by Tasha Suri
Her father may have said that there would be no music or dance, but this was the wedding of the Governor’s daughter. All the noble guests—and there would be guests, despite the short notice—would expect the Governor to provide a respectable celebration in honor of his daughter’s marriage. The servants understood that. They recognized the unspoken expectations of his station, and their own.
Mehr’s station gave her the privilege of taking no part in the preparations. She sat in her room, worse than useless, as the maids fussed over her. All she could do was wait and wait, agonizing over what was to come.
Nahira took it upon herself to make the experience infinitely more difficult by hovering over Mehr with all the ferocity of a tiger protecting her cub. The seamstress arrived to fit Mehr for a hastily made bridal robe, and Nahira nearly made her stab Mehr with a needle by scolding her until she was a nervous wreck. The maids came with questions; Nahira sent them scattering. Mehr tolerated all of this. But when Nahira began explaining what happened between a husband and wife in the marriage bed in extensive, excruciating detail, Mehr found that she’d reached her limit.
“I know what men and women do,” Mehr snapped. “Gods, Nahira, Lalita was—is—a courtesan. She told me enough.”
Nahira huffed, making low sounds under her breath that didn’t sound particularly complimentary.
“Is my hearing going?” Mehr said. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
Nahira gave her a level look. Then she said in a clearer voice, “Your father should have told you about that. Not her.”
Mehr shuddered. “I’m glad he didn’t. I can’t imagine a conversation I’d like less.”
“If Lady Maryam hadn’t left, then she would be the one sitting here telling you about the marriage bed.” Mehr grimaced and put her face in her hands. Nahira patted her shoulder. “There you are. It could always be worse.”
After that Nahira was quieter, perhaps aware now of how fear had altered her behavior and made a fool of her. The quiet left Mehr far too much room to think, and she regretted having snapped at her old nursemaid. There was nothing Mehr could have done to alleviate Nahira’s worry except allow her to fuss, and she had even denied Nahira that comfort. But Mehr hadn’t wanted to think of her wedding night, and Nahira had forced her to do so.
Now that she had begun thinking about it, she couldn’t make herself stop. As the evening of her wedding came, as her maids dressed her, as they marked her with scent and lined her eyes with kohl, as her lips were daubed red, she thought of the night ahead. She was going to be intimate with a stranger. Not only would his duties be her duties, his burdens her burdens, but his body would become an extension of her own. Marriage was a matter of the soul, but Mehr had willfully forgotten that it was also a matter of flesh.
It’s too late to run, Mehr reminded herself.
Nahira didn’t hug her good-bye. She pressed Mehr’s hands between her own, her grip firm and her mouth thin.
“Good-bye, Lady Mehr,” she said. Her voice trembled. She swallowed. “Take care.”
Mehr nodded, unable to speak. She had to be brave, and if she spoke she would cry.
Guards guided her to the Lotus Hall. Rather than slipping behind the partition screen with the other women, Mehr was led to the main entrance. Through her veil, she could see the vastness of the room and smell the sweet perfume of the flowers wreathed along the walls. Noblemen watched her from the edges. Behind the partition screen, the women watched Mehr too, their bodies reduced to blurred shadows. With all eyes on her, Mehr began walking to the center of the Hall, where her groom awaited under the wedding canopy.
Mehr was drenched in gold. Flowers were wound through her braid. The weight of her robe was ridiculous. But Amun was dressed in the same dark, heavy robes he had worn the entire time he had been in Jah Irinah. All the mystics, who stood in a ring around the canopy, were dressed similarly. It shouldn’t have surprised Mehr that they were making a mockery of her marriage. It was no different from what they had done so far, after all.
Before she could reach the canopy, her father stood in her path. He took her arm.
“Blessings on you, daughter.” His voice was rough.
“And you, Father.”
Holding on to her, he guided her last few steps toward the canopy. Then, reluctantly, he let go of her arm and stepped back into the crowd.
I release you, the act said. You belong to another man now.
