the celestia, where a secret compartment opened up for me. Khamal’s doing, no doubt.”
“And where is it now?”
“It’s safe.”
“Hidden?”
“ Yeh,” Nasim replied. He would divulge much to Ashan, but this didn’t feel like a place to share this information, especially since Sukharam was still alone with the stone.
Perhaps Ashan sensed this, for he fell silent for long moments. “Nasim, how many others did you bring?”
“Two.”
“Why?”
“The Al-Aqim were three, and so should we be.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“What other reason should there be?” Nasim didn’t like skirting the truth, but he didn’t like this line of questioning either. Ashan’s tone had become more aggressive, something he never remembered him doing.
“There could be many reasons,” Ashan answered. “It’s up to you to tell me the right one.”
Something was wrong. Nasim could feel it. Ashan had changed. He had never spoken to Nasim in this manner. There was a hunger behind his words, an anger barely suppressed.
Nasim took a half step back, and the moment he did, a long, hoarse bray came from the tunnel behind him. It was followed by another, this one softer. The chilling sounds echoed away until silence once more reigned.
A pinpoint of light appeared in the air before Ashan, lighting his face and the tall, peaked room. The light continued to grow, revealing a large obsidian cross to which the form of a wretched, broken man had been lashed. The man’s head hung low, his curly hair hanging over his face, preventing Nasim from seeing him clearly, but Nasim didn’t need to see his face to know who he was.
Before him, the man he had thought to be Ashan transformed. His hair grew in length, became darker. The glint of gold appeared in his lightly curled beard. And soon, the handsome face of Muqallad was staring back at him.
As this transformation unfolded, the gathered akhoz shuffled into the room. They stood at the edge of the room, forming a circle around Muqallad and Nasim.
“Do you remember now what Ashan meant to you?”
Nasim felt a lump forming in his throat. He swallowed in a vain attempt at clearing it, but it was too late. Muqallad had already seen his weakness.
“Find the stone in the tower, Khamal, and bring it to me.”
Behind Muqallad, Ashan lifted his head. His hair was matted and coppery brown and plastered against his forehead. His face was a mass of blood and bruises and cuts. He shivered from pain or cold or weakness, but unmistakable was the fact that he was pleading with Nasim to deny Muqallad his demand.
Nasim couldn’t look. He couldn’t look at Ashan and speak the words he was about to speak.
“I need Rabiah.”
Muqallad stared. He was a tall man, but Nasim was nearly of a height with him now. Muqallad weighed Nasim, weighed his words and his intent.
In the end, he motioned with one hand, turned, and walked away, his footsteps echoing away into the immensity of the room. “You may have the one,” he said as he passed beyond the akhoz.
Rabiah was dragged from beyond the circle of akhoz and thrown to Nasim’s feet. She stirred, small moans escaping her as she rolled over and tried to lift herself with her arms.
Nasim helped her to her feet as the akhoz parted, allowing them clear passage to a hallway that sloped upward. They would not, however, allow Nasim any closer to Ashan. They crowded him and Rabiah until they were forced up the hall.
As they left, Nasim looked back, trying to catch sight of Ashan, but the light was beginning to fade, and he was already shrouded in shadow.
Eventually the akhoz stopped, allowing them to continue on toward the entrance to the village. The two of them were silent, Rabiah because she was in pain, Nasim because a growing dread was settling over him.
You may have the one, Muqallad had said.
The one, as if he had another.
He meant Sukharam, Nasim realized. He’d found Sukharam. He had him now.
And the second piece of the Atalayina.
He had two of the three. Only the piece in Sariya’s tower that had been hidden so carefully by Khamal now stood in his way.
As he stepped out from the darkness of Shirvozeh’s tunnels into the blinding light of the afternoon sun, Nasim wanted to admit this to Rabiah. He wanted to admit his failure. He wanted to ask her for forgiveness, for she’d been right. He should have brought Sukharam. Or he should have done more to protect him.
But he hadn’t, and it shamed him like nothing had before in his life.
And so he couldn’t speak to her. He couldn’t face her judgment. Not yet.
So they walked together in silence toward Alayazhar, to their shelter that now lay empty as a dead man’s hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
N ikandr sat near a fire in the woods of Rafsuhan. The sun had set and with the moon dark, the only thing Nikandr could see was what the small fire allowed: Soroush sitting on the far side of the fire, a half dozen tree trunks, the ground nearby, which was covered by larch needles. In the distance, a woodpecker rattled.
Jahalan and the girl, Kaleh, and most of the streltsi had already gone to sleep. Nikandr had elected to stay awake, at least as long as Soroush did. They would reach Ashdi en Ghat tomorrow, and for some reason he still didn’t trust Soroush, perhaps because of the proximity to the village from which Soroush had for years schemed against the Grand Duchy. Though it appeared as though Nikandr had the upper hand, they both knew it was an illusion. The truth was that Soroush held the most powerful trump cards-Nikandr needed to speak with the elders of the Maharraht, and the only way to do that was through Soroush.
As the fire snapped, Soroush unwound his turban carefully, folding it into a tight circle in his lap. That done, he pulled his dark hair over his shoulder and began brushing away the tangles with his fingers. It was a personal moment, one that he would never have thought Soroush would allow him to see.
“Do you think of her?” Soroush asked without looking up. He’d chosen to speak Anuskayan-perhaps some small indicator of his mood. Or perhaps it was a small act of apology for how he’d treated Nikandr on the Kavda.
Nikandr knew he was referring to Rehada-it was not possible to be in Soroush’s presence and not think of her. “I do.”
“And what do you think, son of Iaros?”
Nikandr tried to smile, but the truth was that his memories of Rehada were still bittersweet. “I think the fates placed her in both of our paths for a reason.”
And now Soroush did glance at Nikandr, his eyebrows raised. “So now you believe in the fates.”
Nikandr had been struggling with that very thought for years. “I no longer know what I believe.”
Soroush was staring at Nikandr’s chest. His soulstone lay hidden beneath his shirt, but upon it he could feel the weight of Soroush’s stare. “How long after Oshtoyets?”
“It began before Oshtoyets, on Verodnaya. Who knows why? Nasim, the cold, the rift, my broken stone, the wasting. Something allowed me to contact the hezhan. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think it had been with me ever since the ritual you performed on the cliff below Radiskoye.”
Soroush’s eyes went distant, as if he were reliving those moments again, piecing together the strange sequence of events that might have led to the ways of Adhiya being open to Nikandr.
If he was angered that he might have had something to do with it, he didn’t show it. He merely seemed pensive, curious. “Do you commune with it?”
