“Perhaps,” Ishkyna said, playing a high trump, “but who will be left to tread them?”
As Mileva played her final card, winning the trick and the hand, Ivan’s face changed. Instead of a deep red, his face went white. After staring at the table for a time, meeting no one’s eyes, he stood, bowed, and without a single word strode away.
“Really, Shkyna,” Atiana said. “The boy has just lost a dozen in his family, and dozens more countrymen.”
“And we lost two cousins and a ship only a month ago. That is life among the islands. The sooner Ivan learns that, the better off he’ll be.”
Atiana raked in the cards and tumbled them into the deck, unable to deny the truth in her sister’s words. When she was young she had been heartbroken at the frequent deaths in the family, but she had soon learned to put such things in perspective. She realized, too, that Ishkyna had played Ivan well. He was angry now, and would probably tell others what the sisters had brewing. It would no doubt come back to Father, and then he would expect that she would have already gone to question Nikandr.
But she didn’t care if she was being manipulated by her sisters or if her father would have expectations. She wanted to see Nikandr. So late that night she demanded a simple dress of one of their servants. She donned it and left her bedroom to the sounds of whispering from her sisters. She held a small, unlit lamp in one hand even though there were whale oil lamps set on ornate marble tables along the hallway. The passageway to her left led to Radiskoye proper-the most obvious way to reach Nikandr, and also the most watched. She turned instead to her right and padded down the hall until she reached another, smaller hallway where Father and the other dukes were housed. She came to a small linen closet and opened it. After stepping inside, she felt among the shelves of sheets and pillow cases for the catch Mileva had assured her was there. She found it at the back of the bottommost shelf. It clicked and the entire rear of the closet creaked backward at her touch.
After lighting her small lamp, she entered the secret passage. Stairs immediately took her downward. She guessed it to be two stories, perhaps more. It was difficult to tell with no landmarks to guide her. She reached the bottom, and by the flickering light of her lamp she could see a narrow stone tunnel running to the right. She followed it, holding her arms tight to her side, partly because of the cramped space and partly because of the horrible draft. Her lamp was equipped with a glass shield, but it still guttered and threatened to go out if Atiana moved too quickly.
She tried to retain her sense of direction, but the tunnel took several turns, and none of them at right angles to one another, and so soon she had no idea where she was going. She finally reached a fork in the passage, and was forced to stop. Mileva hadn’t mentioned such a thing, and so she had no idea which one she should take. What if there were more? What if she got lost in these tunnels and never found her way out again? Who knew how extensive they were? Radiskoye was among the largest of the palotzas; she might find herself caught in a place from which no amount of screaming would rescue her.
She took the right-hand fork, vowing that she would head back if she came across any more. But after another, she told herself that she could find her way back as long as she consistently chose one direction to follow. It happened a third time, and still Atiana went on, taking several flights of stairs upward.
Thankfully this tunnel came to an end.
She searched for a latch and eventually found it. On the other side was the rear of a similar closet within the bath house. One large pool was set into the floor here, and another smaller one, for children, lay beyond it. She had been here a few times and knew that it lay two levels below the floor where the Khalakovos slept. She was nearly there.
She padded to the bath house door and opened it slowly. The hallway was empty, so she left the bathhouse and walked to the main stairwell serving this wing of the palotza. She took it two levels up.
And stopped.
For sitting on a bench was a large black rook. It watched her closely with intelligent eyes, and by the time she had taken two steps forward, she knew that Saphia had assumed the bird, and that she had been found sneaking about like a thief in the night.
CHAPTER 22
“How may I serve, Matra?” Atiana asked.
The rook emitted several clicking sounds before speaking. “Have the hallways of Radiskoye so caught your interest”-it clicked again-“that you must skulk among them while the sky lays dark?”
“ Nyet, Matra.”
“Another reason, then…”
“I only thought…”
The rook cawed. “Go on.”
“I wished to speak with your son, to apologize to him.”
“ Apologize?”
“For my actions the other night. For besting him at our dance.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it was the only thing she could think of.
The rook cawed again, and to Atiana it sounded like a laugh. “There’s little enough for you to apologize for. You held your own, child, which is more than I can say for Nikandr.”
“He did very well, Matra. I practiced that one dance for weeks before coming here.”
“To show him you were better.”
Atiana pulled herself taller. “To show him I would not stand in his shadow, but at his side.”
The rook was motionless for a time, staring. “As it should be.”
Atiana suppressed a small smile. “As you say, Matra.”
“You asked how you may serve…”
For the first time Atiana realized there was more to this meeting than had at first met the eye. “Of course, Matra.”
Footsteps echoed from down the hallway, and out of the gloom stepped Isaak, the palotza’s seneschal, holding a large, unlit lantern and wearing thick winter night clothes.
“You can accompany Isaak to the drowning chamber.”
Isaak bowed his head and held out a night coat as the rook flapped up to his shoulder.
With no small amount of trepidation, Atiana accepted it and pulled it over her chilled frame. She walked the cavernous halls of Radiskoye with Isaak, their footsteps echoing off into the immensity of the palotza. The old chancellor said nothing the entire way, the Matra sitting on his shoulder.
When Atiana had last spoken to the Matra, they had discussed her abilities in the dark and the need for someone to take up the slack where Yvanna could not. Surely she didn’t mean for Atiana to begin now. It must be something the Matra wanted kept secret, something that needed to be told directly.
Her dread increased the lower they went, and by the time they crossed the colonnade near the base of the towering black spire, her heart was pounding in her chest, and it was all she could do not to turn and run.
Finally, after reaching the antechamber at the bottom of the interminable stairwell, Isaak knocked thrice upon the imposing iron doors and led Atiana into the drowning chamber.
If the stairwell was chilly, the chamber was positively frigid. It began seeping through Atiana’s clothes the moment she stepped in. As bitter as the memories were, she remembered her training-while her whole being wanted to tighten, she needed instead to relax.
Saphia sat in the stout chair near the fire-though not too near. A servant woman-an aging, gray matron- fussed around the Matra, fixing the blanket just so while the rook alighted from Isaak’s shoulder and flew to the golden perch standing behind the Matra.
This was another subtle indicator of Saphia’s prowess with the aether. No other Matra could assume the form of an animal while outside of the drowning basin. Saphia, if reports were to be believed, could do so for hours after leaving it, and it made Atiana wonder what other powers she might have that no one knew about.
Suddenly the rook began cawing and beating its wings furiously, an indicator that Saphia had returned to herself.
