The floor shook. The columns began to crack. The sound of it resonated beneath the high dome.
Nasim demanded more.
Muqallad knew what was happening, knew that he had to leave, but Nasim drew upon a dhoshahezhan to force him to remain in place. He had not expected something that he had used so effectively against another to be used against him. He stood frozen, and the water around Nasim fell in a loud rush.
Nasim stumbled back, the ground beneath him rising and bucking, shifting and sliding. And then a crack resounded above him. It was followed by another and another. The high dome focused the sound, making what was already loud deafening.
He ran, but a chunk of stone struck his shoulder and sent him sprawling. Smaller pieces of rock and scree bit into the skin of his scalp and forehead and hands. Rock dust billowed around him, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
Gathering himself, he called upon the wind to blow the dust away. He sprinted forward as a crash moved the ground. He slipped on the slick marble floor, half crawling and half running from the crumbling structure.
As he reached the edge of the circular floor, the fluted columns nearby groaned and bowed and finally gave way. He ran as quickly as he was able, but he was still thrown forward onto the ground. It sounded as if the island itself was being swallowed by the world.
As the sound began to fade, Nasim got to his feet. Though he could sense the girl standing not fifty paces away, he found his path to Adhiya cut off.
Nasim approached her while the ruins of the celestia grumbled and groaned. The dust parted and flowed around her like a weathered stone in a long-forgotten stream.
“Who are you?” Nasim asked.
She looked over Nasim’s shoulder to the destruction beyond. “He will not remain for long.” She held out her hand to him and turned, waiting.
“Where do we go?”
“Do you not wish to find your friends?”
“Who are you?”
“Kaleh. Now come,” she said, shaking her hand for him and glancing again toward the ruined celestia.
He took it, and together they ran. Fear drove them, and it took little time to reach the streets of Alayazhar and to pass beyond Sariya’s broken tower, but they had gone only halfway through the city when they heard a resounding boom from the hill behind them. Nasim turned and saw on the celestia’s hill, above the shattered remains of the buildings, a pillar of dust flying high into the air.
They pushed themselves harder after this. Nasim was too worried to speak, to ask Kaleh questions. He felt as though breaking the silence would also break this spell of good fortune and reveal it to be yet another trap.
Kaleh was just as silent, though whether this was simply her nature or a symptom of her own fear he didn’t know.
They raced through the city and reached the outskirts. The road through the hills led them up toward the peaks and the bridge that led to the village. The bridge itself, tall and white and ill kept, was empty. It looked fragile, as if adding their weight to it would force its collapse. As they crossed, holding hands, Nasim looked down toward the river, to the place he and Rabiah had run from the akhoz. It felt strange to be looking down upon it, walking on the bridge with the same girl he’d seen from that lower vantage. It felt as if he’d allied himself with Muqallad, as if Rabiah’s death had been a plan in which he’d played an integral part, and each step he took cemented these feelings until it felt like little more than betrayal.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“What?” Kaleh asked.
“Nothing.”
They entered the village and wended their way down through the tunnels. Nasim did not see any of the akhoz, but he could feel them lurking in the darkness. They did not bar their way, however. It made this strange situation feel even more surreal, and soon Nasim couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“Why are you helping me?” he asked.
“Because Muqallad is using me. He would use you as well, and that, at least for now, I will not allow.”
“ How is he using you?”
“You of all people should know. You were what gave him the clues he needed.”
“Clues to what?”
“Finding the way Adhiya and Erahm are linked.”
“They are linked through the aether.”
“That doesn’t answer the question of how they’re linked.”
“Then tell me.”
She pulled him down a tunnel where several siraj stones lit the way from sconces set into the walls. “That I cannot say.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t yet know whether I will allow Muqallad to use me further.”
“You have a choice?”
“Do you?” she asked, her eyes flat and judgmental.
“I don’t know.”
“And neither do I.” They came to the doors. “Get them, quickly. Muqallad is coming.”
Before Nasim could move, he heard the braying of one of the akhoz, far in the distance. It was picked up moments later by others, dozens of them. They were closing in already.
Nasim took a siraj from a sconce and went to the nearest door, which opened at his touch. Inside, sleeping, was Sukharam. He stood from his bed of matted hay, blinking at the light.
“Come,” Nasim said. “We have little time.”
Sukharam’s eyes were wild with fear, darting to the hall behind Nasim, and yet he stood his ground. “What of Rabiah?”
Nasim waved him to leave the room. “Not now, Sukharam.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s gone, Sukharam. Dead. Killed in Sariya’s tower.”
Sukharam lowered his arm, allowing the light to strike him full in the face. His look of anger became one of disgust, a mirror of Nasim’s own feelings.
The wails of the akhoz approached. They sounded hungry, and it made Nasim’s stomach turn. “We must go, Sukharam!”
Sukharam walked past Nasim, the cold air of the tunnels wafting by as he did so. “We’ll speak of this again.”
Nasim rushed into the next room. Ashan was lying on the floor, his face a mass of cuts and bruises and half- healed burns. Soroush was already standing, and looked as though he’d received no ill treatment whatsoever. Seeing him next to Ashan, who looked as though he’d been beaten for weeks, was strange indeed.
Soroush and Sukharam slipped Ashan’s arms around their shoulders and half carried, half dragged him from the room.
“This way,” Kaleh said as she continued down the tunnel. There, however, they came to a dead end.
“What have you done?” Nasim cried.
“Be quiet,” Kaleh said. With a touch of her finger, a small hole opened in the wall and widened.
Behind them, the akhoz rounded the corner. They went mad when they spied the five of them.
The hole widened until it looked like the open maw of an earthen beast. “Step inside,” Kaleh said. “Quickly.”
They did, without hesitation. As soon as the last of them were in, the walls began closing in again. The world darkened, and the stone pressed in around them.
Sukharam shouted in fright.
Nasim’s last thought was that Kaleh had betrayed them.
What followed was darkness and a freezing embrace as the cold stone pressed ever more surely against their frames. Nasim could not draw breath. He could not move.
A panic as deep as the earth had just begun to set when the earth shifted-
