By the fates who live above…
Soroush had been right. No other than Atiana Radieva Vostroma stood before her, wearing a beaten woolen szubka around her shoulders and a simple cotton babushka to hide the color of her hair. She looked exhausted. The skin of her face was grimy with dirt. She was shivering from head to toe, yet she seemed hesitant to ask Rehada for entry.
“Come,” Rehada said, stepping out into the quiet street and guiding her in with an arm around her shoulder. “You’ll catch the hacking for sure, dressed as you are.”
She guided her to the sitting room, in the center of which was a mound of pillows. There were two chairs beneath the small round windows set high into the wall, but Atiana chose to sit among the pillows instead. Rehada guessed it was a ploy to put her more at ease-few women among the Landed gentry would do what she had just done-but she still gave her a small nod of approval before moving to the cart that held the liquor.
Rehada poured two glasses of vodka and diluted them with cider. “There have been riots,” Rehada said while holding the glass out.
Atiana accepted it. “I was careful.” She took a healthy swallow and swished the liquid around her mouth before downing the rest in one big gulp.
Rehada sat, sipping at her own drink. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”
“You nearly didn’t…”
“Why? What happened?”
Atiana shook her head, pulling the babushka off with a look that Rehada could only describe as defeated. “I–I’ve come because of the rift. We both know it’s the cause of the deaths-the children, the babies. What I don’t understand is why it’s happening or how we can halt its progression.”
“Why do you care? Surely at this point you could leave and summon your father’s ships to save you.”
“I care because what happens here could happen anywhere. Vostroma, Yrstanla, Rafsuhan. Anywhere.”
Rehada looked this woman up and down, trying to weigh the truth of her words. The defeated look in Atiana’s eyes was gone. She stared back resolutely, and more than that-she seemed hopeful, as if something she had long considered out of her grasp had been placed before her and was now there for the taking. She seemed, Rehada finally conceded, sincere, and so she answered in the only way she could.
“What would you have me do?”
“I need to take the dark. With Radiskoye no longer an option, Iramanshah is all I can think of, but I’m afraid they will think me a spy and refuse me access. I need you to help.”
“That seems a simple thing.”
“There is more.” Atiana stood and poured herself another drink-no cider this time. “Nasim…” Her words trailed off, as if she were considering whether or not the line behind which she was standing should be crossed.
“Go on,” Rehada said softly.
“During the attack, he seized the Matra as easily as I would a moth and held her for days. He nearly killed her. I managed to turn his attention elsewhere, and I did it by pushing on the walls of the aether.”
Rehada frowned. “Pushing?”
“The babe that died… The same thing happened then-the feeling that the walls were closing in-and it happened again when I took the dark in Iramanshah.” Atiana shook her head while staring into the clear contents of her glass. “It is the key to these things-I feel it in my bones-but I need to take the dark again to unravel it.”
Rehada paused. “I am not a woman trusted in the halls of Iramanshah.”
“I know,” she replied, “but they will trust you in this. They must.”
Rehada wondered how much of this Soroush had seen.
Probably little, but he had always been one to listen to the signs around him, to heed them when they came. He was also one to put himself in a place to hear them, and she wondered if she could ever commit to the cause the way he had.
Probably not, she realized, but she could do this at least.
“Then come, Atiana Radieva. Come with me to Iramanshah, and we shall see what we shall see.”
The sound of gunfire lit the afternoon sky as they prepared to leave. Rehada had changed into sensible clothing, and Atiana already looked enough like a peasant-especially with her hair hidden-so they decided it best to leave her in the stolen, threadbare clothes she’d been wearing when she arrived. Rehada had no hezhan bound to her. She had released hers only the night before. Though she might have taken another, it would have been difficult, and she could not risk showing any propensity toward violence in front of Atiana. She could not risk revealing that she was Maharraht.
And besides, Rehada thought, it was probably best not to draw attention by wearing her circlet on a day like today. They would simply be two women, traveling out of the city toward the south of Uyadensk.
