"What's the next stop on our parade route, husband?" I ask. The word tastes bitter in my mouth, even coated in the salve of exceptionally strong sarcasm. If he notices my acerbic tone, he doesn't acknowledge it, still smiling the blithe smile of a man who knows he owns everything he sees. The people, the noraya, the vasayaste, the palace, and me.

"That depends on how badly you want to be rid of me," he says, taking my hand so we walk like lovers over the bruised blooms. They seem so much more honest the second day, lying limp and half-desiccated beneath the sun. I read the future of my marriage in their drooping petals and broken stems the way some mystics read fortunes in tea leaves.

"I always want to be rid of you, Sholu."

"Then I'll turn you over to the tender mercies of the ladies of the court. You'll need assistance in your new role, especially starting out; thanks to Somitu, you weren't raised to be the disza, so there's some catching up to do," he explains. "They're mostly harmless, though they do tend to follow behind you and nip at your heels as you walk. Like small dogs, but don't you dare tell them I said that."

"Say that, for argument's sake, I want to avoid being fed to the dogs slightly more than I want to be rid of you?"

He snorts, trying not to laugh. "Then you're welcome to come with me to the inaugural council meeting. Each vasayaste family has sent a representative and I expect it to be a riot. Posturing, confusion, good intentions but markedly poorer follow through. Perhaps some brief flashes of brilliance."

"Merely light glinting off of fool's gold," I quip. "Tell me, husband, why do all of your vasayastisi choke themselves with jeweled necklaces and drown their hands in stacks of rings? It's like they're afraid they'll have to leave the city in a hurry, so they wear all of their worldly wealth on their persons."

"You really do think they're all the same, don't you?"

"They are all the same, in all the ways that matter," I reply curtly. "Same illegitimate sources of wealth, same ostentatious peacocking, same mouths sucking you off under the table to gain your favor. Metaphorically speaking, of course."

"Never under the table, darling," he says offhandedly. "Though once Ashami Kohai did use her hands to spectacular effect in a coat closet, and during a party the youngest Farhanisi son revealed himself to be remarkably resistant to gagging."

"The youngest Farhanisi- son?" I ask, hating myself for giving him the reaction he craves but unable to keep the shock and censure from my voice. "Do you jest, or is there truly no perversion you won't stoop to?"

"I wasn't the one doing the stooping," he says, chuckling softly. "And among the vasayaste, we don't consider it a perversion to be free."

"Free?" I ask, laughing incredulously. "So the only time the vasayaste aren't concerned with commerce is when they're setting themselves free of common decency?"

"What is common is not decent, at least among the dimaraste," he snorts derisively. "But I find there's no real dignity in denying human nature. We are animals and we are men; shouldn't both of our souls be welcome? Why is wanting indecent, or is it the having that frightens you? Because I have had, and I will have, Queen of Shikkah. And how can you judge me, when the only arm's you've ever been wrapped in belong to the ghost of a dead dynasty?

"Easily," I mutter. "I merely look at you, and my brain returns contempt."

"You don't look at me," he laughs, throwing me off-balance. "You don't look at us." He pauses, sighing, running a calloused hand through the waves of his ashen hair. "You say the vasayaste are the same in all the ways that matter? Well, when your eyes are less clouded by prejudice, watch them. They're nowhere near a unified group. Shared goals knit them together, but it's a loose weave. Your description- peacocks dripping in jewels- fits the Harkol and Ashkorai families to a tee, but the Jamsi take pride in their lack of finery. They're old merchant stock and have no tolerance for frippery. The Unaanti are still half Brekkan; their matriarch speaks with an accent, having been born in Sobirna. The Nanaki and Aliki are scholars who can trace their roots back to old Suumaral. My people, O'otani, really are just people. Some are fools, some are decadent, but all in all, most are surprisingly decent." He pauses, then adds "they're at least as decent as your people."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snap.

