I could do this. I could forge a connection between two factions that would save the planet. I thought of my brothers and my parents—they’d suffered for my choice to side with the rebels before. Could I risk their safety a second time? I remembered my brother charging the Garda as they took me. That Husnain would make the same decision in my place should not have comforted me, but it did. My parents had given up on seeing a just world, but it was my responsibility to do this. If I could change the future, then it was an obligation.

I would do what was necessary.

03. Maram

03. Maram

STARDATE 4393, DAY OF THE IMPERIAL WEDDING

Maram ofttimes wondered if she had a self-destructive quality. That was the only explanation she could find for why she’d wandered into Fatiha’s office in the early morning while waiting for Aghraas, and turned on her holovision. It was the only explanation she could find for making sure to tune in to the wedding she’d made sure not to attend as herself. Truly: the only reason for why she would want to see her twin parading around in clothes meant for her.

Amani was a vision in tea and champagne gold, her ears heavy with jewelry, her back straight, head poised. The bridal gown Maram had chosen hung off her as if it were meant for her, and the ways her eyes avoided the many camera probes flying about as she walked through the crowd was demure and regal. Maram’s fingers twisted angrily at the skin of the inside of her arm as she watched Idris bow over her hand, then guide her to the settee and divan at the center of the room.

What a golden couple they were, she thought angrily.

All her life Maram had known she would marry Idris. It was a contract agreed to before she was born and solidified before her mother’s death. She’d never questioned it before, but now watching the two of them she felt an awful twist in her stomach, as if a knife were scraping her insides. Every time she thought of it she felt a rising tide of panic that only grew exponentially when she told herself she would be queen and this was part and parcel of that. Without Idris there was no crown, a thing that had not been true for any of the previous queens of the Kushaila.

It is a question of blood, she’d heard someone say. Idris was meant to temper and dilute her, to return the crown to whom it belonged—half of her did not belong. Her Vathek blood did not belong.