fell into time.
Without another word, they pulled their clothes from their bodies. She saw upon his shoulder a fresh wound- stitched-a puncture from a gunshot, perhaps. When she moved to examine it, he grabbed her hand and stared down into her eyes fiercely, as if acknowledging the wound were an insult. He had always been this way-proud, too proud at times-and she knew better than to challenge him.
She pulled him down among the pillows, kissing him to make him forget. As the night deepened, as their bodies became one, for the first time in a long while she no longer thought of the Prince of Khalakovo holding her.
She woke with Soroush watching her. They were in her bedroom, and he was propped up on one elbow, watching her as the faint light of dawn shone through the small window on the far side of the room.
He was holding in one hand a stone of red jasper. When she had propped herself like he was, he slid it toward her. “Take this to the woman you were speaking with today.”
Rehada picked it up and examined it. It seemed unremarkable. “Why?”
“It will accelerate the wasting. Bersuq believes that when someone of stone dies, he will be able to summon his vanahezhan.”
“Gierten doesn’t have the wasting.”
He shook his head, slowly but seriously. “ Neh, but the babe does.”
“How can you know?”
“I know.”
Rehada felt the blood drain from her face. The babe. Gierten’s ninemonth-old daughter.
“The Matra will take notice.”
He nodded, a sober gesture. “We hope that it is so.”
“But why?”
“Because it is nearly time.”
She pressed him for more, but that was all he would say on the subject. He pulled himself from the bed and began to dress. He stopped as he picked up his turban cloth. “Do you find this distasteful?”
The babe has done nothing to us, she thought. The words were on her tongue, ready to speak, when Soroush cut her off.
“The fates play strange games, do they not?” He began wrapping the cloth around his head. “The babe had two cards played against her. She is of earth, and she was born to the Landed. That is enough.” He finished with his robes and stared down at her while cinching them around his waist.
She returned his gaze, emotions warring within her. She had resolved herself that doing what she did on this island might lead to deaths, even those of children. She might even be called to take up the knife herself. But to inflict something upon a babe when her Ahya had suffered the very same fate. It didn’t seem right.
But Soroush’s smoldering expression of anger reminded her of how strong she needed to be. He was an undying flame, a ceaseless wind. If he could do all that he did, even after losing his ability to commune with hezhan, then she could give up one child.
“What must be done?”
“Place the jasper near the babe. The stone will do the rest.”
She stared at the jasper, an unremarkable stone the color of salmon flesh. Such a dangerous game they were playing. It felt like they were stepping in the paths of the fates, and it rested uneasy in Rehada’s gut. But perhaps that was what needed to be done, as the fates had so far seemed unwilling to aid their cause.
“It will be done,” she said shortly. He nodded once, and then was gone.
Rehada approached the house, her heart thumping madly.
Gierten was sitting on the front porch in a chair, her hands working quickly to repair the fishing net that lay across her lap. A basket was nearby, the same one that had been hanging from the donkey two days before.
Gierten looked up, her thin face staring at Rehada with a mixture of confusion and charity. “Rehada, welcome. What brings you?”
Rehada shook her head. “I was on my way to Izhny, and I thought I’d stop by to offer you a present for your daughter.”
Gierten waited, her hands pausing in their work, as Rehada stepped onto the porch.
Rehada could see the babe from the corner of her eye, but she couldn’t find it in herself to look at her just yet. Instead she held out a string with a piece of coral in the shape of a windwood tree. She had made it for Ahya, and though parting with it was like chopping off a finger, she would give Gierten’s babe something to guide her in her next life. “We give them to our children for luck. I have no need for it anymore, so I hope you’ll accept it for Evina.”
Gierten didn’t move, and she looked like a woman who was about to make excuses for a gift that made no sense to her, but Rehada talked over her before she could protest.
“You would be doing me a favor. It brings only bad memories. It would please me to know that it was doing some good in the world instead of dredging up the past.”
Gierten paused for a moment, and then she smiled. She accepted the gift, nodding once. “It would be an honor. Thank you.”
Before she lost heart, Rehada kneeled before the babe, palming the stone of jasper in one hand. “Do you mind if I held her?”
She plunged her hands into the basket and picked Evina up without waiting for permission, leaving the stone among the folds of the padding blanket at the bottom as she did so.
She held the baby, staring into her eyes, fighting off the tears that were threatening to surface. She knew she should be rocking the babe, should be bouncing her on her hip and telling Gierten what a wonderful child she had, but she could not. She could not go so far as that when she had just condemned this child to die with the simple act she’d just performed.
She laid the baby back down as quickly as she’d picked her up, to the confused looks of Gierten. Then she made her excuses and left, unable to stare Gierten in the eye any longer.
It had been so simple. Soroush dealt with death often; perhaps it came easily to him. But it was shocking just how much this simple act shook Rehada. By the time she had reached the path leading back to the road between Izhny and Volgorod, she was running, her tears flowing freely.
CHAPTER 21
Atiana stood before the tall windows in Radiskoye’s solarium, staring at the maelstrom raging outside. Cold rain fell down along the thick glass in heavy sheets. Lightning flashed. In the ghostly image that quickly faded she could see the blinding brilliance of a dhoshahezhan. They often slipped into the world for split seconds during lightning strikes, but it seemed to her that there were many more than one would normally see. The unseasonable storm had settled over the islands two nights ago and hadn’t budged since. It had brought life on the island, especially the palotza, to a standstill. Father and several of the other dukes thought it strange timing after the suurahezhan, but Khalakovo’s Matra claimed it was benign, a coincidence.
“As likely a coincidence as Stasa’s death,” Father had said. But their own wind master, Kaeed, doubted Saphia was lying. Father’s reply had been to send Kaeed away and to recount all the ways he’d been wrong over the years.
Each of the families had been given their own wing of the palotza, but the solarium had become a council chamber of sorts for those dukes that stood behind Zhabyn and Grigory in this slowly building crisis. Borund and Grigory were sitting on a curving couch, listening to Duke Leonid boast about his son’s exploits over the southern seas.
She returned her attention to the skies, drawn to the lightning and the ghostly images, losing herself as the chill from the windows settled over her skin.
“You’ll catch your death.” Borund came to a halt next to her. In one hand he held a snifter filled with a healthy amount of rosemary vodka, which he handed to her before wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He was warm, and it felt good to be held.