"You already know the answer to that question, O'otani."

"Like hell I do!" My response sounds overwrought, even to my own ears. Like a part in a play overacted, the heroine caught between the script clenched so tightly in her fists and the world going on around her. What she sees and hears contradicts all she's been taught, and she reacts violently against it. But there's a whole sordid sequence of images waiting for her- for me- in the wings.

I see Amsol crying on her wedding day. I see daughters not safe in the arms of their own father, and three half-siblings plotting to kill each other across two decades. I see my own face, the pureblood heir disinherited in favor of a foreign bastard because his mother threatened to make our sins and secrets public knowledge.

I don't know what part I play in those secrets, or their keeping. I don't know where my loyalty lies, so I place it where it has always lain before, sleeping softly beside them in their silent graves. When I look over at Sholu this time, my brain doesn't return contempt. I think instead of everything I wish he had never told me, and everything I wish I didn't believe.

He looks over at me, and there's something infuriatingly close to pity in his eyes. "I wish they were who they pretended to be, for your sake."

I turn away, disarmed by the softness in his features. "Just take me to your council of fools or turn me over to the ladies of the court, Mesviraste. But I beg of you, spare me your little tendernesses. They make me want to vomit, and I've just had a rather large breakfast."

"Fine," he replies coolly. "But if you do have to throw up, promise me you'll do it on Lord Taban. He's pissed me the hell off this week. He has a godawful mustache, so you can't miss him."

The hint of a smile pulls stubbornly at the edge of my lip. "Like I said, your wish is my command. The greater danger is really me being able to sit through this farce without laughing until tears run down my face."

"If you can't keep a straight face, just tell them you're laughing at Lord Taban's ridiculous teal suit, or his elaborate facial hair and lack of an upper lip. Take your pick."

Before I can help it, I'm laughing. "Is he really going to be in a teal suit?"

"If we're lucky, that'll be the worst of it," he says, taking my arm. I let him; they're watching, after all. Everyone is always watching us, and they might as well think I'm laughing at something droll he's said. I lay my hand on top of his and try to look adoring. I fail miserably, but maybe the act is more believable from a few yards away.

"Just try not to stab anyone, alright? I know some of them can be complete asses, but you can't off anyone without upsetting some pretty complex power dynamics."

Complex power dynamics, indeed.

When there was a matter to settle within the dimaraste, the highest among us would cocoon themselves in a large chamber with stained glass windows and a vaulted ceiling and make a study of possible solutions. I remember sitting in on meetings and being amazed by the silent language our elders spoke in, the gestures and grunts and lip twitches that were so loud beneath their smiles and careful words. Voices were never raised. Threats were never made, let alone carried out. No, the aunts and uncles waged wars of microexpressions that occasionally spilled out into hushed arguments or acts of extreme passive-aggression.

I remember my mother coming into my room well past midnight after a particularly grueling day of discussing matters of state. She laid down beside me in bed, pressing my little body into the curvature of her own, and she sighed so heavily I could almost feel the weight of all of those unspoken words. "They're still split down the middle about what's to be done with the vasayaste," she murmured into my wispy blond hair before kissing my forehead. "And I'm afraid it will tear us all in two."

"What will?" I asked drowsily, glad for the heat of her surrounding me. She so rarely hugged me that close, and I felt safe despite a dim awareness that there was a battle of wills being fought somewhere down the hall.

"Foolishness, my love," she replied. She started to say something else, but the sound of her soft voice lulled me off to sleep before any lasting impressions were formed. I want to reach back into that memory and shake her narrow shoulders. Foolishness? I would ask, meeting her light eyes with fire in my own. "You're wrong, mother. It wasn't the vasayaste who tore us apart, at least not alone. They couldn't have done it without you."

I push the memory away as quickly as I can, like letting it linger in my mind a moment longer would burn me. Each day there's another door inside my head that I can't open without starting a fire. My composure is often little more than ash.

