“You will face the storm with no promise of hope for the future?” the daiva asked. “You will face our mothers and fathers with nothing but your mortal hope?”
Mehr gave the veiled daiva a watery smile.
“Yes,” Mehr said. “And I am afraid it will have to be enough.”
Mehr bowed her head and made a gesture of thanks. Elder considered her carefully, then raised one hand up to touch the edge of her own veil.
“Then I will simply give you my blessings, little one,” Elder said. “My blessings on you, and your mortal heart.”
She raised her veil and pressed a kiss to Mehr’s forehead. Mehr heard the great sound of fluttering wings, and the daiva were gone.
The dreamfire returned, fierce as ever, and it was swallowing her whole.
This time Mehr did not falter. She let the fire of the dreams and the nightmares both take her. She didn’t fight. She yielded, with absolute trust.
She thought of the first time she’d danced with the dreamfire, in the storm when she’d tried to make her way across Jah Irinah to Lalita’s side. She hadn’t commanded the dreamfire then. She’d had no clan, no partner. She’d had no Rite of the Bound, no knowledge of her true gifts. She had pleaded with dreamfire, simply pleaded with all her heart for it to guide her to Lalita’s home. And it had.
This rite was not a terrible act of creation. It was a gift of hope. A gift of balance.
She thought of balance. Even nightmares had their place. She remembered the sweetness of Arwa’s laughter and Nahira’s brusque kindness, the bitterness of Maryam’s hatred and the loneliness of the women’s quarters. She remembered the suffering the Maha had inflicted on her, and the scars it had left forever on her heart. She ached with the memory of Amun’s love. All of these things had shaped her. They were part of her now.
So she didn’t demand that the Gods shape the world into an image she desired. She didn’t ask for their kindness. She didn’t ask them to restrain their nightmares or their fury. She moved her limbs with the dreamfire, let it sing through her flesh and her soul. She held all her memories close and shaped the sigils of the rite. They flew from her fingers like birds.
Gods, mothers, fathers. I ask you, please do not awaken. Sleep. Let the world remain whole.
She poured all her will into the task, into the rite, into a dance that stretched beyond her limbs. She felt grace rush through her. It was an awe not born from fear but from true love, pure and good.
Sleep, and let your children live. Sleep, and let the balance return.
When the nightmares reached for her, she let them. She held her hope close to her skin. She didn’t turn from the fear. Instead of swallowing her terror away, she accepted it and let it flow through her, with her. The fear, too, was part of the balance.
Sleep. Please, sleep.
For the sake of your children, your love—
She danced beyond exhaustion. Danced until the light of the dreamfire began to fade from the sky, and the sand was still and even beneath her feet. She danced and pleaded, heart and soul. And shehoped.
She danced until she could dance no longer. Her legs buckled. She fell, and kneeled in the sand, gasping for air, sweat cooling on her skin. Her hair was loose and wild, tangled over her shoulders. Her skin felt raw. Unable to even kneel any longer, she let herself collapse to the ground. She lay on her back and stretched her arms out at her sides, open to the vastness around her.
When she next opened her eyes, she saw nothing but blue above her. The sky had cleared. The dreamfire was fading. The sand was still and unmoving beneath her body. Somehow, she was alive.
She was alive, and the world was whole.
Mehr would have wept, would have laughed, if she’d had the strength. Instead she could only smile alone, helplessly joyful, at the sky.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Ah, thank you.”
She could have happily continued lying there in the sand until unconsciousness claimed her, but her need to see Amun was a fierce thing, stronger even than her exhaustion. Mustering up all her remaining energy—of which there was precious little—Mehr clambered to her feet.
Ah Gods, it was hard! She was so tired. But she knew her own stubbornness now, and she pushed herself onward. Limping, she began to walk back toward the temple.
She hadn’t walked far before she was forced to stop again. She froze in her tracks. She could go no farther. The way back to the temple was barred.
The mystics were waiting for her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
There were only ten mystics. There was no sign of Kalini or Bahren, or Hema’s women. But the mystics waiting for her were all armed, and Abhiman was at the head of them, striding toward her with his sword unsheathed. His gaze was murderous.
