The daiva looked more human than any daiva Mehr had ever seen before. Its shadowy hands, clasped so neatly in its lap, were utterly mortal in shape, with fine nails and creases at the knuckles. Only its eyes revealed its true nature. Its eyes reminded her of the ancient daiva she had seen in the desert so long ago. She wondered if it was the same daiva after all, all its billowing edges transformed into the neatness of the human form.

The daiva gazed at her tranquilly, its candle-flame eyes flickering. There was no urgency in it.

She had never seen a truly ancient daiva, only had heard people speak of them in hushed, fearful whispers, in tales of time long gone. Perhaps this ancient one had come to take her, to carry her away to the place beyond the sand where the Gods slept. Perhaps it had come to grant her peace. More likely, it had come to exact the suffering she deserved for all the heresies, large and small, that she’d committed in the Maha’s service, and to save herself from it. The thought should not have comforted her, and yet somehow it did. An end. At least it would be an end.

Mehr raised a hand to touch her chest. She touched her seal, Amun’s seal, hanging on frayed thread. She touched her scar, which was livid and aching. The screaming inside her, the sound of the Maha trying to draw her back to servitude, had quieted. But it was still there. The pain was a sign, at least, that she was still alive.

The daiva raised a hand, carefully mirroring her movement. Then it slowly uncurled its fingers and held them out to her. Mehr was reminded, ridiculously, of the little bird-daiva that had rustled its wispy wings on Arwa’s window ledge. Just as she’d known what the bird-daiva wanted from her, she knew what this daiva wanted too.

“I have no knife,” Mehr said. Her voice was nothing but a rasp, thin and tired. She shaped her hands into the sigil for blood, drawing her left hand back in a negation.

The daiva held still for a moment. Its little finger twitched. Then in a quicksilver motion it moved, darting across the sand until its hand was a hairsbreadth from Mehr’s cheek. She barely stopped herself from flinching. It was only then that she realized she’d been weeping.

“You want my tears?” she asked, uncomprehending.

The daiva waited, watching her with its soft flame eyes. It did not move.

Tears were not blood. They were not the sacrifice of the knife, the reminder of shared blood and an old, old vow passed from progenitor to progeny. What could the daiva want with tears?