her.
There was a keening in the room-a long wail of pain, and it took her long moments of rocking slowly back and forth to realize that it came from her. No one else. Her. Cries of regret for a child so pure.
“I did not grieve because it was something I could not face,” she said through her sobs.
Fahroz combed her hair away from her face. “That’s right, child.” She helped Rehada to her feet, and when Rehada had composed herself to some small degree, she motioned for Atiana to take her place once more.
“Why did you come to Uyadensk?” Atiana asked.
“I came because I wished to know a place-another place-as well as I had known Nazakhov.”
“But why Uyadensk?”
Rehada shrugged. “It is as good a place as any to know.”
“By those standards, Nazakhov would be even better since you knew it so well already.”
“I will never face Nazakhov again.”
“You give it more meaning than it has,” Fahroz interrupted. “It is only an island.”
“It is a storehouse of misery.”
Fahroz shook her head. “That is why you have been here for so long, is it not? You hope that Uyadensk will replace Nazakhov, that it will heal those wounds that never properly closed and have been festering ever since.”
Rehada shivered. Fahroz had come extremely close to the mark, and it was less than comforting.“I wish to know a place and to move on with my life. Moving from island to island no longer held any allure.”
“What is the name of your daughter’s father?” Atiana asked.
“Soroush Wahad al Gatha.”
“He is Maharraht, is he not?”
Rehada nodded. “He is.”
“What do you feel toward Anuskaya?”
“Anger, and resentment.”
Her words echoed off into the immensity of the room. When all was silence, Fahroz stopped her pacing next to Atiana and faced Rehada. “Come, daughter of Shineshka.”
“I know I can never have her back, but I want in my heart for the Duchy to provide that for me. In my heart of hearts I hope to dismantle the islands, one by one. I wish to watch every single Landed man, woman, and child drown in the seas, swallowed whole, for what they have done to my child.”
“Ahya will be reborn,” Fahroz said.
“But what will she be then? Half of what she was? Less? She could have been great.”
“She will be. As will we all one day.”
Rehada wanted to stalk forward and beat the knowing look from her face. “Forgive me, daughter of Lilliah, but it is difficult at times to look beyond this life. Even more so to the one beyond that.”
“Are you Maharraht?” Atiana blurted into the ensuing silence.
Her words echoed in the chamber- aharraht, harraht, rraht.
Everything she had said up to this point had been the truth. All of it. And she had debated with herself nearly every moment since agreeing to come here and confess: would she reveal this secret? Much rode upon this one answer, and in truth it pained her to think of lying at a time when she was speaking of her daughter so intimately. It felt too much like betrayal, a thing she could live with in almost anyone. Anyone but Ahya.
But the way Atiana had spoken those words. So sharp. So demanding. She wondered whether Fahroz had asked her to speak it thus. She doubted it now. Such traits were ingrained in the aristocracy of the islands from their birth onwards. Atiana could no more escape it than Rehada could her past. And so, though it was a betrayal, she lied.
“ Nyet.”
“Are you Maharraht?” Fahroz repeated, perhaps displeased with the pause.
“ Nyet,” Rehada repeated.
A time passed where Rehada refused to move her gaze from Atiana. She did not attempt to force a certain expression, as so many people do when they lie; she simply stared and allowed some small amount of the contempt she held for this woman to show through.
Fahroz seemed appeased, for she asked Atiana to step closer. When they were close enough to touch, to hug, she said, “Now forgive her.”
This was the thing she had feared ever since her daughter’s death. She had told herself that whatever happened, she would not forget what they had done. She would not allow the Landed to be free of their responsibility in this, and in forgiving Atiana, she was doing just that. But now that she had come this far she had no choice.
“I forgive you,” Rehada said softly.
“Again.”
“I forgive you.”
Fahroz stood behind Atiana and regarded Rehada.“Do you feel her words, daughter of Radia?”
“I do not,” Atiana replied.
“I forgive you,” Rehada said, pouring as much feeling into her voice as she could.
“If you do not wish to forgive, Rehada, then perhaps we should stop this now.”
“ I forgive you.”
“Hold her,” Fahroz replied.
Rehada stepped forward and put her arms around Atiana. She tried to hug her warmly, but it was impossible. She would rather strangle her.
“Now say it again.”
Rehada did. Over and over, and she found herself tightening her hold of the Vostroman princess. As she did, as she called out those words, a memory came to her that she had not thought of for years-possibly since it had happened. Ahya, not quite six years old, was walking over a snow-swept field running her hands over the tips of the winterdead grass. Her head hung low, and her shoulders wracked rhythmically. Rehada had known all too well why she was crying. She had told Ahya a secret about her father, Soroush, who would in two months’ time be taking to the winds once more. Rehada had said that he was a man that found it difficult to love and that her mother would be her guardian until her fifteenth birthday, when she would be free to take the winds as she chose.
“He doesn’t love me?”
Rehada had smiled. “Of course he does, but perhaps not as much as he does his quest for understanding.”
Ahya had been quiet for days after that comment, and Rehada had felt terrible about it, but she refused to leave her child unprepared for her father’s departure as she had been when she was a child.
Ahya had confessed what she had said to Soroush, and Soroush had been deeply hurt. It became clear that he loved Ahya more than Rehada would have guessed, and her thoughts about his devotion to his daughter cut him deeply. He was a hard man, and he felt it was the best for her. It was his way of loving her, so that she would be prepared for the world to come, so that she would be ready to embrace the journey before her and move closer to vashaqiram.
Rehada had caught up to Ahya in the field and walked beside her as the bitterly cold breeze played among the stalks of grass.
Then suddenly Ahya had turned, tears streaming down her cheeks, and embraced her. “I’m sorry, Memma. I’m sorry.”
As they had hugged, Rehada began to understand. Ahya thought she had driven a wedge between them by telling a secret. But in truth, there was nothing to be ashamed of. It was something she should have told Soroush herself. Her daughter had been honest where she should have been, and she was deeply embarrassed over it.
“Child, stop your tears. There is nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.”
Ahya had buried her head into her shoulder and said, “Please. Please forgive me.”
Rehada had leaned her head in close to Ahya’s ear and whispered. “I forgive you.”
Rehada came out of her dream whispering those words to Atiana. She felt her own tears creeping down her cheeks and leaking, salty and hot, into the corners of her mouth.
“I forgive you,” she said one last time, to Ahya, not to Atiana.
