“We won’t perform this rite in the desert until the dreamfire falls,” Amun told her. “The daiva don’t like it.”
Mehr could well imagine how little the daiva cared for a rite intended to bend their mothers and fathers to mortal will.
Even though it was daylight outside, the hall was timeless nighttime. Lanterns flickered where they hung upon the walls. The light illuminated Amun’s face in fractured shadows. He turned to look at the doorway, where another mystic already stood, watching them.
It was no surprise to Mehr to see the man there. Wherever she and Amun went, mystics followed. The Maha had many eyes.
“Leave,” Amun said shortly. “We’re at the Maha’s business. We need to be alone.”
The mystic nodded and stepped out of the room. Mehr was sure he was still out there, hovering just beyond the entrance. But there was nothing to be done about that. She pushed her discomfort away and followed Amun deeper into the hall.
“You understand the basic forms,” he said.
“I do.”
“You need to be solidly tethered to the world around you,” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard her speak. “Your feet are earth, your hands are heaven. Your body is the bridge. Your body must be strong. Straight and tall.”
“I know, Amun,” Mehr said, arms crossed. She watched him pace about, for all the world like a creature trapped in a cage. “My technique isn’t as terrible as you seem to believe.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean—”
“No,” Mehr said. “I’m sure you didn’t.” She gestured impatiently. “Continue.”
His footsteps slowed as he tried to will himself calm.
“Everything you know, this rite demands you discard. You cannot be grounded. You cannot be strong. You need to ignore the earth beneath your feet and the sky above you. When you dance the rite, the storm will lift you up. It will raise you and fill you up with the fire of the Gods. In order to direct the fire as the rite requires, you will need to reach beyond the mortal world, the desert salt, to the place where the Gods dream.” He spoke slowly, carefully, weighing his words. “You need to touch your own immortality in order to become the vessel of their fire. And when that power has almost consumed you, you need to open yourself up to the will of the mystics and the Maha, and let them use you. That is the Rite of the Bound.”
Mehr swallowed. Dreamfire was beautiful, holy, but it belonged to the Gods. For all that the Amrithi were far-distant descendants of the daiva, and therefore long-distant descendants of the Gods themselves, Mehr knew that she was all blood and bone. There were no shadows in her skin, no gold in her eyes. She wasmortal.
She couldn’t imagine how it would feel to try to hold the dreamfire within her. Couldn’t imagine, and didn’t want to.
“That doesn’t sound pleasant,” she said quietly.
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.” His expression was grave. “This is what I was taught, Mehr: When a paired man and woman perform the rite, they become a channel between the dreams of the Gods and the prayers of the mystics. They can suppress dreams the Maha and his mystics don’t want in the world, and draw forward only the dreams that are desired. They become the perfect tool for sculpting the Empire.Thatis what I was taught, and that is what I have to teach you too, pleasant or not.”
“Why a man and a woman?” Mehr asked.
Amun shrugged fluidly. “Because the rite is an act of creation. Apparently.”
It was perverse to call this terrible rite, this destruction of the natural order, an act of creation. But Mehr didn’t say so. She doubted he would disagree with her anyway.
“Once you’ve mastered the first step,” Amun continued, “I’ll teach you the sigils you need to make yourself into a conduit for the dreams of the Gods and draw forward or suppress their dreams as the mystics demand.” He hesitated. “It’s important to be confident in your technique because when the Rite of the Bound threatens to consume you, moving to one of the true rites may be the only thing to keep you whole.”
Mehr nodded without a word. She had nothing helpful to say, no real questions to ask. She wanted nothing more than to argue with him. This rite—the Rite of the Bound—sounded like utter nonsense. Rites were worship shaped by the body, by flesh and ritual and rhythm. To put the body aside was against everything Mehr had ever learned, and everything she understood the rites to be. Did Amun expect her to do nothing but stand still and will her body away?
“We begin with the breath,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
Mehr squeezed her eyes shut. Apparently he did.
It was the breath they concentrated on for a long time, and nothing but the breath.
Amun told her to look inward. He told her to look deep inside herself, beyond the rush of blood, beyond skin and sinew, beyond muscle and bone.
“There is a part of you that isn’t simply mortal,” Amun told her. “Reach for it.”
Mehr tried. She breathed carefully, slowly, as she’d been told to. She tried to see beyond her own flesh.
She believed in the soul. She’d seen its power in the marks on Amun’s skin and in the spidery white lines carved into her own chest. But to reach for it, to feel its presence and nothing but its presence, to the point of forgetting flesh—that seemed utterly impossible.
