Realm of Ash

by Tasha Suri

  He exhaled, a low, shaky breath.

  “I’ll begin the fire,” he said, and turned on his heel into the next room. Arwa sagged.

  Their blood had barely touched the flame when Arwa felt the pull of it. As if she already slept, a void had opened in her mind. A door. She shivered.

  But she didn’t tell Zahir. Only drank the tea. Only slept.

  They entered the realm of ash fast. Arwa knew it better now. The red roots unfurling around her gossamer body; the new ash that clung to her dream skin. She turned to Zahir and reached her hands out to him. Stopped.

  “Are you sure you’re prepared to see?” she asked him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Show me the way.”

  They crossed the realm, through familiar shadowy trees, to the white sand, to the dead.

  Arwa raised her hands before her. The roots rose with her. Ash gathered between her fingertips. Ash from her own path. Ash from within her own soul.

  “I can show you,” she said. “But the choice is yours.”

  He looked at her hands. He always looked at her hands.

  “For good or ill, then,” he said. “I promised you a bond of trust.”

  She did not know what compelled him—curiosity, thirst for knowledge, trust, or guilt—but he placed his head in the space between her hands. The ash rose from her skin to meet him. Her mind filled all the memories her soul had consumed: Nazrin, Tahir, Ushan. The blades. The mystics. The Maha. Great wings; a parent’s love.

  She saw gray creep through Zahir’s blood roots. His skin. He closed his eyes. The storm around them, on Arwa’s path, rose wilder and wilder. Closed upon them, neat as a lock.

  When Arwa next opened her eyes—her true eyes—she was lying on the workroom floor. The fire had guttered. Dawn was beginning to brighten the sky.

  Zahir was slumped against the other wall.

  “Lord Zahir,” she said, and clambered to her feet.

  “Well,” he said hoarsely. “You have lit the lamp, Lady Arwa. If I could have…?”

  “Yes,” she said. She brought him water from the library. Placed it next to him.

  “I see now,” he said. “I saw.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw people forced into unbreakable vows. I saw those people—those Amrithi—forced to use their magic to manipulate the dreams of the Gods. I saw them used to death. I saw a people and civilization decimated. I see. I saw…”

  He stopped.

  “I saw what he did, Lady Arwa. I saw it all,” he said finally. He sounded raw, broken. He turned his face away.

  She didn’t comfort him.

  “The Empire’s strength,” he murmured, “was built on Amrithi magic.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “That brings us a little closer to the truth. To… the nature of the curse upon the Empire.” He spoke slowly, as if piecing the truth together through a numb veil of horror. “Our mortal world is shaped by the dreams of the Gods—multitudes of dreams, woven into the fabric of everything. Dreams of life and death, light and dark, growth and decay. He used Amrithi magic—”

  “Amata,” Arwa put in quietly.

  “Yes. He used—amata—to crush the ill dreams, that would have brought the Empire ill fortune of any kind. He forced them into the dark. And brought only good fortune up to the light. To our world.” She heard him exhale, slow, shaken. “It was not his innate glory or the worship of his loyal mystics that made us strong, after all. It was the Amrithi.”

  “He built the Empire on their blood,” said Arwa. “On their dead. My dead.”

  “The knowledge he must have had.” Zahir’s voice was cold, a whisper. “The knowledge he must have had. Of reality. Of all things.”

  She flinched from that. Her body drew back, back. There was a wall behind her, holding her steady.

  “Do you admire him for it? For this—monstrousness?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. To know so much, as he must have done, to know the world is shaped by the dreams of the Gods and to then consciously, arrogantly, pervert the laws that govern reality, without thought or care or ethics—to commit a genocide…” He stopped sharply.

  Then, after a moment, the fire dying between them, he said, “The Maha is gone. He cannot use the Amrithi any longer, and it is clear he has left the world… wounded. The unnatural terror, the sicknesses sweeping the Empire, the floods and the failed crops, the strange ill-starred luck our Empire suffers—Arwa, I think they are all the Empire’s dark dreams, long suppressed, finally coming for us. And every day, they grow ever worse.”

