Help me, he called to it.
Please help.
It did not, and the wind whipped by him faster.
The words of Sariya came to him then. Give yourself to him.
She’d meant the words for Nasim, but he knew that it applied to the qiram as they gave themselves to the spirits.
He did so now.
He turned as he fell so he was facing the frothing water below. He spread his arms wide and closed his eyes as he had seen Jahalan do so many times before. He felt the wind whip past him, felt the pressure of it on his chest. He opened himself to the spirit, to do what it would with him.
Atiana knows she is dying. She can feel her body failing as it lies upon the snow on the coast of Duzol. Oddly, she is much more in tune with it now that it is broken and nearly useless than she had ever been able to do when she was healthy and whole. Her lifeblood spills, but it has so far done little to stifle her ability to walk among the winds of the aether.
She studies the tendril that flows from Nasim to the ghost of his self in Adhiya. Nasim in the material world is solid and stable, a white brand against the darkness of the keep. Nasim in the spirit world is impossible to define. His form shifts abruptly, as do the colors that he contains.
As the third stone is placed upon his tongue, the tendril thickens. She can feel him, his pain, his desire to stop what is happening but also his utter inability to do so. She tries to strengthen him, to support him so that he might make it through this trial alive and fight those that are trying to use him, but it is no use. Though she can feel him and his emotions, she is powerless to affect him.
Nikandr is still near, but he is not so focused on Nasim as he once was. She must change this, and Bersuq is the key. Soroush is too intent on what he is doing, whereas Bersuq is allowing his mind to float as he chants. He is ripe for the picking, and if she can assume him, then it would loosen the hold they had upon the keep.
She moves closer to the men. Fear grows within her, for she has never assumed another. She can feel upon Bersuq his gem. He is bonded to a spirit, and it glows in the aether like a bright, piercing star. She steps toward him, careful to avoid the spirit.
And then she enters Bersuq.
Immediately he rails against her. She maintains the tenuous hold she has upon him, but by the barest of margins. She can sense his fear-fear that the Matri have found him-and she presses her advantage.
Dozens of ships are on their way, she tells him. In moments, a horde the likes of which you’ve never seen will descend upon Oshtoyets.
But he is emboldened. He knows that even with a thousand men the Grand Duchy will have difficulty holding against such beasts. And they are not like the first elder that had been summoned those weeks ago. These would not willingly dissipate and return from whence they’d come. These would batter the Landed until their masters gave them leave to stop.
Only if you can keep the boy alive, she says.
It is their only weakness, and it gives Bersuq pause.
It is enough. She storms through him, forcing him into the deepest corners of his mind to the point that he can no longer comprehend the possibility of regaining himself.
The world comes alive through Bersuq’s senses: the smell of a peat fire; the heat from the suurahezhan against his skin; the touch of Bersuq’s tongue as she forces him to continue to chant, mimicking his low, rhythmic sounds.
The other Maharraht do not appear to have noticed, so lost in their actions are they. She watches closely as Soroush takes another gem: jasper. He reaches out to Nasim, and she nearly stops him, nearly throws herself against him so that Nasim will not be forced to summon another elder to the mortal plane. As she watches Nasim’s mouth open, watches Soroush place the milky stone upon his tongue, she realizes that there is a sense of satisfaction within Bersuq. He is still buried in the corners of his mind, but it is unmistakable. He is pleased.
Nasim swallows the stone, his head bobbing as he does so, and she believes at first that Bersuq’s satisfaction comes from what Nasim is doing. Four stones have been swallowed. The earth begins to crack as the vanahezhan takes shape in the courtyard. It is a mass of cracked brick and dark, packed earth. It stands and pounds the earth with its four massive arms.
And then Soroush’s chanting stops.“Did you think,”he says while turning his head to look at her, “that we would be taken so easily?”
Bersuq’s fingers go cold and tingly.
She cannot respond, for she suddenly realizes why Bersuq is satisfied-not because of Nasim, but because of her. He is pleased that she has assumed him, that her soul now rests within the constraints of his physical shell. And she knows that she must escape.
She attempts to but finds herself trapped. She claws toward the aether, scrabbles away, hoping that by throwing everything into this one last gasp that he will lose hold. But it’s no good. She is bound. Very faintly, but perfectly clear, she hears Bersuq laughing.
Soroush is smiling as well. “Settle yourself, Matra.” He picks up the final stone-an opal, the stone of life. “You’re going nowhere.”
CHAPTER 64
Rehada watched numbly as the streltsi leapt over the gunwales. As they moved in formation up the hill toward the keep, Rehada remained in the skiff. She had watched and had been able to do nothing as Nikandr fell from the ship, lost to the winds and the sea. She swallowed, fighting back tears, fighting back the rage that was boiling within her.
Ashan stood just outside the skiff, holding his hand out to her. “Come,” he said. “There is work to do yet.”
She wanted to tell him to go on without her, that she would be useless, a danger to the soldiers who were there to protect her. But far up the hill, the havahezhan was already cresting the wall and flying toward them. It drew snow up from the ground, which whirled around it, making plain something that was normally difficult to see.
She knew she couldn’t abandon them. There was still Nasim to think of. A part of her wished that her heart was filled with revenge, but it was not. Too much of those emotions had been burned from her. But there was still a desire to set things right. With or without Nikandr, she would do what she set out to do.
The streltsi gained, trekking up the steep ground that led to the keep, but they halted when they realized the hezhan was heading straight for them.
The air had already begun to thin. At first Rehada could only feel it as a drawing of her breath, but as the wind began to howl, it became more marked, and soon it was nearly impossible to breathe. Ashan had prepared them for this. Many of the streltsi did as he had commanded and held their breath. Two, however, did not; they quickly fell to their knees, gasping for air.
The streltsi held their muskets up in a warding gesture, using the iron to ward against the hezhan. They knew it would do little more than give it pause, but they knew it was necessary for Ashan and Rehada to fight as they could.
Ashan was already using his stone of alabaster to dampen the wind, but in comparison to the elder his spirit was weak and was having little effect.
Rehada closed her eyes and opened herself to her suurahezhan. She willed flame into being, deep within the body of the havahezhan.
One of the streltsi tilted forward and fell into the muddy snow, unconscious. Another joined him moments later, his nose breaking and spouting blood over the trampled earth.
Rehada redoubled her efforts, imploring her bonded spirit to help. She felt it feeding from her, pulling from the stuff of life to sustain itself in this world. She pushed harder than she ever had, and the flame burned brightly within the havahezhan.
