“Winter,” he answers. “Winter draws near.”
She smiles a smile that says how much she is enjoying their game. He notices for the first time wrinkles at the corners of her eyes; they lend her a sagacious quality but also a sense of mortality he hadn’t expected. Perhaps she notices, for her smile fades and she slips to the eastern window.
“What will she reap?”
The scene in the window is not of the city at all. It is of an open field with a girl running across it. A boy chases after, and together they drop among the tall stalks of grass and begin pulling the clothes from their bodies, kissing one another fiercely. Soon they are naked and making love, the boy on top thrusting as she holds him close.
Surely they are sowing the seeds of a child. That must be the answer, and it hangs on his lips for long seconds, but east is the direction of autumn, and autumn is a time of dying, of preparation for the long winter ahead. The answer cannot be so simple.
When they are done, the boy pulls on his clothes and leaves. The girl, after he is gone, puts her head between her knees and begins to cry. Making love had been a ploy-an attempt, perhaps, to make him love her when she knows that he will not.
What else can such a thing reap? Whether she has a child or not, she will never be happy until she lets him go.
“Misery,” he says, which he realizes belatedly is another meaning of east for the Aramahn.
The woman smiles again, but this time it seems forced, as if she has underestimated him and has now vowed to correct her mistake. She moves to the southern window and motions to it.
“When will he find what he seeks?”
The scene outside the window is of an old Landed man in a boat. His grizzled and pockmarked face holds an expression of savage concentration as he uses scarred hands to secure an ebony-skinned cod onto a hook. He throws the fish-now attached to a line which in turn is attached to a pole resting in a sleeve on the gunwale-into the water and repeats the process on another line, and another, until he has four lines in. And then he waits, staring at the sea as he rests his chin upon his hands. Every so often he touches the tips of his fingers to one of the poles, perhaps praying to his fathers for a catch that might never come.
The window faces south, the direction of summer, of heat, of willfulness. That he uses such large bait gives clue to what he is searching for-a large catch. Too large. It speaks of a man who will not give up even though what he searches for is clearly beyond his means. This man has pride and a lifetime on the water to guide him, but he also has a desperation that says he will never get what he wants, that even if he does it will not be enough.
“Never,” comes the answer from his mouth, though it is with a sense of sadness, for he has known men like this.
She looks into his eyes with respect and a touch of anger. Her jaw is set grimly, as if she wishes this game to be over and done with. When she moves to the western window, she crosses her arms over her chest.
“Who will she become?”
The image-Nikandr draws in breath without meaning to-is of Rehada. She is younger than when they had first met, perhaps only twenty years old. She is standing before the burnt, smoking remains of a house, and she is staring at a blackened skeleton, its posture locked in the rigor of what must surely have been a very gruesome and painful death.
Others talk around her, and to her, but she pays them no mind. She has eyes only for the body, and he suddenly realizes the ironic joke that is being played on him. Here is he, gazing through the window of spring, of birth and growth, as Rehada looks upon what must surely have been her child. The look upon her face is one of cold surety, of ruthless calculation, and it wars with what he knows of her. She has always been warm, has in fact been open about her life around the islands and her decision to live upon Uyadensk… But she has never once mentioned a child. What else, then, has she lied about?
Who will she become?
He has seen such looks before, upon the faces of the enemy, of those who will not rest until the Landed have been pushed from the islands, and it suddenly strikes him the meaning of the word Maharraht. Its primary meaning is the forgotten, the shunned, but it stems from a beautiful desert flower that only blooms in spring, and in the ancient language of Kalhani-a language that the woman questioning him surely knows-it is akin to spring and rebirth.
“I know who she becomes,” he finally answers, a knot forming in his throat.
“Then say it.”
He swallows. Once. Twice. “Do not make me.”
“What is in a word?”
“A word can weigh heavier than stone.”
“Say it,” she says, her voice hard.
“Maharraht.”
