“You’ve brought scandal on us,” Maryam added. Her voice trembled. “And you’ve disgraced yourself.” Mehr saw her father’s fingers touch Maryam’s tenderly. Mehr looked away from them both.

“What does it matter, if I am disgraced?” Mehr asked numbly. Her father was silent. Maryam was silent. They left her room to dig her own grave. She wet her lips, which still tasted of sand and the rich iron of blood. “What will disgrace do to me, Father? Are you afraid I will stand in the way of Arwa’s marriage? That I will drag her down with me?”

From the periphery of her vision, she saw Maryam’s eyes narrow.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mehr repeated. “Arwa and I were born ruined. You know it to be true. You know what people think of Amrithi.” You know what your own wife thinks, she did not say. She raised her arm up, holding it to the light. “My skin was tainted a long time ago. But ah, perhaps Arwa’s skin will spare her my fate.”

“Don’t say such things,” her father murmured.

“I was born ruined and without the legal protection of your name,” Mehr said. Bitterness bubbled in her blood. She lowered her arm. “My mother kept true to her people’s laws. She never wed you. She never wore your seal, and you never wore hers. And now she is gone.” Mehr’s voice cracked. “In the eyes of the Empire we are less than nothing, Arwa and I. You should never have raised us here. You should have known that no matter what we would do, we would be judged as tainted by our blood. In the eyes of the Empire, we are less than nothing, Father.”

“I allowed your mother to keep her customs,” her father acknowledged. “But in raising you as I have, I have kept mine. Make no mistake, Mehr: You are my daughter. You have been raised in my household, fed with my food, clothed from my coffers. You are your mother’s daughter …” He faltered. “But you are also mine. And half your blood is Ambhan, noble and strong.”

Mehr said nothing. When it was clear she couldn’t or wouldn’t respond, her father continued.

“You try to stay true to your mother’s customs,” he said softly. “For that I don’t fault you. But when you left your quarters, you betrayed your duty as my child. And that betrayal, daughter, comes with a price.”

He leaned forward and pressed an item into her hands. She looked down. Pressed against her palm was a circle of carved stone, marked in Ambhan script with the names of the men of the family who had come before her. She saw her own name, set at its heart. Her blood ran cold.

Her seal. This was her marriage seal.