Empire of Sand

by Tasha Suri

  “Get to the point, Edhir,” another man muttered.

  Edhir coughed. “They called it the Salt. For tears, you see? And we call ourselves the Saltborn, because—the Maha says—without the Salt, we wouldn’t be what we are.”

  He smiled. Mehr managed to murmur out some appreciative nonsense. She saved herself from having to offer a better response by biting into the flatbread, softened by the heat of her fingers. Her mind was whirling. She hoped her hands weren’t shaking.

  Salt.

  How do you forget a death that happened in your arms?

  Mehr lay in the darkness of the tent with her eyes wide open. The entire camp was asleep. She was sharing a tent with Amun, a single blanket beneath them, their robes thrown over them for warmth. The temperature had dropped even further, and Mehr was very cold. But there was nothing she could do about it. All she could do was lie still, and wait. And remember.

  Who came, Usha? Please.

  Salt.

  She shivered.

  Salt. Saltborn. Usha had tried to warn her. Mehr did not know if the mystics had been the ones to kill Usha, but their name had been on her lips when she had died. They were responsible in some way, tangled up irrevocably with her death and with Lalita’s abrupt absence. That, at least, she was sure of now.

  She wanted to turn to Amun and ask him if he knew what had happened to Lalita. But she bit her lip. She wasn’t an utter fool. So Amun was a good enough man not to want to hurt her—what did that matter? It didn’t mean he was trustworthy. It didn’t mean she could show him all her weaknesses without consequence. He was still bound to the Maha; he had still made vows that held him fast, that covered his skin like chains made flesh. What kind of man bound himself to people like these? Could anyone truly understand a man like that?

  Whatever had happened to Lalita, Mehr would have to find out on her own.

  But Mehr couldn’t think of Lalita. Usha’s death was a splash of red across her memory. Every time she closed her eyes she saw it all over again. There was no room in her tonight for anything else. So she kept her eyes open. She listened to one of the mystics pacing the edges of the camp, his booted footsteps crunching steadily against the sand. She listened to Amun’s steady breathing, her own breath warming her hands, which were clasped in front of her.

  Then she heard another sound. Light footsteps. Chimes.

  “Are you well?” Amun asked.

  Mehr realized that she had sat up.

  “I’m fine,” she said. All was quiet again. She had thought she had heard a dancer’s tread, a distinctive way of moving that reminded her of Lalita and her mother, and made her yearn for a home she’d never had. She must have imagined it. Her mind had begun slipping into sleep, perhaps, chasing dreams. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Mehr didn’t have to look at Amun to hear how alert his voice was. All this time he’d been wide awake, and she hadn’t even known it.

  Mehr lay back down. She ached all over. Her body was one long bruise. She tried to imagine getting up and packing away the tent and doing this all over again in just a few hours. Even the thought exhausted her.

  “How many more days of this?” she asked. “How long until we reach your Maha, husband?”

  “At least a week,” Amun said.

  Gods, a week. She had no idea how she’d make it through so much time in the company of these men, with Kalini’s eyes always on her, with Amun a constant, silent shadow at her back. She shivered and curled up tight.

  She would just have to find a way.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mehr would have liked the days to pass in a blur, but every hour dragged by with torturous slowness. The desert was unrelenting. The darkest hours of the night were bitterly cold, and the brightest hours of the day were scalding hot. Those were the hours when they rested, setting up their tents at nighttime or crouching in the shade of dunes when the heat of the sun rained down. In the hours in between, they walked. And walked.

  Mehr was deathly tired of walking.

  Worse still, she knew it was her slowness that was lengthening the journey. She wasn’t equipped for desert travel. Whenever they stopped she slept like the dead. She was constantly thirsty. Her ration of water never felt like enough to sustain her. The ache in her limbs hadn’t lessened over time, only deepened from constant exertion and lack of rest. She would have given absolutely anything for her own bed and a night of uninterrupted sleep.

