an iron hook. Using a thick woolen mitt, she poured steaming tea into the lone cup that waited on a wooden table. She raised one eyebrow when she realized Atiana hadn’t moved to take the offered seat. “She gave her permission if that’s what you’re worried about.”
It felt presumptuous to even consider taking Saphia’s chair, but she didn’t have it in her to do battle in her weakened state, so she sat and accepted the tea that Victania offered her.
Victania resumed her seat. She sat rigidly upright, as if it pained her to lean back in the chair. Atiana wondered if there were any position that would offer her comfort. She looked haunted from the wasting. Saphia might seem frail, but there was a silent strength to her, while Victania looked as if she were being eaten from the inside, as if her inner structure was now hollow and the next thing to go would be her thin and crumbling shell. One small bout with a cold, Atiana thought, and she would not be long for this world. She would have felt sorry if Victania didn’t lord herself over Atiana at every opportunity.
“You were gone quite a long time,” Victania said.
Atiana sipped from the sweet tea. The warmth of the liquid trailed down into her gut. It was too much, too soon, and her stomach rebelled. “How long?” She asked, setting the cup down.
“You’ve been under for well over a day.”
Atiana shook her head. It didn’t seem possible. “More than a day?”
“ Da. A passable length of time.” Was there a bit of envy in her voice? “What did you find?”
Atiana opened her mouth to speak, but she found that she could remember nothing. Her memories had already been muddled the moment she woke, but the shock of finding Victania here, the pressure of being questioned after her awakening, had caused her to forget.
“I don’t remember,” she admitted.
Victania took her in, from her bare feet to her head, a prim look of disgust on her face. “Think.”
She tried. She recalled the last few moments in the aether, as well as a strong feeling of discomfort, of grief, but the more she tried to pin the memories down, the more focused she became on the simple act of wakening.
“My mother, the Matra, asked you here to take the dark. Did they teach you so little-”
“Stop,” Atiana said. That one word, mother, had brought about the glimmer of memories.
“-the first thing you do-”
“Silence!”
Atiana glanced around the room, struggling to hold on to the faint memory of a mother holding her child. “There was a babe”-her words were practically a whisper-“in Volgorod.”
Victania watched carefully, but held her tongue.
Atiana shivered. Her eyes watered. She had not known the woman, but the aether made things seem more personal and emotional than they would have been under the light of the sun. She had felt, not that she was the woman, but that she had as much at stake in that child as the mother did. It was personal, and stepping out from under the aether’s spell had done nothing to lessen the feelings.
She told Victania the story, slowly, for the words came in fits and starts, and she feared if she spoke too quickly, it would all come out in one tearful gout. When she was done, she was finally able to meet Victania’s eyes. There was no shock in Victania’s expression, no sense that anything Atiana had said was new information.
“You know of this…” Atiana said softly.
“It has been happening for months.”
“To babes?”
“ Nyet. To the old, to the sick. It was only a matter of time before the young were affected too. Children will be next. And then…”
Victania didn’t have to finish. They both knew what was at stake. The blight had started by affecting the health of their crops, their game. Why wouldn’t it move on to the very people that inhabited the islands?
“Does my mother know this?”
“Of course.”
“Then why hasn’t she told me?”
“Because this news cannot be spread. The people look to us for protection.
There are already weekly disturbances in Volgorod, and scattered incidents in Tuyal and Erotsk and Izhny. How long do you think it would be before there are riots in the streets? How long before they march on Radiskoye to demand that we shelter them?”
Not long at all, Atiana thought, but it still hurt to be marked as an untrustworthy by her own mother. Then again, she had never shown the least bit of interest in taking the dark, nor in matters of politics-why would Mother trust her with the information?
Why would Saphia?
It was a clear sign of just how desperate things had become when the Matra of Khalakovo had been forced into depending on Atiana for the protection of her Duchy.
“There must be something we can do,” Atiana said.
Victania shook her head. “There is nothing, nothing save coming here to lend us your strength, to continue to give the Matra her needed rest during these troubled times.”
CHAPTER 24
Nikandr trudged up the stairs, fighting off another yawn, as crisp footsteps rose in volume behind him. “You didn’t think you’d be allowed to lay your head down, did you?”
Nikandr turned and found Ranos on the stairs below him. He looked to his left, to his room near the end of the long hall, dearly wishing he could just ignore his brother and get some sleep. The last few days felt jumbled, like all the minutes of all the hours spent in the donjon with Ashan and Nasim were piled on top of one another, none of them distinguishable from the others. It didn’t help that he and Jahalan had made no real progress. Ashan claimed that Nasim couldn’t have been involved in the summoning of the suurahezhan, though he also admitted that he hadn’t been there when it happened. Nikandr’s focus had been to find ways to reach Nasim, to find out what might have happened that day, and though Ashan was forthcoming about the tricks he used to reach Nasim, none of them had so far worked. Nasim was more cipher than boy.
“What might I do for the Boyar of Uyadensk?” Nikandr asked, bowing his head in mock sincerity.
“Put on your uniform, Nischka, and come with me.”
Nikandr took his brother in again. He was wearing his suit of office: the uniform of the Boyar. He ran to his room and retrieved his own, pulling it on as quickly as he could manage. “What’s happening?” he asked as he fell into step alongside Ranos.
“The Aramahn… They have come once again to petition for the boy’s release.”
“Why would that require my presence?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
They made their way to the first level of the palotza and traveled a long hallway to a chamber where Father held audience for matters of state. Dozens of Aramahn were waiting outside. Nikandr assumed they would shortly be allowed inside to speak with Father, but he was mistaken. When he opened the Duke’s entrance, he found the room packed wall-to-wall with robed Aramahn. There were some he recognized, but most he did not. This was not strange in itself given their transient nature, but the sheer number of them was. He had never seen so many of them in one place. Even in Iramanshah, large gatherings were rare, many of them preferring to meditate or to converse in small groups. They were an isolated lot, and this solidarity was troubling.
At the head of the room was a raised table with a dozen chairs facing the audience. Father’s secretary was calling the room to order. The array of men were seated: Father first, Pavol Andreyov, Polkovnik of the Streltsi, Veliky Pytorov, Admiral of the Staaya, Ranos and the four posadni of Uyadensk, and finally Nikandr.
“Who comes?” Father asked.
At the front of the crowd stood the seven mahtar of Iramanshah, all of them aged and venerable, their time among the winds behind them. Fahroz stood at the center, the honored position, and when the sounds of the gavel died away, she stepped forward. Her eyes mirrored the fiery layers of her robes, which were colored a deep orange.
