He looked up, his eyes piercing, as he handed the soulstone back. “Nasim was raised by the Maharraht, primarily by a man named Soroush. You saw him on the mountain, the one with the scarred ear. He and his followers had great difficulty communicating with Nasim. They tried for years, and may have gained some small insights into his nature, but not his mind. They could no more relate to him than they could a dog or a horse. But they understood that in Nasim lay a treasure the likes of which this world has not seen in centuries.”
“What do you mean?”
“I believe that Nasim walks between worlds. He touches Adhiya and Erahm, both, but because he was raised with no knowledge of this, he cannot tell the two apart. It is beyond confusing for him. It tears at his soul. He doesn’t understand the nature of this world, though he wants more than anything to do so. When the two of you met on the eyrie, he found something in you-perhaps your stone, perhaps your very soul-but it grounded him. It gave him a way to tell the two worlds apart, and in turn gave him some small amount of solace.”
“Nasim came to the site of the havahezhan’s crossing two nights before the attack.” Nikandr told him of how they had met after Atiana returned to the palotza, of the pain and euphoria he had felt. “Jahalan said something similar. He said that I was sharing what Nasim was feeling.”
Ashan nodded. “Jahalan has long been a wise man.”
“When I first saw him on the eyrie,” Nikandr continued, remembering the city with the tall towers, “I saw a vision of a city, an empty, abandoned place. And then on the cliff it happened again. I was walking among the streets with a man named Muqallad. We came to a tower, where a woman waited for us.”
Ashan blinked and his head jerked back. “What name did you say?”
“Muqallad, and I was sure, in that moment just before I came to my senses, that they had somehow betrayed me.”
Nikandr waited for him to reply, but Ashan only stared.
“Do you know them?”
Ashan shook his head. “Muqallad is a name that holds great weight among the Aramahn.” He turned to Nikandr soberly. “He lived on an island named Ghayavand, an island lost, taken by the winds of Adhiya.”
“Taken how?”
“The arqesh became too bold. They pushed too hard, played with arts that were better left alone for the end of days.” Ashan frowned. “But it cannot be him.”
“Nasim couldn’t have met him?”
“Muqallad died three hundred years ago, along with the island itself.”
Nikandr moved on, hoping to keep Ashan in a talkative mood. “How could you have heard of Nasim if he were so important to the Maharraht?”
“They were careful, but something so powerful and mysterious as Nasim cannot be hidden forever. Word of him came to me, and I thought it something worth investigating.”
“So you simply made your way to their doorstep and begged permission to see him?”
Ashan’s smile was pleasant, but grating all the same. “Nothing so simple as that. It was a delicate negotiation, to be sure, but eventually they allowed me near him.”
“Why?”
“If you’re wondering if I agreed to aid them in their cause”-Ashan shifted in the bed, wincing from the pain-“I did not.”
“Then why would they have allowed you near him?”
“My refusal to aid them does not mean that they could not benefit from my presence.” “Then you were helping them.” “I was helping Nasim.”
“Who is a tool of the Maharraht.”
Ashan’s face grew cross for the first time. “He is a child who is lost. A child who needed my help. I answered that call, and I would do so again.”
“No matter what might happen to the Grand Duchy.”
Ashan stopped, his eyes serious.“I care for the lives of the Grand Duchy, son of Iaros. Have no fear of that.”
“As you care for the lives of the Maharraht?”
“As I care for all in this world.”
“If that were so, you wouldn’t have forged a weapon for them to use against us.”
“ Nyet? You would rather I had left Nasim where I’d found him? Let them find what they may?”
Nikandr’s nostrils flared. “This sits not well with me.”
“That is because I am no tool of Khalakovo.”
“It is because you seem to be a tool of the Maharraht, willingly or not.”
Ashan shook his head calmly. “Both mean little, son of Iaros.” He placed both hands over his heart. “What matters is what lies within, what we give to the next life, not that which comes and goes in the blink of an eye.”
Nikandr’s gut began to churn, the feelings of nausea from earlier returning. “Did Nasim summon the hezhan?” he asked, more hastily than he’d meant to.
“Nasim is no qiram. He has no ability to bond with spirits.”
“Did he summon the hezhan?”
“It would have been impossible. Nasim can affect the ability of qiram to lure and bond with a hezhan-he may even make crossings more likely by his mere presence-but he cannot summon them himself.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“How do I know the sun will rise tomorrow? I simply know.”
Ashan’s voice was calm, which was all the more infuriating. But there was no doubting that he seemed sincere.
“Where was Soroush taking him?”
“They did not consult with me, son of Iaros.”
“Do not jest, son of Ahrumea. They are murderers.”
“They do not kill indiscriminately.”
Nikandr laughed. “Tell that to those who lie in their graves from their discriminating tastes.”
“No matter what you may think, they treasure life. They believe the world has been set off course. They are merely trying to correct it.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you wished you could join them.”
Ashan appeared saddened by these words. “I neither hope for their success nor wish for their defeat.”
