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Kanza belted a laugh as she ran behind the screen. “I just want to marry the man. Don’t care one bit how I do it.”
Feeling the groans of her half sisters flaying her, she undressed and jumped into her gown. They were almost haybeedo—going to lay eggs—to have anything like her wedding. And for her to not only have it but to not care about having it must be the ultimate insult to injury to them.
Sighing, she came out from behind the screen.
Her sisters and stepmothers all gaped at her. Yeah, she’d gaped, too, when she’d seen herself in that dress yesterday at the one and only fitting. If you could call it a dress. It was on par with a miracle. Another Aram had made come true.
Before she could get another look at herself in the mirror, the ladies flocked around her, adjusting her hair and veil and embellishing her with pieces of the Pride of Zohayd treasure that King Amjad and Maram were lending her.
Then they pulled back, and it was her turn to gasp.
Who was that woman looking back at her?
The dress’s sumptuous gradations of cream and gold made everything about her coloring more vivid, and the incredible amalgam of chiffon, lace and tulle wrapped around her as if it was sculpted on her. The sleeveless, corsetlike, deep décolleté top made her breasts look full and nipped her waist to tiny proportions. Below that, the flare of her hips looked lush in a skirt that hugged them in crisscrossing pleats before falling to the floor in relaxed sweeps. And all over it was embroidered with about every ornament known to humankind, from pearls to sequins to cutwork to gemstones. Instead of looking busy, the amazing subtleness of colors and the denseness and ingeniousness of designs made it a unique work of art. Even more than that. A masterpiece.
Aram had promised he’d tell her how he’d had it made in only two days, if she was very, very, very good to him.
She intended to be superlative.
Looking at herself now—with subtle makeup and her thick hair swept up in a chignon that emphasized its shine and volume, with the veil held in place by a crown from the legendary royal treasure, along with the rest of the priceless, one-of-a-kind jewels adorning her throat, ears, arms and fingers—she had to admit she looked stunning.
She wanted to look like that more from now on.
For Aram.
The new bouquets had just arrived when the music that had accompanied bridal processions in the region since time immemorial rocked the palace.
Kanza ran out of the suite with her royalty-studded procession rushing after her, until Johara had to call out for her to slow down or they’d all break their ankles running in their high heels.
Kanza looked back, giggling, and was again dumbfounded by the magnitude of beauty those women packed. They themselves looked like a bouquet of the most perfect flowers in their luscious pale gold dresses. Those royal men of theirs sure knew how to pick women. They had been blessed by brides who were gorgeous inside and out.
As soon as they were out in the gallery leading to the central hall, Kanza was again awed by the sheer opulence of this wonderland of artistry they called the royal palace of Zohayd. A majestic blend of Persian, Ottoman and Mughal influences, it had taken thousands of artisans and craftsmen over three decades to finish it in the mid-seventeenth century. It felt as if the accumulation of history resonated in its halls, and the ancient bloodlines that had resided and ruled in it coursed through its walls.
Then they arrived at the hall’s soaring double doors, heavily worked in embossed bronze, gold and silver Zohaydan motifs. Four footmen in beige-and-gold outfits pulled the massive doors open by their ringlike knobs. Even over the music blaring at the back, she heard the buzz of conversation pouring out, that of the thousand guests who’d come to pay Aram respects as one of the world’s premier movers and shakers.
Inside was the octagonal hall that served as the palace’s hub, ensconced below a hundred-foot high and wide marble dome. She’d never seen anything like it. Its walls were covered with breathtaking geometric designs and calligraphy, its eight soaring arches defining the space at ground level, each crowned by a second arch midway up, with the upper arches forming balconies.
At least, that had been what it was when she’d seen it yesterday. Now it had turned into a scene right out of Arabian Nights.
Among the swirling sweetness of oud, musk and amber fumes, from every arch hung rows of incense burners and flaming torches, against every wall breathtaking arrangements of cream and gold roses. Each pillar was wrapped in gold satin worked heavily in silver patterns, while gold dust covered the glossy earth-tone marble floor.
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p; Then came the dozens of tables that were lavishly decorated and set up in echoes of the hall’s embellishment and surrounded by hundreds of guests who looked like ornaments themselves, polished and glittering. Everyone came from the exclusive realm of the world’s most rich and famous. They sparkled under the ambient light like fairy-tale dwellers in Midas’s vault.
Then the place was plunged into darkness. And silence.
Her heart boomed more loudly than the boisterous percussive music that had suddenly ended. After moments of stunned silence, a wildfire of curious murmuring spread.
Yeah. Them and her both. This wasn’t part of the planned proceedings. Come to think of it, not much had been. Aram had been supposed to wait at the door to escort her in. She hadn’t given it another thought when she hadn’t found him there because she’d thought he’d just gotten restless as her procession took forever to get there, and that he’d simply gone to wait for her at the kooshah, where the bride and groom presided over the celebrations, keeping the ma’zoon—the cleric who’d perform the marriage ritual— company.
So what was going on? What was he up to?
Knowing Aram and his crazy stunts, she expected anything.
Her breathing followed her heartbeat in disarray as she waited, unmoving, certain that there was no one behind her anymore. Her procession had rustled away. This meant they were in on this. So this surprise was for her.
God, she hated surprises.
