He hesitated, but only for a moment. This had been a thing that he’d been dreading for too long, and it was time to be done with it. Strangely, Kaleh, even though they were not related, felt like a sister, a child born of Ghayavand, linked to it just as inextricably as he was.
The tightness that had been inside him since seeing Mirashadal on the horizon fell away, and he smiled at her-a gesture she responded to in kind. He lay down on the roots. Kaleh chanted softly as he closed his eyes and stilled his mind. The words she spoke felt as old as the world itself, and somehow, despite his fears, he found himself falling quickly and deeply into sleep.
Khamal walks along the edge of the water. The surf rolls over his feet, the frothing water cold against his feet and ankles. The sound of breaking waves is all that he hears. Ahead of him, two akhoz walk. They are side by side, but they do not acknowledge one another. For all he knows, they do not even know the other is there.
Beyond the beach, beyond the shallow cliff dividing city from sea stands Alayazhar, cold and empty and haunted. He can see the telltale signs of other akhoz as they wander the city, lost.
Lost, Khamal thinks.
The akhoz are lost in so many ways. They anchor the city, preventing the rift from widening, but those children have been lost to this world. They are lost to the next as well. They are lost to their loved ones-their parents and sisters and brothers. They are lost to the children they might, in a different world, have borne.
Worst, though, is the fact that they are lost to themselves. To save the city-to save the world-they had been forced to remove them from Adhiya. No longer would they travel to the world beyond, to be reborn brighter. They would live out whatever existence the fates had in store for them, and then they would die. Truly die.
Ahead lies a massive rock, dark gray against the white beach and blue-green waters of the bay. The two akhoz stop near it, waiting obediently. Khamal approaches. The first, the one nearest the rock, is Yadhan. She was the first of the akhoz and so seemed, at least in the hour of her choosing, like the proper one for the ritual about to take place, but as he approaches, he knows that he cannot take her. He still remembers her face in the celestia as he performed that first ritual. She was brave, but within she feared. She feared like nothing her scant years on Erahm had prepared her for, and in his heart he knows that she made that sacrifice for him. She revered him. She viewed him as a savior. And he took advantage of it.
“Go,” he says to Yadhan, more harshly than he meant to.
She turns, her eyeless face looking up at him, her mouth pulled back in a feral grin.
“Go!”
She scuffles along the beach, away from him. A wave surges up and sizzles as it rolls across her feet. She bounds away from the water, looks back one last time, and then gallops toward Alayazhar. Perhaps she feels rejected, or confused. Or perhaps she feels nothing at all. Who can say what the akhoz feel?
Khamal turns to the other. His name is Alif-the one, the lone. It is not his given name. Alif was found after the devastation of the sundering, alone and able to speak but little. He had a wound to his head and was never able to say the names of his parents. He was a simple child. Quiet. And like the name Khamal gave him, he often spent his time alone.
Khamal is not sure why, but it is somehow easier to take this child. It shames him. Why is Alif worth less than Yadhan? It should not be, but one must be chosen, one must be sacrificed, if his plan is to have any hope.
As he takes to the rock, he feels the sun-warmed surface and wonders how it will feel when he returns to the world.
Stop, he tells himself. Do not think of it.
He shuffles along the lip leading up to the top, glancing at Sariya’s tower. He wonders if she watches him, wonders if she cares. She still wants him to bring Muqallad back, to allow him to return to Alayazhar, but Khamal can’t. Not yet. Once this is done, it will be time to lift the veil he’d placed around the island that prevented Muqallad from returning.
He reaches the flat surface at last. Alif is close behind. He cowers and looks away when Khamal motions to the center of the rock face.
“Lie down,” Khamal says.
Reluctantly, Alif obeys. Somehow he knows. He knows what lies ahead, and in these moments of realization, Khamal nearly changes his mind, nearly orders Alif to follow Yadhan, nearly prepares to climb down from this rock to return to the celestia to meditate on what they can do to close the rift.
