The Happiest Years
For several years, Zarina believed the palace belonged to the three of them.
Not literally. Even as a child, she understood that armies, ministers, guild envoys, petitioners and endless officials moved through its halls every day. She knew her father belonged to more people than she did.
But there were parts of the palace that seemed to bend around their small household.
Her father’s private study.
Balif’s cluttered rooms.
The breakfast chamber with the cracked tile beneath the eastern window.
A narrow terrace overlooking the lower gardens.
The old observatory that nobody used anymore.
Those places did not feel like the seat of Ashkar.
They felt like home.
And in those years, Zarina was happy.
Not constantly. No child was.
She sulked. She argued. She became bored during lessons and furious when told no. She cried over things she later insisted had not upset her at all. Once, after being forbidden from riding during a storm, she refused to speak to her father for an entire afternoon.
He lasted less than an hour.
By dinner he had begun asking Balif absurdly loud questions about whether anyone had recently seen his daughter.
Balif had been trying to read.
“No.”
“Strange.”
“Very.”
“I seem to remember having one.”
“So do I.”
“Dark hair. Loud.”
“That sounds familiar.”
Zarina sat three chairs away with her arms folded.
Her father continued eating.
“Rather poor temper.”
Balif nodded.
“Terrible.”
Zarina glared at both of them.
Her father looked toward the empty doorway.
“If she returns, tell her I have decided to leave everything to someone more agreeable.”
“Excellent idea.”
“Perhaps the cook.”
“The cook has better judgment.”
Zarina slammed both hands onto the table.
“I’m here.”
Her father looked startled.
“Zarina.”
“You knew I was here.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
Balif turned a page.
“His memory has been poor lately.”
She stared at them both for several seconds and then began laughing despite every effort not to.
Her father smiled.
That was usually how her anger ended in those days.
She had developed a habit of visiting his study whenever she became bored.
The Supreme Ruler’s private office was perhaps the least interesting place in the palace to anyone except the ruler himself. Documents arrived faster than servants could remove them. Maps covered one wall. Correspondence from the guilds accumulated in neat stacks that became less neat as the day progressed.
Zarina would arrive with a book, throw herself onto the long couch by the window and announce that she intended to remain completely silent.
This promise rarely survived ten minutes.
“Father.”
He continued reading.
“Father.”
A pause.
“Yes?”
“Do you think fish get thirsty?”
His eyes stopped moving across the page.
Across the room, Balif lowered his book.
The Supreme Ruler slowly looked at her.
“What?”
“Fish.”
“I heard that part.”
“Do they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You rule the Aquatic Ascendancy too.”
“I do not rule their fish individually.”
Balif made a quiet noise.
The ruler pointed at him without looking.
“Do not encourage her.”
“I said nothing.”
“Your face did.”
Zarina rolled onto her stomach.
“You should know.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the Supreme Ruler.”
Her father put down his correspondence.
“There are limits to the office.”
“Then why call it supreme?”
He stared at her.
Balif began coughing into his fist.
Zarina grinned.
Her father picked the document back up.
“Go away.”
“No.”
“I have work.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
“You said that already.”
“This time I mean it.”
Five minutes passed.
“Father.”
He closed his eyes.
There were evenings when she fell asleep there.
Sometimes Balif discovered her first and draped a blanket over her. Sometimes the ruler noticed only when he stood to leave and found his daughter curled against the end of the couch with a book slipping from her hand.
When she was small enough, he carried her.
Later, when she grew too tall, he woke her.
“You have a room.”
“So do you.”
“I use mine.”
“You sleep in this one.”
“I do not.”
“You did yesterday.”
“I was reading.”
“With your eyes closed.”
He would give her a tired look.
She would smile.
Those nights remained among the few occasions when the Supreme Ruler abandoned his work before everyone else had gone to bed.
Not because he was finished.
He was never finished.
But Zarina had a remarkable ability to make unfinished things seem less urgent.
Balif’s rooms were different.
They smelled of tea, dust and old bindings.
No servant had ever succeeded in organizing them for longer than a day.
Books lay horizontally across books that were standing vertically. Notes appeared inside bowls. A dried plant that Balif had once intended to identify had remained beside the window for so long that Zarina eventually named it.
“That’s Marcellus.”
“It is dead.”
“He’s resting.”
“It has been resting for two years.”
