Empire of Sand

by Tasha Suri

  She was ready.

  She practiced the first few steps. She moved in the flickering shadows that fell through the screen wall. The sky was shifting, bright and changeable. The glow sharpened into white lightning against color. Eventually Mehr gave up on practice and simply stared at the whorls of dreamfire waiting to fall and the great winged shadows that flitted through them.

  Time passed. It was night, deep night, and Lalita still hadn’t come.

  Mehr could think of a dozen reasons why Lalita hadn’t yet arrived. Perhaps she had fallen ill. Perhaps she had been forced to leave unexpectedly. Perhaps, perhaps. But all those excuses felt flimsy, when Mehr remembered the wistful yearning in Lalita’s voice, when she spoke of dancing the Rite of Dreaming at Mehr’s side. She remembered Lalita’s exhaustion. Her careful words.

  I have drawn some unwanted attention.

  The air shimmered. With frightening suddenness, the dreamfire poured from sky to earth like water, coils of light exploding into facets of brightness. It drenched the city in its glow. The air crackled.

  The dreamfire was falling.

  Mehr’s heart was in her throat.

  The dreamfire was falling, and Lalita was not here.

  Mehr touched the hilt of her dagger, taking comfort in its presence. Words and warnings swarmed in her head. Something had happened to Lalita. She knew it.

  We can be clan to each other, Lalita had said. Well, Mehr wouldn’t abandon what little clan she had. She walked to the entrance of her chambers and looked out into the corridor. Empty. No one would be leaving the household today, not while the storm hung over the city. They were all hiding from it, most likely.

  Good. That would work in her favor.

  She swathed herself in a heavy robe and slipped boots onto her red-stained feet. If Lalita was in danger, if she couldn’t come to Mehr, then Mehr would go to her. She would go out into the city and find Lalita. She wouldn’t let her be hurt.

  That, of course, was easier said than done. She couldn’t simply leave the women’s quarters. As one of the noblewomen of the Governor’s household, she was protected by high walls and maids and guards. When she went into public, she went with an armed entourage and traveled securely in a palanquin veiled with gauze. Outside the palanquin she wore a heavy robe to conceal her features. The robe she wore now, in fact. From a distance it was like the robes all women wore, regardless of status: plain and neat and suitable for concealment and for protection from the elements. Only closer inspection revealed the fine quality of the fabric and the swatches of rich color that lined the interior of the sleeves and the hem. It would still provide the anonymity Mehr required. She would have to do without the rest. There would be no palanquin or armed entourage today.

  If she wanted to leave the household quietly, she would need help.

  She slipped through the marble corridors on light feet, barely breathing, trusting that her dancer feet would know how to move softly. She made her way to the nursery.

  She was in luck. Sara was leaving Arwa’s chambers, her arms full of clothes. Mehr held a finger to lips, bidding her to be silent, and gestured at Sara to follow her.

  When they were alone, she asked, “Have you used the blood?”

  “Yes, my lady,” Sara said. Her eyes were dark and watchful. Perhaps she knew what was coming. “Is that all you wanted to ask, my lady?”

  Mehr shook her head.

  “I am sorry, Sara,” she said. She drew the hood of her robe over her face; dark netting covered her view of Sara’s stricken expression in a dim haze. “It seems I’ll be needing that favor far sooner than I expected.”

  Because of the double-edged sword of her status, Mehr knew very little about the world beyond the women’s quarters. But Sara did. She guided Mehr swiftly away from familiar chambers into the winding passageways of the servants’ quarters. Here there was no marble. The walls and floor were bare and windowless, the corridors lit by torches. The farther they walked, the more strongly Mehr could smell the scent of the kitchens, a rich odor of burnt oil and spices.

  “This way,” Sara whispered. She gestured at Mehr to follow her.

  They crept down a staircase and came to a barred door. “We receive deliveries here,” said Sara. When she caught Mehr’s questioning look, she went on. “Supplies, my lady,” said Sara. “For the kitchens.”