But this ritual had occurred to him years ago, and he’d been pondering it ever since, slowly coming to the realization that this was the only way. He had to break free of the bonds his people had placed on him if he were to have any hope of finding sway against the rift. He knows that it is not without risk. It will weaken the bonds around Ghayavand. The rifts will spread, causing havoc among the nearby islands, perhaps even the motherland. But what choice is there? The bonds would not hold forever, and if they fell when no one was prepared for them, it may well mean the destruction of the world.
Sariya reasoned that perhaps this was what the fates had envisioned, but he could not believe that this was what they had in store for Erahm. He could not.
And so it comes to this.
He stares down at Alif. The boy cranes his neck, releases a mewling sound like a weak and wounded calf.
“Fates forgive me,” Khamal says as he kneels.
He pulls his khanjar from its sheath at his belt. It gleams both wicked and hungry beneath the sun.
Alif squirms as he moves away from Khamal. His mewling becomes louder, more raucous.
“Silence!”
Alif’s moans grow quieter. He shivers, but otherwise remains still as Khamal holds out his wrist, the Atalayina gripped tightly in one hand. He places the knife against his skin, where blood pulses in dark veins.
Before he can change his mind, he runs the edge of the knife over his skin, stifling a groan from the pain of it. He draws on the Atalayina. He draws on himself, much as he does when creating the akhoz. As his blood drips into Alif’s open mouth, he feels himself detach from Adhiya. Slowly but surely, as his lifeblood drips away, his soul is drawn from the world beyond.
Never to return.
This is the most difficult part by far, knowing that once his plans are complete he will never return to Adhiya. If he succeeds in maneuvering Sariya and Muqallad, he will return, he will be reborn, but it will only be once. That child, when he dies, will be as dead as Yadhan. As dead as Alif.
As the flow of his blood slows, he feels Adhiya slip from his grasp. It is gone, and he nearly cries from its loss.
But he cannot. There is work to do yet.
Gritting his jaw so hard it hurts, he takes the knife with shaking hands and raises it high.
Alif lies below him, crimson red spattered across his face and lips and teeth. He knows what’s coming. He goes rigid, muscles tightening, frame going taut, but he does not move away. For this Khamal is proud.
As Alif cries out to the noontime sun, Khamal plunges the knife through the center of his chest.
The cries reach a violent pitch as Alif convulses.
And then he falls still.
And the sounds of the surf return.
Khamal carefully wipes the blade of the dagger against his robes. Black blood, foul smelling, comes away from the blade, indelibly staining the persimmon-colored cloth. He places the tip of the khanjar into its sheath and slides the blade home. Only then does he reach down and pick Alif up into his arms.
He stands, tears streaming down his face, and tosses Alif into the waves. The current here will take him away. Sariya will not see. Not unless she is looking down upon him now.
And if that is as the fates will it, then so be it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
N ikandr heard the boom of the fort’s cannons shortly after the white puff of smoke.
A black, twirling chain shot ate the distance between the fort and the Lihvyen. It missed, flying low beneath the ship. The next two shots, however, spun through the air
with a whirring sound and crashed through the seaward rigging. Nikandr felt it in his boots as the sound thundered through the ship.
The ship was rising, but too slowly.
“Faster, Anahid!”
Nikandr could see men at the turrets of the fort now, and more along the walls, and within the courtyard.
As Anahid and Jahalan worked to bring the ship higher, Nikandr stood at the bow of the ship and called upon his havahezhan to give it extra lift. He spread his arms wide and closed his eyes. The bottom dropped out from his stomach, and his awareness expanded. He felt the currents around the ship, felt the wind that Jahalan’s hezhan was summoning. His own hezhan now added to it, but the spirit felt distant somehow.
Still, it helped. The wind buoyed the ship, lifted it higher than Anahid and Jahalan could do on their own. The Lihvyen took one more cannon shot, but no more. The men in the fort saw the Lihvyen moving out of range and began targeting the cutter behind them, which had so far been slow in adding air.
