before, but here-perhaps because of his proximity to the spire-he felt something at last. It was not the feeling that a presence was near, as he felt with the Matri, but instead a yawning emptiness, as if he stood near the edge of a great chasm, and the closer the Lihvyen came to the spire, the more pronounced it became.
“Prepare for battle,” Nikandr said to Styophan.
Styophan snapped his heels and bowed his head, and then left, giving hand signals to the crew that were quickly passed around the ship and to the trailing cutters.
Nikandr met Jahalan at the mainmast. “Can you feel it?” he asked.
“I feel something,” Jahalan said, “though I know not what. It feels strange here. My havahezhan is distant, and it grows more so the closer we come to this island.”
“Anahid?”
Anahid sat at the base of the mainmast, her arms out and her hands barely touching the surface of the windwood. It seemed as though she hadn’t heard him, but then she answered, her voice hoarse. “The same, son of Iaros”-she swallowed-“though for me it is much worse than Jahalan describes.”
Nikandr moved to the fore of the ship and stared at the fort, which was now in easy view, and he realized that though the flag of Vostroma was flying, there were no signs of life within the keep.
He raised his telescope to his eye and studied the fort closely. There was no one. Along her tall gray walls. On the road leading eastward. No one.
He remembered a cove that was set into the northern shore of the island, a place surrounded by steep hills. It had harbored, he recalled, many ships during a famous battle during the War of Seven Seas.
He swung the telescope along the coast, searching for it.
He might not have found the cove as distant as it was if he hadn’t noticed the tops of the masts and rigging that could barely be seen above the hill that stood between the cove and the Lihvyen.
“Rise!” Nikandr called. “Rise, and pass the signal!”
No sooner had he said these words than the first puff of smoke came from the nearest of the fort’s cannons.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
A tiana was awakened by a hand on her shoulder.
She sat up in her bed and found Siha s standing over her. “What?” she asked, rubbing her eyes and pulling the thin blanket off her.
“The guards are coming this way.”
Ishkyna, lying nearby, woke and groaned. “Let them come.”
Atiana shoved Ishkyna’s backside with one foot. “Get up, unless you wish to wait for them alone.”
“If it means I can sleep longer, I will.”
Atiana kicked her again, harder. “Get up.”
Ishkyna slapped her foot away and rolled up in bed until she could rest her head in her hands.
Atiana pulled on her boots and raked her fingers through her grimy hair. She already wore the Galaheshi peasant dress she’d worn for the past week. It was properly grubby, to the point that she looked like half of the women that dared wander about the city.
In little time all of them were ready. Ushai, Ishkyna, Atiana, plus Siha s and Irkadiy and two of their streltsi. The other streltsi had been quartered in a farm to the south. There had been no sense in keeping so many in one place-too much chance of discovery.
They slipped out the back door and into the cold night wind. The street was filled with small homes built close to one another, most of them narrow and built to two or three stories. Atiana studied the windows closely, wondering who might be watching. In one she thought she could see the silhouette of a girl behind white curtains. When they came closer however, the silhouette was gone. Perhaps she’d gone to tell her parents, but that only made Atiana wonder whether her parents would suspect who was walking down their street, and, more importantly, whether they’d run and tell the city guard.
They continued on, and the feeling of being watched grew until Atiana’s skin itched from it. In more and more homes she thought she saw faces, or watching eyes, and though she came to understand they were merely hallucinations brought on by too little sleep, it didn’t make her terror any less real.
For seven days they’d been in this city, being woken at all hours, slipping from one section of the city to another, all in hopes of staying one step ahead of the Kamarisi’s men.
Twenty minutes into their walk, one of Siha s ’s sentries returned to tell them that the guardsmen had come to the room they’d just left and were questioning the mason who owned it. Atiana prayed to the ancients that they would be spared. So far, the people that had sheltered them had come to no harm, but it was only a matter of time before one of them was taken to the city square at the base of the Mount and hung.
In time they came to a servant’s home behind a large house in a section of Baressa that had once been affluent. Hard times had come and some of the buildings had fallen into disuse.
Ishkyna dropped into a chair covered by a sheet and leaned back, closing her eyes immediately. Ushai sat on the floor, crossed her legs, and took long, measured breaths. Meditating. Again. It had begun to grow on Atiana’s nerves.
Unable to watch her any longer, Atiana investigated the small home. It was bare, but she could tell it had once been quaint, a place she would have been pleased to have tea in, to visit relatives in. Now it seemed lost and forgotten among the immensity of Baressa.
They could not stay here, she knew-this had been planned only as a temporary hiding place-but she hoped it could shelter them for a few days at least. They were running out of places to go. The Shattering was off-limits to them now; it had been from the moment Sariya had discovered that they’d been hiding there, that they’d used it to attack her. Since then, they’d been wandering the neighborhoods of Baressa, never staying in one place for more than a night, biding their time until Siha s found a way to reunite them with his countrymen.
The days after the keystone ceremony on the bridge had been brutal and bloody. Hakan had made examples of those he thought had been plotting against him. In some cases, he’d been right; in others, Siha s had said, he’d merely been using it as an excuse to right a wrong that had been festering in Hakan’s mind for years. And once Hakan’s bloodlust had taken hold of the Lords of Galahesh, it had spread like wildfire. Hangings and shootings had been commonplace in the days after the attack.
Only after the fifth day of terror, when Hakan had lined seventy-two men and women along the tallest section of the kasir’s curtain wall and pushed them to their death one by one, had the killing subsided. For the past several days, things had been quiet, though whether this was due to a natural bleeding of tension or a simple dearth of anyone else to accuse and summarily hang Atiana didn’t know.
Irkadiy and Siha s stood by the window, watching the empty row outside. There were no guardsmen visible, but the sentries Siha s had posted were good. They would have warning should the guard find them again.
“Where will we go?” Atiana asked.
Irkadiy turned to Atiana, his face haggard under the light of the lone lamp on the far side of the room. “My cousin has found a new home.”
“We won’t be going there,” Siha s said.
“We will,” Irkadiy said.
“We will not. The homes your cousin finds have received too much attention.”
“My cousin is worthy of our trust. I’d stake my life on it. I already have.”
“That may be,” Siha s said, walking away and gathering up his woolen coat, cut long and straight in the style of Yrstanla, “but anyone he speaks to might sell our location to the guard.”
“They wouldn’t do such a thing. Not for Hakan.”
“They will if they think overly long on the bounty on our heads.”
“I said”-Irkadiy took two long steps toward Siha s, squaring himself before he spoke again-“they would not.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
Irkadiy bristled, but before he could do anything foolish, Atiana put her hand on his chest. He looked angry
