Borund shrugged. “The offense to Khalakovo is a risk we’re willing to take.”
“We are guests here.”
Borund snorted anddowned therestof thevodkainone gulp. “Guests... Have you not been here these last five days? We have heard nothing from the Khalakovos since Stasa’s death. Nothing. Ranos has come twice, and he did little more than prattle about inquiries. Nikandr came once to ask me to hunt with him. To hunt! As if we were still boys hoping to while away our time far from the foolishness of Council. And Iaros, that coward, has hidden himself away ever since that farce of a speech by the Matra. Nothing will come of their inquiries. They will attempt to blow this over as if it had never happened, and then—mark my words—they will attempt to install Iaros as Grand Duke, and they’ll expect us to smile as he takes his seat.”
Borund’s face had filled with color as he talked until he was positively red. She had had no idea he was so angry over the matter. He had, for the last several years, become progressively more absent from Galostina as he shouldered more of the shipping contracts to Yrstanla. Their time together had become by necessity more brief and perfunctory. Here, with the death of the Grand Duke so fresh in everyone’s minds and tempers starting to rise, she realized how similar to their father he had become.
As she worked this through in her mind, another realization struck her full in the face: she had become protective of Nikandr, even against Borund. She had come to Khalakovo dutifully, ready to fulfill the needs of her family. She hadn’t expected to feel more for Nikandr than that. Yet the way he had tried to best her at the dance those many nights ago—he had been obstinate about it, true, but she also felt like he had been doing it to win her over, like he had truly wanted to show everyone in the room that he would win her affection. Perhaps she was fooling herself, but she felt in her heart she was right.
Aunt Katerina waved Atiana over. “Come, niece. I grow tired of winning.”
Katerina and Ishkyna were sitting at a large ebony table pitting their skills at trump against those of Mileva and Grigory’s young cousin, Ivan. Katerina wore a fine black dress and her dark hair was tucked under a beaded cap. Her traditional raiment contrasted sharply with Atiana and her sisters, who wore embroidered dresses of emerald green, their hair high and powdered with lazy ringlets falling near their ears. Ivan, a boy of only fifteen, looked like a peasant among queens, but he didn’t seem to mind—or notice for that matter—for he could be caught staring doe-eyed at Mileva as often as he did his cards.
Atiana’s stomach was turning too much for her to sit still for any amount of time, but before she could decline, the doors of the solarium opened, and in strode Father, bootsteps echoing, looking as cross as he ever had.
Without saying another word, Borund moved to meet him. Katerina stood as well, her dress sighing as it slid over the parquet floor. “What news?” she asked.
Father glanced at Atiana and then pulled Borund and Katerina away to speak with Grigory and Leonid.
A shiver traveled along Atiana’s frame. Father had been treating her as if she’d already married Nikandr, as if Ishkyna’s prediction of shifting allegiances had already come true. She moved casually to the card table and took the vacant chair, doing her best to feign indifference.
“Don’t mind him,” Ishkyna said while dealing the cards with practiced ease. “He only fears you’ll let something slip should you ever be allowed to meet Nikandr again.”
Atiana sorted her hand, unwilling to admit that Father had gotten to her over the last few days. “I bid three.”
Ivan, having paid much more attention to the three sisters than he did his own hand, quickly ordered his cards. “Four,” he said, more of a question than a statement.
Ishkyna glanced at Ivan and rolled her eyes. She leaned in toward the table. “It’s just us, Tiana. You don’t have to hide the fact that you’re enamored of him. I bid six.”
“Ah, but she does, Shkyna,” Mileva said. “What would good Bolgravya think if she were to show any outward sign of affection toward Khalakovo? Seven.”
Ivan’s face went bright red. Had he been older—or had hotter blood run through his veins—he would have stood from the table and left, but he was clearly enamored of the sisters, Mileva in particular.
Atiana set down her cards, allowing Mileva to capture the blind. “Show some respect.” She squeezed Ivan’s wrist tenderly. “He has lost much this week.”