  On one sweltering morning, when the sun seemed particularly fierce above them, Mehr’s legs simply gave way. She tripped or stumbled—the result was the same. The mystics were all too far ahead of her to help, so this time she fell with no one to catch her, hitting the ground with an embarrassing thump. A moment later she felt Amun’s hands on her, helping her up. The other mystics were watching.

  “I hadn’t expected a woman with Amrithi blood to be so weak,” Kalini called out. “I thought you were born for desert travel. How foolish of me.”

  Mehr gritted her jaw, furious with herself.

  It would have been easier if she believed Kalini was trying to be cruel. But it seemed to Mehr that Kalini was simply testing her, assessing her worth with cool eyes. She had judged Mehr unworthy, and frankly she was right to do so. Life in Jah Irinah had made Mehr weak. Her mother had grown up in the desert, but Mehr could barely survive in it for a few scant days.

  She thought wryly that it was clear why Lalita had abandoned her clan and built a new life beyond Irinah. The desert was a hard place, and the life of Amrithi had to be a rigorous one. It was certainly not the sort of life a woman like Lalita would choose for herself.

  Mehr wouldn’t have been able to continue walking, no matter how much Kalini goaded her, so she was relieved when Bahren intervened on her behalf, insisting they make camp.

  “What is speed worth if the girl sickens?” he pointed out. “Use your head, Kalini.”

  Kalini sighed and shook her head. “As you say,” she said. Shrugged. “Let’s waste an hour or two, if we must.”

  The rest wasn’t long enough. It was never long enough. The last mystic in the group, a quiet and self-contained man named Abhiman, gave Mehr some of their water before the journey continued again. That, combined with the little sleep she’d managed, would have to sustain her. Mehr drank the water gratefully, and began walking again.

  Three days passed before the monotony of the journey was broken. Dawn rose on the horizon as they walked, the five mystics and Mehr. Pale light filtered across the sand, setting the grains on fire.

  This was the part of the day Mehr’s body found most bearable. It was cold, but not as cold as it was at deep nighttime, and Mehr was as well fed and well rested as she was going to be for the day.

  She had grown to love watching the skyline change, darkness bleeding from black to gray to the brilliant blue-white of daylight. The mystics were talking, arguing about the journey ahead. Mehr saw the daiva before any of them.

  It rolled across the dunes, flat against the ground, moving so gracefully that it looked at first like the shadow of a passing cloud. But the sky was clear. Amun turned to look at Mehr sharply. His eyes were wide.

  “Daiva!” cried out Edhir.

  “Don’t panic,” Bahren barked out in return.

  But the daiva was no small, weak spirit. The one that had flown into Arwa’s room a bare handful of weeks ago had been a soft, benign creature, carved out into the shadowy form of an animal, as the weakest of the daiva were. This vast darkness unfolding beneath the sand was no young spirit, but something old and clever and simply different. As it approached, Mehr couldn’t help but think of Sara’s fear of ancient spirits, the panic in her eyes. A shiver ran down Mehr’s spine.

  As the daiva passed beneath the mystics, it seemed to flinch. Its edges fractured. It coiled away from them, warded off by the power of their presence.

  “Come here, Mehr,” Kalini said. She held out her hand. “We’ll keep you safe.”

  Mehr hes
itated. She saw Amun shake his head, saying something furiously. She saw him take a step forward—and suddenly the dark being shot through the air, forming a barrier between them.

  The daiva’s formless darkness surrounded her on all sides. It rose up above her in a high arc, blotting out all but the thinnest blade of sunlight. The sand whirled beneath Mehr’s feet. She drew the cloth tighter around her face and held her ground. She could hear the mystics shouting beyond the barrier. From words snatched through the howling darkness, she knew they couldn’t reach her, but they were trying.

  Mehr gathered her courage and gave the daiva a small bow. She flattened her palms together, in a sigil for respect and greeting. In response, the howling quieted, the darkness shifting silently now around her, loping and curious.

  “Mehr!” Kalini shouted. “Answer us! Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” Mehr responded.

  The darkness shuddered, pausing in its motion like an animal that had scented prey. The dark drew closer. Its surface rippled, peeling back to reveal the hard silvered contours of a jaw, a mouth. A golden eye.

