“It’s fine,” he said. “No one has ever asked me before. That’s all.” But he still wouldn’t look at her. “My mother didn’t return to our tent one night. A week passed. My father looked for her, and when he came back he told me she had turned her knife on herself. The mystics must have discovered her. She preserved her freedom in the Amrithi way. As for my father …” He looked at her then. “Losing my mother was hard. Losing my father, too, was harder. In those early days, my grief made me an animal. I was too young and too foolish to realize that raging and howling like an animal would only make the mystics treat me as one. The mystics think I am a monster, Mehr, because in those early days, I was.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, no emotion in his voice, as if those early days were long gone and couldn’t hurt him anymore. But Mehr had seen him lower his head like he couldn’t carry the weight of the memories that lived inside it. She knew those days lived inside him still.

“You’re not a monster, Amun.”

“Not anymore,” he agreed.

“You’ve never been a monster. I’ve seen monsters.” As have you, she thought. The Maha. Even Kalini. “You’re not one of them.”

“Doubt it all you like,” he said, echoing her words back at her. He smiled, but it was a bleak look. “It’s still true, Mehr.”

Mehr shook her head. She could have called him a fool, then, but what good could it possibly do? He was harsh enough to himself. He didn’t need her help to make him feel any worse.

“I manage myself better now,” he continued. “But I still don’t need these people to be kind to me. I don’t want them to be. I learned long ago that no one can replace my family.”

“I’m not trying to replace anyone,” Mehr snapped. The words stung.

He shrugged inelegantly.

“I cope in my own way,” he said. “You need to cope in yours.”

It wasn’t an apology, but Mehr had had enough apologies from Amun to last a lifetime. She didn’t need one more.

Especially when his words felt like truth.

When they returned to the hall to practice, Mehr didn’t feel her frustration build as it usually did. The morning of freedom had given her the chance to let go of her anger, but in its place was a sadness that had coiled itself through her bones. The knowledge of how much Amun had lost was a terrible weight. She didn’t know how he could bear it. But Amun looked calm and untroubled, as if he hadn’t shared his grief with her, as if nothing had changed at all.

“Try again,” said Amun.