“Watch my fingers now,” he said. “Don’t copy me just yet. Rest your hands. Just watch.”

Evening came, and with it more prayers. Mehr lowered her head and sang in honor of the Emperor along with all the mystics, but her mind was in another place entirely. Sigils flared in her mind’s eye. Her head was full of the sight of Amun’s hands making shape after shape. His wide, scarred hands, dark like earth after rainfall. His hands teaching her a new language.

Mehr could learn this. She could.

After evening prayers finished she began heading toward dinner with the others. An urgent tug on her sleeve stopped her. She stopped in her tracks and turned.

“Hema wants you to meet her,” Rena said. “It’s important you come now, before the others notice.”

Her voice was urgent, her jaw hard. So Mehr followed her.

Rena guided her through the winding corridors to a tower no different from any of the others they had passed. She urged Mehr up the steps, which were so narrow they could only make their way up one at a time. Stone skimmed Mehr’s arms. She could feel the darkness pressing on her.

Hema was waiting at the top, her hands on the edge of the only window carved into the curved wall.

“I have her,” said Rena.

Hema look back at them. She didn’t smile, but she gave Rena a wordless nod of thanks. Rena turned and left without another word.

“Come to the window,” Hema said. “You need to see it.” She gestured sharply, her fingers trembling. “Come to the window, please.”

There was enough room for Mehr to stand next to Hema and look outside. This window faced away from the oasis, to the stretch of endless sand visible beyond the temple’s walls. Mehr leaned out, the cool breeze meeting her bare face. She looked. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Gods,” Mehr breathed out.

“I know,” Hema whispered. “What a sight.”

It was dark outside, but not so dark that Mehr couldn’t see the shadows coiling on the horizon, their edges tinged with a blush of red-gold light. Daiva. So many daiva.

The storm was coming.

Together she and Hema stood in stunned silence, watching the shadows writhe, gleaming in the growing dark. The breeze carried the scent of the daiva with it: incense, sweet as the smoke of a prayer flame. Mehr had thought the coming of a storm was beautiful, when she had lived in Jah Irinah. Here in the heart of the desert the sight of it was almost overwhelming. The daiva were a wall, a rising wave of dark mingled with light, jeweled fire and shadow. When the dreamfire fell the daiva would sweep down with it, and the temple would surely drown in them.