The act was only symbolic. But Mehr, of all people, knew that rites and rituals had power.
She did not want to belong to Amun or to the Great One he served. But she stepped under the canopy regardless.
Kalini was presiding over the ceremony, of course. If the wedding had been a true celebration and not the farce it was, her father would have selected a senior member of the local nobility to preside over the ceremony. Being selected would have been a great sign of his favor. Her father had himself led numerous wedding ceremonies in the past, as was his right as a respected member of the nobility and Governor of the province.
Mehr saw Kalini take a step forward from the rest of her kind, heard her sonorous voice ring out, echoing over the Hall as she began the traditional marriage chant. The words washed over Mehr. They didn’t matter. All her focus was on Amun.
His face was still covered, but she could see the bridge of his nose and his dark eyes. She looked at him and thought of the marriage bed. She couldn’t help but think of it.
There was a lull in the chanting.
“Lady Mehr,” someone prompted. Mehr started. One of the mystics was looking at her. “Your seal,” he said.
Face burning, Mehr slipped her seal from around her neck. Amun mirrored her movement, lifting his own seal up on its length of wound silk. Before, it had been hidden under his robe, but now Mehr could see that the surface of it was bare of all names but his own and marked with a winding symbol like a whorl of sand that Mehr didn’t recognize.
Mehr crossed the last handspan of distance between them and raised her own seal up. Amun leaned down, allowing Mehr to slip it over his head. As the ribbon slid over his neck and the circle of stone touched his breastbone, Amun went very still. He took a soft, pained breath. Then he straightened up and swiftly slipped his own seal around Mehr’s throat.
Mehr heard the chanting rise through the Hall as the nobles and servants and guards all took up the call, acknowledging the moment the vows were agreed, the marriage bond formed. But they were all drowned out by the sharp pain spearing through Mehr’s chest, a burning like cold fire that raced from the edges of her new seal directly into her skin. Her first shocked cry was masked by the chanting. She wanted to cry out louder and demand help, but Amun was looking at her and opening his eyes wide in warning. He gave a small, pointed shake of his head.
There was no time anyway. The last part of the ceremony had already begun. A long length of gold cloth was lifted up by the servants and drawn around the edges of the canopy. In seclusion for the first time, hidden by thick and masking cloth, Mehr was supposed to greet her new husband by lifting her veil and showing him her face. Instead she tried to reach for the seal on her chest.
“No,” Amun said sharply, keeping his voice low. “You don’t want to touch it yet, my lady.”
“Why not?” Mehr asked. Her voice was a furious whisper. “What just happened?”
“Not here. Finish this first.” The cloth rustled around them, the chanting continued, and Mehr didn’t move. “Finish this,” he repeated. “Lift your veil, and we can be done with this farce.”
“You first,” she said. He glared at her. “I deserve to see your face. Surely I have earned the right.” A beat. Mehr clenched her hands tight. “Do you want to stand here forever, husband? Because I promise you I won’t relent.”
Beaten, Amun reached for the cloth around his face. The deft removal of one knot allowed it to fall, pooling around his shoulders. He raised his head in the dim light and let her look at him.
Mehr’s breath caught.
<
br /> Dark skin. Dark eyes. She should have guessed. When she’d seen his dark hands—dark like her own—she should have known.
If she had seen his face before—those distinctive features, the high cheekbones, the fierce shape of the jaw, the full mouth, all strangely like her own features yet not at all—she would have known what he was in an instant.
Amun was Amrithi.
There were marks on his cheeks. She thought they were scars at first, but when he turned his head they gleamed blue in the light, and she wasn’t sure anymore.
He reached for her veil and lifted it up just long enough to see her face. Then he let it fall back into place.
“Mehr,” he said in a louder voice. “My wife.”
Now that he had acknowledged the marriage, the ceremony was done. The gold cloth lowered around them, allowing the sound of muted cheering to pour in. They were married.
The feast was strained. The nobles present attempted to put on a good show, but Mehr was too nervous to do more than pick at her food. Beside her, Amun ate nothing.
