Atiana kneeled and bowed her head. “How may I serve, Matra?”
The Matra sipped from a thick, earthenware mug and worked her mouth before speaking. “Rise, child. What I need is trifling, though you may not think it so easy to give.”
Atiana stood, her head still bowed. “What I have is yours.”
A smile spread across Saphia’s skeletal face as she raised the mug to her lips and sipped noisily. “We shall see soon enough.” Her hands shook, as did her head when not in direct contact with the mug, but her eyes were bright and spry. “Victania is unavailable, and Yvanna’s inability has grown worse since our last talk. I need rest, child. I have not slept properly in weeks, and it is taking its toll. Take the dark. Watch over our island for a time, and that will be enough.”
“Forgive me, Matra, but my father has said the marriage is in doubt.”
“You’re near enough to a Khalakovo, child.”
“But Father-”
“You think the men will halt a wedding their Matri have arranged? Not likely. Not while your mother and I live. They may scratch and they may claw, but you will be married. Be sure of that. Besides, your inclusion in this family has nothing to do with it. A Matra can choose who she will. Is it not so?”
“It is so, but shouldn’t Victania-”
“I told you she is unavailable.” Atiana thought Saphia would tell her to simply suck in her gut and prepare herself, but she did not. She stared at Atiana while the fire lit one side of her face in a ruddy glow. “You are afraid.”
It was not a question.
“I will do it, Matra, if it will give you rest.”
Saphia continued to stare, the hollows of her eyes like black pits. “I lied to you the other day,”she said,“or at least I didn’t share with you the whole truth. The Matri always discuss those that will be allowed to take the dark. It was decided years ago that you and your sisters were too much of a risk to be allowed to ride the currents.”
Atiana tried not to let her surprise show. “And what, may I ask, changed your minds?”
“I should think the answer was obvious.”
And of course, it was. The dark, for whatever reason, was becoming progressively harder to control. Though the aether flowed over the seas, over the entire world, in chaotic currents, the islands grounded it, creating natural channels through which the aether could flow. It was still too wild to be used without further refinement, however. The spires allowed the Matri, collectively, to guide the flow of aether between the archipelagos. Without them, ships would be lost among the winds, their keels useless among the fickle currents.
But just like everything else on the islands, the aether had become unpredictable. The Matri had had to work harder to control the currents, which was the main reason that those weaker in the craft were practically useless, and masters like Saphia were taxed more heavily each time they took the dark. Most believed the blight to be a drought that would one day pass, but Atiana wasn’t so sure. What if it never passed? Or passed so many years from now that it made little difference? What would become of the Duchies of Anuskaya? Would they be forced to live only among their own archipelagos, forgoing the dangerous flights to the farther islands? How many would die from starvation as conditions worsened and they were cut off from trade?
“If it’s a simple matter of ability,” Atiana said, “then Ishkyna or Mileva would do better. They seemed to enjoy it.”
“Ishkyna is an unbroken filly, always trying to prove herself, always pulling at her reins. And Mileva is too cunning for her own good.”
“Which leaves me.”
“Which is no small matter. Take the dark, child. The Matri will guide you, as they have in the past. There is little to fear now that the winds are calm.”
“Mother says there is always something to fear in the dark.”
Saphia began to laugh, splashing tea over the shawl on her lap. The servant came quickly with a napkin and dabbed the wet spots, making sure to send a wicked glance in Atiana’s direction while doing so.
“This is another reason I think you’re ready. You recognize the need for balance-hold the reins too tightly, and the aether will fight you; loosen them overly much, and it will trample you roughshod.”
Atiana stood there, cold and perfectly unwilling to become colder, but also out of reasons not to. “Very well,” she finally said.
Atiana knew she was no fledgling needing protection from the cold, but the abilities of the drowning basin to steal warmth was something even the stoutest of women could not prepare for, and so when she stripped she was-despite the nearby fire-already shivering, and as the servant woman spread the rendered goat’s fat over her arms and breasts and stomach, it grew worse.
“Control yourself,” Saphia snapped, “or you’ll fail before you’ve dipped one toe into the basin. The storms have been strong of late, but if you keep to the spires, they will guide you.”
Atiana nodded.
“And remember what you see, Atiana Radieva. It is important.”
And with those words came some amount of control. Nerves calmed. Muscles relaxed. Blood flowed more freely, and finally she was able to control the shivering to a degree.
She stepped to the edge of the basin-now empty-as the servant woman pulled a lever on the wall. Water from the mountain’s internal streams flowed through a channel and began filling the basin. The water rose slowly. It was all Atiana could do to control her breathing. She managed to only by telling herself that once she entered the dark her body would become a faint memory.
Until she woke…
But she would deal with that when the time came.
The basin full, Atiana stepped inside. The cold clawed at her feet and ankles and calves. She knew it was foolish to enter the basin in slow increments, so she laid back until it was up to her neck. She grew rigid from it, her muscles rigoring painfully. Her left foot began to cramp. She flexed her toes against the pain as the breathing tube was pressed into her mouth. She drew in desperate lungfuls of air through the tube as her body screamed at her to rise from the basin, to extricate herself from the water’s iron grip.
But she could not allow such thoughts to control her. She was Vostroman.
She would not bend.
She slowed her breathing, relaxed muscles so tense they were nearing the breaking point. Her skin became numb, and at the same time-as it had so many years ago-the aether began to suffuse her frame, providing a subtle warmth that was not unlike those first sips of mulled vodka after hours in the howling winter wind.
Her body lost its tension, lending her a confidence that had been lacking, but she knew this was the time she had to be most careful, for before she knew it-
Her eyes, clenched tightly, lose the telltale signs of light. Her stomach sinks. She hears nothing save the low susurrus of the aether and the currents of the dark. She sees one bright light among the endless sea of midnight blue surrounding her. It is Saphia, the Matra, still strong, still caressing the dark as if she could submerge herself at any time she chose. There is a weariness in her, a fatigue that cannot come from mere sleeplessness. It is a wonder she can function at all, much less enter the dark and guide the flow of its currents.
Atiana leaves the Matra, not wishing to tax her unnecessarily-indeed, not wishing to touch the physical world so soon after leaving it. Such a thing can be dangerous, especially for one such as her.
She expands her sphere of awareness and senses the servant woman, though only vaguely, as one knows that someone is near upon waking. She sees the rook on its perch clearly, and if she so chose she could assume its form, but she has not done so in years and there are risks with even a small thing such as this. She senses the roots of the spire, which run deep beneath the obelisk, and then the spire itself, towering above Radiskoye like a stern and overprotective parent. The aether licks at the spire as if it were curious over its existence, but like a ship too bold for its own good, it is caught in the maelstrom and pulled down into the depths of the mountain.
She sees the people spread throughout the palotza, all of them small, meaningless, like flies buzzing over fruit. She senses the dogs in their kennels, the ponies in their stalls, the rats running through the walls of the palotza, even the bitterly cold trees and grasses that blanket the island. The city of Volgorod and the Landless village of Iramanshah enter her consciousness like dim candles in a misty bog filled with countless, twinkling wisps. The island itself, now that her mind has expanded, has an ebb and flow. It has life, little different from the body floating in the drowning basin deep beneath the spire.
