jealous of this woman. She had taken something of Rehada’s, no matter how tenuous her hold had been, and she didn’t like it. Those were the exact emotions she had been trying all her life to root out.
So she followed this foolish Vostroman woman to see what she was about.
CHAPTER 30
The coach taking Atiana and her sisters to Volgorod jumped as it struck an excessively large hole in the road. Ishkyna pounded the roof, her expression making it clear she would gladly have replaced the roof with the driver’s head.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t go by yourself,” Ishkyna said as she settled herself back into her seat.
“You can walk back to the palotza if you’d rather.”
Ishkyna rolled her eyes. “You’re as sensitive as an open wound these days, Tiana. I was only wondering why you couldn’t just ask Father for permission.”
Atiana nearly unleashed her bottled up anger on Ishkyna for telling Borund of Nikandr’s disease, but Ishkyna would only deny it. Atiana would bide her time. She would even the scales.
Borund had kept it quiet until after his hunt with Nikandr, then he’d told everyone who would listen, acting as if it were the greatest insult imaginable. Many supported his position-largely, she suspected, because Father was the one everyone assumed would take over the mantle of Grand Duke. The wasting was often hidden by royalty- some for reasons of vanity, others because they perceived it as weak. Stasa himself had hidden just how bad the disease had become.
Grigory had been only too pleased to hear this news. He spoke longer and louder than even Borund, telling everyone how craven Nikandr was. He stopped short of demanding a duel, however-even Borund would think twice over that. Nikandr was known by everyone to be an expert shot.
Atiana didn’t like hearing their words. Though she and Nikandr hadn’t been formally married, she felt as if she were honor-bound to defend him. There was also the feeling that it had been something she and Nikandr alone had shared. As far as he knew, he hadn’t told anyone else, and even though she’d stumbled upon it accidentally, it felt like something special, something cherished. It was a foolish thought, she knew, but still she harbored no small amount of resentment toward Ishkyna for letting it out.
The coach crossed a stone bridge, the sound from the ponies’ hooves going from a soft thumping to a rhythmic clatter and back again. Atiana turned her back to Mileva, who sat in the seat next to her, and Mileva began pulling at the cords of her dress.
“I’ve seen twenty winters.” Atiana slipped out of the dress, pulled off her dainty shoes and began pulling on her riding trousers. “I have no inclination to ask Father for something that is mine by right.”
Ishkyna laughed. “Which is exactly why you told him we’d be visiting Lady Kirelenko the entire day.”
Mileva tapped Ishkyna’s knee. “Come. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of a diversion, and what Father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” She turned to Atiana, who was just now pulling on a gun belt, complete with an ornate flintlock pistol. “It is only for a look around, isn’t it? We won’t be hearing news about a Motherless woman floating face-down in the bay, will we?”
Atiana felt her face flush. “Would you blame me if you did?”
Yesterday Ishkyna had seen Nikandr speaking with the Landless woman inside the palotza, and then saw them embrace. It had been no perfunctory gesture, Ishkyna had said. It had been filled with desire-on the woman’s part if not Nikandr’s, she was quick to amend.
Rehada and Nikandr had apparently been quite close over the past few years. They had tried to keep their relations a secret, but there was no such thing among the aristocracy. In truth, Atiana didn’t really blame him for it. The fact that he retained a lover was no surprise at all, but to be faced with her presence in Radiskoye, to be presented with her name and a description of her dark beauty, was another thing entirely.
Mileva stared at Atiana with the expression she used when they were alone-as if she were the only sister allowed to pass moral judgment.
“Enough,” Atiana said. “If I have a mind to be alone in a city I’ve seen precious little of since I arrived, that’s my prerogative.”
“Well, we’ll be sure to keep your little secret,” Ishkyna said.
“Don’t you always?” Atiana asked.
“Always.”
After Atiana pulled on her fitted cherkesska, she was dropped off at the central square near Volgorod’s state buildings. Ishkyna and Mileva continued in the carriage toward Lady Kirelenko’s while Atiana continued on foot. When the carriage was finally out of sight, she headed to an inn near the edge of the old city that kept ponies. She bought one for the day and headed west. The buildings, many of them four stories or higher, were made of stone. That changed to curving streets and smaller brick homes that looked exactly like one another, and finally the land began to open up into farmland as it rose steadily toward the high ridge running the entire length of the island.
Atiana followed the southwesterly road and took to the grasses once she came close to the eyrie. The fewer people that saw her, the better. She saw nothing of the eyrie itself, for the bulk of it was facing toward the sea. It took her another hour of riding, but finally she came to a small set of wagon tracks that veered off the main road that led toward the small fishing village of Izhny. The wooded trail led her to the sea. An empty pier jutted out into the water of the cove. The wind was brisk, but not unpleasantly cold. The trail continued through the thickening trees and, far ahead, led to a simple, earth-covered home.
She pulled her pony to a stop as she came closer, her heart immediately beginning to race. Through the trees she saw two Maharraht heading into the woods to the west of the home. They were old, perhaps as old as Father. Both wore loose trousers tucked into leather boots. They had a tight inner robe wrapped by a wide belt of cloth, and an outer robe that trailed nearly down to their ankles. Instead of the traditional cap many of the men on the island wore, they wore turbans, with the trailing ends hanging down over their shoulders and along the front of their chests. One of them was carrying two shovels, the other a pick.
Her pony pulled at the reins. Atiana immediately loosened them and smoothed the hair along his neck-she could not afford to be heard, now of all times.
She scanned the landscape behind her. She set her gaze through the alder and ivory-skinned birch, toward Volgorod. She should let these men go. A woman had no business following men like this.
And yet this seemed too important to ignore. They had come to the very home she had seen in the aether. What connection did they have with the baby, to the hezhan that had taken her life?
She had to know.
She grasped the soulstone at her throat and closed her eyes.
Saphia.
She waited for a moment, but the only response she heard was the sound of the surf and the rustle of the wind through the trees.
Matra, I need you.
She knew the Matra might be far afield, spying on one of the other islands, or she might be deep in communion with the other Matri. Either way, it didn’t make much difference right now.
She pulled the pistol from its holster at her waist. When the men were lost from view, she tied her pony deeper into the woods and padded after them.
They were not moving quickly, and it took her little time to catch up. They walked until they reached the edge of the wood, at which point they trekked into the jumbled landscape of tall, rounded boulders that split the forest from the water. The air smelled of sea and earth, both. The tide was low, so the rocks would be slippery, but the men navigated them with ease.
Atiana kept pace until they stopped between several large boulders. The nearby surf broke white and frothy against the rocks before crashing apart into rivulets, frothing to a stop near her feet.
The older Maharraht crouched and with his eyes closed ran his hands over the rocks. There was a golden setting at the center of his brow, worked into his turban, and within the setting was a gem of jasper. A vanaqiram, then, a master of earth. Atiana had seen few in her life. Very rare were earth spirits, and rarer were those who could control them. She studied the gem closely. It was difficult to tell, as the jasper was striated and blood red in
