by Tasha Suri
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…”
“I will tell you,” said Arwa. “I promise.”
“Then,” he said, “I suppose all we can do is continue to try.”
The both of them did the only thing they could, now that they had made the choice to face their fate. They entered the realm of ash.
Again, Arwa felt the tug of the realm—the yawning, breath-stealing deep of it—before the tea was drunk or the fire lit and blooded. The ash in her head loomed large. But she said nothing to Zahir, only followed the parameters of the ritual, and entered sleep.
They moved through the realm of ash, from Arwa’s storm to Zahir’s forest of great trees and shadows. They moved from forest to desert, over broken bodies, limbs smooth as stone. They moved farther than they ever had before. In the swirling storm, Arwa thought she saw her sister once more, a distant silhouette wreathed in shadow with a familiar braid flung over its shoulder. Brown, living skin. Head turning, as if to the sound of a voice. Arwa’s heart twisted with hurt, a terrible knot. She looked away.
She could not indulge her grief. Not now.
Abruptly, Zahir stopped.
“I cannot go farther,” he said.
“Can’t or won’t?” asked Arwa.
“Can’t.” He held his hand before him. Around the blood roots, his hand had faded; light poured through shattered facets of flesh that barely resembled the shape of fingers, of a wrist, of a palm. “This feels,” he said, “like an end.”
He stared into the distance.
Then: “Your blood, the fire built from the dust of Irinah—none of it is enough. We cannot do it.”
“Pull back with me,” she said softly. “Let the roots take you home.”<
br />
They returned to the waking world. Rose to their feet. Arwa grabbed the water carafe as Zahir rubbed his knuckles over his closed eyes, frowning and thoughtful.
When she offered him the water—after drinking some herself—he said, “We need to go to Irinah. Nothing else will work. Nothing else will be swift enough for our need.”
“And you think,” Arwa said, all even disbelief, “that anyone is going to allow you or me to visit Irinah? To leave the palace, after what the Emperor said of you?”
“I can ask Jihan,” he said.
“She has no more power than she did before, my lord.”
“She is now the head of the household of the Emperor’s heir,” Zahir replied. “And there is no other way to reach the Maha’s ash. I can only ask. And hope.”
He did not sound convinced. Arwa was not either.
“I will talk to her,” he said. “Don’t worry, Lady Arwa.”
Of course she worried.
She went to the dovecote tower to watch the dawn. She saw no bird-spirits there this time: only pale light rising in the distance, and the city of Jah Ambha spread out before her, beyond the expanse of water surrounding the sprawl of the imperial palace.
When she returned to her own room she thought unceasingly of the realm of ash, of the defeated slump of Zahir’s shoulders, of Ushan and Nazrin and all the ghosts within her still, their ash in her skull and soul. She thought of her sister’s ghost, a thing so horribly alive that it filled her gut with poisonously false hope.
Zahir had told her the dangers of the realm of ash, of breaking away from the protection of shared blood roots. Well, Arwa was now reaping the consequences of her own foolishness. She had broken away from him, felt the ash of her broken ancestors, and carried it with her now. She could not shake it. Sometimes, in truth, the world of the ash—of Ushan and Nazrin, of her sister smiling and alive—felt more real than Arwa’s own mortal life.
What the ash had done to her was no different from the way Zahir could now embroider, could shape familiar stars. And yet it was entirely different. Traumatic. A colder, more difficult burden.
What would it be like holding the Maha in his skin? Worse. To know what it was to be Amrithi was to know family and love, and persecution and fear, rites of worship and magic in the blood. To know what it was to be the Maha…
A shudder ran through her at the thought. The ash rose within her too. She felt its shadow steal through her veins. Her flesh.
She held her hands before her. The one scarred, the other nearly unmarked. She turned them before her. She remembered the shape of a knife in her hand. The shape of sigils her ancestors had used to speak to the daiva in their own language. She reached for that knowledge now, out of curiosity, out of a fear that was half hunger: How much still remained with her?
She felt the ash rise higher within her, felt knowledge bloom, somehow sharp as glass. A rite was a form of worship. A rite communicated with the daiva, worshipped the daiva. Feet firm to the ground, tying one to earth. Hands to the air, to touch sky. The body as the conduit between.
Arwa raised her hands. Widened her stance.
Breathing deep, she moved. Sigils flickered on her fingers, hands drawing into unfamiliar shapes. Muscles unused to the actions took a hairsbreadth of a moment to respond, but respond they did.
It was only when she stopped, panting, that she knew what she had done, cobbled together from a patchwork of ash. The Rite of Shelter. A safe harbor from the storm. A rite Nazrin had performed, to protect her children, foolish as the hope was.
She had prayed for safety with the same foolish hope as her ancestors. She stared down at her hands, then drew them up to her face, holding them to her skin. In the cover of her own palms, she felt shielded from the weight of her own crushing fear.
I don’t want to die, she thought. But I can’t leave. I won’t.
I chose this path. I will see it to the end.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Emperor was not yet dead, but the household was already preparing for mourning. Even Jihan’s women—unmarried noblewomen, or wives of senior courtiers—put aside their usual bright silks for pale clothes, unmarked and austere. In the interim, there were no feasts or parties, no wine or dancing girls or soft music for evening entertainment. The men, Arwa gathered from whispers, were equally subdued. The court was holding its breath for the Emperor’s death, and for the inevitability of a new Emperor’s reign.
Akhtar’s reign.
In quieter whispers still, Arwa heard of the naming of the Maha’s heir. A blessed son. Yes, named before the Emperor’s own courtiers. But they did not know this blessed, the widows and charity women, and if Jihan’s confidantes knew of Zahir, they were careful to maintain their silence.
Jihan was pale and withdrawn. If she was glad Akhtar would soon rule, erasing himself beneath the title of Emperor, she did not show it. Her warnings sat heavy on Arwa’s overfull skull.
Arwa sought out Gulshera, who for once was not at Jihan’s side. Instead she was in the prayer room set aside for the elders. She sat on the floor, cross-legged before the faceless effigy of the Maha and the Emperor. Her back was ramrod straight.
“I have something for you, Aunt,” said Arwa.
Gulshera turned. There were shadows beneath her eyes.
“Arwa,” she said, by way of greeting. She tilted her head, gesturing with the jut of her chin at the small bundle clutched in Arwa’s hands. “What is that?”
“Letters,” said Arwa. “For my mother and father. I don’t care for writing letters usually, but…”
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.”