“You should water him.”
“That would be cruel at this stage.”
She watered it anyway.
Balif pretended not to notice.
His lessons with Zarina were rarely orderly.
He disliked memorization for its own sake, which placed him in frequent conflict with the palace tutors.
“Knowing the date is not the same as understanding what happened,” he told her once.
“The tutor says dates are important.”
“The tutor thinks everything printed in a book is important.”
“You’re a scholar.”
“Yes.”
“So don’t you think that?”
“No. That is what experience does to scholars.”
He taught her history by arguing with her.
When she was eleven, he told her the story of a king who had surrendered three border forts in exchange for peace.
“Was he a coward?” Zarina asked.
“What do you think?”
“He gave up.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is.”
“Soldiers give up when ordered to retreat. Are they all cowards?”
She frowned.
“No.”
“So?”
“The king might have saved people.”
“He did.”
“Then he was right.”
“Ten years later the enemy used those forts to invade again.”
Her expression changed.
“That’s cheating.”
“History frequently is.”
She sat back.
“So what should he have done?”
Balif shrugged.
Zarina stared at him.
“You know.”
“I know what he did.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
“Because you seemed very certain.”
She threw a cushion at him.
He caught it badly and nearly knocked his tea onto the floor.
Zarina laughed until she couldn’t breathe.
Balif looked at the cup, then at her.
“This is why monarchies fail.”
He also taught her things no royal curriculum required.
How to tell whether someone had altered a map.
How to spot a forged seal.
Why eyewitnesses often remembered the same event differently.
How to make cheap ink.
How to identify five common poisons and, more importantly, why licking an unknown substance to identify it was not acceptable scholarship.
She had only done that once.
Balif reminded her about it for years.
“You said it was probably salt.”
“I said probably.”
“It was salt.”
“That is not a defense of your method.”
“It worked.”
“So does falling from a tower if your objective is reaching the ground.”
Her father happened to enter during this conversation.
“What are we discussing?”
“Your daughter’s commitment to empirical research.”
The Supreme Ruler looked at Zarina.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Balif said, “Salt.”
Her father sighed.
“Again?”
“It was one time.”
“It has somehow become many times in the telling.”
“That’s because Balif is old.”
Balif nodded gravely.
“Very old. I remember the first mountains.”
Zarina smiled.
“You weren’t there.”
“How could you know?”
She had no answer.
Balif looked triumphant.
For all their teasing, Zarina watched him closely.
She noticed before he admitted it that his knees troubled him on cold mornings.
He had begun taking stairs more slowly.
He also held books farther away than he once had.
One winter afternoon she found him rubbing his eyes while trying to read.
“You’re going blind.”
Balif looked up.
“A comforting diagnosis.”
“You can’t see that.”
“I can.”
“What does it say?”
He turned the page toward her.
It was upside down.
Zarina folded her arms.
Balif stared at it.
“Hm.”
The next morning, a craftsman arrived to fit him with a pair of reading lenses.
Balif found Zarina standing suspiciously nearby.
He looked from the lenses to her.
“You did this.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“They’re from my father.”
“Your father did not know I needed them.”
“He does now.”
Balif put them on.
They sat slightly crooked on his nose.
Zarina immediately laughed.
He removed them.
“Wonderful. I shall remain blind.”
“No, put them back.”
“You are enjoying this too much.”
“You look strange.”
“I looked strange before.”
“Not like that.”
He put them on again.
Zarina adjusted them herself.
“There.”
Balif looked at her through the lenses.
For a moment the teasing left his face.
“Thank you.”
She shrugged.
Then she leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
Balif froze.
Zarina was already halfway to the door.
“Don’t become sentimental,” she called.
“I would never dare.”
Her father was harder to care for.
Not because he rejected affection.
Because he always insisted he was fine.
He was fine when he had not slept.
Fine when meetings ran from dawn until late evening.
Fine when he returned from long journeys with a cough.
Fine when healers told him to rest.
One night Zarina entered his study and found an untouched plate of food beside his desk.
She stood there for a while.
He did not notice her.
“Did you eat?”
“Yes.”
Zarina looked at the plate.
Then at him.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did earlier.”
“When?”
Her father kept writing.
She crossed the room and took the paper from beneath his hand.
He looked up.
“Zarina.”
“You lied.”
“I did not lie.”
