She heard him shift, lying down on the ground. She didn’t have to see him to know that he had his back to her. She opened her mouth to speak. Closed it again. He didn’t want or need her apologies. He wanted her silence. He’d shown Mehr, unwittingly, the secret that lay at the heart of him. He’d shown her his weakness.

Under the mask he wore, Amun was full of poison. But none of it was aimed at her. No. Mehr knew what it looked like when another human being stared at her with hatred. What she had seen in Amun’s face was a knife turned inward.

She had seen it in his eyes, then. How he hated himself.

Even in the darkness, the sight of his face was imprinted on her memory. She’d been denied knowledge, any knowledge at all for so long, but in his face she’d found a light to burn away the edges of her ignorance and keep the cold at bay. His self-loathing made a cold, terrible kind of sense. In all the days that had passed, she had never seen the mystics offer him company or a kind word. If Mehr felt lonely, after mere days in their company, she could only imagine what Amun felt. To be so utterly unwanted, to be scarred and silent, to be treated in large and small ways as less than entirely human …

That kind of torture had the strength to shatter anyone. But Amun was not shattered. He was whole and strong, lying next to her on the floor of the tent, wide awake, breathing his careful, even breaths. Despite his self-hatred he had reached for her hand. Despite it, he had offered her a little time, a little mercy. He wanted goodness and tenderness—he craved it, starving with loneliness as he was—and that fissure in his strength was a tool at Mehr’s disposal.

I could use him, Mehr thought, a thrill running up her spine. It felt like something akin to hunger. It would not take much. The Maha had bound him with vows written into his skin and his soul. But Mehr could bind him too. All it would take was a little kindness.

She could place a hand on his back now. She could apologize again. I’m sorry. Let her voice soften. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

She could turn him to her own ends so easily. And she deserved a shield, didn’t she? She was so very alone out here, among enemies and strangers. Would it be so wrong to ensure that Amun was on her side?

A voice echoed through her head: People are not tools to be used, Lady Mehr.