“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Me?” He looked at her, his expression smoothing out into unreadable calm. “I’m well.”
She crossed the room and sat down on the bed beside him. She took his hands in her own and heard the mystics fall silent above them. Amun’s hands felt warm in her own. Warm and comforting. It was suddenly very hard to keep her voice steady.
“Our brothers and sisters have prayers to attend to. I’m here to take care of you now, husband.” She looked up at the mystics. “Thank you,” she said.
She had not ordered them to go. They would not have gone, if she’d ordered them to. But simply sitting quiet and tall, looking at them with her bruised face, gave her more power than any sharp words would have been capable of. They looked away from her, uncomfortable, and turned to leave.
Bahren stood by the doorway as the other mystics filed out. “The Maha will want to speak with you, Amun,” he said.
“Now?” Amun asked. His hand tightened on Mehr’s.
A short pause. “He knows you’re unwell,” Bahren said after a beat. “Tomorrow morning will do well enough.”
“Thank you,” Mehr said, when it was clear Amun was going to remain silent.
For a long moment, Bahren did not move from the edge of the doorway, where he’d stood since guiding her into the room. There was a look on his face she couldn’t understand—something grim and quiet and thoughtful. Then he too turned away and vanished down the staircase back to the temple proper.
Once they were alone Mehr realized Amun’s hands were trembling. She released her grip on him. She was sure he would pull away but instead he reached up and cupped her face in his palms. His fingers were still dusted with sand. His skin smelled like incense, like the smoke of a storm and a daiva’s flesh.
“Who did this to you?” he asked.
“The Maha.”
Amun closed his eyes. Opened them again. His expression was shattered.
“Mehr,” he said quietly. “I am so very sorry.”
“I’m safe now,” Mehr said. She closed her own eyes. With his hands on her, she could almost believe it.
“You aren’t safe,” he said, despair and self-hatred welling up in his voice like poison. “He has hurt you, he could hurt you again, and I can’t protect you.”
“You’re protecting me right now,” Mehr said. That, at least, was true. He couldn’t stop the Maha from hurting her, but his touch was a balm to her wounds. His goodness was a shield for her hurting heart. She felt his touch falter. She grabbed his wrist. “Please, Amun.”
He hesitated. Then his fingers uncurled against her cheek again, feather-soft on her bruises.
“Whatever you want,” he said softly.
She wanted him to keep holding her head in his hands. She wanted this moment to last forever, so she wouldn’t have to face the mystics and the Maha and the wounds that had been inflicted on her skin and her soul. She pressed into his hands and eventually found her way onto the bed by his side. She curled up against him, her head on his chest, his heart beating under her ear. He kept one hand on her cheek, his body entirely still, as if he were afraid a sudden movement would shatter her. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t, shatter her. There was no violence in him. Not even a little. He was her only safe harbor in the storm.
She listened to his heart beating and his shallow, pained breath. She listened for a long time before she finally moistened her lips with her tongue and spoke.
“Does the rite always affect you like this?”
“It’s always terrible,” Amun said. “But no. I’m young. Strong. It grows worse over time, as you get older. It wears the body out. This time it was much worse for me. Worse than it has ever been before. I don’t …” A shaky breath. She felt the rise and fall of his chest. “I am sorry, Mehr.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Mehr said. “Nothing at all.”
He huffed out another sharp breath. But he didn’t argue with her. “The rite is always fierce.” He went on. “Painful.” Hesitation. “But that anger—you felt it?”
“Of course I did.”
“I’ve never felt anything like it before, Mehr.”
“It felt like a nightmare,” Mehr whispered. “A true nightmare, a thing of rage and fear.”
She described then the creature she’d seen after the storm before she’d fallen unconscious. Its flat silver eyes, its brittle body. “I felt like it was born from those suppressed dreams,” she said. “It felt like all the things the Maha had kept from this world breathed life into it.”
