“You’re not… strong enough to carry me,” she slurred out.
“That’s the woman I know,” he said. “One foot in front of the other. Come on now.”
Trembling, she rose from the wall she had been leaning on. As she found her footing, the ash began to recede, color returning to the world around her. It was daylight, but they were in a narrow street, walls near closing in on them. She could smell rotting food, animal shit, cooking fires. The window lattices above them had flowers or fabric laced through them, to cover cracks between the frameworks of wood and stone. They were not in the refined corridors of the imperial palace any longer.
“Where…?”
“Jah Ambha,” he said. “Your—spirit. Daiva. It lowered us to the ground just beyond the lake. We ran from there.”
Arwa could not remember running.
She looked down. Her clothes were caked in soil. Zahir’s own tunic was stained and ragged.
“You don’t remember,” he said. “Do you?”
She shook her head, and instantly regretted the action, as very real flesh-and-bone nausea made the world tilt around her. He grabbed her before she could fall, then swore; holding her up was aggravating his wounds. Biting her cheek, Arwa straightened up again, leaning the barest increment of her weight on him.
“I can walk. I—I think. For a little while.”
Not long, though. Not long.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know the city as I once did. But I think this is the way. I hope.”
She did not ask him where he was taking her. Her vision was fading once again. She was becoming a stranger to herself. The realm of ash had her in its grip, and she was older than flesh. Old as dreaming. She exhaled, one long pained breath, and black wings unfurled darkly around her.
“One foot in front of the other,” he said. “That’s it.”
Somehow, she obeyed.
Something soft beneath her head. The sound of someone humming, a lilting and melodious tune.
Vision returned to Arwa slowly. There was light coming in from a high window, its lattice shaped to resemble a tree with great swirling branches. The wall beneath it was faintly cracked; it made it appear, absurdly, as if roots were burrowing through the plain room. There was a woman at the other end of the room, bent over a steaming pot, head lowered.
Arwa’s mouth was dry. Her entire body hurt. It was hard to stay conscious. She blinked. Blinked again. When she opened her mouth, nothing but an embarrassing croak came out.
The woman turned.
She was an older woman, with a sharp nose and full mouth, full-figured in a plain robe bound with a sash covered in bright flowers. She walked over to Arwa cautiously.
“Are you awake?” she asked. Arwa managed to blink—answer enough, it seemed for the woman to continue. “Do you know who you are?”
Arwa had a faint memory of Zahir’s voice, sharp with the grit of pain. She doesn’t know herself. I think she’s sick. You know what I can offer you in return for your help. Please—
“Where is Lord Zahir?” Arwa asked. Her own voice hurt.
The woman’s face creased with worry. She took a step closer, and Arwa’s hands curled into involuntary fists.
The woman stopped.
“Ah, not confusion, then. You just don’t trust me. Well, that’s fine, dear,” the woman said. She held her hands up and open, in a placating manner. “He is well, I promise you.”
Arwa said nothing.
For a long moment the woman was silent. Then she crouched down, hands clasped, and said, “He tells me you’re a scholar.”
“I am,” said Arwa.
“Perhaps you know this, then,” said the woman. And then she began to recite one of the Hidden One’s poems, low and mellifluous, her voice made for music.
“I know it,” Arwa admitted, when the woman went silent.
“His mother was a sister in my order,” said the woman. “My name is Aliye, and I have known Zahir since… ah, since he was only a small boy. I have not seen his face for many years, but we’ve exchanged letters for a long, long time.”
Zahir had told her he had connections beyond the palace. Arwa swallowed, throat sore, and said, “I know who I am, Lady Aliye.”
“I am not a lady, dear. But you may call me aunt, if you wish.” She rose back to her feet. “You should rest. I have water. Medicine, too, in the pot.”
For all that her throat hurt and her body ached, Arwa did not want water or medicine. She was not so trusting yet, hurt or no, ash or no.
“Zahir,” said Arwa. “Is he well? He was—wounded.”
“Yes,” Aliye said. But there was a waver in her voice, a sound leeched of color.
She urged Arwa to have some water again, but Arwa shook her head, dizzy and sick with it.
“I want to see him. Please.”
The woman hesitated, then turned.
“I will bring him to you.” A mutter. “Better he sees you’re well for himself, anyway.”
There was a long wait, and Arwa was not sure she would be able to stay awake. She closed her eyes for a moment, wrung out with exhaustion. In the distance, she could hear singing—a faint, warbling song about lovers and their amorous games. If she’d had the energy, she would have blushed.
Zahir walked in. He wore no turban, and his hair was longer than she had expected, pin straight where it touched his jaw. He was wan, and he walked carefully, his tunic loose enough to accommodate a bandage. But he was whole.
“Lady Arwa,” he said. “I’m glad you’re awake. And you—remember yourself?”
“Your wound,” she murmured. “Is it paining you?”
A faint smile. “We will see if it heals clean. But I hope it will.”
She wanted to ask him many things—of the palace, of daiva, of their flight that hung in shards in the storm of her memory. Of the soldiers and his blood and her own. But instead she said, “Can I trust…?”
Could she trust Aliye? Could she trust this place—trust anyone but him?
It was terrifying to realize how much weight she placed upon his answer. She trusted Zahir, at least, implicitly. In the panic of that bloody night, she had not even considered leaving him behind.
“I trust her,” said Zahir. “You can also, if you wish.”
“You promised her something.”
“Nothing I can’t afford to give.”
Aliye cleared her throat. Zahir looked down and said, “Drink a little. You have a fever.” A line of worry knitted his brow.
If he trusted Aliye, it would have to be enough.
Arwa drank, clumsy. Zahir helped her, carefully holding the cup.
Arwa closed her eyes then, resisting the urge to ask him not to go. All well and good. When she next opened her eyes, he was gone.
She fell in and out of slumber and fever over and over again. Sometimes she saw ash before her eyes. Other times she simply dreamed. Sometimes Aliye was there, sometimes not. Once, in something like a dream, Arwa thought she saw a new woman watching her from the doorway, her long shadow reaching across the floor. But that was only once, and fever lied.
Aliye brought her food fit for an invalid, and showed her where to bathe and relieve herself. She was a kind nursemaid, but Arwa had a sense she was consuming time that Aliye did not readily have available. Sometimes the older woman appeared with rouged lips and a brocade gown, hurrying in and out of the room, leaving the scent of perfume behind her. At night, Arwa heard not just singers but distant male voices and women’s laughter.