No more woman. Just ash—great gouts of it, swirling about Zahir, about the both of them. Arwa yelped and gripped Zahir tighter. Somewhere, distantly, her jaw was grinding, her hands balling into fists as she slept. But here she only held on to him as the ash surrounded his head in a corona, as ash seeped into his eyes and his ears, as it filled his mouth, consuming him.
Do not eat the ash.
So he had written and yet he was consuming it now, before her eyes. Suddenly, his soul’s skin was burnished with the luster of embers still hot from the fire, of ashes cooling to chalk and amber. Suddenly Arwa’s own head was full of facets of memory, as fragmented as her own unnatural skin. Her hand (not her hand) holding a needle, fine muslin upon her lap; her grandson (not her, not her) pressing his cheek to her knee.
Arwa cursed, revolted, but did not let go, even as the smoke of strange memories coiled around her own head. She felt the distant shudder of her own body, turning upon the ground; smoke in her true lungs, as the fire in its vessel began to gutter and die.
In the realm of ash, Zahir turned his gaze upon her face once more. Holding her hand, he turned to the roots tangled between them, turned andwrenched—
Arwa woke. She scrambled onto her elbows, back bowed, turned her head to the side, pushing her veil askew so she could breathe, simply breathe, great gouts of true air, barely tainted by fire. Her eyes were wet.
She could hear Zahir retching.
“What was that?” she asked him. “What did you do?”
His hands on stone. The sound of his palms sliding. She drew her veil back into place. Turned her head to look at him. His head was pressed to the ground, the back of his tunic damp with sweat.
“I remember.” His voice a gasp. “Cold grapes in a silver bowl, and learning to taste citrus and salt. I remember—the fine bone needle, my favorite—herfavorite—I remember—I am not myself. I… who am I?”
She did not choose to stand up. It was simply a thing that happened. The same was true of the way her hand found its way to his jaw, drawing his face up to the moonlight seeping through the grate.
“Lord Zahir. What do you need?”
He blinked hard. Some semblance of awareness returned to his eyes. “Water,” he forced out. “There is a carafe. By the second shelf. Other room.”
Thank the Emperor’s grace that the room was orderly. She found the carafe and returned to his side. Kneeling by him, she offered him the water, which he took with trembling hands. He drank it fast, gratefully, then lowered the carafe to the ground.
“I apologize. That was a great deal…more. Than I expected.”
“I gathered,” Arwa said. “As your apprentice, I am going to require access to your other books. I don’t enjoy being so surprised, my lord.”
“Anything,” said Zahir. He sat up carefully, with a wince.
“You wrote that the ash should not be eaten, my lord.”
“You should not consume it certainly. Gods be thanked, you have no cause to do so. To access an ancestor’s knowledge, to eat their ash… it is not an act without price. It’s a dangerous thing, Lady Arwa. It can consume you whole, if you are not tethered to the strength of your roots.” A faint smile. “Or so I have gathered.”
“From your books.”
“Partly. And also from our experiment today. Sometimes books have curious gaps. Theories are flawed. I have not been able to consume ash before, Lady Arwa. Not when I entered with a tutor. Not when I entered alone. But with your help…” His voice faded. Faraway eyes. “We accomplished so much. I believe we can seek the Maha’s ash after all. My hope finally has flesh.”
Arwa closed her eyes. In the dark she saw it again: a place entirely strange. A place where she felt as if her very nature had been flayed open, exposing more than her heart or her skin to the light.
She thought of the Empire. Of the Maha and Emperor. Of a long tradition of order and faith and adherence of standards of civilization. Standards that defined who had earned the right to call themselves human—and who had discarded it.
Arwa had spent her entire life training to be adequately human: to be pretty and obedient and honorable. To benotAmrithi. She knew what it meant, to stray from the path. She knew what heresy was. The realm of ash, in all its wildness and inhumanity, its death and hollowness, was heresy personified.
“That place is wrong,” she said finally, bluntly. “I accepted that we would meddle with heresy, and I will do so again. But it is—terribly wrong.”
A beat.
“Yes.” His voice was shaky, his expression incongruously calm. “It is somewhat. But is it any more wrong than the dirt and guts and spillage of war and needless death? I think not.” He winced again. Blinked once, twice, slowly. His eyes, she thought, had a strange sheen. Silver-gray, liquid shadow.
“Next time we can try to move farther along the path. Seek the Maha. But no longer tonight. Go back to your room and rest, Lady Arwa. You have done enough.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Arwa did not bother attempting to sleep the night before the Emperor’s next dawn audience. She had never been one for falling easily into slumber, and had always woken at the slightest sound, even as a small girl. After Darez Fort, nighttime rest had become even more difficult for her to achieve. Now she had even more reason to stay awake through the dark hours. She had the not-prince and his library tomb; she had an apprenticeship.
