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For a member of a High Family on the matriarchal, gem-rich world of Tanar, marriage weeks mean celebration, with lavish gifts even for the servants—and the freedom to choose whichever suitor a girl desires.
A shame that Zuli Yalsmon’s family barely ranks as Regarded after the assault that exiled her sister. For her marriage week, Zuli must accept whoever deigns to appear, with whatever they decide to offer.
And unless something changes drastically in the next three days, instead of valuable business assets, Zuli’s entire future? Worth exactly three shiny river rocks on an overly plain ring.
If only she knew the real name of the man she truly loves…
A rags-to-riches romance in a lush new sci-fi world, perfect for fans of whip-smart main characters with hidden identities and secrets aplenty.
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Under the first hesitant touch of dawn the cliffs were a shimmering rose gold, old rock studded with shards of the broken sister-planet that Tanar had destroyed long before humanity had reached the solar system. Zuli and the planet had that in common, sisters lost to them for eternity.
A silver light flickered in the milky blue sky above, sparkling and falling and then racing across the mountaintops towards the port.
This is what Zuli had woken early to see. The poets said it was the tears of hope when the veil of night lifted. In the moments before true dawn, when the sky filled with a million silver stars sparkling like diamonds along the horizon, one could see beyond the limits of the world.
Zuli soaked in the sight of the glittering space stations, orbitals and ships, all named for explorers like she’d wanted to be in her youth. Wondering if Adalet was up there. The older sister she might never see again.
Adalet the fiery. Adalet the tempest. Adalet the banished.
Adalet that – like Tanar’s twin planet – was destroyed and could never come home.
Soft footfalls covered by silk slippers warned Zuli to look away before her eyes filled with tears. She turned from the fading stars above to watch the windskippers darting from their nests on the cliff to catch the insects dancing over the froth of the river.
“Azuli?” Her mother’s voice was soft as a lullaby. A gentle hand rested on her shoulder. “Why are you up so early, my flower?”
“Trouble adjusting to the time zones,” Zuli lied. “I feel like I ought to be getting ready for class.”
Her mother patted her shoulder, stroking the rippled embroidery patterns on Zuli’s sleeve. “It is that way with new graduates. For twenty-five years we tell our daughters to hurry, to learn, to excel so they can do their merchant families proud. And then we call you back to work. To marry. To inherit. It is an odd thing, no? That there is no space between learning and doing? No moment to breath, to rest, to appreciate all the fine work you’ve done?”
There was a quiet rebuke in her mother’s words.
Zuli smiled as she turned to her mother. “I’m not asking to take time away from the family. It’s just, odd, being my own boss.”
“You’re well-prepared.” The light caught on the fading metallic thread in her mother’s shawl and the silver in her midnight-black hair. Many years ago Azuri Yalsmon had been the most beautiful woman in the village of Samat. A brilliant statistician gifted with an understanding of the market’s mercurial moods.
Even now, as the fortunes of the family faded like the gilt on their gowns, Azuri was respected and beautiful. Held back, the gossips said, by her risk-taking husband.
It would have been a sad end if theirs weren’t a love match.
Squishing an insolent surge of regret, Zuli turned back to study the flowers, a deep purple bloom that fell into a yellow heart with a bright orange stamen hidden deep inside where only curious little girls and the pollinators ever bothered to look. The flowers had been Zuli’s first lesson in life, and a good one, showing her that in everything there was some secret not visible at first glance.
“Your cousins should be arriving tomorrow,” her mother said in the quiet voice of a mourner. “In three days it all begins.”
The bridal announcement.
The bride’s night, where she would stand before every suitor who would come, and choose her future husband.
The bride’s dawning, when she and the man she chose announced their upcoming marriage to the world.
It was meant to be a joyous occasion. A grand tradition kept on because the people who grew Tanar from cold stone to rich planet were people who loved drama.
Pomp and circumstance.
If the Yalsmons had been a grand-tier family, with blue diamonds sewn to their cloaks and blue gold woven in their braids, this week would be joyous. Her cousins would be dressed in the finest couture. Household servants would be lavished with riches well beyond what they could have earned working for any other family. Zuli would be free to marry anyone, or no one at all.
But the Yalsmons had never been grand-tier, not even at the height of their power.
They’d never even been a High Family.
They were a Regarded Family, powerful in their own circle but without interstellar interests or control. Their wealth was sufficient for influence on the planet, but wasn’t exceptional.
That had been before her older sister had been banished. When Adalet had graduated early, there’d been a surge of interest. The High Families wanted new genetic material and her beautiful, intelligent, vivacious sister had had everyone’s attention.
Those had been the good days.
Until Esko Ferith had taken an interest. Second son of a high-tier merchant family, smiling snake, unworthy crocodile of a man.
“Zuli.” Her mother tapped her tight shoulders. “It is no one’s fault.”
“She should have pushed him into the river and let him drown.”
“Then there would have been a murder inquiry,” her mother said calmly.
“He attacked her!” Brutally assaulted Adalet, and Ada had defended herself in turn. Before her sister was even safely home and the security officers could be called, House Ferith had released a statement saying Adalet had tried to seduce Esko.
As if a beautiful woman in her prime wanted a shriveled ballsack of a man ten years her senior.
House Ferith said it was for wealth, and Ferith would accept the proposal.
Keeping Ada safe and buying her freedom with a returned bride price had bankrupted the family. Zuli had gone from the best schools in the system to the best in the village. Her future fell from the promise of everything she wanted to the reality that the promise had always been a lie.
The great equality of the people—the assurance that everyone contributing to Tanar meant stability for all— was a sham.
Tanar’s culture was another caste system hidden under layers of platitudes and oppression. Looking down from a high perch, it was as silky smooth as the white river. It was only when you fell that you saw the waters were blue and the white was the froth reaching out to drown you in the chaotic misery of poverty.
“I’m going to run into the city,” Zuli said. “There’s a few things I left at my friend’s house at the graduation party. And I need to buy bridal presents for the cousins.” The traditional gifts of new clothes and jewels would have to wait. Her budget was small and her cousins even poorer than her. They’d understand.
Her mother sighed and looked out across the sun-dappled cliffs. “Don’t be gone too long. I’ve already lost one daughter.”
“I’ll be safe,” Zuli promised. “My bride price is practically set in stone. Jonthir has three small rubies to offer me.”
“A pretty ring,” her mother said softly, not looking away. “That used to be all the bride price was. A pretty ring and a promise of fidelity. It wasn’t always business contracts and auctions.”
It was hard to smile, but Zuli managed. “Sometimes there was love.”
Three small rubies was an insult.
Jonthir was buying her love for river rocks.
No, he was buying her future with river rocks. Her love she’d already given away freely to a man she was going to town to say goodbye to.