Here, Arwa swallowed. “Aunt, I am not unaware of what lies before me. If the worst should happen, please see these delivered. It would mean a great deal to me. I’ve said nothing of my task. Only that I’m gone and that—I will miss them, and I am sorry.”
Gulshera’s expression—hard with exhaustion—did not soften. She rose to her feet and took the bundle from Arwa’s hands. Her gaze was steady, without pity or malice.
“Is this what you wanted, Arwa?”
“I wanted a chance to save the Empire.”
“So you have one,” said Gulshera. “Just as you wished.”
“Yes,” Arwa said thinly. “I do.”
What a bitter fulfillment of her wish. She missed the old blaze of certainty in her blood. It had burned away her grief for a time. What a relief that had been! But she had a new grief to carry now: not just Darez Fort, but a long strand of Amrithi dead.
Two sets of deaths, two griefs, one the cause of the other. It was a terrible balance, and just her luck, she lay at the middle of it, her heart torn neatly in two, at the seams.
“I’ll see them delivered,” said Gulshera. And finally—finally—Arwa heard pity seep into her voice. “I promise it.”
She met with Zahir that night. They moved through the realm of ash and woke no closer to a solution, to neither of their surprise.
“What did Jihan say?” Arwa asked him, once they had properly awakened and the fire was quenched.
“She said going to Irinah is unlikely to be an option.”
“Not entirely a no,” Arwa said, even though she knew it was.
Zahir only smiled in response, eyes distant. His hand was at the sleeve of his tunic, tracing the cuff.
“She arranged new clothes for me,” he said. “Mourning colors.”
She looked at his tunic, worn and faded, she knew, from wear. The flash of gold at the cuff.
“Show me your sleeve,” she said.
“Why?”
“Humor me.”
He gave her his hand. She rolled down the cuff of his tunic.
“You’ve been distracting yourself,” she observed. The interior of the cuff was stitched with another expanse of stars. “You embroider beautifully,” she said.
“I have plenty of time to look at the sky above us at night,” he said. “Besides, I need to test how long the gift of my grandmother’s ash will remain with me.”
She stared at the cluster of stars. His wrist.
“The Amrithi I saw in the realm of ash, their dreams that I consumed…” She hesitated. “They’re with me still too.”
“Arwa—”
“I am fine, my lord,” she said, a bite in her voice. “It is no different from when you consumed ash. You embroider. I remember the dead.”
“Death and embroidery are hardly equivalent.” There was frustration in his voice, but concern too. “Lady Arwa. Please. Are you sure you’re well?”
She hesitated. Only for a second.
She hadn’t told him of the sigils and stances she remembered. The daiva that had come to her. She had not told him of her sister’s bright ash. Some things were not for him. She barely understood them herself.
“Yes. It’s only memory, my lord. No more. I only meant—have you considered what consuming the Maha’s ash will do to you?”
Zahir looked away from her.
“Having the memories of my ancestors in me has not been without pain,” Arwa pressed on. “And the Maha was—what he was. You will remember everything that he did. Everything that he was, everything that he felt. How will you stand it?”
“I try not to think of it.” His gaze met hers again. “I cannot know what impact centuries of knowledge will have on me. I can only hope that I will not lose myself. Not forget myself. And that I will be—better than he was.”
She knew how fragile that hope was. He had told her so himself.
He stared at her. Reading her face. He let out a breath.
“I need to consume his ash. So I won’t think more of it. It would only make me afraid.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Arwa. “I know your mind, my lord. You want to know everything. You must think of it.”
“Sometimes,” he said. “When I sleep, I dream of it.”
“You have nightmares,” she whispered.
“Nightmares,” he repeated. “Yes. That is—accurate. Thank you.”
“And you like accuracy.”
“I do,” he murmured. It was only then, his voice so soft and close, that she realized she was still holding his wrist.
She was hit—not by the ugly hunger she expected, but by something softer. A loneliness without sharp edges.
She wanted to remain here. She wanted to sit at his table and read his books, watch him sleep with his head against the wall. She wanted… well. It did not matter what she wanted. She was a widow, still.
But the want felt like a wound. She looked away from him, walked over to the shelves, and touched her fingers to the spines of the books. There were gilt edges, paper bound in silk cloth to keep its interior pages pristine. Books that smelled of age and mold. Books new and crisp and fresh, pages practically knife-edged, bristling beneath her fingers.
She reached for one and took it down. When she cracked it open she realized the writing was neat and cramped, and undeniably his own.
“You can take it, if you like,” he said. “Take any of them. These books are as much yours as mine.”
“That is hardly true, my lord. I am only an apprentice to you.”
“On the subject of the accuracy of words…” He paused. “You’ve walked the realm with me. I could not have done it alone. You…” She remembered his gratitude, saw it in the shape of his mouth, the light in his eyes. “Perhaps,” he continued haltingly, “partner is a more appropriate word.”
“Partner,” she repeated.
“You have a more appropriate term?”
“We’re keepers of a lost art,” said Arwa. “We are not Hidden Ones, I think. I am not. But I suppose we are… a mystical order.”
“Of two?”
“Yes. A mystical order of two. It is accurate, don’t you agree?”
They were smiling at one another.
On the edge of death, and we’re smiling, Arwa marveled. She clutched the book tighter, butter-soft leather yielding in her grip. Its weight was significant, despite the way it fit easily into her hands.
“I should let you rest,” she said.
“Yes.” The light in his face dimmed a little. “Take the book with you. If you like.”
He turned from her then, rolling the cuff back into place, head lowered.
She looked at his lowered head. She thought about how easily her hands would fit to the back of his neck: how warm his skin would be, and how soft.
She turned and left.
Unsure she would sleep, she lay on her bed, lantern precariously close to her, and read.
In small, painstaking writing—so laborious and so terrifyingly neat that it could only be Zahir’s—lay a record of his lessons. Images painted on separate scraps of animal skin and paper. Tucked between the pages, perilously likely to come loose, was poetry from the Hidden One, and lesson notes from his own tutors.