Empire of Sand

by Tasha Suri

  “She already knows a little,” Amun said. “She’s teachable.”

  “Good.” He released her. “A storm will be upon us soon. Make sure she knows her duties before then.”

  “Maha.”

  Mehr thought he would let them leave. Instead the Maha turned his attention on her again, gaze intent.

  “Are you glad to be among us, Mehr?” he asked, his voice dangerously kind. “Does it please you to serve the Empire? Speak truthfully.”

  “No,” said Mehr. “I’m afraid.” In horror, she smacked a hand over her mouth to stop herself from speaking on. She hadn’t intended to be truthful. She’d had no choice.

  “The fear you feel is simply the first step toward awe,” the Maha said gently. “And awe is what is required for true worship. Embrace it. Let it subsume you, and you will learn your place.”

  The Maha brushed a hand over her head, smoothing her tangled hair. Mehr held her breath. Held still.

  “Yes,” he said tenderly. “I do believe you’ll learn soon enough.”

  He spoke as if he could transform her feelings along with her will, as if he could make her fear turn into awe, reshaping her nature to his whims. In that moment, staring into the refracted light of his eyes, Mehr’s fear deepened and grew, stretching its dark limbs. She was afraid that he could.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Amun took Mehr to his room. It was high in one of the temple’s many spires, a circular room with windows on all sides. When they entered, Amun unbarred the shutters, letting in the vast blue of the sky. Mehr waited for him to finish, then walked over to the nearest window. She leaned out and held her face to the sun. There was no perforated screen to hold her back; she could lean out unimpeded. She drew in deep lungfuls of air, one after the other, trying to calm the panicked beat of her heart.

  To think, only hours ago she had been longing for the journey through the desert to end. She’d hungered for shelter and water and a clean place to sleep. Now she had everything she’d desired, and she wanted nothing more than to return to the desert again. The journey had been hard, facing the Maha’s terrible, cutting kindness was infinitely harder.

  Amun was silent behind her, but she could hear him breathe, slow and even, and that sound alone was enough to make her head hurt with anger.

  “You should have told me,” she said, and knew her anger had leaked into her voice, colored it like blood in water. “You should have told me what the Maha—is.”

  “I apologize.”

  Mehr was glad for the air against her face. She wished it were cooler. She felt like the Maha was still there, still with her, his presence a hot brand under her skin. She’d almost forgotten the mark of her vow during her journey through the desert. She wouldn’t forget it again.

  “Why do you serve him? Why would you …?” She stopped. Took one deep breath. Another. “I want to ask you why you made vows to him, Amun, but I believe I know the answer.” She remembered the Maha’s gaze, the softness of his voice, the way Kalini’s eyes had closed when he’d pressed his mouth to her forehead. “If he had wanted to make me love him, I think he could have.” She turned to face Amun, still gripping the window with her hands as if it could make her steady and strong. “But he didn’t want me to love him. He wanted me to be afraid. Didn’t he?”

  The light illuminated the bareness of the room. The sight was a bitter contrast to Mehr’s old, lavish quarters. There was a bed and a trunk for clothing. A single oil lamp hung on a hook by the door. There was nothing else. Just Amun, standing still and watching her with dark eyes.

  “He did the same to me,” Amun said. “When I first began my service, the day after I took my first vow. He showed me what the mark could make me do. He taught me to fear.” Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “He didn’t lie to you. Fear is the first step toward awe. Toward worship.”

  “I don’t want to worship him.” Her fingers hurt from how hard she was gripping the window.

  “He isn’t easily denied.” Amun’s voice was implacable. “The Maha wanted your fear, and now he has it. He wants your awe, and he will have that too. You won’t deny him that, Mehr, because as long as he gets what he wants, he won’t look beyond the surface and see what he does not have: your sealed vow.”

  Mehr watched him inhale and exhale, and realized he wasn’t breathing steadily because he was calm, but because he wasn’t. The Maha had shaken him just as much as he’d shaken Mehr. Amun was controlling his body, his breath, with a will like iron. He was holding in the torrent of feeling.

