She could have walked alone and unaided up those steps, but Nuri had already taken her arm, so Arwa allowed herself to be guided. The steps were blessedly even beneath her feet. She heard the whisper of Nuri’s footsteps, the gentle clang of the guardswomen before her and behind her, their lanterns bright moons in the dark. She raised her head, gazing up through the gauze of her veil at the night sky. The sky was a blanket scattered with stars, vast and unclouded. She saw no birds in flight. No strange, ephemeral shadows. Just the mist of her own breath, as its warmth uncoiled in the air.

“Careful, my lady,” said Nuri. “You’ll stumble.”

Arwa lowered her head and looked obediently forward. At the top of the staircase, she caught her first proper glimpse of her new home. She stopped, ignoring Nuri’s insistent hand on her arm, and took a moment to gaze at it.

The hermitage of widows was a beautiful building, built of a stone so luminescent it seemed to softly reflect the starlight. Its three floors rested on pale columns carved to resemble trees, rootless and ethereal, arching their canopies over white verandas and latticed windows bright with lantern light. Within it, the widows of the nobility prayed and mourned and lived in peaceful isolation.

Arwa had thought, somewhat foolishly, that it would look more like the squalid grief-houses of the common people, where widows with no husband to support them and with family lacking in the means or compassion to keep them were discarded and left to rely on charity. But of course, the nobility would never allow their women to suffer so in shame and discomfort. The hermitage was a sign of the nobility’s generosity, and of the Emperor’s merciful kindness.

For that kindness, Arwa was grateful.

Finally, she allowed Nuri to guide her forward again, and entered the hermitage. Three women, hair cut short in the style of widowed women, were waiting for her in the foyer. One sat on a chair, a cane before her. Another stood with her hands clasped at her back, and a third still stood ahead of the rest, twisting the ends of her long shawl nervously between her fingers. Behind them, leaning over balconies and standing in corridors were … all the other women in the hermitage, Arwa thought wildly. By the Emperor’s grace, had they all truly come to greet her?

She shook off Nuri’s grip and stepped forward, removing her veil as the third, nervous woman approached her. Arwa forced herself to make a gesture of welcome, forced herself not to flinch as the woman’s eyes grew teary, and she reached for Arwa’s hands.

The woman was old—they were all old to her weary eyes—and the hands that took Arwa’s own and held them firm were soft as wrinkled silk.