As the howling of the wind began to deaden, Nikandr felt his bond to the wind intensify-the gusts around him, the whorl of the snow from hundreds of yards in every direction, the touch that the two Maharraht and Jahalan had with their hezhan-and it was then that he recognized a bond to one other.
Himself.
A hezhan.
Bound to him.
Impossible. He was not Aramahn, to bond with a spirit. He had no stone of alabaster; he had performed no ritual.
Why then? Why had a hezhan bound itself to him?
His breathing had begun to weaken. His body was deathly cold. His heart beat softly.
He fought against the elements, fought for life, and though his body did not answer the call, the wind did.
It blew from the west, swooping in and scouring the landscape behind them. It gouged at the snow where it was thin, biting at rock and soil when the snow had been scraped away. It ate at the drift where Nikandr and the others were buried, ablating it like the rare, summer sun against the winter pack. Large chunks cracked and were blown away, and soon, he was free down to the shoulders.
A hail of stone and ice struck him from behind. He willed the wind to stop, and just like that, it was gone. One last gust, and then silence reigned once more.
He was chilled to the bone. He ached like he had never ached before. He was also still encased in the snow, his arms barely able to move. More alarming than these sensations, however, was the fact that he could no longer sense the hezhan. It was gone, and rather than provide any sort of comfort, it felt as if a limb had gone missing, as if the hezhan had always been a part of him, and now that he’d been awakened to it, a deep yearning was all that remained.
Footsteps crunched across the snow. Nasim was walking toward him, alone. Ashan was nowhere to be seen. Nikandr’s shot must have struck true, though he hoped that it had only wounded him.
Nasim dropped to his knees and stared into Nikandr’s eyes.
He was crying.
The sun, casting dark shadows over much of his face, made the tears falling down his cheeks glint like stars.
“Why do you cry?” Nikandr asked.
He didn’t answer-Nikandr wasn’t even sure the boy had understood the question-but he began digging Nikandr out of the snow with his bare hands.
Finally, Nikandr was able to crawl out of his prison. Jahalan was out as well, and he moved to help the streltsi, but Nikandr kneeled before Nasim, who looked miserable. He was hugging himself, refusing to look Nikandr in the eye.
“Nasim, they’re gone. All is well.”
Nasim began shaking his head slowly, but then with more speed, until it seemed he was possessed. Nikandr pulled him into an embrace, holding his head so he wouldn’t shake it so. “Nasim, it’s all right.”
“There are so many,” Nasim said. “So many.”
“So many what?” Nikandr asked.
Nasim gazed over the snow-swept landscape, his eyes watering, a look of inexpressible fear on his face. “I can’t stop it.” His expression turned to one of discomfort, and then outright pain. He gripped himself tighter, and then he groaned and doubled over in pain.
“Nasim?” Nikandr caught him as he fell. He turned him around, but Nasim was unconscious.
The caw of a rook caught Nikandr’s attention. He looked up and saw one of the palotza’s birds winging over the landscape. Beyond, cresting the high ridge behind the lake, was a windship.
Jahalan crunched over the snow, looking down at Nasim with an unreadable expression. “There is something altogether disconcerting about that boy, son of Iaros.”
Nikandr looked down. Nasim’s face, even while sleeping, was troubled. “Of that, Jahalan, there can be no doubt.”
The gaoler opened the door, stepping back and bowing as Nikandr entered the room. Ashan lay on a lush bed set against the far wall.
They had found him beyond the tree line in a gully, unconscious and bleeding from a leg wound. The Maharraht were nowhere to be found, not that they had searched overly long for them. The search would resume in the morning. The important thing was that they had Nasim and Ashan.
“Leave us,” Nikandr said, holding his hand out for the gaoler’s iron ring of keys.
The gaoler handed them over and left, closing the door behind him.
Nikandr moved a chair over to Ashan’s bedside. It creaked when he sat down, and Ashan woke with a jerk.
He stared at Nikandr, a look of fear and confusion on his face, but as he took in his surroundings, his expression calmed. “A rather elegant room for a prisoner, is it not?”
Thechairgroaned as Nikandr relaxed against the chair back. “There have been a number of occasions when aristocracy were… accommodated in these rooms.”
“As prisoners.”
“As very welcome guests.”
Gritting his teeth, Ashan pulled himself up in the bed, resting against the headboard. “It would not do to give them a hovel in which to stay, now would it?”
“It most certainly would not. Now why don’t you tell me how you came to be with the Maharraht on the far side of the mountain.”