  “I sent you to him unprepared, and for that I am sorry,” Amun said. “But I believed your ignorance would protect our secret, and I was right.” He swallowed. “I won’t lie to you again. Now that you’ve met him, we can speak honestly.”

  Although his voice was hard, he had turned his face away, his neck and jaw in shadows. His hands were clasped behind him, his shoulders eloquent with tension. In the desert she’d told him how much emotion his body revealed. He clearly hadn’t taken her words to heart. She could only find it in herself to be glad of it as she let out a shaky breath of her own and pried her fingers loose from the edge of the window. In those shoulders, in that turned head, she could read everything she needed to know.

  He was controlling himself for her sake. He knew exactly how she felt. He’d been in her place, helpless in the presence of the Maha. Owned. He was still owned and helpless. But instead of lashing out as she had, he had led her up the narrow staircase to his room with wordless, endless patience. He’d opened the shutters to let the world in, giving her a small taste of the freedom she craved to quiet the fear in her heart.

  He was being kind. Mehr swallowed, her throat closing. She was dangerously close to weeping.

  “You shouldn’t,” Mehr said, hoping her voice was steady. “Honesty is all well and good, but what if he had asked me about the vow?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “You took a risk, and we were lucky,” Mehr acknowledged. “But he could have asked me anything, and I would have been honest with him. I couldn’t help myself. My voice wasn’t my own.” The knowledge was bitter on her tongue. She copied Amun, breathing through the fear. “I can’t lie to him, Amun. You should keep your secrets safe from me.”

  “I told you I would be honest with you. That wasn’t a false promise.”

  “You can’t be,” Mehr said helplessly.

  “I can,” Amun retorted. “You can learn to resist him.”

  “As you do?”

  “Better than I can, Mehr. I’m fully bound by my vows. I can only … alter the shape of my obedience. Or suffer, if I choose to resist.” A bitter smile shaped his mouth. “Your vow isn’t sealed. You can still fight.”

  She remembered the Maha’s voice. The ghost of hands on her face, compelling her to face him. She shivered.

  “I’m not sure I can,” she said tightly.

  “I know you can.”

  “You don’t.”

  “I do.” He turned his gaze on her again, his voice so earnest that it shocked her into silence. “I have faith in your strength.”

  His gaze was unflinching. Her heart fluttered strangely in her chest. She looked away first.

  “Fighting him would only hurt me,” she said, thinking of what her defiance to Maryam had always cost her. She thought, too, of what the Maha would do if he discovered the secret she shared with Amun. Her father had told her the Maha’s wrath had destroyed entire cities. What would he do to a servant who betrayed him? “You will have to teach me how you defy him.”

  The longer she played the subservient role, as Amun did, the longer she would maintain her small measure of freedom—as small and as vital as the open shutters around her, the sight of the wide blue sky.

  “I show the Maha obedience, always,” Amun said. He spoke softly, as if afraid his voice would carry. “I defy him only in the margins. Every line of every vow I wear, I obey.” His fingers brushed his sleeve, as if he could feel the shape of the vows marking his skin beneath th
e cloth. “But all vows have their limits. Words can be misinterpreted. To choose not to obey isn’t an option. But how I obey … that I can control. Do you understand, Mehr?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

  You don’t allow him to break you, she thought. You bend instead.

  Could she mimic him? Could she learn to play subtle games to protect herself from the Maha’s grip? Amun believed she could. Mehr would have to believe the same. She had to believe she was strong enough to learn the truth and hold it safe inside herself, because the alternative was to allow her circumstances to drown her.

  “Truth, then. Why does he need Amrithi?” Mehr asked. “Why does he need Amrithi like you and I—who the daiva recognize as their own? How does binding us serve the Emperor?”

  Amun hesitated for a moment. Then he strode over to the door, pushing it wide.

  “Come,” said Amun. “The best way is to show you.”

