Empire of Sand

by Tasha Suri

  Mehr sucked in a breath and nodded. She hadn’t even considered it. She should have sought out the herbs she needed, the bitter greens that Lalita had shown her once and warned her she would need someday.

  “There are no children born here,” Mehr said. It wasn’t a question. She knew, suddenly; she was sure. “Why wouldn’t he have his Amrithi create him new servants, if he could?” she said out loud, wondering. “He can’t, can he?”

  “He tried, with her,” said Amun. “The woman who came before you. He’d tried before too.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “In the end, he decided the rite was to blame. The dreamfire used in that way was … too much.”

  Amun had told her that the Rite of the Bound took a toll. She’d felt its impact after the last storm. She hadn’t considered what other consequences the act of becoming a vessel for immortal fire could have on the human body.

  “I am sorry for what has been done to you, Mehr,” Amun said in a low voice.

  “Don’t you be sorry,” Mehr said, something savage in her voice. She turned, pressing her face to his skin. “Not you.”

  The physicians came and took Amun away. He went without complaint, quiet and lumbering like the beast she knew he wasn’t, unsteady on his exhausted legs. Left on her own, wishing keenly that he were with her still as her scar thrummed and burned, Mehr went down the stairs. Bahren was waiting for her.

  “I can tell him truthfully that you obeyed,” Bahren said. He looked profoundly uncomfortable, and profoundly tired. He must have stayed up all night, standing guard at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for Mehr and Amun to obey the Maha’s orders.

  She didn’t ask how intently he had listened to them. She didn’t ask what he had—or had not—heard. He had done the kindness of giving her a little dignity. That had to be enough.

  “Thank you,” Mehr said quietly. She crossed her arms, looking around the dark hallway. Somewhere she heard the bells ring, calling the mystics to morning prayers. Soon there would be people walking the corridors, dressed in their dark robes. The girls—Rena, even Anni (Mehr’s stomach dropped; Anni, that traitor, that wretch)—would already be up and dressed, the morning food cooked. But Hema would not be with them.

  We both watched Hema die, she thought suddenly. We both saw her die, and it’s as if nothing happened at all.

  “The Maha will want to see me, won’t he?” she asked.

  “He’s asked for you,” Bahren said.

  He’d asked for Mehr, and Mehr alone. She was grateful Amun was gone and wouldn’t know she was facing their master alone. She nodded and tried, desperately, to muster all the tatters of her courage around her like a screen, a veil, a wall. But it was hard to be brave. She had seen blood and betrayal and felt love even in the dark despair. She could feel Amun still, the echo of him in her sore flesh. She could feel the Maha too in the mark on her chest that burned and burned. She was a raw nerve with nothing to protect her from what she had chosen, and what had been done to her.

  “I will see him whenever he wills it, of course,” she said. As if she had a choice.

  Bahren led her down the corridors toward the Maha’s private chambers. Mehr had no fond memories of those rooms, but she followed obediently regardless. Bahren slowed until they were walking side by side. Although Mehr did not raise her head, she knew that other mystics, making their way to prayer, watched from the edges of the corridor. She wondered how many of them knew what happened. How Hema had died.

  Bahren spoke.

  “I don’t know how you tricked him,” Bahren said, his voice so low even she strained to hear it, walking close by his side. She doubted the other mystics could hear a word. “You and the boy did a foolish thing, a horribly foolish thing. I blame you less than him, because you are young and sheltered. He was wrong to lead you astray. Perhaps the Maha will show you a higher level of mercy accordingly.”

  “I think,” Mehr said tightly, “that my husband has paid a high enough price for our foolishness.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. She was reminded of his age. Once, he must have been a lost child, like all the other mystics had been: orphaned or abandoned, or disgraced for illegitimacy, trapped in poverty by circumstances beyond his control, until the day the Maha had taken him into service and raised him up. How long had he served the Maha? How much had he seen? How much did he know?

  Enough that he was trusted. Enough that his word was enough to convince the Maha that Mehr’s loyalty was finally, truly, embedded in her skin.

