Her tone was light enough. Still, there was a shadowed, haunted look to her face that belied her words. She looked at Arwa’s shoulder. Looked up. “You’re still alive, then?”
“I told you I’d try my best,” said Arwa. “I’m glad you left, Eshara. I wouldn’t have wanted to mourn you.”
Eshara lowered her eyes. Zahir kneeled by Arwa’s side. She felt the roots between them, the sureness of him in two worlds, and held out her hand. He took it.
Eshara began to speak once more.
“After we made it to safety—after a full night hiding in the desert, by the way, and wasn’t that a thrill with a handful of hysterical pilgrims—we made it to Jah Irinah. The locals were restless, saying soldiers had angered the daiva, driven the spirits into frenzy. They said anyone who walked into the desert would be ripped apart. I tracked down the Amrithi guide we’d been recommended. I offered him all the money I had to take me back to where we’d last been. I thought at least I could…” She swallowed. “Well, I thought they might have killed you there. I thought I’d see you buried. He refused.”
Eshara bent forward. Tucked Arwa’s blanket around her legs, not looking up. “He came and found me this morning. Said his Tara had told him to find me, whatever that means.” She lifted her gaze. “I think your sister might be important, Arwa.”
Of course her sister was important. The other Amrithi deferred to her. She had amata. She’d survived the Maha’s service. She’d seen Arwa somehow in the space between worlds, in ash and dreams and desert, and reached for her. And she was Arwa’s family. That was enough.
“A Tara is an Amrithi clan leader,” Arwa said simply.
“Well, I’m right, then.” She hesitated. “I assume—you haven’t found the Maha’s ash?”
A pause. Then Arwa shook her head and Zahir said, “No. There was nothing to find. He’s beyond our reach.”
Eshara cursed, and Arwa met Zahir’s eyes.
She had asked Mehr to bring Eshara here not for affection alone. Eshara had risked her life for their task—for the bare scrap of hope the Maha’s ash offered.
“The world can still be saved,” Zahir said slowly. “And Arwa and I, we have a plan for how to do it. If the Hidden Ones are willing to help us.”
“We have a rite that will hold the nightmares, after all, and prayer,” Arwa said. “We have a path into the realm of ash. And we have… a hope. It will not be easy or quick or without danger. It will be the slow way toward the Empire’s survival. But it is still a way. Will you help us, Eshara? Will you ask any Hidden Ones you trust if they may want to ally with us, and share our knowledge and our purpose?”
Eshara looked between them for a moment. Then she scowled and rubbed her knuckles between her eyes.
“You two,” she said. “As if I haven’t almost died for the both of you.” She sat down. “Tell me what you want from the Hidden Ones, and I’ll see what I can do.”
That evening, still weak, shaking, Arwa walked out into the desert. The members of Mehr’s clan who had been tasked with guarding Arwa’s tent didn’t stop her, though they protested. Only Zahir nodded and said he would wait for her with Eshara.
Arwa walked out into the black of the desert, the cold sky above her. Arwa walked the realm of ash, crossing eddies rich in colorless light. She walked in two worlds now, held steady by deep roots, by the beat of two hearts.
She felt Zahir behind her. Her blood and life. He did not need to fear for her. He knew her like she knew him. It was like knowing the shape of your own breath.
She would learn how to survive here, in two worlds, in two skins. She would learn how to be more than a noblewoman, with more than her own foolish, fierce bravado to fuel her. And if her life would be cut short, if the sacrifice Zahir had made of his own strength would only sustain them so long—well. What a glorious life it would be.
She would bring Sohal here, if he wanted to be brought. She would show him how the desert moved, and teach him what she knew.
She would tell the truth to Diya. The widow had a right to that too. After all, she had faced an army with the strength of hope alone, with hands full of grief and her voice full of fire.
She and Zahir would leave the desert. They had nightmares to face. They had the teachings of the Maha’s heir to share: teachings of the power of prayer and grave-tokens against the dark. Perhaps she would go and see her mother and her father then. She would face them as the person she was now, with her ash eyes, her full heart, her spirit that walked two worlds, and see if they had the strength to understand her, and she the strength to forgive them.
She would seek out the nightmares with Zahir at her side. She, the widowed witch who was Amrithi and Ambhan both, who knew the secrets of the dead, and he the Emperor’s blessed son, who was called Maha’s heir by those who spun their hopes around him, and wore his knowledge like a blade. They would save what they could, she and him, one nightmare at a time. And they would see what new world awaited at the end of their path.
But first…
She stood still.
She waited.
A breath or two passed, and then the bird-spirits landed, surrounding her. Their eyes were bright in the dark. Careful of her shoulder, Arwa drew her hands together. A sigil for respect.
“Spirit. I’ve long wondered why you protected me, of all Amrithi-blooded people in this world. I have heard the whispers of the dead and now I think I know why you defend me.” She looked at it, soft-winged, dark and bright. “You were in Darez Fort with me, weren’t you?” she said, holding her arms out, her scarred hands outstretched, forming a question in her stance, a sigil on her hands. Follow? “You were there when the nightmare almost killed me. You were controlling it. You were its balance.”
Nightmare.
Lock?
A susurration of wings.
“The soldiers frightened you,” said Arwa. “Or perhaps the sight of me, at the lattice, shocked you. I only know you let the nightmare go, and very many people died.”
Hands turning. Unlock. Free.
“You made a vow to my birth mother’s people,” said Arwa. “To my sister’s people. And yet I was harmed. However unwittingly, you broke your word.”
Vow.
Hands against one another. Abrupt turn of them. Just so.
Broken.
The daiva splintered about her, smaller and smaller still, until the birds were like bursts of shadow against the greater night’s dark.
“Is that why you followed me from Darez Fort? Why you protected me there, and protect me still?” She shaped nothing. “Please,” she said. “Tell me.”
The birds wavered, drew together into one formless many-eyed being, as they had on the dovecote tower once before.
It shaped arms—hands like clawed spindles. The sigil for forgiveness formed in the air before her. There was a question in its stance, the wavering turn of its shadow.
It splintered back, once more, into birds.
It was like a creature cursed, she thought. Under a spell of its own grief, it could not leave her, and it could not be as it once was: ancient, child-shaped. A daiva of strange strength.
“You gave me wings at the imperial palace,” Arwa said, voice thick. “You saved my life time and time again. Of course I forgive you.”