Realm of Ash

by Tasha Suri

  “And you like accuracy.”

  “I do,” he murmured. It was only then, his voice so soft and close, that she realized she was still holding his wrist.

  She was hit—not by the ugly hunger she expected, but by something softer. A loneliness without sharp edges.

  She wanted to remain here. She wanted to sit at his table and read his books, watch him sleep with his head against the wall. She wanted… well. It did not matter what she wanted. She was a widow, still.

  But the want felt like a wound. She looked away from him, walked over to the shelves, and touched her fingers to the spines of the books. There were gilt edges, paper bound in silk cloth to keep its interior pages pristine. Books that smelled of age and mold. Books new and crisp and fresh, pages practically knife-edged, bristling beneath her fingers.

  She reached for one and took it down. When she cracked it open she realized the writing was neat and cramped, and undeniably his own.

  “You can take it, if you like,” he said. “Take any of them. These books are as much yours as mine.”

  “That is hardly true, my lord. I am only an apprentice to you.”

  “On the subject of the accuracy of words…” He paused. “You’ve walked the realm with me. I could not have done it alone. You…” She remembered his gratitude, saw it in the shape of his mouth, the light in his eyes. “Perhaps,” he continued haltingly, “partner is a more appropriate word.”

  “Partner,” she repeated.

  “You have a more appropriate term?”

  “We’re keepers of a lost art,” said Arwa. “We are not Hidden Ones, I think. I am not. But I suppose we are… a mystical order.”

  “Of two?”

  “Yes. A mystical order of two. It is accurate, don’t you agree?”

  They were smiling at one another.

  On the edge of death, and we’re smiling, Arwa marveled. She clutched the book tighter, butter-soft leather yielding in her grip. Its weight was significant, despite the way it fit easily into her hands.

  “I should let you rest,” she said.

  “Yes.” The light in his face dimmed a little. “Take the book with you. If you like.”

  He turned from her then, rolling the cuff back into place, head lowered.

  She looked at his lowered head. She thought about how easily her hands would fit to the back of his neck: how warm his skin would be, and how soft.

  She turned and left.

  Unsure she would sleep, she lay on her bed, lantern precariously close to her, and read.

  In small, painstaking writing—so laborious and so terrifyingly neat that it could only be Zahir’s—lay a record of his lessons. Images painted on separate scraps of animal skin and paper. Tucked between the pages, perilously likely to come loose, was poetry from the Hidden One, and lesson notes from his own tutors.

  She traced his words with her fingertips. Watched the confidence in his script grow. This was no diary of feelings, but a scholarly record. Mantras, too, and scraps of knowledge sewn together. Ever since the Maha’s death, Zahir had searched for answers, as much a Hidden One as his mother—or as much as he could manage to be behind the palace’s walls. And in her time in the palace, Arwa had done the same. She had come a long way from the widow crying tears of frustration in the library of the hermitage’s prayer room, full of questions without any access to answers. She had new questions now.

  They truly were a mystical order of two, she and him.

  One of the final images was not copied art, but something Arwa knew could only have come from his own hand: a human built of pale lines and the silver of glass, run through by great roots, red and deep as blood. He must have drawn it after Arwa arrived at the palace, after her blood opened the doors to the realm of ash. She looked at it a long moment.

  She heard a noise, and looked up from her book. Froze.

  At the end of her bed, shadowed by night and candle glow, sat a figure small enough to be a child.

  It raised its head. A child’s face, carved from shadow, looked at her. Eyes like fractured silver. As she watched, heart in her throat, its face fractured too, skin unfurled, peeling away, to reveal a face beneath it, flat as bone, a nightmare made flesh—

  Her lungs filled with rattling fear. She woke up, shooting into heart-pounding awareness. The room was entirely dark.

  Even the lantern had guttered.

  It took her a moment longer to realize the lantern should not have guttered, that she had grown adept at knowing how to keep a lantern burning all night long, the necessary measure of oil to wick.