  Of course. With so little food able to grow in the desert, Jah Irinah relied on imports from more fertile regions of the Empire. Mehr knew that. What she hadn’t considered—had never thought to consider—was the need for a delivery entrance near the kitchens, and its usefulness to her as an exit from her home. She’d never thought about it because she’d never had to.

  She grimaced inwardly at her own ignorance. Despite her best efforts, she knew so little.

  No more. Tonight was a step in the right direction: out of the comfort of known things into the whirling, terrifying chaos of the light.

  Together they hoisted the bar holding the doors shut and lowered it to the floor, struggling to muffle the sound of metal clanking against stone. By the time they were done, they were both breathing heavily. Under her heavy cloak, Mehr’s skin was covered in sweat. She ran a hand over her forehead, staining her knuckles with red and black ash.

  “Please don’t make me go with you,” Sara said quietly. Her jaw was firm, her eyes hard with desperation. No matter what Mehr said, she would not go. What lay beyond the door terrified her more than Mehr ever could.

  “You’ve paid your debt,” said Mehr. She pressed a hand to the door. “Keep the blood close. It will protect you.”

  She shoved the door open. Light poured in. Dust, glowing like slivers of candlelight, crept over the curve of her boots.

  Sara stepped back. Mehr strode outside.

  She was consumed instantly. The light moved around her wildly, whipping sand up from the earth to abrade her skin wherever it was exposed. She drew her hood hastily down over her face to keep the dust from getting into her eyes or her mouth. She couldn’t let herself be afraid. There was no going back now. Instead she steeled her resolve and started walking.

  Mehr hugged close to the perimeter of the Governor’s residence, searching for the hint of a familiar path away from the palace toward the city streets. It was a more difficult task than she’d expected. She’d thought the dreamfire would light her way, but now that she was standing in the midst of it, she realized it was worse than darkness. She could barely see a few steps in front of her. Everything was light, and the light was blinding. If there were guards nearby—and there had to be guards—Mehr had no way of avoiding them. She had to trust that the fact that she was equally invisible to them would protect her. As long as she didn’t walk headfirst into a unit of men, she’d be safe.

  It took her far longer than she would have liked, but eventually Mehr found her way to one of the long, deserted streets of the city proper. Near the Governor’s residence the houses belonged to the wealthy, and it showed. Here the light was thinner, and Mehr could see that the wide, paved streets were lined with large white havelis, mansions with courtyard gardens and ornately carved verandas. Mehr had been to Lalita’s home twice before, and both times she had traveled by palanquin through streets just like these. Those journeys had been long and stifled, with the curtains shut around her and her cloak heavy as a shroud. But she’d been curious enough, hungry enough, to fold back one of the curtains and drink in the sights with her eyes. She’d memorized those journeys. She should have known the way.

  The city was so changed around her that her memories were little use. She walked through the storm for a little longer, pushing hard through the beating force of the wind, before she finally accepted that she was no closer to Lalita’s home than she had been when she’d been standing in her own chambers, watching the dreamfire fall.

  The dreamfire was everywhere now. It was in the air she breathed, in the sweat at the nape of her neck. She could feel the strength of it churning the city into a storm. The buildings were drench
ed in light, debris flying through the air as if the world had tipped on its side and sent everything sprawling. Even the earth felt like it was moving beneath her feet. It was dizzying, terrifying.

  Exhilarating.

  She was lost, but everything inside her was aflame with nameless joy, the feeling of a perfectly danced rite or the bright recognition in a daiva’s eyes. She was lost, but her body knew this storm. It knew it was home.

  She breathed in steadily. She tried to keep her mind clear of euphoria. Joy wouldn’t help her right now. Frustration wouldn’t either. She had to think.

  She couldn’t trust her memories, or her knowledge, or her own emotions. But she could trust the dreamfire. She could let its current guide her, move her like water, like blood.

  When you dance with the Rite of Dreaming, you dance with the Gods. Her mother had told her that. Right now it felt like only divine intervention would get her where she needed to be.