“Ivan knows how much respect I have for him and his family. It was a warning for you, sister.” Mileva finished selecting her final hand and they began playing, the sisters moving quickly, practically without thought, Ivan choosing his cards carefully, often looking to Mileva for approval as if she could somehow see his cards before he played them.
“And why would I need a warning, Leva?”
“Because,” Ishkyna answered forher, “it’s clear to everyone you’re chafing at the bit to gallop for Khalakovo when you should be headed home.”
Atiana slapped her highest trump onto the table and swept in the trick. “I had a notion that this was my home now.”
Mileva took the next. “The longer we stay, sister, the likelier it will be that your wedding bed will forever stay cold.”
Atiana wanted to scoff, but there was a ring of truth to those words. She had thought the matter would be settled within a day, but then came rumor that the Khalakovos had found a Landless qiram and were questioning him deep beneath the palotza. They neither confirmed nor denied the rumor, but Leonid had men asking about Volgorod for news, and they said that some of the Landless had come to the palotza, treating with Iaros to have their kinsman back.
“Perhaps if you spoke with young Khalakovo, away from prying ears.”
Atiana did not look at Ivan. She knew that this was as much for his ears as it was for hers. “And just how would I do that?” she asked, providing the requisite nibble on the bait.
Mileva shrugged. “There are hidden hallways in Radiskoye, are there not, as there are in Galostina? I would even wager that Zvayodensk has a tunnel or two hidden away from curious eyes.”
Ivan blushed again, playing a pitiful, off-suited card.
“Perhaps,” Ishkyna said, playing a high trump, “but who will be left to tread them?”
As Mileva played her final card, winning the trick and the hand, Ivan’s face changed. Instead of a deep red, his face went white. After staring at the table for a time, meeting no one’s eyes, he stood, bowed, and without a single word strode away.
“Really, Shkyna,” Atiana said. “The boy has just lost a dozen in his family, and dozens more countrymen.”
“And we lost two cousins and a ship only a month ago. That is life among the islands. The sooner Ivan learns that, the better off he’ll be.”
Atiana raked in the cards and tumbled them into the deck, unable to deny the truth in her sister’s words. When she was young she had been heartbroken at the frequent deaths in the family, but she had soon learned to put such things in perspective. She realized, too, that Ishkyna had played Ivan well. He was angry now, and would probably tell others what the sisters had brewing. It would no doubt come back to Father, and then he would expect that she would have already gone to question Nikandr.
But she didn’t care if she was being manipulated by her sisters or if her father would have expectations. She wanted to see Nikandr. So late that night she demanded a simple dress of one of their servants. She donned it and left her bedroom to the sounds of whispering from her sisters. She held a small, unlit lamp in one hand even though there were whale oil lamps set on ornate marble tables along the hallway. The passageway to her left led to Radiskoye proper—the most obvious way to reach Nikandr, and also the most watched. She turned instead to her right and padded down the hall until she reached another, smaller hallway where Father and the other dukes were housed. She came to a small linen closet and opened it. After stepping inside, she felt among the shelves of sheets and pillow cases for the catch Mileva had assured her was there. She found i
t at the back of the bottommost shelf. It clicked and the entire rear of the closet creaked backward at her touch.
After lighting her small lamp, she entered the secret passage. Stairs immediately took her downward. She guessed it to be two stories, perhaps more. It was difficult to tell with no landmarks to guide her. She reached the bottom, and by the flickering light of her lamp she could see a narrow stone tunnel running to the right. She followed it, holding her arms tight to her side, partly because of the cramped space and partly because of the horrible draft. Her lamp was equipped with a glass shield, but it still guttered and threatened to go out if Atiana moved too quickly.
