Deep in the storm, she stopped walking. She breathed in and out, trying not to choke on the sand around her. She reached for the seed of immortality within herself. There was no more time left to build up her courage, to remind herself of what needed to be done. It was time to act.

Mehr raised her hands. Set her feet against the ground. She began to dance the rite.

The dreamfire poured into her. It was an obliterating fire, too big for her body, too large to leave her soul whole. She let it come. It rose through her blood, filled her eyes and her ears and her throat with light, lifting her bodily with its power. She submitted to its power, bending with the storm, refusing to allow it to break her. She had to survive. She had to turn her will to the task of bending the Gods.

This time she did not have the Maha’s will or the mystics’ prayers. She did not have Amun to guide her or save her. The only hands shaping the dreams of the Gods were her own. She poured all her heart and soul into a rite that was no longer a two-person act of creation but an act of pure lonely desperation. She drew forward the dreams toward the only thing she desired: survival.

Do not kill us, do not end the world, oh Gods, do not send your nightmares for us, please, do not send your nightmares—

She was thrown back into her body. Her lungs ached. Her eyes stung. She was flat on the ground, arms pinned by clawed, pale fingers. A nightmare hung above her, its face a thousand pale, fractured shards around flat silver eyes. She turned her head and saw more of those eyes watching her. They were everywhere. The storm had breathed life into them.

Mehr wanted to laugh. She’d achieved the opposite of what she’d asked for. The Gods were angry indeed.

The nightmares were no longer simply a cold, creeping horror at the back of her skull. The fury of the Gods had carved them into flesh as hard as bones. It hung above her, but its whispers were inside her too, filling her skull with cold terror.

Images rose up in her mind, blotting her vision out: Hema’s throat cut; Usha dead on the ground; Kalini’s cold eyes; Amun gray and broken; the feel of Abhiman’s hands around her throat; the Maha’s fist against her face; Amun’s eyes, starless and bleak. There was so much darkness inside her. She’d locked it away for so long. Feeling it now, rising up, nearly destroyed her. Sickened, she felt tears force their way from her eyes. A scream began to claw its way up her throat.

She forced her eyes to snap open. No.

She wouldn’t be destroyed.