Dozens, Nasim.
She felt, at last, an emotional response.
Dozens of Landed died from one hezhan. Imagine what you could do were the rift to open wide.
And then her world was pulled out from underneath her. Her awareness had been fixated, pinpointed, but now it expanded so rapidly she felt lost. She felt the island, the currents that ran through it. It was a reflection of the material world as seen from Adhiya, and it was beautiful beyond description, the currents of life, shifting, slipping, mixing, reforming into innumerable combinations.
But it was not complete. A wound ran through it, so deeply that she knew it immediately for what it was. The rift that Soroush had discovered forming on Uyadensk, the place she had called home for the last seven years. The rift moved like the slow tide of magma on the active southern volcanoes. It drew life from everything around it. It was a corruption, a tear between the worlds, and it was affecting Adhiya as much as it was Erahm.
Yeh, Rehada said, this is what we wish you to-
Pain coursed through her like a river during springtime melt. She felt the misery of the island, the pain that the rift was wreaking on its slow trek across the landscape. It poisoned everything it touched, and though she realized the rift would one day close, she also knew another would replace it, and another, until the rifts became so large, so voracious, that they would consume everything.
She pleaded for Nasim to release her, but she realized with a growing horror that Nasim had gone. He had left her to the devices of Adhiya, leaving the rift and the suurahezhan that now fed upon her to do with her what they would.
She railed, fighting the spirit with all the strength that remained. She thought surely it would take her, would draw her through the veil to Adhiya to begin her life beyond, but finally, after one last panicked surge, she felt it release her.
She had woken with Nikandr beating the flames from her clothes, staring at her with wild eyes. The stench of burned wool filled the air. The dying madness was at odds with Nasim, who sat emotionless on the floor nearby.
She had left Radiskoye with feelings of inadequacy and smallness in the face of what she had seen. She’d had terrible dreams, visions of Ahya being burned alive, of Gierten’s baby girl being swallowed by the earth, and when morning had finally arrived, she had known she would come to remove the stone she had placed beneath Evina. It was a small thing, she knew-Soroush would merely take another if not this one-but it was all she could think to do.
She pulled several of the small opals attached to the inside of the hull off, placing them in a bag affixed to the mast. As the skiff descended, she maneuvered it toward the water, landing it in a clearing between the trees. She headed off toward Gierten’s home. She could hear the sound of the surf to the south. The wind was pleasant, and it brought with it not only the loamy smell of the forest but also memories of the times she had spent with Ahya in places like this, running through the trees and laughing.
She reached the home a short while later. It was squat, with a thatched roof and a gravel path that led from the shoreline to the front of the home. She stepped onto the porch and squinted into the dim interior. With the sun directly overhead it was difficult to see into the room that had only a small window set high in the wall, but she could still see a hearth, a small table, and a rocking chair. “ Privyet?” she called.
When no one answered, she walked around to the rear and found Gierten kneeling on a piece of wood, tending to a sickly patch of garden twice the size of their modest home.
Beyond the garden was a well-tended graveyard bordered with a low stone wall. Inside were a dozen cairns, each of them marked with a tall piece of obsidian shaped like Radiskoye’s spire. They held no words of remembrance, but they had a small, uncut chalcedony stone near the top.
Gierten wore a skirt and a man’s shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up beyond the elbows, revealing grossly thin arms. She was using a wood-handled trowel to pull the weeds among the potatoes and onions. Every so often she gathered enough of the weeds that she would toss them behind her onto a large pile.
Gierten was alone; Evina’s basket was nowhere to be seen.
The cairns… One of them was small, and the earth beneath it was dark, fresh. By the fates, she had come too late.
Rehada began backing away, hoping Gierten wouldn’t notice. She moved one step. Two.
And then a voice spoke from behind Rehada. “What’s this?”
She turned and found a man, perhaps forty, staring at her. His name was Ruslan, and he was Gierten’s husband. She had seen him at the midsummer festivals in Izhny. He wore simple peasant clothes, and a string of small blue mackerel hung over his shoulder.
Gierten turned and wiped her brow with the back of a grimy hand, regarding Rehada with a wholly uncharitable look. Her cheeks were sunken. Her eyes had dark bags beneath them. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was listless and gray.
“I merely came to see how Evina has been faring.” She tried to make it sound as if she didn’t already know that Evina was dead, but she knew it sounded unconvincing.
“ She brought the necklace?” Ruslan said to his wife, though he stared hard at Rehada.
Gierten nodded.
Rehada willed herself not to look at it, but she could see a fisherman’s knife within a sheath at his belt. “I’ve made a mistake. Please, I’ll leave. I won’t trouble you again.”
She made for the path, but he stepped in her way. Her heart was pumping madly, and she was just touching the aether to summon her bonded spirit when Gierten grabbed the circlet from around her brow. Instantly her connection was broken, leaving her stomach lurching from the loss of contact.
She felt instantly cold, and her skin prickled along her legs and arms. Ruslan pointed to the circlet. “It’s forbidden to use them against us.” “I would not have. I swear to you.”
“You were. It was glowing.”
“I should leave.” She backed away, ready to run. The circlet and the gem could be replaced. “I’m sorry to have caused any trouble.”
She stopped when she heard footsteps coming from behind. A balding man with damp white hair hanging down in loose curls stood by the corner of the house. “You had something to do with my granddaughter, didn’t you, you filthy Motherless wretch?”
“ Nyet, I-”
Rehada turned to run, but Ruslan grabbed her around the neck.
She tried to scream, but the only thing that came out was a muffled caw, like a diseased and dying gull. She kicked, but the older man stepped in and punched her in the gut. The air rushed from her lungs as pain blossomed in her stomach and ribs. She fought for air, to no avail. Nothing was coming, and the man’s hold prevented her from breathing. They dragged her toward the house. She kicked viciously, catching the old man off guard. Her heel connected hard with the left side of his face. He shouted and doubled over, holding his ear.
Ruslan threw her to the ground and pulled the thin boning knife from its sheath. He grabbed for her hair. She recoiled, kicking at his legs, but the other man had recovered, and he moved around behind her and grabbed her shoulders.
“Let her go,” Gierten said, still holding the circlet tightly in both hands.
“Get yourself down to the shore,” Ruslan said. “I’ll get you when we’re done.”
“She’s been kind… She wouldn’t have harmed Evina…”
Before she could say anything else, Ruslan stalked forward and slapped her across the face. “Get yourself down to the shore!”
Gierten held her cheek, a frightened look on her face. She glanced at Rehada, saying nothing, and then she turned and walked down the gravel path.
“Please don’t leave-”
The old man struck Rehada, hammering her ear so hard it began to ring.
“That’s for the kick. Now stop fighting or it won’t go well at all.”
Rehada didn’t listen. She kicked and thrashed, spun around on the ground, trying to loosen their grip on her. She screamed.
Ruslan managed to lay himself over her legs and climb up until he was straddling her waist. His father pinned her arms over her head.
