“I am telling you that I have lived all my life as the Maha’s creature, and I know what it means to serve. I know my own nature.” His voice was suddenly savage. “I know that if you look for goodness, you will find it is finite. If you trust me, I will betray you. That is what it means to be the Maha’s creature. That is what I do.”

Mehr had seen his marks. She’d seen the way he obeyed Kalini, seen him banish a daiva, seen the feral bitterness in his face. You can’t trust a creature in a cage. This she already knew. She breathed deep and slow, feeling the weight of his seal around her throat. Her mark felt like it was burning against her chest, a deep cold pain.

“If your goodness is finite, then it seems I must make use of it before it fades,” Mehr replied. She was trembling. She had to resist the urge to step out of the tent and run until her feet failed her. “You’ve bought me a little time, Amun, just a little time before our vow is done and I am the Maha’s creature too. You have told me there’s no way to escape the vow.” A deep breath. “If I can’t avoid my fate, then at least give me the knowledge I need to choose how I spend my freedom. Tell me what the Maha wants from me. Not because I’ve bargained, not because I’ve used you. Tell me because you are good.”

He let out a sudden, helpless laugh.

“You are a strange creature,” he said wonderingly. “A very strange creature.”

Mehr let out a breath. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t. This was just her body, her exhausted body reacting viscerally to the sudden break in his voice, that fall in gentleness. Her fingers uncurled. She felt an unraveling in her chest, as if she could breathe more easily. Even before he next spoke, she knew she’d won.

“Meet the Maha first,” he said. “And then I will tell you everything you want to know.”

RAHIMA

Rahima

The sky was very black, the stars bright as small moons, when the Amrithi woman approached Rahima’s hut. Rahima saw her first through the shutters, when the woman was still in the distance, striding across the sand. In the nighttime wind, her hair was a black flame, flying loose behind her. At first Rahima mistook her for a daiva. She thought perhaps one of the ancient ones had crawled out of myth and come for her, and she prayed to the Gods for mercy. But as the woman drew closer, Rahima’s fear abated.