This kiss was gentle, but not tentative. Mehr marveled at that—that something so new and so alien could feel so perfect, and so much like coming home. Something hot flared under her skin as the kiss deepened, as Amun’s hand moved from her cheek to tangle in her hair. Every inch of her skin felt suddenly, startlingly alive.

They were on the precipice of—something. There was a yawning pit in her stomach, a sense that if she touched him in return they would move to a place beyond fear to utter sweetness. She brushed her fingers over the line of his jaw. Amun made a noise against her mouth—and then pulled back sharply.

He got off the bed, even as his legs shook from the pain of it and his sigils stood out bright and livid on his skin. As Mehr tried to gather her thoughts, tried to quell her hammering heart, he slapped a hand against the wall and leaned his weight against it, his back to her. She could hear his ragged breath.

“No, Mehr.” She got to her feet as he spoke. “Don’t come here. I don’t want to hurt—”

“Hurt me? You won’t hurt me. What the Maha does, that isn’t you, Amun. I know you.” Her heart hadn’t stopped hammering, but the fire in her blood had burned her despair away and left her feeling alive again.

The fire he’d ignited in her body had woken something in her heart: a small, fragile light, a thing beyond the hunger and pull of the body. It wasn’t quite hope. It felt like a door opening, a narrow road not leading to the vast freedom she’d so long yearned for, but to something more possible. More real.

Something to hold on to in the dark.

She said his name again, once. But she didn’t move. She’d told him he had a choice. She had to let him make it.

“Vows,” he said abruptly. He turned to look at her, all his sigils feverish and bright on his dark face. “If—if we must be bound by his vows, I want us to make our own vows to each other.” A spasm of pain crossed his face. “I want to vow true things. Things that we choose to bind us.”

“Vows,” she repeated. She nodded. “I can do that.”

Vows. True things. Their lives had been shaped by vows layered upon vows: vows of service, vows of marriage, vows of ownership. Amun gave a gasp, doubling over, all his weight on the arm he had planted against the wall.

He couldn’t speak, so she had to. She mustered up all her courage.