  She saw him raise a hand, hold it before him, watching his own fingers tremble. “He broke the world, Lady Arwa. The curse is growing worse. Growing swift and strong. I have never read a book that could put to rights his work. There is no theory that can encompass the damage he may have wrought, because the act was… untested, unmeasured. The consequences—we see them all around us. Thousands of people will die. The Empire will be a husk, empty of the living. I do not know how to fix his ill work.” His hand lowered, still trembling, trembling. “I do not know how to fix it. But he still might.”

  He must have sensed her horror, seen it written upon her face. His eyes were reddened; his cheeks tracked with tears.

  “No,” she said. “No. You cannot still mean to seek his ash. You can’t, can you?”

  “To fix a broken tool, you must understand the intent of its maker,” said Zahir. “The Empire is broken, Lady Arwa, but it is a terrible weapon, built of the living and the dead alike. If it falls, all the people within it…” His voice cracked like kindling wood. “He is a monster. I do not deny it. I saw what you saw. And yet I cannot see—cannot imagine—what else to do but seek what he knew.”

  She made a sound—almost a howl, that rose out of her unbidden. He looked at her with those eyes, those eyes that saw too much, and yet he didn’t see at all, she was at the center of her own storm and he did not see her.

  “You would not speak this way if he’d murdered your people,” she forced out. “If your Hidden Ones were strung up upon the city walls. If everything your mother loved and learned was stolen from you—you would not dare. You have your history, Lord Zahir, in all these books around you. Your father’s history is the Empire. But I have a void where half my history should be. My sister is dead. And all my life I have thought myself cursed. Tainted. You can’t possibly understand how that feels.”

  “Lady Arwa,” he said softly.

  “Do not ask me not to be angry,” she snapped. “Do not. And do not be kind to me. You don’t have the right, I do not give you the right.”

  He pressed back against the wall, as if she had pinned him fast, as if her hands held him and choked the life from him, as Akhtar had done. He tilted his head back, his throat a dark bruise, his skin ivory-cold.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I can’t. But can you see another way? What is there but the Empire and the Maha’s path for all of us? Can you even dream another world, Lady Arwa?”

  Arwa swallowed hard. Stood in frozen, wordless feeling, her limbs seized with it.

  She could not.

  Zahir drank the water. His hands shook.

  “You should go. It is almost light.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Arwa did not go to Zahir the next night, or the night after that.

  When she thought of returning to his side—to books and the realm and his face by firelight—she couldn’t bear it.

  He had seen the history of her blood. And it had… hurt him. She was sure it had. She’d seen his face etched with tears, heard the roughness of his voice, as if horror had broken its edges and left it ragged.

  But it had not hurt him as it had hurt her.

  He would not stop searching for the Maha’s ash. He would not stop looking for answers within the faded memories of a man who had murdered the Amrithi and used them, blood and soul, to build the very Empire crumbling around them. To fix a broken tool, you must understand the intent of
its maker.

  She wanted to hate him. Hate would have been easy. Anger, too, would have been acceptable.

  But instead, all she felt was despair.

  Can you even dream another world, Lady Arwa?

  She had not answered him.

  The truth was that she couldn’t. The Ambhan Empire was all she had ever known. She had been born in it, raised within it. She had watched the edges of its glory peel and fade, revealing monsters and massacres. Oh, she’d yearned as a girl for an Amrithi life, but she knew nothing in truth of how to live in a world unshaped by the Empire. Its end was not a thing to be desired. What lay beyond its death could only be chaos. An Empire empty of the living.

  And yet its faded glory sat upon broken backs. On broken limbs spread across a desert of ash, a desert of trauma and of memory.

  Ah, but it was part of the insidious power of the great tool the Maha and Emperors then and now had built, was it not? A world where only their voices defined heresy and rightness, where there were no other ways of being, of living, than the one they offered.

  There was nothing but this, because they had made it so.