  It took her a moment longer, still, to realize there were thin facets of light winking in and out of sight. That there was something concealing her lantern with the shadowy bulk of its body.

  Daiva.

  She rose onto her elbows. The shadowy bird-spirit bristled upon her lantern. When she moved, it lifted its wings and rose, letting the light pour over Arwa’s bed and the book beside her once again. She looked around herself, careful.

  The walls were covered in shadows. No Darez Fort child-nightmare in sight. But that did not matter. Arwa knew what she had dreamed, and what lay before her now. Hundreds of bird-daiva upon the windows and walls.

  Arwa rose to her feet. Carefully, ash whirling through her mind, she shaped a sigil of respect, a hint of a question in her stance. The tilt of her body. The turn of her head.

  The daiva broke into wisps. Coalesced into one formless being, that took her arms, shaping them, then curled over her like a black shawl. Heart still hammering, she repeated the gesture it had made for her.

  What had it meant? The ash within her answered.

  Blood.

  Arwa’s hands were shaking. She went over to her trunk, searching blindly. Ah. There.

  She picked up her dagger and tucked it into her sash, where it was properly hidden. She raised the book too, holding it against her chest, and opened her room, stepping out into the corridor. For a moment she stood still, entirely still, and listened.

  Silence. Utter silence. She felt the daiva melt away, slipping into formless shadow. For a moment, Arwa stood alone in the corridor, listening to birdsong as dawn approached. She felt terrified, but also strangely a fool.

  Then she heard footsteps. A figure, gold-armored, came around the corner. The guardswoman spotted her and approached.

  “My lady,” she said. “Why are you awake?”

  “I heard a noise,” Arwa said. “I was afraid. My apologies.”

  The guardswoman shook her head with a smile.

  “There is nothing to be afraid of, my lady. Go back to your rest.”

  Arwa turned. Hesitated.

  “Where is Eshara?” she asked. “She usually patrols this corridor.”

  “Sick,” the guardswoman said shortly.

  “Or Reya? She—”

  “Go to sleep,” the guardswoman said. “My lady.”

  And Arwa would have, perhaps, if she had not paused for a moment longer—breath still in her throat, heartbeat no longer a roar in her ears—and heard the slow, steady drip of liquid against marble.

  She turned.

  Saw blood drip from the sheath of the guardswoman’s scimitar to the floor.

  The guardswoman saw that she had seen. She looked at Arwa, expression resolute.

  “Go into your room,” she said softly. “Allow me to bar your door. Sit silently, and you will live. I have not been tasked with killing women tonight.”

  Not women. Then—

  Zahir.

  Arwa made a choked noise, suitably small and terrified. Nodded. Shaking, she edged back toward her room. Drip. Drip.

  Her fingers tightened on the book.

  Using all her strength, she flung it at the guardswoman’s head.

  The book was heavy, but the guardswoman’s helm should have protected her entirely from harm. Arwa was lucky—the shock of the blow stunned the woman for a moment, giving Arwa all the reprieve she needed. Barefoot, unveiled, she ran for the hidden passage that led
to the gardens.

  She heard a yell and the sound of steel being drawn behind her, but she did not stop, and did not look back. Hesitation would have been certain death.

  Familiar path, concealed by high trees. She ran. She ran.

  She tripped, but didn’t fall. Instead she paused and turned, her breath ragged, and saw what had blocked her path. Curve of a shoulder. Long rope of hair.

  Someone had not been averse to killing women this night.

  The maid was undeniably dead. The grass around her, the paving stones, were red.

  Blood, the daiva had told her.

  Arwa held an arm to her face, shaped her teeth around the skin of her forearm, and breathed deep and slow. She had seen death. She knew death. She would be damned if she wept like a widow here, out under the fading night.

  She kept on moving.

  She moved more slowly now, in the shadows thrown by the trees. Through the leaves, she saw that Zahir’s workroom was surrounded by unfamiliar figures. Armed women. Armed men.

  Her stomach fell away. She had hoped—somehow—that she would be able to warn Zahir. That he would be well. But how could he be?