Her smile is one of pleasure, as though a grand plan has just come together. She walks to the center of the room and stands near the bed. She spreads her arms wide and the views through all four windows change. He does not look, however. His mind is preoccupied with a woman he thought he loved, but he is forced to focus himself once more when she speaks her final question.
“How are they related?”
The scenes in the window show different people at different times in their lives. Two men, one woman, and a girl. There is nothing he can see that connects them-not their clothes, not their surroundings, not their mannerisms. He inspects each one closely, watching for any sign that might give him a clue, but he finds nothing, and his heart begins to beat heavily. He has come so far… He cannot come this close only to fail.
There is nothing of the smile Sariya had when this game first began. In fact, she seems sad as she watches him. Sad and lonely.
He realizes that she stands near the bed in the center of the room. The center for the Aramahn is no one direction; it is all directions. It is the cycle of life; it is rebirth. It is what has come before and what has yet to come. These images can be no other than her previous lives, and suddenly he realizes that she misses them. Somehow she has become trapped in this place. She is Ghayavand-part and parcel of this island-but it was not always so. She wants to be free from it, and if that cannot happen, she wants him to join her.
“They are you,” he says.
She runs her fingers over the sheets on the bed while stepping closer to him. She is stunning. The curve of her jaw, the line of her neck, skin soft and smooth, arms that might hold him forever.
“The things you might see.” The very words from her lips sing. “They would astound you. I will share all of it if you would remain.”
When he doesn’t open his mouth-he cannot for fear of acceding-she deems it a refusal and steps away from the bed. She approaches him with graceful steps until they are chest to chest. He feels the warmth coming from her, the swell of her breasts pressing against his ribs, the tickle of her hair as she leans in and nestles against his neck. The faint smell of jasmine taints the air as she places one warm kiss at the base of his neck, and as her arms wrap around him and caress his back, he feels himself harden.
“We would be one. Forever.”
He realizes as she speaks these words that he would not mind such a thing. He is young, but life on the islands has been hard. They would rule this place and no one would stand against them. No one.
CHAPTER 52
He leans down and kisses her. Her lips are moist and hot. He takes her in his arms and holds her tight as their kiss deepens, and soon he realizes that they are moving toward the bed. He removes his clothes as she slips the dress from her shoulders and allows it to pool about her feet. He picks her up and together they fall into the bed. He runs down the length of her, pressing kiss after kiss against her neck, her breasts, her stomach, and finally her thighs. She spreads her legs at the merest touch, and when he runs his tongue near her lips, she sucks in breath.
When he can stand it no more, he runs his chest along her stomach and breasts and kisses her once more, ready to enter her.
As he waits, prolonging the pleasure to the point of ache, something strikes him-he cannot feel her heartbeat. He can feel his ow
n, which is beating madly, but he cannot feel hers. He leans down and kisses her cheek and ear, if only to gain a bit more time.
He knows not how, but it is true-no blood runs through her veins. And he realizes with a start where he is, who this woman is, his purpose here.
Where, he wonders with a growing sense of desperation, are Ashan and Nasim and Pietr?
“Come,” she whispers, reaching between her legs and stroking him with her hand.
He resists, and feels her tense beneath him.
Her grip tightens. “Come.”
He tries to pull away but she grabs the back of his neck and with a strength that belies her frame pulls him down until their lips are once again locked.
He twists away and falls from the bed. “ Nyet!”
She pauses, her expression no longer one of anger, but shock. She slips from the bed and stands over him. “What did you say?” “I said, nyet.”
Her eyes thin. “Khamal?”
“I am Nikandr Iaroslov Khalakovo. Khamal is the man you betrayed for Muqallad.”
She stands taller, but somehow it only makes her seem frail. She draws her arms in, glances through the nearby windows. “Has it been so long?”
“It has, and Nasim has done nothing to you. Give me the knowledge to reach him. To make him whole.”
