Empire of Sand

by Tasha Suri

  The guardswoman to Maryam’s left took a small step forward. Her eyes on Mehr were hard. She was just waiting for Maryam to give the word, her hands flexing eagerly at her sides.

  The women’s quarters were Maryam’s domain, the place where she ruled with the same assurance as a Governor ruled in the stead of his distant Emperor. Her servants were loyal to a fault, and their dislike of Mehr was an obedient shadow of Maryam’s own. But some—like the guardswoman standing before her—looked at Mehr with a hatred that rose not from loyalty or expediency but from a true rejection of Mehr’s nature, her choices, her blood.

  Mehr looked back, then forced herself to look away.

  The rage in Mehr hadn’t faded over the last few hours, merely hardened like diamond flesh. It was the only thing keeping her whole, keeping her standing strong, but it also made her hungry to hurt the guardswoman before her, or better yet, hurt Maryam all over again. Viciousness burned in her blood. Only the sight of Maryam’s hand against Arwa’s hair cracked the armor of anger inside her.

  Maryam’s love for Arwa was a harsh thing, by turns tender and possessive. Mehr knew Maryam would continue to deny Arwa the Amrithi traditions that were her right. She would mold Arwa into the child she wanted. But she would also keep Arwa safe, which was more than Mehr could do for her sister, no matter how much she loved her.

  The desire to make Maryam hurt the way she was hurting was pointless. It wouldn’t win her a moment with Arwa; it wouldn’t allow her the opportunity to say good-bye. All the power lay in Maryam’s hands. Rage would keep Mehr going until all this was over, but for the task of swaying Maryam to her will, the truth was a better tool.

  “You’re leaving,” Mehr said softly. “And when you return, I’ll be gone. You’ve won. She’s yours.” She kept her gaze fixed and her head high. They weren’t reluctant mother and daughter any longer. As of now, they would be nothing to one another, and as close to equals as it was possible for them to be. “Let me talk to my sister,” Mehr said.

  Something flickered in Maryam’s eyes—an emotion Mehr couldn’t read, or name. She raised her hand and gave Arwa’s cheek a brush with her knuckles.

  “Come and take her,” she said. “Bring her back when she is calm.”

  Mehr walked up to the dais. Maryam took her by the shoulder and drew her down, fingers digging hard into Mehr’s skin. Her breath was soft against Mehr’s hair.

  “You won’t need to fear for Arwa,” she whispered, too softly, Mehr hoped, for Arwa to hear her. “I’m going to raise her as my own. She will be my good Ambhan daughter, loved and sheltered, and one day she will forget she ever had a sister. I promise, Mehr: I will make sure she doesn’t miss you at all.”

  Maryam’s grip loosened. Not meeting her eyes, Mehr took Arwa into her arms. Arwa was too heavy to be carried easily, but she wrapped her arms and legs around Mehr, and that made it easier. Mehr could feel her tears dampening her shoulder. She turned and walked out of the Hall toward her own chambers.

  “Hush now,” she murmured against Arwa’s hair. “Hush, my dove, hush.”

  But Arwa would not hush. So as Mehr walked down familiar corridors to her own chambers, she began to sing an old lullaby, the kind that had always comforted Arwa when she was very small. Her voice, along with Arwa’s sobs, echoed through the corridors.

  As Mehr slipped into her own chambers, her sister still held in her arms, she heard Arwa’s voice pipe up. “What are you singing?”

  “A lullaby,” Mehr said. “Our birth mother used to sing it to us.”

  Mehr carried Arwa into her room. She sat down on the bed. Arwa didn’t let go of her, but she began to hum a shaky copy of Mehr’s song. Then she stopped. “Am I singing it right?” she asked.

  Mehr sang the lullaby over again and Arwa’s voice followed hers. Her little sister’s voice was hoarse from crying, but she had a good ear for music and picked the tune up quickly. By the time she’d mastered the simple lullaby, she had stopped weeping entirely.

  “I don’t want to go,” Arwa said.

  “Maryam will be with you,” Mehr said. “You’ll be quite safe. And it will be an adventure.”

  Arwa sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I still don’t want to go,” she said. “Why can’t you come too?”

