knew not what.
“Say it, Atiana.”
“I have-” She swallowed and tried again. “I have news.” As she spoke these words, she raised her chin so that they could see one another eye-to-eye. It was premeditated, something done to give her the confidence she lacked to broach this new subject-or so it seemed to him-and yet she still found herself unable to begin.
He reached out to touch her, but she shied away.
“I’m to be married,” she blurted out.
The words struck him. They echoed in his mind. But the worst part was not their implication, but the way in which Atiana was staring at him, as if the words were a cudgel she’d very well meant to strike him with.
“Married to whom?” Nikandr asked.
“Bahett ul Kirdhash.”
“The Lord of Galahesh? The Kaymakam?”
“The same.”
He wanted to leave the bed. He wanted to leave the room. “Your mother arranged for it?”
“ Nyet.”
“Your father?”
“ Nyet, Nikandr. I arranged for it.”
Nikandr shook his head, confused. “ You arranged for it?”
“The Grand Duchy is dying, Nikandr. By slow increments every day, she is dying. We need grain. We need livestock. Yrstanla has become more hesitant to deliver. But were we to strengthen the bonds between Kiravashya and Aleke s ir, they would begin to flow again, at least long enough for us to recover.”
“Bahett is not the Kamarisi.”
“Nor would the Kamarisi take me as his wife. Bahett is the key.”
“He keeps a harem, Atiana.”
“And I will become his ilkadin. The first wife. Do you know what kind of power they wield?”
“Their wives, even the ilkadin, are little to the power Bahett can wield.”
“He will listen to me.” She said those words with such passion that it made Nikandr realize just how serious she was. This was no discussion. She’d already made up her mind. She only wished to tell him of it in person from some sense of personal honor.
“We’ll not be allowed to see one another,” Nikandr said.
“We can see one another…”
“ Nyet.” Nikandr waved to the bed. “Not like this.”
He saw her swallow, but she did not otherwise answer. She knew, as he did, that they could perhaps see one another at functions, perhaps at a personal meal with Bahett in attendance, but were they caught with one another in carnal lust-especially on Galaheshi soil-both of their lives would be forfeit.
Nikandr stood, away from the bed, and stared at her. “You cannot do this, Atiana!”
“Our first duty is to our families, Nikandr, then the Grand Duchy.”
He found his jaw tightened to the point of pain. “And I am not family. Is that it?”
“You are my love, but I will see the Grand Duchy healed. As you would.”
“Is that why you told me of Soroush first? To test me?”
“You’ve made your position clear for years, Nikandr.”
“Do you think I wouldn’t marry you in a moment given the chance?”
“I know that you would, but we are not in that position, are we? We must do what we must do.”
“And you must go whoring off to Galahesh?”
Atiana stood from the bed and slapped him across the face.
His head wrenched to one side. The entire left side of his face stung, and it did not subside as he turned back to look at her. She stared at him with a look he’d never seen, not since they were children, and then it had only been the petulance of youth. This was a look of deep-seated pain, and resentment that might never be wiped clean.
She began pulling on her clothes as he seethed. He wanted to apologize, but he couldn’t find the words. Only as she was leaving the room did he reach out to her.
“Atiana!”
But then she was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
Atiana climbed up the stair from her cabin to the deck of the Zveazda. The wind was brisk, and it was pushing the ship about, but Hathenn, the ship’s havahezhan, was strong, and she guided them in with little trouble.
As landsmen began lashing the ship and the windsmen began securing the last of her sails, Atiana stepped down and onto the ship’s perch, glad to be on solid land once more. As she walked toward the palotza, she silently thanked the ancients that her sisters had not come, nor Father or Mother. She needed to be alone, so she walked to the vast yard to the south of the massive palotza to the spire.
She stared up, marveling at it, wondering why she had ever left. The trip to Mirkotsk had been foolish, or if not foolish then at least ill-advised. How had she expected Nikandr to react? Exactly as he had, she thought. She didn’t deserve the words he’d spit at her, but neither had he deserved to learn of her decision in such an abrupt manner. She’d meant to tell him the moment she saw him, but she had missed him so much. She had only wanted one more night together-as their life might have been-before telling him of her decision to marry Bahett.
She stepped forward and touched the smooth surface of the obsidian, stared into its mottled black depths. She could not feel the same sense of power that she could while taking the dark, but she liked to think that there were echoes of it at the very least, some small trace of the power that emanated from it in the aether. She had been out for nearly two weeks now. She would enter again-tonight, perhaps tomorrow-and guide Nikandr to Mirashadal, and when she did, she knew it would feel like saying goodbye, much more so than the way they’d left one another in Ivosladna.
“You’ve not seen the spire before?”
Atiana turned and found Mileva standing near the old stone fence surrounding the spire. Behind her stood the rookery and beyond that the bulk of Galostina. The wind tugged at the hem of Mileva’s heavy woolen dress, blew the ermine collar against her neck momentarily. Mileva’s cheeks were already pink from the cold winter winds.
“You’re fortunate to have arrived when you did,” Mileva said. She nodded pointedly over Atiana’s shoulder.
Atiana turned and saw in the distance, gliding serenely beneath gray skies, no less than four twelve-masted barques accompanied a smaller, eight-masted brigantine, the one that surely carried the Kaymakam of Galahesh and the Kamarisi’s personal envoy. It would seem that Yrstanla had changed little-an opportunity to show strength should never be passed by.
“Did you see him?” Mileva asked.
She meant Nikandr, of course. Atiana had not admitted to her mother the true purpose of her trip. Surely she suspected, but she hadn’t raised objections because Atiana had been the one to offer her hand to the Kaymakam of Galahesh. She had confessed everything to Mileva and Ishkyna, however. They had chided her, but she could tell that behind their remarks they were sad over it.
“I saw him,” Atiana replied.
“And?”
“You’ll be pleased, Mileva. It was exactly the sort of farewell you said it would be.”
Mileva glanced up to the approaching ships, her face serious and thoughtful, but not sad. “I’m not pleased, Tiana. I’m sorry. I had hoped that at least one of us would manage to find love.”
“Well that isn’t likely any more, is it?”
“Don’t be so sure.” Mileva smiled, but it was unconvincing to say the least. “I hear Bahett is an easy man to look upon.”
