“When you indulge in slavery and cannibalism, I’ll rethink my assessment. Evidence, my lord. You know the value of it.”
“Experience of thought and feeling is evidence in its own right.”
“Do you want me to provide you forgiveness for your thoughts? Because I will not. You will need to make peace with your own heart, Lord Zahir. It’s no business of mine.”
Arwa was no stranger to dark thoughts, to fury and viciousness and bloodlust. But his confession should nonetheless have made her flinch. But she could not. She had read books at his side, worn a shawl embroidered by his hands. He had taught her and studied with her and held her when she woke screaming, the dead in her skull. And more than that—more than all of it—he had treated her as an equal. Apprentice, he called her, but in the white-gray expanse of the realm of ash, he had wound his soul’s roots with her own, and in the world of nighttime and lantern light he had listened to her theories with the respect due to a fellow scholar.
Zahir inclined his head, a gesture of acknowledgment. Still, he looked troubled.
“My father has attempted to weave a trap for me,” he said eventually. “He thinks I will fail, that I will prove myself unworthy of the title, and my death will end all rumors surrounding my name. Akhtar will rule without rumors to hound the stability of his throne. Even if I succeed and find the Maha’s ash, it will not be enough. Akhtar will take my knowledge, and ensure I die swiftly. I am a threat that cannot be allowed to remain. To survive, I would need to be—worshipped. Holy. And powerful, drenched in terrible magic, in blood, the leash of faith in my hands. I would need to be the Maha’s heir in truth. Whatever you may say, Lady Arwa, I know what I am capable of. If I wanted to—if I chose to—I could do it. I could prove myself to be his scion. And that, Lady Arwa, I cannot do. I will not. I would rather embrace death.”
Zahir might have thought his father had set him a trap, but Arwa could only think of the whispers of the nobility and the gossip of the widows, the fears the people of the Empire suffered, in the void left by the Maha’s death. Their faith needed a focus. They needed someone to believe in—something to hold at bay the terrors of the curse that lay upon the Empire.
Zahir did not see it, perhaps. He had not walked the political realm as Arwa had. Even now, he did not see his own family, the beating heart of imperial politics, with eyes unclouded by hunger and love.
The Emperor had named Zahir Maha’s heir, and now no other claimants would be able to rise and seize the faith and power the Maha had once commanded. Whether Zahir failed or succeeded, they would use him all the same: make a hollow puppet of him, a symbol and a tool to support their power. They would hold the tale—and the flesh—of the Maha’s heir in their chains.
Arwa swallowed. Her chest felt very tight.
“Then what,” she said, “will you do now?”
They walked into his workroom together.
“Lady Arwa.” Zahir’s own voice was careful. “Your father. Would you return to him, if you could?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I am not—entirely without resources,” he said. “I could arrange—that is. The possibility of you returning home. Despite appearances, I have not always been enclosed here. When my mother was the Emperor’s mistress, I was raised among her own people. Until the Maha’s death, and her own, I lived outside the palace.”
He turned to her. The lamps were guttered. She could not see his face any longer and that was… strange.
“I am admitting something to you that even Jihan does not know,” he told her. “From time to time I still communicate with my mother’s people. The Hidden Ones. There is a servant who…” He shook his head, suddenly guarded once more. “No matter. But if you wish to leave, if you wish to survive—as I hope you do—it can be arranged.”
“A kind offer, I think,” said Arwa. She tried not to think of her father. Her mother. “But my father has already paid the price, once, for protecting an Amrithi-blooded daughter. I won’t ask him to do so again.”
“Lady Arwa.” A released breath. “If you will not return to your father, I can still arrange for you to leave. You deserve to survive.”
Would she die, if she remained? She had no worth in the tale of the Maha’s heir. No worth beyond her use as a resource: a vessel of blood. A lever to ensure Zahir’s compliance.
Perhaps, then. Perhaps.
“I hope you wish to survive too, Lord Zahir,” she said. “If you have the means to leave here, you should.”
“I may be no more than a tool, after all,” he said, voice soft, “but I am needed here. I have a job to do. I still believe in its worth.”
“Still?”
“Still.”
“Well. You cannot do the job without me. Unless your family have a secret store of Amrithi blood to utilize?”
“As far as I know, they do not.” A faint laugh, sharp at the edges. “But of course, I know very little.”
She heard him move away from her. She saw the silhouette of his body in the murky night darkness as he moved to light the lanterns around the room.
“You wish to do this, even believing your brothers will see you dead for it?”
He lit the rest of the lanterns, one by one, without answering her. Then he leaned back against the wall, head bowed, heavy with exhaustion.
“Yes,” he said finally. “But it is my choice.”
She nodded, although he was not looking at her.
“I keep thinking of the Amrithi,” she said. “My ancestors. And I have wondered, since then… I’ve wondered what to do.” She curled and uncurled her scarred palm. “I have worshipped the Maha all my life. And yet…”
She thought of the Amrithi. The feel of Nazrin’s tears clogging her throat. She thought of her own sister, dead. Her own father, poisoned by loss, and her mother poisoned by disappointment, never quite the same again.
She thought of Kamran. Of Darez Fort. Of fear burrowing into her skin, the slick terror of a walking nightmare.
She thought of two worlds, feeding on one another’s tragedy.
The Empire was corrupt, but it was home. The bitter knowledge of bloodied foundations and bloodied consequences swam through her skull.
“Then this is my choice, my lord: I will not leave.”
His head rose, finally.
“You have given me the opportunity to see the realm of ash,” he said. “For that, Lady Arwa, I am grateful. More grateful than I can say. But now, I may have chosen this path but—you. No.” He shook his head. “You do not deserve to die, Lady Arwa. You can still live.”
“I am not afraid,” Arwa said.
“I know,” said Zahir, a strange twist of a smile upon his face. “I wish you were.”
She could not understand his expression—she only knew that it made her heart flutter in an unwanted fashion. So she clenched her hands to fists and said, “You are not the only one allowed to make terrible choices, Lord Zahir. Do not deny me my right to be a fool.”
“You do not need to sacrifice yourself. You could be—you are—so much more.”
“So are you, Lord Zahir. And yet here we are.”
He closed his eyes, fierce furrow in his brow. Then he looked at her once more. Said, “If you change your mind. If you want to go, if you doubt even for a moment…”