“Zahir,no.”
“What are blood roots, Arwa?” he said softly. “We studied them together, didn’t we? A bond between body and soul. A conduit allowing the one to feed the other. The soul is shaped by the realm of ash. The soul shapes the body. But when mystics enter the realm together, when they share the strength of their roots… Arwa, thatstrength. What is that strength?”
“Stop thinking,” she told him. “Stop thinking before you get yourself hurt.”
“That really isn’t my nature,” he replied.
“Zahir,” she said. Winced, something climbing within her, a scream, a memory that wasn’t her own. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
“I told you, in the caravanserai, that if you were taken by the realm I’d do anything to bring you back.” He said it as if it were fact: a simple line from a book, indelible ink that could not be undone. “I told you it was fear that spoke, and it was. But it was true also, Arwa.”
He was still close. Clouded with the weight of her own dreams.
“The roots,” he said. “They share the body’s strength. Blood, heartbeat, life. And through them, I can share mine with you.” His hand curled tighter against her own, the roots furled between them.
“Youcan’t.”
“I can,” he said. “If there is one thing I know, Arwa—one thing at all—it is the nature of the soul and of sacrifice.”
“Those are two things.”
“You already sound more like yourself,” he said gently. He brushed his fingers over her face, the roots wavering between them.
“You don’t know what it will do to you,” she told him.
“Shorten my life, I imagine. We’ll keep a record of the outcome.”
“I saved your life,” she said furiously, “and now you want to part with it?”
“We know better than most that death isn’t an end,” he murmured. “And no. I want us both to live. That’s all.” His voice was so soft. “Arwa, if I am yours, then don’t leave me behind. Let me try to save you. If we are partners in this work, then trust me. Trust my will. Let us go together.”
She stared up at him, thousands of voices pouring through her, wearing her thin. But it was a strange truth: as they wore her away, peeled artifice away from her, she found that all that remained was the softness of his eyes. The promise she had made him.
You are mine.
She nodded. “Do it,” she said.
He closed his eyes then. Exhaled.
She had seen him consume ash. But she had never seen anything like this. She saw the surface of his skin shift, the facets of its glass surface moving. It reminded her of how the nightmare had moved—reworking its flesh in response to her fears, ferally clever.
But Zahir was not reshaping in response to her fears.
He was pouring his strength into her. His life. His blood.
The roots wound between them. Their hands—their dreamed skin—fused together. Beneath them the ground of the realm splintered and shifted. Their realms were melding too. Joining into one.
In the place where their realms were now joined she saw their roots coil and spread. He placed her against them, letting them bind her tight. Her soul was bound close to the mortal world, by his life and her own. Body to soul. Soul to body.
Just a tale, he’d called it. But she had seen this tree in the hermitage and the pleasure house and the House of Tears. Vast branches. Deep roots. A sacrifice written into the world.
She raised her hands to the sky, watching the light pour through them, dappled with shadow. She felt the roots, deep and strong, holding her steady: his heartbeat, his breath. His soul, his dreams.
He collapsed to the ground beside her. His distant lungs drew breath, and she called his name, and drew him into her arms. In the land of the dead, they were holding each other, and they werealive.
“Zahir,” she said, her voice a fading echo. “I thought the dead had me.”
“No,” he said. He was beside her, his soul ashen and glass-cold, his skin burning with warmth. “The dead can’t take you. Not while I am living. Not when I can guide you home.”
