He was trying to fight. He gripped her hand; his hand shook, his grip hard enough to hurt, his palm slippery with sweat. He gritted his teeth, squeezed his starless eyes shut. She saw the sigils on his wrists and his face shift, livid. She tried to speak to him in the language of their forefathers and mothers, clumsily shaping the hand against his chest into half sigils.Promise, trust, you.
Love.
On the last sigil, he jerked away from her, a snarl on his breath. His eyes snapped open. He rolled on the floor, curving in on himself just as Mehr had when the Maha had beaten her. Mehr cried out when he slammed his head against the ground, once, twice—and then his eyes rolled back, and he went still.
The Maha made a noise of disgust.
Mehr jerked her head up. Bahren, Abhiman, Kalini—they were all watching. For all her keening, Kalini’s face was dry. She looked down at Mehr and Amun with an expression Mehr couldn’t read.
“Fool boy,” the Maha sighed. “Make sure it’s done, Bahren. And Abhiman, get a girl to come in here and clean up this mess.” He strode out.
“He will expect me to watch,” Bahren said.
Amun’s bedroom was incongruously peaceful after the horror of Hema’s death. The sweetness of the oasis wafted in on the breeze. The oil scent given off by the guttering lanterns had left a palpable warmth in the air. Mehr relit the lanterns as Bahren, with surprising strength, arranged Amun on the bed. It gave her something to do.
She looked outside at the sky, dark and clean and cloudless.
“You don’t need to do that. It will be done.”
“He will ask me if I did.”
Ah, but you can lie, Mehr thought. There was little point saying so. No doubt Bahren had no desire to have his throat cut.
“Then you’ll have a long night,” she said instead. “If fighting his vows makes Amun anywhere as sick as he was after the storm, he’ll take time to awaken and to be—prepared.” Mehr’s stomach lurched.
She imagined how Amun would surely look at her when he awakened. She imagined his horror. She knew he cared for her, just as she cared for him. But their caring had grown on the knife edge of the vows that bound him, and half bound her. They had run out of doors, run out of options. How would he react to knowing he was going to be forced to take her?
She thought of how much worse it would be with Bahren standing over them. Shuddered again.
“Nonetheless …”
“Please,” Mehr said sharply. She placed a hand over her eyes. Oh, what she would give for the comfort of a veil, a screen. Anything. “Please, Bahren, let me keep a little of my honor. I am Amrithi, but I am an Ambhan noblewoman too. I had an Ambhan woman’s dignity once. I had the right to cover my face. I had the right to give my soul as I wished. And now …” She let out a sob. She showed Bahren her anguish, in all its real, ugly glory, hoping it would sway him. She looked at his face between her fingers. He looked stricken.
Good. She’d struck a blow.
“Now,” she gasped out. “I’m nothing. Just this man’s—wife. Abelonging. Please, Bahren. Give me this. Show me a little mercy.”
He let out a breath. He wouldn’t have relented if he hadn’t just seen Mehr beaten, Hema’s throat cut. He wouldn’t have. But Mehr had found his weakness, small as it was. He was not the Maha. He was not a monster. His conscience was her ally.
Bahren let out a long, slow breath. “I don’t want to be here either. Know that, Mehr.”
“Then don’t be,” she said wretchedly. She lowered her hands. Looked at him with eyes she knew were red, wet. “Please, Bahren.”
A long silence. Finally he said, “I’ll wait at the bottom of the stairs. Come morning …” A huffed sigh. “For all our sakes, do your duty, girl.”
He didn’t wait for her to thank him. He strode out of the room. She heard his footsteps on the stairs, and then silence. He’d settled down to wait. For Mehr to do her duty.
She rubbed her eyes dry. Walked over to the door and softly closed it. She turned back to the bed. Amun lay unconscious, forehead bruised, his sigils still so livid they shone in the flickering light. She sat on the edge of the bed and brushed one dark curl away from his wound. He murmured, turning into her touch. Trusting as a child.
A memory flashed before her eyes: Hema’s throat cut. Hema falling.
She snatched her hand back and stood. She went over to the window, leaning out to meet the cold night air. She was dizzy, and the sky was whirling with stars.
Gods. There was nowhere left to run, was there?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At first she wasn’t sure if Amun would even wake up before dawn. Fighting the Maha’s orders had drained his strength severely. He lay on the bed, still and gray and hurt, silent for hours. She feared for a while that she would have to seek out Bahren and ask for a physician to be sent. But eventually he began to move fitfully in his sleep, eyelids flickering as he struggled against harsh dreams. Then she began to wonder if he’d wake with the same dead-eyed stare he’d had when the Maha had laid down his orders. The idea filled with her dread.