Ashan nodded with a small smile, as if he were about to tell an old friend a long and complicated tale. “Nasim,” he began. “He acted strangely after meeting you on the eyrie. He seemed out of sorts. Troubled. He even mumbled your name several times. Names are difficult for him to relate to, and so he hardly ever repeats them, even mine.
“It lasted until that night when we reached Iramanshah. He went to sleep next to me, and when I woke, he was missing. He has done so before, though I usually found him nearby. This time he was simply gone. I spent the following days tracking him through the forests around Verodnaya, coming close but never quite finding him. It was only hours ago-” He glanced around the room. “It was only hours wasn’t it?”
Nikandr nodded. “Why didn’t you seek help from Iramanshah?”
“I thought he would be close. And by the time I found his trail, it seemed foolish to leave it and return for help. I did eventually find him, but unfortunately Soroush had found him first, so I allowed myself to be taken rather than let Nasim go alone.”
“As simple as that?”
Ashan nodded-not innocently, but as a matter of fact-and Nikandr found himself wanting to believe him even though there was another, altogether real possibility. “You are wondering, perhaps, whether I’m in league with Soroush.” “Of course I am.” “It is a difficult position to be in.”
“Me or you?”
Ashan smiled, showing his crooked, yellow teeth. “Both. I wonder, son of Iaros, if you might humor me with a question or two. It may help you in your decision on whether or not to believe me.”
Nikandr waved his hand, bidding Ashan to continue.
“I wonder if you know what happened when you and Nasim met on the eyrie. A bond was created, was it not?”
Seeing no reason to deny it, Nikandr nodded.
“Will you share with me your suspicions as to how it was formed?”
Nikandr paused. There were two possibilities, and one he was not ready to discuss with Ashan. He had discussed his cracked soulstone with several, Jahalan and Udra included, but so far they had come to no real conclusions, so he pulled it out from beneath his shirt and showed it to Ashan, hoping if nothing else Ashan might be able to find the answer to this riddle. He told Ashan of the attack, of the havahezhan and the way it had honed in on him. “The moment my soulstone cracked, it was gone.”
“May I see it?”
Nikandr slipped the chain over his neck and handed it over.
“In the past”-Ashan examined the stone closely, running his thumb over its surface-“Nasim has become interested in certain people, certain places, though it has never been for long. I wonder if his connection to you is stronger, more permanent.”
He looked up, his eyes piercing, as he handed the soulstone back. “Nasim was raised by the Maharraht, primarily by a man named Soroush. You saw him on the mountain, the one with the scarred ear. He and his followers had great difficulty communicating with Nasim. They tried for years, and may have gained some small insights into his nature, but not his mind. They could no more relate to him than they could a dog or a horse. But they understood that in Nasim lay a treasure the likes of which this world has not seen in centuries.”
“What do you mean?”
“I believe that Nasim walks between worlds. He touches Adhiya and Erahm, both, but because he was raised with no knowledge of this, he cannot tell the two apart. It is beyond confusing for him. It tears at his soul. He doesn’t understand the nature of this world, though he wants more than anything to do so. When the two of you met on the eyrie, he found something in you-perhaps your stone, perhaps your very soul-but it grounded him. It gave him a way to tell the two worlds apart, and in turn gave him some small amount of solace.”
“Nasim came to the site of the havahezhan’s crossing two nights before the attack.” Nikandr told him of how they had met after Atiana returned to the palotza, of the pain and euphoria he had felt. “Jahalan said something similar. He said that I was sharing what Nasim was feeling.”
Ashan nodded. “Jahalan has long been a wise man.”
“When I first saw him on the eyrie,” Nikandr continued, remembering the city with the tall towers, “I saw a vision of a city, an empty, abandoned place. And then on the cliff it happened again. I was walking among the streets with a man named Muqallad. We came to a tower, where a woman waited for us.”
Ashan blinked and his head jerked back. “What name did you say?”
“Muqallad, and I was sure, in that moment just before I came to my senses, that they had somehow betrayed me.”
Nikandr waited for him to reply, but Ashan only stared.
“Do you know them?”
Ashan shook his head. “Muqallad is a name that holds great weight among the Aramahn.” He turned to Nikandr soberly. “He lived on an island named Ghayavand, an island lost, taken by the winds of Adhiya.”
“Taken how?”
“The arqesh became too bold. They pushed too hard, played with arts that were better left alone for the end of days.” Ashan frowned. “But it cannot be him.”
“Nasim couldn’t have met him?”
