When Aria felt she had stayed in their sight for long enough, she took her basket back and left without adding a word. Ignoring all the stares on her, she only went a bit further away, into another garden, with a wider sample of vegetation and an artificial lake and fountain. There, she dipped her bare feet in the shallow water, humming calmly.

Her plan was so simple, yet she wondered if it’d work. Most of the concubines had watched when she washed her hands and saw the blue ...