“I am weaker than I usually am,” Mehr admitted, because how could she hide it? “But I am still well.”

She certainly felt better than Amun had looked. She remembered Amun’s gray face, his closed eyes. She held back all the questions clamoring inside her. The Maha wouldn’t appreciate her asking how her husband fared. He wanted her obedience, her soul, her silence.

“If you are well, you’ll be prepared to speak. So tell me, Mehr,” he continued, his voice silken. “What did you do, out in the storm?”

“I performed the rite Amun taught me, so the prayers of the mystics would be heard by the Gods.”

The Maha shook his head. “No, child,” he said. “I want to know how you erred.”

A blackness opened up in her chest. Fear without edges.

This will not end well, a voice inside her whispered.

The Maha’s voice grew softer, sharper. “The dreams did not obey as they should have. I should have felt their strength pour through me.” The blandness of his expression was shattering to reveal something terrible beneath: a monster Mehr had always known was there beneath his flesh, waiting for the chance to crawl out.

“Instead I felt the power try to slip through my fingers.” He held one elegant hand before him. “I felt darkness arise in its place.”

The nightmare. So the Maha had felt it too. Bahren had felt it when he’d held her. She’d seen his unease as he carried her, the tension in the mystics who had stood in the desert and watched the dreamfire fall.

“Amun has never failed me before,” the Maha told her. “So tell me, Mehr: What did you do?”

“I did everything I was taught to,” she said unsteadily. “I did as I was bid. I promise, Maha. I obeyed.”

He took a step forward and struck her.

She felt the blow all the way through her skull. There was no pain at first. Just shock. She stumbled, raising a hand up as if to ward him off.

“What did you do?” he repeated.

He hit her again before she could respond. She fell to the floor this time, the weight of the blow sending her down with a crash. Her shoulder skidded against cold marble. She felt the cold through her hips, her knees, her elbows. Her head was ringing like a call to prayer.

“Nothing, nothing,” she gasped out. “Nothing, Maha. It was a nightmare. A nightmare tried to hurt us both. I did nothing. I obeyed you. I’m bound by my vow. Maha!”

He had a hand in her hair. Her curling hair, tangled and stained with sand. His grip was unyielding. He kneeled down beside her, his shadow consuming hers.