face again.
The storm that had been raging over the island abated during the night. Nikandr suspected that it had had something to do with Nasim, but Mother said that she had felt no connection from him to a hezhan. With a storm the size of the one that had gripped the island for the past week, it would take a very ancient spirit indeed to sustain it, and though Mother said that she didn’t believe the boy capable of such a thing, Nikandr guessed that she was starting to form doubts. The boy had done what he had done without Mother even sensing it. The fact that she hadn’t known was cause for great concern, and Nikandr could tell even if she wouldn’t admit it that she was worried.
“I was pleased to hear that you’d decided to join me,” Nikandr said as they crested a grass-covered knoll.
They had both been awkwardly silent since leaving the palotza. For Nikandr’s part, he was angry with Borund but trying not to let it show. Father had told him early that morning that Mother had sensed ships coming from the south, ships meant to bolster the position of Vostroma and his allies.
Borund, no doubt, was angry for his own reasons.
“It was time to talk, da?”
They approached a meadow, which was blooming with snapdragons and brightbonnets. Both Borund and Nikandr pulled their ponies to a stop. Berza, Nikandr’s mottled brown setter, had pulled up short and was standing stiff-crouching a bit, begging to be set free. Borund maneuvered his flintlock off of his lap, but Nikandr raised a finger, telling him to wait and see.
Nikandr couched the stock up against his shoulder, sighted to the center of the meadow, and pulled the flintlock back. As soon as the striker clicked into place, Berza bolted into the meadow. She leapt gracefully over a small thicket of heather, scaring two red grouse into flight. Nikandr led the lead male and pulled the trigger. A moment later, sparks shattered against the pan. The musket kicked and the crisp air exploded.
Black bits of tail feather splashed against the blue sky, but the bird continued with its mate beyond the forest-insulted, perhaps, but otherwise unharmed.
Borund started laughing-a chest-heaving affair-but then recovered himself at Nikandr’s look.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been to the fields,” Nikandr said.
“No doubt! Even with that nifty trick you taught my dog, you managed to miss.”
When they were young, Khalakovo’s master of hounds had gifted Borund with a puppy. He loved it and begged his father to let him take it home, but Zhabyn refused, and so Borund had had to settle for visiting with her during his rare visits to Khalakovo. The dog-no thanks to Borund-had grown up to be an excellent hunter, and she’d sired a progeny that all seemed to have the same excellent traits as their matriarch, but that didn’t stop Borund from claiming all of them as “his dogs.”
“Laugh while you can,” Nikandr said, as he spurred his pony into action, “you’ll have your chance soon enough.” They galloped away, Berza jumping ahead through the meadow. Nikandr took a deep breath before speaking. “But we have more to speak of than grouse.”
Borund rested his musket easily in the crook of his arm. “I was beginning to wonder if you had the nerve to speak of it.”
“Atiana. I would like to extend my apology to you as well as your father, which I will when I see him again. I have acted the child. Had I acted as I should, Zhabyn might not have delayed the marriage.”
“Such a change of heart… You could hardly stand the thought of marrying her a week past.”
“I have had time to think on it, Bora. You, of anyone, should know how difficult it can be to accept the one chosen for you.”
Borund’s face reddened, and Nikandr realized at once he had made a mistake. Borund had married Nataliya Dhalingrad, daughter of Duke Leonid, and it had not been Borund who had been unreceptive, but his new bride. Borund had confessed years ago how cold she had been in their wedding bed, and how it had continued until Borund had beat her in a fit of anger. She now accepted his affections, but little more than that.
Nikandr continued, “Father is furious that he would be so taken to task in front of the entire Grand Duchy. He doesn’t deserve mistrust, especially when it was his wife who suggested the arrangement.”
The color in Borund’s face slowly faded as he reined his pony around a heather bush. “Father is merely being cautious.”
“Caution is all well and good, but his fears are unfounded.”
“Are they? Then answer me this, Nischka. Do you or do you not have the wasting?”
Nikandr felt his face go hot. Borund wasn’t even watching him, so sure was he of the answer. Nikandr wanted to deny it, but there was no point.
Atiana must have told him.
“I do, but that doesn’t mean our families cannot profit from this wedding.”
“It is not the disease I care about, but that you felt it necessary to hide the fact from us. Was Khalakovo so desperate for these contracts?”
Nikandr did not want to admit that that was true, even though both of them knew it was so. Vostroma needed it as well. Khalakovo had the deepest supply of windwood and alabaster among the islands-crucial to the flow of trade among the Duchies and to Yrstanla-but Vostroma had the shipping lanes. They needed one another, but they had been at odds for so many years that it had been difficult to overcome. If Nikandr wasn’t careful, he’d reopen those wounds.
“I am in the early stages, Borund. I had hoped to find a way…”
“To what? Cure it? When no one has so far been able to?”
Nikandr shrugged, feeling foolish.
“Set aside for the moment the wedding and your lies. There is the seat of a Grand Duchy to fill. Until that is resolved, there is little sense pursuing a union that would only get in the way.”
“I wonder what it would be getting in the way of. You were hardly viewing your sister’s marriage as a nuisance when Ranos showed you the ships that came with it.”
“Those wrecks with wings?”
“You know which ships I mean.”
“Ah, the ones you were so gracious in showing after making an ass of me in front of the entire eyrie.”
“It wasn’t-”
Borund pulled his pony to a stop and regarded Nikandr squarely. “Bolgravya is dead, Nikandr. There is treachery afoot, and my father is hardly unwise for waiting until we hear more of the affair. What I should be hearing instead of a shrill plea for the hand of Vostroma’s daughter is news on what you’ve found after your extensive enquiries.”
“We have been working diligently, Borund.”
“To what end? Why haven’t we heard more about the Motherless qiram and his boy that were spirited into the bowels of Radiskoye?”
Nikandr was not to give out any information of Ashan and Nasim, but this conversation had gone in the completely wrong direction. Borund was his oldest friend-at one time his best friend. If anyone in Vostroma’s camp would see sense, it was him.
“We found them three days after the attack. The qiram is strong, but neither Mother nor Jahalan were abletodetect aguided crossing. Your own mother corroborates that, does she not?”
Borund allowed himself a nod.
“And the boy is just a boy, a boy that has no talent with hezhan.”
As Borund stared, a cold wind passed over the meadow, making the grasses look like waves lapping against the taller heather. Even the tops of the pine trees swayed with a similar rhythm. Berza was sniffing along a rivulet- chasing a meadow mouse, perhaps.
“If this is so why have you not yet freed them?”
“Because of the seriousness. We have to be sure.”
Borund’s face steeled and his eyes thinned. “Then give the boy to us. Let Ellayah question him.”
“I told you, he is not the one. There is little talent within him, certainly none for an elder spirit.”
“Then there is nothing for him to fear. It will take little time-days, a week at the most-and if all is as you say, the boy will be returned, none the worse for the wear.”
Nikandr sat up in his saddle. “You are my friend, Borund, but be careful of your tongue. You are on
