She felt warmth against her skin. His hand was pressed over her own, a silent, grounding comfort.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Entirely well.”
“Nonetheless,” he said gently. “I am sorry that love is so often unkind.”
There was a lump in her throat. He had lost people too. He understood.
“Just so,” she managed to say.
They sat, silent for a long moment. At some point they had turned to face one another, still sitting on the roof’s edge, unseen and alone, his hand warm upon her own.
“I know I have to do it,” he said finally, into the quiet carved out by their grief. His voice was soft. “I have to go to Irinah. I have to seek the Maha’s ash. And I will have to trust in the cunning and the strength of the Hidden Ones, and hope that their many voices are a better answer than the singular power an Emperor wields.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Arwa told him.
“But I want to. Arwa, all of this: the searching, the study, the deaths. Your deaths, and mine. They cannot be for nothing. I’ve set my feet on this path. I’ll see it to the end.” Faint smile. “Perhaps I’ll even find my lamp of truth.”
She swallowed. Ah, Zahir.
“Just… Promise me. Don’t give the Hidden Ones the knowledge of what the Amrithi can be used for,” she said. “If you find that the only answer in the Maha’s ash is more enslavement, more killing, please. Don’t give it to them.”
“Enslaving the Amrithi caused the Empire’s curse,” he said quietly. “And it was monstrous. For that reason, and many others, I would not.”
She should have agreed with him then. But she couldn’t. She drew her hand back, and looked down at it, at the paling silver of her scar.
“And yet, maybe you’ll discover in the Maha’s ash that there is no other cure to the Empire’s ills. Perhaps you’ll look at the Empire, at people dying in droves, and convince yourself the Amrithi are an acceptable price to pay. A small handful of lives, sacrificed for the many.” She let out a breath. “I would—understand the logic of it. But I am still asking you to promise me, Zahir. If the Amrithi are the price—ifenslavementis the price—then let the Empire fall.”
He was silent for a moment. His shoulders tensed, as if he could feel the burden of it upon them: the choice to see the Empire end.
“I promise. Some prices should not be paid.” He shook his head, slow. “If the Empire falls—the blame lies at the Maha’s door, and his alone.”
“Good.” She exhaled. “That’s good.”
There was something tentative, inquisitive in the turn of his head toward her then: The lick of black hair against his forehead, bare as it was of his turban. The line of his throat. In the daylight he was sharp and mortal and hurt, and yet her heart softened at the sight of his bared neck, all the same.
“Arwa,” he said. He had not called her onlyLady Arwasince the night they leaped from the dovecote tower and lived. “Will you come?”
Come with him to Irinah. To gold sand and a blaring white sky. To daiva and strange mirages that loomed from the sand. To the Maha’s grave, and the heart of her own grief.
“You may not need Amrithi blood, in Irinah.”
“I may not. Irinah may be a strong enough bridge alone,” he agreed. “But you are not a weapon made of your blood. You are a scholar and a soldier who has not broken herself upon her cause—only grown stronger and stronger with every blow the world has dealt her. You have been my partner, my fellow mystic. You are my friend.” His eyes blazed, as if he had trapped the sunlight in them, as if the force of his feeling could warm her skin and mark it. “You have sacrificed so much for this task. I would… it would be my honor to see it to the end together.”
I can go home, thought Arwa. The idea cracked her heart open like an egg.Home.
When she thought of home, it was not her father’s small haveli in Hara that came to mind. She did not think longingly of the sharp lashing smell of sea and citrus. She did not think of her marital fort, either: sticky, humid heat, books and soldiers. No. Instead, she thought of the cool marble corridors of the Governor’s palace in Irinah. She thought of her old nursemaid, a gnarled old Irin woman who had treated her kindly and firmly. She thought of her sister holding her, telling her stories, her curling hair and warm voice, rich as honey.
Irinah was home, once. Somehow—despite all her years of trying to grow beyond her roots—it was home still.
“We’re a mystic order of two,” Arwa whispered. “Of course I’ll come with you. I’ll come to Irinah.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The day before they left, Aliye offered Arwa her mirror.
“If you want to cut your hair, of course,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Arwa asked.
