Realm of Ash

by Tasha Suri

  When they’d first left the Grand Caravanserai many of the pilgrims had dispersed. Some had chosen to travel to Demet Fort, to the relative safety of the local commander’s care. Others had turned home, or made their way to Irinah on more commonly used paths. Eshara had directed Zahir and Arwa on a lesser used, winding route. For concealment, she’d said.

  But there were pilgrims who followed them. Two days on, and they were still following. There was a distressingly large handful of strangers, who murmured of the Maha’s heir and watched Zahir with hot, hopeful eyes; Sohal and his fellow soldier, the helmed one that had lowered his weapon; and a cluster of widows, noticeable in their widow whites.

  A proper retinue indeed.

  Zahir had only called himself Maha’s heir in the presence of the widows. Only in that dim prayer room, with Arwa on the floor beside him and a nightmare chained behind him. But tales had power, and this one had spread on swift wings.

  “You know what I think,” Eshara muttered. “They make us too visible. Parviz is looking for us, that I don’t doubt. If we could just convince a few of them to leave, that would be something.”

  “I don’t think we can control the pilgrims, or Zahir’s lie, or what the Emperor does or does not learn. We can only… keep on going.”

  “Zahir’s lie,” Eshara muttered. Trudged forward. “I’m not sure I would call it a lie.”

  “He’s nothing like the Maha,” Arwa said sharply. “He would hate to be called the Maha’s heir by you. You know he only claimed the title to save us.”

  “It doesn’t change the truth,” Eshara said. “Miracle after miracle—”

  “They’re my miracles,” said Arwa. “Born from my blood. My ash.” Arwa shook her head. “But ah, I know. You think I’m just his tool.”

  But even that wasn’t true. It was not her knowledge that had saved them—not rites hard-won through years of study. She’d begged and scraped and stolen everything that had kept them alive, from the dark of her own soul, from the strength of her own ancestors. She was a hollow woman, a conduit for people of greater grace and strength than she possessed.

  And yet in her heart she rebelled at the idea of being nothing but a puppet. She had made a tool of her own gifts; she was not one herself. She…

  She did not know what she was.

  “Those pilgrims can believe Zahir saved them,” said Arwa. “And they are not wrong, Eshara, I know that. Zahir is…” She paused, breath in her throat. She had no words for what he’d done, drawing her back from the realm of ash, walking to the caravanserai gates, head held high. I am the Maha’s heir. “Zahir is Zahir,” she said finally. “I don’t care what they think of me, only what they think of him. But what you think…”

  “You don’t care what I think,” said Eshara flatly.

  “Believe what you like,” said Arwa. “But somewhat against what little good judgment I have, I do. You faced the captain with me. You risked your life for me.”

  “For Zahir’s sake, Arwa.”

  “As you say,” Arwa said softly. “Just as you say.”

  Zahir approached them then. His face was burnt dark by the sun; his brow was furrowed. He looked between them—clearly thought better of speaking—and placed his arm on Arwa’s.

  “I’ll help her now, Eshara,”

  Eshara let Arwa go.

  “Best walk fast, if you can,” she said. “We need to stop soon. Night’s falling.”

  Then she walked off.

  “Where were you?” Arwa asked.

  Zahir shook his head.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Lean on me properly.”

  She locked her arm with his. Leaned against his shoulder, and kept on walking.

  The pilgrims created a fire and sat close to its flames, as the bitter night’s chill crept in. As they neared Irinah, the weather had begun to alter. The days were hotter, the nights colder. But here, near a copse of trees and a thin river of running water, they had fish and birds to cook, and water to boil.

  “There isn’t life like this in Irinah,” a pilgrim was telling some of the others. “It’s an arid place. Except when you move deep—which isn’t easy, of course. Then you can see strange things. Mountains and palaces growing out of the sand. Great monsters…”

  Arwa walked away from his tale.

  The widows sat farther back from the fire, clustered close together. Arwa drew her shawl tighter around her head and shoulders and walked over to them. It was Diya who caught sight of her first, and rose to her feet.

