For a long moment he stood by her quietly, watching the wind sweep the surface of the water. Then he said, “How do you like your husband?” Without missing a beat he spoke again, his voice casual, conversational. “Look at me, Mehr.”

She felt the mark flare hotter. Felt herself tugged, like a puppet on strings, to do his bidding. Invisible hands coaxed her head to turn to his. Ice ran through her veins.

She could have resisted. The compulsion wasn’t all-consuming. But the shock of it made her turn unthinking, her heart beating wildly in her chest. She looked up at the Maha with wide eyes, unable for an agonizing moment to hide her fear.

He saw it. She knew he saw it. He’d ordered her to look at him for one reason alone: to show her what he could make her do. To make her fear.

“Do you know why I dislike veils, Mehr?” He waited. Mehr stiffly shook her head, not looking away from him, compelled to obey. “I dislike them because they are so often used to conceal the truth. You, for example, child. You were hidden from the world by veils and walls. They concealed your nature from my many eyes. They kept you from service to your Emperor and your Maha. And what is service, child? Tell me.”

“Holy,” Mehr said dully. She felt her jaw work, felt the compulsion thrill its way up her throat like fire.

“Veils kept you from holiness,” he agreed. “When you left your veils and walls, when you left your father’s home and entered the storm that graced your city, you revealed yourself. I have eyes in many places, Mehr, who seek truth for my sake. Praise the Emperor that they found you. Praise be, that you revealed the full strength of your blood.” He smiled at her. “Because you stand before me as you do, unveiled and in service, I do not need you to tell me what you think of your husband. I see the truth of it burning in your eyes.”

She didn’t know what to say to him. She wanted to recoil in horror and in revulsion. She wanted to press her hands over her face and blot him out. She thought with longing of the veil she’d worn in her father’s household: a noblewoman’s veil, all soft gauze, that concealed her face in its entirety. He looked at her as if her flesh were itself a thin gauze and her heart a bright and bloody flame.

He can’t see my thoughts, she told herself desperately. He can’t see my secrets.