Late on the third night, Atiana heard the door to her cell being opened. She woke, groggy, to find Yvanna standing at the door.
“The Matra?” Atiana asked.
Yvanna nodded. “She is gravely ill. Please, if you care for her at all, you will come.”
“What of Victania?”
“She hasn’t slept properly in weeks, but she sleeps now. We won’t be disturbed.”
“Then I will come.” She dressed and together they moved quickly and quietly down the hall. The strelet and the gaoler were gone, and Atiana asked no questions. “What can I do?” she asked as they took the stairs up.
“Be quiet,” Yvanna whispered.
Yvanna stopped at a landing and pressed something behind a marble statue of a rearing horse. The wall behind it swung inward, and soon they were taking one of the tunnels that threaded its way through the interior of Radiskoye. They continued and took a steep set of stairs downward, and then another set upward before Yvanna spoke again.
“Her breathing is shallow. There are times when she moans and we think she’s ready to wake, but she does not. Each time, she returns to her slumber, weaker than before. I fear she will live only a day or two more if this continues.”
“And you believe the solution to this lies in the aether?”
“It must be so. I have tried to take the dark, but each time it becomes more painful, and I see little or nothing. Victania managed to take the dark for nearly an hour, but she was unable to find her.”
“What do you mean, unable to find her?”
“That is all she said.”
They reached a fork, where Yvanna turned left. The draft in the tunnel became markedly stronger, chilling Atiana’s skin. The tunnel here was cut directly from the rock, the smooth whorls in the stone indicative of an Aramahn mason’s hand.
“Has there been news from my father?” Atiana asked.
“Little. With no Matra, negotiations have been slow, but the Lord Duke has spoken with your father.”
“Has he asked of me?”
“I don’t know-My Lord Father has not deigned to share it with me-but do not worry. As long as the blockade continues and we aren’t attacked, I imagine your release becomes more and more a likelihood.”
Atiana had resigned herself to living here on Khalakovo as Nikandr’s bride, but these last few days had been an entirely different matter. She felt abandoned. Forgotten. Betrayed. Not by Father, but by Ishkyna and Mileva.
She had thought long and hard on how such a thing could have happened, and the only answer was that they had told Father that all was well, that Atiana would be safely away with the rest of the family.
Yvanna stopped suddenly.
“What is it?”
“Be quiet!” Yvanna whispered.
Far ahead, a dim light shone in the tunnel. Yvanna waited, perhaps wondering-as Atiana was-who was coming to meet them.
Atiana took a step back, preparing to flee.
“Stay where you are,” Yvanna said. “It’s only Olgana.”
The pace at which the light was approaching quickened, and a voice filtered up to them. “Lady Yvanna, please come quickly!”
Yvanna rushed down the hallway, perhaps feeling the same sense of dread that was building within Atiana. Olgana’s face became visible as they approached. She looked like she feared for her life… Or someone else’s…
“What is it, Olgana?”
She swallowed hard, her chest heaving like an overworked bellows. “It’s the Matra, Yvanna. I think she’s dead.”
CHAPTER 38
“Dead?” Yvanna asked.
“Please, hurry!”
They rushed down the tunnel, practically running. They took the slope as fast as they could handle, and several times on their harrowing run Atiana nearly tripped. When they came at last to the end, the tunnel opened up into a long hallway-impossibly tall and intricately decorated by Aramahn hands. They stepped out from behind a statue of a stout man wearing a thick coat and cloak, but they did not pause to close it. They continued down a hall with several shorter spurs diverting from it. Among each of these were glowing stones set into ornate marble plaques. They had come to Radiskoye’s mausoleum, where the soulstones of those dead but not forgotten were mounted.
They hurried to the end, where two large doors lay open. They were into the stairwell that lay deep beneath the spire and into the drowning chamber moments later. Far across the room lay a bed, and in it-illuminated dimly by the fire in the hearth-was the Matra.
They reached her side, all of them breathing heavily. Olgana moved to the other side of the bed and stroked the Matra’s hair as Yvanna put two fingers to the pulse point of her neck. Yvanna closed her eyes and waited. Long moments passed, certainly long enough for Yvanna to discover the truth of the matter. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she opened her eyes. She sniffed several times, composing herself before speaking. “The Matra is dead.”
Olgana opened the Matra’s robe and pulled from its recesses her soulstone. Yvanna gasped. The chalcedony stone was dark. Saphia’s had always been brilliant, brighter than any Atiana had seen, including her own mother, who had been treading the aether nearly as long as Saphia had. But there had been the briefest of flashes when Olgana had touched the setting.
Yvanna seemed not to notice, however. “It cannot be…”
“The stone,” Atiana said breathlessly. “Did you not see it?”
“See what?”
“When first you touched it, it glowed, however briefly.” Atiana stepped closer, opening her mind to the aether, as she supposed Saphia did while she was outside of the drowning basin. She passed her hands over the gem, feeling nothing at first, but when her fingers brushed its surface, she felt the cool touch against her skin, like a ripple in an underground lake.
“I see nothing,” Yvanna stated flatly.
“It is there.” Atiana still had the stone, and she was trying desperately to keep her mind open for any small sign, but the harder she tried, the more numb and clumsy her senses seemed to become. “And there will be more to see in the aether.”
Olgana looked to Yvanna, who looked nervously down at Saphia. She seemed ready to send Atiana back to her cell, perhaps afraid of what it might mean if Atiana were caught, Yvanna having freed her.
But then she looked up to Atiana, perhaps realizing how vulnerable all of them were. She needed Atiana, and she knew it. After taking a deep breath, she nodded to Olgana in response.
Atiana moved to the drowning basin and undressed as Olgana prepared the jar of goat fat. Atiana was rubbed down hastily but efficiently, and then Olgana moved to the lever that allowed the chill mountain water into the sluice.
Water crept up the sides of the drowning basin while Atiana took deep, measured breaths. She had nearly resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t be taking the dark, and now that she found herself here, about to do just that, she felt unprepared, unbalanced. But there was nothing for it.
When it was high enough, she stepped into the bone-chilling water and lay down before her fears had a chance to take hold. Olgana inserted the breathing tube. Atiana stared into Olgana’s eyes, hoping she hadn’t promised too much. But Olgana seemed to understand, for she leaned over and kissed the crown of her head, and then lowered Atiana into the water.