  “Sister,” Diya said by way of greeting. “Are you going to tell us to leave?”

  “Me? No.” Arwa looked at the other widows. Huddled. Straight-backed. Defiant. “Eshara spoke to you?”

  “The tall woman you travel with? Yes.”

  “You needn’t come with us, Diya. You, or any of the others. But you needn’t go either,” Arwa said, looking over Diya’s shoulder at the defiant gaggle of women behind her. “I am just…”

  “Yes?”

  “Sorry,” said Arwa finally. “That you have lost everything. The House of Tears. You, and Aunt Madhu, and all the others. It was—a good place.”

  Diya’s mouth twisted into a strange smile.

  “You have no reason to be sorry. And Aunt Madhu will start again, and she’ll do well enough. We are survivors, sister. You should know that.” Diya’s hands clenched and unclenched on her shawl, held close to keep away the bitter chill. “When my husband died, his family cast me out. They called me cursed. They said they should not have to feed and clothe a woman who had lost her purpose and duty, a woman who was dead. But I lived, and I found a grief-house where my mourning would be holy. I am well. So I lost my home. What of it? I’ll begin again. We all will. We are used to it.”

  She looked over Arwa’s shoulder at the fire. At the men, at the other women. Then she spoke once more.

  “The Maha’s heir saved us all, when I feared we would all die. He gave us a gift. He made me hope.” She gave Arwa a look that was all defiance. Mock me if you like, that look said. I will not be swayed. “No one else has offered that to us in a long, long time. What can we do but follow?”

  “Nothing,” Arwa said, voice coming out of her thin. She swallowed. Said, “Rest if you can, sister. The day will be long tomorrow.”

  With a nod of respect, Diya returned to the other widows. Arwa turned back to the fire.

  There was no sign of Zahir. She heard prayers on the wind, pilgrims by the fire with their heads bowed.

  She walked off into the dark of the wood.

  She found Zahir hiding by the stream. His boots were on the water-logged bank, his arms clasped around his knees.

  “You shouldn’t sit here in the dark,” she said. “There could be snakes. Leeches.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, and he did seem so. He was staring out at the tranquil dark, water playing at his feet.

  She sat herself down beside him.

  She heard him exhale.

  “Finally,” Zahir said. “A little peace.”

  “It’s almost as if you don’t enjoy being worshipped.”

  He gave her a displeased look. She smiled in return, and brushed her shoulder against his, the barest touch of cloth against cloth.

  He was tense, for a long moment, his body knotted with feeling. Then she heard him exhale once more, and felt his shoulder come to rest against her own.

  “What a time we’ve had,” she said softly. “Can you believe we’re still alive?”

  “No,” he said. “I truly can’t.” A pause. “When you entered the realm of ash, when you chose to face the nightmare alone—for a moment I thought you were lost. I do not know what I would have done, if you had been.”

  I cannot live in a world without you in it.

  She shivered a little, remembering his words. The fierce rasp of his voice.

  “You would have died too, I expect,” she said. “And the rest of the Grand Caravanserai with you.”

  “You saved us,” he agreed, f
aint smile on his lips as he looked at her. “The pilgrims should be calling you their savior.”

  “I’d rather they didn’t,” said Arwa. “You don’t look like you’re enjoying it very much.”

  His smile faded, abruptly.

  “There is something—unpleasant—about lying to people, I find,” Zahir said. “But I suppose facing their worship is a small price to pay for our survival. And soon enough it will not be a lie.”

  There was a thread of something dark in his voice, in the tilt of his head, as he looked carefully away from her and looked at the water once more. She thought of his fear of being the Maha’s heir in truth, a creature fed by prayers and adoration. She thought of what waited for them both in Irinah.

  Her stomach felt suddenly leaden.

  “Speaking of worship,” Arwa said, with false lightness, “the nightmare told me something of its secrets, in the realm of ash.”