She tries to smile, and fails, but her eyes regain their sharpness. “The answer is there,” she says, motioning with one hand toward his chest.
His stone is glowing as brightly as it had in the donjon below Radiskoye. He shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”
“He calls to you.”
“What can I do?”
Outside, the sky has gone deep red. “Accept him. Give of yourself to him.”
“How?”
She motions to the windows. “Muqallad has awoken. He will come for Khamal, and for you.”
“Tell me how to reach him!”
She shakes her head.
Nikandr feels something deep within his chest, akin to the ache of the havahezhan. It has become familiar now, and more than that, it feels proper, even with the pain.
Sariya gazes at his chest. She reaches out, as if to touch his stone, but he pulls away.
“It has been with you for a long time.”
Nikandr nods, feeling something important in her words. “Since it crossed on Hathshava.”
She glances toward the windows. They have darkened further, leaving only the deepest of reds. The light coming from Nikandr’s stone casts Sariya in ghastly relief.
“It was with you well before then.”
Nikandr stares at her, confused. She must be confused, he thinks, but there is a depth of understanding in those beautiful blue eyes, an understanding that comes not in a fleeting handful of years on this mortal plane, but lifetimes, centuries. He knows that she is right. The hezhan has been with him since before Soroush summoned it. It had been with him since he’d had the wasting. Nyet. It was the cause of the wasting. It had been feeding on him, draining him through the aether, always there, always drawing from him like a reservoir no matter how meager its gain might be.
“I can rid you of it.”
“How?”
She steps forward. “You need but ask.”
He takes a step of his own, ready to accept. “Please.”
She smiles and places her hand over his heart, over his stone. “There is a cost. Your bond with Nasim will be broken.”
He shakes his head, confused.
“It is how he has come to find you, Hathshava. It is how your bond has remained intact over all this time, over all these leagues.”
Like a flower closing as dusk approaches, the elation inside him diminishes. He stares down at her hand. All he need do is ask. He can still find Nasim, can still find a way to reach him and to help Ashan heal the blight over Khalakovo…
A vision of Nasim comes to him. That young boy holding himself tightly about the chest, rocking himself from the pain. There are times when Nikandr is able to take that away, and if Sariya is right, he might be able to heal him completely.
He cannot accept her offer, not if it means abandoning Nasim.
He takes her wrist and pulls it away from his chest.
Sariya nods, a rueful smile on her face. “You must hurry,” Sariya says. She turns and walks toward the nearest window, toward winter.
And then she is gone.
He starts toward the far side of the room, ready to take the stairs down, to find Nasim and to run, to digest what Sariya has told him, but there are no stairs.
“Sariya!”
Winds tear at the tower. The windows rattle. A low rumbling thrums through the structure and up through his feet.
He stares at his stone again, knowing the only way out now is to listen to her words. Accept him. Give of yourself.
He holds the stone tight in his hand and closes his eyes. He casts himself outward, as he does with his mother.
I am here! I am here, Nasim!
A stone breaks from the wall and falls to the floor. Fine powder sifts downward from the ancient wooden planks above. A presence forms beyond the walls of the tower. It approaches, more curious than anything, but soon a sense of anger and revenge is palpable.
Accept him.
“Please, Nasim,” he whispers.
He opens his heart to this boy who seems lost among the world, but who also is at the center of the storm. So much depends on him, and yet he is nearly incapable of action, given only to those rare moments of lucidity.
Doubts begin to form as a crack is torn in the wall. The tower shifts and groans.
This cannot be what Sariya meant. He must accept Nasim for who he was. Must welcome him.
He does so, giving merely love, nothing else.
He feels the most tentative of touches, as he does before his mother finds him.
And his world goes dark.
