The Maha made a noise, a soft hum of acknowledgment. “I see. Ah, Amun. I thought I’d molded you into something better than this. A shame.” He looked over Mehr’s shoulder. She wished she could turn, wished she could see Amun’s face. But the Maha still had her marriage seal in his hand, holding her as steady as a leash held a hound.

Amun. I’m so sorry. So very sorry.

“I’m not going to be coy with you any longer, Amun.” The Maha’s voice hardened. “Make her your wife in more than name. Fuck her. Are we clear? On your vows, you will make this woman yours in flesh now, or may your damnable vows eat you whole.” He flung Mehr to the ground and stood. Mehr scrambled back onto her hands and knees and turned, fixing her frantic gaze on Amun.

Whatever expression he had been wearing before was gone. She saw black in his starless eyes, utter emptiness in his face, as if his soul had been banished behind a wall. Perhaps it had been. He’d been given his order. He would obey it. Everything in Mehr recoiled. Her breath grew shallow with panic.

He was going to reach for her here, with Hema dead, with the floor bloodied, with the Maha and the Emperor’s effigy staring down at them; he was going to reach for her, and he was going to—

Mehr swallowed, nauseous. No. She could survive it. She could survive anything if she had to. But Amun had fought so long and so hard to be good. Hurting her—doing this?—would destroy him beyond repair. She couldn’t allow it.

She crawled across the floor, head swimming from the blows of the Maha’s hand, from the metal scent of blood, from the pure acid of terror. She placed a hand on Amun’s chest, right over the mark of that unfulfilled vow, that spidery white mark of a marriage seal that bound them both together as husband and wife, as slaves, as survivors.

“No, Amun,” she murmured. “No, no. Remember yourself. Remember me. Please, Amun. Not like this. Amun, remember.”

He was trying to fight. He gripped her hand; his hand shook, his grip hard enough to hurt, his palm slippery with sweat. He gritted his teeth, squeezed his starless eyes shut. She saw the sigils on his wrists and his face shift, livid. She tried to speak to him in the language of their forefathers and mothers, clumsily shaping the hand against his chest into half sigils. Promise, trust, you.

Love.

On the last sigil, he jerked away from her, a snarl on his breath. His eyes snapped open. He rolled on the floor, curving in on himself just as Mehr had when the Maha had beaten her. Mehr cried out when he slammed his head against the ground, once, twice—and then his eyes rolled back, and he went still.