As the night dragged on and the men drank more spiced wine, the feast grew louder and merrier. Mehr and Amun were left to sit in their own sea of silence. Mehr’s chest itched, still tingling even though the original burning pain had passed. It was hard to resist touching her skin or the seal itself, but she held fast.
Finish this, he’d said. So she would. She would get through this. Then when they were alone, she would demand her answers.
But the night stretched on and on. The noise of the guests was growing unbearable, and Mehr could feel Kalini’s eyes on her, constantly assessing her. When Mehr thought she could stand it no longer, Amun rose. He held his hand out to her. Mehr let out a shuddering breath and took it.
They retired to a room Mehr had never seen before, one of the many bedrooms in the Governor’s residence left long empty. The room had been cleaned in preparation for its use as a bridal suite, and the lanterns on the walls flamed brightly. The scent of incense hung in the air. The bed was scattered with soft pillows and rose petals, as if someone had foolishly assumed they would want or need romance.
Once the doors were firmly shut, Amun immediately began removing his robes. Underneath them he wore a plain sleeveless tunic and trousers. Mehr threw back her veil. Vision improved, she could see now that his bare arms were covered with the same deep blue marks as his face. They were long whorls and loops that looked like language, just like the symbols Mehr had seen on Amun’s seal.
As he began to remove the sash of his tunic, Mehr froze.
Amun looked over at her. “You asked me for an explanation,” he said. “It’s easier to show you first.”
He finished untying his sash and drew his tunic open at the chest. There were more marks across the skin of his torso, but the one that caught Mehr’s eye instantly was the one on his breastbone: a pale scarred circle, filled with the names of Mehr’s ancestors.
He was marked with her seal.
“What?” Mehr’s voice was shaky. She took a step forward. “How—?”
“Your mother,” said Amun. “When you were a child, did she tell you why Amrithi don’t marry?” Mehr shook her head. “Amrithi are descended from daiva, Lady Mehr.”
“I know that. But I—”
“Daiva have great strength. Great power. But their vows are binding. Their vows are unbreakable.”
“I don’t understand,” Mehr said, even as dawning knowledge ran cold through her bones.
He looked at Mehr with something like pity. “We don’t marry because we don’t make vows. To do so is to risk binding ourselves permanently.” He gestured at the mark on his chest. “When I bound myself in marriage to you, the vow marked itself on my skin. It will be there for the rest of our lives.”
She clutched the new seal. Clutched it so hard that the edges bit into her palm.
“I didn’t know that,” Mehr said faintly. Her voice came from far away. Shock had made her numb. “Why didn’t I know?”
“Few Amrithi are afflicted with enough of our ancestral blood to have the gift of amata, the gift in our blood that allows us to be bound,” he said impassively. “Perhaps your mother neglected to tell you because she thought your Ambhan blood would protect you from inheriting the strongest of our gifts.”
His words cut through the numbness like a knife, leaving Mehr stripped bare. She sat down abruptly on the bed, curling her legs beneath her as if reducing her size would reduce the weight of the knowledge. A vow. Unbreakable. Gods, what had she walked into?
Amun hesitated visibly. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed. Mehr was glad he left a large distance between them.
“This gift,” Mehr managed to say. “This—curse. You think I have it?”
Amun nodded. “You wear the vow on your skin,” he said. “You must have it. No doubt if your mother had known your strength, she would have warned you.”
“No doubt,” Mehr agreed. Or Lalita would have. But even Lalita had left Mehr in the dark.
More softly now, he continued. “Half Ambhan, raised hidden in this place, you should have passed beneath the Maha’s notice. But you revealed your strength, didn’t you? You did something foolish that drew our Maha’s many eyes.” He hesitated. “Something in the last storm.”
Something foolish. Yes, Mehr supposed dancing with dreamfire in the storm, barefaced and alone, qualified. It had been an act of pure desperation. All she had wanted was to save Lalita. Instead she had drawn the attention of the Emperor’s eyes, and with a swiftness that terrified her, his mystics had appeared, the name of the first Emperor a terrible prayer on their lips.
