“Our vows set me free. Do you think I’d want any less for you?” She shook her head. “I love you enough to want to see you unchained, even if that means I remain here alone. I mean that, Amun. I want you to go.”

Amun looked as if he wanted to argue. He held out a hand, reaching for her. He began to say her name—

A daiva flickered at the edge of Mehr’s vision, just beyond the window. She turned her head sharply.

“What is it?” Amun asked.

“I’m not sure.”

He followed her to the window. They both looked out.

An armed group of people was approaching the temple. Amun tensed at her side.

“Those are not mystics,” he said.

“No,” Mehr said, looking at the figure leading them. Her face was exposed, her body wrapped in dun-colored cloth, her braid whipping out behind her. “That’s my mother.”

The daiva were waiting when Mehr and Amun walked out of the temple into the sunlight. They clung to the temple walls and circled their feet. A few swooped through the air high above them.

The Amrithi were a small group. All adults, Mehr saw. They looked nervous, but not afraid, exactly. Their expressions were perilously close to hopeful. Only Ruhi’s face was unreadable, her eyes shadowed.

Mehr saw Lalita standing just behind her mother. She smiled at her, tears threatening to overwhelm her again. “Welcome,” she said.

“Ah, Gods,” Lalita said. Her smile was watery. “It’s good to see you alive, Mehr.”

“Likewise,” Mehr said, somewhat foolishly.

Mehr made eye contact with her mother then. “Why have you come?” Surely they hadn’t come for her. Mehr didn’t think her mother would have put the clan into such clear danger, not even for Mehr’s sake. Certainly, Lalita wouldn’t have allowed it.

“We saw the storm,” said her mother. “We felt the nightmares come, the earth shudder, and we thought the world was coming to an end. But the storm ended, and we did not.” Ruhi looked at the daiva flying above them. “The daiva came for us,” she continued. “They beckoned us. We knew then that we had to take a risk and follow them.”

“We didn’t know they would bring us to the temple,” Lalita said. “That was a pleasant surprise.”

“The Maha is dead,” said Mehr. An audible ripple ran through the Amrithi. “But I danced his rite, his anathema rite, which was never his to begin with. I reclaimed it, and I kept the world whole.” Mehr felt Amun encircle her wrist. She took strength in that touch. “I don’t regret it. I regret nothing I did for the sake of our survival.”

Her mother’s face remained expressionless. “Will you take his place?” she asked. “Rule the Empire as its quiet master, sequestered here among your worshippers?”