“You could speak to the daiva,” Rahima said, clutching the woman’s hand. “You could ask them to forgive us.”
The woman exhaled. Then she met Rahima’s eyes and smiled, a flat and unfeeling smile.
“If people were cursed for betraying Amrithi, the whole Empire would be in ruin,” the woman said.
Rahima shook her head. “You don’t know. I hear them at night! They cry in the boy’s voice. They tell me we should all be punished. I …”
Rahima fell silent and miserably wiped tears from her eyes.
The Amrithi woman stood. She moved to the corner of the room, back to the wall.
“I don’t know if you want absolution from me,” the Amrithi woman said, “but I’m not in a position to provide it.” The woman leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. “If you’ll allow me to rest,” she said, “I’ll provide you with my blood in the morning.”
Rahima murmured agreement and went back to her own bed to weep.
When she woke, the woman was gone. She’d taken some of Rahima’s food and water with her, and one of her robes too. There was a gold necklace on the floor where the woman had slept. Rahima looked outside, but the woman was already long gone, the sand unmarked, the sky painfully blue. She hadn’t left any blood.
CHAPTER TEN
After their conversation, Amun stayed close to her side. There was no other discernible change in his behavior. He didn’t grow friendly or talkative, didn’t relax in her company or show her any particular gentleness. He simply shadowed her, slowing his pace to match hers as they walked through the desert with the mystics vigilant around them. Every day he walked beside her. Every night he slept by her side, his back to her. They didn’t repeat their discussion. Mehr felt the silence grow between them, heavy with the weight of words unsaid. All Mehr could do was hold on to her faith that the silence would break. She had to hope that once she met the Maha, Amun would tell her everything she needed to know, as he’d claimed he would. She had taken Amun’s measure, weighed his weaknesses against his strengths, and she was sure—almost sure—that he would keep his word.
Thoughts of the Emperor and the Maha haunted Mehr constantly. For so long, her only image of them had been a faceless effigy on an altar, the world held in its upraised palm, symbolic of the powers of all the Emperors who had ever held the throne. It was hard for her to envisage either of them as flesh and bone. Her father had at least met the Emperor, had served in his court and earned his governorship by winning imperial favor. She knew the Emperor was a mortal man. But the Maha …
The Maha, the Great One, first Emperor of the Ambhan Empire, had lived far, far longer than any mortal could. His apparent immortality was proof that the imperial bloodline was blessed by the Gods. His temple stood on the sand where the Gods slept, his mystics prayed for the Empire, and the Empire had grown and flourished with fortune on its side.
When Mehr tried to imagine him—the man who ruled the soul and faith of the Empire—she imagined a man with no face, smooth and unblemished and timeless.
She wouldn’t have to wonder about the Maha for long. Their journey was almost at an end. Mehr could not tell one cliff or sand dune from the next, but the mystics knew the temple was close. Edhir was beaming, chattering away like a child and making no secret of his excitement. None of the mystics seemed to have the heart to hush him. Bahren simply smiled at him, his weathered face softened with joy. All of them were alight with expectation, the tiredness of their journey fading from their faces, their backs straighter and their eyes brighter, their strength returned.
Even through her dread, Mehr felt that same light inside herself. It was hard not to feel the influence of their joy; it was harder still not to think longingly of a warm bed, fresh food, and clean water. The journey had broken her down into nothing but exhaustion and hunger. More than anything—more even than answers—she wanted the opportunity to feel like herself again.
They came upon the temple just after sunrise after traveling hours through steadily receding darkness. The temple was barely visible at first glance. The same color as desert sand, it was hidden in plain sight. But as they drew closer, Mehr saw the shadow of towers and domes rising against the horizon, the silhouette of her new home forming before her eyes.
She stopped to take the sight of it in. Amun went still by her side. She could hear the soft brush of his robe against the sand as he shifted on his feet.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No.” The temple was nothing like the Governor’s residence or the smaller, graceful havelis of Jah Irinah. It was crude and austere, unornamented with nothing but its sweeping, uncompromising lines against the skyline to lend it grandness. For three hundred years, the temple had stood on the desert. Long enough for its edges to be rubbed raw by storm and sand. Mehr knew, as all Ambhans knew, that the Maha had chosen to build his temple on the desert as a demonstration of how greatly blessed the Empire was. Looking at the temple now, Mehr couldn’t deny the Empire’s great and almost otherworldly power. “It’s nothing.”
“We’d best catch up,” he said. When she turned to look at him, she saw his gaze tracking the mystics, who were still walking ahead of them. His hands were clenched at his sides. She nodded and started walking again.
They were met beneath the shadow of one low dome by three men who drew them inside and shut the doors behind them. As the mystics started to chatter and embrace, their voices low with relief, Mehr took her first few steps into the interior of the temple. With the doors shut, the natural light was quenched. Here there was nothing but the flicker of lamplight to illuminate the bare walls and long corridors. She kept her eyes lowered, breathing softly against the folds of cloth around her face. As long as she kept quiet and let the mystics talk, they would most likely ignore her. And Mehr needed a moment alone to find her strength.
The temple around her was far from beautiful, but it felt like the desert: arid but somehow vibrant.Alive.The floor was not the pale marble of home, but the burnished gold of sand under sunlight. She wanted to reach down and feel it with her fingers. It was hard not to believe that it would exude heat the way the desert did during the daylight hours. Her gaze flickered up to the walls, a deeper hue of bronze, and to the hooks where the lamps hung, swinging in a breeze funneled through the winding corridors. She didn’t know where the breeze had come from. It smelled sweet, like water or soil in rain.
She glanced back at the welcoming party. The men were still laughing, embracing, but one lone man was standing quietly by Kalini’s side. Mehr saw him whisper something in Kalini’s ear. Kalini caught Mehr’s eye; she crooked a finger at her.Come here.
Mehr obeyed, stepping back over to her.
“We need to leave,” Kalini told her. “The Maha has requested your presence.”
Kalini strode past her. Mehr looked back, just for a moment, seeking out Amun’s gaze. He was still standing at the entrance, his back to the closed door and his arms crossed. He wasn’t looking at her.
“Quicker,” Kalini called out. Mehr looked away and followed her.
What had she expected him to do? Run after her? No. Not that. But she had expected him to raise his eyes, to look at her as she left his side for the first time in days. She already missed the reassurance of his presence at her side, the solidity of him, the coolness of his shadow over her. Her face was hot. She clenched her hands up tight. What a fool she was.
She didn’t need Amun to reassure her. She needed to rely on herself, first and foremost. To do otherwise would be to cultivate an unforgivable weakness. And Mehr could not allow herself to be weak.
