Ruhi was walking up the curve of a dune, a defeated turn to her shoulders. Lalita walked toward her and handed her the steaming cup of steeped herbs, which Ruhi drank fast and handed back to her. Lalita held the cup tight. The night had been bitterly cold, and warmth was welcome.
“Go and rest,” Lalita said.
“I will,” said Ruhi. “But first, tell me what the others said.”
“They’re still arguing,” Lalita said.
“Have they come to a consensus yet?”
“About allowing Mehr into the clan proper? Not at all,” Lalita said with a sigh. “But they won’t countenance giving her up to the Maha. They’ve agreed on that, at least.” She saw Ruhi’s shoulders slump and gave her a look of surprise. “Did you really believe they would make any other decision?”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Ruhi said tiredly. “These are trying times, Lalita.”
“Oh, I’m very aware. Now sleep,” Lalita said pointedly. “I’ll make sure someone else keeps watch.”
“Will you go to her?” Ruhi asked abruptly. Her expression was raw. “Will you comfort her?”
Ruhi did not say,because I cannot, but there was no need. Lalita understood.
She was reminded of the day, so very long ago, when Ruhi had asked her to take care of Mehr and teach her the rites. Ruhi had been the Governor’s concubine long before Lalita returned homesick to Jah Irinah, but becoming the mother of two half-Ambhan daughters had shattered something within Ruhi and tipped her from uneasy contentment into slow-moving, dreadful awareness. Lalita remembered pitying her. Ruhi hadn’t married the Governor, hadn’t made any vows, but the children were as good as a chain holding her fast within the palace walls. And Ruhi had come to understand, far too late, how ill-suited she was for Ambhan society.
Where Lalita had flourished, gaining financial independence and a modicum of security, Ruhi had become a shadow of the woman she’d once been. She’d had fire in her once. She’d been a Tara’s daughter, and a headstrong one at that, determined to make a better life for her clan and her people. But her life in the Governor’s palace had crushed the spirit out of her and filled her soul with terrible, unanswerable fears. Lalita remembered the way Ruhi had taken Lalita’s hands in her own, her grip firm, her eyes blazing.
Take care of Mehr for me, Ruhi had said.Teach her. Help her. I can’t be the mother she needs. Please, Lalita.
Lalita had known that day that Ruhi would leave eventually. She’d never blamed her for it. The clan had needed a Tara, after all, and Ruhi had needed to survive. If she’d remained in Jah Irinah, she wouldn’t have.
“Of course,” Lalita said gently. “You don’t even need to ask.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Despite everything, Mehr’s body healed and grew stronger. She slept—briefly, restlessly, her sleep riddled with dreams. She ate the food left for her, which wasn’t plentiful but was still more than she’d been able to stomach in those last weeks of service to the Maha. Sometimes Lalita came and kept her company, and nearly every night her mother kept watch outside her shelter.
She had no idea when her mother rested, and didn’t ask. Ever since the first night when they had spoken so freely to one another, Mehr had struggled to find the words to simply talk to her mother. All the words she had were raw, weighty, an echo of her wounded heart. She didn’t dare let them pass her lips. Instead she sat by her mother in silence, watching the daiva writhe on the distant horizon until dawn broke the sky.
She saved her questions for Lalita instead. On one of Lalita’s visits, Mehr asked her if there was any way she could assist the clan. “I’m just a burden as I am,” Mehr said with a shrug, thinking of all the food she had eaten, the prayer flames she’d burned that could have been put to a better use. “I’d like to help if I can.”
“How would you like to help?” Lalita asked her, quirking an eyebrow at her.
Mehr shook her head. “You know well enough I have nothing to offer.” She smiled. “I have a noblewoman’s skill for doing nothing.”
“Oh, hush.”
“Let me contribute,” Mehr said. “Teach me a skill, if you’re willing.” She thought of the way Amun had fixed her torn sleeve with those large, gentle hands of his. She swallowed and said, in a voice that was less even than she’d hoped it would be, “I can’t simply sit here and wait. I feel—restless.”
Lalita made a soft humming sound. “I can teach you to sew. When the clan accepts you, they’ll be glad of the skill.”
“You can sew?”
“There’s no need to sound so surprised, Mehr.”
“Forgive me,” Mehr said. “It just doesn’t seem like something that would interest you.”
“It isn’t. And yet here I am, darning day in and out.” Lalita’s laugh was strained. “And you wonder why I wanted a life in the Empire,” she added wryly.
They spoke of other things after that, but Mehr noticed the way Lalita looked down at her own hands, studying the new calluses that had covered their old softness. Mehr was reminded, forcefully, that she was not the only one who was struggling to adapt. Lalita had chosen a life beyond the desert and flourished in it. Now she had been forced to return to a clan that wasn’t her own by birth, to a desert haunted by strangeness, and a life defined by her blood and not by her choices. Her dear friend had been murdered. She was adrift, just as Mehr was adrift, struggling to carve a place in a world that was not fit for her.
When Lalita moved to leave, Mehr reached for her. She took Lalita’s hands in her own, feeling their new roughness, and their new strength. Her heart was so heavy inside her.