  “He is always looking for more Amrithi with the gift,” he said abruptly. “Your people’s blood may be spread thin, but he will find more. You understand?”

  Mehr said nothing, because she knew what it sounded like when a question didn’t actually require an answer.

  “When he finds more like you, he won’t be so kind to you or the boy in the future,” Bahren went on.

  Mehr did not want to listen to him. After what she had suffered—after what she and Amun had both suffered—she did not want to consider the idea that the Maha had treated them … kindly.

  They had their own room, food and water. They had clothes and small creature comforts—Amun’s needle and thread, sweet soap Mehr had wheedled from a kindly elderly mystic. They had their limbs and their lives. Things could be so much worse.

  Mehr had seen the darkness in the Maha’s eyes. Felt it. She knew the Maha was capable of a great many things, and if she was lucky, she would not survive them.

  “You should learn to be obedient,” Bahren said.

  “I will try,” Mehr said thinly.

  They walked a little longer. Then Bahren spoke again.

  “Make no mistake, little sister—I chose to be here. Our people could be weak instead of strong.” His voice softened as he spoke of the Maha’s purpose. Like Hema, he believed in the Maha’s work. In the Maha, who was beloved and terrible and had built the glory of the Empire out of nothing but sand and dreams.

  Sand and dreams—and the blood of Mehr’s people.

  “The Maha has ensured that our Emperors are always strong and brave and wise. He has ensured that we will always be prosperous.”

  Mehr had significant experience in keeping her head lowered and her mouth silent. In that moment, she chose to put the skill to good use.

  The Maha was waiting.

  Mehr bowed low to the floor. Waited until he told her she could stand. She raised her head to meet the Maha’s eyes—looked into them for a sharp, painful second—then fixed her eyes on his chin. His eyes hurt her. She felt his presence, sharp as a blade, right through her chest. For a moment it choked her; she parted her lips, catching the air until the pain settled.

  “Well, Mehr,” he said. He sounded pleased already. “Bahren has told me you obeyed. But I want to hear it from your lips now. Have you obeyed, or must I be more specific?”

  She swallowed. “We had intercourse. Amun and I.”

  “Finely put, my dear,” he said mildly. “That will suffice. Now show me the mark.”

  He hadn’t asked to see it before, but Mehr should have expected it. She felt nothing at all as she loosened the sash, as she showed him the scarred skin where his mark sat.

  He crossed the distance between them and placed a hand firmly on the sigil. He didn’t ask her permission. She supposed he didn’t feel that he needed to. She was his possession. Not a true person, or citizen of the Empire.

  The touch of his hand was terrible, terrible. It burned through her free will, leaving her hanging suspended in her skin, surrounded by a maelstrom of darkness. The nightmares that haunted the storms, the nightmares that filled his eyes, were suddenly boiling under her own skin. They were part of her.

  “Are you able to lie to me, Mehr?”

  “No, Maha,” she said. Her voice like winter. “Not at all. Not anymore.”

  “You’re bound to me,” he said.

  “I am.” There was no question in his voice, but she answered regardless.

  For a man who had recently sl
it a woman’s throat, he’d looked remarkably relaxed even when Mehr had first entered the room. Now he looked positively delighted.

  “I should have realized why you so enraged me,” he murmured. “I didn’t quite have you. But the bond by marriage is a new creation, a thing of necessity, and I thought perhaps it simply felt strange to me because of its rarity. But now—ah, yes.” The satisfaction in his voice made her want to recoil. “I have you now.”

  He didn’t let her go. Her skin hummed where his hand touched her.

  “Everything will be so much better now,” he told her in a voice as tender as bloodied meat. He gave her bruised face a long, leisurely look. “You will no longer be flawed, my dear, by your weak blood and your weaker heart. Your blood and your heart are mine now—and I will shape them into a tool worthy of the great honor of service to my Empire.” He stroked a hand along her cheekbone. “You will be worthy of my love, and glad of it.”

  She thought of how he had looked after the storm, with his riven skin and eyes shattered from within. Now, stroking her face with terrible tenderness, he looked more like the man who had greeted her when she had first arrived at the temple. His eyes and his skin glowed with inner light. The fractures in his eyes shone like pointed stars.

