“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.
She 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
