CHAPTER NINE
Mehr would have liked the days to pass in a blur, but every hour dragged by with torturous slowness. The desert was unrelenting. The darkest hours of the night were bitterly cold, and the brightest hours of the day were scalding hot. Those were the hours when they rested, setting up their tents at nighttime or crouching in the shade of dunes when the heat of the sun rained down. In the hours in between, they walked. And walked.
Mehr was deathly tired of walking.
Worse still, she knew it was her slowness that was lengthening the journey. She wasn’t equipped for desert travel. Whenever they stopped she slept like the dead. She was constantly thirsty. Her ration of water never felt like enough to sustain her. The ache in her limbs hadn’t lessened over time, only deepened from constant exertion and lack of rest. She would have given absolutely anything for her own bed and a night of uninterrupted sleep.
On one sweltering morning, when the sun seemed particularly fierce above them, Mehr’s legs simply gave way. She tripped or stumbled—the result was the same. The mystics were all too far ahead of her to help, so this time she fell with no one to catch her, hitting the ground with an embarrassing thump. A moment later she felt Amun’s hands on her, helping her up. The other mystics were watching.
“I hadn’t expected a woman with Amrithi blood to be so weak,” Kalini called out. “I thought you werebornfor desert travel. How foolish of me.”
Mehr gritted her jaw, furious with herself.
It would have been easier if she believed Kalini was trying to be cruel. But it seemed to Mehr that Kalini was simply testing her, assessing her worth with cool eyes. She had judged Mehr unworthy, and frankly she was right to do so. Life in Jah Irinah had made Mehr weak. Her mother had grown up in the desert, but Mehr could barely survive in it for a few scant days.
She thought wryly that it was clear why Lalita had abandoned her clan and built a new life beyond Irinah. The desert was a hard place, and the life of Amrithi had to be a rigorous one. It was certainly not the sort of life a woman like Lalita would choose for herself.
Mehr wouldn’t have been able to continue walking, no matter how much Kalini goaded her, so she was relieved when Bahren intervened on her behalf, insisting they make camp.
“What is speed worth if the girl sickens?” he pointed out. “Use your head, Kalini.”
Kalini sighed and shook her head. “As you say,” she said. Shrugged. “Let’s waste an hour or two, if we must.”
The rest wasn’t long enough. It was never long enough. The last mystic in the group, a quiet and self-contained man named Abhiman, gave Mehr some of their water before the journey continued again. That, combined with the little sleep she’d managed, would have to sustain her. Mehr drank the water gratefully, and began walking again.
Three days passed before the monotony of the journey was broken. Dawn rose on the horizon as they walked, the five mystics and Mehr. Pale light filtered across the sand, setting the grains on fire.
This was the part of the day Mehr’s body found most bearable. It was cold, but not as cold as it was at deep nighttime, and Mehr was as well fed and well rested as she was going to be for the day.
She had grown to love watching the skyline change, darkness bleeding from black to gray to the brilliant blue-white of daylight. The mystics were talking, arguing about the journey ahead. Mehr saw the daiva before any of them.
It rolled across the dunes, flat against the ground, moving so gracefully that it looked at first like the shadow of a passing cloud. But the sky was clear. Amun turned to look at Mehr sharply. His eyes were wide.
“Daiva!” cried out Edhir.
“Don’t panic,” Bahren barked out in return.
But the daiva was no small, weak spirit. The one that had flown into Arwa’s room a bare handful of weeks ago had been a soft, benign creature, carved out into the shadowy form of an animal, as the weakest of the daiva were. This vast darkness unfolding beneath the sand was no young spirit, but something old and clever and simplydifferent. As it approached, Mehr couldn’t help but think of Sara’s fear of ancient spirits, the panic in her eyes. A shiver ran down Mehr’s spine.
As the daiva passed beneath the mystics, it seemed to flinch. Its edges fractured. It coiled away from them, warded off by the power of their presence.
“Come here, Mehr,” Kalini said. She held out her hand. “We’ll keep you safe.”
Mehr hesitated. She saw Amun shake his head, saying something furiously. She saw him take a step forward—and suddenly the dark being shot through the air, forming a barrier between them.
The daiva’s formless darkness surrounded her on all sides. It rose up above her in a high arc, blotting out all but the thinnest blade of sunlight. The sand whirled beneath Mehr’s feet. She drew the cloth tighter around her face and held her ground. She could hear the mystics shouting beyond the barrier. From words snatched through the howling darkness, she knew they couldn’t reach her, but they were trying.
Mehr gathered her courage and gave the daiva a small bow. She flattened her palms together, in a sigil for respect and greeting. In response, the howling quieted, the darkness shifting silently now around her, loping and curious.
“Mehr!” Kalini shouted. “Answer us! Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Mehr responded.
The darkness shuddered, pausing in its motion like an animal that had scented prey. The dark drew closer. Its surface rippled, peeling back to reveal the hard silvered contours of a jaw, a mouth. A golden eye.
Once the daiva had been strong enough to walk the world like men. Mehr knew that. This daiva wore no mortal face, but its features were constantly re-forming, from animal to some faint semblance of human and back again. It was looking at her. It had responded to the sound of her voice.
“Do you understand me?” Mehr said quietly. Far too quietly for the mystics to hear her.
