Arwa was standing in the desert, barefoot in the sand. She was holding a weapon in her two hands. Mehr’s dagger. Their mother’s dagger. The opal at its hilt glowed like a small moon. Her face was still and smooth, and no matter how hard Mehr reached, she couldn’t touch it.
“You killed me,” Arwa said. “It’s your fault.”
Mehr finally brushed her fingertips to Arwa’s cheek. Just her fingertips. Arwa’s face crumbled and scattered to the wind. In its place a black veil remained, a veil of dark smoke that coiled around Mehr’s wrist with curious fingers. The veil fluttered in the wind, ragged at the edges. Through its mesh, Mehr saw a gleam of gold.
A daiva’s eyes met her own.
“Greetings, sister,” it said.
Mehr shot awake. She didn’t look at Amun as she slipped out of bed, still dressed in her tunic, her old green shawl from her pack wrapped around her for cover. She let the shawl slither from her shoulders to the floor and stepped over to one shuttered window.
This one didn’t face the desert. She unbolted it and felt the cool air brush her like a caress. She leaned forward and stared down at the oasis that lay at the heart of the temple. Its clear, calm surface reflected the light of the moon back at her.
She didn’t return to sleep for a long time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mehr slept again, eventually. When she next woke, she saw pale dawn light pouring in through the shutter she had left carelessly open during the night. Amun was gone. He had smoothed the sheets on his side of the bed down flat, making it look like he had never lain in the bed at all.
Mehr stood and stretched her limbs, curling and uncurling her toes against the ground. Even though her sleep had been restless, she felt less like the burden of her circumstances was going to crush her. She’d eaten a good meal and slept in a warm, comfortable bed. Those were small things, but at least they were good things. As long as she focused on them and pushed the knowledge Amun had given her to some far corner of her mind, she could breathe easily. She held on to those small comforts as she stretched her hands above her, preparing her body for the familiar motion of a rite.
Falling into the Rite of Sunrise felt like coming home. Dancing alone, cool floor beneath her and the heat of the sun on her face—this was her place of solace and safety. She didn’t need music to accompany her. She didn’t need the sound of other footsteps striking the ground along with hers, creating a music of their own. She found the rhythm of the rite in the beat of her heart, the thrum of her blood, the in and out of her breath from her lungs.
She heard it when Amun returned. His footsteps echoed up the stairs. She considered stopping, then decided against it. He’d already seen her dance. What did she have to hide?
He entered the room as she moved her body through a flourishing arc, her arms tracing the path of the sun through the sky, her fingers shaping sigils that transformed, one to the other, with each punch of her heels to the ground. He said nothing. He was silent even after she moved into the last stance.
“Good morning,” Mehr said, a little breathless. She saw that his hair was damp, his clothes fresh, robe gone. He must have gone to bathe. He was already sitting comfortably on the edge of the bed, his elbows pressed to his knees.
“You look happy,” he observed.
“I am.” The rite had left her peaceful. She no longer felt like vanishing into darkness. She could look at Amun without wanting to flinch away from his guilt-stricken eyes. She didn’t know how long her renewed strength would last, but for now she held the warmth of it close like a blanket. “The rites comfort me. They always have.”
“How strange,” he murmured.
She stretched her arms, her neck, working the kinks out of her muscles. “At home, I danced rites every day.” Memories rose up in her mind’s eye. Lalita leading her through steps, patient and smiling. Arwa peering into Mehr’s room, watching for a few brief moments before one of her nursemaids found her and snatched her back up. Bittersweet memories. “I’ve missed them.”
She thought of telling him about Lalita. About how Lalita was a mentor, an almost-mother to her. About how she’d lost her. But Amun had a faraway look on his face, a shadowed look, and Mehr found she wanted to peel back his layers instead. “Why do you find it strange?” she asked.
He gave a shrug, his broad shoulders rising and falling. “I only perform the rites because I’m bid to,” he said. “They have never made me happy. They are just a duty I have to fulfill.”
“I findthatstrange,” Mehr said. “I’ve always found dancing to be a comfort.” She drew closer, forcing him to look up at her. “So you’ve never performed the rites simply for the joy of it?”
As he stared up into her face, some of the shadows seemed to vanish from his expression. He shook his head. “The first time I danced with the dreamfire I was a child. When the dreamfire responded to me, I was … happy.” He shrugged. “But I didn’t know what having theamatagift meant. I know better now. There’s no joy in the rites for me. But I’m glad …” He paused, then said, “I’m glad they comfort you. You look … different, when you dance.”
“How do I look?” Mehr asked.
Amun looked at her face like he was reading it, like her expression was ink and her skin the page it lay upon.
“You look strong,” he told her. “You look sure of yourself.”
“I haven’t been as strong as I’d like,” Mehr admitted, sitting down beside him. “I wanted to lash out at you yesterday. You gave me what I wanted, but more than anything, I wanted the truth to go away. I apologize.”
“Don’t,” Amun said instantly. “I expected you to be angry. Who else can you be angry with? I would have preferred it if you had lashed out at me, Mehr. Instead you were silent.” He huffed out a breath. “I wish you hadn’t been silent.”
“Sometimes it’s wise to be silent.” Surely Amun, of all people, knew that. He was always silent around the mystics. With the Maha, he had shaped his words carefully, artfully. “I would have been cruel to you. Cruel without reason. I didn’t want to be.”
“I didn’t know how to help you,” he said.
