It is then that he hears footsteps crunching through the snow. Hands lift him and pull him onward. He can hardly breathe, his chest wracking with painful coughs, and he can see nothing, so blinded by tears and smoke are his eyes, but the hands that guide him are strong and sure, and soon he has broken through to the plain beyond the borders of the forest.
Yadhan has found him. She drags him farther and farther away, until at last he can go no more and he collapses into the snow.
He coughs until his chest hurts. His hands grow numb as they sink into the snow, but after the heat from the forest, it is a gift granted by the kindness of the fates.
Hearing the roar of the flames behind him, he rolls over, and what he sees takes his breath away.
The entire forest is ablaze. From horizon to horizon, it burns. It boils. Flames of gold and amber and rust twist and meld and part. Black smoke roils high into the sky like a wall both amorphous and impenetrable.
With Yadhan’s help he manages to stand. It cannot have happened so quickly, but he reminds himself that this place is not real. What’s more shocking is that Sariya tried to kill him. It was something he thought her incapable of without Muqallad at her side. Then again, if she’s convinced the world is about to end one way or another, toward what extremes might she be pushed?
This, Nasim says to himself as he stares at the forest.
But at what cost? She may have thought the risk worth it, but he knows that this has cost her dearly.
Cost her dearly, indeed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
W hen Nasim released the rusted handle of the iron gate, he looked up to the tower and saw a fresh gap in the stone. It ran the full length of the tower-from the base, where it was wider than his hand, to the top, where it disappeared into an indiscernible crack.
Around him, he saw only the emptiness of Alayazhar. Yadhan and the boy were missing. Their souls had been freed, but their bodies were gone as well. Perhaps, he thought, they’d been taken by the other akhoz to a place they thought sacred.
A fallen form drew his attention toward the lone, dead tree in center of the tower’s yard.
“Rabiah!” He ran to her and dropped to his knees. “Rabiah, please wake up!”
He recoiled the moment he touched her skin. She was cold. Her eyes stared up toward the cloudless sky and the bright, noontime sun. Her face was slack. And she looked nothing like the girl he’d known. Nothing.
He took her hand up in his and stroked it gently. He kissed the back of her hand as tears fell to the dry ground. “I’ve failed you in so many ways,” he said to her softly. “I couldn’t even get the Atalayina. It was right there in front of me.”
He wanted to be strong for her, even though she was gone, but he couldn’t stop himself from falling across her chest and crying until his tears ran dry.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her. “I’m so sorry.”
When he pulled his head up at last, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. His sadness had left in its wake a cold, hard anger that he hadn’t felt in years, not since the days when his emotions were as out of control as the autumn winds. It was time, he thought, time to find Muqallad. He had to save Ashan and Sukharam, but he wouldn’t leave Rabiah. Not here.
He looked up to the celestia on its hill above the city.
Yeh, he thought. He would bring her there, and he would build a pyre and set her to the winds.
He picked her up in his arms-by the fates, she was light-and walked up the long sloping hill toward the celestia. On his right, the ground fell away, leaving only a steep slope and a short, rocky beach before the waves of the sea stretched out toward the horizon. He remembered that beach. He had dreamed of it many times. He would go there, he decided. After he’d laid Rabiah to rest, he would go there, and the beach would whispers secrets to him.
By the time he reached the top of the hill sweat rolled down his forehead and his arms burned. He brought Rabiah to the center of the celestia’s floor, where he could still see the outline of Ghayavand. As he laid her gently down, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Standing at the edge of the stairs leading up to the celestia floor was a man wearing the ragged robes of a Maharraht. He was tall with dark hair and piercing, gray-green eyes.
It was difficult to remember the people and events from before Oshtoyets, but this man he recognized. This was Soroush, the man who had sought to use him to tear open the rift that ran through Khalakovo. In his black turban was a stone of jasper. His beard was long and black, and the earrings along his ruined left ear glinted beneath the cold winter sun. It was as it had always been, and somehow this enraged Nasim.
Before he knew what he was doing, he had stood and charged forward. He beat Soroush with his fists. Soroush gave ground, but did not otherwise defend himself. This only enraged Nasim further. He swung, over and over, pummeling Soroush’s shoulders, his arms, his torso, his head, and Soroush took it all, his face calm and accepting, as if he knew this was just punishment.
In the end, Nasim couldn’t keep it up. The anger in him ran deep, but it was not in him to harm others, not when they refused to raise a hand to defend themselves. He realized then, even though he’d not been with Ashan all that long, how much he’d been affected by the kindly old arqesh, and how little he’d been affected by Soroush.
Thank the fates for small favors.
Nasim’s breath came in ragged gasps. “What are you doing here?” It was all he could think to say, though his emotions were still so close to boiling that his hands shook.
Soroush stared into Nasim’s eyes. Nasim was not as tall as Soroush, and it made him feel insignificant. It made him feel as if he was eleven all over again. It made him feel as though the days of dreaming between the worlds had returned. It felt-staring at Soroush with sudden clarity-as if he were experiencing one of those rare moments of lucidity in his younger years, and that at any moment he would revert to being confused, to walking Adhiya and Erahm simultaneously, his mind and senses in a constant state of war.
“I asked what you were doing here,” Nasim said, more forcefully.
Soroush motioned to Rabiah. “I don’t know who she was-”
“Speak not of her.” Nasim’s fists were bunched so tightly it hurt.
“I speak not of her, but of your loss. I am sorry for it.”
“Tell me how you came to be here, son of Gatha, or begone.”
Soroush’s jaw went rigid as he considered Nasim, perhaps wondering whether he should push Nasim or not. “I’ve come from Rafsuhan. It is where Muqallad has gone. Did you know this?”
“What of it?”
“He’s preparing to perform a ritual to fuse two pieces of the Atalayina.”
Nasim had known this, but his fingers still tingled to hear that it would happen so soon.
Soroush continued, “He’s taken many children, including my son, and created more of the akhoz.” Soroush’s voice… It was strange. His voice was filled not with regret, but wonder, and pride. Pride, as if the loss of his son was somehow something he would cherish for the rest of his life.
“Do you not love your son?” Nasim asked.
Soroush’s head jerked backward. “Of course I do.”
“In one so vengeful as you I would have thought to find anger.”
“Do not mistake my actions for vengeance, Nasim. I am an agent of change. Just as the Landed were centuries ago. It is our time now.”
“Then why not let Muqallad have his way with the world?”
“Because he would undo all we see around us. He would have me believe that the world is ready for indaraqiram when it is not. To force it upon the world would be to send us back to the beginning. We would lose whatever progress we have made-however slight it might be, however grand, he would ruin it.”
“As you would ruin your own life.”
“I darken my soul that others’ might brighten.”