  A step back, under the cover of trees. Then she began to walk more hurriedly; her vision was almost black with something akin to grief. She stopped—she didn’t know where—surrounded by trees, a canopy of leaves concealing the sky above her.

  She heard the crack of wood. Her vision snapped into focus.

  In the shadows, she saw movement. A man. Watching her.

  A guard. He had to be a guard, though he dressed like a soldier, his garb not ceremonial but worn by use, scuffed and stained and bloodied. He looked at her. There was no resolute sympathy in his eyes. Arwa’s insides curdled; she looked about herself, wild, a thing caught in a trap.

  Under the cover of trees there was nowhere to run to.

  There was no softness on his face. Not even particular malice.

  “Who are you, then?” he whispered. “Another maid?”

  Arwa said nothing.

  “No,” he said. Still soft. “A widow. So, widow, do you know where the bastard is hiding?”

  She took a step back. Another.

  The man followed.

  Arwa could feel the sweat at the nape of her neck, the fistlike thud of her heart. She felt wood at her back. Her legs numb.

  I am going to die, she thought. After all this time.

  Dappled light fell on his form, concealing his face. But she heard him exhale and saw his hand move for his scimitar.

  “Well then,” he said. Began to draw his sword.

  The shadowed light, coming from the branches above him, moved.

  A figure jumped down, arm hooking around the soldier’s neck, drawing him brutally down to the earth. They hit the soil hard. A strangled yelp came from the soldier’s throat. He scrabbled for his scimitar, fist around the hilt. But the figure at his back was drawing his neck back, back, choking the air out of him with a fierce wrench of their arm.

  Arwa should have run. But she could not. She knew that figure, the face half buried in the dirt, flushed and narrow-eyed.

  Zahir.

  He should have been a comical sight, fighting an armed man much greater in strength and size than himself. But he was using what upper hand he possessed to full effect, pinning the guard’s scrabbling arm with his knee, his own arm still around the guard’s throat. He fumbled—clumsy, pale with pain—then lifted his own dagger up. Wrenched the guard’s head back.

  Without finesse, he jammed his blade into the guard’s throat.

  There was a wet, gargling sound. Zahir jammed the dagger in again. And once more.

  Silence.

  Arwa felt dizzy. For a moment, she feared she would faint. Then her good sense returned to her, and she stumbled over to Zahir, and heaved the heavy weight of the body off him.

  Zahir was breathing unevenly. He looked almost as shocked as she felt. His hands were trembling. The dagger dropped from his hand.

  “Is he dead?”

  Arwa nodded. She did not need to look at the guard to make sure. She had watched him die, after all.

  “Good.”

  Zahir exhaled, winced. Still trembling, he clambered to his feet. His tunic was ripped. He wore no turban, his black hair bare and bloodstained.

  “I thought you were dead,” Arwa managed to say. She looked him over. He was hunched, one hand hovering over but not quite touching his side. “Are you… did he injure you?”

  “I was already wounded.” His voice was raw. “Had to run. One almost caught me.” He took a step forward. Winced. “I escaped—the fire grate. But they’re searching. Still.”

  They would be milling about the women’s gardens then, among the trees and the wide-open paths across the water, under citrus and fruit trees outside the wing for widows. There would be no easy way to run from them.

  She took his arm.

  “Lean on me,” she said. “We’re getting away from here.”

  “And where,” he said, “do you suggest we go?”

  They could not go back to the women’s quarters. Could not reach the palace.

  “The dovecote,” said Arwa.

  There were voices somewhere. Shouting.

  “I know the way,” said Zahir.

  They made it to the entrance, miracle of miracles. Not the door from Jihan’s palace, but an entrance for servants, set at the base of the tower. The stairs were narrow and dark.

  “If anyone is on the staircase, we will be trapped,” Zahir pointed out. There was a sheen of sweat on his face that worried her.

  “What a change from our current circumstances that would be,” said Arwa. “Come on now.”

  They climbed.

