After kneeling and shrugging out of his robes-leaving the skin of his torso and arms exposed to the bitter wind-Nasim pulled his knife from the sheath at his belt, one he had carefully sharpened before returning to Alayazhar.
The akhoz, perhaps sensing what was to come, began struggling once more. His head thudded against the stone beneath him and a mewling sound came from his throat, but Yadhan was strong-much stronger than Nasim would have guessed-and she held him still.
Quickly, Nasim told himself. Quickly, but with a steady hand.
He took a deep breath, his lips curling, and he leaned over the thing’s chest, mindful of Yadhan’s shriveled breasts and dark nipples.
He pressed the tip of the knife against the boy’s throat and cut downward. The akhoz screamed, arching its head back and railing against Yadhan’s hold. Nasim drew the knife down toward the gut, exposing red flesh and white cartilage. Exposing bone. He sawed against the joints where rib met the rightmost portion of the sternum, taking care not to allow the knife to slip free and damage the beating heart beneath.
One rib. Two. Three.
Soon, all of them were free, and Nasim set the knife aside, which clattered with a metallic ring against the stone. Using both hands, he pulled the ribs apart, using all his strength until he heard a crack. All while the akhoz screamed.
One more pull, another snap, and at last the heart was exposed. It was a shriveled thing, nothing like what a living heart should be. It pumped, the thing’s darkened blood now pooling within the cavity. He retrieved his knife with his right hand and with his left held the still-beating heart. It felt like malice, like hatred. Like regret.
He turned away, still holding it.
He coughed, then retched.
Contain yourself, he told himself.
He breathed deeply and turned back. As the akhoz writhed, screamed. It shook its head maniacally as he picked up the knife and used it carefully to slice one of the major arteries away. He did so again, and again, until at last it was free.
He dropped the knife, sickened by it.
The heart pulsed. Black blood pattered against the stones. It gathered in the spaces between them and ran like veins.
Then the beating began to slow, as did the movements of the akhoz. He turned back and forced himself to watch. He owed the boy this, at least. He was once a child, no matter what he might be now.
Finally, the beating stopped, and the body of the akhoz came to a rest.
In that moment, the moment the akhoz passed, Nasim felt something, a shift in the aether, as if the strand of a spider web had just been plucked. The web still stood, but it had been weakened, and even if it was clear that there were dozens-hundreds-of other strands supporting it, it was just as clear that the web would never be repaired; it would only become worse, until eventually it would fail altogether.
Nasim’s eyes began to water as he studied the heart. It was already shriveling, shrinking, hardening into a small, misshapen lump. It stopped when it was the size and hardness of a walnut.
This, he knew, would allow him to reach Sariya’s tower. With the heart, the other akhoz aligned would not sense him, or at the very least would think him one of them. Who knew what might happen when he reached the tower? But at least he now could. It was the key to everything that lay before him. Muqallad had two pieces of the Atalayina. In Sariya’s tower lay the third, and it was imperative that Muqallad not gain it. Rabiah had known this as well, and surely she had made for the tower, hoping to retrieve the stone and take control of her life once more since Nasim-in her eyes-refused to do so.
Nasim stood, leaving his robes as they were. It wasn’t that he didn’t need the warmth, or that he didn’t want it, but that he felt he didn’t deserve it. It was small penance for what he’d just done, but he would pay it just the same.
“Come,” he said to Yadhan, shivering from the cold of the wind and the chill of drying blood on his arms. “There is one more we must gather.”
With Yadhan at his side, Nasim treaded along the streets of the lower city. He could feel the akhoz nearby. Here there were many-the streets were thick with them-and they were aligned with Sariya-sentinels set to protect her demesne and the secrets that lay within.
The two necklaces hanging around his neck and the shriveled hearts they held were a burden the likes of which he’d never shouldered. They rubbed against the skin over his own heart, making his skin crawl and his back bend.
