Her sister. Her poor sister. Arwa retched again, a visceral reaction.
Her head was full of ash, full of flashes of preserved memory, sharp as splinters. She was Arwa. She was Arwa.
Nazrin. Ushan. Tahir.
Arwa made it back to her room somehow. She was glad not to see Eshara or Reya patrolling the halls. She reached, fumbling, through her own trunk of possessions, between pale folded tunics and sashes, trousers and scarves until she found her own dagger and held it in her hands. Trembling, she unfolded it from the protective casing of fabric that surrounded it.
She thought of her sister, again: of being raised to put aside her Amrithi-ness; of carrying the shadow of it inside her nonetheless, the ghosts of all the people who had come before her, buried and lost, in a desert of the Maha’s dead. She thought of the history and the people she had never known, the culture of her birth mother that had been stolen from her, cleaved straight from her body. She thought of the Arwa she was not: the shadow Arwa fashioned from all the Amrithi things she had taught herself not to be. The Arwa she had yearned to be, once.
She barely slept.
In the morning she washed herself, and then took her own shears to her hair. Looked at herself in her mirror: her sand-brown skin, her deep brown eyes, large in her fine-boned face. She looked like an Ambhan woman. She knew it. It seemed almost cruel, after all, that she could see nothing of her sister in her own face.
We have the same blood, her sister had told her once. Arwa had no vows burned into her skin, had said her marriage vows without ancient magic binding them to her soul and flesh. She had no amata.
And yet she couldn’t help but think of the Amrithi families that military commanders like her husband had driven out of villages. She thought of the warnings her mother had pressed into her of the suffering of faceless Amrithi, and how Arwa had thought: That could be me.
I cannot allow that to be me.
She remembered Mehr’s smile. The sound of her singing a lullaby. The feel of her arms, as she held Arwa close.
The same blood. They all had the same blood.
The heretic mystics were put to death. The women of the imperial household were not expected to attend, for which Arwa was grateful. But Jihan, as Emperor’s daughter, was expected to witness. Gulshera accompanied her, as did Jihan’s closest noblewomen.
Arwa waited for their return for a time. She thought of death. Of Amrithi. Of Darez Fort. Of soldiers, and their fears. She searched through her belongings and left her room.
She found Gulshera in her own chamber.
The room was sparsely furnished. There were no piles of letters, no tray of tea, no pen and ink. Her husband’s lacquered court bow was not even upon the wall. Gulshera was lying on her divan, eyes closed. Arwa sat on the edge of the divan, thumped a carafe on the floor beside her.
Gulshera cracked open an eye.
“I don’t want wine.”
“It isn’t wine,” said Arwa. “It is—was—a drink my husband liked. Liquor made from soured milk.”
“You want to make me ill?”
“It will ease your pains,” said Arwa. “Kamran would give it to his men, sometimes, when they were afraid. A drink like this, he told them, will make you strong. I kept a bottle in my trunk. For memory’s sake.”
Arwa nudged the carafe toward Gulshera.
Gulshera gave her a look. Rising to a seated position, she took the carafe. Opened it and drank it. Grimaced.
“You are trying to poison me.”
“Some poisons are good for you,” Arwa said. She took the carafe from Gulshera, and drank herself. The arrack was viciously sour, a sweet burn down her throat. She grimaced.
“There,” she said. “I feel better already. Don’t you?”
Gulshera gave her a faint scowl.
“I’m certainly distracted. My mouth feels foul.”
Arwa took another swig and Gulshera said, “Ah, Gods, put that swill down.”
Arwa resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and obeyed.
They sat in silence for a moment, before Gulshera spoke.
“The Emperor was merciful. Their deaths were quick.”
“Good,” Arwa said tightly.
“There will be a celebration tonight,” said Gulshera.
“A celebration?”
“Parviz’s suggestion,” Gulshera said tiredly. “More merrymaking to lift the spirits of an uneasy nobility.”
“Prince Parviz doesn’t care for merrymaking.”
“He’s learning the ways of court quickly. Murder a few men, lavish favors on a few others—soon you’ll have followers driven by greed and fear aplenty.”
Arwa frowned and lowered her head. They can merrymake all they want, she thought. It will not change anything. Child daiva with bone faces. Winged daiva. Famine and rebellions, and a dying Emperor.
“Does it matter if the courtiers like him?” Arwa asked.
“If those courtiers have influence over the Emperor, of course,” Gulshera said dryly. “But no one truly knows the Emperor’s mind.”
“I think,” Arwa said slowly, “I understand why you chose to leave here. It is like being caught in a net, isn’t it? The longer you are here, the less you remember what it means to move freely. To know the cool air on your face. The shape and heft of a bow.”
“We serve the Empire,” said Gulshera, after a moment. “That, at least, is a good thing.”
It was not disagreement.
Arwa wondered, somewhat helplessly, what difference there was, if any, between serving the interests of the imperial family and serving the Empire.
“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. They were shadow. They stared down at her with eyes like blazing lights, burnished gold.