conscious of the shaking in her hands and balled them into fists to cover it, but that might be interpreted by Fahroz as disobedience or lack of acceptance and so she relaxed them and simply hoped that Atiana wouldn’t notice.
She did, though. Atiana glanced down, and her face softened as if she were trying to comfort a cowardly child afraid of storm clouds and thunder. It made Rehada want to gouge her eyes from her face.
Fahroz had chosen for the confession one of the largest rooms in Iramanshah, a hall normally used for the immense meals during the solstice festivals, but this day it was entirely empty, the trestles and chairs stored away, leaving the three of them small and insignificant at its center. It was not something that would normally give Rehada pause, but this day it made her feel small, smaller than she had felt in a long, long time.
“Are you prepared to continue?” Fahroz asked in Anuskayan, her voice echoing in the immensity of the room.
“I am.” Those two simple words felt foul on her tongue. She hated that she was forced to speak in their language.
“Then tell the Lady Vostroma what you are confessing.”
“A hatred for the family Bolgravya.”
Her voice echoed away slowly as Atiana stared and Fahroz paced a circle around them.
Fahroz stopped for a moment while she was within Rehada’s periphery. “Come, Rehada…”
“A hatred for the Grand Duchy.”
Fahroz resumed her pacing. “For whom?”
Rehada closed her eyes and shook her head, but she opened them again immediately. “A hatred for the Landed.” “And why do you hold hatred?”
“Because of the death of my daughter.”
“Deaths happen every day, daughter of Shineshka. Why would this one, even though it was your daughter’s, cause anger?”
“Because she was murdered unjustly by the streltsi of Nazakhov.”
“Murdered…”
“ Da, murdered!”
“Tell Lady Vostroma what happened.”
Atiana had been prepared. She had been told, as would anyone that was to play the part of the witness, to stand still, to accept what was being told as the truth, and to speak only when spoken to. But her oh-so- sympathetic face spoke volumes, and it felt as if she were scoffing at a covenant that had been in place for eons-yet another affront the Landed would someday be held accountable for.
Rehada spoke of that day in cold terms, giving Atiana the facts, how she’d left Ahya with friends, how she’d returned to find her burning body among the wreckage of the home she’d left only hours before, but as she spoke it was not those images that played through her mind but the sights and sounds of the mountain where she had taken breath. The day had been cool, pleasant. The sky had held few clouds, but those that were present scudded across the sky, sending shadows to play over the landscape like trumpeting heralds. The wind had been brisk. It had brought a scent of Lion’s Foot-the pale, late-blooming flowers that grew along the highest ranges of the southern islands. She had felt, during those hours of meditation, as though she had come to know Nazakhov deeply, as though, like the bond between mother and daughter, she was a part of it and it was a part of her. It had been exhilarating, for this had never happened to her before. It had been something that every Aramahn hoped to find but few managed in their lifetimes.
But here Rehada had discovered the weight of an island upon her shoulders. She wondered when she came down from that mountain whether any such thing could really happen. It seemed that it had all been a figment, a self-fulfilling delusion, a trick of the mind perpetrated consciously by the breath-stealing air of the tallest mountain in Bolgravya. It must be so, for what else could explain her apparent oneness with her environment and her complete inability to sense that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong with her child, her blood, her one and truest love?
As she had come to rest before that house-the one that had been burned to the ground-she had stared at the burned skeleton that had been her daughter. Her precious child had been ripped from her world by the acts of the Maharraht who had been hiding there, the prevailing attitude of the Landed for the ruthless acts committed by them, but mostly-she had no doubt in her mind-by the overriding greed of the Landed aristocracy. It was a greed that had pushed them to claw for every scrap of land in the sea, and it had done so for so long that they could no longer see that their acts would one day instill and reinforce the resistance that they hoped so fervently to root out.
Perhaps Rehada’s voice contained more venom than she had realized. She had expected Atiana to soften even further, to paste a look upon her face that would force Rehada to claw at her, if only to remove the expression from that white skin for a moment or two. But instead Atiana was nearly emotionless, and then, in increments, her face hardened, as if she condoned the actions of the streltsi that day, as if she would have ordered the very same thing had she held the gavel of fate in her hand. Strangely, this did not upset Rehada in the least. It felt as though things had returned to balance-Atiana the oppressor, she the oppressed-and it allowed Rehada to complete her story to Fahroz’s satisfaction.
“What did you do after you discovered your daughter dead?”Atiana asked. Fahroz had prepared Atiana to ask certain questions at certain times, but still, Rehada was startled by her words.
“I left that very night and traveled Erahm another full circuit before landing on Uyadensk.”
“You didn’t see your daughter buried?” Atiana asked.
Rehada smiled the way she would for a child. “She had gone. Her funeral pyre had already burned whether I liked it or not.”
Atiana’s face pursed. “I do not question your judgment-I know the ways of the Aramahn are not my own-I only wondered why you would not grieve over your child.”
“I grieve as I grieve!”
Fahroz stopped near Rehada’s side, her arms across her chest. “A question was posed.”
Rehada shook her head. “I cannot do this.”
“You cannot even speak of your child?”
“Not to her. Nyet.”
Fahroz stared at her for a long time, hoping Rehada would change her mind. But she would not. “You leave me no choice.”
Fahroz strode toward the doors to Rehada’s left. As her soft footsteps faded, a vision of Ahya leaping over the edge of a skiff came to Rehada. It had happened when they’d reached Nazakhov. Both of them had been in good spirits. Her hair trailed behind her as she ran ahead to the edge of the nearby cliff and looked down upon the ocean and the city of Bastrozna. Rehada had come to her side and held her tight to her hip as the wind tugged at their hair and their ankle-length robes. “Will Father meet us here?” Ahya had asked. Rehada had smiled. “ Neh, child. Not here.” “Where?” “The next island. Or the one beyond that. I do not know.” “Will you teach me to touch Adhiya?”
“You are too young, yet.”
Ahya had looked up at her with those bright green eyes. Her face was sad, but resigned. “You are always holding me back.”
Rehada had laughed at the notion-a child of six complaining that she could not learn as an adult. Rehada had done the same to her own mother, but the difference here was how close to right Ahya was. She was very strong. Rehada had known it for several years, ever since she had noticed the spirits with which Rehada had been communing. She had felt them as a girl of twelve would have trouble doing, and she had been only five.
When she had come down from the mountain that day, she had decided that she would begin Ahya’s training. Perhaps not that day; perhaps not in a month; but soon.
How had she forgotten such a thing? She had remembered Ahya’s burgeoning abilities-that had always been a thing of pride-but she had completely forgotten, until the point where Fahroz began walking away, that she had been ready to walk with her daughter toward a higher consciousness.
The answer came almost as quickly as had the question: the pain in thinking of how her daughter’s promise had been snuffed from the world had eclipsed many things. It had been too painful to consider, and so she had buried it, hoping it would never resurface again.
Suddenly she realized that she was on the ground, and that Atiana and Fahroz were kneeling next to