If my composure is ash, the composure of the vasayastisi surrounding me on all sides is mere smoke lifted in plumes above the smolder. We walk into the brightly lit chamber and half of them fail to notice our arrival; the thud of the ornate door shutting at our backs announces us and they startle like birds. Some fall silent while others merely give us a polite nod and continue their conversations. Their words overlap, their voices forming a cacophony that reminds me of the cawing of crows. They interrupt each other and throw barbs where the aunts and uncles would have employed pained glances.

"You're right," a young man with a shock of strawberry blonde hair sneers at the dark-eyed, somber-faced man in front of him. "That's exactly what we should do. Throw bread at their heads and assume that will fix the problem. There's dough between your own ears, Lord Shirarka, if you think the answer is simply more food."

"They're hungry, Ysana, so we need to fucking feed them," the grimacing creature I take to be Lord Shirarka retorts acerbically. "We have promises to keep."

"Oh, we fucking feed them, okay," Lord Ysana says with an incredulous laugh. "I'm sorry, I never thought of that. What an incredible plan. You're a tactician for the ages, aren't you, Kirsham?"

"Oi, you two," a third man shouts, slapping his hand on the wooden table in front of him. He has small green eyes and wears heavy chandelier earrings that stretch his earlobes. "Cut it out, you two. We're all here for the same reasons."

"We inherited our father's wealth at his untimely death, isn't that right, Rill?" A woman with sharp eyes and brown hair tumbling haphazardly down her back remarks, earning her a dark look.

"We care about this country," chandelier earrings says with surprising feeling. "We care about our deme and our dizsa, blessings of Zsavina fall upon them. We don't want to lose what we've won."

"May the blessings you offer us return to you multiplied tenfold," Sholu says sagely, smiling a brilliant smile as he pulls out a wooden chair thick with velvet cushions and sits down. The vasayastisi previously engrossed in side conversations straighten and fall silent.

"Karu Deme," the woman says with a small smile, looking up at him through a curtain of dark lashes. Her eyes sparkle like blue diamonds beneath her proud brow; I can't help but imagine this look often gets her exactly what she wants. "Forgive us, we didn't hear you enter. We're merely debating strategies-"

"Oh, come off it, Ahalia," the strawberry-haired Lord Ysana snorts. "Stop being cute; you know I can't stand your simpering-"

"Only when it's not directed at you, you little hypocrite," chandelier earrings remarks with an easy smile. He turns to us. "Well met, Karu Deme, Koi Dizsa. Forgive us our lack of decorum. Or just forgive me, the others be damned."

"Who's simpering now?" the lovely Ahalia mutters under her breath, brushing her chestnut hair behind her ear and rolling her eyes in Rillian's direction. He makes a rude gesture and she conceals a small smile behind her hand, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

I expect Sholu to glare and growl and knock heads together to restore order. Instead, he laughs, loudly and openly. The warm sound fills the room and everyone seems to relax by degrees.

"Nevermind it, and let's hope you're able to sustain such passion for the duration of our meeting. There's nothing to forgive, my Lords and Ladies. Nothing at all."

"Perhaps there's something," a woman with slashes of crow's feet ringing her hazel eyes says when all the rest have fallen silent. She looks directly at me and says coolly "there's the dimarastisi on your arm, my lord."

Sholu answers her challenge with a magnanimous smile, but there's something sharp waiting beneath. The expression has turned brittle, and the next wrong word could shatter it and cut us all. "The first words out of your mouth and already you've slighted my lady. How very crass of you, Miromi Chayal."

"It is not I who is crass, my lord."

Sholu's eyes flash the silver of a blade being unsheathed. But before he can say anything, I cut in; the last thing I want is him fighting my battles.

"I would say it is, Lady Chayal," My voice is steady and my gaze, unyielding. "I am his choice and your queen, and it is crass to imply that my presence here needs to be forgiven. You have never spoken a word to me, yet you act as if you understand me, which I assure you, you don't. Perhaps you merely disapprove of his choice because you'd rather have one of your own daughters by his side?"

