“ One had to remain, Khamal. One had to ensure the walls were closed. I accepted the honor. Gladly.”
“ Neh,” he says, opening himself to the world beyond and drawing upon the spirits of fire that hover close, always close. As his hands shake with rage, he feels the fire build within him. “You stayed so you could be the one who told me.”
She smiles sadly. “I will pay for it in the next life, but you’re right. It shames me, but I’m not afraid to tell you that this is the most gratifying moment of my life.”
She speaks those words with such pride, such smugness. It burns Khamal’s ears to hear them. He finds his hands bunching into fists. Finds the muscles of his arms and chest tightening so fiercely that he shivers from it.
“Look at you.” Inan smiles, showing her perfect white teeth. “The great Khamal, humbled at last.”
Before he knows what he’s doing, he releases the power built within him, feels the suurahezhan revel in the gout of flame that flows from his fingertips. It cuts through the cold air, brightening the hillside, brightening the underside of the celestia, making it sparkle against the nighttime sky.
How long he allows it to continue he isn’t sure. He only knows that when he stops, all that remains of Inan is a blackened pile of soot on the ground above Alayazhar.
Nasim woke sweating as the hammock he slept in swayed. The room was dark, but he could see light coming through the shutters of the nearby porthole. He reached out and flicked them open. Through the small window he saw only driving white snow swirling and collecting at the window’s edges.
He rocked himself out of the hammock and onto the cold deck as Khamal’s memories faded.
He began to shiver. But of course it was not simply the cold of the ship or the dampness in his clothes. He had known that Khamal was rigid in his views. Even ruthless. What he hadn’t known was that he could be brought to murder.
As he changed into dry robes, Nasim wondered: could he be driven to such violence? He knew little of Khamal’s life before the sundering, but he knew from his time on Mirashadal and his travels around Erahm that he was revered, and it was not merely because of some perceived sacrifice on the part of the Al-Aqim. He had apparently been a man pure of heart and mind before meeting Sariya and Muqallad. His writings could still be found in the libraries of Aleke s ir and in the secret holds of the Aramahn. So what had happened? What could have driven him to this, to murder a woman who sought only to protect the world?
If there were answers, they refused to come.
He slammed the lid of his chest closed, cursing himself immediately after for his lack of control.
He needed fresh air. He always thought better when he stood among the elements.
As he left the confines of the hold and headed toward the stairs leading up to the forecastle, he realized that his dream answered at least one burning question. The Atalayina, while not powerless, had certainly been muted by the spell that kept the Al-Aqim on Ghayavand. This was surely why Muqallad was trying to leave the island. With the Atalayina muzzled as it was, he had no choice but to try the ritual elsewhere. And the only logical place to do it was Galahesh; the patterns on the floor of the celestia had shown him this much. With so much aether channeling through one place, it would allow him to complete his ritual and let the worlds do the rest. It also explained why the piece of the Atalayina he’d found in the celestia had felt so lifeless. He’d thought it a combination of its inscrutable nature and his ignorance of the stone’s nature, but now he knew the cause, and he wondered what it would feel like away from Ghayavand. What would it feel like if all three were combined?
He stopped near the small cabin Ashan had been lying in since their flight from Rafsuhan. He held his hand above the handle, willing himself to open it and look upon the kindly old arqesh. His hand remained. He gripped it, once, twice, still unable to summon the courage to look upon Ashan.
In the end, he walked on by and continued up to the forecastle deck. There, while stepping out into the driving snow, he saw Sukharam standing amidships, looking out into the storm. He turned and locked gazes with Nasim for long moments. Then he turned and began climbing the shrouds of the starward mainmast, up and up until at last he’d reached the rook’s nest, where despite the driving snow he settled himself and began to take breath. He’d done this each day they’d been on the winds since leaving Rafsuhan-nine days running.
“He does it so that he doesn’t take revenge on you.”
Nasim looked to his left along the gunwale and found Soroush standing there, watching him. White, fluffy snow fell against his beard and turban, both the color of burnt autumn leaves. He’d chosen not to wear his stone of jasper. Nasim didn’t know why, nor did he care to ask, but it was telling that he’d had it when they’d fled Ghayavand together.
“Revenge is not in him,” Nasim said softly.
“Man can be driven to many things, Nasim. Things we never thought possible.” Soroush stepped closer, but seemed to sense Nasim’s discomfort and stopped some paces away. This was the first time Soroush had spoken to him since they’d left Rafsuhan. Nasim would never have guessed it, but he seemed shamed, somehow, of their shared history, though in truth Nasim remembered little of it. “He was angry with you for leaving him in your home outside of Alayazhar, but furious when he found out what happened to the girl, Rabiah.”
“I would have come had I been able.”
“I know,” Soroush said, “and I think he knows as well, but for now, perhaps it’s best to let his anger burn itself out.”
He joined Nasim at the landward gunwale and together they looked ahead of the ship, westward, toward the Chaika. The falling snow obscured it, but they could see its silhouette, gray in a haze of white.
Nasim had thought of nothing but Rabiah since they’d left Ghayavand. He should have been more careful. He should have been more prepared. Only, it felt as though there was no time. Every day on Mirashadal had felt like one more day closer to the end. For him. For the islands. For the world. By the time he’d left he felt as though he was years behind. He had to hurry. He still had to hurry. There was no time for preparation. He simply had to do.
“Nikandr has asked to see you.”
Nasim saw no reason to answer, so he remained silent, watching the snow fall between their ship and Nikandr’s.
“Shall I send you to him?”
“Where was I found?” Nasim asked. He meant where Soroush had found him-either as a child or as a babe.
If Soroush was bothered by the change of subject, he didn’t show it. “What does that matter now?” he asked.
“I’d like to know. I think I deserve that, at least.”
“Will that somehow help you to see your way ahead?”
“Where did you find me? Was I stolen away from my mother? Was I born of the Maharraht?”
“Those things don’t matter, Nasim.”
“They matter to me!”
Soroush stared at him, his face sad but stern. The look was so paternal it made Nasim want to shout, to rage against this man that had stolen him away from some unknown shore and put him to use as a tool, as a weapon, to cause destruction to the Landed.
“You are a small man, Soroush Wahad al Gatha.”
He turned at movement among the rigging. Sukharam was making his way back down to the deck.
Soroush turned back to Nasim, his eyes still sad, but now also full of regret. “This I know,” he said, bowing his head to Nasim. “This I know.”
He stepped away as Sukharam approached.
Sukharam looked confusedly between the two of them, but when Soroush retreated below decks, he approached Nasim and seemed to steel himself.
“Where do you go?” he asked.
It was clear that he was asking out of some sense of duty. He wanted nothing to do with Nasim, but he still believed in the cause Nasim had described to him on that hillside overlooking Trevitze.
“You should return home,” Nasim replied.
“Where is home but here?” he said.
It was a phrase common among the Aramahn, but Nasim knew that his heart didn’t stand behind those words. “Return home,” Nasim said again, “or take to the winds.”
