soul-but Nasim was a special child. He’d spent years straddling the aether, walking between worlds. Could he not then walk the dark as she did? Perhaps he would even be better at it, as gifted as he had been with hezhan.
She stared down at the blue stone. It was both beautiful and terrifying.
When she looked up she saw the woman staring at it. Yalessa… Her name was Yalessa.
Atiana palmed the stone-making it clear it was something not to be questioned-and took Yalessa’s hand to step with shaking legs from the pool. As she did it registered with her how broken this building was. She knew this place. It was the very same building where she’d first seen Ushai in the Shattering.
Another boom shook the building. Atiana allowed Yalessa to put Atiana’s thick winter coat around her shoulders, and then she walked toward the open doorway. The streltsi held their muskets and berdische axes at the ready. They bowed their heads as Atiana approached and stepped outside ahead of her, both with their muskets resting at the top of their axes, ready to set them down and fire should the need arise.
“My Lady,” Yalessa said, “don’t go outside!”
“Wake them,” Atiana replied calmly. “It’s time we leave.”
Yalessa seemed relieved by this. She bowed and moved to comply as Atiana stepped outside and into the adjoining courtyard. Within it were withered trees and a disused garden. Above, there was gray sky, the monotony broken only by the dark forms of windships sliding below the clouds. A dozen circled about one another. Almost directly overhead, cannon smoke belched from the side of one of them. Windwood flew from the hull of the ship it had targeted, the sound of the blast falling upon her moments later.
Debris rained down over the courtyard, and the streltsi pushed her back beneath the overhang.
As chunks of wood pattered onto the stones, Atiana remembered the events she’d seen from within the aether.
Father.
The ceremony at the Spar.
Dozens of her countrymen had been there along with the Kamarisi and his courtiers. Father… Father was dead, but what about the rest? Had they all been killed?
Six streltsi came running into the courtyard, boots stomping, bandoliers rattling in time. Two stopped at the archway that led to the streets of the Shattering. The remaining four continued with Irkadiy at their lead.
“My Lady Princess, we must go. Now.”
“The others aren’t ready.”
“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”
Atiana turned and found Ishkyna standing in the shadow of the doorway. Ushai was there as well. Both of them looked as if they hadn’t slept in days.
“My Lady,” Yalessa said, holding Atiana’s clothes and motioning to the interior.
No sooner had Atiana nodded her head than musket fire broke out from the archway.
The leg of one of the streltsi standing there buckled. He grunted in pain, aiming and firing his musket. Blood stained his pant leg where it was tucked into his tall leather boot, and then it began to spurt.
“The Kamarisi’s men have come, My Lady.” Irkadiy’s face was hard, but as he glanced toward his man, she saw the pain and worry that roiled just below the surface.
Atiana took time only to pull her boots on. The coat would have to do for now. She pulled it tight around her and cinched the belt and they were off, running toward the courtyard’s other exit.
As they ran into the Shattering, Atiana looked back and saw a dozen janissaries dressed in the red turbans and the black coats of the Kamarisi’s personal guard. One of the soldiers spotted their escape, but he did not shout. He merely whistled and pointed, and his comrades ran up the street, half of them peeling away, heading southward to cut them off.
Irkadiy led them into a round building, a scriptorium. They took the stairs that were just inside the foyer and went up three levels. Shelves were built into the walls, and were visible in many other rooms they saw as they ran. The shelves were largely empty, but every so often she would see a thick book, dusty with mold, and she wondered distantly why those particular books had been abandoned, why they had survived the scavenging that had taken place over the course of generations.
At last they reached the highest level. A wooden ladder stood at the ready, one that had been prepared three days before. Irkadiy and one other strelet climbed the ladder first.
Yalessa, eyes wide and movements rushed, made to follow them, but one of the streltsi put himself between her and the ladder. “They will make sure it’s safe,” he said.
Five of the streltsi lined the balcony and brought their muskets to their shoulders, aiming their weapons down to the foyer below.
Sounds came from the entrance three stories down.
Two quick shots came from the streltsi, the sound of it deafening in the enclosed space. The other three fired shortly after, and they heard moaning and a cry of pain cut short by the musket fire.
Irkadiy returned, waving them up. “Quickly now,” he whispered.
As Yalessa took the ladder up, a musket shot struck the stone ceiling. Yalessa screamed as the shot scattered powder and bits of rock everywhere.
Below, bootsteps could be heard running along the scriptorium halls, and then along the stone stairs leading to the second level.
“Hurry,” Irkadiy called.
Ishkyna gained the roof quickly, as did Ushai.
As Atiana made her way up, another shot came from the streltsi behind her. And another. They were staggering their shots, delaying the chase. When she reached the roof at last, the streltsi came quickly behind her. Just as the last of them reached the top of the ladder, a shot rang out from below. The strelet arched back, his face twisted in pain. He was hit by another shot before the others could pull him to safety.
They pulled the ladder up immediately and dropped two heavy boards into place over the hole. A shot tore into the wood, followed quickly by two more.
She watched as the men helped the wounded soldier away and checked his wounds.
“ Nyet,” he said, waving them away. “Leave me my musket and one other.”
He was young, younger than Atiana. Irkadiy glanced ahead, to the building they were headed toward, and then he slipped his musket over his shoulder and gave it to the wounded man. After kissing his cheeks tenderly, Irkadiy said, “Go well.”
“Go well,” the young man replied.
They padded over the tiles of the roof to an adjoining building, one whose roof was only a short drop from the scriptorium’s. It was the first in a connected series of buildings that had once been part of a grand estate.
Atiana silently thanked the ancestors for Irkadiy.
He and his men had blockaded all of the entrances, all except the rooftop garden-which they reached in short order-and three others, leaving them several choices of escape routes.
They entered the building, blockading the garden entrance behind them. They found themselves in a long, marble hallway.
“Which way?” Atiana asked, her breath coming heavily. She removed her belt and motioned for Ishkyna to hold it up so that she could change.
The men turned away, several of them reloading their muskets with quick efficiency.
“They will expect us to run west,” Irkadiy said, “toward the bulk of the Shattering.”
“And so you plan to go south.” Warmth was beginning to return to Atiana’s extremities, but this only served to make her aware of how cold she truly was. She began to shiver fiercely as she allowed the coat to drop and pulled a shirt over her naked frame.
“ Da,” Irkadiy replied. “We’ll be able to see them pass along the grounds. Once they do, we will make our way and-”
“ Nyet,” Atiana said. “We will head north.”
“My Lady,” Irkadiy said, lowering his voice, “that way lies the city.”
“I must see what became of the Spar.”
“We will be trapped.”
“My Father, your Lord, was there on that bridge, Irkadiy.” She accepted the leggings from Yalessa and pulled them on quickly. “We will see what became of it.”
