“Don’t fuss, Amun,” Mehr said. “I know you’re more feeble than I am at the moment.” She walked up to him, facing him, mimicking his stance.
“I’m fine,” he said flatly.
“You hide it well,” she agreed.
Obviously choosing to ignore her, he settled into the first stance of traditional rites, rolling back his shoulders, centering himself.
“The woman who taught me …”
“You never say her name,” Mehr noted.
Amun gave Mehr a level look. Continued. “The woman who taught me often trained alone with the Maha. He was—fond of her. As you’ve seen, Mehr, he knows everything about the rite and the language that shapes it. Because of his fondness for her, he taught her a great deal more about it than he ever taught me.”
He raised his hands before him.
“It’s lucky,” he said, “that I was good at learning by observation.”
Mehr knew he didn’t want her to ask any more questions. And because she was tired and pained—and knew Amun had to be accordingly infinitely more tired and pained than she was—she kept her silence and mimicked his movements again.
“Teach me what you know,” she said simply.
Amun talked her through each sigil patiently, explaining their meaning, their syntax, as best as he could. Ever since the Maha had interfered with their training, Amun’s reluctant hope had transformed into a fierce, focused determination to transform the rite to their needs. Every night they worked through the sigils, learning the language, theorizing how to reshape those movements from a conduit for the mystics’ prayers into the commands they needed for escape.Vow, loyalty, breaking—or does that mean damage? Again. Try again.
For all that their schedule was exhausting, Mehr preferred to keep active. Activity silenced her mind and stopped her from considering the fact that her bruises had turned bright and livid and still throbbed painfully when she so much as moved. Whenever mystics looked at her with speculative, pitying glances Mehr thought of the sigils. She thought of escape.
Mehr didn’t mind practicing at night either. She didn’t sleep well anymore anyway. When she wasn’t dreaming of veiled faces, or Arwa turning to dust, or the cold of the Maha’s floor, she was thinking of sigils. Sigils for freedom. Sigils for vows. Sigils for subterfuge. So many sigils, she could barely contain them.
When Mehr began to yawn, Amun insisted that they stop practicing.
“You need to rest more,” Amun told her.
I’ll rest when we’re free, Mehr thought. But Amun was wavering a little on his feet, and Mehr couldn’t forget that he was still weak from the storm. Still weak from Mehr’s last failure.
“You’re right,” she said. But even after Amun had fallen into a fitful but—Mehr hoped—healing sleep, Mehr stayed awake and stared at the ceiling, wishing she had a knife under her pillow to keep the nightmares at bay.
She tried to imagine what she would write to Arwa, if she had ink and parchment, if she were allowed to reach out to her sister, if it were safe.
Dear sister,
Dear Arwa—
I love you. I miss you. I hope Hara is beautiful. I hope Maryam still loves you like you’re her own blood. I hope you haven’t forgotten me—
—I hope you have.
She scratched the words out in her mind’s eye. What self-pity she was capable of! She was glad Arwa would never know how afraid Mehr was, and how small the world had made her. She hoped Arwa would never learn the lessons she’d learned. She hoped Arwa was happy.
She touched her fingers to Amun’s side, listening to him breathe, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. One breath at a time. That was all they could do, the both of them. That was all there was.
Little sister …
I am trying very hard not to let go of hope.
Mehr knew that in order to keep hope alive, she would have to prepare for escape as if it were a certainty. Although she couldn’t avoid prayers or practice without consequences, she tried to be watchful for an opportunity to return to the scholars’ tower and access a map of Irinah without drawing suspicion. If—when—she and Amun escaped, it would be important for them to be able to navigate the desert.
An opportunity arose unexpectedly, one morning after prayers. Mehr and Amun had only just left the Prayer Hall. They were still surrounded by all the many mystics who had prayed alongside them, when they heard a sharp yell cut through the air. A young boy in heavy robes, a pack upon his back, ran headlong into the crowd, stopping only when an older mystic caught hold of him and bade him to be still.
“Calm down,” said the older mystic. “Breathe. Tell us what’s wrong, brother.”
