Atiana touched her arm.
Rehada jumped and looked down upon Atiana with a look not unlike the one she had favored the streltsi with, but then she seemed to recognize Atiana, and her face relaxed.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” Atiana whispered.
Before Rehada could respond, one of the streltsi shouted for them to lie down.
“ Nyet.” Borund’s voice. “There is no need for any such thing. They will come quietly, won’t you, sister? You and the woman, both…”
“Rehada Ulanal Shineshka will go nowhere.” Fahroz placed herself in Borund’s path. “She has done nothing, nor has Atiana Radieva Vostroma.”
Borund motioned for his men to stop.
Fahroz’s face was red and her eyes were fierce. “You come bearing weapons into an Aramahn village.”
“Atiana is a daughter of Vostroma, and she will come with us.”
“Atiana can do as she will, as can Rehada, but if they wish to stay, they will both be allowed to do so.”
Borund took one step forward. Atiana could tell by his posture alone that he was tense as catgut and might be pushed too far if Fahroz didn’t back down. “Their presence is requested by the Duke and Duchess of Vostroma.”
A handful more Aramahn stepped out of the tunnel, their faces angry. Upon seeing them, several streltsi trained their weapons upon them. Borund had a look of desperation about him, though why that was Atiana couldn’t guess.
There was no clean way out of this. Borund would not leave this place without her. She had no choice but to go with him.
“I will go,” she said simply, hoping to jar Borund out of his state of mind.
“Of course you will, sister,” he said, his attention fixed on Fahroz.
Atiana ignored him. “Fahroz, I would go with my brother.”
Fahroz nodded and waited for Rehada to give her own answer.
Rather than reply directly, Rehada moved in and embraced Atiana. “Forgive me,” she whispered, and then she stepped back to Fahroz’s side.
Atiana stared, confused. When they had hugged, she had felt, just as she had felt in the cold water of the lake, the locus of aether. It was now in Rehada’s robes, secreted away.
Perhaps Rehada saw her watching, staring at the precise location of whatever it was she had hidden. She looked uncomfortable, and she crossed her arms in front of her, feigning a chill.
It was Atiana who shivered, however. Rehada had lied to her. She knew now that whatever it was-stone or jewel or some unearthly remnant of the jalahezhan-Rehada had wanted it all along. She had wanted it before coming to the village. Before stepping into the chamber for her confession. Before lying to Atiana so completely.
She knew now what she should have known from the beginning.
She knew that Rehada was Maharraht.
CHAPTER 50
Nikandr watched as Nasim walked forward several more steps over the rubble littering the streets. His eyes were closed, as they had been since entering the city over an hour ago, but he had so far unfailingly led them deeper toward the center of Alayazhar.
Nikandr glanced up at the sun, which had already begun to descend. “We’re taking too long,” Nikandr said when Nasim had remained in the same place for an interminable amount of time.
Ashan held his hand up and whispered, “I asked for silence.”
“That was three hours ago. We are past high sun already. We will have little enough time in this tower of yours, and even less to get ourselves outside the city before the sun goes down.”
“That is something I am prepared to face.”
“And take us with you?” Pietr asked.
Ashan frowned at Pietr. “Give Nasim the time he needs.” He took two steps forward, following Nasim’s movement. “And by the fates, be silent.”
Pietr looked back the way they’d come. “My Prince, it will take us some time to regain the forest…”
“How much longer?” Nikandr asked Ashan.
“As long as it takes.”
Nasim shambled forward. They hadn’t known when they’d entered the city where they were headed, but Nikandr knew it was toward the tower, the one he’d seen in his dreams. The only trouble was they didn’t know what might lay in wait.
“They must know of our presence,” Nikandr had said when they’d first entered the city.
“Were that true,” Ashan had replied, “we would have been met long before now. As I approached this island, it felt as if it were asleep.”
“But our ship…”
Ashan had nodded. “There is no doubt that the island began to wake when we arrived. I hope that we can find Sariya before Muqallad himself rises from his slumber. We must trust to Nasim, let his memories return. He will find the way.”
Beyond the shattered husks of a nearby building, a column of smoke rose-a thin black trail weaving against a clear blue sky. Surely it was a suurahezhan, yet when Nikandr grabbed Ashan’s arm to make him aware of it, the arqesh merely glanced up and brushed his hand away.
Nasim came to a halt in the intersection of two wide streets. The trail of black smoke was shifting, coming closer. Soon the hezhan would cross their path, and Ashan was just standing there, studying Nasim, while Nikandr’s heart pounded in his chest.
“Enough,” Nikandr said. They’d already been attacked by one hezhan this day; he wasn’t about to stand idly by and allow another to find them. He threw Nasim over his shoulder and ran as quickly as he could manage down one street, out of the suurahezhan’s path.
Pietr grabbed Ashan’s arm, twisted it behind him, and forced him to follow. They hid behind a half-collapsed wall of stone. Nikandr set Nasim down and peered around the corner. The smoke, two streets up, had ceased moving. Nasim breathed rapidly, nostrils flaring, eyes closed. Somehow the boy was communing with the suurahezhan-Nikandr was sure of it.
Ashan tried to approach, but Pietr made it clear that to do so would be unwise.
Nikandr returned his attention to the street.
And his breath caught.
Standing beyond the remnants of an ornate stone fountain was not a suurahezhan, but a boy-a boy who appeared to be a few years older than Nasim. His lips were pulled back in a rictus grin, and his lips were coal black. He had no hair, nor clothes, and he was crouched like a feral animal, penis and scrotum hanging beneath the jaundiced skin of his backside. Though taut skin smoothed the valleys where his eyes once were, his head swiveled back and forth, back and forth, all the while the telltale wavering of intense heat rising from his form.
This was an akhoz, Nikandr remembered, one of the children that remained, twisted and haunted, after the sundering of Alayazhar.
The akhoz crouched lower, head twisting and turning, but ever closer to their position.
Something deep inside Nikandr-the part that fears the wild things of the night-told him how foolish it would be to draw this twisted creature’s attention.
Nasim, who had been squirming restlessly ever since they’d seen the akhoz, released a strangled cry and fought to pull away.
The akhoz snapped its head in their direction.
Nikandr picked Nasim up and sprinted way, Pietr and Ashan close behind. Weakened from the ordeals of the last several days, Nikandr had trouble moving with any great pace until a sound like the bleat of a diseased and dying goat spurred him onward.
