Zahir sat down across from her and took up his own cup.
“We should discuss the terms of our arrangement.” His voice was tentative. Gaze fixed on the tea.
“There’s no need.”
“I think there is. Your apprenticeship would benefit from clearer rules. Clearer boundaries.”
“I am sorry if—”
“Please don’t apologize. You believed I erred. That I broke the boundaries that define your honor. I understand the significance of such a thing. My mother…” His mouth thinned. His voice was careful. “My mother was a successful courtesan. But when she tried to be more, to use her scholarly knowledge to help the Empire… Well. It was not her place, in my father’s eyes. And she paid a high price for her transgression.”
He lowered his cup to the table.
“Lady Arwa. I am familiar with the fear a relationship without rules engenders. I am a blessed. I am a man. And yet here I am, in the imperial palace, in the women’s quarters, in this—place. There are no rules for what I am, and that means I have no guidance on how best to ensure my own survival. You have, perhaps, realized that I am a person who appreciates guidance.”
She looked at the books behind him and said nothing. Yes. She’d understood that about him some time ago.
“For your sake and mine, we should establish rules between us. A contract of a kind.”
“I cannot make contracts,” Arwa said, strangely numb. “Beyond the choice of whom I marry—that is a boundary of my honor as a noblewoman, also.”
Noblewomen were the treasures of their husbands and their fathers. Their care—their futures—lay in the hands of their men. Zahir knew this as Arwa did, but he kindly did not point out all the ways Arwa had vowed herself to him and Jihan both, in ways that she had no right to.
“Of a kind,” he repeated. “A discussion, then. An act of trust. Is that more agreeable to you?”
She nodded wordlessly. She kept her tea clasped between her hands, taking comfort in its warmth.
He began.
“I will not ask anything of you—anything—beyond what is required to reach the Maha’s ash. I cannot promise you will not be harmed in this endeavor. As you know, I am not aware of all the risks.”
“I am not afraid of harm.”
“No,” said Zahir. His gaze flickered to her hands, and back to his own cup. “I know.”
She clasped her fingers an increment tighter. Heat against her scarred palm.
“Beyond that, Lady Arwa, your honor is your own. The terms of your reputation are your own. How you maintain it—the behaviors you choose, the actions you take—are in your hands. And I will respect the parameters you choose.”
“You have no boundaries of your own? No rules I must abide by?”
He paused.
“I have never considered it,” he said. Then: “No, Lady Arwa. But if you’re willing, I would like to enter the realm of ash again. Will you join me?”
“Of course,” she told him. It was what she was here for, after all.
She removed her veil when he lit the fire. He did not comment on it. He carefully avoided staring at her face as he brought the flames to a gentle smolder, as he poured laced tea, and gave her the dagger so she could add her own blood to the glow of the flames.
If he had asked, she would have explained that the smoke made her feel as if she were choking, that combined with the weight of her veil it made her feel trapped, that she could not sleep covered as she had been. But he did not ask. Arwa drank the tea and fell into a swift, unnatural sleep.
Zahir was there instantly. The storm surrounded her, and then his hand was on her own, their blood roots binding fast. She followed him, stumbling through the feel of her body’s quick heartbeat, into the forest of his path of ash.
“Are we going to seek the Maha’s ash?” she asked.
Zahir was silent for a long moment.
“Consuming ash was—not a comfortable experience.”
