Empire of Sand

Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor in the Ambhan Empire and an exiled Amrithi mother she barely remembers. From that mother she inherited a face the empire distrusts and a forbidden magic: the Amrithi can dance the rites that shape the will of the sleeping gods whose dreams underpin the world. When the emperor's most feared mystics learn what Mehr can do, they force her into a marriage designed to chain her power to the state. Trapped in a distant temple and bound to a fellow captive, Mehr must use every scrap of will and subtlety she has to resist a cruel design without waking the gods to vengeance.