The wind once more began to howl. The clouds once more began to swirl.
And Muqallad stared down, his eyes aflame.
He was coming to the realization that he had lost what he had sought, but in his mind there might still be time.
He held the Atalayina high and reached for Nasim.
Nasim rolled away and reached his feet as a bolt of lightning coursed forth from Muqallad’s outstretched palm.
Nasim caught it in his own hand and delivered it to the world beyond. It was easy now, and Muqallad knew the tables had turned.
Muqallad stepped forward and grabbed Nasim’s robes. He blocked the weak strike of Nasim’s fist, twisting his arm until he was forced down to roadway stones. As Muqallad held the Atalayina high, perhaps readying to smash it against Nasim’s skull, Nasim saw something large and dark and swift rushing toward the bridge.
Muqallad had no more time than to turn and look before the windship crashed into the Spar.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
N ikandr stared at the handle of the knife. It rested over his chest, moving in time to his heartbeat. He should grasp it, he thought. He should try to remove it. He managed to bring one hand to it, but the simple act of touching it brought searing white pain the likes of which he’d never known.
He had time only to look up at a rush of movement at the edge of his vision before the world around him erupted.
Something massive crashed into the Spar at the exact place where the explosion had weakened it.
A ship. It was a ship.
The hull buckled, collapsing like a house of cards as the ship drove down onto the keystones. The masts cracked. The sails were thrown downward. In a mere instant the front half of the ship transformed from a structured and ordered thing into a massive, tangled collection of splintered beams and rope and sail. The bodies of men flew and were dashed against the white stone.
The landward foremast snapped at the hull, throwing the bulk of the mast and her sails sharply forward. Muqallad turned to meet this threat just as the mast’s topgallant swung down against the bridge, narrowly missing him. But the topgallant yard caught Muqallad squarely across the head, crushing him and throwing him down against the Spar’s roadway in a mass of red.
The rear half of the ship groaned, hanging in the air momentarily before the keystones gave way. The structure beneath the roadway weakened as if it were little more than a pile of stones succumbing to the sea, and then it gave way entirely. It created a gap where the keystones had been, and it widened quickly, moving closer and closer to the section upon which Nikandr lay.
And then roadway fell out from underneath him.
He plummeted, grabbing ineffectually at empty air as the wound in his chest burned white hot. The underside of the Spar receded, faster and faster, until the wind threw him about and sent him twisting and turning and tumbling toward the sea.
The desperate part of him wanted to claw for his havahezhan, but he knew the moment Nasim had driven the knife home that that link was gone. He’d felt it snap-his connection to Nasim, his connection to Adhiya.
Something flashed in the sky above him.
He lost it, found it again a moment later. Something burning brightly.
It came nearer. It was a person, but the wind was whipping him about so fiercely he couldn’t tell who.
But then the wind began working on him. He could feel it slowing him down, and suddenly he was hovering in the air not two paces from Nasim.
Nasim tumbled once, but then steadied as he drifted closer. His control was now absolute, and they were close enough that if they reached out to one another, their fingers might just barely be able to touch.
Nasim was holding the Atalayina, and it glowed as brightly in his hand as it had in Muqallad’s. He was close enough to embrace. With one hand he held the Atalayina high. And with the other pulled the knife free.
Nikandr screamed. Clutched at his wound.
He blacked out for a moment, and when he woke, Nasim was pressing the Atalayina against his chest as if it were a bolt of cloth meant to staunch his wound.
The Atalayina chilled Nikandr to his core. It was as cold as night, the feeling as wide and limitless as the firmament. The cold filled him, changed him, made him feel whole in ways he could not remember feeling before, and for a moment, the world opened up before him, was laid bare. He saw Erahm and Adhiya and the aether in between. Breath slipped from his lungs at the beauty of it all.
But then the feeling was gone, and the wind began to change. It buffeted them in new and unexpected ways, and Nasim was suddenly and violently pulled away. The Atalayina was pulled away as well, and the moment it was no longer touching his skin, Nikandr felt alone and abandoned and forgotten. It felt as though he’d never been born.
He dropped toward the water, limp, unable to do anything but let the currents of wind take him. Nasim, flailing wildly at the air with a horror-stricken expression, was too far away to do anything.
“ Neh!” he screamed while trying and failing to come closer to Nikandr.
And then a slight form barreled downward like a cormorant diving for the sea. It was Kaleh, Nikandr realized. She struck Nasim mid-air, and the Atalayina was knocked from his grasp to float free of the twisting, turning forms.
The two of them crashed into the sea.
Mere moments before Nikandr did.
He fell deep, the sound of it raucous in his ears. The air was pressed from his lungs. He flailed in the dark, not understanding which way was up. The salty water of the sea forced its way into his lungs, and he coughed, drawing in more while trying desperately to pull himself up toward the surface.
He kicked. He stroked his arms. All as the salt water burned his throat and mouth and lungs.
Ages seemed to pass, but at last he broke through to the surface. The waves fell down upon him mercilessly, pulling him under. He coughed reflexively, water spilling from his throat.
He tried to stay above the waves, but it was impossible. He was weak. So weak. And the waves threw him about, always tossing him back beneath the surface. He kicked. He pulled, but his strength was beginning to fail.
He grew angry and desperate, kicking at the crest of each wave to look for Nasim. He managed to call to him once, but heard nothing in return. There was detritus from the ship that had crashed into the Spar-some of which was still falling and striking the sea around him-but of Nasim he saw nothing.
And then it became too much. His anger was spent, and the waves once more began to drag him down.
Again and again the water fell upon him. Filling his mouth, slipping down his throat and into his lungs before he could clear the water away. He was beyond desperation. He was despondent, accepting, for he knew the end was near.
Until he heard a crash nearby.
He felt the water roil around him. He felt it push him upward. It lifted him, a column of water above the roiling sea. Not far away was a large piece of the ship’s hull, tilting and turning on the sea-tossed waves. On it was a man, and through his wracking coughs he realized it was Ashan.
He could see a wide area of the straits now, and he scanned the water desperately. “Nasim!” he called. “Nasim!”
He tried again and again as the water bore him toward Ashan. He searched, shouting until his throat was raw, but he received no answer, and saw no signs.
The column of water deposited Nikandr down upon the plank. Ashan, his face pinched with concern, moved quickly with strong arms to pull Nikandr to the center of the makeshift raft. In the clouds high above the Spar, a maelstrom spun. Dirt and debris caught by the wind rained down, biting the skin of his scalp and hands as he cowered from it.
