N ikandr sat near a fire in the woods of Rafsuhan. The sun had set and with the moon dark, the only thing Nikandr could see was what the small fire allowed: Soroush sitting on the far side of the fire, a half dozen tree trunks, the ground nearby, which was covered by larch needles. In the distance, a woodpecker rattled.
Jahalan and the girl, Kaleh, and most of the streltsi had already gone to sleep. Nikandr had elected to stay awake, at least as long as Soroush did. They would reach Ashdi en Ghat tomorrow, and for some reason he still didn’t trust Soroush, perhaps because of the proximity to the village from which Soroush had for years schemed against the Grand Duchy. Though it appeared as though Nikandr had the upper hand, they both knew it was an illusion. The truth was that Soroush held the most powerful trump cards-Nikandr needed to speak with the elders of the Maharraht, and the only way to do that was through Soroush.
As the fire snapped, Soroush unwound his turban carefully, folding it into a tight circle in his lap. That done, he pulled his dark hair over his shoulder and began brushing away the tangles with his fingers. It was a personal moment, one that he would never have thought Soroush would allow him to see.
“Do you think of her?” Soroush asked without looking up. He’d chosen to speak Anuskayan-perhaps some small indicator of his mood. Or perhaps it was a small act of apology for how he’d treated Nikandr on the Kavda.
Nikandr knew he was referring to Rehada-it was not possible to be in Soroush’s presence and not think of her. “I do.”
“And what do you think, son of Iaros?”
Nikandr tried to smile, but the truth was that his memories of Rehada were still bittersweet. “I think the fates placed her in both of our paths for a reason.”
And now Soroush did glance at Nikandr, his eyebrows raised. “So now you believe in the fates.”
Nikandr had been struggling with that very thought for years. “I no longer know what I believe.”
Soroush was staring at Nikandr’s chest. His soulstone lay hidden beneath his shirt, but upon it he could feel the weight of Soroush’s stare. “How long after Oshtoyets?”
“It began before Oshtoyets, on Verodnaya. Who knows why? Nasim, the cold, the rift, my broken stone, the wasting. Something allowed me to contact the hezhan. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think it had been with me ever since the ritual you performed on the cliff below Radiskoye.”
Soroush’s eyes went distant, as if he were reliving those moments again, piecing together the strange sequence of events that might have led to the ways of Adhiya being open to Nikandr.
If he was angered that he might have had something to do with it, he didn’t show it. He merely seemed pensive, curious. “Do you commune with it?”
Nikandr understood the question, but the answer was not so easy. The Aramahn and the Maharraht communed with the spirits they bonded with. They believed it was a trading of breath, a trading of thoughts, a trading of their experiences of their respective worlds, a ritual that would slowly, eventually, bring the worlds closer together and lead the individual souls toward vashaqiram and the worlds toward indara qiram.
Nikandr felt as though he touched his spirit, felt as though his spirit touched him, but he didn’t believe in vashaqiram. He didn’t believe that one could ever attain perfection, in this life or the next. He had come to believe in reincarnation-he had experienced it firsthand with Nasim-but that didn’t mean that the views of the Aramahn were correct in every way.
“I speak to it,” Nikandr said, not wishing to offend. “I believe it speaks back as well, though my ears are deaf to its voice.”
Soroush stared at him, perhaps measuring the sincerity in his words, but then he nodded, perhaps pleased in some small way. “Rehada spoke of you often.”
“Of course. She was spying on me.”
“That isn’t what I mean. For years we spoke in letters only, and she would write of you longer than she needed to. She wrote of your family, your likes, your dislikes, your tendencies.”
“Was that not her duty?”
“ Da, but when one knows a woman as well as I knew her, one can tell the difference.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you should know.”
“You fathered a child with her.”
Soroush paused in his brushing, staring at the dry earth in front of him as the light of the fire danced across his ruddy skin. “Does that mean she could never love another? Does that mean you cannot learn of her beyond her death? That you cannot perhaps love her more?”
Nikandr took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. It felt good, knowing this, though he had trouble releasing his feelings of distrust to allow it to sink in.
“Atiana told me of the time she crossed the fires in Iramanshah.”
Soroush’s back stiffened. It was sacred, what Rehada had done, and it was something Atiana should not have shared. But she had, and it was something he felt Soroush should know.
“She spoke of your daughter, Ahya. Of how she felt she had betrayed you when she told Ahya of your love for learning.”
“Enough,” Soroush said, staring at Nikandr with cold eyes.
“I say this so you’ll understand how envious I am of you.”
For long moment Soroush studied him with his deep, piercing eyes. “Envious of what?”
“You have lost much, son of Gatha, but you had much while it lasted.”
Soroush stood, folding the cloth of his turban carefully and heading for space in the lean-to shelter they’d built from cut evergreen branches earlier in the day. “Go to sleep, son of Iaros. There’s much to do tomorrow.”
