But she needn’t have been afraid. The daiva leaned forward again, catching her tears on a fingertip. It held the hand in front of it as if marveling at it.
Gift, it echoed back at her.
Mehr felt the world shift again, sand reshaping beneath her. The storm howled fiercely, falling low upon them. She saw the veil flutter again, and the daiva reached out as if to hold her.
There was nothing after that.
Mehr woke up with the pale dawn sunlight beginning to pour across the sand.
The storm still swirled around her, dying as the sun rose. Through falling wisps of jeweled light she could see the horizon, set against a flat expanse of desert. Wherever she was, her feet and the storm had carried her a long way from the temple.
She climbed to her feet, scraping sand off her face. She was tired and thirsty, and the scar of her marriage seal hurt terribly. She touched a hand to it and felt a sudden, sharp pain run through her entire body. She heard the shadow of Amun’s voice in her ear again, all bitten-off agony and desperation.
Run, Mehr!
She snatched her hand away. Mehr would have wept again, if she’d had the strength. Instead she covered her own face with her hands and breathed. And breathed.
The vows she’d made to Amun, when they’d held each other and hungered through the dark night, had been sacred things. They’d been vows of flesh and blood and heart, vows made for mortals with daiva blood, but they had been vows of hope too. Amun had risked everything for the sake of that hope.
Amun had saved her.
Mehr lowered her hands. She looked at the desert around her. She could feel the pain still, a constant tug between her ribs. If she followed it she would find her way back to him. She wondered if he could feel that bond in return, that knot like a circle without an end.
“I’m here, Amun,” she said, speaking into the air. “I’m here. Look what you’ve done. You’ve managed a miracle. You’ve set me free.” She took a step into the pain. Another. “I don’t know what made you take the risk. But Gods help me, I’m glad you did.”
It was hard to resist the urge to walk back to him. She thought of him still in the grips of the Maha, surrounded by mystics who hated him, crushed by the vows to her he’d obeyed and the vows to the Maha he’d defied. She took hold of her marriage seal, holding the circle tight in her hands. Then she gathered up her will and forced herself to turn away from the way back to him.
“Wait for me,” she whispered. “Survive, Amun. I’ll come back for you. Somehow, I will.”
That day, Mehr used the lessons she’d learned from her first journey from Jah Irinah to the Maha’s temple. When the sun was nearing its peak, she sought out shade and slept in snatches. When she grew thirsty, she used a little strength and performed the Rite of Fruitful Earth, snatching new green life from the earth, eating it fast to catch its moisture. She tried not to think about what she would do when true thirst and hunger inevitably came for her. She’d spent so much of her time at the Maha’s temple preparing for survival after her escape, and now all her careful planning had gone to waste.
The desert hadn’t been like this when she’d first traveled through it with the mystics. The sands had been clear and arid under a glaring blue sky. Now, with the storm still spinning, dying away, every surface seemed to be a trickery woven out of shadows and light. She couldn’t trust her senses. More than once, she found herself walking in circles, drawn back to where she’d been hours earlier by the movement of the sand.
The storm had misled her so utterly that when she saw the shadow of a man through the dust, she thought it was no more than another mirage and kept on trudging forward. Then the shadow stepped forward into the light, boots crunching against the ground, and she realized the man was no illusion after all.
The man froze when he saw her. Under the hood of his robe his eyes widened visibly in his deep brown Amrithi face. He hadn’t expected Mehr any more than she’d expected him.
Mehr moved first. She turned, breaking into a run. More figures emerged from the air around her. Until that moment, their brown robes had hidden them from sight. She stopped sharply, realizing with despair that she was surrounded. There was nowhere to go.
“Don’t harm me,” she said, holding her hands out, palms open. “I have no weapons.”
Her words didn’t stop them from drawing their own blades. The man who had first seen her strode up to her and held his dagger a hairsbreadth from her throat.
“How did you find us?” he demanded.
Mehr swallowed back her fear and said, carefully, “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to be here. The storm led me astray.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me who you are, or so help me—”
“Stop. Lower the dagger, Kamal.”
That voice. Mehr knew that voice.
“But, Lalita—”
“Lower it.”
As the blade lowered, Mehr turned her head. And Gods above, it was Lalita after all. Lalita was striding toward her, hood lowered. Her robe was faded, her dark hair loose over her shoulders. There was silver in her hair, no paint on her lips and no kohl around her eyes, but there she was, undeniably alive and whole.