  “I’m meeting a suitor,” Mehr said. “I’ll be having my own adventure.”

  “I can’t come?”

  Mehr pinched her cheek, making Arwa scowl. “You’re not old enough, little sister.”

  “I don’t want to go without you.”

  “Oh, Arwa,” Mehr said sadly. She saw Arwa’s scowl begin to melt, her lower lip trembling. She stood up. “Don’t. You’re—”

  “I’m not too old to cry,” Arwa said fiercely. “I’m not. Don’t say it.”

  “I have something to give you,” Mehr said. “For your journey.”

  She found what she needed lying in the living room, and brought it back to the bedroom. She placed it on Arwa’s lap. “Be very careful,” she said. “It’s very sharp.”

  Arwa touched the hilt of the dagger. She brushed her fingers carefully over the large opal, the gilt work. She let out a small, awed sigh.

  “It’s an Amrithi blade,” said Mehr.

  “Was it our mother’s?”

  “It’s mine,” said Mehr. “I want you to take it with you. If you cross any daiva on your way to Hara …” Mehr shrugged lightly. “Try not to show it to Maryam, hm?”

  Arwa was still looking at the blade in her lap, her eyes wide and reverent.

  “Don’t you want it anymore?” Arwa asked. “It’s—special. Isn’t it?”

  “I want you to feel safe,” Mehr said tenderly. She wrapped her fingers over Arwa’s, showing her how to hold the dagger safely. Then she helped her wrap it in silk and tuck it safely away. “When your adventure is over, bring it back to me. How about that?”

  “Okay,” Arwa whispered.

  “It’s not good-bye forever,” Mehr said. She kissed Arwa’s forehead. “You’ll come home to me, little sister. I promise you that.”

  Maryam and Arwa left just as light broke over the horizon. Mehr watched them from the rooftop, wrapped in a heavy shawl to keep out the cold. She watched until they were a speck in the distance and then longer still, until there was no sight of them at all.

  She slept a little. Not much. When she woke, the women’s quarters were quiet. Instead of breaking the silence by calling for one of the maids to help her dress, Mehr put on her simplest tunic and trousers. She left her hair unbraided. In an hour or so the maids would come to her anyway in order to prepare her for the meeting with the mystic. They would dress her up lavishly all over again and mold her into exactly the Ambhan woman she needed to be.

  Right now Mehr wanted to be herself. Nothing more. She wanted to walk around in her own clothes, in her own unvarnished skin. She had precious little time left to do so.

  She went out into the living room, bare feet silent against cool marble. The weight of her hair brushed softly against her shoulders. Through the perforated screen she could see clear skies and sunlight. How strange, that the world still looked so normal when Mehr’s world was collapsing around her.

  She stretched her limbs, which were stiff with tiredness. She took slow, even breaths, moving her body through gentle exercises to warm the blood. Then she raised her hands above her head and began to dance. Even though her body had grown unused to activity, even though her muscles were sore and her heart was sorer, falling into the first stance felt like coming home.

  Before the storm, she had danced every morning and evening, keeping each rite that Lalita had so painstakingly taught her fresh in her memory. Dancing again made Mehr feel like the girl she’d been before the dreamfire and the blood. She missed that girl. She missed her old petty worries, her confidence, her strength.

  But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She moved from the first stance into the Funeral Rite.

  She should have danced for Usha on the night she’d died. By now Usha
had been cremated as was Chand custom, her ashes scattered to the desert winds. Mehr had failed to honor her for long enough. She whirled, head lowered. She moved like grief moved, in endless circles that felt like they had no beginning or end, circles that swallowed up her senses until there was nothing but swirling grief and weightlessness. Her hands shaped sigils that spoke of life and loss.

  She remembered the first time she had met Lalita and Usha, when she’d been nothing but a child and her mother had been focused on newborn Arwa’s care. She remembered Lalita’s beauty, the sheen of her hair. Her gentle voice. Lalita had dressed like a Chand woman, hair loose with a sari draped neatly around her body, but Mehr had known what she was.

  I am your mother’s friend, Lady Mehr. And I would like to be yours, if you’ll accept my teaching.

  Of course Mehr had said yes. She’d been a lonely child, and her mother had already begun to fade away from her, steady as ink stretched thin with water.