  The thought of dancing the Rite of Dreaming filled her with fear and exhilaration in equal measure. There were rites that Mehr had danced so often that she knew them in her bones. The Rite of Dreaming was not one of them. She had never performed it, not truly, not in a storm with the light of dreamfire pouring over her like rain. She had no fellow Amrithi to perform it with.

  There were so many reasons that the rite was beyond her grasp. But here, in the heart of the dreamfire storm … for Lalita’s sake and for her own, she would try.

  Mehr kneeled down and slipped off her boots. She pressed her bare feet hard against the ground. All rites required the feel of the ground on skin, the ritual connection between soil and sky and flesh. Without it the dance had no meaning, no heart. But the ground was rough on her soft soles, and she knew the longer her feet were exposed to the elements, the more she’d suffer. She bit down on the inside of her cheek. This wouldn’t be easy.

  She sucked in a slow, even breath. She straightened up, finding her balance. Then she raised her arms slowly, cupping her palms together, allowing her back to bend like the arc of a falling star. The first step in the rite.

  The wind howled around her, threatening to throw her off balance. Dreamfire poured into her cupped hands. Her head tipped back, and her hood fell. She felt the wind catch her braid, making it lash out behind her. She closed her eyes tight.

  Here was the moment when she was supposed to take another person’s hands in her own. She was supposed to part her palms and press one against a fellow Amrithi’s hand, catching the light between them. She was supposed to move with her clan in a seamless dance, a sharing of light and dreams and creation.

  With no one to reach for, Mehr lowered her arms. Eyes closed, she held one palm out against the air. Wind and dust rushed over her skin.

  Take me to my clan, Mehr thought. It was a desperate prayer. If dreamfire was the power of the Gods making and unmaking the universe, shaping creation in their great sleep, then perhaps they could create this small thing for her: a path through the chaos. A road.

  Take me to Lalita’s home. Let me help her. Please.

  For a long moment nothing happened. She felt the wind howl and rake over her, felt the sand bite at her face like a dozen tiny needles. She felt her own smallness. Who was she, to expect the dreams of the Gods to bend for her? She was nothing. A rich man’s daughter, an illegitimate get, a girl too foolish and too willfully strange to stay within the safe confines of a privileged life. Not an Ambhan, not an Amrithi. Nothing.

  The dreamfire coiled softly around her wrist. And tugged.

  Her first instinct was to wrench herself free, but Mehr resisted it. She let the dreamfire draw her along. Awe and terror clogged her throat.

  The dreamfire was guiding her, for good or ill. She’d asked for this. Now she had to follow it.

  She could feel the dreamfire begin winding over her limbs, clutching at her wrists and her ankles. It was all heat without the strength of flesh. It couldn’t force her to follow it, couldn’t drag her along if she resisted its urging. One wrong move, and the tenuous bond between her and the dreamfire would tear apart.

  New as the Rite of Dreaming was, Mehr had been dancing all her life. She was very, very good at avoiding mistakes.

  She whirled on firm, sharp feet through street after street. Her skin burned. Her eyes stayed shut against the ferocity of the wind. She shaped no sigils with her hands, no carefully chosen stances with her feet. But she followed the urging of the dreamfire, moving with each tug of light. Her whole focus was on the dreamfire and the dreamfire alone.

  She could hear voices on the wind—the whispers of daiva. She felt the soles of her feet begin to ache, then felt the ache sharpen to agony. But she didn’t stop.

  She didn’t know how long she danced. She only knew that her breath was growing short, that her mouth was full of sand and she didn’t know how much longer she could go on. Then, with a suddenness that astounded her, the dreamfire let her go. She stumbled to a stop, falling to her knees and drawing her hood hastily back down over her face so that she could suck in a few deep lungfuls of air untainted by dust. When she felt more herself, she raised her head and peered through the light.

  Miracle of miracles. Mehr was outside Lalita’s home.

  Lalita’s haveli built from honeyed sandstone, with a veranda marked by the subtle beauty of stone vines and flowers. She felt their shapes with her fingers as she blindly traced her way up the steps and under the cover of the columned entrance.

