away. She is no longer of her body. She is of the world, no different than the clouds or the currents of the sea.
But there is something, a scent that reminds her of who she used to be. Who she is. But how can this be? How can Nikandr be among them in the aether?
It doesn’t matter. He is present, and that is enough. Through him, she can feel another. The boy. Nasim.
She is not experienced in navigating the dark, and yet she knows what she is seeing has not been noticed before-at least by the Matri. There is an imprint of Nasim in Adhiya and an echo in Erahm. He walks between worlds…
Such a thing cannot be-she knows this-and yet here it is.
And it explains much. His confusion. How else would a boy grow up when struggling to understand the very world that holds him? His pain. How could he not be torn? His attraction to Nikandr, a lodestone, a raft among the waves.
It is because of Nasim that Saphia was attacked. It is because of him that Atiana is attacked now. He has allowed the hezhan to follow-or perhaps he doesn’t even realize. Either way, they feed upon her, as they do the Matra. If she could draw him closer to Adhiya, the hezhan may not be so easily able to follow.
She pushes with all her might, as she did with the babe. She has little strength, but she feels it working. The worlds, at least in this one small place, are pushed further apart. Nasim slips toward Nikandr and toward the physical world.
And then her strength is lost.
She woke once, though she was unable to open her eyes. She lay there on the edge of sleep, on the edge of waking, for a long time, and she heard people speaking-most likely of her-but try as she might she was unable to rouse herself to wakefulness.
She dreamed of storms wracking the island. At first she thought it was Kiravashya, where she had been born and raised, but she came to realize it was Khalakovo’s largest island, Uyadensk. The storms were so fierce that they wiped the island clean. Gone was the city; gone was Palotza Radiskoye; gone was Iramanshah and the tiny fishing village of Izhny; everything was gone, and afterward it felt how the beginning of the world must have felt: pristine and full of hope.
As she had hours or days before, she woke several more times, and again she was unable to wake fully. She tried. She railed, but whenever she did she would slip backward into her dreams, and her screams of impotent rage would be directed toward Mileva or Ishkyna or Father for leaving her here.
And then the cycle would begin anew.
She shivered as something brushed the skin along her forearm. She had difficulty opening her eyes, but when she saw who sat next to her bed, her lethargy faded.
“Matra,” Atiana said, pulling herself up in her bed. She took in the room, realizing she had been returned to her cell deep beneath the palotza.
Saphia studied her with sharp eyes. Her skin was pink and healthy. She leaned to one side in her chair, perhaps to ease her pain, but otherwise she seemed more hale than she’d been in years. “Are you well, child?” she asked. Her voice was not scratchy, an indication that she had been awake and free of the aether for some time.
“I am tired. Nothing more. May I ask what news?”
“The blockade continues. My husband has been treating with your father, to no avail.”
Atiana shook her head. “He won’t back down, not with Bolgravya and Dhalingrad pushing him so, but neither will he go to war over me.”
“Over you, nyet, but there is more in the balance. The failed abduction of Nasim. The wounded and dead. But more than anything, the reasons behind your marriage. We are all of us in trouble, and I think it strikes your father worst of all.”
Not wishing to admit the truth of it, Atiana didn’t respond.
“You don’t have to reply-I know how dire the situation is on Vostroma-but now that a wall has been erected between north and south, it will be difficult to tear down.”
“Has my father asked of me?”
“Through your mother he has demanded your return, and for the death of the Grand Duke he has asked for the ships that were promised as well as the alabaster.”
Atiana couldn’t help but chuckle ruefully. “For the good of Bolgravya, of course.”
“Of course.”
She wanted to ask if her father had asked of her well-being, but she knew better. She was still-no matter how well the Khalakovos might be treating her-in the awkward position of political prisoner, and Father was not a man who would show any outward signs of concern or affection, even for his daughter, even now, and though it burned, Atiana knew he was right.
Saphia drew in a deep breath. “I came to speak with you of your time in the dark.”
Atiana’s memories were faint, nearly to the point of forgetting them altogether, but she was getting better at stitching her time in the dark together. She worked backward from the end, telling Saphia her story in bits and pieces. As she did, the entirety of her memories returned.
Saphia considered her words. “Nasim’s hold on me seemed no harder for him than toying with a mouse. And in the end, when I was released, I don’t believe he understood what he’d done. He seemed to forget me in as little time as it had taken to seize me.”
Atiana paused, Saphia’s words reminding her of those final moments with Nasim. “There was something more…”
Saphia’s gaze sharpened. “Go on.”
“I don’t know whether you felt it, Matra, but Nasim… He walks between worlds.”
“What do you mean?” Saphia’s words were clipped.
“He lives in Erahm and Adhiya, both. I felt it when I followed the trail from you to him. It is why he is such a troubled child. I believe it is why he didn’t understand what he’d done to you, and why he forgot you so quickly. He thinks you and I are as ephemeral as the hezhan.”
Saphia frowned. Her gaze became distant, perhaps reliving the horror of the past week in her mind, but then she seemed to focus once more on Atiana. “How did you secure my release?”
“I pushed on the walls of the aether.”
“Pushed?”
“I know no other way to explain it. I felt the walls close in around him, just like with the babe in Izhny, just like in Iramanshah when you were…”
“When I was what?”
Atiana stared, trying desperately to hide her fear.
Saphia pulled herself higher in her chair, staring down at Atiana with cold, piercing eyes. “When I was what?”
“When you were preparing to assume the boy.”
As Atiana laid there, she felt as if Saphia could lay her bare with little more than her will and a cold stare. “You understand, Atiana”-she let the words fall between them like a gauntlet-“it would be unwise to repeat such a thing…”
“I do, Matra.”
“The damage it could cause Khalakovo is immeasurable.”
“Of course, Matra. I would never think of mentioning it.”
“Yet you did, here, with me.”
“Of course. It was something you needed to know.”
Her voice lost some of its edge. “You were speaking of Iramanshah.”
“ Da,” Atiana said, pausing to regain her composure. “I’ve thought on it much. The narrowing is related to all of these events. If I could take the dark once more, knowing what I know now, I’m sure I could find more.”
“Knowing what you know now…”
“ Da, Matra.”
“ Nyet. Rest. Regain your strength. When that is done, we will speak again of the dark.”
She rang a bell sitting on the table next to her, a signal that Atiana’s audience was at an end. Atiana knew
