“Perhaps she has done Arwa a kindness,” Ruhi said. “Perhaps she has given Arwa the chance to live a life without regrets.”

Ruhi didn’t sound as if she truly believed her own words, but Mehr shook her head anyway.

“I don’t believe that,” Mehr said. “Arwa is part Amrithi. It’s part of her, just as being Amrithi is part of me.”

You are part of us, like it or not, Mehr thought.

Mehr was so like her mother. She had always known she was. She’d seen the truth of it often enough in her father’s eyes. It still made it no stranger to be confronted with the truth of it. Her mother’s eyes, her face, the way she held herself like a creature always on the verge of flight—

Mehr was not so sure, anymore, that she was happy to be her mother’s daughter. Her mother was so … hard. Hard as blade or bone, and she wore her feelings like scars that pained her still. She’d left her clan once, although she’d returned to them, to be their Tara. She’d left her daughters behind too, though she welcomed Mehr now with open arms. She wore her love for her clan and her love for Mehr like a grim wound, a thing that had to be borne. Looking at her made Mehr think of her own love for Arwa. Her love for Amun.

She’d left them both behind too. Ah, Gods.

She looked at her mother again, then looked away. It was so hard to acknowledge her, when the feelings she conjured in Mehr were a child’s feelings, deep and grief-stricken and furious. So Mehr looked back at the daiva instead. Once the sight of them would have filled her with joy. Now the sight of them only made her heart beat faster and a cold sweat rise on her skin. Joy seemed a faraway thing.

“The desert isn’t right,” Mehr said. “Something is wrong. I know you see it.”

“I do,” Ruhi acknowledged. “But it will return to normal soon enough.”

Ruhi spoke in a tone that suggested she didn’t want to be asked any further questions. Instead of heeding her, Mehr said, “Why is the desert as it is now, then? Why will it return to normal?”

There was a brief silence. Then Ruhi said, “The night of the storm … you didn’t perform the Maha’s rite. Did you?”

“No.”