  Once the daiva had been strong enough to walk the world like men. Mehr knew that. This daiva wore no mortal face, but its features were constantly re-forming, from animal to some faint semblance of human and back again. It was looking at her. It had responded to the sound of her voice.

  “Do you understand me?” Mehr said quietly. Far too quietly for the mystics to hear her.

  The daiva gave a slow blink. Yes. Yes it had.

  Mehr hadn’t known that daiva recognized any language beyond their own. All the daiva Mehr had ever known, after all, had responded to sigils alone. But this one was old, old and strong, she was sure of that now. It was nothing like the soft things that flitted along the edges of Jah Irinah. Perhaps in all its long years, its lifetimes upon lifetimes, it had learned something of the languages beyond its own tongue. Perhaps it had once worn a human visage, and lived among mortal men. Mehr lowered her hands slowly, mouth dry. Her heart was beating a frenetic rhythm.

  “Spirit,” she said, trying to infuse her voice with the appropriate respect. “I have no blade, but I think you know what I am.”

  She held her arms out, palms open and fingers spread in a gesture of welcome. She saw the eye give another slow, considering blink.

  The daiva took hold of her wrists. It held them like a human would, with a simulacrum of fingers curving around her skin. Its daiva-flesh was warm. It shaped her human flesh curiously, as if it wasn’t sure what to make of her.

  Mehr held her breath. She wondered if it would try to speak like a human. She wanted it to. But instead it tugged her hands, ever so gently, and began to raise them. It was trying to form a sigil, to speak to her in its own language.

  Without warning its grip vanished. Its hands disintegrated around her, collapsing back into formless darkness. Its edges grew jagged; its face fractured like glass, a snarl bared on its simulacrum of a mouth. It was struggling, but Mehr had no idea what it was fighting, what force was dragging it away from her and reducing it back into shadow. She stumbled back, her hands in fists at her sides, as it began to inch away from her, growing ever smaller by the second.

  Barrier gone, Mehr could see that the mystics were ringed around her, watching the daiva crumble. Standing directly in front of her was Amun.

  His feet were pressed hard to the ground, knees at an angle, his back straight and tall. She watched his arms move, great sweeping motions that drew the daiva as if it had a chain around its neck that compelled it to follow. His hands were shaping a constant line of sigils, one flowing into the other with a seamless grace that Mehr had never been quite able to achieve.

  He was dancing an Amrithi rite. But it was no rite Mehr had seen before. As she watched he turned, head lowered, hands sweeping the air and skimming earth. It was a move like the fall of a scythe—a transition for death dances, for grief and the fallen and harvest and forgetting. Not for this. Not for dragging a daiva across the sand, every inch of it vibrating with hollow rage.

  Mehr stepped forward. She wanted to shout at him to let it go, let it go now. But Amun was lowering himself into a crouch, hands shaping the sigil for Go. It seemed the daiva had no choice. All its fragments scattered into the air. The darkness hung around them like falling rain for a long moment, a heartbeat—and then it was gone.

  Amun rose from his crouch, falling into the last stance. Bahren let out a long, colorful string of curses and went to grab the fallen packs of provisions, which had somehow been discarded in the chaos.

  Mehr walked over to her husband. She heard nothing, saw nothing. All she could see was Amun’s face in the achingly clear morning light.

  “What did you do?” Mehr said. She was helpless to hold back the words. Helpless to hold back her horror. “What did you do?”

  Amun had thrown back the cloth around his face. In the light, the blue marks on his cheeks glowed livid. Cold fire. His mouth wore a bitter smile.

  “What I was told to do,” he said.

  Mehr didn’t get the chance to speak to Amun alone until nighttime. The mystics kept Mehr close for the rest of the day, surrounding her on all sides in a human barrier. They were tense and silent. They held no weapons, but weapons were no good against daiva, and they were not afraid of being attacked by mortal men. They were the blessed servants of the Maha, after all, and above such danger. Even the most desperate thieves knew that attacking the Maha’s people was worse than a death sentence. The fear the mystics provoked kept human dangers at bay.

