And he was pointing a musket directly at Nikandr’s chest. “Lay down arms, Khalakovo.”
Nikandr stood there, blood trickling across his elbow and along his forearm. He shook his head and allowed his shashka to fall to the trampled snow at his feet. They were in no position to disobey, and he would not sacrifice his men for one last, meaningless gasp. “Lower your arms.”
“My Lord Prince,” a Bolgravy and esyatnik called from the top of the knoll. “It’s Lady Vostroma. She says we are not in the right place.”
“I can spare no time for her now.”
“She is calling for you. She’s been shot.”
Nikandr’s breath fell away.
Grigory’s face went white. He turned and with two of his men and a havaqiram ran toward the top of the rise.
Nikandr tried to follow but was stopped by Grigory’s men. He railed against them. “Let me pass!” he shouted. But they would not.
Grigory turned, pausing to stare at Nikandr with a look on his face like he was considering allowing him to come. He looked-in that one brief moment-like a boy who was having trouble with the mantle that had fallen into his lap. It looked like he desperately wanted help, even from a man he called an enemy. But then his expression hardened, and he motioned for the streltsi to lead Nikandr back toward his men.
Rehada was being held closely, her circlet gone. Of Nikandr’s men less than twenty remained. They stood there, haggard, and it was then that Nikandr realized that Ashan was missing. He scanned the bodies of the fallen, becoming frantic when he didn’t see Ashan among them, but when the wind began to blow across the battlefield, he knew that the arqesh had managed to slip away.
The wind gained in intensity, lifting new waves of snow from the ground and pushing men back who were unprepared. It ebbed for one moment, giving everyone a chance to regain their footing, but then, as if the brief pause had been an inhalation, the wind howled with the force of a gale. It sounded like a great, ravenous beast ready to devour them all.
Nikandr fell to the ground as men were swept from their feet. Their kolpak hats flew off their heads as wet snow and dirt pelted them. One man even fired his musket in the direction of the wind, perhaps seeing something he thought was the enemy. The next moment, he toppled backwards and was lost in a rain of white.
The wind cut fiercely against the Vostroman soldiers, pushing them from the lip of the knoll, and Nikandr understood what Ashan was trying to do.
“This way!” he shouted from hands and knees. He dare not stand up lest he be blown about like the men standing only a few paces away. In fact, the intensity increased even more, forcing him to drop to the ground and lay prone.
He didn’t know if his men had heard his order, but when he was able to rise, the sotnik was at his elbow, pulling him up and helping him stumble toward the opposite side of the hill.
Rehada and Ashan caught up with the group just as they reached the place where Grigory’s men had huddled. There was a wide swath of matted snow and a fair amount of blood, but it was otherwise empty.
They quickly chased after using the trail they had left behind. They found a skiff, its sails cut to shreds, and an imprint in the snow of another that had recently left.
“What do we do, My Lord?” the sotnik asked.
“I don’t know,” Nikandr said listlessly. “I have no idea where they would go.”
“I know,” Rehada said. “They go to Duzol.”
CHAPTER 63
Atiana realized she was in the air again. She felt light, not only because she was flying through the stormy weather in the bottom of a skiff but because she felt wholly unencumbered by her mortal frame. She felt, in fact, like a havahezhan must: free and ethereal.
She fell unconscious. When she woke again, it was to a jostling of the skiff. They had landed, and someone was standing over her, asking her where they needed to go. He looked familiar, but for the life of her she couldn’t place him.
“The spire on the fort,” she said weakly.
“You are sure?” he asked.
It was a man she didn’t care for-she knew this much-but she saw no reason to withhold the information.
“I am.” It felt like each word weighed ten stone.
He looked down on her, ungracious.
“We go,” he said, though she understood it was not to her.
“And the Lady Princess?”
A pause.
“Leave her.”
Flakes of snow fell upon her face, soft touches of ice upon deadened skin.
The sound of footsteps through snow were all around her, but then they faded, leaving only the nearby waves and the wind as it whistled through the trees. She could see neither of these things, but she realized with a growing certainty that she could feel them. The snow beneath her fingers, the grass beneath the snow, the earth through which the grass extended its roots, and the bedrock of the island beneath the soft, pliable earth. She felt all of this and more.
And soon… Soon…
She hears the call of a lonely heron, hears its mate over a mile away. She feels the weight of a nearby copse of trees upon the earth, small in comparison to its larger sister to the south. She feels the wind as it brushes against the evergreen branches, the pine cones as they are tugged free to fall against the snow, the rabbits as they huddle in their warrens, waiting for the storm to pass.
Her awareness spreads to the entire island, and there is one thing that is glaringly out of place.
The rift.
It glows against her senses like a brand, though it does not feel warm. Nor does it feel cold. It feels… wrong. It feels like an insult to this place, an injustice that must be righted, for surely it is a wound that will never heal on its own. The festering must be purged. Only then can the land begin to heal.
She moves in toward the strongest presence of the rift on the island. The spire. It is a mere branch in comparison to the massive trunk that towers above Radiskoye. She is certain that it is the weakest link on the archipelago. Tear it down and Radiskoye’s goes with it, and if Radiskoye’s goes, then so will all the others-the entire chain will devolve into little more than a gaping maw that leads directly to Adhiya. And then the spirits will avail themselves of anything they wish.
Like a ship in a gale, she finds it difficult to navigate. Her mind is thrown about by the aether, the currents as unpredictable as a cornered lynx. They pull at her, drawing her attention not to one place, but to everything. Du- zol-and the entire archipelago beyond it-feels more alive and also closer to death than she had thought possible.
It is the taint of the world beyond, she knows, yet still she finds it difficult to focus her attention, until she senses him.
Nasim.
He is chained to the spire. A spike has been driven into it. From this, manacles hang down and entrap his wrists. The spire itself is bright white against the backdrop of satin black. Most would be a dark blue, even against the spire, but Nasim is nearly as white. He does not fight; he does not scream. Every so often a shiver runs the length of his body, and his eyes move spasmodically beneath closed lids.
Men in ragged lengths of robes circle the spire, which stands in the courtyard of the keep. There are no men of the Duchy to be seen. She assumes they have been killed or are being kept in the donjon of Oshtoyets.
She recognizes two of the Maharraht-Bersuq and Soroush-the same two that raised the vanahezhan on the beach near Izhny.
