Amun was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I felt it in my bones. My mind.”
Mehr shuddered. Nodded.
“As did I,” she admitted.
She took a deep breath. She felt the seal tied to her throat rise and fall with her.
“It was because of me,” Mehr said finally. “The nightmare you felt—it was there because of me.”
“No, Mehr,” Amun said instantly. She felt his hand shift on her cheek. “Don’t blame yourself.”
“You’re disagreeing because you want me to feel better,” Mehr cut in, calm now. She was sure of herself. “But don’t you see, Amun? I’m not truly bound. I danced the rite, I danced for the glory of the Maha, for the Empire, for the Emperor … but because of your mercy, all my will, all my blood, wasn’t tied to the Maha’s will and blood, as yours is.”
Amun shivered but said nothing. He let her continue to speak.
“I performed the correct stances,” she continued, “the correct sigils. But the rites are more than stances and sigils. They are will too. And in my heart I don’t want the Empire’s glory. I don’t want the Maha to flourish. I want everything the Maha and the Emperor love to burn.”
Her rage was undirected, amorphous. She didn’t really want the Empire to suffer. She loved her sister and her father. The Empire was her home. It was hard not to love the Empire, despite herself, hard not to love it because it had raised her, because it was her history and the source of so many of her life’s comforts. But her feelings had no respect for logic and couldn’t be easily dispelled.
“I don’t want what the Maha wants,” Amun said suddenly, his voice raw. “I don’twantto serve.”
“I know, Amun,” Mehr said softly. “I know. But you’re bound. You’ve told me yourself. I’ve felt it. The vows you’ve made are so powerful, so binding, that your desires have no power. Just as mine wouldn’t, if you hadn’t saved me.”
Mehr thought of Amrithi turning their blades on themselves. She thought of Amun’s grief, and his hate for the Maha. She thought of how hard he’d tried to save her, and how hard he still tried to keep her safe.
“What did he do,” she murmured, “to force you to make vows to him?”
“He did nothing to me,” Amun said. But his voice was empty, so empty. She didn’t believe him.
However the Maha had bound Amun—by trickery or by violence—he had tied Amun to him by chains that superseded his will and his heart. Amun, and all the vow-bound Amrithi before him, had bound the Gods in turn, turning all their sweet dreams to the service of the Maha.
But Mehr was not fully bound. Mehr’s will and desires weren’t yet completely superseded by the Maha’s will. And through her—through her fractured will, her imperfect service—the Gods could unleash their suppressed dreams and their hollow rage. Through her, they breathed life into their nightmares and set them free.
She took a deep breath. “The Gods are so furious, Amun. I know we both felt it. They are angry at our heresy, at the Maha. I feel …” Her heart beat like a fist in her chest. “I feel as if their nightmares are a terrible beast waiting to break free.”
“I know,” Amun said. He sounded old, and tired. “Of course the Gods rage. How could they not? But Mehr—the Gods will rage long after we’re gone. New Amrithi will take our place. It won’t end.”
It was the first time he’d spoken it so openly: the despair that lay at the heart of him. The truth that they were enslaved, bound—that one day Mehr would become vow-bound too. That they would die here.
“No.” Mehr shook her head. “We’re not going to die here, Amun. No more of this. I told you before the storm, and I meant it: We’re going to escape. Both of us.”
Amun had tried to give her time. A little bit of freedom, a little bit of mercy before the Maha gained control of her. But time was running short. The Maha had bound the dreams of the Gods for too long, had manipulated their dreams so the world favored the Empire above all else. Now the natural order was perverted. The world was imbalanced.
As long as Mehr was free, her imperfect service provided an outlet where the dreams could manifest freely, a place where all the dreams the Maha had suppressed over his long years could be unleashed. Dreams that would have brought the Empire plague or natural disaster, rebellions or death or betrayal.
Ruin.
The Maha had been willing to believe that Mehr had erred in the rite. But by the next storm, he would know something greater was amiss. He would know Mehr was flawed, and he’d seek out the source of the flaw—the incomplete mark on her chest. Her unconsummated marriage.
Facing the Maha had already hardened her resolve to stop hesitantly searching for escape, and to pour all her energy into the task of setting her and Amun free, no matter the costs or the risks. But now, thinking of the rite and the terrible fury it had created and now barely held at bay—looking into Amun’s eyes, as he murmured her name, as he shook his head—Mehr had an idea.
They could use the Rite of the Bound.
Bending the dreams of the Gods was a heresy, a terrible, forbidden thing. But it was a heresy she and Amun had already committed under the Maha’s orders. What more harm could it possibly do to the both of them to turn the rite to their own ends, to bend the dreams of the Gods to their will, instead of his?
As the idea formed in Mehr’s mind—as it grew, stretching its wings, soaring in her heart—she felt a hope growing within her that no shame could possibly quench.
“It’s impossible,” Amun said lowly.