  She told him of its vulnerability to prayer: how worship could weaken its power, soften its influence. How it had saved the widows in the House of Tears. As she’d hoped, his eyes brightened. He turned toward her, jostling their shoulders, the water splashing against the bank.

  “Arwa. Do you know what this means?”

  “I do,” she said. “We have a tool to use against the nightmare.”

  “A shield,” he said. “Limited, and no cure in truth, but a shield against the dark and death regardless.”

  “We have the Rite of the Cage too,” she reminded him.

  “We do,” he said. “We do.” And he smiled at her, nothing worn or faded about the look this time; he was brilliant and soft-eyed and oh, her breath caught in her throat at the sight of it. “And it’s all your doing.”

  His face was more familiar to her in near darkness than light. She’d grown to know who he was—pedantic, idealistic, clever, alone—when he lived in constant darkness, in the tomb enclosure on the palace grounds. She’d thought he wasn’t quite real then. Too pretty, too strange, too cut off from the world.

  She didn’t think he was unreal now. His hair was growing longer. His jaw was stubbled, his mouth chapped. His nose was faintly burnt. He was so familiar to her and yet still so strange.

  She wanted to unravel him.

  She wanted to place her fingertips against his burnt nose. She wanted to smooth his hair.

  She wanted to put him back together.

  Fool, she thought. I am a fool. I throw myself into my fears as if I have control—

  “Zahir,” she said. Heart a cold patter in her chest. Breath blooming in fog before her lips. “I… I told the nightmare that you were mine.”

  Breathless silence. Then, “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you tell it that I’m yours?”

  “To protect you,” she said. “Because it wanted to—never mind. You know why, Zahir. Surely you must.”

  “Tell me,” he said softly.

  She could have refused. But she had already opened the door on her hunger, on the thing that twisted like a viper in her chest. She had already bound herself to him with a terrible tangle of ash and blood and roots that bound flesh and soul tight.

  She could throw herself to the wolves of her fear one last time.

  “Because,” she said, “I have always made myself into what was required of me. I have always belonged to someone else. My father, my mother, my husband. And I think I want something—someone—that is mine.” It felt like a terrible confession, like a thing she had ripped out of herself, a thing she’d revealed in her usual impetuous way, always seeking harm. She was not meant to want such things. Her wants were meant to be small, they were meant to adhere to specific parameters. “I look at you, Zahir, I speak to you and I know you and I hunger.”

  “Arwa,” he said.

  He had not moved away from her. That was good at least.

  “Arwa,” he said again. “I belong to no one.”

  “I know.” Rush of shame in her belly. Heart flayed open. “I know, I—”

  “No,” he said. Strange, almost hurt, twist to his mouth. “I don’t think you do. Why do you want me?”

  “Zahir—”

  “Humor me.”

  Exhalation. Ah, how her face burned.

  “Because of your curiosity. You do not know when to stop asking questions, except—you do. You know pain, and fear, and what it is to be used. You know some things shouldn’t be known. You are a pedant, exacting, and you’re an idealist, you…” She swallowed. “Because your face is my lamp,” she said finally; ah, fool, fool, to talk like a silly child in love. “Because this world is so dark, Zahir, and yet you—shine.” She shook her head. “You could hurt me in so many ways with what I’ve told you.”

  “You think I will?”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “It’s as if you haven’t listened to me at all. Have you?”

  “I have. Arwa.” The way he said her name—ah. “Show me,” he said.

  “Show you what?”

  “If I were yours, what would you do? If I said, You have me. What would you do?”

  “Your damnable curiosity,” Arwa muttered.

  “It is not just—curiosity,” he said.

  She looked at him. There was a challenge in his gaze and—something else. Something wanting.

  Something vulnerable.

  “Say it, then,” she said. Voice lower than she’d thought herself capable of. “Go on.”

  He swallowed.

  “You have me, Arwa,” he said. “And now?”