  She wanted to run from that knowledge. She wanted the hermitage, the valley, the bow and arrow in her hands. Sweat on her skin, tensile strength of the bow trembling in her grip. She wanted anything but the ugly weight of her own thoughts, and of knowing the vast shape of the horrors that had formed this very moment: her head in her hands, her mind turning over the same words constantly, soft as a noose.

  I don’t know what to do.

  She did not want the Empire to fall. She did not want it to survive either.

  She did not want to help Zahir. But she did not want Akhtar’s hands upon his throat ever again. She did not want the people of the Empire dead.

  The Hidden One claimed walking the path of one’s ash would lead a person to truth, to something good. They believed knowledge found and shared could be used to build a better world. But Arwa had only found another path, cloaked in utter darkness. And Zahir… Zahir had chosen to walk the same path he had walked all along. The Maha’s path.

  She did not know where to go next.

  She knew someone would demand she return to her work eventually. Of course Zahir did not seek her out. She had not expected him to, truly. He seemed to consider the exit of the tomb enclosure the limits of his world and acted accordingly. Besides, the women’s quarters were forbidden territory, and Arwa made a point of not walking in the gardens anywhere near his hidden home.

  She was not ready yet to make a choice.

  One day after the evening meal, she found Gulshera waiting for her in her room.

  “If you’re going to tell me to return to him,” said Arwa haltingly, “I can only assure you that I will. When I am—ready.”

  Gulshera shook her head. She did not remind Arwa that the topic of Zahir was a forbidden one. She only said, “Arwa.”

  Her voice… the hairs rose on the back of Arwa’s neck.

  “Aunt. What is it?”

  “The Emperor is dying,” said Gulshera. Her voice was leaden. “He has days, perhaps. Hours.”

  “He—no. He can’t be dying,” Arwa said.

  “Of course he can,” said Gulshera. “You saw him. It is amazing how swiftly old age can become illness, and illness can become death. You are young, and perhaps will not be familiar with that reality.”

  “You always think me a fool,” whispered Arwa. She did not have the energy to be hurt. She closed her eyes. Touched her fingertips to her eyelids. The soft pressure grounded her.

  “Tomorrow at dawn he should hold his Beholding and audience,” said Gulshera. “He will not. Then everyone will know.”

  “Jihan? Does she…?”

  “Of course she knows. As do I. And now you.”

  “Why have you told me?” Arwa whispered.

  In the close-eyed dark, Gulshera said, “Because I want you to accompany me to his deathbed, Arwa. Jihan has asked for me, and I ask for you.”

  Arwa stopped for a moment, stopped entirely, breath and body both. She swallowed. Spoke.

  “I have no place there.”

  “You do, because I have asked you.”

  “Why?”

  “Do not choose to remain in ignorance, Arwa.” Sharp words. “Come with me. The world is about to change; the battle you have chosen will alter. You told me you chose this path. Do not give me all the guilt of ensuring you survive it.”

  “Do not pretend my fate concerns you that much, Aunt.”

  “I accompanied you here,” said Gulshera levelly. “I have advised you as best as I can, despite the duties Jihan demands of me. Of course I care.” She shook her head. “I have grown somewhat fond of you, Arwa,” she said, in a voice that was softer than it had the right to be. They were no family to one another. No family. “Trust me or don’t, Arwa. But come with me now.”

  Gulshera stared at her. Waiting.

  In silence, Arwa nodded.

  The Emperor, dying.

  Ah, Gods.

  The room where the Emperor lay dying was not a private space of sanctuary or intimacy. But then, an Emperor did not have the luxury of dying a private death. In a pale mimicry of the Hall of the World, scribes sat upon bolster cushions at the edge of the room. The council of his favorites kneeled. The Emperor’s closest advisers kneeled also. Men on all sides kneeled in silence, and watched, waiting for the Emperor to die.

  They were separated from the sight of the Emperor’s dying form by a circle of gauze: great curtains unfurled from the ceiling, forming a perimeter vast enough to both encompass his bed and allow his women to hold vigil.