It was repulsive not only because of the way the hearts had been harvested, but because of the similarity he felt between this and the way the Landed wore their soulstones. He still had trouble sorting all of his memories from his time before Nikandr had healed him, but most of what he remembered of the Landed made him either angry or deeply, deeply sad.
They were a selfish people. Thoughtless. They could no more see into the future than they could swallow the sea. And yet there was Nikandr. His memories of the Prince of Khalakovo were not altogether pleasant, but he held a certain empathy for him. He knew Nikandr like he knew no other, including Ashan, who had spent years trying to communicate with him when he could hardly tell the worlds apart.
He thought about opening himself to Nikandr again. He could do so any time he chose. Part of him would welcome it. Even though he’d done it willingly and consciously, he’d felt hollow ever since, as if a part of him had been stolen when Fahroz had taken him to Mirashadal.
Feeling the bitter weight of his necklaces, he decided once again that allowing Nikandr back into his life would be a foolish thing. It didn’t matter what Nikandr’s intentions were; he was not his own man. He was controlled by his family, by the Grand Duchy, and for that reason alone he couldn’t be trusted.
He approached the tower, and it made him wonder how Sariya and Muqallad had come to be at odds. It was clear that they were. If it were not so, Muqallad would have already had free access to the tower. She had left the island, or had been forced to, leaving Muqallad free reign over the city, and yet Muqallad had so far been unable to gain entrance. It was proof of how truly powerful Sariya had become, and also an indication of how little the Al-Aqim had trusted one another in the days or weeks or months leading up to the division that had formed between them.
He also wondered how he was able to come so near the tower without her traps triggering. Did it hold meaning? It may simply be that the surprises still lay ahead, hidden, and revealed only when he came near-knowing Sariya as he did, Nasim thought this likely-but there was nothing to do now but move forward. He needed the remaining piece of the Atalayina. What he would do with it once he found it he wasn’t sure, but he knew he couldn’t leave it for Muqallad or Sariya to find.
As he came to the street that surrounded the tower, many akhoz met him. They closed in, moving their heads from side to side, sniffing both Nasim and Yadhan.
Yadhan craned her neck. Her nostrils flared, and Nasim thought surely she was about to attack, but he touched her arm, and she seemed to calm.
Nasim scanned the area around the tower. He had expected to find Rabiah’s dead form on every turn of their journey here to the tower. Some small amount of relief greeted him at each turn when he didn’t find her, but there was still a certainty that he would, if not on this street, then the next, and if not the next, then certainly the tower grounds. But Rabiah wasn’t here, and it gave him hope that he would soon find her.
They neared the wrought-iron fence surrounding the tower. The akhoz-dozens of them now-became more animated. When Nasim touched the gate, several of them opened their mouths and released their sickening call.
Nasim grit his jaw. He pushed open the gate. The hinges squealed, and more of the akhoz shook their heads violently. One even attacked another, but many more moved in and subdued the one who had attacked.
Yadhan stepped inside the gate, at which point Nasim closed it. Immediately the akhoz outside calmed. Their bleating ceased. And some of them began to wander away. Many did not, however, and Nasim wondered whether they would still be h
ere when he returned.
He walked to the large wooden door set into the imposing gray stone of the tower wall. The handle was dark iron as well-black, rusted, threatening in a way he couldn’t define. He flexed his fingers before reaching out, and even then he was unable to complete this one simple motion.
He breathed deeply, flexed his hand once more, and then touched the handle.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
He stands alone in a field blanketed in snow. He turns, scanning the land around him. The fields go on and on beneath an overcast sky, gray and oppressive. Only on the horizon is there any change in the terrain. Dark mountains loom with black clouds above.
He sees nothing else, and he is nearly of a mind to begin walking for the mountains when the sound of footsteps breaking through the ice-rimed snow comes to him. When he turns, he finds a girl and a boy trudging over the top of a shallow rise toward him. Their footsteps mar the otherwise perfect layer of snow. This seems like an affront-though to whom, and why, he is not sure.
Nasim shivers as they approach. Rarely does he feel cold, even in the wind, but here somehow the chill sinks beneath his skin, draws the warmth from his bones.
