Mehr hadn’t known that daiva recognized any language beyond their own. All the daiva Mehr had ever known, after all, had responded to sigils alone. But this one was old, old and strong, she was sure of that now. It was nothing like the soft things that flitted along the edges of Jah Irinah. Perhaps in all its long years, its lifetimes upon lifetimes, it had learned something of the languages beyond its own tongue. Perhaps it had once worn a human visage, and lived among mortal men. Mehr lowered her hands slowly, mouth dry. Her heart was beating a frenetic rhythm.

“Spirit,” she said, trying to infuse her voice with the appropriate respect. “I have no blade, but I think you know what I am.”

She held her arms out, palms open and fingers spread in a gesture of welcome. She saw the eye give another slow, considering blink.

The daiva took hold of her wrists. It held them like a human would, with a simulacrum of fingers curving around her skin. Its daiva-flesh was warm. It shaped her human flesh curiously, as if it wasn’t sure what to make of her.

Mehr held her breath. She wondered if it would try to speak like a human. She wanted it to. But instead it tugged her hands, ever so gently, and began to raise them. It was trying to form a sigil, to speak to her in its own language.

Without warning its grip vanished. Its hands disintegrated around her, collapsing back into formless darkness. Its edges grew jagged; its face fractured like glass, a snarl bared on its simulacrum of a mouth. It was struggling, but Mehr had no idea what it was fighting, what force was dragging it away from her and reducing it back into shadow. She stumbled back, her hands in fists at her sides, as it began to inch away from her, growing ever smaller by the second.

Barrier gone, Mehr could see that the mystics were ringed around her, watching the daiva crumble. Standing directly in front of her was Amun.

His feet were pressed hard to the ground, knees at an angle, his back straight and tall. She watched his arms move, great sweeping motions that drew the daiva as if it had a chain around its neck that compelled it to follow. His hands were shaping a constant line of sigils, one flowing into the other with a seamless grace that Mehr had never been quite able to achieve.

He was dancing an Amrithi rite. But it was no rite Mehr had seen before. As she watched he turned, head lowered, hands sweeping the air and skimming earth. It was a move like the fall of a scythe—a transition for death dances, for grief and the fallen and harvest and forgetting. Not for this. Not for dragging a daiva across the sand, every inch of it vibrating with hollow rage.