One of the guardswomen untied the curtain. When she gestured for Arwa to exit the palanquin, Gulshera said, “Is our entry barred?”
“No, my lady,” said an imperial maidservant, standing just beyond the guardswoman’s shoulder. The maidservant stood in the entrance of the gatehouse with a companion. Their heads were deferentially lowered, but their backs were iron straight, and the voice of the one who spoke was firm. “Prince Akhtar commands that all new visitors to the palace are cleansed. Please, follow me.”
Gulshera remained still only for a moment. Then she gave Arwa’s hand a squeeze—of warning and comfort—and stepped free of the palanquin. Arwa followed her.
They kept their veils lowered until they entered the sanctuary of the walls. Then they were separated, one maidservant leading Arwa to a small room, where a covered bowl waited, and a mirror. The maidservant gestured for Arwa to sit.
She checked Arwa’s eyes, opening them wide and gazing at the whites. She held Arwa’s wrists and felt her pulse. She asked Arwa questions: about her health, about her journey.
“What is the purpose of this cleansing?” Arwa asked in return, when the maidservant finally released her.
“To keep ill forces at bay, my lady. Sickness and…” Here she hesitated. “Other sicknesses, my lady. That are not of the flesh.”
Arwa thought of Darez Fort and said nothing.
The maidservant lifted a cloth away from the bowl, revealing clear water.
“The water was touched by the Emperor’s own hands,” said the woman, placing a pitcher into the bowl of water. The bowl, Arwa saw, was marked in flowing script: long lines of mantras praising the Maha and Emperor both. “Please, my lady, hold your hands over the bowl.”
The maidservant poured the water over Arwa’s outstretched hands.
This will accomplish nothing, Arwa thought, as she watched the water pour over her fingers. But she made no complaint when the maidservant bid her wash her face also, and offered her a cloth to dry herself clean.
“We are done, my lady,” said the maidservant.
Arwa’s hands trembled a little, as she clasped them in her lap. The maidservant offered her a smile, as if to comfort her.
“You need not fear,” said the maidservant, her voice knowing, as if she understood why Arwa shivered in her seat. “You have not drawn our prince’s ire. All who come to the palace are tested so. Soon our prince’s wisdom will ensure cleansings are performed across the Empire, and they will keep us safe, by the Emperor’s grace.”
“By the Emperor’s grace,” Arwa murmured in return.
The maidservant nodded. She covered the bowl once more.
“Now,” the maidservant said. “If you will rise, my lady, and return to your palanquin, you will be taken to the prince’s household.”
Finally, they entered the Palace of Dusk.
“Good,” said Gulshera, some of her tension visibly unfurling from her limbs as they were led farther through corridors of ivory. Her hands, which had been clasped so tight in front of her that the knuckles had whitened, eased their grip just enough for the skin to flush again with blood. “We are not being provided a formal audience. She has chosen to treat us as women of her household.”
Arwa had not known that Gulshera was so nervous. But Gulshera had not seen the princess in years. Gulshera did not know what—if anything—had changed at court in her absence. And the cleansing had shaken her. Neither of them had expected it.
Arwa raised her head and looked around. They were, indeed, being led away from the grand hall to the left of the hallway, which Arwa caught glimpses of between a string of half-opened doors: a room large enough to encompass the hermitage whole in its palm, its floors covered in sumptuous rugs of a red richer than blood; a raised dais set high above the floor, surrounded by a corona of gems. Arwa was keenly grateful not to have been guided to that room and compelled to bow before that dais. Formal audiences were intended to intimidate, and Arwa knew she would have been appropriately overawed.
Facing a woman of the Emperor’s holy blood was a daunting enough prospect on its own. Even now, as she walked down the corridor with Gulshera’s steady presence at her side, Arwa’s skin felt far too tight, her nervousness a sharp knife in her lungs. She could barely breathe around it. Instead she lowered her eyes, and fixed them once more on the shape of Gulshera’s clasped hands.
Arwa heard music and faint laughter long before the guardswoman guided them across a threshold that led to a veranda overlooking the gardens. There was a musician by the door plucking lightly at the strings of a sitar. Beyond her were a dozen noblewomen reclining on bolster cushions, sherbet and wine set on low tables between them.
Gulshera bowed, and Arwa followed her lead. As they straightened, one of the women also rose to her feet. The room quelled to silence around her.
The woman was unusually tall, with great dark eyes and her hair bound back in an impossibly long braid, unconcealed by a shawl. When she took a step forward, moving from shadow into bare sunlight, Arwa saw that her braid was laced with diamonds. They glimmered in the light, giving her black hair the iridescence of a snake’s flesh.
“Dear Gulshera,” said the princess. She smiled and crossed the room, clasping Gulshera’s hands in her own. Her voice was rich with feeling, sweeter than wine. “Oh, I am so glad you are returned to me!”
“Princess Jihan,” Gulshera said. “You look well.”
“How was your time in Numriha?”
“Cold and quiet, my lady. Very different from your fine household.”