As they opened the door, two flatbed wagons trundled down the street, headed toward the center of the city, toward the sound of the fighting.
Rehada closed the door again, peering through the crack in the door to watch them. On the beds were a dozen men bearing crude weapons-long knives, scythes, pitchforks. Only a handful bore muskets, but these were the men that watched the buildings around them most closely, as if they expected to be attacked, or were perhaps looking for those that might run to the Boyar to report their location.
When they turned further up the street, Rehada led Atiana in the other direction, but she had been paying too much attention to the wagons. If she had been watching more closely, she would have seen the two men standing in the shadows down the street.
When she did see them, she already knew it was too late.
“Quickly,” Rehada whispered as they turned right and began heading downhill toward the river.
Atiana said nothing. She had seen them too.
When they reached the end of the alley, Rehada dared one look back.
The men had reached the mouth of the alley. They were moving quickly now.
“Run,” Rehada said.
They did, moving as quickly downhill as they dared. The stone buildings-mostly homes with small shops at the lower floors-were all two and three stories. One had a low stone wall fencing the yard and an iron gate. She leapt over the wall and grabbed a round stone. After motioning Atiana to duck down, she launched the rock across the street, down an alley that forked some twenty paces down.
She ducked down low, pulling Atiana with her, as she heard the heavy footsteps of the men approaching and the clatter of the stone as it skipped down the alley.
The soft pad of boots came nearer.
Atiana’s eyes were wide, and her chest was heaving with her rapid breath, but she seemed to have her wits about her. From inside the voluminous sleeve of her szubka, Atiana pulled a rusted kindjal. It looked worn, but its edge gleamed in the late afternoon light. She stared into Rehada’s eyes, making it clear she would fight if needed. Perhaps she was not so callow as she had seemed that time on the beach.
Rehada placed a hand on her wrist as the footsteps approached. In the distance, the sound of the river could be heard as the summer melt rushed toward the sea. Voices roaring in anger rose above it.
Then, without warning, the footsteps receded, and were gone altogether.
“Come,” Rehada said.
They were up and off once more. They raced downhill, and reached the river in short order. They stopped at the bridge that crossed it, for further uphill there was a crowd on another, larger bridge. They were stacking barrels beneath it, near the supports. They were stacking gunpowder, Rehada realized. They were going to destroy the bridge-one of the largest that crossed the river and the one used often by the Oprichni as they headed east to patrol the city.
Rehada whirled at the sound of men speaking in low voices. She thought it would be the streltsi, but she was wrong. It was a group of peasants hauling a hand-pulled cart. In the bed were three wooden casks containing what was most likely gunpowder.
Atiana took Rehada’s hand and began walking back up the way they’d come, but they stopped once more when they saw, coming toward them, the two gua
rdsmen.
Rehada turned and began walking swiftly across the bridge.
“Stop, there,” came a voice behind her.
Rehada ran, Atiana following. Below, over the low stone wall, the Mordova coursed, creating a rush of sound.
Footsteps followed close on their heels.
A gunshot rang out. Rehada glanced behind and saw one of the guardsmen pointing a pistol at the nearby group of men, who looked on not with fear, but open hatred.
Rehada and Atiana managed to cross the river, to make it deeper into the city. The lowering sun sat behind a thick layer of clouds, casting the city in a pall, but it wasn’t so dark that they could easily hide. Plus their pursuers were close behind and gaining. They were eventually caught as they reached a narrow intersection crowded on all sides by tall stone buildings. Rehada was yanked back by her arm. She tried to free herself, then to push him away with her free hand, but he shrugged off her attacks.
Atiana had pulled her kindjal, and was facing her assailant warily. “We don’t wish to hurt you,” Atiana said.
The strelet lunged forward, but Atiana skipped backward and slashed at his wrist. He snatched his hand back, a thread of blood marking his wrist.
“You won’t be harmed,” the strelet said.
