Mehr breathed. She breathed as Amun had taught her in all those long, painful lessons. She breathed until she felt as she had on the day he had held her in his arms, letting her soul tip free from her skin. She breathed and drifted deep into the heart of herself, deep beyond flesh and fear and the animal terror scrabbling at her animal bones. The dreams carried her along with them.
She breathed until she knew she would not drown.
Then she stood, and felt the calm well up in her and run through her blood and her bones. She felt the dreamfire coil around her, winding over and through her, raising her from the earth into the burning winds of the storm. She began to move.
The sigils, which had meant little to her during her training, suddenly seemed to leap into life. They skimmed her hands lightly, rippling off her fingers with their own heady power. They shifted the fire running through her mind and her blood, diverting the flow of those dreams, stemming them and turning them to the call of the mystics’ prayers on the wind. She felt those prayers waver through her own bones. Her scarred skin burned with the weight of the Maha’s presence. She was performing the Maha’s will. She was performing the Rite of the Bound.
It was a relief to know that she could do this. She kept on moving, kept breathing, maintaining the shape of the rite. She just had to make it through the storm.
Her hands suddenly faltered.
She was sure that her faltering had been a symptom, not a cause, of what came next. Her body knew long before her mind did that something had gone wrong. The fire had changed inside her. Something—an unwanted dream, a thread of brittle white flame—slipped free from her control and from the call of the mystics’ prayers. Something that had been carefully suppressed by the rite was suddenly no longer crushed and contained by the force of the rite’s power.
The pale flame grew, and grew, boiling and seething. She felt it pooling at the base of her skull, feeding on her fear and her desperation to be free. She felt it shudder to terrible, sentient life, tracing the shape of her bones, knitting its own terrible sinew and flesh.
She faltered again. Sigils died on her fingertips. And the pale flame—oh, it rushed through her, cloying and cold. It rose up. She felt the sand collapsing beneath her feet.
Nightmare. This was a nightmare.
Mehr stumbled. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t remember what to do. The nightmare had shattered her concentration. The dreams were going to bury her. She was done. Finished.
Mehr!
Amun. She could hear him. Feel him. He was there in the heart of her, in the place where they were both immortal, in the place where the Gods slept. He was there in the fire, the glow of him, the strength. Her ragged breath caught. They were dreaming with the Gods. They were dreaming together.
Amun?
Mehr. I’m here.
The scar of her marriage seal throbbed. She pressed a closed fist to her chest. Her body was distant but alive, still alive.
Amun, I don’t know what to do.
Don’t fight it, he told her.Keep going. Continue the rite.
I can’t.
The nightmare was dragging her under, under. It had hands. It was drawing her down by the body, by the soul. But there was his voice. There was his heart.
You can.
She felt his faith. It coursed through her like dreamfire, like blood. Her own image wavered in front of her eyes—a woman with dark skin and dark eyes, a tangled mess of hair and the bearing of an Empress. She saw the light of her own smile. The dimple etched in her cheek when she laughed. This was how Amun saw her.
In his eyes, she was the one who was strong, who stood straight and tall and never let the world crush her. In his eyes, she was the one who was kind and good. She wanted to laugh and weep at the same time.
Together.Perhaps it was her thought. Perhaps his. She no longer knew anymore. The dream had tangled them together like two skeins of thread.We do it together.
Mehr raised her hands and shaped a sigil. Then another. She breathed, steady and strong. She danced with all her strength, danced because she wanted to live. She felt the nightmare loosen its grip, increment by increment, until there was nothing left but the fire and the shadow of Amun’s presence.
Finally the storm began to quiet around them. She felt the dreamfire fade away until there was nothing but her aching body and the exhaustion that felt like it filled her head to toe. She stood, swaying and helpless, as the dust settled and the sky lightened with the blush of morning.
She turned, seeking out Amun with her eyes. He was farther from her side than she had expected him to be. When his mind had touched her own in the storm, he had felt so much closer. But instead he was covered in a layer of fine, glittering sand, his body on the ground. Under the dirt she could see that his face was gray and bleak, his eyes half open but unseeing. She tried to walk toward him but her legs refused to cooperate. Instead she fell, her head hitting the ground, agony bubbling in her blood.
The world went suddenly and blissfully black.
She woke in someone’s arms, face pressed against musty cloth. She was being carried back to the temple, the mystics around her utterly silent. She looked up blearily. Bahren was the one holding her. His hood was thrown back, his expression grim. When he felt her stir, he looked down.
“Are you awake?”
