The room was quiet as I dressed, with Tala taking lead on guiding the other serving girls. The qaftan was tea and dark gold in color, made of a luxurious velvet, its skirts slashed with silk panels. The bodice was embroidered in ivory thread, a spill of feathers from my shoulders and over my chest, and there was a slender gold belt that went around the waist. The back along my shoulders and down to my hips was made of delicate lace, dyed a pale, tea-like gold, and so too were the insides of the qaftan’s sleeves. My hair was smoothed back, the ends braided and threaded with strands of pearls then wound into a bun. From my throat hung several silver strands studded with gleaming red stones, and around my forehead was a silver coronet, with the same stone at its center. I hadn’t missed wearing Maram’s elegant finery during my time of seclusion. Plain and comfortable qaftans suited me, and I’d liked the way I’d slowly returned to myself in the last month and a half. I was not Maram, and a part of me resented that I would have to be her again, and under such circumstances.

Tala bade me stand and circled me for a moment before producing two hairpieces, a collection of a dozen thin pearl strands. She pinned one on the hair behind each ear. Then came the Vathek crown. Nestled in my curls was a gold wreath that wrapped around the crown of my head. Different flowers, all alien to Andalaan soil, all representative of the wishes of the Vath for their newly married brides. Health, longevity, endurance, fertility: not so foreign, and yet entirely foreign at the same time.

Maram’s wedding ceremony would likely be the first of its kind. When her parents, Najat, queen of Andala, and Mathis, her conqueror, married, Najat conceded to a wholly Vathek ceremony. I imagined in part because none of the Kushaila would be able to feign the joy inherent in our rites for such a marriage. But a marriage between Maram and Idris would be—or at least was meant to represent—a marriage between nations and cultures. The ceremony would have to reflect that. A part of me was glad. It would make it easier to live in the reality: this was not my wedding. I was not the one marrying Idris.

It was easy to forget when I was with Idris, but he—and all the children of makhzen families—were hostages. There was little they did—little that Idris did—that was not monitored. There were few choices available to him. And hanging over every choice he made, just as it hung over mine, was the safety of his family.

He had never been mine. We’d only been skilled in creating the illusion that we could belong to each other instead of the Vath.