The girl is young, perhaps only twelve. Her hair is light brown, almost golden, and she is fair of face, and if she cannot be considered beautiful now it is only because there is still so much youth in her features. One day not far from now, she will blossom, and men will look upon her with awe. The boy watches Nasim from behind unkempt hair. He is dark of expression, as if he has come against his will.
It takes him time, but he realizes that the girl is Yadhan, as she was before she was sacrificed-or perhaps how she might have been; he is unsure. And the boy is the other akhoz, the one who fell to Yadhan.
When at last they stand before him, Yadhan holds out her hand.
He does not take it, and she stares at him, her expression turning severe. And then her gaze is drawn downward to the place where the hearts of the akhoz lie beneath his shirt. She frowns, and Nasim becomes conscious of their weight. He can feel, as the wind blows softly over the snow, a telltale pulsing. They are not in time; somehow this is more disturbing than the fact that they are beating at all.
Nasim takes her hand, and together the three of them head toward the rise, except now the footprints are gone, and they are trudging through virgin snow.
The going is slow and arduous, for the snow is deep, but they continue until they reach the ridge. Below them rests a lake, its surface frozen over. Though the surface is marred by cuts of white, the water beneath is dark and foreboding. Nasim stops, feeling suddenly worried over what he might find should he continue. The boy turns and walks back toward him with grim intention until the girl steps in his path. The boy stares at Nasim over her shoulder, but then he lowers his head and stills. Only then does Yadhan turn to him and take his hand.
She is warm, warmer than she was only moments ago.
She seems to notice, for she meets his gaze and smiles, as if to console him. What is happening he doesn’t understand, but he knows they have little time left together.
The three of them continue toward the lake, slipping down the slope, which becomes steep closer to the lake’s edge, and soon they are out among the ice, the snow dancing in circles as the wind plays. Nasim feels something at the center of the lake. There is an aberration there among the dark undersurface of the ice.
He drops Yadhan’s hand and begins to run. He knows what he will see, but he is still horrified when he slides to his knees over Rabiah’s form. She rests beneath the surface, her eyes open, her hands splayed against the underside of the ice, hoping for release while knowing it cannot be.
Yadhan steps beside him. The boy is near but seems reluctant to approach.
“How do we free her?” Nasim asks Yadhan.
Her eyes are drawn to the horizon.
“ How do we free her? ” he yells, and at last she pulls her gaze downward. She kneels next to him and places her hands on the surface of the ice. It melts at her touch, but then, as if in response, a hissing and cracking sound comes. She jerks her hands away. Shards of ice fly from where her hands once were. In moments, all signs of her presence are wiped away as the surface freezes over once more.
As it has always been since his awakening, Nasim feels Adhiya. He feels the hezhan who stand just beyond the veil. They would come willingly if he only could pierce the thin shroud that separates them. But try as he might, he cannot. As always, there is something that holds him back.
He slams the surface of the ice, hoping it will yield. He beats his fists raw, and still there is no change.
Rabiah stares at him. Her eyes take in the sky and the girl next to him, and as she spreads her hands wider, the weight of the ice, the immensity of it, seems to dawn on her, and she becomes frantic. She claws at the ice. She pounds at it, but her movements are slowed, a fly caught in sap.
Nasim stands and stomps upon the ice. A surge of fear wells up inside him. Rabiah came at his bidding- his choice, not hers-and now she sits below him, separated by ice as thick as the world itself.
“Help her!” Nasim screams.
Yadhan tries. She places her hands against the ice once more. It melts in an area much wider than it had the first time. She sinks until her knees and shins and feet and hands are below the water. Her strength flags, and the ice begins to encroach. It moves quickly, the entire surface of the lake cracking as the water solidifies around her limbs. She pulls one arm free, but she is becoming trapped.
The boy stands by, staring only at the horizon.
Nasim moves to him, slipping on the slick ice. He grabs the boy’s robes, shakes him and points to the girl. “You must help!”