Atiana shook her head. “I’m a simple woman from Izhny, come to meet with my friend. Why would you chase us?”
The man paused, stood up straighter, confused. He looked to the other, as if he were considering her words.
“Watch him!” Rehada shouted, but too late.
Quick as a mongoose he darted in, twisting away from Atiana’s sharp thrust. In a blink he was inside her guard and levering her arm behind her back. Atiana screamed and the kindjal clattered against the cobbled street with a metallic ting.
“Don’t do this,” Atiana pleaded. “Tell them you weren’t able to find us. I’ll make both of you rich men.”
From the shadows of the alley they’d run down, the group of men were walking forward. Two were holding pistols, another a musket, and all of them were eying the streltsi with cruel eyes that spoke of emotion that had been bottled up inside for months, years-emotion ready to burst forth now that the blight had placed its heel upon their throat.
The strelet holding Atiana turned her toward them and backed up. “By the authority of your Duke, I order you to stand down.”
“Not this day,” an older man with graying hair said. Rehada recognized him. His name was Kirill. He was a butcher in the poorest part of Volgorod that also ran a drug den. He was not a man Rehada would wish to be rescued by. “You’ll be allowed to go unharmed, but you’ll not be taking them.”
“We are on the Duke’s business,” the strelet said, raising his pistol to point at the man. The other strelet did the same.
“One’s fired,” Kirill said, “leaving one shot between the two of you.”
Without speaking, the two streltsi began backing up.
Kirill angled his pistol lower, toward Rehada’s legs, and fired. The shot echoed in the cramped space as the strelet holding Rehada screamed. He tightened his grip around Rehada’s neck, favoring his right side.
“I said you’ll not be taking them.”
The men behind him fanned out. The one with the musket raised his weapon to his shoulder and sighted along the length of it. Rehada was reasonably sure he was aiming at the strelet’s head, but she was not so sure of his aim, nor of the strelet’s reaction if he sensed the man was about to fire.
“That one you can have,” the strelet holding Atiana said, motioning to Rehada, “but this one will be coming with us.”
Kirill paused at this, studying Rehada and Atiana in turn, but then he shook his head. “ Nyet — ”
Before he’d even finished speaking, the strelet fired.
One burst of red near the crown of his head, and the man with the musket was down.
The other pistolman fired, but Atiana’s man had shoved her to one side and was already rolling away. He was back up on his feet in a flash, running forward holding a short, gleaming blade he’d pulled out from a leg sheath beneath his cherkesska. The pistolman raised his arm to defend himself, but the strelet thrust beneath the other man’s guard and ran him through just below the ribcage.
He pulled his weapon free as the other strelet, hampered by his bloody right leg, joined him. They fought fiercely, efficiently. Another of the peasants dropped, and another, until there were only four left to stand against them.
Rehada was about to grab for Atiana when another shot rang out, louder than the others.
Kirill was holding the smoking musket. A strelet fell to his knees, a hole in the center of his cherkesska darkening with blood. The three other men, perhaps emboldened, stormed the lone remaining strelet. Had he not been wounded, he might have won-and as it stood, he delivered a savage cut to one man’s leg, and pierced another man’s gut-but in the end he was taken down from a blow to the head by a fist-sized rock, thrown by the man furthest away. He fell, eyes wide, unresponsive.
The men turned toward Rehada and Atiana.
“Let us be,” Rehada said.
Kirill grinned. “And what kind of fool would I be”-he pointed to Atiana-“if I let a woman of royal blood slip through my hands?”
“I am not royal,” Atiana said, her eyes wild.
“Blonde hair? Fair skin and fairer hands? Promising to make the soldiers rich? Nyet. You’re royal or I’m an old goat.” He kneeled and began searching the coat of the nearest strelet. “Take them.”
Rehada was nearly ready to run when she felt something press against her legs and groin and chest and neck. She felt it against her skin, along her scalp as her hair was tugged, along her whole body as the air around her seemed to shift.
