The Winds of Khalakovo Read online

  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, perhaps 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.”

  “You have always preached patience.”

  “I have, but where has patience gotten us these last dozen years?”

  “We have done much,” Rehada said, insulted.

  “What have we done? Stolen a handful of ships, destroyed a few more, and all the while the Landed have pushed us from two more islands in the north and further cemented their hold on one of the others despite the blight.”

  “They cannot hold forever.”

  “And neither can we. You have been gone a long time, Rehada, and I’ve hidden much of the truth from you, so you have no idea how thin our ranks have become, but believe me when I tell you that the situation is dire. We have so little food that some are taking to the winds simply to feed themselves, and who can blame them? More of our qiram have been scarred by the Aramahn, leaving our ability to attack the Landed tenuous at best. We are in much more danger of driving ourselves off the edge of our islands than the Landed will ever be.”

  “We will recover, as we always have.”

  He waved his hand as if she were a girl offering him dates.“There comes a time when one must act and trust to the will of the world.”

  “The will of the world may be against the Maharraht.” Rehada surprised herself by voicing those words, but Soroush’s response was even more surprising.

  He shrugged and avoided her gaze, not with any sense of discomfort, but with contemplation. “If it is so, then it is so. I am willing to give myself to the will of indaraqiram, but I will have its answer now, before there are none of us left to hear its words.”

  Rehada considered this thought, finishing her drink while doing so. They were strong words. Had they come from any other man, she might have found herself repulsed, for such had been her upbringing, but Soroush’s ways had always been an intoxicant for her. She had found herself attracted to him from the first day they’d met.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  Soroush stood and held his hand out to her. “We’ll have those words soon. For now I would simply hold you, as we once did.”

  She paused and found herself thinking of Nikandr, and what he would think of this. It wasn’t fear of discovery, she realized—her life would be forfeit were Nikandr or any of the Landed to discover the truth—it was fear of how it might hurt him. She had never wanted to fall in love with Nikandr. Their first meeting had been a random one, and she had taken it for a blessing of the fates. In their four years together, she had always felt in control until these last few months—the point at which, she realized with growing horror, Atiana had come into the picture.

  “There is fear in your eyes,” Soroush said, still holding out his hand.

  S
he took a deep breath. “Not fear, my love.” She stepped forward and fell into his embrace. “Uncertainty.”

  She warmed herself and in so doing warmed him.

  “Treat me not like a man from the Hill bearing coin.” He pulled the circlet roughly from her brow. A chill fell over her as if she had plunged into the waters of the sea.

  She hid her eyes from him. It was an insult, what he’d just done, but the look on his face made her feel like she was the one at fault. “I am sorry. I did not mean—”

  He pulled her chin up until she was gazing into his deep brown eyes. He leaned down and kissed her. His beard tickled her neck, but his lips were warm, and she could feel him rising as she held him longer and their breath fell into time.

  Without another word, they pulled their clothes from their bodies. She saw upon his shoulder a fresh wound—stitched—a puncture from a gunshot, perhaps. When she moved to examine it, he grabbed her hand and stared down into her eyes fiercely, as if acknowledging the wound were an insult. He had always been this way—proud, too proud at times—and she knew better than to challenge him.

  She pulled him down among the pillows, kissing him to make him forget. As the night deepened, as their bodies became one, for the first time in a long while she no longer thought of the Prince of Khalakovo holding her.

  She woke with Soroush watching her. They were in her bedroom, and he was propped up on one elbow, watching her as the faint light of dawn shone through the small window on the far side of the room.

  He was holding in one hand a stone of red jasper. When she had propped herself like he was, he slid it toward her. “Take this to the woman you were speaking with today.”

  Rehada picked it up and examined it. It seemed unremarkable. “Why?”

  “It will accelerate the wasting. Bersuq believes that when someone of stone dies, he will be able to summon his vanahezhan.”

  “Gierten doesn’t have the wasting.”

  He shook his head, slowly but seriously. “Neh, but the babe does.”

  “How can you know?”

  “I know.”

  Rehada felt the blood drain from her face. The babe. Gierten’s ninemonth-old daughter.

  “The Matra will take notice.”

  He nodded, a sober gesture. “We hope that it is so.”

  “But why?”

  “Because it is nearly time.”

  She pressed him for more, but that was all he would say on the subject. He pulled himself from the bed and began to dress. He stopped as he picked up his turban cloth. “Do you find this distasteful?”

  The babe has done nothing to us, she thought. The words were on her tongue, ready to speak, when Soroush cut her off.

  “The fates play strange games, do they not?” He began wrapping the cloth around his head. “The babe had two cards played against her. She is of earth, and she was born to the Landed. That is enough.” He finished with his robes and stared down at her while cinching them around his waist.

  She returned his gaze, emotions warring within her. She had resolved herself that doing what she did on this island might lead to deaths, even those of children. She might even be called to take up the knife herself. But to inflict something upon a babe when her Ahya had suffered the very same fate. It didn’t seem right.

  But Soroush’s smoldering expression of anger reminded her of how strong she needed to be. He was an undying flame, a ceaseless wind. If he could do all that he did, even after losing his ability to commune with hezhan, then she could give up one child.

  “What must be done?”

  “Place the jasper near the babe. The stone will do the rest.”

  She stared at the jasper, an unremarkable stone the color of salmon flesh. Such a dangerous game they were playing. It felt like they were stepping in the paths of the fates, and it rested uneasy in Rehada’s gut. But perhaps that was what needed to be done, as the fates had so far seemed unwilling to aid their cause.