“You said you ate.”
“I ate.”
“When?”
He thought about it.
“At some point.”
She picked up the entire stack of papers.
“Give those back.”
“No.”
“I am not in the mood.”
“Neither am I.”
“Zarina.”
“Eat.”
He stared at her.
She stared back.
The Supreme Ruler of Ashkar, who had faced rebellions, assassins, and guild councils that lasted entire days, appeared to consider his options.
“What exactly do you intend to do with those?”
“Burn them.”
“You would not.”
“I know where the lamps are.”
From the corner, Balif said without looking up, “I believe her.”
The ruler turned.
“Why are you here?”
“I was invited to dinner.”
“This is not dinner.”
“No. Apparently it is a hostage negotiation.”
Zarina hugged the documents tighter.
Her father sighed.
Then he ate.
She returned the papers when he finished.
“Happy?”
“Yes.”
“You are becoming unbearable.”
Balif nodded.
“She learned from you.”
The ruler pointed toward the door.
“Both of you. Out.”
Neither moved.
Zarina loved seeing him laugh.
It was rare outside their rooms.
Court changed her father.
His shoulders became straighter. His face gave away less. His words shortened. He listened more than he spoke, and when he did speak, people stopped moving.
As a child, Zarina had thought everyone else simply failed to understand him.
Later she realized that they knew a different version.
Once, after a particularly long banquet, Zarina performed an imitation of one of the visiting magistrates.
She tucked a napkin into the front of her dress as a sash, raised her chin and began talking about tariffs in an exaggerated nasal voice.
Balif immediately put his face in his hands.
Her father tried not to react.
“The northern grain tariff,” Zarina announced, “is a matter of absolute urgency, Your Grace. Absolute. If we lower it, disaster. If we raise it, disaster. If we leave it where it is—”
She paused dramatically.
“Disaster.”
Her father’s mouth twitched.
Zarina saw it.
She continued.
“And furthermore, my nephew requires a government position because he is uniquely qualified by having accomplished absolutely nothing.”
Her father broke.
It was not a dignified laugh.
It was the kind that forced him to turn away and cover his face.
Zarina doubled over.
Balif looked horrified.
“You both understand that this man returns tomorrow.”
That made it worse.
The ruler was still trying to recover when Zarina added, “Absolute disaster.”
He had to leave the room.
For years afterward, whenever a council meeting went badly, Zarina only had to whisper those two words.
Her father would glare at her.
Sometimes she could see him fighting the smile.
There were quieter moments too.
On the anniversary of her mother’s death, the palace held ceremonies.
Zarina disliked them.
Everyone wore formal colors. Priests spoke beautifully. Flowers filled the halls. People who had barely known her mother told Zarina how deeply they had admired her.
That year Zarina was twelve.
After the ceremony, she could not find her father.
She eventually discovered him in one of the smaller gardens.
He sat alone beside a dry fountain.
No guards stood close enough to hear him.
Zarina approached carefully.
He looked up.
“You escaped.”
“So did you.”
He smiled faintly.
She sat beside him.
For a while they said nothing.
Then Zarina asked, “Did you like the ceremony?”
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
“You’re supposed to.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you?”
Her father looked toward the hedges.
“Because they talk about her as if she belonged to everyone.”
Zarina understood that immediately.
“They do that to me too.”
He turned toward her.
She had not meant the sentence to sound serious.
For a moment she worried she had upset him.
Instead he nodded.
“Yes.”
Zarina looked down at her hands.
“Did she like ceremonies?”
“No.”
“Balif said she hated formal poetry.”
“Balif says many things.”
“Was he wrong?”
“No.”
She smiled.
Her father did too.
“She once fell asleep during a recital given in her honor.”
“Really?”
“Completely asleep.”
“What happened?”
“Everyone pretended not to notice.”
“Did you?”
“I was the one who woke her.”
Zarina laughed.
“Was she angry?”
“Very.”
They sat there longer.
Eventually Zarina asked the question that had been sitting somewhere inside her for years.
“Did she want me?”
Her father’s expression changed.
There was no hesitation.
“Yes.”
Zarina looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me.”
“When?”
“Many times.”
“Before I was born?”
“Before. After. Whenever she thought I was worrying too much.”
Zarina smiled a little.
“What did she say?”
Her father looked at her for a long moment.
Then he shook his head.
