “I can’t. Just … until I talk myself into it.”

Talk herself into it?

“Even if I wanted to,” I told her, “Idris would know the difference between us immediately. You delay the inevitable. You’ve known you would marry him most of your life, Maram.”

“Then don’t sleep with him,” she said. “I don’t even care if you tell him you aren’t me. Just. Take my place in the bed.”

“Wait.” I raised a hand. “Your Highness—”

“You had no problem helping me—” she burst out.

“Before my family was beaten in your name?” I asked.