“Stop,” he ordered softly. When she fell silent, breathing hard through her nose, he patted her cheek and let her go. “Good girl.”

She stayed very still. She thought he would beat her again then. She had failed so thoroughly, to be what he had demanded. Her scar throbbed painfully. But he only shook his head and smiled, a terrible soft smile.

“Now,” he said, satisfied. “Now you begin to understand true awe, and true worship. I am so pleased with you, Mehr. So pleased.”

“I wish I could kill him,” Amun said.

When Amun had returned from the physicians and found her sitting in their room, he’d only had to look at her to know she had faced the Maha without him. He’d listened without comment as she’d told him what had passed between her and the Maha. When he spoke, his words were without inflection, without rage. They were just truth.

“You’re not a murderer, Amun,” she said.

“Every man is, when he has to be.” He sat touching distance from her. The gap between their bodies felt heavy, significant. “I chose this fate. I can manage the burden of—what he does. But you, Mehr …”

“I can cope,” she said swiftly. “I’m stronger than I look.”

He exhaled. Gave her a swift, sidelong smile. “It’s not your strength I’m worried about. Seeing someone you love being hurt, knowing their pain so perfectly … Mehr, it’s hard.”

Her own heart gave a pang in her chest. She leaned against him, breaching that distance between them. Her pain eased as he wrapped his arm around her and pressed his face into her hair. These small things. They had to be enough.

“I don’t want to talk anymore about what he said to me.” What he did to me. “I want you to tell me a story. Tell me more about your childhood. Tell me how you grew up.”

And haltingly, gently, he did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

What are you supposed to do when you have lost the war and every possibility of victory has been absolutely, thoroughly annihilated?

Mehr had always fought. Sometimes in big ways, but usually small: carefully calculated rebellions, little victories won under a thin veneer of obedience. Now all the fight had left her. She couldn’t rebel any longer. She wore the chains of her servitude under her skin and her bones, in her soul. She and Amun could no longer alter the Rite of the Bound and ask the Gods to set them free, or compel the daiva to their will. Mehr’s small measure of freedom had been the key, and now the key was gone.