She didn't expect me to say a word, I realize based on the pure, perfect shock in her muddy golden eyes. "I have no daughters, only sons," Miromi Chayal returns. "And what I understand is that your family spent decades disenfranchising us, attacking our businesses, and seizing our property. Now, you expect us to part our waters for you without hesitation, which I understand as the entitlement and arrogance your name is known for."

"My name is Verlaina," I say, not giving Sholu the chance to defend me, "and the waters were never yours. They're the tears cried by a woman who lost everything she ever loved to a goddess who failed to love her back. A woman with the audacity to challenge the divine and win, who then ascended to the place her fallen idol vacated." I look around the room, meeting every eye I can and willing them to lower. "If the story is true, Dané Chayal, is the water not mine by right?" I use the generic title for a married woman instead of lady, and her cheeks redden in anger or indignation; I don't care to distinguish which. "What have you sacrificed to fell our living gods- your time? Your money? What about your blood?" I ask fiercely. I'll be damned if I let a vasayastisi question me so openly. "Have you seen your kin's blood wet the edge of a sword, let alone a sword you yourself have wielded? Because I have. I have," I repeat. "I've challenged gods for you and yours, yet you speak only to question what I have gained, ignoring all I've lost in the process." I laugh mirthlessly, hoping it drives her up the wall. "I would draw a knife on you for your gall, if I was not equally amused by your ignorance."

I expect a bevy of insults, but Lady Chayal is silent as the grave. Tension coils around us like a snake about to strike; her eyes certainly have enough venom in them. Then something unexpected happens. A grudging respect softens and warms her features and a brief smile flits across her pale lips. She pauses, meeting my eyes, then lowers her own. "I did not think before I spoke. Forgive me, Koi Dizsa."

"Remember that we did not fight a war," Sholu says with a quiet intensity that draws every eye in the room towards him. "We did not ride out at dawn unsure whether we'd live to see high noon. We were lords and ladies first and foremost, not soldiers. Our children slept safely in their beds, our lovers returned home to us each night without blood and sweat staining their garments. It was, as far as revolutions go, quiet. Nearly bloodless. Don't forget for a second that her sacrifice is what made that all possible. She got us into the palace. She chose us over her own fucking family." He takes a ragged breath and I wonder how he crafts lies with such sincerity. "I mean it when I say I will draw on the next person who disrespects her." His smile is a mere flash of teeth. "Love is a dangerous thing for bystanders."

"Love is a dangerous thing for all parties involved," Lord Ysana says. A curl of his reddish hair falls over his left eye, making him look decidedly boyish. "I'll join you in drawing on the next person who speaks ill of your lady- pardon me, our lady- Deme Verlaina."

"You'd take any excuse to use a sword, wouldn't you?" Lord Shirarka asks, smiling softly beneath shadowed eyes.

"Perhaps," he laughs freely. "But I'll still push you to yield every time, Kirsham Shirarka."

"Is that so?"

"Come find out," Lord Ysana says with a coy smile. "Tomorrow. Eleven am, the courtyard by the west gate. You accept?"

"Of course I accept, you pretty fool," Kirsham laughs, making his long face look suddenly warm. "But be prepared to have our lady see you sprawled out in the dirt beneath me; we all know I'm the better swordsman."

"Sprawled out in the dirt beneath you, Lord Shirarka? This pretty fool doubts our lord would let you live, should you show his lady that."

Kirsham Shirarka actually blushes. "I amend my previous statement; you're a goddess-damned fool, my friend."

"I'll spar with the winner," Sholu adds casually. "First to yield, no holds barred, et cetera."

"And will you join us, Koi Dizsa?" Lord Shirarka murmurs. "We've all heard of your skill as a swordswoman. We'd be honored to witness your prowess firsthand."