“That part is mine.”
She frowned.
“That’s unfair.”
“Probably.”
She leaned against his arm.
After a while, he rested his cheek against the top of her head.
Neither of them returned to the ceremony.
Later that afternoon, Zarina found Balif in the old observatory.
He had taken her there for years.
The dome no longer opened properly, and half the instruments were obsolete, but Zarina loved the place. Nobody came looking for them there unless something was wrong.
Balif sat beside the largest window with a book open on his lap.
Zarina sat on the floor beside him.
“My father says Mother hated ceremonies.”
“True.”
“He said she fell asleep during one.”
Balif looked over the rim of his reading lenses.
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“He leaves out the part where he fell asleep first.”
Zarina stared at him.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My father?”
“Your father.”
“He doesn’t fall asleep during ceremonies.”
“He was younger then.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It rarely does.”
Zarina started laughing.
“Did Mother see him?”
“Everyone saw him.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Your mother kicked his chair.”
Zarina covered her mouth.
Balif lowered his voice.
“Repeatedly.”
She laughed harder.
“Did he wake up?”
“Eventually.”
“Was he angry?”
“At her?”
Balif thought about it.
“No. Embarrassed, mostly.”
“I’m going to tell him you told me.”
Balif immediately closed his book.
“You will do no such thing.”
“Why?”
“Because I have survived many dangerous periods in Ashkar through good judgment.”
“You don’t have good judgment.”
“I have enough not to remind the Supreme Ruler that I witnessed him sleeping through a diplomatic recital.”
Zarina grinned.
“I think he’d laugh.”
“You think many things.”
She leaned against the side of his chair.
For a while she watched dust drifting through the sunlight.
“How long did you know her?”
Balif’s fingers stopped against the page.
“A long time.”
“Before Father?”
“Yes.”
Zarina looked up.
“What was she like then?”
“Much the same.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the most accurate one.”
“She wasn’t a queen.”
“No.”
“So she must have been different.”
Balif took off his lenses and folded them carefully.
“She had fewer people following her around.”
Zarina smiled.
“That sounds nice.”
“It did not prevent her from finding trouble.”
“What kind?”
“Mostly the kind she insisted was someone else’s fault.”
“That sounds like Father.”
Balif gave her a doubtful look.
“You may wish to reconsider saying that within his hearing.”
Zarina ignored him.
“Were you good friends?”
The question was simple.
Balif looked toward the window.
“Yes.”
“Very good friends?”
“Yes.”
“Better than Father?”
That brought his attention back immediately.
“That is not how friendship works.”
“It can.”
“No.”
“It can.”
“Then your education has failed.”
Zarina rolled her eyes.
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Answer something else.”
Balif regarded her for a moment.
Then he reached down and tapped the top of her head with his book.
“You ask too many questions.”
“You taught me to.”
“A serious professional mistake.”
She smiled.
There were moments when Balif became strange whenever her mother was mentioned. Not sad exactly. He simply became quieter, as though part of the conversation had moved somewhere Zarina could not follow.
She had noticed it before.
She never thought much of it.
Everyone who had known her mother seemed to carry something from those years.
Her father carried grief.
The Phoenix Queen carried anger and affection in nearly equal measure.
Balif carried memories.
That was how Zarina understood it.
And Balif never corrected her.
“Tell me another one,” she said.
“Another what?”
“Story.”
“I have work.”
“You’re reading.”
“That is work.”
“You’ve been on the same page since I came in.”
Balif looked down.
He had.
Zarina smiled triumphantly.
He sighed.
“All right.”
She shifted closer.
“Something embarrassing.”
“About your mother?”
“Yes.”
“That narrows the possibilities considerably.”
Zarina laughed.
Balif opened the book again, though neither of them looked at it.
“Once,” he began, “your mother became convinced that she could beat me at archery.”
“Could she?”
“No.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“She accused the bow of being poorly made.”
“That sounds like her.”
“You never met her.”
“I know.”
Balif glanced down at her.
Zarina was smiling.
“Keep going.”
And he did.
The three of them travelled together the following summer.
Not on state business.
Zarina’s father had promised her three days away from the capital, and for once no crisis managed to steal them.
They went to a small lakeside estate that Zarina’s mother had loved.
The place was modest by royal standards.
Zarina adored it immediately.
Her father complained about the beds.
