“Then go on.” Mehr steeled herself internally. “If you need to show me, show me.”
She knew touch was the best way to teach a rite. Hadn’t Lalita taught her by taking her arms and legs in hand, directing her like a doll? Hadn’t Mehr’s mother done the same before her?
There was a difference, of course, between this lesson and the ones of the past. Mehr had wanted to learn, when her mother and Lalita had taught her. But Mehr didn’t want to learn the Rite of the Bound. She didn’t want to relinquish control of her own flesh. She didn’t want to commit a heresy against the Gods. When she thought of sinking into the immortality within her, she remembered the tales she’d been told, as a child, of the fate of Amrithi who didn’t show reverence to their ancestors.
She didn’t want her soul to pay the price for her survival. In her heart, she feared that when she found the immortality within her, she’d find the punishment that awaited her also. The scar on her chest ached at the thought.
“Relax if you can,” Amun said. “I can hold you.”
He was strong. She knew that. It wasn’t his strength that worried her. Heart pounding, she gave a small nod.
“Trust me in this,” he said.
She closed her eyes again. In small increments he eased the weight of her body, tilting her until her feet skimmed the ground and her head was thrown back, heavy with the weight of her own hair. His palm was hot against her back, his fingers outstretched. Every time she breathed she could feel the shape of his fingertips.
“Try again,” he said.
It should have been hard to forget her flesh, with Amun so close to her, with her own fears stretching their bleak hands behind her closed eyelids. But without having to hold herself upright she felt dizzy, weightless. The rush of her own pulse soothed her mind to something akin to silence.
She breathed.
The place beyond flesh. The place mortal minds drifted to when they dreamed. That was the place she had to go to. She could trust her body to his hands. She could leave it behind.
She remembered how it felt when she’d moved through the storm in Jah Irinah, and the dreamfire had held her wrists and ankles, guiding her through the storm. She’d been driven by desperation. But during the next storm, she wouldn’t be unwittingly begging the Gods for guidance. She would be purposefully compelling their dreams, using sigils to force their dreams to give the Empire the good fortune it needed to expand and conquer and grow as close to immortality as an Empire could. She would channel the power of the Gods through all their fire, and all their strength.
And she would choke their strength too. Suppress their dreams. Crush them back into sleep and darkness.
It was anathema, an utter heresy—and Mehr would have to learn it, if she wanted to keep what little power she had, and if she ever wanted to find a way to be free.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
She didn’t know how long he held her. She let herself relax, listening to the crackle of the lantern flames, the soft sound of Amun’s even breath. She listened to the rush of blood in her own head. As the seconds and minutes ticked by, she spiraled deeper and deeper into herself.
“Mehr.” Amun’s voice. “Come back.”
Mehr flinched, startled. She wasn’t sure what had happened. She hadn’t been asleep, but she had been—away. Drifting in shadow, the kind of heady silence that lay somewhere between sleep and waking.
He eased her back to standing, letting her go only when she assured him she was back to herself again.
“It worked?” She wasn’t quite sure.
“It did,” he said. “As long as you feel as you do now, when you perform the rite, you will know you’ve been successful.”
Mehr could have cheered. What a relief it was to finally feel like she was making progress. But she could still feel the echo of Amun’s fingers against her back, and her insides were light and strange, something close to embarrassment coiling through her.
“Is that all it is?”
Amun nodded in confirmation.
“Thank you,” she said. “It made all the difference. Your help.”
“I should have tried earlier, but …” He shook his head.
Mehr understood, a little. He was always careful when it came to touch. It was his hesitation, the deliberate distance he kept between them that made her so utterly aware of his strength and the leash he kept it on.
Amun was so sure he was a monster. But it was the way he handled touch—with utter care and respect—that told her he was the opposite of one.
“I was taught the rites in just the same way,” Mehr said, trying to put him at ease. She told him about how she’d learned the first steps of her first childhood rites by placing her feet over her mother’s. Dancing with her. As she chattered on Amun listened, his eyes half lidded, letting her words wash over him.
