approached. An Aramahn woman stood at the bow holding a siraj stone that gave off a rose-tinted glow. The stone of alabaster upon her brow glowed dully. She stared at Nikandr with a look of disdain.
Not so different from the stares of the Maharraht, Nikandr thought.
“State your name and your business in Mirashadal.”
“I am Nikandr Iaroslov Khalakovo, and I have come to speak with Fahroz Bashar al Lilliah.”
“You have come to a place where you’re not welcome, son of Iaros. She will not see you.”
“I thought all were welcome among the villages.”
“That may once have been true, but we find ourselves in difficult times.”
“Tell her I’ve come. She’ll wish to speak with me.”
She studied Nikandr for a time, and Nikandr thought he’d misjudged her, that she would simply refuse his request, but then she nodded to her dhoshaqiram, a man who sat at the base of the skiff’s mast. “Come no closer,” she said, and then they were off.
The second skiff remained, watching from a good distance as Nikandr ordered the sails pulled in. Then they waited, the Chaika, the skiff, and the dark shape in the distance all drifting on the wind like clouds.
Nearly an hour later, the skiff returned. It was the same woman, and her expression was even more dour. “Come.”
They followed, heading toward the village as it loomed larger and larger. Nikandr had heard stories-stories that told of how large Mirashadal was-but none of them had done it justice. The closer they came, the more it struck him how massive the village was. It was the largest windborne structure Nikandr had ever seen. Elegant, rounded shapes, each as large as a windship, were connected by walkways. It seemed frail in some ways, but that certainly wasn’t the case-nothing this size could withstand the gales of the open sea without a supremely rigid structure.
No sooner had the thought arrived than a ripple ran through the village like the endless swell of the sea. The structure gave, but it was strong as well, not unlike the canopies of the windwood forests of Uyadensk. The bulk of the village was patterned like the delicate tendrils of a windborne seed. Indeed, below the massive structure was an inverted tower that hung down toward the sea-ballast, in effect, but to call it so was to make it crude, and this was anything but crude. It was beautiful.
Fanning outward from the edge of the village were dozens of windship berths. Some were quite small-made for skiffs and the like-but others were large, for ships like the Chaika. Standing at the end of the berth they were being led toward were a handful of Aramahn-many of the stones in their circlets glowing softly in the bare light-and at their head stood Fahroz.
As the ship’s mooring ropes brought the Chaika snug against the berth, Nikandr leapt down from the gunwales to land on the deck. It didn’t sound like cut and cured wood. Rather it felt as if the wood itself were living, as if the entire structure of the village had been grown instead of built.
Fahroz, lit by soft siraj lanterns held by the other Aramahn, stepped forward. She wore no stone, but instead a golden chain with a delicate medallion. It glinted in the pale light of the stones, and Nikandr wondered, as he had before, how she had come by it and who had crafted it.
“Welcome, son of Iaros,” Fahroz said, bowing her head.
“And you, daughter of Lilliah, though I wonder how heartfelt your words of welcome are.”
She motioned Nikandr to follow her, and they fell into step beside one another, their footsteps sounding dully against the living wood of the perch. None of the Aramahn who had stood with Fahroz accompanied them, and soon they were alone, like two old friends catching up on one another’s lives.
“I will admit to a certain amount of alarm.”
“Only a few of us know of the village. Trust in me that it will be kept secret.”
“Trust in you…”
“Is there another option?”
She motioned him down a winding set of stairs. They descended into the village, and soon they were among so many boughs and branches that he felt as if he were walking on solid ground, not floating in the dark northern skies.
They came to a structure that looked more like the trunk of a massive cypress than it did something man- made. Inside was a cozy home, a bed with a wash basin to one side of the rounded interior, a bureau and mirror made from deeply grained wood on another. Three low chairs surrounded a stone-rimmed pit filled with several of the glowing siraj stones.
Fahroz motioned Nikandr to sit in one of the chairs. When he had seated himself she moved to a stout mantle cluttered with books and bric-a-brac and a few bottles of liquor. She took down a small shisha with two breathing tubes. After filling the bowl with a healthy pinch of tabbaq, she lit it and set it between her chair and Nikandr’s. As Nikandr took a healthy pull from the mouthpiece, Fahroz sat and did the same. For a moment, the only sound was the soft bubbling of the water in the clear glass base of the shisha.
“Please,” she said, blowing the smoke up toward the ceiling. “You must have been preparing your words for some time.”
He smiled. “In truth, I still don’t know where to begin.”
“You’ve come for Nasim.”
He nodded, taking one more breath from the sweet-tasting tabbaq before releasing it slowly. “In part, but there’s much more for us to discuss.”
She looked at him seriously then, as if the first of her guards had been lowered, however tentatively.
“I knew after the incident on Duzol that I would leave Khalakovo,” Nikandr continued. “Two years after I last saw you, I took to the winds with my mother and brother’s blessing.”
Her eyes smoldered under the ruddy light of the stones. “The Duke of Khalakovo did not object?”
Nikandr was surprised to see how much the words stung. Borund still sat on the throne in Radiskoye, exactly as Mother had predicted. Vostroma had delayed, they had made excuses, had made demands, anything to keep Khalakovo beneath their heel, but the strangest part of it had been the knowledge that Father had accepted it. He had gone to Vostroma, in effect a thrall of Zhabyn, the Grand Duke. But Zhabyn, despite his initial reluctance to trust Father, had eventually come to value his advice, especially as the blight had continued to put pressure on Vostroma and the other southern duchies. And father had taken to his role, in effect supplanting Leonid Dhalingrad as Zhabyn’s most trusted advisor. And every time Ranos or Nikandr had brought up the need to pressure Zhabyn to return the throne to the Khalakovos, Father had demurred, saying only that the time was not right.
“I go where I will,” Nikandr said. “The son of Vostroma has no sway over me.”
“And where have the winds taken you?”
“It isn’t where I’ve gone, but what I’ve found while there. The rifts have continued to surface, though none with such strength as the one on Uyadensk and Duzol. I’ve studied them. I can feel them. I know when they wax and when they wane. I can even find the places where they might be closed, if only I had the means.”
He left the words there, hanging between them.
“Nasim has been lost to you. To all of you. You have no right to him anymore.”
“He is part of me, Fahroz, and I am part of him. There is no separating us.”
She swallowed. Nikandr hoped it was a sign that her resolve was flagging, but her eyes were as hard as they had been in the courtyard of Oshtoyets when she’d taken Nasim away. “It is a bond I wish I could break, but believe me when I say it is one you will no longer be able to leverage. We have burned you from him as well as we can, and fates willing, you will never see him again.”
Nikandr allowed some of his annoyance to show. “We don’t work at cross-purposes, you and I.”
“It isn’t your purpose I question, but the means you’ll use to achieve it.”
“I only wish to heal.”
“And in your blindness you’ll burn in order to do it.”
Nikandr sat forward in his chair, setting shisha tube into its holder. “It is not I who am blind. Nasim must be taught.”
Fahroz stared into the siraj stones, pausing, as if she were asking herself why she was doing this, and then she set her tube aside as if it had offended her. “Nasim has been taught, and now that he has, his teachings will guide him.” There was pride both in her words and in her eyes. “He will be great, an arqesh among arqesh.”
“The arqesh are not infallible.”
Fahroz stood, quickly but calmly, her hands clasped together. It was an insult, what he’d just said, a
