Once she’d made it to the bathing chamber, she focused on unraveling her knotted hair, which hadn’t seen a comb in what felt like a lifetime. It was easier to focus on mundane things than to think about what Amun was potentially suffering at the Maha’s hands.

It would be so easy for Amun to reveal their ruse. But she wasn’t afraid he would. Or at least, she was no more afraid than she always was. Amun was brave and clever, could twist the truth into knots, and he would protect them both if he could. She was far more afraid of what the Maha would do to him. The Maha had been so full of black, bloody rage. He hadn’t spent it all on her, she was sure of that.

And Amun had been shaking when he’d left her. Shaking and quiet and gray.

She feared more than anything that he’d return to her hurt. Her own bruises were bad enough. But his … his she couldn’t bear.

No. Stop thinking, she chided herself. The fear and shame that were gripping her were destructive and would do her no favors. She needed to be strong. She had to put her terror away. She needed to hold on to the iron of her will, the cold sureness of steel in her bones, and consider her options.

She tied back her hair in a vaguely respectable braid. Somewhere deep in the temple, the bell for prayers rang.

As Mehr walked, following the crowd toward prayers, she kept her mind resolutely cold and clear. She thought of the rites she had danced all her life. Ever since her early childhood, rites had shaped the rhythm of her life, had been her breath and blood. She knew that the bones of all rites were essentially the same: stances mingled with sigils, the movement of the body matched with the power of mortal feeling. It wasn’t enough to simply know the language of the rites. Her mother and Lalita had taught her early that the rites were nothing without an Amrithi’s reverence. An Amrithi couldn’t simply enact a rite. They had to feel it.

Rites were sigils for words and stances for emotion and will for fire and blood for oil to the flame. Rites were a mechanism and a magic that Mehr had always felt awed and privileged to have in her grasp. But the Rite of the Bound …