I could see her struggle. All her life she had hated her mother’s people for how they’d turned their backs on her. All her life she’d strived to be Mathis’s perfect daughter, and that perfection included deriding one half of her. But she did not live on Luna-Vaxor, she lived here, and she would continue to live here all her life.

Idris’s shoulder tensed beneath my hand. Even without looking at him, I could feel him struggle between his ever-present diplomacy and the desire to speak plainly.

“Amani is right,” he said at last. His head was bowed, and his hair shadowed his eyes. Perhaps he could not bear to look at either one of us. “If you wish everyone to know you would never do such a thing, prove it.”

“How … how would I even do that?”

“Demonstrate to them and the people that you are invested in their safety and care,” I said. “No one trusts you because they believe you see them as your father sees them: a resource to be mined and pillaged and left for dead. Make friends with them.”

If anything, Maram looked more distressed, not less. Her back had straightened, and if not for the divan between her and the wall, I think she might have backed up against it for strength.

“I don’t—Amani, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

I squeezed Idris’s shoulder. “Lucky for both of us, one of the makhzen is in this very room.”

A few hours later, Idris scrubbed his hand through his hair and sighed. He’d retrieved a map of the planet and spread it out over a low table. I, for my part, had retrieved a tray laden with a teapot, glasses, and a plate of briouat drizzled with honey. Maram’s eyes had widened just slightly when I’d appeared with it, and so I set the plate of pastries to my left, closer to her.

The tea was nearly done now. We’d spent the last hours discussing which makhzen families would make good allies—who would side with Maram, support her, trust her enough that she could build a network that would prevent what had happened to ‘Adil from happening again. What would cement her as a queen of the people that could be loved instead of assassinated.

“Alright,” Idris said. In his right hand were a handful of shatranj pieces. He didn’t look any less grieved, only determined to be distracted by this new goal. “The trick of the map is you don’t need everyone—if the larger houses fall in line, those allied with them will follow.”

Maram had a briouat in hand, but her eyes turned to the map, her face grave. “You say that so surely.”

“I am sure,” he replied. “The only time that ceases to be true is when the threat posed by the liege lord overrides any loyalty to the larger house.”