  Mehr didn’t think she would ever make sense of the temple’s layout. The corridors were all winding, uniform darkness. To Mehr they were an undecipherable maze, but Amun led her through them confidently, moving through the gloom without the need for a lamp to guide him. She wondered, not for the first time, how many years he had been in the service of the Maha. He walked through the temple the way she had once walked through the women’s quarters. It was as if he’d been born to this place.

  She walked behind him, matching his footsteps. Every few seconds he turned his head, listening and looking.

  “Do you expect us to be found?”

  “We will be,” he said.

  He was soon proved correct. Two men came out of the shadows and began to follow them. Amun gave no reaction. Mehr watched them from the corner of her eye, head tilted down. In Amun’s presence her bared face no longer troubled her, but these men were strangers. Having no choice but to show them her uncovered face shamed her, and that shame wasn’t something she could easily shake. Her fingers twitched at her sides. She wished she had a shawl to reach for to draw around her head.

  Amun stopped at a narrow door. He unbolted it. He and Mehr stepped out into the desert. Behind them, the two men followed.

  The sand stretched out before them, a clear expanse all the way to the horizon. The men stayed near the entrance as Mehr and Amun made their way out into the open. The gentle wind, warm from the heat of the day, caught Amun’s dark curls. He brushed his sleeve over his hair, frowning.

  “We can stop here,” he said. “They won’t be able to hear us.”

  He positioned himself between her and the guards, his broad-shouldered frame concealing her almost entirely.

  “Does the Maha expect me to run?” Mehr tilted her head at the men, knowing they wouldn’t catch the gesture with Amun standing in their line of sight.

  “No,” he said. “He doesn’t think you will run. But a valuable item should always have a keeper, or so I’ve been told.” Amun took a step back. He folded his arms. “Do you know any rites?”

  “Some,” Mehr said.

  “Show me the Rite of Fruitful Earth. Are you familiar with it?”

  Mehr hesitated. She had never danced in front of anyone outside the women’s quarters before. To do so in front of strangers felt alien to her, and wholly unfamiliar.

  “This isn’t a test,” Amun said softly, misreading her. “I can choose another rite if you prefer.”

  Mehr shook her head.

  “No, this will do well enough.”

  Doing her best to block out the world around her, she fell into the first stance.

  The Rite of Fruitful Earth: It was a rite for the farmer with arid fields, a rite for people with no crops and only parched soil to sustain them. It was not one of Mehr’s favorite dances, but she knew it well enough to perform it now. She moved between stances, her footsteps a whisper against the sand, her arms rising and falling as she found her rhythm. She shaped the first sigils with her fingers. When she shaped life—a flick of thumb to the fingertips, like the lighting of tinder—she felt something surge through her, from her feet up to her eyes. Her vision wavered, shadows flickering at the edges. She went abruptly still.

  “Continue,” Amun said. He sounded so much like Lalita did when Mehr faltered during practice that she found herself obeying without question.

  After a moment, he joined her. He moved fluidly from the first stance straight into her own, mirroring her movements without the same cautious deliberation Mehr gave to shaping the rite. Sigils flickered over his fingers. Mehr felt power surge through her again, but this time she didn’t stop dancing.

  Finally, she fell into the last stance and felt the power release her.

  “Look,” said Amun. Following his gaze, she lowered her head.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  Between their feet, the sand had transformed into soil. In amazement, Mehr kneeled down and touched the earth. It was cool and soft, heavy with its own richness. Between the clods of soil were the first pale green shoots of new vegetation. She touched the edge of a leaf. Real. It was all real.

  “How?” she whispered.

  Amun kneeled down too, his body still concealing hers. He touched the soil too, soft and reverent.

  “The daiva draw their strength from the dreams of their mothers and fathers,” he said. “This temple lies at the heart of the desert, the place where the Gods sleep and dream most strongly, which makes the daiva infinitely stronger also. Here they can truly answer our prayers.”

  “So,” she breathed out. “We Amrithi. We can make the daiva shape our world. To our will.”

