Nikandr worked this through. “They would kill their own sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters, because they seek a better life?”
“In the eyes of the Hratha, they’re spurning their old life. That is what cannot be allowed.”
Nikandr felt sick to his stomach. “Bersuq would listen to you if you asked.”
Soroush laughed. “Who do you think gave me these wounds?”
“What? Why would he do such a thing?”
“You are Landed, Nikandr.”
“He took me into the village. He showed me the children himself.”
“Because I asked that he did.”
Nikandr paused as these words sunk in. “And what did you grant him in return?”
“A simple request,” he said as he turned and began walking once more. His limp was still noticeable, but it had either warmed up or he was ignoring the pain. Likely it was both. “I was to take breath on Baisha”-he pointed to their right, to a tall black mountain-“and find my true answer.”
“The answer to what?”
“Whether or not you would be allowed to live.”
Nikandr let him walk in peace. The answer at which he’d arrived was clear, and he saw no need to reopen a wound that was clearly still fresh.
“Will you explain to me now,” Soroush asked after a time, “why there was such a burning need to leave the village?”
“I must go to Siafyan.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw Muqallad there.” Nikandr had never shared with Soroush his time on Ghayavand, but he did so now, sparing little. He went into great detail describing the dreams he’d shared with Nasim, particularly the ones involving Muqallad, and he told of their mad dash through the Alayazhar in the hopes of avoiding him. But Muqallad had found and nearly trapped them. If it hadn’t been for Nasim, they would surely all have died.
Soroush glanced at Nikandr as they turned and headed down the narrow trail that led to the forest and beyond it the defile that would take them to the other village. Dark clouds covered the sky, and the wind was blowing with vigor, tugging at Nikandr’s hair and his clothes. “And now you think he has come here, to Rafsuhan?”
“I felt him, when I kneeled with… When I was near the lake.”
“It is only a name, Nikandr Iaroslov. You may say it.”
“I only thought that you might feel…”
“Beholden? And so angered? Incensed? I would have been in years past, but time”-Soroush glanced sidelong at him-“time has a way of humbling a man. Wahad is a wonderful son, and I pray to the fates that they allow him to live, even if the way of salvation lies through one of the Landed.”
“Did Rehada know?” In many ways Nikandr was hesitant to speak of her, but there were so few he could actually speak to of the woman he had loved, about her death and what she’d meant to him in life. Soroush was no friend to confide in, but something inside Nikandr wanted to know where Soroush had stood with her in the years before her death because, strangely, it would tell him something about his own relationship with her.
They took a steep decline through tall swaying grasses and entered the forest. Only then did Soroush speak once more. “I never told her.”
“She would have accepted him.”
“You know her so well”-his voice had risen in volume-“that you can tell me what she would do?”
“It would have been painful, but she would have loved him.”
“She might have accepted him, but she would never have forgiven herself. She always blamed herself for Ahya’s death. It ate her from within, as much as the wasting, or more, for it was a wound she would not die from. She would go on living, torturing herself until her end of days. Had she known about Wahad, it would have been worse. I was only protecting her.”
“She didn’t need protection. She needed caring and love.”
“You speak to me of love? She came to you at my behest, son of Iaros. She wheedled from you secrets that she fed to me through messengers you never suspected, and I in turn guided our efforts because of it. People died because of what you told her. And she hated herself for it”-Soroush spat on the ground ahead of them-“nearly as much as she hated you. You knew nothing of her needs.”
Nikandr felt his face flush. His heart galloped within his chest. “ Neh? She may have stolen secrets, son of Gatha, but she loved me, and I was there for her when she needed me. I never abandoned her.”
“You would have had you known.”
“Early on, perhaps, but in the end I found out, and still I loved her. Perhaps you’ll do for Wahad what you couldn’t do for Rehada.”
Soroush’s face went red. He stepped forward, sliding the khanjar from its sheath.
Nikandr backed up, knowing he had pushed Soroush too far.
But from the corner of his eye he saw movement. Moving among the trees was a form, small and bright among the dark trunks of the larch and spruce.
Nikandr held up one hand and with the other pointed over Soroush’s shoulder.
Soroush, nostrils flaring, took a half step toward him, but then stopped and turned, scanning the forest behind him. The form was nearly out of sight, but he saw it and cocked his head. “Kaleh?”
“I saw her yesterday among the hills. They said she refused to live in the village.”
Without speaking another word, they both began to jog over the soft bed of the forest, weaving through the trees to keep Kaleh in sight.
When she walked down a decline, they lost her for a time, and both of them began to sprint, hoping not to lose her. When they found her again, she was treading downhill toward a thin stream. She moved with speed, but not so quickly that they couldn’t keep pace. She came to a clearing at the base of the hill, and she slowed, taking deliberate steps while studying the ground carefully. Her head was tilted, as if she were listening, though Nikandr could hear nothing above the wind and the high chatter of snowfinch somewhere in the distance.
Near the stream, she dropped to her hands and knees. She crawled forward, moving her ear closer to the ground each time, until at last something seemed to satisfy her and she lay down flat and placed her ear against the ground.
She lay like this for long moments, and Nikandr became progressively more aware of the forest-the oppression of the tall trees surrounding them; the curve of the land and the stream that cut through it; the air, which smelled of rain, and the slow, rhythmic ticking of the bark beetles. He debated on whether they should approach. He looked to Soroush, asking him silently, but Soroush shook his head gently.
For no reason Nikandr could see, Kaleh got back to her feet and padded over to a nearby hillock overgrown with moss and ferns. She kneeled before it and placed her hands on the ground, and then she kneeled forward and placed her forehead on the backs of her hands, as if she were praying to the earth.
Mere moments later, the moss bulged near the top of the hillock. It rose and split, spreading wide like the petals of a gazania blossoming in spring. The cleft it created was wide and deep, large enough to fall into.
Kaleh took from a bag at her belt something small and shriveled and black. She held it between her fingers for a time, merely staring at it. As she did, Nikandr swore it was pulsing.
Then, like a doe that had heard something amiss, her head turned ever so slightly to one side.
She dropped the blackened thing into the cleft.
And then sprinted like a cannon shot over the hillock.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
N ikandr and Soroush immediately gave chase. They hurried down the slope, sliding among the tree trunks as Kaleh fled. Kaleh was like a fawn, swift and fairly bounding over the landscape. Still, she was young, and the two of them began to shorten the distance between them.
She glanced back once, her eyes wide, not with fear, but with exhilaration. As Nikandr ran, he saw a root rise
