“Make no mistake, if she didn’t care for you, she would tell you so.”
Atiana had her doubts. Victania knew as well as everyone else that this marriage was crucial for both families. Atiana’s father needed ships to bring goods to Yrstanla, and as light as their coffers were, the only sensible way to get them was by marriage. And Khalakovo had been one of the worst struck by the blight. Nearly two-thirds of their cabbage and potato crops, if reports were to be believed, had been devastated in the last several years. Now more than ever it needed its precious wood and spices and gemstones to be sold in the Motherland. They would need much to weather the coming storm.
A shiver traveled down Atiana’s frame as one of the great doors suddenly opened. Victania motioned them into the room known as the drowning chamber. At the far end of the long, low room, Saphia Mishkeva Khalakovo sat in a wooden chair a goodly distance from the fireplace. An amber-colored stone of chalcedony rested in the circlet upon her brow. Victania stood next to her, a comforting hand upon the Matra’s shoulder.
Every one of the nine families had a room like this, and Khalakovo’s looked eerily similar to Vostroma’s: dark-as-night stone, Aramahn tracework running along the support columns, a basin sitting in the center of the room, all of it laid out almost exactly the same as Galostina’s chamber. The only difference seemed to be the iron lantern holders spaced about the room and the marble busts of the Matri from Khalakovo’s past.
Atiana strode forward as confidently as she could manage. When she stood before Saphia’s chair, she kneeled, waiting to be kissed, hearing only the Matra’s labored breathing.
“Stand, child,” Victania said. “She cannot kiss you.”
Atiana complied, realizing just how much Khalakovo’s Matra had sacrificed for her station. Sunset had already fallen on her fiftieth year, but she looked much, much older. The bones of her hands and wrists stuck out as if she’d been starving herself for months. Her eyes were recessed deeply into their sockets, and her cheeks were little more than hollows. Her white hair was damp and stringy from her time in the cold water that allowed her to touch the aether. She was leaning a bit to one side, and Atiana realized that Victania was standing there, not in any statement of solidarity, but to ensure that her mother didn’t tip over.
Despite all this, there was a regal quality in the way she held her head, the way her steely gaze evaluated Atiana. It gave proof to the supreme effort of will that any Matra needed, much less Saphia, the woman who had tamed the aether the longest in memory.
She looked not so different from Victania, both in form and bearing. The difference was that where Victania demanded respect, Saphia knew it would be given to her.
A golden perch stood behind the Matra’s chair, and a tall rook rested upon it. Rumor had it that so strong was Saphia’s connection to the aether that she could assume a rook for some time after leaving it, but the rook seemed inattentive, uninhabited.
“Touch stones.” Victania’s expression and words were filled with impatience.
Atiana hurriedly pulled at the chain around her neck to retrieve her soulstone. She touched this to Saphia’s circlet, and both stones brightened briefly. She couldn’t help but think of when she’d touched stones with Nikandr, but unlike then, Atiana could feel a strong connection with Saphia, stronger than the one with her own mother hundreds of leagues away.
“Your voyage has delivered you healthy and whole.” Saphia’s voice was a horrible croak.
“It has, Matra, thank you.”
Saphia nodded, a satisfied expression on her face. “It will be good to have another woman in Radiskoye. Too often it teems with men.”
“As you say, Your Grace.”
“Do you know why I’ve brought you here?”
“I assumed it was to meet in the flesh.”
“There is that,” Saphia allowed. “Can you think of nothing else?”
“Well, there is the pending marriage…”
Saphia barked out a short laugh, an act that brought on a coughing fit. Victania supported her mother until she had regained herself. “ Da, there is that as well.”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing else I can think of, Matra.”
Saphia’s gaze shifted to Yvanna momentarily. “The last several months have made us aware of a small yet growing problem. One of my good daughters is losing the ability to touch the aether.”
Yvanna, staring at the floor and holding one hand tightly in the other, looked embarrassed. Victania, however, was staring at Atiana, daring her to make mention of it.
“Like the other Matri, I have found the currents more and more difficult to tame, but I never thought the ability could be lost outright.”
“And now you think it can?” Atiana asked.
“A year ago, Yvanna could have stayed under for hours. Now, she cannot stand it for more than a handful of minutes.”
Disturbing news, indeed. The aether was what connected the islands. It was what allowed them to ride the winds with their ships, but it also acted as their primary path of communication. Collectively, the Matri touched the aether to commune with one another, to trade information and to make important decisions. Each of the nine families had one who performed the duty primarily, but all had at least two others trained in harnessing the currents in case the Matra took ill or-ancestors protect them-died.
“Why does that concern me?” Atiana asked.
“Because, dear child, I chose you in part because of your strength in the dark.”
Atiana felt her face pale, and she prayed that in the dimness of the room no one had noticed.
“I have little ability,” she finally said.
“You do. You and your sisters. You just haven’t been allowed to use it.”
It was true that she hadn’t lain in those cold basins for years-beyond Mother, it was Aunt Katerina and Borund’s wife who held those duties, and Atiana was only too glad to cede it to them. To be rubbed in animal fat and submerged in water colder than the bones of the world itself was not something she would willingly do, and here was the mother of the man she was about to be married to telling her she would need to do just that.
“We were told we were too heavy-handed.”
“That may be so, but consider this: at least you have the ability. Control can be learned. Raw ability cannot.”
“Forgive me, Matra”-she tried to keep the desperation from her tone- “but my mother told me I would not need to.”
“She should not have.”
“You assured her I would not be needed in this capacity.” She could hear her voice rising in volume.
“I told her that I expected you to be trained.”
“But-”
“Are you a member of this family or are you not?”
“The wedding has not-”
“Your father has signed documents. You are Khalakovan now whether you like it or not, and your family’s needs take precedence over your own. Or do they teach you different in the halls of Galostina?”
“I will fail, Matra.”
“You will try, and that is the end of it.”
Atiana bit her tongue. She was sure that Mother had inquired about the need to take the dark, knowing her innate fear of it, and she was just as sure Saphia had chosen her words carefully so Mother would come away with the answer she’d been seeking while Saphia would be able to claim later that there had been an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Misunderstanding or not, it didn’t change the fact that she was now bound to the Khalakovos. There was no backing away from this request. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps in time, once she had her feet under her.
“So I was chosen for marriage simply for my ability.”
Saphia smiled, an expression that looked truly evil on such a skeletal face. “Not only for that, child. You have other redeeming qualities.”
“Such as hips ready to bear children?”
Saphia laughed again, a thoroughly unpleasant sound. “And a father with shipping contracts to Yrstanla. Do you find any of these reasons distasteful?”
