Hanging on the wall like decorations were two dousing rods-little more than wrought-iron circles with a rod through the center used to hold them. They were much more than decoration, Nasim knew. They would be used to quell any of the abilities of these children, should any find within themselves the talent and the will to use it, but they could be used against Nasim as well.
Two other women sat at the heads of the tables. They stared at Nasim, but neither was surprised by his presence. Their reaction made it clear that this was nothing out of the ordinary, and it enraged him.
Pulling his dark brown bangs from his eyes, he paced along one wall, staring carefully at each of the children. They were not dirty-it was clear they had been bathed-but there was evidence of their hours in the nearby iron mines: black around their ears, in the corners of their eyes, under their fingernails, even at the corners of their mouths. The children did not stare back at him, which was a relief. They seemed to know that he was after one of them, and he could feel their desire to be taken away from this place, if only for a day or two.
But he could only take one-the one he’d heard rumor of nearly two years ago in the capital of the Empire. He’d come to Trevitze in search, and he’d nearly given up hope of finding the child who’d stirred such feelings of power within him, but then, as the children had been riding back to the orphanage on wagons, Nasim had felt a hollowness in his gut. It had yawned open as they came closer and subsided as they traveled uphill toward the orphanage.
He’d experienced this before, many times in fact, though rarely so strong. Only on one other occasion had it been as such, and when it had, he had found Rabiah and convinced her to join him.
He’d talked with Rabiah for days before she’d finally agreed to join him. This time, he thought, little convincing would be needed.
The yawning feeling returned, though for some reason it was muted. He traveled up the length of the table, concentrating carefully on the children sitting on the opposite side. When he rounded the end of the room and came back along the other, he stopped halfway down. Sitting across from him, staring down into his mealy stew, a half- eaten crust of bread in one hand, was a boy, fifteen years old, maybe sixteen. He was not Yrstanlan. Nasim would know even without the void in his gut.
It was not rare for the Aramahn to be taken against their will-war, plague, criminal executions all played their part-but for some reason this boy having been taken and forced to work below ground, all day, for nothing, set Nasim’s blood to burning.
“What is your name?” Nasim said in Mahndi.
The boy’s head snapped up, but he immediately pulled his gaze back down to his bowl.
A whisper spread among the children until the snap of a narrow length of wood against the head of the table brought them back to silence.
The matron stalked between the two tables to the center of the room and stared at Nasim. “You will be silent.”
“What is your name?” Nasim said again, ignoring her.
“You will be silent!”
Nasim regarded her. Outside the orphanage she had seemed muted, somehow, perhaps small under the stare of the sky and the mountain peaks, but here, inside her domain, she seemed arch and menacing, like a black widow at the borders of her web.
Taking the small pouch of coins he had prepared for her, Nasim threw it over the heads of the children. It landed with a dull clink near her feet. “Take your money, but order me no more.” He set his sights on the boy. “Give me your name,” he said for a third time, “unless you wish to remain here with them. If that is your choice, I will honor it.”
The boy glanced to one side, mindful of the matron behind him. After a moment filled with consequence, he swallowed, placed his hands on the table, and pushed himself up from his bench. He glanced at Nasim, but was unable to hold his gaze long. “My name is Sukharam,” he said in imperfect Mahndi. “Sukharam Hadir al Dahanan.”
The matron grabbed his shoulders-“Do you think he is for sale?”-and shoved him back down. “Do you think this a house of slaves where children can be bought for the pittance you tossed at my feet?” Her face was grim. She could still be bought-it was the kind of woman she was-but Nasim’s insults had raised the price.
Nasim walked to the end of the room and approached the space between the two tables. The matron dug her hands into Sukharam’s shoulders, who winced in pain but made no sound.
“Release him,” Nasim said.
She dug her fingers in further. A whimper escaped Sukharam’s lips, which were drawn into a grim line.
The barest of drafts ran through the room. Nasim drew in a long breath, staring at the woman with a calmness he hadn’t felt in ages. He wore no stones. Ever since the ritual on Oshtoyets, the small keep on the island of Duzol, he had been unable to use such things or commune with hezhan on his own, but through Sukharam he could feel a hezhan. Slowly his awareness grew. As a blind man hears the wind through the trees, as he feels the current of the water running over and around his feet, as he feels the weight of the very earth below him, Nasim felt the havahezhan, and he beckoned it.
It came, pulling at the air like the drawing of breath. It was easy now to discern the currents in the room. The air was chill, and already getting chillier. He could see the women stare into the corners, into the hearth along the right side of the room.
The expression on Sukharam’s face was one of confusion and growing discomfort. Soon he would reach for his gut, as Nasim had done so often in his childhood. Nasim had never felt right doing this-using someone without permission-but were he to ask Sukharam now, he would not understand; he would be unable to answer, so for the time being Nasim would have to assume his answer would be yeh and give apologies later if he’d been wrong.
“Release him,” Nasim repeated.
The matron looked back to the women, who seemed too petrified to move. “Get the rods!”
They stood and grabbed the wrought-iron dousing rods from the wall. One came up behind the matron, protecting her. The other sidled along the wall, keeping a close eye on Nasim as she went. The children began to rise until the matron shouted, “Sit!”
Time was running out.
Calling upon the havahezhan, Nasim summoned the wind. This was only a distraction, however. He called upon a dhoshahezhan as well, using it to touch the life that remained in the wood of the tables and benches. He pushed, drawing upon it more than he should, and a moment later he heard a ticking sound that steadily grew.
With increasing ferocity, the benches and tables cracked and snapped. Splinters flew, causing the children to stand and cringe and scatter from the benches. The planking along the floor buckled as the children stepped upon it, causing them to fall between the joists that supported the tongue-and-groove flooring.
The effect stopped as it neared the dousing rods, however. If the matrons were able to surround him with the rods, his ability to commune with the spirits would dissipate like smoke, but they were hampered now by the crumbling flooring and screaming children.
Nasim allowed the effect to continue up through the walls, to the ceiling. The plaster popped. Cracks ran through the entire room. And yet it was only when the structure itself groaned that the matron yelled, “Enough!”
Nasim willed the effect to fade, though not completely. A slow sifting of dust continued to fall from the ceiling. A piece of plaster fell and crashed to the floor between them.
The matron flung the boy away from her while staring upward, wondering if the floor above was ready to come crashing down. “Enough!”
Finally, though the hezhan was reluctant to allow it, Nasim brought everything to a standstill. He looked around the room, at the children who watched him in abject fear, at the damage he’d caused in mere moments.
It had gone too far. So much had been this way since he’d awoken after the ritual in Oshtoyets five years ago. He had struggled to find a way to touch Adhiya, finding that only through others could he do so, and then imperfectly. Too often it was more than he wished, or too little.
Still, he wished he hadn’t needed to resort to communing with hezhan. He wished he were able to speak more convincingly-as Ashan had always seemed able to do, or Nikandr-but he could not. He knew his limitations, and there was more at stake than the damage to an orphanage in one small corner of the Empire.
“Are you ready, son of Dahanan?” Nasim asked Sukharam, who cowered at his feet.