The feelings of nausea in Nikandr’s stomach advanced. He swallowed several times without meaning to.
Ashan seemed to notice, for his expression turned to one of confusion, of concern.
Nikandr stood, knocking his chair back in his haste. “Did Nasim summon the hezhan?”
“I told you he could not have.”
“We could hang you, Ashan-you and Nasim both.”
Ashan seemed unfazed. “Of that I have no doubt.”
His stomach was growing worse. “You would do well to consider your answers more carefully the next time we meet.”
He left, locking the door with the gaoler’s keys, and rushed up the hall. Then he bent over and vomited, the contents of his stomach pattering against the stone. He heaved again and again-more and more sour liquid coming up. He knew Ashan could hear him, and the knowledge burned, but what was worse was the fear that was starting to well up inside him. The symptoms were growing stronger. Soon, everyone would know; it would be plain as day. And then, the long march toward death would be all that lay before him.
He stood, clearing his mouth of spittle.
Nasim’s door lay just ahead. He moved to it, listening for any signs of movement within. For no reason apparent to him, he was afraid.
Softly, he placed the key into the lock and turned it. It opened with a soft click. He found Nasim kneeling in the center of the room, holding his gut and rocking back and forth, a look of profound misery on his face.
Nikandr stepped inside. “Nasim?”
The boy didn’t respond.
“Nasim, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
Nikandr crouched down, hoping the boy would acknowledge him in some way. But Nasim only rocked, his breath coming in short gasps through flared nostrils.
“Nasim, please, speak to me.”
Father was going to demand answers, and soon. The life of the Grand Duke had been taken. The lives of everyone on the island-the gathered aristocracy included-were threatened, and they would all be lo
oking toward these two to provide answers.
But Nasim appeared unready to grant this request, so Nikandr eventually left.
CHAPTER 20
Rehada often took walks around Volgorod. She told herself it was to steep herself in the ebbs and flows of the city, and that was true, but she knew deep in her heart that it was also because she was lonely. She catered to the richest of the Landed, pleasing them in the ways of the flesh, but none of them other than Nikandr had ever given her pause. She was shunned in Iramanshah for her refusal to cross the fires, to forgive those who had taken the life of her daughter, Ahya. Soroush, Ahya’s father, had told her many times to do so. What was one more lie in the stack you’ve created, he used to ask. There were many things she would do to make her life among the Landed appear innocent, but forgiving the murderous souls who’d taken Ahya from her wasn’t one of them. She would never forgive them. Never.
So she lived half a life-always on the periphery of Royalty, of the Aramahn, of the people of Volgorod. She traveled not only through the city, but all around the island and the others in the archipelago. She attended festivals, celebrations, even funerals, where the Landed would bury their dead in the ground instead of setting them onto skiffs and letting the wind take them where it would.
She approached the line where peasants stood in line for their dole. Today it was four blocks long, people waiting with barrows or straps to take home the grain they would be allotted. There were many of them-more than normal, it seemed-and they looked haggard, gray, as if they were slowly but surely becoming part of the stone of the city around them.
“Rehada,” a woman called, beckoning Rehada closer.
Her name was Gierten, and she was a woman Rehada had met several times at the summer festival in Izhny. She was holding the reins of a sickly donkey saddled with two baskets-one empty, the other with a nest of faded brown blankets.
She approached, trying to appear pleasant. Gierten had been heavy with child the last time she’d seen her nearly a year ago. Rehada had no real desire to see the child, nor talk to Gierten, but impressions must be maintained.
“How old now?” Rehada asked as she approached the basket.
“Praise to the ancients, she nears her ninth month, and she is healthy as can be.”
Rehada pulled the blanket back to reveal the red face of a babe. Gierten was thin, with a wiry strength to her, but this baby was round in the cheeks with strong color to her skin. She looked nothing at all like Ahya, but still it drove a knife through Rehada’s chest merely to look upon this child, this Landed child, while hers was gone, ripped from her when she had only begun to blossom.
“She is hale, indeed,” Rehada said to prevent herself from crying. She looked along the line, to those that seemed like it was a struggle just to remain standing. “I wonder, then, why you’ve come here.”
“We need grain as much as the next family.”
“Last year your husband’s nets were full.”
Gierten shook her head. “The fish have all gone. Even two months ago we could find enough to live on if not sell at market, but now we can’t even do that.” She smiled as she reached down and pulled the blanket over to protect her child from the breeze. “And my Evina needs all the food she can get.”
It was then that Rehada noticed something from the corner of her eye. Beyond the line, nestled between several tall stone buildings, was a patch of snow-covered ground with three white fir trees standing over it. On the far side, near the mouth of an alley that led up toward the Boyar’s mansion, stood a man. He was in the shade of the trees-with the clouds in the sky and his dark clothes it was difficult at first to pick him out. It was Soroush, still wearing his double robes, his ragged turban, daring anyone to notice him and call attention to it.
She pulled her eyes back to Gierten, for she couldn’t let on what she’d seen, but as they continued to talk-Gierten regaling her with all manner of meaningless stories about the baby’s first months of life-Rehada caught several more glimpses of Soroush. Clearly he had been following her, or had been waiting, knowing somehow she would walk this way.