  “In small ways, yes.” The green was withering beneath them, soil desiccating back into gold-hued sand. “The daiva only have so much strength. For a price, some of us can do more.”

  Amun’s expression was grave. Whatever the price was, she knew it had to be high. Before Mehr could ask him anything more, Amun rose to his feet, brushing the sand from his robe.

  “Stand,” said Amun. “As long as we practice, they won’t approach us.”

  Mehr stood, giving her new guards a sidelong glance as she did so. The men had edged farther back. Clearly like many of the servants in her old home, they distrusted Amrithi customs. Amun caught the direction of her gaze.

  “The Maha expects you to be taught before the storm comes,” he murmured. “They won’t risk his displeasure by disturbing our lesson.”

  “Tell me about the storm,” said Mehr. “Why must I be prepared for it? What does the Maha want you to teach me?”

  “A very specific rite,” said Amun. He fell into the first stance. Mehr followed. “Adjust your posture to match mine,” he told her. He looked over her stance with a critical eye, then proceeded to offer her criticism after criticism. Her shoulders were too high—then too low. Her feet were not properly placed. The angle of her knees was not quite right. Mehr felt like a child in the schoolroom again.

  “The storm, Amun,” she said impatiently.

  He was all reluctance. But Mehr waited, her eyes fixed on him. She would not relent.

  “Reshaping the world takes a greater power than the daiva possess,” he said finally. “The Maha desires for the Empire to defy the natural order of the world and continue in everlasting glory. He desires the same for himself. For that, he must harness the one force in the world that shapes the natural order. A power only present during storms.”

  A force that shaped the natural order. A force that came only with the storms.

  Dreamfire. He was talking about dreamfire.

  “No rite can compel the dreams of Gods,” Mehr whispered. “That is impossible.”

  “Raise your hands.” Mehr did so, numbly playacting at the lesson along with him. “Show me your next stance.”

  “Amun.”

  “The Maha’s spies saw the dreamfire respond to you, Mehr,” he said. “Dreamfire is the power of the Gods shaping the world. Don’t you understand what you did in that storm?”

  “I was praying, not compelling,” she said tightly
. “Gods are not daiva, to be compelled by vows. Gods are Gods.”

  “But you can compel them,” Amun said, “whether you choose to or not. The amata gift gives us the very rare ability to compel the dreams of the Gods. That decides your value to the Maha.”

  She couldn’t. Surely she couldn’t. But Amun had promised to tell her the truth, and although she wanted to believe he was lying to her, she knew he was being honest. The Maha had taken Mehr, tricked her into vowing away her life, because of the gift of her Amrithi blood. No wonder he had called her a gem. She had the power to place the world in his hands.

  The truth was awful. It revolted her, deep in her gut, her bones. She had always known the daiva were holy beings and worthy of reverence, that the Gods were as permanent and powerful as the earth or the sun or the night. To bend the dreams of the Gods was to destroy the very order of the universe. She couldn’t imagine a greater heresy.

  Mehr had always been taught to show the daiva reverence. Respect your blood, she’d been told—by her mother and by Lalita after that. Respect the daiva, because when you pass on, they will remember your actions, and your soul will pay the price.

  She had thought the way Amun banished the daiva in the desert, without respect, without cajoling, had been anathema. What he told her the Maha expected of her—of them both—was far, far worse. What price would her soul pay for such an act?

  “Your stances need work,” Amun told her. “We should begin again. Here.” He gestured at her left arm, held his own at an angle. “Follow my lead.”

  Mehr had no interest in playing at the rites. Her mind was far too full. She didn’t understand how any Amrithi could allow themselves to be willingly bound to this task, tied to the Maha’s whims for a lifetime. She certainly didn’t know how Amun could allow it.

  “Are other Amrithi used by the Empire this way?” she asked.

  “No.” Amun’s voice was curt. “Not any longer. Once, there were many Amrithi pairs here, or so I’ve been told. Now we are the only ones the Maha owns, and it took him years to find you.”