If this was the way Maram was greeted any time she entered such a setting, no wonder she was always ready to bite.

“Please,” I drawled in Maram’s customary tone, “pretend I am not here.”

Idris and I made our way not to the throne, but up a level where the dowager queen or the sovereign’s extended family might take a seat. There was a trellis, hiding us from view, but a small monitor at the railing’s level. With us out of sight, though perhaps not out of mind, the diwan resumed its quiet air of conversation.

I’d intended only for Maram to be seen—if she truly wanted to be what I thought she was capable of being then she needed not only the makhzen but the wizaraa’ as well. Without the ministers on her side, there was no one to govern effectively—it was the wizaraa’ who’d kept us as afloat as we were. But the longer I listened to their discussions, the clearer it was how ineffective they were. And it was not their fault; they did their best with the resources they had. The problem, of course, was what they had was nothing. They could settle petty disputes, they could ameliorate some suffering, but M’Gaadir and its surrounding lands’ largest problems could not be solved by them. The Vath had taken, claimed, and ruined almost everything.

The longer the diwan went on, the more it confirmed what I’d thought but had resisted saying to Idris. He believed that there was a world where he could bend the Vathek system to his will but would go no further. What he wouldn’t acknowledge was that the imperial machine had been built to break us. And it was not one meant for repurposing—as poetic as it might have been, the hammer would not yield a crop. It would not nourish our children or give succor to our elderly. And even as Maram became more powerful, gathered more allies, ensured her coming reign, countless people would die. The planet would not survive the time it took for her to take the crown. It would die before Mathis did.

Yet and still—none of the makhzen families had the strength to stand against the regime. Even allied with Maram. Even allied together.

The rebels, however, did.

Maram’s opposition alongside the rebels could free us once and for all.