If this were my wedding, if I were back in Cadiz, if I’d had the freedom to choose, to marry—all of this would be different. I would have worn henna for more than a day so that its stain was as close to black as I could get it, a complement to the sharp, geometric lines of daan that would still be on my face. My clothes would be heavier, brighter, in green or gold or blue. I would be surrounded by women: my mother, Khadija, all of the khaltous of my village.

I would not have been alone, reflecting on my impending marriage rites. My heart would not be filled with dread nor my fingers stiff with fear. If I’d been marrying Idris in truth—

Tala bade me stand and at last deemed my transformation complete. I stared in the mirror, my mind carefully blank lest I give myself away to the other serving girls. The woman who stared back was neither Amani nor Maram, but a princess who resembled neither. She was aloof and remote, without the great rage that characterized Maram or the innocence that had characterized me for a time. “Are you ready, Your Highness?” she asked.

I turned away from the mirror. “Yes.”

“You have done well,” Tala said. She lowered her voice and squeezed my hand, out of earshot of the others. “Your family remains safe.”

“For how long?” I said quietly, then shook my head. This was not the time or place. Whatever Dihya’s plans for me, they’d not yet revealed themselves. And in the meantime, I had to pacify both Nadine and Maram.

“I know this is difficult,” Tala began.

“It is inevitable,” I interrupted. “The dream is over, and the story finished, Tala.”

She looked, remarkably, as upset as I was. I covered her hand, which lay on my shoulder, with mine.

“There are worse endings,” I said, as much to myself as to her.

She smiled sadly. “There are better ones, too.”

There were many outside waiting to witness Maram’s purification, her ascent from adolescent girl into a woman willing to enter a savage’s home in the name of her empire. Nadine stood in the doorway, her silver hair gleaming in the bright sunlight. There were no embellishments on the dark gray gown she wore, and from her neck hung a pendant signifying her class: High Vathek, and stewardess to the king.

“The water is ready,” she said.

Beyond the preparation chamber was a flat open-air pavilion hung with lightweight scarves, all in white, and lined with creamy marble columns. Cut through the middle of the pavilion was a pool of still, crystalline water. And standing all around were women of the highest echelons of Vathek and Andalaan nobility. Beyond the pavilion, in the open air, were high-ranking city folk—merchants, magistrates, and so on. People high enough to warrant an invitation, but too low to merit a front-row seat.