She knew exactly what he was.
His nails were digging harshly into her scalp.
“You will serve me better next time, won’t you, Mehr?” he asked. His pleasure had softened the edges of his rage. The next time he was angry—and she knew, already, that there would be a next time—she would have to remember how much he liked tears.
“I will, Maha. With all my heart.” She had bent her soul to the fire of the Gods. She could bend her words now, bend them to a bone-deep lie. He was nothing compared to them, after all, no matter what he believed. Nothing.
“See that you do,” he said. Finally, he released her.
She managed to catch herself on her hands before her skull met the floor. Then she bowed to the floor, her forehead to the cool marble. She allowed herself to tremble, feigned being a thing bent and broken by his cruelty. She did not have her jewels or her fine clothes, but she had this power, at least: She could give him a simulacrum of what he desired from her, and hold her crumbling strength tight.
Let him think he had broken her. As long as he believed he already had, as long as she fooled him, he would not succeed in truly doing so.
The Maha watched her.
“The next time a nightmare frightens you, my dear, remember how much worse I am. Remember the wrath of your God.”
“Maha,” Mehr said, allowing herself to cry, allowing her hands to tremble, so that he wouldn’t see the iron blooming in her blood, her spine, in her heart. “On my vow, Maha, I will. Iwill.”
Mehr thought, for one brief moment, of seeking out Hema and showing her exactly what the Maha was capable of. She thought of showing Hema her swollen lip, her bruised cheek, the nail grooves cut into her scalp. Then she discarded the idea. As tempting as it was, she knew she wouldn’t be able to shatter Hema’s belief in the Maha. Mehr had seen the strength of that faith shining in Hema’s eyes. Not even Mehr’s blood would have the strength to tarnish it. No doubt Hema would simply look at her bruises and ask Mehr what she had done to deserve them.
So she didn’t approach Hema. She avoided all the mystics entirely, unable to stand the thought of having their eyes on her. She missed the comfort of her old chambers. She missed Arwa and Lalita and Nahira, her veils and her walls, the certainty she’d once had in her own worth. But she didn’t try to seek out pity. Like an animal looking for somewhere quiet to lick its wounds clean, she drifted along shadowed corridors until she found an exit that led to the inner courtyard of the temple. There was a guard, but he did nothing to stop her. She felt his eyes follow her as she made her way across the sand to the edge of the oasis.
The sky was clear, unmarked by the storm. The air smelled sweet. There were crops growing. Precious little, but there was something about the fresh, tentative life that gave Mehr comfort.
She kneeled down by the oasis and breathed in and out. In and out. She could dance the Rite of Fruitful Earth and make those precious few crops grow lushly, if only for a fleeting moment. She was a descendant of the daiva, and through them, a descendant of the Gods who slept beneath the sand, whose fire had lit the skies and burned inside her. But the power she possessed was useless. It couldn’t set her free. It didn’t give her the strength to stop the Maha from hurting her. It was no good at all.
She looked down at her own face in the water. The oasis was perfectly still, reflective as glass. The face staring back at her was nothing like the one she’d seen through Amun’s eyes. She wasn’t fierce or beautiful. She was only bruised, and gaunt, and solemn. A shadow of a woman.
She dipped her hands into the oasis and splashed water over her face. The cold was shocking. She blinked water away and dabbed the blood from her lip, her cheek. Her skin was hot and swollen, but her bones weren’t broken. She marveled at that—the strength of her bones.
The Maha hadn’t broken her yet. Not yet.
She splashed her face again. The water’s chill was fresh and crisp, like green things, like life. She cupped a hand into the water and raised it to her lips. Drank. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. The water was sweet.
An old grieving Goddess, that was who had built the desert. So Edhir had told her. An old grieving Goddess had built the desert, and the desert had been named for her tears. Irinah.Salt.
But here was the oasis, old and bursting with life. Here was the oasis, and there was no salt in its water. Just sweetness, cold and pure. In the water Mehr tasted the promise of something more than bitterness. She tasted hope.
She heard footsteps. She turned, her face still dripping, the water in her lashes blurring her vision. She heard a soft intake of breath, the murmur of a curse. Her vision cleared. Bahren stood before her. He was looking at her face with pure revulsion.
She looked back at him. Was he judging her, or judging the Maha? His gaze made her skin prickle with unwanted shame.
Let him look, she thought.What does it matter, in the end, what he thinks?
“You were looking for me?” she asked, when Bahren simply continued to stare at her in silence. She didn’t ask him how he had found her. She knew there were always eyes on her.
“Your husband has woken up,” Bahren said finally.
She stood. She held her head high, unflinching. She was bare-faced and bruised, yes. But she was a woman who had faced a monster in mortal flesh, and the bruises were a badge of the Maha’s shame, not her own. She was a woman who had felt the nightmare of Gods pour through her soul. She was not fragile any longer. She had moved past her own fragility into an animal stillness, a deep place inside herself where one piece of knowledge alone sustained her, and held her strong: She was going to ensure that she and Amun escaped from here. She was going to make sure they survived.
“Take me to him,” she said.
Amun was lying on his own bed, two mystics speaking over him in low, serious voices. From the stoppered bottles in their hands, Mehr guessed they were the Saltborn’s physicians. But they held little of her interest. Amun was the focus of her attention. He was awake, but only barely, his breath loud and unsteady, his skin bleached gray with exhaustion.
She couldn’t hold the sound of shock that escaped her lips at the sight of him. Amun flinched, his eyes snapping wide. He propped himself up onto his elbows, her name dying into silence on his lips.
She watched his jaw tighten, watched his dark eyes become somehow even blacker as he stared at her, mapping every one of her wounds with his gaze. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.