She tried to retain her sense of direction, but the tunnel took several turns, and none of them at right angles to one another, and so soon she had no idea where she was going. She finally reached a fork in the passage, and was forced to stop. Mileva hadn’t mentioned such a thing, and so she had no idea which one she should take. What if there were more? What if she got lost in these tunnels and never found her way out again? Who knew how extensive they were? Radiskoye was among the largest of the palotzas; she might find herself caught in a place from which no amount of screaming would rescue her.
She took the right-hand fork, vowing that she would head back if she came across any more. But after another, she told herself that she could find her way back as long as she consistently chose one direction to follow. It happened a third time, and still Atiana went on, taking several flights of stairs upward.
Thankfully this tunnel came to an end.
She searched for a latch and eventually found it. On the other side was the rear of a similar closet within the bath house. One large pool was set into the floor here, and another smaller one, for children, lay beyond it. She had been here a few times and knew that it lay two levels below the floor where the Khalakovos slept. She was nearly there.
She padded to the bath house door and opened it slowly. The hallway was empty, so she left the bathhouse and walked to the main stairwell serving this wing of the palotza. She took it two levels up.
And stopped.
For sitting on a bench was a large black rook. It watched her closely with intelligent eyes, and by the time she had taken two steps forward, she knew that Saphia had assumed the bird, and that she had been found sneaking about like a thief in the night.
CHAPTER 22
“How may I serve, Matra?” Atiana asked.
The rook emitted several clicking sounds before speaking. “Have the hallways of Radiskoye so caught your interest”—it clicked again—“that you must skulk among them while the sky lays dark?”
“Nyet, Matra.”
“Another reason, then...”
“I only thought...”
The rook cawed. “Go on.”
“I wished to speak with your son, to apologize to him.”
“Apologize?”
“For my actions the other night. For besting him at our dance.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it was the only thing she could think of.
The rook cawed again, and to Atiana it sounded like a laugh. “There’s little enough for you to apologize for. You held your own, child, which is more than I can say for Nikandr.”
“He did very well, Matra. I practiced that one dance for weeks before coming here.”
“To show him you were better.”
Atiana pulled herself taller. “To show him I would not stand in his shadow, but at his side.”
The rook was motionless for a time, staring. “As it should be.”
Atiana suppressed a small smile. “As you say, Matra.”
“You asked how you may serve...”
For the first time Atiana realized there was more to this meeting than had at first met the eye. “Of course, Matra.”
Footsteps echoed from down the hallway, and out of the gloom stepped Isaak, the palotza’s seneschal, holding a large, unlit lantern and wearing thick winter night clothes.
“You can accompany Isaak to the drowning chamber.”
Isaak bowed his head and held out a night coat as the rook flapped up to his shoulder.
With no small amount of trepidation, Atiana accepted it and pulled it over her chilled frame. She walked the cavernous halls of Radiskoye with Isaak, their footsteps echoing off into the immensity of the palotza. The old chancellor said nothing the entire way, the Matra sitting on his shoulder.
When Atiana had last spoken to the Matra, they had discussed her abilities in the dark and the need for someone to take up the slack where Yvanna could not. Surely she didn’t mean for Atiana to begin now. It must be something the Matra wanted kept secret, something that needed to be told directly.
Her dread increased the lower they went, and by the time they crossed the colonnade near the base of the towering black spire, her heart was pounding in her chest, and it was all she could do not to turn and run.
Finally, after reaching the antechamber at the bottom of the interminable stairwell, Isaak knocked thrice upon the imposing iron doors and led Atiana into the drowning chamber.
If the stairwell was chilly, the chamber was positively frigid. It began seeping through Atiana’s clothes the moment she stepped in. As bitter as the memories were, she remembered her training—while her whole being wanted to tighten, she needed instead to relax.
Saphia sat in the stout chair near the fire—though not too near. A servant woman—an aging, gray matron—fussed around the Matra, fixing the blanket just so while the rook alighted from Isaak’s shoulder and flew to the golden perch standing behind the Matra.
