“Amun—”
“Please.I need you to remind me.” His voice was suddenly raw, wild. She bit her lip and held his hand tighter in return.
“To love me. To be kind to me. Amun, what are you—”
He released her, only to take hold of her again, her upper arms in the vise of his grip, her feet barely touching the sand as his grip and the wind-lashed fire held her aloft. It should have hurt, should have scared her, but his eyes were dark and soft and she was helpless, weightless.
“I vowed to give you a good life, Mehr. I promised you. I can’t forget that vow, Mehr. Can’t forget, and so—I have to try. Please understand.”
“Stop begging me,” Mehr whispered, uncomprehending. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“I love you,” Amun said, as if he couldn’t, wouldn’t, hear her. “And I can see that this life will erase you. I can see it happening already—”
“Boy,” barked Abhiman. “Get on with it.”
Amun flinched but didn’t stop. “I’ve felt it happen to me. But you—you make me feel like a whole person again. I can never thank you enough. But I can try.Try.” He squeezed his eyes shut tight. Opened them. His sigils were burning so very bright.
“What are you doing?” Abhiman demanded, yelling as the sand whirled around them, higher and higher. He snarled an oath, only the wordsdisobedientandMahaaudible to Mehr’s ears, and strode toward them.
“Remember, you vowed to trust me,” Amun whispered. “And run.”
When Abhiman touched his shoulder, Amun turned and struck. He wrenched Abhiman’s scimitar from his grip with one hand and slammed his fist into Abhiman’s face with the other. Abhiman crumpled instantly. He didn’t even have time to defend himself. Amun took hold of the scimitar in a two-handed grip, shoulders squared, feet planted hard against the ground as if he were performing the first steps of a rite. He was panting. His sigils were bright, bright fire on his skin. Mehr felt her own mark flare, livid with the pain of disobedience.
The other mystics yelled, swords drawn. They began to run over. And Mehr was—frozen.
“Run!” Amun yelled. “I’ll hold them off!”
“I can’t,” Mehr yelled back wildly. Shocked still. “My vows to the Maha—”
“You made vows to me! Not him.” He doubled forward, letting out an audible groan of agony. He held on to the scimitar for dear life. “So run and be free for both of us. Mehr,go.”
The mystics were closing in. But Amun was drawing the scimitar in an arc through the air one-handed, shaping sigils with the other. She felt the tug of dreamfire following his call, watched as a wall of sand flared up into the air, as jagged as glass, keeping the mystics temporarily at bay.
They had practiced that sigil together, when they’d first decided to defy the Maha and use the storm to set themselves free. Mehr had set that hope aside.
But Amun clearly hadn’t.
“Run!” His voice was scratched raw with pain.
Everything in Mehr screamed at her to stay where she was. Her soul was bound. She had a duty, a calling. Like it or not, she wore a cage in her skin, and it kept her at the Maha’s face. And Amun—oh.
Amun.
She could not leave him to suffer alone. She knew it was wrong.
But Gods help her, Amun was screaming at her, telling her to go, to be free for the both of them, and Mehr had to try. So she drew all her meager courage around her, sand stinging her eyes, her chest burning as if a coal had been shoved between her ribs, and turned. And ran.
She ran as the sand turned smooth and slick beneath her feet. She ran as the storm grew and grew, reaching its apex. She felt the tug of her vows grow and grow, setting its thorns deep into her skin. The sand was smooth, but she felt as if she were running on broken glass. Her mouth was full of the taste of blood. Every vein of her body, every beat of her heart, told her she should turn back. The mystics were praying, and their prayers were inside her. The Maha’s soul was inside her.
She had vows. She had to obey them.
Your vows are to Amun, a voice inside her said. And it was true, a true voice, a true thing. She had married him first, before the Maha had marked her. And even after that, even after the vows had been twisted into chains, they had made new promises to one another. Promises sealed in flesh, in tears, in love.
Those promises had been greater than all the rest. Even as the Maha’s chains burned inside her, she felt the truth of that—clean, sharp as a blade, cutting her free.
She’d vowed to trust Amun, so she did. She ran and ran, ran until the storm swallowed her, until she was flying, until everything was light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