And then an almighty boom shook the city. The low layer of darkening clouds glowed yellow, then orange, then red. The sound-a conflagration of unimaginable dimensions-continued. A cloud, darker and thicker than the clouds above, rose from the north, from the bridge that had been teeming with the peasant mob and barrels of gunpowder. The cloud rose higher, roiling up until it was caught in the wind. It began drifting eastward toward the sea as the sounds of the explosion finally fell away, replaced with the crackle of fire and human cries of pain and shouts for help.
“Go and see,” Kirill said. “I’ll meet you.”
From the corner of her eye, Rehada saw a dark form filling a doorway. Standing there was a burly man with brown hair and a thick beard. Hidden as he was, only Rehada could see him. He raised one hand to his lips, and then leaned forward until he could see Kirill and the other-the youngest who had remained behind. When he saw that they weren’t looking, that they were concerned with little except their men who were just now walking out of sight, he slipped quietly from the doorway, allowing a black bag to snake down from his left hand. The heft of it made it clear that it was weighted-by sand, perhaps, or small stones.
Quick as summer rain, he rushed forward and swung the bag high in the air. It came crashing down on the crown of the young man’s head. He dropped to the ground immediately. Their savior spun, dodging as Kirill swung the butt of the musket at him. He slipped in around Kirill’s guard and snaked the cloth bag around his neck.
Kirill’s face went red. The sound of his gurgling filled air, barely discernible against the backdrop of the misery at the bridge.
Kirill slumped, and the burly man lowered him down, holding tight until there was no longer any movement coming from the old man.
When he was done, he stood and secreted the bag into his waist-length coat as if it had never existed.
“Quickly,” he said, motioning to his doorway, which still stood open.
Rehada and Atiana stood their ground.
“You’ll not want to be out tonight,” he said, motioning toward the pillar of smoke.
Atiana stared into Rehada’s eyes while shaking her head, the gesture barely noticeable.
“Not everyone sides with the mob,” he said. “My wife, ancients re
st her soul, was Vostroman. And I served my time in the guard.” He paused as another, smaller explosion fell over the city. “But do as you wish.” He turned and left, walking through his door and taking a flight of stairs upward.
Atiana looked fearful, echoing Rehada’s own feelings. She had never seen a city in such turmoil, on the islands or anywhere else. The man was right, Rehada decided. They risked death by wandering the streets, and her own home was no longer safe.
Together, they took the stairs up to a simple two-room home. The man was sitting on a rocking chair by the window. The shades were drawn, but every so often he would move one aside and peer out into the night. He appeared to be forty. His shoulders were wide, his hands huge, and with his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, showing thick forearms, he looked like he could pick either of them up with only one arm.
A low fire burned in a fireplace along one wall. Rehada relished the warmth, wishing she could bond with a spirit here and now.
“This night of all nights, what are two women like you doing out?”
Atiana sat on a stool near the hearth, warming her shaking hands, while Rehada settled herself into a creaky wooden chair. Neither answered. They couldn’t. Any sort of answer would do him no good, and would probably put him in more danger if anyone were to find out where they had sheltered for the night.
“That’s probably best,” he said, nodding. “Sleep.” He pointed to an open door. “I’ll wake you before the sun’s up.”
“Thank you,” Atiana said.
A nod was his only reply.
In the morning, he knocked on their door, and they rose and left without ever learning his name.
CHAPTER 43
“Land ahead,” Udra said as she stared over the bow.
Nikandr scanned the horizon and saw an island-perhaps twenty leagues long-so green it looked like an emerald jewel against the sapphire glass of the sea.
“It is Ghayavand,” Nikandr said, remembering it from his dreams.
Ashan’s skiff, less than a league ahead, began to descend. The island loomed much larger now, and for a moment the skiff was lost among the darker colors of the island’s forests. Nikandr felt uncomfortable following so closely. Ashan had had his way with them, but that didn’t mean it had to be so now, here at the end.
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