Tariq held her with care, like he was afraid the moment might shatter if he moved too quickly.
‘Do you want to wait?’ he asked. ‘Until after the ceremony?’
Aisha’s lips turned up. ‘The ceremony is for them. We were bound the day we met, when the gods showed me a future with you.’ She slid her hands inside his tunic, feeling for his heartbeat. ‘Our hearts have already chosen.’
Tariq’s expression intensified as he stared at her. Heat radiated from him, his muscles tensing under her touch. His mouth went to her neck. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered.
Aisha closed her eyes as teeth grazed her skin. The world fell away, but this time it had nothing to do with a vision.
Chapter 23
Aisha sat opposite Maryam on the rug, Mira curled at her feet with her paws tucked under her chin. The cub’s slow breath warmed the hem of her gown. Aisha had been meeting with Maryam at the same time every day for the past week, while Tariq trained and before her sisters were up for the day.
‘Again,’ Maryam said gently.
Aisha drew a breath, slow and even, the way she had been taught. ‘Breathe until the tightness in my chest loosens. Let my thoughts stop and sit. If I can get quiet enough here’—she touched two fingers to the notch above her sternum—‘the Sight will listen back.’
‘Good.’ Maryam tilted her head. ‘Or?’
‘Or I can use conflict. Summon tension to make two futures hold together in my mind until they scrape.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘My least favourite.’
Maryam appeared amused. ‘It is just another tool you can utilise, like moving in or out of your body, which you must practise.’
Aisha nodded. ‘Feel the ground when I want silence, and let my thoughts unhook.’
‘The Sight sits at the edge between stillness and drift. You will learn where that edge is.’
Mira’s ear flicked at a fly that had found its way inside the room.
‘And now for the last piece,’ Maryam said.
Aisha groaned. ‘My mind is bursting already.’
‘It will hold,’ Maryam assured her. ‘This knowledge is very important.’
Aisha tried to focus. ‘Go on.’
‘You already know the Sight exacts a cost. Do not think of it as a punishment but as the price of crossing thresholds your body does not normally cross. We always try to be respectful of that, but today I want to show you how to spend it on purpose if required.’
Aisha thought she had misheard. ‘Do you mean force a vision?’
‘Sort of.’ Maryam paused. ‘You cannot make fate speak, but you can let it know you are ready to hear it.’
A frown settled on Aisha’s face.
‘You will feel the drain more quickly and for longer,’ Maryam said. ‘Everyone’s body reacts differently.’ She sat up. ‘You will begin as you do with openness, breath, unclench the jaw, soften the tongue. Then you choose a thread and hold its edges.’
Aisha had no idea what that meant in a practical sense.
‘And as you do that, let your body loosen.’ She tapped Aisha’s wrist lightly. ‘Listen to your pulse, then imagine it drifting. You are not leaving your body but merely loosening your grip on it.’ She continued to tap on Aisha’s wrist. ‘It will feel like you are falling.’
Aisha closed her eyes, breathing deep into her belly the way Maryam had shown her. When she exhaled, the air slid past the back of her throat like water. Eventually, the tightness in her chest eased.
‘Visualise the conflict,’ Maryam murmured.
The door burst open, and Safiya rushed in. ‘They’re—’ She stopped dead when she saw the two of them sitting on the floor, Maryam with her hand on Aisha’s wrist. ‘What are you doing?’
Maryam withdrew her hand and got to her feet.
