Mehr looked at Lalita’s hands, which were still trembling faintly. Lalita’s calm, she realized, was as fragile and brittle as fine glass. It was not Mehr’s place to shatter it. Instead, she swallowed her questions away, and simply nodded.
“I hate writing letters,” she said, forcing herself to sound light. She saw Lalita’s face soften back into a smile as some of the tension left it, and was glad she had done so. “But for you, I’ll try.”
“I feel very special.”
“As you should,” Mehr said. “You dreadful abandoner. You know my stances will only grow worse without you, don’t you?”
“I dread to think,” Lalita said with a sigh. She gave Mehr a thoughtful look and said, “You will practice without me, won’t you?”
“Of course.” Mehr hesitated. “Lalita, do you …?”
“Yes?” she prompted.
“I thought your message was about something else entirely.” Mehr shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me,” said Lalita. “Has something happened? Your stepmother?”
“Last night there was a daiva in my sister’s room.”
Lalita’s gaze sharpened. She leaned forward.
“Was it strong? An ancient?”
“It was nothing but a bird-spirit. But I believe it was a herald, Lalita. I think a storm is coming.”
Lalita looked out through the lattice wall, considering.
“The last time I walked the edge of the desert, the daiva did seem restless,” she said finally. “For a benign spirit to move so far among mortals … yes, my dear. I think you may be right.” Her forehead creased into a frown. “I can’t quite believe I missed the signs. I’ve misplaced my head.” She looked at Mehr. “You’ve taken the proper precautions?”
Mehr nodded. There was no chance of a daiva coming into Mehr’s chambers. Mehr had bled on the doors and windows often enough, after all, every turn of the moon since her tenth year, just as she’d been taught.
“And your sister?”
“Her window was freshly blooded. I used my dagger.”
“Then there’s nothing to fear, and everything to look forward to.” Lalita set down her drink. There was a faraway look in her eyes. “How old were you during the last storm?”
“Young,” said Mehr. “I can’t remember.”
“It’s been an age since I last saw a storm,” Lalita said, a wistful edge to her voice. “When I was a child I loved them. My clan would spend days preparing the Rite of Dreaming. And when the dreamfire fell—ah, Mehr, it was a beautiful thing. You can’t imagine it.” A sigh. “But of course storms were more frequent where I was raised. There’s just no soul in Jah Irinah.”
Storms of dreamfire only occurred within the confines of Irinah’s holy desert. But Irinah was vast, and Lalita had grown up deep in the heart of the desert, where storms fell frequently. Jah Irinah, built as it was on the outer edge of the blessed sand, was rarely graced with storms. Nonetheless, it was a common belief among the Irin that the presence of the Ambhan Empire in the city—in its buildings, its fountains, its culture, and its people—kept the storms at bay. Dreamfire, they would whisper, belonged to Irinah and Irinah’s people. It wouldn’t deign to fall before foreign eyes.
Mehr understood that belief. Built in the early years of the Empire, when the first Emperor ordered a loyal Governor to the conquered country to rule in his stead, Jah Irinah was and always would be a purely Ambhan city. The Empire was visible in every swooping arch, every mosaic-patterned wall, and every human-made fountain pumped with precious, wasted water. The city was built on Irinah’s back, but there was certainly none of the country’s harsh beauty in its bones.
Lalita was still lost in old memories, her face soft with sadness. “The Rite of Dreaming usually needs more dancers, but we’ll manage.” She looked at Mehr. “We’ll greet the storm together.”
“You want me to dance the rite with you?” Mehr said, not trying to hide the disbelief in her voice.
“That is how Amrithi greet storms, Mehr,” Lalita said, amused. She patted Mehr’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’ve taught you everything you need to know.”
“I thought you were leaving.”
“For this,” said Lalita gently, “I can delay my journey a little longer.”
How many times had Mehr looked out at the desert and imagined living on its sands in a clan of her own, dancing the Rite of Dreaming for the storms of dreamfire that so rarely crossed its boundaries? She’d always known it was an impossible thing to hope for.
“My mother …” Mehr stopped. There were so many feelings hurtling through her. She didn’t know how to put them into words. “The Rite of Dreaming is danced by clans,” she said finally, her voice brittle. “And I have no clan.” She swallowed. “This isn’t for me. But I thank you.”
The amusement faded completely from Lalita’s face. The expression that took its place was full of knowing compassion.
“Neither of us are good Amrithi, my dear,” Lalita said gently. “I have no clan anymore either. But we can be clan to each other.” She pressed her fingers to Mehr’s knuckles in fleeting comfort. “You’re a woman now. You’ve learned your rites and your sigils, and shown your ancestors the proper reverence. You are Amrithi, Mehr. The rite is your inheritance, just as it is mine. When the storm comes I’ll be here to dance with you. I promise this.”
Mehr felt an upswell in her heart. But she kept her expression calm.
“I appreciate it,” she said.
Lalita leaned back, took another delicate sip of her drink, and swiftly changed topic. She eased the conversation onto lighter ground, relating gossip from the racier circles she traveled within in Jah Irinah that Mehr had little access to. Lalita darted artfully from topic to topic, telling Mehr about scandals among the city’s merchants, and news of new fresh-faced courtesans rising in fame or infamy. She told Mehr about the restlessness among factions of the nobility, and the trouble they’d caused in response, or so she’d heard, to rumblings from the Emperor’s court.
“The young ones,” she said, “the ones who want to prove themselves and earn glory for their names, are causing no end of trouble in the city.”
“What are they doing?” Mehr asked.
Lalita gestured vaguely with one hand, a line of irritation forming between her brows. “What do men do, when they want to cause trouble? Harassing traders and merchants, barging their way into pleasure houses. They claim to be the Emperor’s eyes. They say it gives them the right to do as they please.” Lalita’s gaze sharpened. “They may have the right. But your father will know far more about the Emperor’s business than I do.”
Hungry, ambitious young nobles trying to curry the Emperor’s favor by striving to fulfill his perceived desires were a nuisance, but a nuisance her father could quash. Nobles acting on the Emperor’s orders—as the nobles that Lalita had so carefully chosen to warn Mehr about claimed to be—would be infinitely more dangerous. Governor though he was, her father could not stand in the way of the Emperor’s direct commands.