  The women kneeled around his divan in a circle. When they entered, Jihan threw back her veil and kneeled at his side.

  Physicians had cared for the Emperor. He wore poultices, to stimulate his blood. Someone had placed a cloth on his forehead, scented with attar and herbs, to soothe his head and cool his fever.

  Medicine had done all it could for him. It was the women who comforted him now. A jug of wine laced with opium sat at his bedside.

  A guardswoman came to the door.

  “The princes come,” she said.

  “Veil yourselves,” Masuma said woodenly, and her women covered their faces. Only Jihan and Masuma, and a scattering of blood cousins, remained bare-faced. The princes were, after all, their kin. The lax propriety of feasting had no place here.

  Arwa lowered her own veil, and stared through the cloth at the princes as they entered the wall of gauze and bowed low.

  Nasir had obviously been weeping, but Akhtar and Parviz both wore equally strange expressions—part grief and part hope.

  No woman bowed. Their heads were turned to the Emperor.

  When Parviz moved to speak, Masuma raised a hand to silence him.

  “We must wait,” she said, “until your father wishes to speak, as is right. He is still Emperor, Parviz.”

  She tilted her head. Raised her voice.

  “Forgive this woman for speaking before you, lords,” Masuma said impassively.

  A ripple of uneasy acquiescence ran through the courtiers beyond the curtain.

  The doors opened. A guardswoman walked forward. Hesitated.

  “I have brought him,” she said awkwardly. “As requested by the Emperor.” She bowed her head, and quickly departed.

  Zahir entered.

  The ripple, this time, among the courtiers, was far more pronounced.

  He entered tentatively, calm-eyed but pale. Arwa looked at him, heart in her throat. She felt Gulshera’s fingers tighten, subtly, over her forearm.

  “Enter, Zahir,” the Emperor said. His voice creaked like old wood.

  Parviz made a noise of disgust. Akhtar’s jaw was tight enough to grind rocks.

  “Father,” said Nasir, the youngest and the most doted on, eyes wide. “Why?”

  “He is part of my household, is he not? My daughter has acknowledged him as brother, though I have not named him as son. Bow now, Bahar’s son.�
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  Zahir bowed, deeply, face to the floor. Then he stood to the side. His gaze was steady. He said nothing. He did not even tremble, which was astonishing. Arwa supposed she was trembling enough for the both of them.

  Arwa thought of his order. His analytical nature. How he disliked situations without rules, situations that could end in hurt.

  And yet he was here, unacknowledged, his sister’s hidden tool, before the dying Emperor.

  How this could end well, she didn’t know.

  “My sons,” the Emperor said. “I suppose it’s time to name one of you my heir. And for the rest of you to vow your loyalty.”

  He coughed. Hacking. Laughed, showing strong white teeth, eyes crinkling in a way that revealed lost handsomeness.

  “A difficult task, no? It was simpler in my youth. I had only one brother, and he was not my equal. We both knew it. I was born to be Emperor. I blazed. And I proved my worth. I conquered Durevi, crushed it beneath my boot. My Empire was vast and beautiful. But you… my sons.” He shook his head. “You inherit an Empire blighted by the Maha’s death. I will not prevaricate: His death has wounded our Empire. It will need strong hands to steer it. It will need you to be loyal to one another. You are all strong in different ways, my sons, and I have asked myself what the Empire requires from its new Emperor. I have asked myself what will preserve our glory. And I have made my choice.”

  He looked at them with real affection. And real, clear-eyed knowledge.

  “Akhtar,” he said.

  “Father.”

  “You will do, as Emperor. Keep good advisers around you, hm?”

  “Father.” Akhtar was desperately trying to look solemn, even as joy blazed on his face. “Father. I will.”

  “Parviz. Nasir.”

  “Father,” said Parviz.

  “You will respect my decision.”

  “Of course, Father,” said Parviz. If anything, Nasir looked relieved.

  “Let it be recorded, then,” the Emperor said. “When I pass, my son Prince Akhtar shall become Emperor, his old name struck from him, his body crowned to an everlasting throne.”