from this point forward. If there was anything more important, she didn’t know what it might be.
The door ahead of her opened, and she heard only one set of footsteps enter the room. She thought at first it was the man who had led her up, but she smelled on the air the scent of myrrh, which the aristocracy of the Grand Duchy had seemed to favor in recent years, so she knew it must be someone of import, and since the footsteps had sounded heavy, like a man’s, she could only assume it would be one in particular.
“I hope you are well, Iaros son of Aleksi.”
There came a soft chuckle. Footsteps approached and finally the blindfold was pulled away.
She squinted momentarily, even though the only light was from a small copper lamp sitting on a nearby bench. There was a wooden rack with pegs that held several woolen sweaters and oiled canvas coats. Thick leather boots sat jumbled in one corner.
Iaros, strangely enough, wore a wool cherkesska, and not of the sort a duke would wear. It was simple and weatherworn, the kind of no-nonsense garb a traveling merchant might use. He looked the same as he had several years before, the only time she had seen him up close. He had a gray beard with a sprinkling of brown still remaining, trimmed so that it hung partway down his chest. He was balding, but there were tufts of hair on the very top of his head.
The strange thing was how composed he looked, how free of care even after everything that had happened. His palotza was besieged, his Duchy at grave risk and had been for weeks, but one would wonder whether he was going out for a ride in the countryside as little as he seemed to show it.
There were two doors. From behind the one Iaros had used to enter the room she could hear men gathering and talking softly.
“You were my son’s lover,” Iaros said, pulling her attention back to him.
She smiled, wondering whether he was trying to put her off balance. “I was not aware that our relationship had ended.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “and discuss it with Nikandr when I see him again.”
“And when might that be?”
She hoped that if he had any information about Nikandr that he would share it, but instead he simply frowned and shrugged his shoulders. “When the ancestors see fit to reunite us. Now you’ve come a terribly long way and through more than a little bit of danger to speak with me. What is it you want?”
She was hesitant at first-it felt like speaking with the enemy-but once she started, she found the floodgates opening wide. She told him of her knowledge of Nasim and how he had come to land on Khalakovo, how Ashan had stolen him away from the Maharraht, how he had summoned the suurahezhan and her assumptions as to why it had happened. She told him that Nasim would now have been recovered by the Maharraht. She told him of the grave danger Khalakovo was now in, and the ritual that Soroush would perform this very day at sunset. She knew that she was giving up more information than a woman like her should have, but she didn’t care.
Iaros’s expression changed little during the entire exchange, and when she was done, he combed his beard with his fingers, studying her face as the silence lengthened.
“You are Maharraht?” he asked plainly.
So conditioned was she to hide the truth that a denial nearly came from her lips before she could prevent it, but instead she took a deep breath and looked him in the eye and replied, “ Da.”
“Then tell me, why should I believe a word of this? Why shouldn’t I stand the gibbet in the courtyard above and let you hang from it?”
This was the moment she had feared the most-the point at which Iaros would have to decide if she was telling the truth. She had thought long and hard on how to convince him, but she knew that any profession of honesty would fall upon deaf ears. So she said the only thing she could.
“Because I love your son.”
Iaros’s head jerked back and his eyes widened momentarily. “Pardon me?”
“Perhaps such a thing is hard for you to believe, but it is so.”
“Does he return your love?”
“ Nyet,” she said flatly. “I do not think he does.”
“Then why? Why risk everything for a man who cares less for you than you care for him?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Nikandr was a bridge. A bridge I needed to return to myself. Strangely enough, Atiana served in much the same manner. I can no longer follow the path of revenge and hatred. I must follow the path of healing, for Nikandr, for my daughter, even for you.”
“So kind of you.”
“I don’t care whether you appreciate it or not.”
“Well, forgive me if I find this all difficult to believe, but perhaps there is a way to determine whether you’re telling the truth.”
“How?”
“We’ll ask Nikandr about it when we see him.”
She glanced at the door, hearing more men gathering behind it. “And how will we do that?”
Iaros nodded toward the door that would lead back down to the caverns. “Why, the same way you entered.”
CHAPTER 60
Nikandr knew that a soulstone had been placed into his palm-there was no mistaking the feeling of a stone once it touches the skin-but he had to admit that it didn’t feel like his. He knew enough to keep it hidden until Atiana and Grigory had left, though in an attempt to appear nonchalant, and after the beating he’d received from the streltsi, he nearly dropped it. His hands didn’t completely betray him, however, and soon, thankfully, they had left.
He waited for what felt like an interminable period of time, convinced that the moment he looked at what he now held in his hand the gaoler would peer inside the room and discover it the very same moment he did.
He did not speak. That had been the excuse the gaoler had needed the last time to enter the room and beat him senseless with two Bolgravyan streltsi. Ashan had pleaded for them to stop, but the only thing that had done was to shift some of their attention to him. They had exercised some restraint with the older man, and for that Nikandr was glad.
As the minutes passed he realized that the stone was indeed his, but it had been tainted, and it didn’t take much to figure out why. Grigory, that baseless spawn of a goat, had worn it. He had done it so that Nikandr could feel his presence, so that he would always feel it. It would fade with time, as the memories would, but there would always be a part of Grigory imprinted upon the stone.
He could feel something else as well. Nasim… He was not imprinted upon the stone as Grigory was. Rather, it was more like Victania described the aether, how she could feel others at a distance though they were hundreds of leagues apart. This was how it felt with Nasim-as though he could call out and Nasim would answer. The only trouble was that he had no idea how to do such a thing.
He turned his back toward the door and opened his palm carefully. And there it lay. His stone. As alive as it had been after Nasim had somehow reawakened it. He wondered where the boy was now. The Maharraht wanted to use him to widen the rift, to create a gap that would lay waste to Uyadensk and perhaps the entire archipelago.
He could not risk speaking with Ashan. Not now. The only real course of action was the one that Atiana had given him: he had to reach his mother. You should have foreseen it, she had said, as well as your mother and father. She had clearly been referring to the attack that would be launched against Radiskoye. Her words were a warning to get out of this fort tonight, not only because they were apparently ready to move him but because an attack was imminent.
He gripped the stone tightly and closed his eyes, calling out to his mother. As always, he felt nothing in return. He never knew whether his calls had been heard until a rook found him or she told him so later. It was the nature of the aether, and there was more than a small chance that she would not hear him at all. The blockade had
