“No matter what you might think, I’ve always held your mother in high regard.” Nikandr chuckled, but Mileva seemed offended. “How could I not? Especially now?”
She meant, of course, because she was now a Matra herself, not just in name but in deed. She had become strong-not as strong as Atiana, but strong just the same. Nikandr had often wondered what the Matri shared with one another among the aether. It was completely foreign to him, but there could be little doubt the aether created a sense of sisterhood that could never have been born in the waking world.
“You’re worrying over Atiana and Ishkyna,” Nikandr said.
“Of course I am,” she snapped, a bit of the old Mileva returning.
“They yet live.”
“I know, Nischka, but I wonder under what circumstances? Surely the Kamarisi has them. What might he do to get what he needs? What would he stop at to find the weaknesses of the Grand Duchy?”
“Little.”
“Little, indeed. And here we sit while Leonid and Andreya rule in my father’s place.” She glanced over at the bed. “Your father, were he to wake, might have made a difference, but without him there is nothing to keep Leonid in check. I think he prays for Father’s death that he might take the Grand Duke’s mantle.”
“There is Konstantin.”
She paused before speaking. “ Da, there is Konstantin.” The way she spoke those words, and the way she looked into Nikandr’s eyes, he knew. She and Konstantin were lovers. Konstantin had long been married, and for all who saw him with his wife, they would say he was happy, but here he was, a thousand leagues from home… Perhaps it was simply a romance of convenience, but the way Mileva had spoken those simple words, it made him think that she wished her mother had chosen another for her hand in marriage.
Mileva’s eyes narrowed, as if she realized it was time to come to the point.
“They didn’t tell you of Grigory, did they?”
“What of him?”
“He was sent weeks ago with ships. He was to position them along the coast of Yrstanla such that they could be called to attack the northern stretch of Galahesh, should the need arise.”
“So why didn’t he?”
“He was sent across the downs, around the Sea of Khurkhan.”
“That’s madness!”
“It was dangerous, true, but Father needed leverage should things go sour with the Kamarisi. We know he arrived on the southeastern shores of Yrstanla. He was headed north, but the winds were rough and getting rougher. I wasn’t able to find him again before the first of the spires were felled, and now… Now it’s impossible.”
Nikandr leaned back, making his chair creak. In the fireplace, a log crumbled, the embers releasing sparks into the air. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Do you believe the words of the kapitan from Yrstanla?”
He nodded carefully. “I do.”
“Do you believe Andreya is right in keeping you here?”
Nikandr glanced over to his father. This was treasonous talk. He hadn’t agreed to join Andreya-not yet, anyway-but Mileva certainly had.
“You don’t have to answer,” Mileva continued, “but you could use Grigory’s ships. You could find the men you need to destroy the Spar, and Konstantin might have his brother back.”
“And you your sisters and father.”
“The Grand Duchy needs them, Nischka. You can’t deny it.”
“I need no incentive to find them.”
“And yet Andreya’s words hold you back.”
“They make sense.”
Mileva stared at him. One moment the firelight was playing against her porcelain skin, and the next she was standing in a rush, as if she found this conversation suddenly distasteful.
“The Yarost is the first ship on the third quay of the eyrie.” She turned and strode toward the door. “It will be empty and unguarded, but only this one night. And I will be in the drowning basin.” She opened the door, pausing for one brief moment on her way out. “Choose wisely, Nikandr, and quickly.”
And then she was gone, leaving Nikandr alone with his thoughts.
He sat alone, wondering how wise this could be. The ships of Yrstanla would return soon. They could not give the Grand Duchy too much time to recover, and the wind, though still strong and unpredictable, was beginning to subside, at least enough that stout ships of war could be put to sail. In a day, perhaps two, they would return, and Nikandr didn’t want to be missing when that happened. As Andreya had said, they could focus on Galahesh after the battle.
“Nikandr.”
Nikandr turned, realizing the softly spoken name had come from his father. He moved to the bedside and took his father’s hand in his.
“I’m here, Father.”
“Go,” Father said.
“Go where?” Nikandr had spoken the words before he realized that his father had heard everything that he and Mileva had talked about.
Father coughed and turned his head, though even this simple act seemed to pain him. “Go. Find Grigory. Find the others if you can, but at all costs destroy the Spar.”
The moon was a sliver in the nighttime sky, giving Nikandr and the others plenty of cover as they slipped quietly from the halls of Galostina and into the frigid air. A dozen, they numbered: he and Anahid, Styophan and nine of his best men. Nikandr felt his hezhan and called upon it to still the winds as the men unlashed the lone skiff from the ship they’d flown in early that morning. Was it truly the same day? It felt like he’d been here for a week.
As they filed in and released the mooring ropes, Nikandr watched the palotza carefully, particularly the doors and the towers along the curtain wall that protected Galostina everywhere except at the eyrie, where the protection was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to the valley floor.
He saw no one. Relief began to fill him as they dropped below the level of the eyrie, but when they began to rise and fly toward the mountain, he could see clearly a doorway of the palotza and within it, framed by the faint light coming from within, the silhouette of a man. They were too far away for him to have any idea of who it might be, but a moment later, the door closed, leaving the palotza in darkness save for the handful of lantern-lit windows.
“Who was it?” Styophan asked.
“Who can say? But best we put the wind beneath our sails as quick as may be.” And so they did. As the wind blew fiercely-tossing the ship about-Nikandr drew upon his hezhan as he’d rarely done before, partially to combat the winds but also to hasten them toward the eyrie. He felt it in his gut, in his chest, the hezhan hungering, feeding off of him. He coughed, stifling the discomfort. They needed this speed.
They reached it before fifteen minutes had passed, but it still felt too long. A swift pony could have reached the eyrie by now.
He brought the skiff up beneath the Yarost, the ship Mileva had told him about. He was sure it would be well outfitted-the threat of Yrstanla required it-but he was also sure Konstantin would have had it provisioned with extra rations and extra munitions in case Nikandr took this bait.
They came even with the deck, and though the wind was still strong-especially as it swept up along the mountainside to blow among the moored ships-Nikandr and the others moved quickly and efficiently. They had discussed this over and over before leaving the palotza. One by one, they leapt over to the ship as Nikandr and Anahid held her steady.
Then Anahid was over and finally Nikandr made the leap himself, his men catching him and steadying him as he used his hezhan to reverse the wind and push the skiff away. It twisted like a leaf on a pond, floating away until he was sure that he could release it and leave the winds to do the rest.
By then the men had already begun preparing the ship, most moving to the perch to release the mooring ropes. They were only half done when lights appeared above at the eyrie master’s house and an alarm bell began to
