Kirill angled his pistol lower, toward Rehada’s legs, and fired. The shot echoed in the cramped space as the strelet holding Rehada screamed. He tightened his grip around Rehada’s neck, favoring his right side.
“I said you’ll not be taking them.”
The men behind him fanned out. The one with the musket raised his weapon to his shoulder and sighted along the length of it. Rehada was reasonably sure he was aiming at the strelet’s head, but she was not so sure of his aim, nor of the strelet’s reaction if he sensed the man was about to fire.
“That one you can have,” the strelet holding Atiana said, motioning to Rehada, “but this one will be coming with us.”
Kirill paused at this, studying Rehada and Atiana in turn, but then he shook his head. “ Nyet — ”
Before he’d even finished speaking, the strelet fired.
One burst of red near the crown of his head, and the man with the musket was down.
The other pistolman fired, but Atiana’s man had shoved her to one side and was already rolling away. He was back up on his feet in a flash, running forward holding a short, gleaming blade he’d pulled out from a leg sheath beneath his cherkesska. The pistolman raised his arm to defend himself, but the strelet thrust beneath the other man’s guard and ran him through just below the ribcage.
He pulled his weapon free as the other strelet, hampered by his bloody right leg, joined him. They fought fiercely, efficiently. Another of the peasants dropped, and another, until there were only four left to stand against them.
Rehada was about to grab for Atiana when another shot rang out, louder than the others.
Kirill was holding the smoking musket. A strelet fell to his knees, a hole in the center of his cherkesska darkening with blood. The three other men, perhaps emboldened, stormed the lone remaining strelet. Had he not been wounded, he might have won-and as it stood, he delivered a savage cut to one man’s leg, and pierced another man’s gut-but in the end he was taken down from a blow to the head by a fist-sized rock, thrown by the man furthest away. He fell, eyes wide, unresponsive.
The men turned toward Rehada and Atiana.
“Let us be,” Rehada said.
Kirill grinned. “And what kind of fool would I be”-he pointed to Atiana-“if I let a woman of royal blood slip through my hands?”
“I am not royal,” Atiana said, her eyes wild.
“Blonde hair? Fair skin and fairer hands? Promising to make the soldiers rich? Nyet. You’re royal or I’m an old goat.” He kneeled and began searching the coat of the nearest strelet. “Take them.”
Rehada was nearly ready to run when she felt something press against her legs and groin and chest and neck. She felt it against her skin, along her scalp as her hair was tugged, along her whole body as the air around her seemed to shift.
And then an almighty boom shook the city. The low layer of darkening clouds glowed yellow, then orange, then red. The sound-a conflagration of unimaginable dimensions-continued. A cloud, darker and thicker than the clouds above, rose from the north, from the bridge that had been teeming with the peasant mob and barrels of gunpowder. The cloud rose higher, roiling up until it was caught in the wind. It began drifting eastward toward the sea as the sounds of the explosion finally fell away, replaced with the crackle of fire and human cries of pain and shouts for help.
“Go and see,” Kirill said. “I’ll meet you.”
From the corner of her eye, Rehada saw a dark form filling a doorway. Standing there was a burly man with brown hair and a thick beard. Hidden as he was, only Rehada could see him. He raised one hand to his lips, and then leaned forward until he could see Kirill and the other-the youngest who had remained behind. When he saw that they weren’t looking, that they were concerned with little except their men who were just now walking out of sight, he slipped quietly from the doorway, allowing a black bag to snake down from his left hand. The heft of it made it clear that it was weighted-by sand, perhaps, or small stones.
Quick as summer rain, he rushed forward and swung the bag high in the air. It came crashing down on the crown of the young man’s head. He dropped to the ground immediately. Their savior spun, dodging as Kirill swung the butt of the musket at him. He slipped in around Kirill’s guard and snaked the cloth bag around his neck.
Kirill’s face went red. The sound of his gurgling filled air, barely discernible against the backdrop of the misery at the bridge.
Kirill slumped, and the burly man lowered him down, holding tight until there was no longer any movement coming from the old man.
When he was done, he stood and secreted the bag into his waist-length coat as if it had never existed.
“Quickly,” he said, motioning to his doorway, which still stood open.
Rehada and Atiana stood their ground.
“You’ll not want to be out tonight,” he said, motioning toward the pillar of smoke.
Atiana stared into Rehada’s eyes while shaking her head, the gesture barely noticeable.
“Not everyone sides with the mob,” he said. “My wife, ancients rest her soul, was Vostroman. And I served my time in the guard.” He paused as another, smaller explosion fell over the city. “But do as you wish.” He turned and left, walking through his door and taking a flight of stairs upward.
Atiana looked fearful, echoing Rehada’s own feelings. She had never seen a city in such turmoil, on the islands or anywhere else. The man was right, Rehada decided. They risked death by wandering the streets, and her own home was no longer safe.
Together, they took the stairs up to a simple two-room home. The man was sitting on a rocking chair by the window. The shades were drawn, but every so often he would move one aside and peer out into the night. He appeared to be forty. His shoulders were wide, his hands huge, and with his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, showing thick forearms, he looked like he could pick either of them up with only one arm.
A low fire burned in a fireplace along one wall. Rehada relished the warmth, wishing she could bond with a spirit here and now.
“This night of all nights, what are two women like you doing out?”
Atiana sat on a stool near the hearth, warming her shaking hands, while Rehada settled herself into a creaky wooden chair. Neither answered. They couldn’t. Any sort of answer would do him no good, and would probably put him in more danger if anyone were to find out where they had sheltered for the night.
“That’s probably best,” he said, nodding. “Sleep.” He pointed to an open door. “I’ll wake you before the sun’s up.”
“Thank you,” Atiana said.
A nod was his only reply.
In the morning, he knocked on their door, and they rose and left without ever learning his name.
CHAPTER 43
“Land ahead,” Udra said as she stared over the bow.
Nikandr scanned the horizon and saw an island-perhaps twenty leagues long-so green it looked like an emerald jewel against the sapphire glass of the sea.
“It is Ghayavand,” Nikandr said, remembering it from his dreams.
Ashan’s skiff, less than a league ahead, began to descend. The island loomed much larger now, and for a moment the skiff was lost among the darker colors of the island’s forests. Nikandr felt uncomfortable following so closely. Ashan had had his way with them, but that didn’t mean it had to be so now, here at the end.
“Take us around the island,” he said to Jahalan and Udra. “I would have a look before we see what Ashan has in store.”
Jahalan nodded and moved toward the mainmast, but before he could reach it he reeled and doubled over, grabbing his gut as he fell to the deck. The same thing happened to Udra.
Nikandr kneeled and helped Udra onto her back. “What is it?”
Jahalan was shaking his head back and forth violently, and it was then that Nikandr realized: the alabaster gem within the circlet of white gold no longer held any of the luster it had only moments ago. Somehow the bond