Nikandr watched him sit beneath the lean-to and lie with his back facing the fire. Nikandr could not sleep, however. His thoughts had turned to Rehada and Atiana, both. Long into the deepening night, as the owls called and the trees sighed beneath the wind, memories of them haunted him.
“My Lord Prince.”
Nikandr woke from a deep sleep, blinking his eyes at the early morning light. Styophan was standing over him.
“My Lord Prince, he’s gone.”
Nikandr shot up, staring first at the lean-to where Soroush had gone to sleep and then toward the tree line. Only a few leagues away was Ashdi en Ghat.
“Send Avil to track him.”
“I’ve already sent him, but there can be no doubt as to where he went.”
Nikandr could only agree. He sent Styophan away and began gathering his things for the day ahead. Kaleh, the orphan girl from Siafyan, was watching him from the other side of the fire she was coaxing back to life.
“Did you see him go?” Nikandr asked in Mahndi.
Staring down into the fire, she nodded.
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
She shrugged. “There is nothing for me in Ashdi en Ghat.”
“Your people are there.”
She looked north, back the way they’d come. “My people are there.”
“I would not wish it, but you can go to them if you choose.”
As she had many times over the past two days, she stared closely at his cherkesska, at his tall black boots. “Why have you come to Rafsuhan?”
Nikandr could tell it was something she’d been wanting to ask but had only now summoned the courage to do so. “I have come to learn of the rifts.”
“Like Nasim?”
Nikandr was rolling his blanket, but he stopped when she said this. “How do you know of Nasim?”
“You spoke of him last night, with Soroush.” She pointed at his chest. “He gave you your hezhan, you said.”
“We didn’t speak of Nasim learning about the rifts.”
“We do know of him, son of Iaros, even here.”
He stared at her a moment longer, and then let go of his distrust. Of course Nasim would be known here. He’d be legendary. “I said I didn’t know if he’d given me my hezhan.” He continued rolling his blanket, making sure it was tight and free of needles. “And it isn’t mine. We share our lives with one another. That’s all.”
“Is there no other place you could do so?” Kaleh asked as she poked at the embers with a stick.
“Do what?”
“Learn of the rifts.”
“There is something growing here. Something terrible. I can feel it.”
“So you have come to study us. Nothing more.”
Nikandr stuffed the blanket into his pack and slung it over his shoulder. “What would you have me say? That I came to save you?”
Her face grew cross. “We have no need of saviors, certainly not from Anuskaya, be he prince or no.”
Nikandr bit his tongue as he finished his packing. He should have been more careful with his words. “What will you do, Kaleh, when we get to Ashdi en Ghat?”
Her eyes narrowed, curious and confused. “You will still go?”
“There is much to learn whether Soroush is willing to help me or not.”
“The mahtar will not speak with you.”
“As you’ve said.” The walrus tusk cartridges on his bandolier clacked as he ducked into it so that it hung across his chest. He finished by slinging his musket across one shoulder. “But I will try.”
“They will kill you.”
He held his hand out to her. “As you’ve said.”
She dropped the stick she’d been using to coax the fire and took his hand.
“Not everyone who was taken to the fire went willingly.”
She said it while staring down at the ground, and it came so softly that Nikandr barely heard the words. He knew immediately who she was talking about.
“There is no shame in fearing death.”
“Is there not?”
He bent down so that their eyes were of a level with one another. “There is not.”
The rims of her eyes were red, and her nostrils flared, but she did not cry. She nodded once, and then began walking, still holding his hand.
The entrance to Ashdi en Ghat was eerily similar to that of Iramanshah. It was dryer here, so the vegetation was more sparse, but like the valley leading to Iramanshah, the walls sloped up gently to two tall ridges that hid the village well. Nikandr practically expected the same sentries posted at the entrance, but here there were none.
When they reached the dogleg in the valley, the view changed entirely. Instead of a lush green valley like Iramanshah, he came to a gulch with a dry creek bed running down its center. It was bounded on both sides by inhospitable rock faces, and in these were built the houses of the Maharraht. Dozens of homes with oval windows were built into the steep gulch walls. On and on they went for hundreds of yards until they were lost at another bend in the land. Stone stairways connected them, though they were crudely made. They looked almost natural, which was not an indication of the ability of the vanaqiram who had carved them, but rather their aesthetic.
No one greeted them. No one stood in the windows. No one walked along the narrow pathways between homes. Just like Siafyan, it felt as though everyone had died in some ritual cleansing.
The call of a thrush sounded from somewhere ahead. Not ten paces away-as if he were stepping out of the ground itself-a man bearing a musket rose up from behind a scrub bush. He trained his musket upon them as four others stood behind him from places Nikandr wouldn’t have thought could hide a man so completely.
Nikandr raised his hands. As ordered, the streltsi behind him did the same. Jahalan merely waited, watching calmly as the Maharraht approached. From a doorway in the stone at the base of the rock face came three more men. They were a good ways away still, but Nikandr recognized one of them immediately.
It was Bersuq, Soroush’s brother.