And Zahir, here, alone. A man and a blessed, bound to them by a thread of scholarship and blood.
“My mother and the Empress were—friendly.” Voice halting. “A courtesan must be entertaining. My mother not only danced and—did as courtesans do. She also sang. Recited poetry. Performed at salons of women, at feasts and celebrations. The Empress took a liking to her. She would invite my mother to sing to her, and when my mother shared a little of her esoteric interests, the Empress saw the potential benefit of them.” Ghost of a smile. “Jihan is very like her.”
“So I have been told.”
“When the Maha died, my mother believed she could help the Empire. She offered her knowledge to the Emperor, and recognizing it as heresy, well…” Eyes closed. Opened. “Perhaps she thought the Emperor’s fondness for her would protect her. Or the Empress’s. But of course—not.
“When the Maha died, and the Empire fell into the first chaos of grief, my mother believed she could help the Emperor raise a new world from the ashes of the Maha’s dead: an Empire like a lamp of truth, a beacon saved and shaped by many hands. She pleaded with him to seek the support of the people. Alchemize their grief into service, she told him. Let your people serve you, and they will build you a stronger Empire from their love.”
“No,” Arwa whispered. She knew her horror was written upon her face.
Zahir inclined his head, acknowledging the look.
“The Emperor had to secure his power. He could not allow his position to be weakened by her heresy. Respect for noble blood and hierarchy and order had to be maintained. I understand this.” He said it matter-of-factly. Confidently. As if it were a thing he had told himself, until the words had worn a groove into his soul, until they had the bone-deep quality of truth. “If not for Jihan’s intercession—if not for the skills my tutors gave me, that my mother gave me—I would have died long ago. I have the opportunity to serve the Empire. I have the opportunity to show Jihan my gratitude.”
Arwa said nothing. Her voice seemed to have left her.
“I am a pragmatist,” Zahir continued. “The world owes me nothing. Prince Akhtar owes me nothing. And yet, I have been given the opportunity—the possibility—to save the Empire. I cannot estimate how many will die if a miracle does not save the Empire. I like precision, Lady Arwa, but the numbers are—impossible, too terrible to calculate. That is what I focus on. The aspect of my life I can control. The deaths I can, perhaps, avert. The work I can do, that I have chosen. And all of this is—not insignificant. I have tried to mold myself into someone worthy of the task.”
“I don’t think you are a pragmatist,” said Arwa.
“No?”
No.
I think you are a furious idealist, so passionate you’ll splinter yourself on your idealism, so hungry for your purpose you would die for it.
I think you understand love is finite, and you strive for the small scraps you receive.
As I have. As I do.
“No,” Arwa said, unable to shape the words. Her voice shook like a reed. “No, you are not.”
He stared into her eyes. She stared back.
“Who have you molded yourself for, Lady Arwa?” he asked softly. “If I may be so bold.”
She was struck, again, by the way he could look through a person, the way her nature felt like a bare wound before him.
She swallowed.
“Everyone, of course. What else could I do? But I am afraid, since my husband died, I’ve lost the talent for it.” She didn’t know how to express to him how she felt: the anger in her, and the desire for a war worthy of her fury; the grief in her, and the way it swallowed all her learned goodness whole. She was not sure she wanted to offer him such knowledge about her—such power over her. And yet…
He had told her about his mother. She could offer him a truth in return. Besides, the words were burning in her throat, hot as coals. She couldn’t contain them.
“I am not like you, my lord,” Arwa said. “I am a widow and illegitimate and my blood is—my blood. I deserve little. I should be grateful for what I have. But whatever I deserve—I do not want it.”
She did not say, I want more. He understood.
“The wanting will not help you accomplish anything,” he said. Guarded. Reading her with his eyes.
“I know, my lord. Nonetheless, I still want, and grieve, and rage. I cannot stop myself, it seems.” Want. She should not have said want. There was a flush of color to his face, and she was sure her own burned also.
“Now,” she said. “I would like to begin our work, my lord. May we?”
“Of course,” he said. Cleared his throat. “Follow me.”
They entered the realm of ash as always: by blood and flame and drug-laced sleep.
Arwa had theorized that further exposure to the realm of ash would give their souls the strength and stamina to travel deeper into the realm.
“I watched soldiers train often enough to understand the logic of building the body’s strength for a task,” she’d explained. “Some of the green boys who joined my husband’s service could not even hold the weight of their armor at first. But Kamran would make them wear it, and in time the body would find a way to carry its burden. The same may work for the soul.”
“Except that the soul has no bones, no musculature,” Zahir pointed out.
“Do you want to discuss the way our souls mimic our bodies and the possible implications of that?” Arwa asked, cocking her head, allowing a challenge to flicker in her voice.
“I don’t want a headache tonight,” Zahir had said, shaking his head with a smile. “We’ll test your theory and see what becomes of it.”
Luck had been with them. They had begun, in small increments, to move farther and farther from flesh, farther along Zahir’s path of ghostly, inherited dreams. They held their roots tight and entwined, the shimmer glass of their hands jointly clasped.
They moved through strange gossamer rooms of ash. Forests of bodies that hung suspended, caught frozen between laughter or tears, memories preserved in amber. Arwa saw figures upon thrones, worlds in hands and mouths. Bodies caught mid-dance, hands outstretched, skirts whirling. She saw women and men. Caught in his history was an imperial line, ancient and powerful, a bloodline that awed her. And another bloodline—of scholars and mystics and courtesans. His mother’s blood.
His mother who had died for the Empire, for the sake of knowledge, and all the dangers it brought.
They were on the sand again. Pain tugged at Arwa’s insides, soul and flesh both. She looked at his glasslike face. There was no feeling in it; nonetheless, she knew he felt as she felt.
“Just a little farther,” he said.
She nodded. There was too much at stake for either of them to hold back.
They walked one step farther. Two. Suddenly Arwa felt—strange. The sand sharpened, jagged around her. The grains were moving, whirling softly around her ankles. As if…
As if they were on the edges of a storm.
There were not trees, not any longer; no canopy, no shadows of leaves, not even bare sky. Instead there was a whirling, white-edged storm. It took her a moment to recognize the storm for what it was. It was the storm Arwa always woke to, when she entered the realm of ash. It was a memory of dreamfire.