“Hello, Mehr,” said her mother. Her voice was rich. It was exactly the voice Mehr remembered from her childhood. It was the voice that had sung her to sleep and told her stories she’d held dear all the long, long years since her mother had left her. Listening to her mother’s voice made Mehr feel like a child, small and hopeful and helpless, heart an ache in her chest.

“Mother,” she whispered.

Her mother’s dark eyes traced every inch of her face.

“Oh, Mehr,” she said. “You’ve grown so much. I knew you would, of course. But … you are a grown woman now, aren’t you?”

Mehr swallowed. “Yes,” she said.

“And Arwa? How is Arwa?”

“When I left Jah Irinah, she was—well.” She thought of Arwa’s warm weight in her arms. The smell of her hair, her curiosity, her solemnness and her playfulness. How could she possibly describe all of what Arwa was, to a woman who had not seen her since she was a baby? “She’s a bright girl. Very sweet. Good-hearted.”

“Good,” her mother said, nodding. “That’s good.”

A brief silence fell. After a moment of hesitation, Mehr’s mother kneeled down across from her. Mehr watched the way she clasped her hands tightly together on her lap.

“Lalita told me what became of you, among the Saltborn,” her mother said. “Mehr, I am so very sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault, what was done to me.”

“If I had known you had my gift …” Ruhi shook her head. “Ah, it’s too late now. I won’t force you to ease an old woman’s regret.”

“You have it too, then? The—gift?” Mehr asked. “You can move dreamfire to your will?”

Her mother nodded. “My mother had four children, and I was the only one to inherit it.”

“I have aunts and uncles? A family?”

“We are depleted,” Ruhi said, her voice subtly strained. “There have been difficult times. A great deal of hunger and suffering. Some vanished. Others chose to leave Irinah and never returned.” She paused. “There are few of us left now.”

Mehr clasped her own hands, letting that answer settle within her heart. She couldn’t imagine how difficult life had been out here in the desert. The Amrithi had been hunted, their culture and their way of life decimated, their people stolen and forced to choose vows to the Maha or freedom at the end of their own blades. No wonder her mother didn’t dress in finery; no wonder Kamal continued to stare at Mehr with narrow-eyed suspicion. They had so little hope left.

“Why did you leave us?” The question escaped her almost without her say-so. But now that she had spoken, she couldn’t unsay it. She didn’t want to. “You would have remained safe in Jah Irinah.”

“Your father exiled me,” Ruhi said. “I couldn’t return to you.”