  He could afford to be tender now, cruel, sadistic animal that he was. Now that he had her—truly had her—he did not have to hurt her. His presence alone was pain enough. His touch was agony. Even his voice clawed her ears. How had Amun survived this horror since childhood? Mehr couldn’t fathom it.

  “Speak to me,” the Maha prompted. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “That my pain brings you joy,” she said promptly. She had no control. None. The words poured out of her. “That you are far older than any mortal man has the right to be. That you have single-handedly crushed my mother’s people to dust for the sake of the Empire, for a throne you no longer sit on and I can’t—I don’t know what you are, but you are monstrous—”

  He gripped her hard, holding her jaw painfully shut.

  “Stop,” he ordered softly. When she fell silent, breathing hard through her nose, he patted her cheek and let her go. “Good girl.”

  She stayed very still. She thought he would beat her again then. She had failed so thoroughly, to be what he had demanded. Her scar throbbed painfully. But he only shook his head and smiled, a terrible soft smile.

  “Now,” he said, satisfied. “Now you begin to understand true awe, and true worship. I am so pleased with you, Mehr. So pleased.”

  “I wish I could kill him,” Amun said.

  When Amun had returned from the physicians and found her sitting in their room, he’d only had to look at her to know she had faced the Maha without him. He’d listened without comment as she’d told him what had passed between her and the Maha. When he spoke, his words were without inflection, without rage. They were just truth.

  “You’re not a murderer, Amun,” she said.

  “Every man is, when he has to be.” He sat touching distance from her. The gap between their bodies felt heavy, significant. “I chose this fate. I can manage the burden of—what he does. But you, Mehr …”

  “I can cope,” she said swiftly. “I’m stronger than I look.”

  He exhaled. Gave her a swift, sidelong smile. “It’s not your strength I’m worried about. Seeing someone you love being hurt, knowing their pain so perfectly … Mehr, it’s hard.”

  Her own heart gave a pang in her chest. She leaned against him, breaching that distance between them. Her pain eased as he wrapped his arm around her and pressed his face into her hair. These small things. They had to be enough.

  “I don’t want to talk anymore about what he said to me.” What he did to me. “I want you to tell me a story. Tell me more about your childhood. Tell me how you grew up.”

  And haltingly, gently, he did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  What are you supposed to do when you have lost the war and every possibility of victory has been absolutely, thoroughly annihilated?

  Mehr had always fought. Sometimes in big ways, but usually small: carefully calculated rebellions, little victories won under a thin veneer of obedience. Now all the fight had left her. She couldn’t rebel any longer. She wore the chains of her servitude under her skin and her bones, in her soul. She and Amun could no longer alter the Rite of the Bound and ask the Gods to set them free, or compel the daiva to their will. Mehr’s small measure of freedom had been the key, and now the key was gone.

  So Mehr did the only thing left to her: She obeyed. She and Amun practiced the rite. They prayed. Mehr did not try to seek out Hema’s women. She didn’t track down Anni and claw out her eyes. She did her duty and kept her own eyes lowered, her body at work. She allowed herself to become colorless.

  It was only when she and Amun were alone that Mehr felt like herself again. Amun didn’t ask her for intimacy, and she didn’t ask him either. Instead Mehr would lean against him, safe in the circle of his arms, and listen to his voice. He would talk to her—more than he’d ever talked before—about his Amrithi childhood, and his life among the mystics in the long years before Mehr had joined him. There were no more halting silences, no more tales cut short to hide their true brutality. They’d suffered together, survived together, made their own soul-binding vows to one another. There were no more walls between them now, and Amun’s company was the one comfort Mehr had in her newly bound life.

  Kalini came for her when she and Amun were training in one of the spare halls, a guard watching them as always.

  “Mehr, you’re needed,” Kalini said sharply from the doorway. Mehr startled, stumbling. It had been so long since she’d last seen Kalini.

  “And me?” Amun asked.

