Mehr was soon moved from the tent to a new hiding place, a moderately larger shelter carved into rock. The clan weren’t willing to accept her in their own home yet, and it was possible they wouldn’t be for a long time. Many, Lalita told her, were afraid she was still bound to the Maha; others feared that her presence would somehow draw the mystics to them. Mehr couldn’t find it in herself to blame them for their fears.

Lalita also told her that the shelter that would now be her home had once been used by Amrithi preparing for the Rite of Dreaming, as a place to dress and pray and wait for the dreamfire to fall. Now it was abandoned. Not large enough to hold a clan, too enclosed by sand and its own walls to act as a guard post, it served no purpose to their clan.

For Mehr, it was perfect. It didn’t have the honeycomb warren of corridors of the Maha’s temple, or the gleaming, golden elegance of her father’s household. Instead the structure was dark and secretive, its columns and walls all soft lines, flowing with the grace of dunes. It felt peaceful, but most of all, it made Mehr feel safe. She couldn’t help but trace its whorled walls with her hands, thinking of what it must have been like when those with and without the amata gift walked the room together, ready to dance the Rite of Dreaming as a clan.

Lalita spent a few hours with her on the first day, talking to her and offering her comfort. She treated Mehr as if she were fragile, keeping her voice soft and her movements slow. The kindness aggravated Mehr to no end. Too full of feeling, she couldn’t remain still under Lalita’s eyes. Instead she walked the room in circles, bristling like a caged animal.

Lalita watched Mehr pace, back and forth across the shelter’s floor, and said, “You need to rest, Mehr. Sit. You’ve been through an ordeal.”

“I’m well,” Mehr said, and that was true enough. She was as well as she could be, would be, when her chest ached, when Amun was not with her, when the Maha still lived and the echo of immortal nightmares still writhed under her eyelids.

“Just try not to think so much, then,” Lalita said gently. “I can almost see you fretting. For now it’s enough that you’re safe, and you’re here.”