Mehr nodded silently.
“Well then,” Amun said. “Once he knew of your amata gift, he knew a vow could bind you. And here we are.”
“What do you want me for?” she asked. “Why marry me?”
“I didn’t want you,” he said bluntly. “But I made vows to the Maha. I do as I’m bid.”
Against her will, her gaze lowered to his arms. Those marks were vows, she realized. Every single one of them was an unbreakable promise, limned in deep blue against his skin.
Amun followed her gaze and smiled humorlessly. “I made too many vows,” he said. “And now my burdens are your burdens too.”
Oh. Mehr saw the cleverness of it, even as she recoiled from it. The Maha had ensured that his mystics bound Mehr by both her Ambhan and her Amrithi blood. Because she was an Ambhan woman, her husband’s burdens were her burdens. She had made an Ambhan promise, but her Amrithi blood had turned that promise into unbreakable chains, a vow like a noose around her neck. Panic wanted to grip at her insides. She couldn’t let it.
“If you could look away, husband, I would appreciate it.” His own vows, she realized, climbed up to his hairline. Her eyes followed them with a helpless kind of horror. What had become of her own flesh? “I need to see my mark for myself.”
Amun stood and walked to the corner of the room without a word. He turned his back on her.
Mehr unpinned her veil and struggled with her wedding silks. She had been dressed by multiple maids, and the costume was far too elaborate for Mehr to remove it without assistance. There was no simple sash at the waist for her to unknot. She had an inkling that Amun was supposed to help her undress. The idea of it made her stomach knot with sickened anxiety. She struggled to shift her robe just enough for her to see the mark.
It lay just above her breasts. Unlike the deep blue marks all over Amun’s skin, the scar from his seal on her chest was pale, whitish. It was an ugly thing.
She adjusted her clothes, covering the scar back up. Then she raised her head. Amun was still standing with his back to her. She was thankful for that.
She leaned forward. The sound of her wedding silks rasping against the bed made him tense visibly. His hands were clasped behind him and clenched; the muscles in his arms stood in relief.
No wonder he went to such lengths to keep himself entirely covered. His voice was a good mask, but his body w
as painfully expressive.
“Has the Maha done this before?” Mehr asked. “Has he bound women like me with a marriage vow in the past?”
Amun shook his head, back still turned.
“He has never needed to before,” said Amun. “And he has never had to bind a woman like you.”
A noblewoman with Ambhan and Amrithi blood. A woman who could not be stolen away without the use of a binding palatable to the nobility, a marriage sealed with a vow—yes, Mehr could imagine that there were not many women in the world like her.
“What does the Maha want me for?” Mehr asked.
Amun turned back to her. His expression was blank. She knew, without pressing, that she would get no more answers out of him tonight.
“I would like to know,” Mehr said, pressing him regardless. Amun shook his head.
“Lady Mehr, I don’t wish to speak any longer,” he said in a voice too cool, too even to be a plea. “Will you respect my wish?”
I don’t have a choice, thought Mehr. She stared at him silently as he stepped away from the wall, as he sat down on the edge of the bed and removed his shoes without looking at her.
“You must be tired,” he said. “The night has been long. You should sleep.”
Mehr was tired, it was true. She didn’t know how the nobles had found the energy to continue celebrating. Even when she and Amun had left, their wedding guests had been deep into their cups and in a bright and glorious mood. But even tired as she was, she didn’t really believe she would be able to sleep. Her mind was too full, her heart was far too heavy.
She lay down anyway. Amun lay down beside her. She stiffened. He must have felt her tense, because he turned over to look at her. The lantern light bled shadows across his face, hiding his expression from her.
“I only want to rest, Lady Mehr,” he said. “No more than that.”
She knew they were both expected to do far more than just sleep, but Amun had already rolled back over and tucked himself tight against the other side of the bed. If he wasn’t going to mention it, then Mehr wasn’t going to either.