  “It will be done,” she said shortly.

  He nodded once, and then was gone.

  Rehada approached the house, her heart thumping madly.

  Gierten was sitting on the front porch in a chair, her hands working quickly to repair the fishing net that lay across her lap. A basket was nearby, the same one that had been hanging from the donkey two days before.

  Gierten looked up, her thin face staring at Rehada with a mixture of confusion and charity. “Rehada, welcome. What brings you?”

  Rehada shook her head. “I was on my way to Izhny, and I thought I’d stop by to offer you a present for your daughter.”

  Gierten waited, her hands pausing in their work, as Rehada stepped onto the porch.

  Rehada could see the babe from the corner of her eye, but she couldn’t find it in herself to look at her just yet. Instead she held out a string with a piece of coral in the shape of a windwood tree. She had made it for Ahya, and though parting with it was like chopping off a finger, she would give Gierten’s babe something to guide her in her next life. “We give them to our children for luck. I have no need for it anymore, so I hope you’ll accept it for Evina.”

  Gierten didn’t move, and she looked like a woman who was about to make excuses for a gift that made no sense to her, but Rehada talked over her before she could protest.

  “You would be doing me a favor. It brings only bad memories. It would please me to know that it was doing some good in the world instead of dredging up the past.”

  Gierten paused for a moment, and then she smiled. She accepted the gift, nodding once. “It would be an honor. Thank you.”

  Before she lost heart, Rehada kneeled before the babe, palming the stone of jasper in one hand. “Do you mind if I held her?”

  She plunged her hands into the basket and picked Evina up without waiting for permission, leaving the stone among the folds of the padding blanket at the bottom as she did so.

  She held the baby, staring into her eyes, fighting off the tears that were threatening to surface. She knew she should be rocking the babe, should be bouncing her on her hip and telling Gierten what a wonderful child she had, but she could not. She could not go so far as that when she had just condemned this child to die with the simple act she’d just performed.

  She laid the baby back down as quickly as she’d picked her up, to the confused looks of Gierten. Then she made her excuses and left, unable to stare Gierten in the eye any longer.

  It had been so simple. Soroush dealt with death often; perhaps it came easily to him. But it was shocking just how much this simple act shook Rehada. By the time she had reached the path leading back to the road between Izhny and Volgorod, she was running, her tears flowing freely.

  CHAPTER 21

  Atiana stood before the tall windows in Radiskoye’s solarium, staring at the maelstrom raging outside. Cold rain fell down along the thick glass in heavy sheets. Lightning flashed. In the ghostly image that quickly faded she could see the blinding brilliance of a dhoshahezhan. They often slipped into the world for split seconds during lightning strikes, but it seemed to her that there were many more than one would normally see. The unseasonable storm had settled over the islands two nights ago and hadn’t budged since. It had brought life on the island, especially the palotza, to a standstill. Father and several of the other dukes thought it strange timing after the suurahezhan, but Khalakovo’s Matra claimed it was benign, a coincidence.

  “As likely a coincidence as Stasa’s death,” Father had said. But their own wind master, Kaeed, doubted Saphia was lying. Father’s reply had been to send Kaeed away and to recount all the ways he’d been wrong over the years.

  Each of the families had been given their own wing of the palotza, but the solarium had become a council chamber of sorts for those dukes that stood behind Zhabyn and Grigory in this slowly building crisis. Borund and Grigory were sitting on a curving couch, listening to Duke Leonid boast about his son’s exploits over the southern seas.

  She returned her attention to the skies, drawn to the lightni
ng and the ghostly images, losing herself as the chill from the windows settled over her skin.

  “You’ll catch your death.” Borund came to a halt next to her. In one hand he held a snifter filled with a healthy amount of rosemary vodka, which he handed to her before wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He was warm, and it felt good to be held.

  She took a sip, feeling the pleasant burn trail down her throat. “Then you’ll just have to protect me,” she said, handing the snifter back.

  “Don’t I always?” Borund replied.

  Atiana smiled and tipped her head until it rested on his shoulder. “Soon you won’t have to.”

  Borund went silent and deathly still.

  “He will be my husband, Borund.”

  “Things are not so clear as they were a week ago.”

  “How surprising you’ve sided with Father.”

  “This Council smells foul, Tiana. I know you sense it too.”

  Atiana pulled away and faced him. He wore a brown kaftan, and his beard had grown longer, giving him the look of a scowling bear.

  “Why are men so distrustful?”

  “Because there’s always trouble about, especially when you’re not looking for it.”

  Atiana reached up and smoothed the cloth of his kaftan. “Don’t think it isn’t appreciated, but really, I think there’s little enough to worry about.”

  “There you’re wrong, sister. Trouble has come, and it’s already started to simmer. Father has ordered two more ships sent to Khalakovo.”

  Atiana’s brow creased. “What of Leonid and Bolgravya?”

  “Them as well.”

  “Why?”

  “To prevent Khalakovo from dictating terms.”

  “They’ve done nothing of the sort.”

  “Tiana, just because a dog has never bitten you is no reason to believe it won’t someday do so. It’s why you put them on a leash and whip them when they misbehave.”

  “This is madness. Everything will be resolved shortly.”

  “If that is so, then the ships will be sent home. No harm done.”

  “Perhaps no harm, but certainly insult. Saphia will learn of it.”