“Enough!” Nikandr said.
Borund set him down as the cheering finally began to subside.
“Set sails, men. Let’s go home.”
The crew did so, and though at first they did not sail smartly, the master soon brought them in line with his booming voice while Gravlos steered for the shipyard.
Nikandr, meanwhile, moved to the gunwale and scanned the island below for some small sign of the skiff. There could be no doubt that they had been Maharraht. What wasn’t clear was the purpose behind their attack. The Gorovna might have represented a juicy prize had they been able to take it-even juicier with Nikandr and Borund aboard-but in attacking they had also announced their presence. Why settle for two princes when Council was upon them? Why not wait for the ships of the incoming dukes?
Nikandr continued searching for a long while-both for the answers to his questions and for the escaped men- but as he had feared, he found neither.
High within Palotza Radiskoye, the setting sun angled in through deeply recessed windows. It fell upon a tall black rook, which unlike the golden band around its ankle or the silver perch upon which it stood, seemed to absorb the light completely, making it black as night in the dying light of day. It did not preen nor move along its perch, but instead studied Nikandr with an intelligent gleam in its eye. It was Mother’s favorite, Yrfa, the one she inhabited most often, though whether this was due to some form of affinity or because the bird happened to be the easiest to assume, he didn’t know.
“You sensed nothing?” Nikandr asked.
“Nothing,” the rook replied, “until the hezhan had entered this world.” The words, though spoken through a primitive tool, had the cadence and inflection of his mother’s voice.
A gold chain swung lazily from Nikandr’s hand in time with the beating of his heart. Hanging from the end of the chain was his soulstone pendant-still darkened, an effect that had proved all too permanent. He pressed his fingers to his chest, recalling the sharp pressure as he was blacking out. “How could they have done such a thing?”
“There was a similar occurrence when I was still young to the ways of the aether. Four years into the Great Drought, a havahezhan crossed. It was two days after the equinox, and harvest was still in full celebration in Izhny. It headed straight for the festival grounds. It ripped three children limb from limb before vanishing.”
Nikandr shivered, wondering if the hezhan had been about to do the same to him. He rubbed the smooth surface of the stone, barely able to sense the cracks. It had been given to him at birth; since his blooding day he had never been parted from it. It had held the tale of his life, his essence; now, he didn’t know whether his legacy had been tarnished, or worse, wiped away altogether. Even damaged as it was, the stone would one day be placed in the family’s mausoleum beneath the palotza. It was something he-like any member of a royal family-looked forward to leaving behind when he died. He had imagined it would be a grand stone, one that would outshine all of those around it, but now… Now he would be leaving behind a shadow, a silhouette, and it shamed him that he had allowed such a thing to happen.
There was one small consolation-he had feared that the stone and the abilities it granted had been permanently damaged, but when he had returned to Radiskoye he found that he could sense Saphia, his mother, and she in turn could sense him. He had no doubts, however, that when he traveled beyond a certain distance their mutual bond would attenuate and then vanish altogether.
“Why only children?” Nikandr asked.
“I cannot say. The hezhan are drawn to certain people, perhaps as they are drawn to the Aramahn. But that spirit, even though it had fully crossed, appeared dim to me, as if I were looking through a pane of dusty glass. The hezhan that crossed today, I saw it as bright as a full moon against the midnight sky.”
“You were young then. Inexperienced.”
The rook’s head dipped and craned upward. “ Da, but I do not think that was the cause. Things have been strange these last few years, Nischka. The fishing, the fields, the game-all struck by the blight longer and harder than we could have imagined. And at the same time the wasting grows worse. Perhaps this crossing is but another facet of the same jewel.”
Nikandr stared levelly at the rook, wondering if she had guessed his mind. He suspected that the hezhan attacked him because of the disease. After all, there were others on the ship with soulstones. Why not them? He alone had the wasting, and his symptoms had intensified the moment the hezhan had been summoned. There must be some sort of connection. But he could not voice his concerns no matter how burning they might be. His shame at hiding the disease for so long was too great.
The door opened, and in stepped his father, Iaros. He wore an embroidered kaftan the color of emeralds that ran down to his ankles. The tips of his silk slippers poked out from beneath the hem. His beard hung down to his chest and, like his hair, had only a token amount of the brown color that had not long ago been dominant. His soulstone, glowing faintly beneath his beard, seemed mocking.
Father nodded in greeting and paced over to the perch, holding out one finger. The rook ran its beak along his finger several times, and then he smoothed down the rook’s breast feathers.
These signs of affection were reserved for Mother; there were none for Nikandr as he stared down gravely. “The ship is in bad shape, Nischka.”
“There was nothing I could have done.”
“You could have stayed the course given to you.”
“I told you-”
“ Da, Borund requested that you shorten the tour, no doubt so you could go drinking in Volgorod. Council is being held on Khalakovo, if you’ll recall, and the Gorovna is still our property until your wedding day.”
“We might not have found the Maharraht.”
“You confuse the relationship. It was they that found you.”
“How could they have known?”
“Stop being so naive, Nikandr. They have spies, here and everywhere else. The Gorovna’s maiden voyage has been common knowledge in two duchies for more than a season. Now Gravlos tells me it will be weeks before repairs are completed.”
“I don’t think they were spies.” Nikandr stood and looked out through the nearby windows to the cloudy sky beyond. To the west, less than a league away from where he stood, one of Khalakovo’s most powerful warships, watching for the Maharraht, slid into a low bank of clouds and was lost from view. In the forest below, Jahalan was at the site of the hezhan’s crossing, examining it for any evidence that might prove useful. “I think they chose the location for a particular reason.”
“What reason might that be?”
Nikandr shrugged. “That’s what I mean to find out.” He pulled the necklace over his head and made to leave.
“Do not show that stone openly.”
“Why?” Nikandr asked, disliking the way he had said that stone.
“Zhabyn is ready to bolt at the first sign of weakness. He’s looking for excuses to demand more out of your wedding or to call it off. We can afford neither.”
“I have always worn my stone openly.”
“And there are plenty who don’t. I trust you’ll be able to explain it away to anyone bold enough to speak of it. Now go. Your mother and I have much to discuss.”
Nikandr left, feeling like a boy dismissed from dinner. There was sense in his father’s words, but when he tucked the pendant inside his shirt and felt the chain tickle his skin as it settled into place, the stone felt weighty, obscene, as if the sign of a coward had now been hung around his neck.
CHAPTER 4
The next day a bitterly cold snowstorm swept over the islands, leaving behind a cheerless sun and weather that drew warmth from the very marrow of the bones. Wind howled among the cobblestone streets of Old Volgorod, lifting the dusting of snow and creating whorls and eddies among the meager crowd that had gathered to watch the
