CHAPTER ONE
Mehr woke up to a soft voice calling her name. Without thought, she reached a hand beneath her pillow and closed her fingers carefully around the hilt of her dagger. She could feel the smoothness of the large opal embedded in the hilt, and its familiar weight beneath her fingertips calmed her. She sat up and pushed back the layer of gauze surrounding her divan.
“Who is it?” she called out.
The room was dark apart from one wavering light. As the light approached, Mehr realized it was an oil lantern, held aloft by a maidservant whom Mehr knew by sight but not by name. Through the glare of the lit flame, the maidservant’s features looked distorted, her eyes wide with nervousness.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, my lady,” the maid said. “But your sister is asking for you.”
Mehr paused for a moment. Then she slid off the divan and wound the sash of her sleep robe tight around her waist.
“You work in the nursery?” she asked.
“Yes, my lady.”
“Then you should know Lady Maryam won’t be pleased that you’ve come to me,” she said, tucking the dagger into her sash. “If she finds out, you may be punished.”
The maidservant swallowed.
“Lady Arwa is asking for you,” she repeated. “She won’t sleep. She’s very distressed, my lady.”
“Arwa is a child,” Mehr replied. “And children are often distressed. Why risk your position and come to me?”
The light wavered again as the maidservant adjusted her grip on the lantern.
“She says there is a daiva watching her,” the maidservant said, her voice trembling. “Who else could I come to?”
Mehr strode over to the maidservant, who flinched back.
“What’s your name?”
“Sara, my lady,” said the maidservant.
“Give me the lantern, Sara,” said Mehr. “I don’t need you to light the way.”
Mehr found Arwa curled up in her nurse Nahira’s lap outside the nursery, surrounded by a gaggle of frightened maidservants. There was a Haran guardswoman standing by, looking on helplessly with her hand tight on the hilt of her blade. Mehr had some sympathy for her. Steel was no good against daiva, and equally useless in the comforting of distressed women.
“Mehr!” Arwa cried out, coming to life in the woman’s arms. “You came!”
The nurse holding on to her had to tighten her grip to keep Arwa in place, now that she was squirming like a landed fish. Mehr kneeled down to meet Arwa at eye level.
“Of course I’ve come,” said Mehr. “Sara says you saw a daiva?”
“It won’t leave my room,” Arwa said, sniffling. Her face was red with tears.
“How old are you now, Arwa?”
“Nine years,” said Arwa, frowning. “You know that.”
“Much too old to be crying then, little sister.” Mehr brushed a tear from Arwa’s cheek with her thumb. “Calm yourself.”
Arwa sucked in a deep breath and nodded. Mehr looked up at Arwa’s nurse. She knew her well. Nahira had been her nurse once too.
“Did you see it?”
Nahira snorted.
“My eyes aren’t what they once were, but I’m still Irin. I could smell it.” She tapped her nose.
“It has sharp claws,” Arwa said suddenly. “And big eyes like fire, and it wouldn’t stop looking at me.”
Arwa was growing agitated again, so Mehr cupped her sister’s face in her hands and made a low soothing sound, like the desert winds at moonrise.
“There’s no need to be afraid,” she said finally, when Arwa had gone still again.
“There’s not?”
“No,” Mehr said firmly. “I’m going to make it go away.”
“Forever?”
“For a long while, yes.”
“How?”
“It isn’t important.”
“I need to know,” Arwa insisted. “What if another one comes and you’re not here? How will I make it go away then?”
I’ll always be here, thought Mehr. But of course that was a lie. She could promise no such thing. She looked into her sister’s teary eyes and came, abruptly, to a decision. “Come with me now, Arwa. I’ll show you.”
One of the maidservants made a sound of protest, quickly hushed. Nahira gave her a narrow look, her grip on Arwa still deathly tight.
“She won’t approve,” warned Nahira.
“If my stepmother asks, say I forced you,” Mehr told her. She touched light fingers to Arwa’s shoulders. “Please, Nahira.”
“I imagine Lady Maryam will draw her own conclusions,” Nahira said dryly. She let Arwa go. “She doesn’t think highly of you, my lady.”
“Oh, I know,” said Mehr. “Come on now, Arwa. You can carry the lamp.”
The nursery was undisturbed. The living room was lit, candlelight flickering on the bright cushions and throws strewn across the marble floor. Arwa’s bedroom, in the next room along, was dark.
The guardswoman trailed in reluctantly behind them. Her hand was fixed firmly on her scabbard.
“There’s no need for this, my lady,” the guardswoman said. “Lady Arwa simply had a nightmare. I’m sure of it.”
“Are you?” Mehr replied mildly.
The guardswoman hesitated, then said, “I told Lady Arwa’s nursemaid and the maidservants that daiva don’t exist, that they should tell her so, but …” She paused, glancing uneasily at Mehr’s face. “The Irin are superstitious.”
Mehr returned her look.
This one, she thought, has not been in Irinah long.
“I ran into the room as soon as she screamed,” said the guard, pressing on despite Mehr’s pointed silence. “I saw nothing.”
Ignoring her, Mehr nudged Arwa gently with her foot.
“Go on, love. Show me where it is.”
Arwa took in another deep breath and stood straight, mustering up her courage. Then she went into her bedroom. Mehr followed close behind her, the guardswoman still hovering at her back.
“There,” Arwa said, pointing. “It’s moved. On the window ledge.”
Mehr looked up and found the daiva already watching her.
Pale dawn was coming in through the window lattice at its back. Silhouetted against it, the daiva was a wisp of taloned shadows, its wings bristling darkly against a backdrop of gray-gold light. It was small for a daiva, no larger than Arwa, with nothing human in the shape of its face or in the lidless glare of its golden eyes.
“Stay where you are, Arwa,” Mehr said. “Just lift the lamp higher.”
Mehr walked toward it—slowly, so as not to startle it from its perch. The daiva’s eyes followed her with the constancy of prayer flames.
Three floors above the ground, behind heavily guarded walls, nothing should have been able to reach Arwa’s chambers. But daiva didn’t obey the rules of human courtesy, and there were no walls in Jah Irinah that could keep them out of a place they wanted to be. Still, Mehr’s gut told her this daiva was not dangerous. Curious, perhaps. But not dangerous.
Just to be sure, she held her hands in front of her, arms crossed, her fingers curled in a sigil to ward against evil. The daiva didn’t so much as flinch. Good.