The boy turns his head and stares vacantly at Nasim’s hand upon his shoulder, and then he looks to Yadhan, who has begun to whimper from the cold. In response to Nasim’s plea, he merely returns his longing gaze toward that which lies beyond.
Nasim slides back to Rabiah, who has sunk lower beneath the surface.
Yadhan pulls at her arm. She is losing what strength she has left.
Nasim shivers with rage, but he realizes in his moment of panic that he can feel Adhiya. He can feel it through Rabiah. He coaxes the feeling, and it grows. It seizes his gut, and soon it is all he can do to remain standing. He grabs his midsection and curls inward, a gesture he’s intimately familiar with.
The aether, so present moments ago, vanishes, and he feels as though here in this one place the world is not divided. There are not two worlds. Only one.
He can touch the hezhan. They are not separate from him. They are part and parcel of his existence, and he of theirs. He does not bid them to come. He does not demand. It is they, it seems, who voice a call to action, and it is he that responds.
The place that lies at the center of him begins to warm. The feeling grows as the landscape around him brightens. The sun, which had been cold and cheerless, is now bright in the sky, piercing. The feeling swells until the blue sky peels away and all that is left is a searing brightness that fills him and the land around him.
Suddenly the world falls away.
He plunges into water.
The darkness of the lake surrounds him, as does the suffocating water.
He sinks, searching for Rabiah, as the surface above begins to mend, threatening to trap him here. He swims downward, and sees her reaching up toward him. He grabs her arm-giving her some small amount of the fires that rage within him still-and propels them both up toward the surface.
The ice has closed over, but he will not be denied. He breaks it with his fist, and soon he is at the edge, pulling Rabiah up and into the air.
She gasps, coughing and retching, but she is here, alive.
Yadhan helps them out from the lake. They gain the solidity of the ice as Nasim releases much of the heat within him. He does not, however, release it completely. He is afraid to. If he cannot retain his hold on it, he will lose it once more-of this he is sure.
Rabiah stares
at him, unsure of herself, unsure of this place. Nasim knows she cannot stay. There is work to do yet, but she will die if she goes on.
“Take her back,” Nasim says.
Yadhan, her face serene and inscrutable, looks to Rabiah, and then she goes to the boy and guides him to Rabiah’s side. The boy seems surprised that Rabiah is here, but after a moment this passes, and he takes her hand.
“Go,” Nasim says. “I will find you.”
Rabiah does not argue, and as the boy leads her away, shivering and shaking, she nods.
Soon, they are lost behind the nearby ridge.
Nasim already knows that the boy will travel to the horizon after he returns Rabiah to Erahm. He will go, and it will not be to Adhiya. He will be lost to the world, lost to the next-and not just him, but the soul of the hezhan that had occupied him for so long. In a way it is a blessing-the two of them locked together, struggling with one another for so long, was cruel and inhuman-but in another it is sad. Profoundly sad. They will not learn or grow or teach. They will not be reborn to learn from their mistakes. They will never reach their higher plane.
Yadhan waits. She was able to lead Nasim here, but now she doesn’t know where to go. Neither does Nasim, but it seems probable that the stone would lie ahead, so they go on, to the far side of the lake and up the hill. When they reach the top, a plain lies before them and beyond it a forest, much of it towering spruce and larch blanketed in snow.
As he walks toward the forest, there is a hint of movement near its edge. A woman steps from behind the trees and walks through the snow, though as she comes nearer it is clear that she is not hampered by the snow’s depth as Nasim and Yadhan are. Instead the snow bears her as if she weighs nothing. Her feet draw from its surface only a dusting of snow, which swirls in her wake.
Her golden hair flows, and as she comes close, her blue eyes shine, bright against white fields and gray sky.
Nasim is worried at first, but when the woman smiles, his worries seem to melt.
“You are Nasim,” she says as she comes to a halt. Her eyes are for Nasim only; she does not glance at Yadhan, who, so brave before, now hides behind Nasim.
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