“Woman,” said the mystic. His face was wrapped in blue cloth. His eyes were terrible, compassionate and unyielding. “The power in you belongs to the Empire and our Maha. Lower your blade.”
Nazrin thought of her children. She was grateful beyond measure that neither of them possessed the amata. She had taken them into a dreamfire storm, watched, heart in her throat, for any sign they shared her burden. There had been nothing. Although they would face the same dangers all Amrithi did, the same persecution, they would never kneel, as she did. They would never be forced to make the inevitable choice: slavery, or death by their own blades.
I am Amrithi, she reminded herself. Amrithi, and my freedom is my right. And yet her heart quailed; she wished for something—someone, anyone—to save her.
But there was no one, and as the mystic drew toward her, she drew the blade firmly across her own throat.
Flicker. Ash, sweet as wine.
Arwa was not Nazrin anymore.
She felt new ash unfurl beneath her skin.
His name was Ushan.
His mother had lain with a daiva in the heart of a dreamfire storm, and Ushan had been the result. He’d been born more or less human. His mother had told him so. She had counted all his fingers at his birth; peeled back his lips to see the unformed gums, the tongue, the wailing cry of mortal lungs. And yet he dreamed strange dreams, and sometimes his shadow changed, transforming into inhuman shapes: a bird, a snake, a panther; a thing hooded, a thing naked and all bones.
He met his daiva parent once. Tall, they had been so tall, with hair like a dark flame and eyes of gold; lush mouth and bones like blades. Ushan had offered his parent blood, and they had tasted it, and wrapped him up in a shroud of shadow, lifting him with great wings carved from shadow. This, Ushan had recognized as love.
The memory slipped away.
Arwa. She was Arwa. For a moment.
Then the storm descended once more.
A knife lay in a man named Tahir’s hand. He held it to his throat, trembling, biting his tongue. He thought of his little girl; his girl who would be Tara and lead her clan. At least she was not here. At least she would not have to know what had become of him.
Then Arwa was Ushan again. Stretching his arms wide. Bitter fury bubbling in his blood. Body changing. Grief stretching its wings within him.
His arms were feathered and sharp. Her arms were feathered and sharp. Her mouth opened.
His mouth—
“Girl,” he said. His voice rumbled out of him. “Return to your flesh, before it’s too late.”
She felt something grip her arm. Fingers strong, firm. Something dragging her back, back—
She heard screaming. Her throat hurt. It took her a moment to realize she was the one crying out, that Zahir was holding her and whispering her name, firm against her hair, as he held her pinned.
“Arwa, Lady Arwa, Arwa, please, speak to me. Speak to me. Can you hear me?”
Arwa. She was Arwa. She was not Ushan, daiva-blooded. She was not Nazrin. Not Tahir. She was not an Amrithi with a knife to their own throat. She scrabbled wildly, gasping for words, until finally he understood and released her.
“Do you know yourself?” he asked. “Are you well? Are you safe?”
“Yes,” she forced out. “I know who I am.” No, no, no.
“You let go of our shared roots,” he said. “You consumed ash. You could have—anything could have happened to you, Arwa.” Through her own screaming trauma, she realized he was honestly shaken. His face was gray with fear. “You saw how I nearly forgot myself, when I consumed my grandmother’s ash, and that I did with you bound to me, to ground me. You could have lost yourself. Arwa, you should not have done it. What possessed you to risk your soul and mine?”
But his words were distant. A buzz in her ears.
She could still feel the blade at an Amrithi throat.
When she remained silent, he swore to himself. Then he shook his head, and stood.
“I’ll get you some water,” he said.
She rose to her feet.
“I need to go,” she told him.
He reached for her once more. She shook him off, and walked up the steps of the enclosure, unveiled. The air pinched her skin.
“Lady Arwa,” he called, his voice all mingled rage and worry.
“Don’t follow me,” she said. “Please, my lord.”
She left despite his protests. Walked for a while, then kneeled down among the plants and retched and wept, blocking her own voice out with a hand between her teeth.
Amrithi. Dead Amrithi. Ah, Gods.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Her sister. Her sister.
It was as if the loss of Mehr were a book, a great tome, like the ones in Zahir’s library. But half the pages had been ripped out brutally, pointedly. The rest were in a state of ruin: water-damaged, mold creeping up their edges, the words smudged to indecipherability. Arwa could only read a sentence here or there, piecing together a patchwork grief.
She knew Mehr had revealed her Amrithi-ness. She knew the Maha’s mystics had taken Mehr. She knew Mehr had died.
Now here she was, the damaged fragments of a dozen other tales strewn in her lap. Tales of persecution and death; tales of Amrithi with a gift called amata, a gift that allowed them to control the dreams of the Gods, stolen by the Maha for their power. Stolen by the Maha, in order to shape the Empire’s glory.
Just as she and Zahir had worked to piece together an image of the realm of ash, so too was she forming a picture of Mehr’s true fate, and true death.
Arwa had witnessed a dreamfire storm, and soon after her sister had been taken. Had her sister called the dreamfire to her—revealed a seed of amata in her blood?
Her sister had told her she was getting married. She had given Arwa her Amrithi blade, and told Arwa not to fear, and told her she would see her again. And then Mehr had gone to the Maha, and died. But she had not simply died. She had been used and enslaved and forgotten. Her gift—her Amrithi gift of amata—had been used to manipulate the dreams of the Gods, suppressing dreams that would bring ill fortune, raising up dreams that would continue to burnish the Empire’s glory.
After the night her father wept by her bed, Arwa had heard no more of her sister. Once, she had asked her mother Maryam about her, tentatively questioned where Mehr had been buried. Her mother had gone quiet, and cold, and told her not to ask again. Some things, she’d said, will only hurt you. Let it be, Arwa.
Arwa had grieved for Mehr, but she had blamed her too, for the fall of their family into disgrace. For being so Amrithi, when she could have made the choice Arwa had made, to mold herself into a quiet Ambhan daughter and wife. She had blamed Mehr because she had been ignorant. Because she’d known nothing.
But now Arwa knew. And she was hurt—yes, as her mother had told her she would be hurt. But she was also furious she’d been denied the right to that pain. To the truth.
You were stolen, Arwa thought. You were stolen, and no one told me. I did not know. Oh, Mehr.
Mehr had died because of the Maha. Her father had tried to bring Mehr home, and in return the Maha—his Empire, his nobility, the world he had carved—had flung her family into disgrace. The blame for that lay at the Maha’s feet too. Not Mehr’s.
And Amrithi—generations of them, beyond Arwa’s graceless understanding—had been enslaved or died by their own knives. Over and over again. The Maha had used them. Taken their magic. Built the Empire’s glory upon their bones.