Arwa touched the hilt of the dagger. She brushed her fingers carefully over the large opal, the gilt work. She let out a small, awed sigh.
“It’s an Amrithi blade,” said Mehr.
“Was it our mother’s?”
“It’s mine,” said Mehr. “I want you to take it with you. If you cross any daiva on your way to Hara …” Mehr shrugged lightly. “Try not to show it to Maryam, hm?”
Arwa was still looking at the blade in her lap, her eyes wide and reverent.
“Don’t you want it anymore?” Arwa asked. “It’s—special. Isn’t it?”
“I want you to feel safe,” Mehr said tenderly. She wrapped her fingers over Arwa’s, showing her how to hold the dagger safely. Then she helped her wrap it in silk and tuck it safely away. “When your adventure is over, bring it back to me. How about that?”
“Okay,” Arwa whispered.
“It’s not good-bye forever,” Mehr said. She kissed Arwa’s forehead. “You’ll come home to me, little sister. I promise you that.”
Maryam and Arwa left just as light broke over the horizon. Mehr watched them from the rooftop, wrapped in a heavy shawl to keep out the cold. She watched until they were a speck in the distance and then longer still, until there was no sight of them at all.
She slept a little. Not much. When she woke, the women’s quarters were quiet. Instead of breaking the silence by calling for one of the maids to help her dress, Mehr put on her simplest tunic and trousers. She left her hair unbraided. In an hour or so the maids would come to her anyway in order to prepare her for the meeting with the mystic. They would dress her up lavishly all over again and mold her into exactly the Ambhan woman she needed to be.
Right now Mehr wanted to be herself. Nothing more. She wanted to walk around in her own clothes, in her own unvarnished skin. She had precious little time left to do so.
She went out into the living room, bare feet silent against cool marble. The weight of her hair brushed softly against her shoulders. Through the perforated screen she could see clear skies and sunlight. How strange, that the world still looked so normal when Mehr’s world was collapsing around her.
She stretched her limbs, which were stiff with tiredness. She took slow, even breaths, moving her body through gentle exercises to warm the blood. Then she raised her hands above her head and began to dance. Even though her body had grown unused to activity, even though her muscles were sore and her heart was sorer, falling into the first stance felt like coming home.
Before the storm, she had danced every morning and evening, keeping each rite that Lalita had so painstakingly taught her fresh in her memory. Dancing again made Mehr feel like the girl she’d been before the dreamfire and the blood. She missed that girl. She missed her old petty worries, her confidence, her strength.
But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She moved from the first stance into the Funeral Rite.
She should have danced for Usha on the night she’d died. By now Usha had been cremated as was Chand custom, her ashes scattered to the desert winds. Mehr had failed to honor her for long enough. She whirled, head lowered. She moved like grief moved, in endless circles that felt like they had no beginning or end, circles that swallowed up her senses until there was nothing but swirling grief and weightlessness. Her hands shaped sigils that spoke of life and loss.
She remembered the first time she had met Lalita and Usha, when she’d been nothing but a child and her mother had been focused on newborn Arwa’s care. She remembered Lalita’s beauty, the sheen of her hair. Her gentle voice. Lalita had dressed like a Chand woman, hair loose with a sari draped neatly around her body, but Mehr had known what she was.
I am your mother’s friend, Lady Mehr. And I would like to be yours, if you’ll accept my teaching.
Of course Mehr had said yes. She’d been a lonely child, and her mother had already begun to fade away from her, steady as ink stretched thin with water.
She remembered how Usha had hovered, at first, nothing but a silent presence at Mehr’s early lessons with Lalita. She’d terrified Mehr—so large and scarred and strong, with that armor and that hard face. It had taken Mehr a long time to see how warm she was, and how kind. She’d been so very kind.
Good-bye, Usha. You dream with the Gods now.
When the first maid arrived, Mehr was covered in sweat, her hair tangled. Instead of giving Mehr a significant look, as the maids usually did when Mehr troubled them unduly, the girl simply lowered her eyes and went to work. Mehr supposed there was no value in disliking her any longer. Maryam was gone, and her favor could no longer be won by slighting Mehr.
It occurred to Mehr that now that Maryam was gone, she was the most powerful woman left in the Governor’s residence. It was an uncomfortable thought.
Mehr was not used to the kind of overt power Maryam had always possessed: the kind that came only with the right title, the right husband, the right blood flowing through your veins. All her power had been won by struggle. She had always fought so very hard to maintain what little control she had over her own life. She’d managed to continue practicing her Amrithi traditions—despite Maryam’s great displeasure—by using her father’s guilt to her own ends. She had bowed and scraped to Maryam, put aside her own pride time after time, simply for the chance to keep Arwa in her life. Now, for a brief moment, she was the highest-ranking woman in the household. All the power she’d never possessed was in her grasp.
And once she was wed to the mystic, it never would be again.
If Mehr had made different choices—if she had left Irinah as her father had wanted, and married a man in Hara or Numriha—she would have had power of her own. A household of women to run, a husband’s burdens and a husband’s power.
What kind of power would she have as a mystic’s wife? She couldn’t grasp the shape of her future. She couldn’t imagine the forces that would mold her life once she stepped beyond the walls of her father’s household, out into the desert and the vast unknown.
Other maids arrived. Mehr bathed, and the maids combed, oiled, and threaded her hair. They brought her a robe and underskirt in warm ivory. As Mehr was dressing, Nahira entered and barked orders at the maids, sending them scuttling off in search of pins for her veil and for the silk shawl currently slipping from her shoulders.
“What are you doing here?” Mehr asked. The night had been long, and sleep scarce. She felt exhausted. She had no idea how Nahira was standing at all. But even though her old nursemaid’s heavy gait was more pronounced, her hair was neat and her eyes as sharp as always.
