“Accurate enough for them to understand, though,” Edhir said, annoyed. Disdain dripped from his voice. He hunched his shoulders and pointedly did not look at Mehr or Amun. “Can you leave me be, now? I’m busy.”
Amun tilted his head in acknowledgment, then turned to leave. Mehr followed after him.
She’d heard Edhir talk so to Amun before, but now she understood she too was included in that disdain. It stung, but only a little. It was not as if Mehr wanted to risk friendship any longer. She’d learned the consequences of that.
It was no surprise when the Maha sent a messenger demanding their presence for dinner that evening. Amun had been tense before the summons but was even more so after it. He stalked around their room like a caged animal as Mehr went through the motions of getting dressed, brushing her hair back into a braid, tightening the sash of her tunic around her waist.
“I won’t be able to manage him,” he said. “Not anymore. Mehr, you’ll have to be careful with him. He’s very—”
“Angry,” Mehr cut in. “I know.” She tightened her sash an increment further. All her clothes were overlarge now. “We’ll be fine,” she said, trying to sound sure of herself. “Besides, I’m not afraid.”
“You don’t need to lie to me, Mehr.”
“But I’m not,” Mehr said. In fact, this at least was true: She felt nothing at all. She didn’t feel strong or brave either. Ever since receiving the summons, Mehr had felt numb, as if her emotions were a limb starved of blood. “Don’t worry for me, Amun. I’ll manage. Just make sure you don’t anger him. I don’t want to see you harmed either.”
Amun looked into her eyes, a curious, searching look on his face. Mehr looked right back at him.I never see you smile, he’d said to her. He knew her face, read it just as easily as she was able to read the curl of his hands, the slump or rise of his shoulders. What did he see in her face now?
Whatever he saw, he didn’t question her any further. He kept close to her side as they walked to the Maha’s chambers, his warm solidity a comfort Mehr hadn’t even realized she needed. It was only when they entered and kneeled on the floor in the Maha’s presence that he stepped away from her, leaving her to support her own weight.
The meal was as sumptuous as ever. It was ashes in Mehr’s mouth. She kept her head lowered and picked at her food as the Maha stared down at her silently, a smile playing on his mouth. She could feel the Maha’s eyes on her, burning and constant. When Amun tried to speak and draw his attention away, the Maha made a dismissive noise and waved a hand in Amun’s direction.
“There’s no need for you to speak,” he said, his voice all mild benevolence. “Sit quietly, Amun. Eat your food. There’s a good boy.”
Amun didn’t say a word after that, and Mehr did not raise her head. She thought of the sticky, sweet nuts and dates Hema had brought her to eat. She hoped the Maha would not force her to eat more than she had. She couldn’t stomach it.
The Maha stood. Mehr didn’t have time to tense before she felt his hand winding the long weight of her braid into a leash and tugging her head back. She winced, clenched her teeth hard to hold all noise in.
“You know I don’t like it when you avoid my eyes,” he said disapprovingly.
She looked up at him. Was it her imagination, or had the fractures in his eyes deepened? “I am sorry, Maha,” she said.
“You must learn to do better, my dear,” he said. “You will do better, won’t you? You won’t fail me this storm?”
“No, Maha.”
His grip tightened, one torturous increment. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“I am bound.” She raised a hand slowly. Touched her fingertips to her chest, where her marriage seal sat over the sigil that bound her. “You trained me yourself, Maha. And I have learned my place.”
“And what is your place?”
“I am a conduit to your will. A tool.” A beat. “I share my husband’s service, wholly and completely. Please believe me, Maha.”
It was the pleading he had wanted, really. Satisfied, he finally released her.
“Keep eating,” he ordered, offhandedly. “You’ll need your strength to perform for me later. I want to see how far you’ve both come.”
Mehr returned to the task of picking at bread with one hand, her scalp stinging and sore.
That night she dreamed of the desert. Not of a tent under the stars, not of Amun lying by her side with the warm glow of lantern light on them both, but of cold sand, sharp as glass, beneath her feet, and the moon fat and glaring in the black sky.
There was a woman standing before her, with a long ragged veil concealing her face, its gnawed edges brushing the sand. There was a ring of spreading darkness around her. Mehr knew what that darkness was. She’d seen blood before.
Kalini had said she’d pray for Hema to haunt Mehr, and for a long moment Mehr was sure she’d gained her wish. But when Mehr collapsed down on the sand, heavy with the weight of her own sadness, the blood bloomed into red flowers at her knees. She reached out her fingers—reached out all hesitant and wondrous andhopingfor something beautiful—and the flowers reached back, twining around her wrists, lifting her hands a gentle increment higher.
I remember this, Mehr thought. Not the flowers. But the feel of her wrists being taken in an inhuman grip, being raised, as the daiva that had cornered her so long ago in the desert had tried to shape her hands into words—
She woke, sharp and sudden, breathing in air as sweet as incense. Amun’s hand was on her shoulder, his voice in her ear. He must have been trying to wake her.
