“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“I will do some study,” he said. “We cannot go farther, if the realm affects us so. Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
He stood and stepped back, allowing Arwa to rise to her own feet. She followed him then back into his library. She steadied herself with a hand on the shelf, making a show of staring at each book in turn to hide her weakness, and following the titles with the brush of her fingers, as she had seen Zahir do many times before.
“You have a number of books by the Hidden One,” she noted.
“The poems are important to me,” he said.
“I’m not surprised, Lord Zahir. They are rather beautiful.” There was an intimacy to them that appealed to her, resonated in her mouth, when she followed the words.
“Take one of the books with you, if you like,” he said. A pause. Then, careful: “Or read here, if you prefer.”
Her finger paused upon the shelf. She hesitated.
Arwa thought of Jihan, telling her to make Zahir happy. The memory was utterly bitter.
My honor is my own, Arwa told herself. My boundaries my own. So she and Zahir had agreed.
Oh, she knew what a paper-thin fiction that was. Reputation and honor were the business of society, and Arwa’s only responsibility was to adhere to the laws the world laid out for her. But here, within these strange walls, she could almost convince herself of the sweet lie Zahir had offered her, that the pact of trust they had concocted together protected her from dishonor. She wanted to believe she had such power—that she defined her worth and her status.
So in that moment, she allowed the fiction to stand.
“The company would be pleasant,” she told him.
They both sat at the table. He began his copy work once more, and Arwa read the poetry, the crackle of the lantern and the hum of the breeze the only noise between them.
Eventually Arwa lifted her head. She saw then that Zahir had fallen asleep, head against the wall, chin tucked against his chest. A strand of dark hair had somehow escaped his turban, and lay across his forehead. He looked younger, in sleep.
The night was cold, and he wore no jacket, just a long-sleeved tunic and trousers. In a fit of sudden compassion, Arwa removed her shawl and draped it around him. He didn’t even stir.
She snuffed out the lantern upon the table, then stood and left him. She walked through the garden, beneath the rustling trees, as rock doves flew free from their tower over her head, black shadows against the star-flecked night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She and Zahir returned to their quiet work. On her next visit, he handed over her shawl without comment. When she returned to her room, she found small stars sewn along the edges, discreet in white thread. It took her a few days longer to realize that their order accurately reflected the arrangement of constellations above Irinah at midsummer—one of the very maps they had perused together many nights past, when they began piecing together the veracity of scholarship on the realm of ash.
She said nothing to him, and he said nothing to her. But she wore the shawl often, and sometimes when they studied the problem of the bridge between worlds—the damnable bridge, as Arwa would often refer to it viciously, in the safety of her own head—she would trace the constellations with her fingertips in quiet comfort.
The pain—the result of that damnable, weak bridge—had stopped them from progressing any farther along the path of his soul. Arwa read his books on her own, selecting volumes that drew her interest. When she had questions—which was often—Zahir always answered her, no matter how preoccupied he was with his own research.
“There must be an alternative to incorporating cannibalism or starvation,” Arwa muttered, flicking swiftly through a thick tome.
Zahir laughed. When she looked up, he was smiling.
“If there is, I’m sure you’ll find it,” he said.
She paused. Finger upon the page.
“I expect,” she said, “that you cannot go to Irinah.”
“Ah. I wondered if you would question that.” He shut his own book. “It would be ideal. It has long been my preferred avenue of inquiry. But no. I cannot. Jihan has her spies, her women, but her power is constrained by her position.”
A daughter, no matter her power, was infinitely more constrained than a son. Arwa nodded in understanding.
“And Prince Akhtar…?”
“He understands the need for resources,” Zahir said. “For courtiers loyal to him. For administrators in his pocket. For a sister with political acumen and spies. But I have not yet proven myself useful, in his eyes, and heresy makes him uneasy. And it hurts his pride to need someone like me. A bastard, and a traitor’s son.” Bitter twist of Zahir’s mouth. “He tolerates me for Jihan’s sake, but he will not send me to Irinah.”
“Do you ever go beyond the palace walls?” Arwa asked.
“No, Lady Arwa.” He said it gently enough, but she thought she heard the pain of it, beneath the softness of his voice. “Jihan has not arranged me that privilege. But then, I have not asked for many years.”
There was a lump in her throat.
She lowered her head, breathing through it until it cleared, and she could find her words once more.
“If we can find no other answers in these books, then we’ll make our own theories,” said Arwa. “We will test them and we will break them, and then we will draw new theories from the breaking, and test those too. And we will continue, Lord Zahir, until we find a theory that does not break, and the bridge is strong enough to carry us directly into the Maha’s arms.”
Zahir stared at her for a long moment. Then his face broke into the warmest, sweetest smile she had ever seen. It stole her breath a little, to look upon it.
“Lady Arwa, that is by far the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”
“Well.” She touched one finger to the shorn ends of her hair. “I can be a scholar too when I try, my lord.”
“You are always a scholar,” Zahir said softly. “If I ever have suggested otherwise to you—well. I am often a fool. And cruel. But I will endeavor to learn to be better.”
“Thank you, my lord.” She began flicking through pages once more, gazing unseeing at the words. “I will be sure to evaluate your efforts honestly and fairly.”
“I can ask for no more.”
She grew used to her new routine. Sat with the widows and ate and prayed with them, just as she had done when she had lived in the hermitage. She slept in snatches often during the day. And at night, she worked with Zahir, continuing her apprenticeship.
She saw Gulshera only rarely. Gulshera was always in Jihan’s presence, at her salons for her favorites, or at her meetings with Prince Akhtar. Only once that week did Arwa find Gulshera alone. The older woman was seated in the front garden, her own eyes closed, face tilted up to the sun.
“Aunt,” Arwa said in greeting.
“Don’t ask me anything,” Gulshera said tiredly. “Only sit with me, if you like. Quietly.”
And that had been that.
It was the Emperor’s next public audience that shattered the order of Arwa’s new life.
The princes sat before their father, as always, in close proximity to his greatness. Petitions began. Another request for assistance for a scheme of cleansing was proposed, by an old nobleman serving in Haran governance. He was directed to seek assistance from Akhtar. As the next petitioner approached, Parviz stood, and raised his hand in a gesture that demanded stillness. A ripple—of fear and unease—ran through the surrounding nobles.