Balif complained about the road.
Zarina complained about both of them complaining.
On the second morning, she persuaded her father to take a boat onto the lake.
He was terrible at rowing.
Zarina discovered this within minutes.
“You said you knew how.”
“I do.”
“We’re going sideways.”
“The wind.”
“There isn’t any wind.”
Balif sat at the far end of the boat looking entirely unwilling to help.
The ruler glared at him.
“You could contribute.”
“I am observing.”
“You are sitting.”
“Observation is frequently performed sitting.”
Zarina took one of the oars.
Her father resisted.
She pulled.
The boat turned almost completely around.
Balif grabbed the side.
“Excellent. Now none of us knows what we’re doing.”
Zarina laughed so hard she lost the oar.
Her father stared as it drifted away.
Silence.
Then Balif said, “A commanding performance.”
Zarina collapsed against the side of the boat.
Her father began laughing too.
They eventually had to be rescued by two guards standing onshore.
For the rest of the trip, Zarina referred to her father as Admiral.
He threatened to leave her at the estate.
She knew he wouldn’t.
That certainty was one of the foundations of her world.
At night they ate outside.
No court.
No guild envoys.
No ceremonial dress.
Just the three of them beneath hanging lanterns while insects battered themselves senseless against the light.
Zarina asked endless questions about her mother.
Her father and Balif disagreed about almost everything.
“She liked pears.”
“She hated pears.”
“She ate them constantly.”
“Because you kept buying them.”
“She asked for them.”
“She was being polite.”
“My wife was rarely polite when she disliked something.”
“That is true.”
Zarina listened, fascinated.
For years she had known her mother through portraits and memorial speeches.
Here, between two men arguing about fruit, she finally began to imagine her alive.
Her mother had become impatient.
She had laughed too loudly.
She disliked waking early.
She once cheated Balif at cards and denied it while hiding two cards beneath her sleeve.
She had thrown a cup at Zarina’s father during an argument.
“It was wooden,” the ruler insisted.
“You ducked.”
“Of course I ducked.”
Zarina was crying with laughter.
The Supreme Ruler pointed at Balif.
“You are enjoying this far too much.”
“I have waited many years.”
Zarina looked between them.
Something warm settled inside her.
Her mother was no longer a painting.
She belonged to these stories.
And somehow, through them, she belonged to Zarina too.
That evening Zarina fell asleep outside.
She woke briefly when her father lifted her.
She was thirteen and already nearly too heavy for him to carry comfortably.
“Put me down,” she mumbled.
“You are asleep.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are arguing with your eyes closed.”
“Still counts.”
He carried her anyway.
Over his shoulder, she saw Balif gathering the abandoned cups from the table.
“Balif.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget Marcellus.”
There was a pause.
“The plant is not here.”
“Good.”
Her father laughed quietly.
Zarina rested her head against his shoulder.
She remembered thinking that he felt older than he used to.
Then she fell asleep again.
Birthdays belonged to Balif.
Every year he gave Zarina a book.
Every year it was too difficult.
At fourteen he presented her with an enormous volume on pre-unification legal systems.
Zarina stared at it.
“No.”
Balif placed it in her hands.
“Happy birthday.”
“This is punishment.”
“You said you wanted something challenging.”
“I meant interesting.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
She opened the book.
The first page contained a diagram of agricultural inheritance law.
Zarina closed it.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
Her father entered carrying a small wrapped box.
“What did he give you?”
Zarina held up the book.
The Supreme Ruler looked at Balif.
“Do you dislike my daughter?”
“Frequently.”
Zarina opened her father’s gift.
Inside was a small silver pendant shaped like a bird in flight.
She stopped smiling.
Her father suddenly looked uncertain.
“It belonged to your mother.”
Zarina touched it carefully.
“Really?”
“She wore it when she was young. Before we married.”
Zarina looked from the pendant to him.
“Can I wear it?”
“That was the intention.”
Balif came closer.
For a moment his expression became difficult to read.
“You remember it?” Zarina asked.
“Yes.”
“Did she like it?”
Balif nodded.
“Very much.”
Zarina fastened it around her neck.
Then she hugged her father.
He held her tightly.
When she released him, she hugged Balif too.
Balif endured this with exaggerated patience.
“I gave you agricultural inheritance law.”
“I know.”
“I don’t believe this reaction is proportionate.”