  She remembered how Usha had hovered, at first, nothing but a silent presence at Mehr’s early lessons with Lalita. She’d terrified Mehr—so large and scarred and strong, with that armor and that hard face. It had taken Mehr a long time to see how warm she was, and how kind. She’d been so very kind.

  Good-bye, Usha. You dream with the Gods now.

  When the first maid arrived, Mehr was covered in sweat, her hair tangled. Instead of giving Mehr a significant look, as the maids usually did when Mehr troubled them unduly, the girl simply lowered her eyes and went to work. Mehr supposed there was no value in disliking her any longer. Maryam was gone, and her favor could no longer be won by slighting Mehr.

  It occurred to Mehr that now that Maryam was gone, she was the most powerful woman left in the Governor’s residence. It was an uncomfortable thought.

  Mehr was not used to the kind of overt power Maryam had always possessed: the kind that came only with the right title, the right husband, the right blood flowing through your veins. All her power had been won by struggle. She had always fought so very hard to maintain what little control she had over her own life. She’d managed to continue practicing her Amrithi traditions—despite Maryam’s great displeasure—by using her father’s guilt to her own ends. She had bowed and scraped to Maryam, put aside her own pride time after time, simply for the chance to keep Arwa in her life. Now, for a brief moment, she was the highest-ranking woman in the household. All the power she’d never possessed was in her grasp.

  And once she was wed to the mystic, it never would be again.

  If Mehr had made different choices—if she had left Irinah as her father had wanted, and married a man in Hara or Numriha—she would have had power of her own. A household of women to run, a husband’s burdens and a husband’s power.

  What kind of power would she have as a mystic’s wife? She couldn’t grasp the shape of her future. She couldn’t imagine the forces that would mold her life once she stepped beyond the walls of her father’s household, out into the desert and the vast unknown.

  Other maids arrived. Mehr bathed, and the maids combed, oiled, and threaded her hair. They brought her a robe and underskirt in warm ivory. As Mehr was dressing, Nahira entered and barked orders at the maids, sending them scuttling off in search of pins for her veil and for the silk shawl currently slipping from her shoulders.

  “What are you doing here?” Mehr asked. The night had been long, and sleep scarce. She felt exhausted. She had no idea how Nahira was standing at all. But even though her old nursemaid’s heavy gait was more pronounced, her hair was neat and her eyes as sharp as always.

  “I’ve come to supervise,” Nahira said. “You clearly don’t know what’s needed.”

  “I’ve never been introduced to a suitor before,” Mehr agreed mildly.

  “Look at you,” Nahira tsked. “Have you slept at all?”

  “Have you?” Mehr countered.

  Nahira made a dismissive sound. “Your sash is loose,” she told Mehr. Nahira cinched it tight with one deft hand, noting each fault with Mehr’s clothing out loud. The maids scurried about, fetching and carrying and adjusting Mehr’s long robe and sash, looking steadily more vexed as time went on.

  “I thought you might go with Arwa,” Mehr said tentatively. Nahira snorted and shook her head.

  “Me? No, my lady. I’m too old for such things. I sent Sara in my place,” Nahira said.

  Mehr started at that. Why Sara, of all the maidservants Nahira could have chosen? She remembered Sara’s face in the flickering lantern light. All of this had started with her.

  “Sara,” Mehr repeated.

  “She’ll look after Lady Arwa well enough,” Nahira said. “And perhaps it will keep her out of trouble.” The look she gave Mehr was significant. Nahira had always been protective of Mehr, shielding her from the greater strength and will of her stepmother, until Mehr had been better able to shield herself. She was no less protective of servant girls like Sara, who walked through life without the carapace of wealth and privilege that kept Mehr safe from so many of the world’s harms. “Now stay still, girl. Who braided your hair? What a mess.”

  Mehr was growing tired of being fussed over. She could feel a headache building. Her head was swimming with faces: Sara, Arwa, the mystic woman with her light Ambhan eyes and her Irin flesh. She shook her head when the next maid approached, hands raised.

  “No more. I’ll do it.”

  Nahira shook her head at that, narrowing her eyes.

  “Your veil is crooked,” Nahira said. When a maid started forward, Nahira waved her sharply away. “Leave it to me,” she snapped. “Fools. All of you.”