Nikandr called upon the wind to help the trailing ship, but the fort had now measured their shots. The next two took out a section of her seaward mizzenmast. The ship tilted forward as another shot took her in the fore.
The entire forward section of the ship, from the foremasts to the bowsprit, exploded in a cloud of fire and smoke and flying wood.
The rear of the cutter was thrown backward from the blast. Bits of it struck the Lihvyen with the clatter of wood and the patter of debris. And then, having lost its heft the instant the magazine had been struck, tipped it over like a bottle tipping off the edge of a table. It flipped backward, end over end, picking up speed. Men and rigging and planks of wood flew free, all of them spinning with their own particular rhythm before crashing into the churning green sea a quarter-league below.
“Signal the Opha to send a skiff for survivors!” Nikandr shouted to Styophan, and then he quickly turned his attention back to the fort. There were few men in the open, but to take a fort like this there must be dozens at the very least. The front gates had been shattered, most likely with cannon shot from the enemy ships.
He looked ahead to the cove. The ships were in a very vulnerable position. He couldn’t allow the forces of Yrstanla to return to them.
“Ready the pots, men! We make a line for the ships!”
A cry came up from the crew. They were seasoned, and now they were thirsty for blood.
As the ship made its way eastward toward the cove, a deep iron brazier was filled with wood and lit with a healthy splash of whale oil. Several dozen clay pots filled with cotton were filled with more oil until they were nearly full.
As they flew above the hill hiding the ships and the cove came into view, the three ships-all twelve-masted schooners-were on the move. They’d spotted the Lihvyen and had certainly heard the cannon shots, but they’d begun to flee too late. They could not prevent the ships of Khalakovo from passing over them at least once.
Nikandr took one of the clay pots, as did Styophan and a dozen more of the crew. They positioned themselves around the deck in places where the path downward was clear of rigging and sails. The enemy ships tilted their cannons to fire straight up. Everyone hunkered low as the Lihvyen caught two more shots along the forward hull.
“Now, men! Let’s send them to the sea!”
As the crew raised up a cry, releasing their fury, Nikandr dropped his pot. The flames were bright against the wood and rigging of the ship below. It struck the deck at the aftcastle, the oil splashing over the side of the ship, engulfing it in flame. A few other pots were dropped too quickly and missed, but a good dozen struck home. Flame blossomed about the ship, some of it splashing against the crewmen of Yrstanla. They tried desperately to smother the flames, but it was already too late.
The Opha had steered toward the windward ship. Their pots struck the second enemy ship, engulfing it in flames as well.
The remaining schooner had gained enough altitude that it could challenge them if they weren’t careful.
“Fire!” Nikandr called.
The forward cannons of the Lihvyen and Opha let loose. The chained shot cut through the upper rigging of the enemy galleon. Both shots caught the starward mainmast at two different points. The mast snapped halfway. As the upper sails crashed down to hang loose against the mizzen rigging, the Lihvyen gained more altitude.
It didn’t take long from there. They dropped more pots against the last of the ships, and soon all three of them were aflame. As the Lihvyen and the Opha wheeled windward and cut back toward the wide plateau below the fort, the first of the ships they’d struck was little more than a burning torch twisting down toward the sea.
Nikandr ordered skiffs readied. Fifteen men from each ship loaded into two skiffs. They broke away and made their way to the ground, nervous that the enemy would be difficult to reach now that they’d taken the fort. They landed on the grassy plain below the fort and ran forward, each man bearing a musket, watching the fort for any sign of the enemy. There were none, however. They weren’t along the walls. They weren’t manning the towers.
But there was smoke on the wind. It rose up from the courtyard and drifted, a thin streamer floating up and away.
As they approached the keep, all muskets trained on the shattered remains of the doors or the top of the wall, Nikandr heard a hissing sound.
The hiss of gunpowder.
“To the courtyard! They’ve set gunpowder to blow!”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a bright flash lit the interior of the fort. A bare moment later, something struck Nikandr in the face and chest and limbs.