"I will fight the winner of the first two matches," I agree before I can stop myself. "If it happens that my husband wins, I'll blacken his right eye to match his left."

"That was you?" Ahalia asks, her finely drawn brows lifting in surprise. "We were all betting on Manit. The two of them can't keep their hands off each other." She chuckles. "It must have been quite the bezsai-aralya, my lady; forgive me for saying so."

"No more forgiveness," Sholu says, mock-sternly. "And enough chatter, let's get down to business. I didn't invite you here today to goad one another into duels, or to lose them to my adder-tongued wife. We're starting something new in a country that has been ruled by the same families for close to a millenia. Family, I should say- the Kyorin and Izsima were never bold enough to challenge the Amarins. Well, we did, and we fucking won. Now, let's not fuck it up."

"There will be absolutely no fucking beyond your bezsai-aralya, My Lord," Rillian Aidha says, unable to resist one last bawdy joke. I balk at his gall, but Sholu looks unconcerned.

"Rill, we all know you'll be in Kirsham's bed come morning. Don't make promises you can't keep, man."

The whole room roars with laughter, and I just sit there, stunned. My stone-faced Aunt Jinnra, strict enforcer of social mores, would have died had such talk reached her ears during a council meeting. When Sholu said earlier that he expected posturing, confusion, and good intentions but markedly poorer follow through, I thought he lacked confidence in his cohorts. Now I plainly see he was mocking them out of affection instead of doubt.

"Who, me? I'm chaste as newly fallen snow," Rillian says with a knowing smirk, tugging at one of his large earrings.

"Yes, my dear," Ahalia says seriously. "But we all know there's no such thing as snow in the desert, just as we know you're not at all discerning."

"Alright, enough, enough," Sholu says, still chuckling intermittently. "Business now, witty badinage later. I swear, I've never seen you all in such good spirits. I know we're all still celebrating this impossible thing we've done, this reversal of fortunes, but the hardest part is just now beginning." He transitions into a sober tone with ease, leaning forward over the wooden table separating us from the Lords and Ladies and meeting each of their eyes in turn. The five who've been talking only make up a third of the faces filling the room. In the silence, the others seem to come to the fore.

"It's one thing to take a country, and another thing entirely to keep it. Don't get so drunk on victory that you drain it down to its bitter lees- you might not like what you see in the bottom of the glass." Their faces mirror his sincerity, making it easy to forget that they were making jokes about Rillian's sex life only a moment before. "We're the shiny new opposition party, but that'll barely get us past the door. There is not enough food, nor infrastructure to distribute it. Our economy is still crippled. Loyalty to the old ways won't disappear, merely retreat underground. With Zsavina's blessing, we'll keep what is buried from becoming ore rich enough to spark a counterrevolution."

He sighs. "I don't mean to undermine you or what we've done here, but you must understand that we haven't won. We've just earned the right to try to do better. Their faith is on loan based on the promises we've made, and we have to turn that spoken currency into gold and silver- into something real. I expect each and every one of you to put aside your petty squabbles and work together; if we sink, we all sink. I expect unwavering loyalty; that is not up for discussion. If you betray me, you won't live very long. Ask Kyoro Amarin if you don't believe me."

I flinch, and he rests a hand on top of my own, like he means to comfort me. "We'll divide the country into eleven administrative districts; I'll appoint interim governors based on geography and skillset. I've promised Shikkah elections in five years, so nothing I give you is yours to keep- it must be earned. If it works, even if the dimaraste used it, keep it- there's no use burning it all down and starting from zero when we have some perfectly salvageable infrastructure. Work with the local councils. Make their people your people; they know far more about the daily functioning of their cities and we do. This council will meet monthly, subsections of it biweekly to discuss our progress. Use violence sparingly, even when quelling dissent. Remember that we need them to love us."

There's an aching feeling in my chest that whispers they already do.