  Amun walked ahead of them all. If any daiva came, they would face him first. After what Mehr had seen him do, she knew he was weapon enough.

  It was miserably cold and dark when they made camp and settled down to sleep. The tent was barely warmer than the desert outside, but Mehr was grateful for its protection.

  Amun was on guard for the first few hours of the night, so Mehr waited for him, curled up under the blanket for warmth. When he came in she sat up. Amun had brought an oil lamp in with him. He set it down on the ground, light flickering over his face. He leaned down to blow out the flame, and Mehr gestured at him to stop.

  “Is anyone else awake?” she asked.

  “Abhiman,” he said, letting the flap of the tent fall down behind him. “He’s walking the perimeter. Speak if you like. He won’t hear you.”

  “What did you do to the daiva?” she asked.

  “You saw what I did.”

  “The rites don’t have that kind of power,” Mehr said. But even as she said it, she wasn’t so sure. All her life she’d believed the rites were a matter of prayer, of ritual and faith. But on the night of the storm, she’d reached out a hand and the dreamfire had reached back.

  When she’d danced the Rite of Dreaming that night, had she manipulated the dreamfire—the magic of the Gods—the way Amun had manipulated the daiva? Not by intent, certainly. “We don’t have the ability to control the daiva. Do we?”

  Amun shrugged. “You saw what I did,” he repeated.

  “But how?”

  “I learned,” he said shortly. He had no desire to tell her more, that was clear enough.

  “What you did—however you did it—was wrong. The daiva deserve our respect.”

  “Is that what your father’s people believe, my lady? That daiva deserve our respect?”

  Oh, Mehr had already grown to dislike that opaque voice of his. His face was unreadable. She couldn’t tell if he was furious or calm.

  “Call me by my name,” she snapped. “I’ve told you before, I’m not a noblewoman any longer. Surely you know that. It’s your fault, after all.”

  “Then don’t call me husband,” he replied, just as fast. She realized, then, that he was angry. Good. “Call me Amun, and I will call you Mehr. Consider it a trade.”

  “It’s what you are,” Mehr said sharply.

  “I’m not …” He stopped. Swallowed. “I don’t want to think of myself as that.”

  She thought of th
e weight of that word, husband, and the duties bound up with it. Mehr resisted the urge to touch the seal at her throat.

  “Fine,” she said. “As you wish. I will call you Amun.”

  She wrapped her arm around her knees, drawing her legs up to ward off the chill. She could feel Amun’s eyes on her, still watching her. There was a beat of silence.

  “You’re cold,” he murmured. He reached for her wrist. Mehr felt the brush of his fingers on her skin and thought of the daiva, of its fingers shattering around her, and flinched away from him.

  Amun’s face changed before her eyes, hard blankness breaking for a moment to reveal the feelings beneath. His expression was awful—a deep, painful angry thing, his features twisted with loathing.

  Mehr had wanted to see some emotion in his face. She saw it then, in the flickering light.

  His face became shuttered. He turned away from her. Blew out the lamp.

  Mehr clutched her own wrist. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

  She heard him shift, lying down on the ground. She didn’t have to see him to know that he had his back to her. She opened her mouth to speak. Closed it again. He didn’t want or need her apologies. He wanted her silence. He’d shown Mehr, unwittingly, the secret that lay at the heart of him. He’d shown her his weakness.

  Under the mask he wore, Amun was full of poison. But none of it was aimed at her. No. Mehr knew what it looked like when another human being stared at her with hatred. What she had seen in Amun’s face was a knife turned inward.

  She had seen it in his eyes, then. How he hated himself.

  Even in the darkness, the sight of his face was imprinted on her memory. She’d been denied knowledge, any knowledge at all for so long, but in his face she’d found a light to burn away the edges of her ignorance and keep the cold at bay. His self-loathing made a cold, terrible kind of sense. In all the days that had passed, she had never seen the mystics offer him company or a kind word. If Mehr felt lonely, after mere days in their company, she could only imagine what Amun felt. To be so utterly unwanted, to be scarred and silent, to be treated in large and small ways as less than entirely human …