  “No more!” Mehr snapped. She gave the maids a hard look. “Leave us.”

  The maids trailed out, unruffled by Mehr’s abruptness. Mehr waited until they were gone, then stepped out of Nahira’s reach. She placed herself in front of her mirror and reached for the pins of her veil.

  “Lady Mehr,” Nahira said reproachfully.

  “I can fix my own veil,” Mehr said. For now it was thrown back over her hair, leaving her face bare. She met Nahira’s eyes in the glass. “You need to tell me what has you so worried.”

  There was a surprised silence. Mehr huffed out a sigh.

  “I recognize worry when I see it,” Mehr said impatiently. “Please, Nahira. I don’t have much more time.”

  Nahira’s mouth thinned. “You should have left with your sister,” she said. “You should have run. Fool child.”

  Mehr didn’t respond for a long moment. She made a show of adjusting her jewels, her hair, her veil again.

  “How could I have run from the mystics? Emperor’s grace, Nahira, we pray to their master. Running from them would have done me no good. Where could I run where they wouldn’t find me?”

  “You shouldn’t walk into this pit of vipers.”

  “They’re the Empire’s vipers,” Mehr snapped back. “Better I walk into a pit than have us all thrown into one.”

  She turned to face Nahira. She reined in her temper.

  “Don’t make me doubt myself now,” Mehr said. “I’ve made my choice. There’s nothing I can do to change it.”

  She thought Nahira would argue with her, and part of her—a large part of her—welcomed the idea. She wanted the opportunity to vent some of her rage, which felt too big to carry. It was a terrible weight upon her shoulders.

  Instead Nahira walked over to her and took hold of the seal hung on its length of ribbon around her throat. She adjusted it slightly, so the seal lay centered just against Mehr’s breastbone. Her fingers were trembling.

  “There,” Nahira said. “You look perfect.”

  Mehr swallowed around the lump in her throat. Her anger left her abruptly, and left her small.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For everything.”

  There was nothing more either of them could say. The door opened. A guardswoman stepped in.

  Mehr had run out of time.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mehr’s father was already present and
seated at the corner of the meeting room. He gestured at Mehr to sit. She kneeled down on the floor cushions facing the entrance and took her time arranging the folds of her robe and her veil. She tried to rid herself of nerves.

  The room was a good choice of venue. It was small, but its windows were wide enough for the morning sunlight to pour in. Even with her veil over her eyes, she would be able to see the mystics clearly when they arrived. She wondered if her father had chosen the room for exactly that reason, as a kindness, or if he was simply obeying convention. Perhaps this was the room every Governor’s daughter had met her suitors in. Mehr had no idea. Neither her mother nor Maryam had ever told her what to expect from courtship, and Nahira knew little about the intricacies of courtship among Ambhan nobility.

  “Daughter,” said her father. She looked at him. His face was tired, his mouth thin. “Will you meet your suitor?”

  “I will,” she said.

  He signaled the guardswoman. Moments later she returned, ushering in the female mystic and a tall man dressed in dark robes. Mehr chose to focus on him rather than the woman. He was her suitor, after all. The man who—if a miracle didn’t take place—was going to be her husband.

  Like so many of the other mystics Mehr had seen in the Lotus Hall, his face was swathed by cloth. Only his eyes and the bridge of his nose were revealed, but his head was lowered, hiding his gaze. The little of his skin she could see was dark. She couldn’t tell if he was young or old, ugly or handsome. He was simply male, broad-shouldered and intimidating with footsteps that were soft, too soft. He had a predator’s tread.

  She watched him walk over to the floor cushions directly across from her. He kneeled down without making a sound. Seated he towered over her, big scarred hands pressed to his knees, his wide shoulders hunched. She found herself wishing for a partition screen between. Even with her veil in place she felt vulnerable and small.

  The female mystic seated herself in a corner of the room in the position of a chaperone, just like Mehr’s father. The sight of her made laughter bubble in Mehr’s throat. She held it back. Mehr’s suitor patently required no chaperone. He was no young noble or merchant’s son. He needed no protection, no guidance in the rules of courtship. He was a beast and interloper and apparently he would have her, rules be damned.