She hugged him harder.
Those were the years in which Zarina began imagining her future.
Not as queen.
Not as ruler.
She rarely thought in titles.
She thought about helping.
She saw how tired her father became after long council sessions.
She saw Balif bring him documents after midnight.
She heard conversations stop when she entered rooms and understood just enough to know that Ashkar was rarely as peaceful as it appeared.
One evening she found her father alone on the terrace.
He was staring toward the city.
She stood beside him.
“Bad day?”
He glanced down.
“Why?”
“You have the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where everyone has annoyed you.”
“I have many faces.”
“Not really.”
He smiled faintly.
Zarina leaned against the railing.
“When I’m older, I’ll help.”
“You already help.”
“No. Properly.”
Her father looked at her.
“You have plenty of time.”
“You always say there’s too much work.”
“There is.”
“Then I’ll do some.”
He laughed softly.
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“When I’m older, you won’t have to do everything.”
Behind them, Balif had just stepped onto the terrace.
He heard her.
The Supreme Ruler reached over and touched Zarina’s hair.
“I would like that.”
Balif said nothing.
Zarina looked back at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You made a face.”
“My face is old. It does things without consulting me.”
She accepted that.
For now.
On Zarina’s fifteenth birthday, there was music in the private garden.
Not a formal celebration.
She had asked for none.
A handful of people she actually liked attended. A few relatives, trusted members of the household, two young companions she had known for years.
Her father arrived late.
Zarina pretended to be offended.
“You missed dinner.”
“I was delayed.”
“By the realm?”
“Unfortunately.”
“The realm is very rude.”
“I have mentioned this.”
Balif was already seated beneath one of the trees with a cup of wine.
Zarina pointed at him.
“He gave me another terrible book.”
“I assume you thanked him.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Balif looked wounded.
The Supreme Ruler sat beside them.
For once, nobody brought him documents.
Nobody asked for decisions.
Nobody bowed after he sat.
Music drifted across the garden.
Zarina danced badly with one of her friends.
Then with Balif, who complained that she was trying to kill him.
Then she dragged her father from his chair.
“I don’t dance.”
“You married Mother.”
“That does not mean I danced.”
Balif laughed into his cup.
Zarina pulled harder.
“Come on.”
“No.”
“Father.”
“Absolutely not.”
She gave him the look that had defeated him since she was small.
He sighed.
“This is extortion.”
“Yes.”
He stood.
He was not a good dancer.
Zarina informed him immediately.
“You’re stepping on me.”
“I told you.”
“Mother married you anyway?”
“Against all advice.”
Balif called from his chair, “Mine especially.”
The ruler pointed at him.
“You are very brave tonight.”
“Wine.”
Zarina laughed.
For a little while, her father forgot that anyone might be watching.
Balif forgot his knees.
Zarina forgot everything except the music and the people around her.
Much later, when most of the guests had gone, the three of them remained in the garden.
Balif had fallen half asleep in his chair.
The Supreme Ruler sat with his coat open, looking less like the ruler of Ashkar than Zarina could ever remember.
Zarina lay across a bench with her shoes discarded beneath it.
“Best birthday?” her father asked.
She thought.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“The lake was good.”
“You nearly drowned us.”
“You lost the oar.”
“You lost the oar.”
“You were Admiral.”
From his chair, without opening his eyes, Balif muttered, “A disastrous command.”
Zarina started laughing again.
Her father shook his head.
She looked at them both.
Balif old and grumbling.
Her father tired but smiling.
The lanterns swayed gently overhead.
There was nowhere else she wanted to be.
No other life occurred to her.
She did not wonder who she might become.
She did not dream about escape.
She did not resent her name.
She was Zarina.
Balif loved her.
Her father loved her.
And she loved them with the unquestioning certainty of someone who had never yet learned that love could change shape.
Eventually her father stood.
“Bed.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“And?”
“I can decide when to sleep.”
“Wonderful. Decide to sleep now.”
Balif opened one eye.
“An excellent first exercise in governance.”
Zarina threw a cushion at him.
It struck him directly in the face.
There was a moment of silence.
Then Balif began laughing.
Her father joined him.
Zarina did too.
And beneath the warm light of the garden lanterns, surrounded by the two people she trusted most in the world, Zarina thought herself extraordinarily fortunate.
She was.