some ways to go yet. She had traveled the swamp many times, but the last had been some years ago, and she was beginning to doubt her memory. She should have come across the island by now.
Well used to the balance of the thin raft, she drew her pole up from the putrid water and allowed it to slip through her hands until striking bottom. She used it to propel the raft through a narrow artery that seemed familiar.
In the distance, the boom of cannon fire played across the swamp. It had been four days since the attack on the palotza. The traitor dukes had been making these not-so-subtle reminders of their presence ever since their retreat from Radiskoye and the commencement of the blockade. It had taken several days for word to trickle down to Volgorod. The fight had been vicious-duke attacking duke as well as Maharraht. Rehada knew that Soroush had been after Nasim and Nasim alone, but some claimed that the traitor dukes had hired the Maharraht as mercenaries. Others believed they had come to finish what they’d started with the Grand Duke.
Some rumors, spread by Radiskoye, said that all the Maharraht had been killed, the all out attack an indication, the palotza claimed, of their growing desperation. Others spoke of another hezhan that had been summoned. The people of Volgorod, already tired and hungry, were becoming fearful over what this might mean. With the blockade now in full effect, preventing aid from coming in from Yrstanla or the outlying Duchies, unrest was threatening to spill over into all-out revolt.
Rehada had feared that Soroush’s body would be counted among the dead. Later she heard that some of the Maharraht had escaped, and she knew in her heart that he had not died, but her relief soon gave way to fears over what Soroush would do to her in retribution. She had stolen Atiana away from him, and there had been no time to explain. She could only hope that he would listen to reason when she saw him again. And see him she must. Allowing him to come to her was not an option; she must seek him out.
He hadn’t shared where he and the Maharraht had hidden themselves, but when he had come to her after Malekh’s hanging, she had smelled the rot of vegetation and noticed on his boots the remains of a bright green algae that only grew in the lowland swamps.
Relief washed through her when, shortly after midday, she came to a broad bank of land. It was the tip of a long island, one of the largest in the swamp and the only one that had enough stone to form natural caves.
She pulled the raft up onto the bank and headed inland, warding the tall grasses away from her body as she went, careful to avoid the webs of the bright yellow spiders. She was obvious in her approach; she would be watched, and she would not wish the guards to kill her before they knew who she was.
As she was heading toward a rise, where the first of the caves would be, a Maharraht dropped down from a massive cypress. He was young, no more than fourteen, as were most that joined the Maharraht these days.
He didn’t appear threatening. He merely pointed toward the caves and said, “He hoped you would come.”
He led her to a camp that was set up beneath a group of ancient willows. A dozen Maharraht were gathered around a small fire, one of them cooking flatbread over a baking stone. Several were eating, others conversing. They looked thin, these men, emaciated, but their eyes were sharp, and none of them looked defeated.
They all stopped what they were doing as she approached. Their expressions were not unkind, but neither were they charitable. She nodded to them, and most bowed their heads in return.
Her young guide took her to the edge of a hillock. Beyond a stand of grasses, set into a face of exposed rock, was a hole that led into the earth. He motioned to it, then turned and left.
Rehada got onto hands and knees and crawled into the hole. Once she was inside, the temperature dropped. For a while the way ahead was pitch dark, but then her eyes adjusted and she saw faint light up ahead. She heard words being spoken, too soft to distinguish, and they stopped as she came near.
She reached a small, natural cavern lit by a glowing pink stone, a siraj, set onto a ledge. Her fears had eased when the boy had told her she was expected, but when she saw Soroush lying there in the cavern, wounded, all of them returned in a rush. He lay on a blanket padded by folded grasses. One thigh was wrapped in bandages dark with dried blood. His head was propped up by a rolled blanket. He was watching her, but the effort of contorting his neck seemed to cause him pain, and he rolled his head back until he was staring at the roof of the cavern.
Bersuq sat cross-legged nearby, as did another-an old, barrel-chested man with as much gray hair poking out from under his cap as there was black. His name was Muwas. Rehada had met him when she was twelve. He had been leaner then, but she recalled his stocky frame and the odd way he waddled when he walked.
They remained seated, staring at her as she approached.
“Leave us,” Soroush said.
Muwas stood and bowed his head to Rehada before stepping past her. Bersuq, however, gave Rehada a severe expression, weighing her.
“Go,” Soroush repeated.
Bersuq, silent as the earth, stepped past her, leaving the air scented with his heavy musk.
Rehada kneeled and placed a long, tender kiss on his forehead. “What happened?”
“I took a musket shot to the leg and passed out as Bersuq was taking me to safety. I nearly died in the waters below the palotza before Muwas found me and pulled me to the boat.”
“And Nasim?”
Soroush shook his head. “We nearly had him, but he escaped with Ashan. Your Prince left in a ship shortly after to chase him down.”
“He is not my Prince.”
“As you say.”
“Will you have them followed?”
He considered for a time, his chest rising and falling. “I don’t think it will be necessary. Ashan goes to Ghayavand, and if the fates are kind, he will return here with Nasim.”
“What makes you think he won’t run?”
“Because Ashan cares too much. If he can unlock Nasim’s secrets, he will return to close the rift. And if that happens, those secrets will be unlocked for us as well.”
“And if we don’t find him?”
“Then the fates have chosen our course. Now tell me”-he turned his head with obvious discomfort-“for I cannot think of an answer that will appease Bersuq. Why did you take the woman?”
“She is Princess Atiana Vostroma. Nikandr’s bride.”
Soroush smiled, and then laughed. “And you saved her?”
“I didn’t know if she had been followed. She saw little enough that the Landed didn’t already know. It seemed unwise to beg the entire Duchy of Vostroma-not to mention Khalakovo-to come hunting after us.”
He stared into her eyes, considering her words, but then he relaxed into the roll beneath his neck. “There have been times when I’ve thought the fates were set against us, but then something like this happens, and it renews my faith.”
“What do you mean?”
“Open the satchel there.”
He motioned to the other side of the fire, where Bersuq had been sitting. She upended the soft leather satchel, and three stones poured out onto the woolen blanket: jasper, alabaster, and tourmaline. The jasper must have come from the beach when the vanahezhan had been summoned, and the tourmaline, of course, she had liberated herself. She stared at the stone of alabaster, stopping just short of touching it. She knew from Soroush that this had been liberated when the havahezhan had been summoned. It had been the one to attack Nikandr.
Soroush was watching her carefully. “I have been blessed, I think, to be with Nasim for as long as I have. He did not mean to, but he taught me many things. It is because of him that I can sense the rifts, the places where the hezhan can cross. It is because of him that I know of the stones. And I’ve also been able to sense, starting with young Khalakovo on his ship, those souls that are brightest, that will attract the hezhan. We have known that the Landed are aligned with the hezhan, as we are. What we didn’t know was how hungry the hezhan would be for them. Nikandr. Stasa Bolgravya. The babe taken by the wasting. And now Atiana Vostroma.”
Rehada’s head jerked back. “Atiana?”
“She is of water. Azurite. It is she that will bring the fourth stone to us.”
“But how?”
“By drowning her, Rehada. There is one place on the island where the veil is so thin that her death is all it
