“Yes,” Arwa said softly. “I’m glad of that.”
Gulshera placed a hand on Arwa’s back. Through her touch, Arwa felt the sharpness of her own bones, the fragility of her spine, her lungs as she breathed in and out, in and out, as birds sang beyond the window lattice.
Arwa didn’t remain long at the feast. The thought of doing so was unbearable. She could not eat. Could not think. She left, but didn’t go to Zahir, and didn’t go to her own room. Instead she found herself walking to the dovecote tower.
Here, she was high—high enough to feel as if she could reach the stars. The pigeons cooed, some rustling around her. She leaned against the wall and placed her face in her hands.
For so long she had run from the true shape of her grief. She had sought to grieve as was expected of her, at the hermitage. Here at the imperial palace, she had tried to alchemize her grief into a purpose, a mission. But in the end all her efforts had failed her. Her grief was a beast without a leash. Now it hung about her close, and sharp. It was not simply a product of Darez Fort. It was ingrained in her bones—her very soul. She felt overwhelmed by the scope of the suffering that had shaped her, as she strove to be the good Ambhan daughter, all unknowing.
She could not be a good soldier or sacrifice to overcome it; worse still, sacrificing herself on the basis of her Amrithi blood filled her mouth with metal. It felt like a betrayal of the dead. Of the culture and people who she had always known were part of her.
Of her sister.
Face pressed into her arms, she finally raised her head. And smelled incense.
She whirled around.
The pigeons cooed faintly around her. They rustled gently in their nooks. There were no daiva.
No daiva, until she looked up.
At the peak of the tower were a dozen birds in shadow. But they were not, she realized, in shadow after all. Theywereshadow. They stared down at her with eyes like blazing lights, burnished gold.
Bird-spirits.
At the hermitage, when she had stabbed the daiva, it had broken into dozens of smaller birds. They watched her now, those same birds, not rustling or cooing, only utterly still, barely visible against the velvet dark of the night.
Arwa swallowed. Her throat was clogged—with terror and with wonder both.
She remembered Ushan, lifted off his feet by a winged daiva progenitor that had loved him.
She remembered the daiva at Darez Fort. Inhuman hands on her own. The dagger at her feet, that she could remember fumbling for in her rooms, that she could not remember laying beside her, as unnatural fear fell over the fort.
All her life, by everyone but her sister, Arwa had been told the daiva were monsters. But to her Amrithi dead, they were family. The daiva had loved their Amrithi children. Loved them enough to make a binding vow to protect them.
A vow made on blood.
“I am sorry I harmed you.” Her voice sounded small. Felt small. The night seemed to swallow it. “I should never have turned my knife on you, at the hermitage. You tried to save me from the—thing—at the fort, didn’t you? It was no daiva, that creature of bones. You brought me a knife, you gave me the chance to use my blood, to seek your protection from that—nightmare. And this is how I have repaid you.” She sucked in a breath, shallow, her heart racing. “I am sorry for trying to keep you at bay. For using my blood as a barrier against you. I didn’t understand that we are kin.”
The daiva birds were silent. Watchful.
She was a fool, speaking a mortal tongue to immortals. She did not know their language.
The taste of salt and ash rose in her throat. She did not. But Ushan had. Nazrin had. They all had.
She lifted her hands. Feet solid against the ground.
The Amrithi danced rites. Rites of worship. Rites to communicate with the daiva in their own language. Sigils were their language; stances were feeling. She knew this in snatches, vaguely, secondhand knowledge coming to her. She shaped a sigil fordebt, another forgrief.
Her hands faltered.
“I am sorry,” she said again. She had no sigils for that.
The birds flew down, drawing together swift as an arrow; she saw the semblance of a human figure, felt it clasp her hands with very human hands, the beginning of a face…
Then Arwa flinched, instinctual terror, and the daiva flinched with her.
“Wait!” she shouted, but it was too late.