  For a moment, she did nothing. Only looked at him, his face, the turn of his shoulders, the ink dark of his hair. Then she reached up a hand, and settled her fingers, as she’d so longed to, against the nape of his neck. His skin was warm, his hair soft.

  She drew his head down to meet hers. Pressed their foreheads together, so their breath mingled and their eyes closed, and there was nothing between them but the way she clasped his throat still, holding him fast.

  “Arwa,” he whispered.

  She could see ash still beneath the closed lids of her eyes. But his skin was warm.

  “Shall I kiss you, Zahir?”

  “You have me,” he murmured. “Do what you will.”

  She pressed her mouth to his. He tilted his head as her fingers tangled in his hair, and met her.

  He kissed as if he had never kissed anyone before—clumsy, curious, learning as she guided him with the curl of her hand, following the touch of her mouth as if it were language, as if she were the mentor and he the apprentice. It was true, perhaps.

  But she had never kissed like this before either.

  They were both dirty from their travels—from blood and from dust, burnt from the sun, exhausted by dreams and by horror. When they broke apart, he stared at her. He touched his fingertips to the shell of her ear, and she shivered, and laughed.

  “That tickles,” she said, and he touched her face instead. He touched her like she was a mystery he wanted to unravel and make whole.

  “Arwa,” he said softly. “I’ll be yours, if you’ll have me.”

  I’ll be yours.

  Her breath stuttered in her throat.

  She was a widow. A noblewoman. She had no right to make vows to Zahir, or take vows from him, no matter what she wanted.

  She had no amata, but she still felt those words, I’ll be yours, hovering over her skin like a brand. If she took his vow—if she let one pass her own lips—she would not be the woman she was any longer. She would be fundamentally altered.

  And yet it had already happened, hadn’t it? Oh, she wore her hair widow short, but her heart had already changed inside her. She was no longer folded small, no longer humble and soft, no longer a woman terrified of her own blood. She was fierce and foolish, brave and not yet broken upon her cause. She was a scholar. She was a mystic, who had her lamp of truth before her. Zahir, before her.

  I’ll be yours. What did those words mean for an Amrithi-blooded widow who could not wed again, and for an Emperor’s
blessed son and uneasy heir to the Maha himself?

  She did not know what the words meant. And surely neither did he. And yet they were both still holding one another—her hand in his hair, his fingers on her cheek—and for all the world she could not think of anything she wanted more.

  “I’d like that,” she whispered. “I’d like that very much.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  If the world were just by nature, then after the horrors of the Grand Caravanserai, after holding one another in the dark and hoping like the fools they were, their journey would have been entirely straightforward. But the world was not just, of course.

  A pilgrim woke the sleeping camp in the pale gray predawn light. He carried his lit lantern, woke the men first, then the women, and bowed his head to Zahir as if he were afraid.

  “There is something out among the trees, great one,” he said. “Something that—frightened me.”

  “Ah, Gods, not again,” muttered Eshara. Then, louder: “We can move on. Pass it by.”

  Like many of the pilgrims, Arwa turned and fixed her gaze upon Zahir. Only hours ago, he had been bright and laughing, his mouth soft on her own. Now he stood, all pale stillness in the dark, listening to the fear ripple through the retinue around him. His expression was remote. Then he gave Arwa a sidelong glance. Soft.

  She nodded in return. Drew her veil close over her hair.

  “There’s no need for that,” said Zahir. His voice quelled the noise of the crowd, held it in a silence like a closed fist. “Please. Show me the way.”

  Zahir asked if any of the pilgrims would follow him. “It may not be safe,” he said. “But I seek a way to weaken the curse’s strength, and I believe that power lies in your hands.” A pause. He softened his voice. “I will not make you follow. You all paid a high price, in the Grand Caravanserai.”

  No one refused.

  It was terrible, the power he had over them, this vise of love and hope and faithfulness. And he knew it. She could see it in the thin line of his mouth, in the tight curl of his hands against his sides. But he walked into the dark of the trees regardless, into the faint grasp of an unnatural terror that hung soft in the air.