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“Queen Beth,” someone shouted.
“This is who we want. Our queen!”
Beth listened with shock. These people didn’t know anything about Edith or all her sister’s many accomplishments.
They were shouting for Beth. Just for her.
“If you please, most high,” one of the carriers bowed deeply, looking at her with new respect.
She looked back at the enormous crowd, now overflowing with people chanting her name. Her throat was dry. Uh-oh. What had she done, breaking the rules? The vizier wouldn’t like this at all. And more importantly, neither would Omar...
Hastily, she climbed back into the palanquin and slammed the curtains firmly shut.
But it was too late. As the bearers lifted the weight of the palanquin to their shoulders and started to leave the crowded souk, she could still hear the crowds chanting her name.
Beth peeked out as they reached the grand steps of the royal palace, and was dismayed to see the crowd had only grown larger, following them, still shouting her name.
The palanquin stopped, and then was slowly lowered.
“Welcome,” Omar’s voice rang out, distant and cold.
The crowds fell silent. The ceremony had begun.
As planned, the brides all stepped out together from their palanquins, in perfect unison. Well, except for Beth, who was a single second behind, getting tangled in her dress and hot with embarrassment at the renewed chant of the crowds behind her.
“Beth! Beth!”
She felt the glowering anger of the four other women, as all five of them stood in a line beside the resting palanquins, looking up at the king standing on the palace’s steps far above them.
“Beth! Beth!”
Ignoring the noise, she took a deep breath and lifted her chin. Above her, she saw Omar in full regal robes, standing at the top of the steps, surrounded by his council and honor guard.
Trying to shut out the glares of the other women and the nobles, and the death stare of the vizier, she focused only on Omar.
His handsome face was a furious scowl.
She ducked her head, her cheeks hot. Because of her actions, when he announced his chosen bride—Laila—the moment would be ruined, overshadowed by his people’s demand for a different woman.
She’d spoiled Omar’s ceremony, simply by not following the rules, simply by being herself.
“Beth! Beth! Beth!”
Omar lifted his hand in a single gesture, and the crowds fell into silence.
“I have chosen my bride.”
His deep, husky voice carried on the wind. Beth looked around the royal square, with its palm trees and lush flowers, and burbling stone fountain beneath the blue sky.
“My new queen will be...”
Omar stopped. It was so quiet Beth could hear the plaintive call of a seagull, soaring high overhead. The pause stretched out as he looked from Laila, dignified and still, standing regally beside the first palanquin, past Sia, Anna, Taraji, to Beth at the very end.
Omar’s eyes met hers, and her heart twisted. I nearly kissed you last night, he’d said. If things had been different, if he’d just been a regular guy she’d met at the thrift shop—
But he wasn’t. And no amount of people cheering could make her Samarqara’s queen. The council already despised her. How much more would they detest her if they knew Beth had been lying about her identity all this time, and was just a shop girl from Houston? And Omar...he would hate her.
He had to marry Laila. It was the best way this could end. Tears lifted to her eyes. The only way.