He flew backward. A roar unlike anything he’d ever heard assaulted his senses.
He struck the ground, losing his musket. He stared up at the sky, his ears ringing.
And then he heard the crumbling. A sound like a landslide. A sound like the earth itself was opening up beneath him, beneath his men, ready to swallow them whole.
He rolled over and managed to make it to his knees.
The rumbling grew louder.
He looked up and saw the spire-seventy-five feet of obsidian standing tall and black against the blue of the sky-begin to tip. It tilted toward the courtyard’s interior. Toward Nikandr and his men.
“Away!” he shouted, though it was weak and caused him to begin coughing. “Away!” he shouted again through his coughs.
He helped the nearest of his men to his feet. It was Styophan, he realized. And then the two of them helped another. Soon all of them, including one they were forced to drag, were moving away from the walls of the fort as quickly as they could.
The rumble increased yet again. Nikandr glanced back and saw the top of the spire plummet. The tower crashed down, fell against the nearest wall of the fort, crushing it as if it were made of ash. Like leaves in autumn, the stones of the wall blew outward, pounding into the men on his right. In an instant seven of them were dead.
Some hidden force pushed at their backs, though it was not so strong as the explosion. Dust billowed outward and enveloped the entire area. In moments all of them were coughing and hacking and wheezing, and it was nearly impossible to see.
At last they made it out and away to clear ground and clear air.
They stopped and turned, looking at the cloud of dust that was still settling.
That was when Nikandr felt the wind. He felt it in his chest first-his chest and his soulstone, both.
He pulled the stone out and held it in his hand. He closed his eyes and opened himself to Adhiya. He could feel the havahezhan, the one that had been with him since Soroush’s men had summoned it forth on Uyadensk. But now it grew distant. It slipped further and further away. And then it was gone, ripped away, leaving an empty feeling that made him double over with a nausea he hadn’t felt since the worst of the wasting was upon him.
At last, all had grown quiet-all save the settling of stone within the broken walls of the fort. The area around him-the narrow plain, the sparse trees, even the tall brown gra
ss dusted with snow-felt expectant, as though it knew what was coming.
The nausea began to ease, and Nikandr stared up at the sky. There had been only a few clouds high up before the fall of the spire, but now they began to form before his very eyes. Like cream poured into water, the clouds billowed and grew in odd, lurching increments. A rumbling came from above. Lightning lit the clouds, which were already beginning to darken. Soon the entire sky was covered in a thick layer, and it was settling over the island, lowering like a great woolen blanket thrown over the world by the fates themselves.
When the wind began to pick up, Nikandr realized that the sky was no place for his ships to be.
He turned east and scanned for them. They were told to hold position further inland, well away from the range of the fort’s cannons, but they were now approaching with speed.
And yet it felt as though they were leagues away.
Nikandr began to run. “We must warn them,” he said, waving his men to follow. “They must moor the ships in the cove!”
As he ran he waved his arms over his head. Styophan and Jonis and a half-dozen others followed, doing the same.
But already the wind was high and swirling. There were times when it robbed him of breath. The moment he was able to clear it, he shouted, higher and higher, as high as his raw and aching throat would allow him.
The ships twisted in the wind. They were blown north and then east. Nikandr could see crewmen standing on the deck, could see them in the rigging. Some of them saw him as well, for they waved back and seemed to then call toward the master to come to the gunwales.
Nikandr never found out if the master had heard, for just then, the Lihvyen, the closer of the two, twisted, nose down, until it was nearly standing on end. They had pulled in a good half of the sails, but the spars were beginning to snap. The rigging was ripped away from its belaying pins. White canvas flapped like burial pennants in the wind.
And then the Lihvyen shot down with such speed that Nikandr knew it was going to crash.
A pattering sound could be heard, coming from behind them. Nikandr glanced back and saw sheets of hail falling from the sky. It rushed toward them and fell upon them like wolves. It stung their face and hands and shoulders. It caused them to slip and fall, so thick was it in moments.
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