  He leaned his weight on the wall, on her shoulder. She heard his breath, ragged with pain. It was a relief when they reached the dovecote, and she heard the soft flutter of wings, and felt the cold dawn air on her face.

  Zahir gave a hollow gasp. Lowered himself carefully down against the wall. His side was dark with blood.

  Arwa kneeled on the ground, sucking in gouts of air. Her relief was short-lived. She heard the distant thud of footsteps.

  “They’re here, I think,” said Zahir.

  Arwa swore colorfully, and Zahir laughed, a helpless out-of-place laugh.

  “How did they find us?” It was a foolish question, but she had been foolish to think they could run. To think they could live.

  “Ah,” said Zahir. “The trail of blood I left behind us probably didn’t help. Besides, where else did we have to go?”

  She watched the rise and fall of his chest. The dark spread of his blood.

  This blessed, this not-prince, had murdered a man. She had not thought he was capable of that. He was more than what he appeared.

  Well, so was she.

  She took her own dagger from her sash. Zahir followed her with his eyes, as she rose to her feet.

  “You can’t fight them.”

  “I could try.”

  “Arwa.” His voice was hoarse. “Why were you in the garden?”

  “You’re asking me now?”

  “You should be safe.”

  Safe.

  She thought of her sister. Her father. Her mother, disappointed and terrified, always terrified. She thought of her husband, dead against the gates of Darez Fort.

  “Yes,” she said. “But I’m not. I never have been.”

  She could hear the footsteps drawing closer. The rustle of wings. She stepped over to him, her shadow swallowing him whole.

  “I told you to make a tool of me,” she said shakily. “And you did, Lord Zahir. But I… I think it’s time for me to make a weapon of myself.”

  She placed the blade to her finger. Made a cut—small, only enough to bring blood to the skin.

  She placed her finger against his brow. Left her mark, invisible in the grime and guard’s blood marking his face. He looked up at her, his gaze watchful. Waiting.

  She touched her own forehead. Turned
, ash in her soul, her mouth. With trembling fingers, she began to shape a rite.

  She moved through clumsy motions, no magic in her, no faith, no music. Still, it was a rite. It was a rite for beckoning family, a thing Ushan had used dust-blood generations before her, to call his own daiva parent to him, on Irinah’s sands.

  Before her, darkness. Birds flocked together, their shadows merging into one. The daiva was one creature now and large, impossibly large, with dozens of eyes, disparate lambent stars. It did not seem surprised that she had beckoned it. She felt—in her blood and her bones—that it had been waiting.

  She heard the distant yelling of men.

  Instinct took over. She reached for it, touching her blood to its shadow-skin. She felt the softness of its flesh, silken as water.

  “Please,” she said, voice trembling. “You vowed to protect people like me. Your descendants. Your—family. Didn’t you?”

  The daiva did not respond. How could it? She was not speaking in its language, but oh—her hands, she could not hold them steady for the shape of sigils. She could not. The men were getting closer.

  “I am not the kind of kin you hoped for, perhaps. I—do not know what you expect of me, or what it means to be Amrithi. But I am still one of your own, I think. Please. Forgive me for mistrusting you. Save me.”

  Silence, still.

  She kneeled down.

  Zahir was looking at the daiva. Wonder and terror mingled on his wan face.

  “I am dying,” he whispered. “Aren’t I? I cannot be seeing what I am seeing.”

  “You’re not dying.” I hope. “Hold on to me. We need to stand.”

  He held on to her. She helped him to his feet. The edge of the tower wall was narrow, but Arwa managed to climb on it, balanced precariously. She sat, Zahir leaning against her. She could not help but think of the fall beneath her—the sheer empty drop to black water.

  “Arwa,” he said hoarsely. “They’re nearly here.”

  “I know.”

  “If you’re planning to jump…” He coughed, a hoarse rattle. “The fall from here will kill us.”

  “It probably will,” she admitted. “But their knives are a certainty. Jumping from here—”

  “Is also a certainty.”

  “I know.” The daiva was looking at her, with all its prayer flame eyes, and Arwa…