She bid Gierten dasvidaniya and began heading along the line, hoping to cut across and speak with Soroush, but when she looked for him again, he wasn’t there. She rushed across the street to the trees, looking up along the alley, but she did not find him.
She shivered, and not from the wind tugging at her robes. For some reason she felt more alone than she ever had since coming to Khalakovo.
Rehada woke to a soft knock at the rear of her home. She stood, wiped the crust of dried tears from her cheeks, and pulled her robe over her naked form. Another knock came-more insistent-as she took a small lamp from the mantel and limped along the creaking hallway to the rear of the house.
A third knock came as she opened it.
Standing there was Soroush, lit in golden relief by the light of her lamp. She had known he would eventually come, but she still felt watched from the scene in the city earlier that day.
She bowed her head, stepping aside to allow him entrance. It was not lost on her the parallel this made to Nikandr’s visit only three days before, the only difference being that Nikandr had used the front door while one of her own was forced to use the rear. She was ashamed, though she had to admit she wasn’t sure whether it stemmed from the fact that Nikandr had become so familiar with her or that Soroush, even after all they’d been through, still was.
Doing her best to disguise the pain she felt in her feet and shins as she walked, she led him into her sitting room and offered him vodka. He turned his nose up at that, clearly expecting araq or the sour citrus wines from the south of Yrstanla.
“It has fallen out of favor.”
“Even in Iramanshah?” His voice was deep and smooth, like the voice of a mountain. It was something she’d been so long without she’d forgotten how reassuring it could be.
“In case you’ve forgotten, the picture I’m painting is not of a woman in Iramanshah.”
He smiled. “You could still have a bottle hidden beneath the floorboards.”
She returned his smile and poured him a drink of the vodka anyway. “Perhaps I no longer prefer it.”
He accepted the glass, firelight flickering off of the golden earrings in what remained of his left ear. “Then I would know you had finally turned.”
He sat within the mound of pillows, his face haggard, his eyes heavy, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. As she sat across from him, she tried to hide the pain in her feet and ankles.
Soroush glanced down, then toward the fire, and finally he met her eye. “I would have guessed you would give that up long before the araq.”
She took a sip from her vodka, hoping he would take the hint and leave the subject alone. The fire crackled as the sting of the liquor crept down her throat to lie heavy, deep within her gut. She couldn’t bring herself to move closer to him, though she admitted there was still a part of her that wanted to. Despite his scars-or perhaps because of them-he was a deeply attractive man. But to think of Soroush she had no choice but to think of the pain that had been laid at their feet by the bloody hands of the Landed.
“Do you have a place in the city?”
“That isn’t something you should know.”
She knew the reasons for this, but it still hurt to be treated like a risk that he was forced to weigh. “Then why have you come?”
“It has been too long, Rehada. It is time for us to sit. To take drink with one another.”
She shook her head. “I am no girl just taking to the winds, Soroush. You have come for a reason.”
His dark eyes shone in the firelight. “Tell me first what you’ve heard.”
“Of the hezhan?”
He nodded.
“It crossed the wall of the palotza and murdered the Grand Duke. Dozens died with many more wounded. Bolgravya’s grand ship was lost.”
Soroush stared at his drink with a look of regret on his face. He took a healthy swallow and closed his eyes, p
erhaps wishing the dead a better life on their return to Erahm. “Your Prince?”
“Safe as far as I know.”
“That is good. We may have need of him before this is done.”
“In what way?”
“Who can tell?”
Rehada shook her head. “Fine, keep your secrets.”
“Bersuq has been having trouble with the third stone.”
She laughed. “I’ve given you your stone.”
“You have.” He shook his head, ignoring her jibe. “We thought we had mastered the way to sense the weakest points in the rift. You saw the effects yourself.”
“I did, but I may have had help.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think I would have succeeded in summoning the hezhan were it not for a presence I felt at the end. I was lost utterly, and the presence cleared my mind, allowed me to focus against the pain. When I woke there was a form in the woods. It must have been Nasim.”
His head tilted incrementally. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“It was not until hours later that I was thinking clearly. Memories were streaming from my mind, and it was all I could do to sort them from reality. I thought on it for a long while afterward, and I think it was him. I think he was watching the whole time.”
He downed the last of his vodka in one gulp. His face soured as he stared at the glass, then he set it aside and gazed into the fire. He looked like the Soroush of old, then. Peaceful. Contemplative. He had been a man on a path toward greatness before Ahya had been killed.
“Did you know he is in the palotza, taken by your Prince?”
She was surprised at how strongly her heart beat at even this small bit of news of Nikandr, but the alcohol was already helping to mask her emotions.
When she remained silent, he continued. “Don’t worry. Nasim will keep well enough in the palotza. What’s important are the stones. Bersuq has tried several times to summon the vanahezhan. But the way has proven blocked.”
“We have time.”
“ Neh. There is no time left.”
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