such a hit to their yearly totals, much less fend off the Maharraht and their incessant attacks, especially considering how viciously they’d been attacking Bolgravya and Nodhvyansk.
“A thousand cannot be allowed,” Father said. His voice was breathy, as if he were speaking only to himself, as if he knew exactly what this demand meant.
Vaasak was already nodding his head. “Of course, Your Highness. I pushed him. I tried to maneuver to half that. I offered windships, iron, gold.” Vaasak lowered his voice and leaned in toward Father. “I even offered him his choice of brides, but Siha s would have none of it. On this the Kamarisi is adamant.”
Father’s chair creaked as he slumped further into it. He stared at the table, mesmerized, while continuing to tap his finger. “He knows we have no choice.”
“You can’t be considering this,” Atiana said. “The Kamarisi is setting a trap.”
Father turned to her calmly, his heavy eyes weighing her before he spoke.
“Your mother told me of your warnings, but what if you’re wrong?”
“What if I’m right?”
“If you’re right then I may very well be making a poor decision this day. But if you’re wrong, and we pull away from the table, we will not be able to find our place at it again.”
“He will take you, Father, or kill you.”
“We are not enemies, Atiana. He has a war raging to the west. He has unrest brewing in the north. He has discontent festering in places he thought to be his most loyal. He has nothing to gain by attempting to retake something that has been out of the Empire’s reach for generations.”
“If he can gain the islands, he will have more than enough resources to win to the west, to stifle whatever uprising might be brewing in the north. With a victory over the islands, discontent will turn to satisfaction. Do not risk yourself-”
Father pounded his fist on the table, rattling the bottle and tipping over one of the glasses of vodka. As the vodka pattered onto the carpet, he spoke with an intensity that shocked Atiana. “I must risk it! We are dying, daughter! Vostroman, Bolgravyan, Khalakovan. Mirkotski and Rhavankan. We are being dragged beneath the waves. By the blight. By the Maharraht. By the wasting, still, no matter what your beloved Nikandr might think he is doing for hearth and home. We are pulled low as the tide rises. Yrstanla makes demands. They wish for stones. They wish for wood. They wish for liquor.” He looked at her closely. “They wish even for our daughters. And what am I to do?”
“We can fight!” Grigory said.
Father snapped his head toward Grigory. “Mind your tongue!”
“Forgive me, Your Highness, but I will not! Send the ships across the downs. If they’re not needed, I’ll return them home.”
Atiana knew what he was speaking of, but she thought it complete folly. He spoke of a path from Nodhvyansk to Yrstanla’s mainland that windsmen called the downs. Before reaching it, ships would need to cut northward across some of the deepest waters in the ocean. It was a dangerous path he suggested taking, but it was the implications that made her back straighten. He was suggesting they circle around and secure Galahesh from the north, where their ships would be unhindered by the wild currents around the straits. More than this, he was suggesting they take the Kamarisi captive. With the northern end of the island secured, it would be all too easy to sweep in from the south and take Baressa.
Atiana had never seen Father so angry. His eyes were bright with emotion, and his jaw was clenched so tight he was shaking. His chest pumped like a child working a blacksmith’s bellows.
But then he collected himself. He began to breathe easier, and his jaw relaxed. “The riots have begun again, Grigory. They’ve become more organized, even in these last few months. If we do not have ships to sustain order, we may fall to them, never mind the Empire.”
Grigory made a face and waved toward Vaasak. “What order can there be with demands such as these? We won’t last two years, Your Highness. Never has the Kamarisi come so close to our shores. This is a chance we must take.”
“We cannot,” Vaasak said.
“Why can’t we?” replied Grigory. “They’ve as much as declared war on us already.”
“If we take Hakan, a new Kamarisi will come, and he will bring with him the whole of their might.”
“Grigory’s right.” Atiana turned, stunned, at these words from Ishkyna. She had been so hostile to Grigory when they’d first arrived, and here she was supporting his foolhardy plan. Ishkyna continued to stare at the tabletop, as if she were still working all of it through, and then she nodded to herself, apparently satisfied. “The Kamarisi is begging us to do it.”
Atiana could not remember a time when her father had been indecisive. Ever. He had always been a man who knew just what to do no matter what the circumstances. But sitting before her now was a man on the brink of defeat. The mantle of the Grand Duke had burdened him heavily ever since he’d taken it up, but never had it made him seem small. It did now, and she felt for him-caught between difficult choices, none of which seemed likely to save the Grand Duchy.
His gaze moved between Ishkyna and Atiana, to Grigory, and then Vaasak. “You have dealt with Hakan the most. How do you weigh him?”
Vaasak looked nervous to speak. He knew his words would determine much. “In truth, he has seemed earnest. Perhaps too much so.”
Father digested these words. He picked up his heavy glass and downed the last of his vodka. As he set the glass down on the table with barely a sound, he turned to Grigory. “Return to your brother, Grigory. Tell him to send the ships.” He stood and looked down upon Atiana. “And you, daughter.” She had not felt so much the child in years. “There’s no time to spare. Find what Arvaneh is about.”
With that he and Grigory and Vaasak left, leaving Atiana alone with Ishkyna.
Ishkyna stared at her glass of vodka, which she hadn’t touched once. “Dangerous business, sister.”
Atiana hadn’t touched her drink, either, but she took it up now and downed it in one big gulp. “ Da,” she said, setting the glass onto the table, rim-side down. “Best we get to it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A s snowflakes the size of petals fell over Baressa, Atiana strode along the edge of a pool that had not quite frozen over. A thickening blanket of snow was building around the edge where ice had formed, but in the center, white snowflakes fell against the water’s black surface, melting in the blink of an eye. They looked like souls falling against the aether, slipping through the dark to the other side, and it made Atiana wonder if this was indeed what it was like when souls reached Adhiya and when they returned once more to Erahm.
How might she go? How might Nikandr?
Would it be quick, like these snowflakes? Or might it be slow and painful and filled with misery, like those dreadful hours on Duzol after she’d been shot in the chest?
The sound of approaching footsteps, muffled by the snow, pulled her attention away from the pool. Walking down the path between two broken buildings was Irkadiy.
“My Lady Princess,” he said bowing his head. “Please, come.”
She followed along a path that led her down a row of stone buildings that were now little more than gutted shells. They were deep in the Shattering, the swath of Baressa that had been left as it was after the greatest and final battle of the War of Seven Seas. It was a land that had been considered fouled, for it had been one of the few great battles the Empire had lost over its long, grand history.
They followed tracks in the snow that were already becoming obscured by the heavy fall. They came to an area that was not nearly as devastated as the one they’d just come from. They made for a depression circled by columns. Many of the columns were intact, whole, but those nearest Atiana were broken, little more than white fingers clawing skyward. As Atiana and Irkadiy walked through it she realized it had been a celestia, which made it clear that this had once been an area where Aramahn had lived.
Beyond the ruins lay a stone building that bore the mark of the Yrstanla stonemasons from centuries past-it was grand, but it was also stark and serious. Inside, the light was dim, and at the northern end the roof was