  “Just your wife,” Kalini said. She sounded bored. “Come on now.”

  Mehr didn’t question. She drew her shawl tight over her shoulders and followed Kalini from the room. Kalini was the Maha’s favored mystic; what she ordered, the Maha ordered. So Mehr obeyed.

  She still cried out, shocked, when Kalini shoved her hard against a wall, hard enough to knock Mehr’s skull against stone and make her ears ring.

  “Silence,” Kalini ordered—but it was the blade she held point first to Mehr’s neck that truly made Mehr hold her tongue.

  Mehr froze, barely daring to breathe. They were too far from the hall for Amun or the other guard to have heard them. Kalini had waited until they were alone, hidden from sight in the nook of a dark corridor, before cornering Mehr with her blade.

  “I told you to leave Hema alone,” Kalini said. “I told you.” Her grip on the blade was steady, her eyes resolute. “You should have listened to me.”

  The flat of the blade pressed a shade harder against Mehr’s skin.

  Mehr looked Kalini hard in the eyes, not blinking, never letting her gaze waver. This was an awful thing. Another awful thing, on top of so many others. Frankly, Mehr had had her fill of them. So she stared into Kalini’s eyes and did not flinch from what she saw in front of her. Kalini was hard and full of hatred, and she wanted to kill Mehr. There was nothing Mehr could do to stop her.

  But Mehr was not afraid. She didn’t have the strength for fear any longer. Even that had been rubbed away, leaving her bare and empty and silent inside.

  “I’m sorry,” Mehr said, her voice quiet but even. “I should have listened to you. But what will you do to me now?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Kalini said. Her voice was flat. “Foolish girl.”

  “I understand the significance of the knife at my throat,” said Mehr. “What I don’t understand is who you want to punish. If you want to punish me, then murdering me is hardly worthwhile.” She thought of Hema’s death, of the agony of the Maha’s soul beneath her skin, of the dark night and the endless litany of prayers and dance that there was no escape from anymore. She thought of Amun’s voice, when he’d told her that he’d thought of taking his own life. She held that despair close and let it shine through her eyes, so Kalini
could see it, believe it. “My life is a nightmare, sister. Release me from it, and my spirit will thank you. It is the Maha who will be hurt. Hurt by your betrayal, and by the loss of one more Amrithi.” Mehr smiled, a hard smile. “You must know we’re a finite resource. You procured me, after all.”

  “Don’t speak of the Maha,” hissed Kalini, wildness in her eyes. “You foul his name with your mouth.”

  “Kill me if you want to punish him,” Mehr went on doggedly. “Kill me if you want to hurt your God and your Empire. Don’t let yourself believe you’ll be punishing me, Kalini. I will die thanking you.”

  “You liar,” Kalini said, vicious, eyes wet. “You viper.”

  Mehr leaned forward, a calculated risk. She felt the blade nick her skin but didn’t waver.

  “Do it,” she said. “Or don’t. I no longer care.”

  Kalini didn’t move for a very, very long time. Finally her hand began to tremble. She dropped her blade.

  “Rot in your cage, then,” Kalini said. She spat in Mehr’s face. “I hope she haunts you. I’ll pray for it when the next storm falls. Glory to the Empire and my sister’s blood on your soul.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “Animal.”

  Kalini snatched up her blade and strode away. Mehr waited until she’d vanished, then sucked in a shaky breath and wiped the saliva from her face.

  When she returned to the training hall, Amun paused his practice, one hand still upraised in the shape of a rite. There was a question in his eyes.

  “You were quick,” he said.

  “Kalini was called away,” Mehr said with a shrug, conscious of the guard watching them. “I suppose I wasn’t needed after all.”

  Mehr saw some of the tension ease in Amun’s shoulders. His eyes softened. He thought she’d been saved from the Maha’s presence. He thought she’d returned to him safe and sound.

  The way he feared for her made her heart hurt. She smiled at him, pushing away the memory of Kalini’s blade. She hadn’t been afraid then. She wouldn’t let the fear touch her now either. She would stay clean and empty and pure, and save them both from hurt.