Nikandr woke, lying on the ground with Pietr just next to him on the moss-covered cobbles. Nasim, kneeling between them, had one hand over Nikandr’s heart, the other over Pietr’s. Moments after Nikandr began to stir, he pulled his hands away and hugged himself tightly-a more familiar position. He refused to meet Nikandr’s eye. He only rocked back and forth while staring at Pietr with a grieved expression on his young face. Tears fell from his clenched eyes, and finally he fell forward across Pietr’s chest. “Forgive me!” he cried. “I’m so sorry! Please, forgive me!”
Nikandr stood, failing to understand why Pietr had been lying next to him until he realized Pietr’s chest was not rising with breath.
“He asked Nasim to do it.”
Nikandr looked up to find Ashan standing nearby. He had a look of pity on his face.
Ashan pointed to Nikandr’s chest. “He knew, at least a little, what that meant.”
Nikandr looked down and saw his soulstone. Under the bright light of sunset, the chalcedony stone glowed as brilliantly as it had inside the tower, but the feelings of ache, of being drawn slowly outward, remained. The havahezhan, the creature bound to him on the far side of the aether, was still there, preying upon him.
Nikandr kneeled next to Pietr. He stared into the older man’s face, at the light scars that ran though the black stubble on his chin and cheeks. He was unmoving, breathless, and yet in that moment he seemed full of life, so much had he granted to Nikandr. “Go safely,” he whispered, “and may the ancients protect you.” He leaned forward and kissed his cheeks, and then, knowing time was growing short, he stood. “We must hurry. Muqallad has awoken, and we have precious little time.”
Ashan glanced at the tower, a look of worry and recognition on his face, as if he saw for the first time what it might mean to confront Muqallad directly.
Then they were running through the streets, Nasim in tow. The boy was silent, his face streaked with tears.
“Nasim, can you hear me?” Nikandr asked.
Nasim didn’t respond. Other than his outburst of emotion over Pietr he seemed little different than before. Nikandr had h
oped there would be some sort of catharsis, an awakening. Surely Nikandr would feel something as well-were they not linked, after all? — but Nasim, despite allowing them to rush him through the streets, seemed to have the same distant expression, the same lack of awareness of his surroundings, the same inability to communicate. It hadn’t been Nikandr’s appeal, then, that had saved him from the tower. It had been Pietr’s sacrifice.
All this way, all this time, lost lives and injury, and they’d failed.
They took the same path from the city they’d taken on their way in. Before they’d gone halfway toward the outskirts, however, the animal sounds of the akhoz rent the chill air. The call of one was echoed by many others, several chillingly close.
The sounds of their footsteps slapping the stone streets came nearer. Their panting-akin to that of a winded horse, heavy and long and wet-came louder.
Nikandr held Nasim’s hand, trying to force him to run faster, but he would not. In fact, his pace was beginning to slow. His tears were gone, but his look of regret remained.
And then he tripped.
Nikandr lost his grip, and Nasim fell heavily to the ground.
Nikandr stopped, looking at his soulstone and then Nasim. He could feel him now, through the stone, as surely as he’d ever felt anything.
And then movement caught his attention. Beyond Nasim, from behind a broken building of blond stone, came the misshapen form of a girl. She was naked and thin. The air above her wavered with heat. She appeared to be no older than twelve, though she had the same blackened lips as the other akhoz.
Another came, behind her. And another, to her right. Soon, they were all around, cutting off all hopes of escape. They closed in, drawing closer with a restrained gait and an intensity that Nikandr could only describe as hunger.
Nikandr crept toward Nasim, sure that the akhoz would charge and devour them if he moved too quickly. Then he felt a blinding pain in his chest, a pain so sharp it brought him to his knees. Ashan was at his side in moments, but he stopped when he realized that the akhoz were no longer advancing.
It was then-as the pain continued to burn inside him-that Nikandr noticed a man pacing up the street toward them. He was taller than Nikandr, with curly black hair that trailed down to his shoulders and rings of gold that were woven into his long black beard. He wore sandals of the finest leather. His outer robe was white with embroidery of silver threads woven through the cuffs and hem. His inner robe was the blue of the sky.
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