This was another subtle indicator of Saphia’s prowess with the aether. No other Matra could assume the form of an animal while outside of the drowning basin. Saphia, if reports were to be believed, could do so for hours after leaving it, and it made Atiana wonder what other powers she might have that no one knew about.
Suddenly the rook began cawing and beating its wings furiously, an indicator that Saphia had returned to herself.
Atiana kneeled and bowed her head. “How may I serve, Matra?”
The Matra sipped from a thick, earthenware mug and worked her mouth before speaking. “Rise, child. What I need is trifling, though you may not think it so easy to give.”
Atiana stood, her head still bowed. “What I have is yours.”
A smile spread across Saphia’s skeletal face as she raised the mug to her lips and sipped noisily. “We shall see soon enough.” Her hands shook, as did her head when not in direct contact with the mug, but her eyes were bright and spry. “Victania is unavailable, and Yvanna’s inability has grown worse since our last talk. I need rest, child. I have not slept properly in weeks, and it is taking its toll. Take the dark. Watch over our island for a time, and that will be enough.”
“Forgive me, Matra, but my father has said the marriage is in doubt.”
“You’re near enough to a Khalakovo, child.”
“But Father—”
“You think the men will halt a wedding their Matri have arranged? Not likely. Not while your mother and I live. They may scratch and they may claw, but you will be married. Be sure of that. Besides, your inclusion in this family has nothing to do with it. A Matra can choose who she will. Is it not so?”
“It is so, but shouldn’t Victania—”
“I told you she is unavailable.” Atiana thought Saphia would tell her to simply suck in her gut and prepare herself, but she did not. She stared at Atiana while the fire lit one side of her face in a ruddy glow. “You are afraid.”
It was not a question.
“I will do it, Matra, if it will give you rest.”
Saphia continued to stare, the hollows of her eyes like black pits. “I lied to you the other day,”she said,“or at least I didn’t share with you the whole truth. The Matri always discuss those that will be allowed to take the dark. It was decided years ago that you and your sisters were too much of a risk to be allowed to ride the currents.”
Atiana tried not to let her surprise show. “And what, may I as
k, changed your minds?”
“I should think the answer was obvious.”
And of course, it was. The dark, for whatever reason, was becoming progressively harder to control. Though the aether flowed over the seas, over the entire world, in chaotic currents, the islands grounded it, creating natural channels through which the aether could flow. It was still too wild to be used without further refinement, however. The spires allowed the Matri, collectively, to guide the flow of aether between the archipelagos. Without them, ships would be lost among the winds, their keels useless among the fickle currents.
But just like everything else on the islands, the aether had become unpredictable. The Matri had had to work harder to control the currents, which was the main reason that those weaker in the craft were practically useless, and masters like Saphia were taxed more heavily each time they took the dark. Most believed the blight to be a drought that would one day pass, but Atiana wasn’t so sure. What if it never passed? Or passed so many years from now that it made little difference? What would become of the Duchies of Anuskaya? Would they be forced to live only among their own archipelagos, forgoing the dangerous flights to the farther islands? How many would die from starvation as conditions worsened and they were cut off from trade?
“If it’s a simple matter of ability,” Atiana said, “then Ishkyna or Mileva would do better. They seemed to enjoy it.”
“Ishkyna is an unbroken filly, always trying to prove herself, always pulling at her reins. And Mileva is too cunning for her own good.”
“Which leaves me.”
“Which is no small matter. Take the dark, child. The Matri will guide you, as they have in the past. There is little to fear now that the winds are calm.”
“Mother says there is always something to fear in the dark.”
Saphia began to laugh, splashing tea over the shawl on her lap. The servant came quickly with a napkin and dabbed the wet spots, making sure to send a wicked glance in Atiana’s direction while doing so.
“This is another reason I think you’re ready. You recognize the need for balance—hold the reins too tightly, and the aether will fight you; loosen them overly much, and it will trample you roughshod.”
The Winds of Khalakovo Page 19