The thought of dancing the Rite of Dreaming filled her with fear and exhilaration in equal measure. There were rites that Mehr had danced so often that she knew them in her bones. The Rite of Dreaming was not one of them. She had never performed it, not truly, not in a storm with the light of dreamfire pouring over her like rain. She had no fellow Amrithi to perform it with.
There were so many reasons that the rite was beyond her grasp. But here, in the heart of the dreamfire storm … for Lalita’s sake and for her own, she would try.
Mehr kneeled down and slipped off her boots. She pressed her bare feet hard against the ground. All rites required the feel of the ground on skin, the ritual connection between soil and sky and flesh. Without it the dance had no meaning, no heart. But the ground was rough on her soft soles, and she knew the longer her feet were exposed to the elements, the more she’d suffer. She bit down on the inside of her cheek. This wouldn’t be easy.
She sucked in a slow, even breath. She straightened up, finding her balance. Then she raised her arms slowly, cupping her palms together, allowing her back to bend like the arc of a falling star. The first step in the rite.
The wind howled around her, threatening to throw her off balance. Dreamfire poured into her cupped hands. Her head tipped back, and her hood fell. She felt the wind catch her braid, making it lash out behind her. She closed her eyes tight.
Here was the moment when she was supposed to take another person’s hands in her own. She was supposed to part her palms and press one against a fellow Amrithi’s hand, catching the light between them. She was supposed to move with her clan in a seamless dance, a sharing of light and dreams and creation.
With no one to reach for, Mehr lowered her arms. Eyes closed, she held one palm out against the air. Wind and dust rushed over her skin.
Take me to my clan, Mehr thought. It was a desperate prayer. If dreamfire was the power of the Gods making and unmaking the universe, shaping creation in their great sleep, then perhaps they could create this small thing for her: a path through the chaos. A road.
Take me to Lalita’s home. Let me help her. Please.
For a long moment nothing happened. She felt the wind howl and rake over her, felt the sand bite at her face like a dozen tiny needles. She felt her own smallness. Who was she, to expect the dreams of the Gods to bend for her? She was nothing. A rich man’s daughter, an illegitimate get, a girl too foolish and too willfully strange to stay within the safe confines of a privileged life. Not an Ambhan, not an Amrithi. Nothing.
The dreamfire coiled softly around her wrist. And tugged.
Her first instinct was to wrench herself free, but Mehr resisted it. She let the dreamfire draw her along. Awe and terror clogged her throat.
The dreamfire was guiding her, for good or ill. She’d asked for this. Now she had to follow it.
She could feel the dreamfire begin winding over her limbs, clutching at her wrists and her ankles. It was all heat without the strength of flesh. It couldn’t force her to follow it, couldn’t drag her along if she resisted its urging. One wrong move, and the tenuous bond between her and the dreamfire would tear apart.
New as the Rite of Dreaming was, Mehr had been dancing all her life. She was very, very good at avoiding mistakes.
She whirled on firm, sharp feet through street after street. Her skin burned. Her eyes stayed shut against the ferocity of the wind. She shaped no sigils with her hands, no carefully chosen stances with her feet. But she followed the urging of the dreamfire, moving with each tug of light. Her whole focus was on the dreamfire and the dreamfire alone.
She could hear voices on the wind—the whispers of daiva. She felt the soles of her feet begin to ache, then felt the ache sharpen to agony. But she didn’t stop.
She didn’t know how long she danced. She only knew that her breath was growing short, that her mouth was full of sand and she didn’t know how much longer she could go on. Then, with a suddenness that astounded her, the dreamfire let her go. She stumbled to a stop, falling to her knees and drawing her hood hastily back down over her face so that she could suck in a few deep lungfuls of air untainted by dust. When she felt more herself, she raised her head and peered through the light.
Miracle of miracles. Mehr was outside Lalita’s home.
Lalita’s haveli built from honeyed sandstone, with a veranda marked by the subtle beauty of stone vines and flowers. She felt their shapes with her fingers as she blindly traced her way up the steps and under the cover of the columned entrance.
She’d made it. Somehow. She turned and looked back out at the storm.
She couldn’t believe what had just happened to her.
Mehr swallowed. She couldn’t let her mind linger on it now. Emotion could come later. Right now she needed to find Lalita.
She pressed a hand flat against the door, testing, expecting it to be securely barred. It creaked open.
Dark foreboding welled up in her chest. She touched the fingertips of her free hand to her dagger and slipped quietly inside.
The hallway was unlit. The lanterns hanging on the walls had guttered, but only recently, and were still giving off coils of smoke. Mehr pressed the door shut behind her.
Mehr walked deeper into the building. No guards forced Mehr to halt. There was no sign of Lalita, and no sign of any of the household staff. The rooms lining the hallway were black and silent. She slowed to a crawl, eyes and ears open. She could barely see. All she could hear was the roar of the storm and the steady thump of her own heart.
She was near the inner courtyard now, the garden that lay at the center of the haveli. She still hadn’t seen a single soul.
Her sore, aching feet pressed down into something wet.
She froze, her pulse frantic in her ears. Then she kneeled down and touched the ground. The liquid was too thick to be water. She raised her fingers up.
