Her final mistake was tangled in with all the rest: She had wanted, so very deeply, to perform the Rite of Dreaming at Mehr’s side. She’d wanted to do so for Mehr’s sake, because she loved the girl dearly, as if she were her own child. But most of all she had wanted to dance the rite for herself. The Rite of Dreaming was a rite for worship and joy, for history and family, but most of all, it was a rite for dancing with clan. Lalita had wanted, just for a moment, to perform the rite with someone who was clan to her. Just for a moment, Lalita had wanted to belong.

She’d always understood that keeping even the barest bones of her heritage demanded a terrible price. But she had kept her heritage regardless. That was her gravest error.

Now all that was left for her was to survive.

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

On the morning when the sky above the city began to bleed from pale blue into the dark jewel tones of dreamfire, Mehr knew the storm had finally arrived. She went onto the roof with one disapproving guardswoman to accompany her. She couldn’t stay long. The guardswoman was muttering darkly about Lady Maryam, gazing up at the sky with obvious trepidation. Mehr took a brief moment to stare at the dreamfire, to snatch in the scent and the sight of it, then returned inside.

Once she was back in her chambers, a maid handed her a message from Lalita, confirming that she would be at the Governor’s residence by evening.

Worry knotted Mehr’s stomach and wouldn’t fade. Maryam’s words wouldn’t leave her. It would be a relief when Lalita arrived.

After the rite was done, she would speak to Lalita about the things Maryam had said to her, the whispers Sara had confided. She would find a way to keep herself and her family safe.

The hours passed and the sky darkened. Rather than waiting impatiently for Lalita, Mehr dressed. She put on her fanned skirt and her blouse. She wound indigo cloth around her body, draping it so it would move easily with her body and also protect her from the storm. The red silk she drew around her waist—and tucked her dagger securely into a fold, where she could feel the promise of it against her skin.

She marked her hands and feet with red. Her eyes she lined with black, and touched her forehead with ash also rimmed with red. She looked at herself in the mirror in her bedchamber. The woman who stared back at her had eyes like midnight and skin like rosewood, a solemn mouth and a forehead tipped vermilion. Sky and earth and blood.

She was ready.