“I haven’t had company in a long time,” Rahima said, half in apology for how she would not, could not, stop speaking. “My son, the last time he visited, he told me to come to his village. But I told him no, this is my place.”

She told the Amrithi about her son, and his wife and child. She told her about the heyday of the village, before the trade routes had changed and the road had been swallowed back up by the desert, leaving Rahima’s village to wither and die. She spoke about her life here, alone in what remained. She spoke until her mouth was dry, then poured herself a cup of water to clear her throat.

The Amrithi woman was watching her.

“There’s something you want to say to me,” the Amrithi woman said. “Isn’t there?”

“My village betrayed the Amrithi,” Rahima blurted out. “That is why the village died. We were cursed. The daiva are punishing us.”

It was a relief to say so. She had carried the weight of that guilt for so long.

“My husband was the one who told the mystics about the clan,” Rahima said. She ladled water into the Amrithi woman’s now-empty cup with a trembling hand. Drops splattered on the floor. “They came to our village and offered gold for information. My husband told them about an Amrithi boy who could make the storms move for him. We saw the boy do it once. The mystics gave my husband gold. After that, we never saw the boy again. Soon your people stopped coming here at all.”

The woman sipped the water and said nothing.

“The trade routes changed,” Rahima said, pressing on. “My husband sickened and passed. My son said we should take our gold to one of the bigger villages. But I said I would die here, and he left. I thought … maybe if I stay here alone, if I suffer without my family day in and day out, and pray to the Gods for mercy, the daiva will be less angry. They will forgive us. The villagers would come back again.”

The woman said nothing. Her silence no longer seemed so inviting. Rahima reached for her hand and clasped it.

“You could speak to the daiva,” Rahima said, clutching the woman’s hand. “You could ask them to forgive us.”

The woman exhaled. Then she met Rahima’s eyes and smiled, a flat and unfeeling smile.

“If people were cursed for betraying Amrithi, the whole Empire would be in ruin,” the woman said.

Rahima shook her head. “You don’t know. I hear them at night! They cry in the boy’s voice. They tell me we should all be punished. I …”

Rahima fell silent and miserably wiped tears from her eyes.

The Amrithi woman stood. She moved to the corner of the room, back to the wall.