  She’d made it. Somehow. She turned and looked back out at the storm.

  She couldn’t believe what had just happened to her.

  Mehr swallowed. She couldn’t let her mind linger on it now. Emotion could come later. Right now she needed to find Lalita.

  She pressed a hand flat against the door, testing, expecting it to be securely barred. It creaked open.

  Dark foreboding welled up in her chest. She touched the fingertips of her free hand to her dagger and slipped quietly inside.

  The hallway was unlit. The lanterns hanging on the walls had guttered, but only recently, and were still giving off coils of smoke. Mehr pressed the door shut behind her.

  Mehr walked deeper into the building. No guards forced Mehr to halt. There was no sign of Lalita, and no sign of any of the household staff. The rooms lining the hallway were black and silent. She slowed to a crawl, eyes and ears open. She could barely see. All she could hear was the roar of the storm and the steady thump of her own heart.

  She was near the inner courtyard now, the garden that lay at the center of the haveli. She still hadn’t seen a single soul.

  Her sore, aching feet pressed down into something wet.

  She froze, her pulse frantic in her ears. Then she kneeled down and touched the ground. The liquid was too thick to be water. She raised her fingers up.

  There was blood beneath her feet.

  She drew her dagger out of her sash.

  There was a trail of blood leading down the hall to the inner courtyard. She followed it. She’d come this far. She had a duty to fulfill. She reached the doors to the courtyard and opened them wide.

  On the steps leading down to the courtyard lay a body. Mehr ran toward it, then kneeled, furious and afraid.

  Not Lalita. The body wasn’t Lalita’s.

  “Usha,” Mehr said. “Usha, can you hear me?”

  Usha looked up at Mehr. Even that small movement was a struggle. Her gaze was unfocused and her face was spangled with dust.

  “Lady Mehr?” she whispered. Blood oozed from her lips.

  “We need to get you out of the storm,” Mehr said.

  Usha shook her head weakly. “Shouldn’t … be here.”

  She clearly couldn’t get up on her own, but Mehr didn’t know where to touch her. Her clothes were ripped, her skin dark with blood and bruises. When Mehr tucked her dagger away again and carefully took hold of her under the arms, Usha gave a bitten-off cry of agony.

  Usha was badly wounded. That at least was obvious. Mehr moved her as gently as she was able,
whispering grim apologies as she went. Once they were inside the haveli, Mehr slammed the courtyard doors shut behind them, blocking out the storm. Usha lay silently on the floor, eyes closed.

  Lalita’s guardswoman had always looked invulnerable: confident enough to be kind, her strength draped around her like armor. But the armor was gone now. Wounded, she was all too mortal. Her body was curved protectively around the steadily darkening stain on the front of her tunic. Her breathing was labored and her skin gray.

  “What happened here?” Mehr asked. She could hear her own voice trembling. “Who hurt you?”

  Usha was silent for a long time. Then she said, “Go.”

  “I’ll find help,” Mehr said. She was worse than useless to Usha on her own. She knew nothing about treating wounds.

  Usha seemed to have understood, at least in part.

  “Go,” she said vehemently. “Before … find you.”

  Mehr raced through the house. No gentle, careful footsteps now. She threw open the doors to the street and shouted for help. The storm swallowed up her voice instantly. Useless. There was no one outside to hear her anyway. The rich residents of the surrounding homes were hidden away behind their shutters and their gates. When she forced her way through the wind, slammed her fists against another door, she was met with silence. The storm had probably swallowed the sound of her fists too.

  She threw herself against the doors of another haveli, then another. But no one would answer. She screamed at the dreamfire. Screamed again, harder still, because she was furious and this was useless, she was useless. She couldn’t help Usha. They were on their own.

  Mehr found her way back into Lalita’s haveli. She went back to Usha’s side. She kneeled down on the floor beside her. Usha didn’t look any better, but at least her eyes were open again.

  “The other servants,” Mehr said softly, meeting her gaze. “Are any of them going to come back?”