“Muqallad died three hundred years ago, along with the island itself.”
Nikandr moved on, hoping to keep Ashan in a talkative mood. “How could you have heard of Nasim if he were so important to the Maharraht?”
“They were careful, but something so powerful and mysterious as Nasim cannot be hidden forever. Word of him came to me, and I thought it something worth investigating.”
“So you simply made your way to their doorstep and begged permission to see him?”
Ashan’s smile was pleasant, but grating all the same. “Nothing so simple as that. It was a delicate negotiation, to be sure, but eventually they allowed me near him.”
“Why?”
“If you’re wondering if I agreed to aid them in their cause”-Ashan shifted in the bed, wincing from the pain-“I did not.”
“Then why would they have allowed you near him?”
“My refusal to aid them does not mean that they could not benefit from my presence.” “Then you were helping them.” “I was helping Nasim.”
“Who is a tool of the Maharraht.”
Ashan’s face grew cross for the first time. “He is a child who is lost. A child who needed my help. I answered that call, and I would do so again.”
“No matter what might happen to the Grand Duchy.”
Ashan stopped, his eyes serious.“I care for the lives of the Grand Duchy, son of Iaros. Have no fear of that.”
“As you care for the lives of the Maharraht?”
“As I care for all in this world.”
“If that were so, you wouldn’t have forged a weapon for them to use against us.”
“ Nyet? You would rather I had left Nasim where I’d found him? Let them find what they may?”
Nikandr’s nostrils flared. “This sits not well with me.”
“That is because I am no tool of Khalakovo.”
“It is because you seem to be a tool of the Maharraht, willingly or not.”
Ashan shook his head calmly. “Both mean little, son of Iaros.” He placed both hands over his heart. “What matters is what lies within, what we give to the next life, not that which comes and goes in the blink of an eye.”
Nikandr’s gut began to churn, the feelings of nausea from earlier returning. “Did Nasim summon the hezhan?” he asked, more hastily than he’d meant to.
“Nasim is no qiram. He has no ability to bond with spirits.”
“Did he summon the hezhan?”
“It would have been impossible. Nasim can affect the ability of qiram to lure and bond with a hezhan-he may even make crossings more likely by his mere presence-but he cannot summon them himself.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“How do I know the sun will rise tomorrow? I simply know.”
Ashan’s voice was calm, which was all the more infuriating. But there was no doubting that he seemed sincere.
“Where was Soroush taking him?”
“They did not consult with me, son of Iaros.”
“Do not jest, son of Ahrumea. They are murderers.”
“They do not kill indiscriminately.”
Nikandr laughed. “Tell that to those who lie in their graves from their discriminating tastes.”
“No matter what you may think, they treasure life. They believe the world has been set off course. They are merely trying to correct it.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you wished you could join them.”
Ashan appeared saddened by these words. “I neither hope for their success nor wish for their defeat.”
The feelings of nausea in Nikandr’s stomach advanced. He swallowed several times without meaning to.
Ashan seemed to notice, for his expression turned to one of confusion, of concern.
Nikandr stood, knocking his chair back in his haste. “Did Nasim summon the hezhan?”
“I told you he could not have.”
“We could hang you, Ashan-you and Nasim both.”
Ashan seemed unfazed. “Of that I have no doubt.”
His stomach was growing worse. “You would do well to consider your answers more carefully the next time we meet.”
He left, locking the door with the gaoler’s keys, and rushed up the hall. Then he bent over and vomited, the contents of his stomach pattering against the stone. He heaved again and again-more and more sour liquid coming up. He knew Ashan could hear him, and the knowledge burned, but what was worse was the fear that was starting to well up inside him. The symptoms were growing stronger. Soon, everyone would know; it would be plain as day. And then, the long march toward death would be all that lay before him.
He stood, clearing his mouth of spittle.
Nasim’s door lay just ahead. He moved to it, listening for any signs of movement within. For no reason apparent to him, he was afraid.
Softly, he placed the key into the lock and turned it. It opened with a soft click. He found Nasim kneeling in the center of the room, holding his gut and rocking back and forth, a look of profound misery on his face.
Nikandr stepped inside. “Nasim?”
The boy didn’t respond.
“Nasim, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
Nikandr crouched down, hoping the boy would acknowledge him in some way. But Nasim only rocked, his breath coming in short gasps through flared nostrils.
“Nasim, please, speak to me.”
Father was going to demand answers, and soon. The life of the Grand Duke had been taken. The lives of everyone on the island-the gathered aristocracy included-were threatened, and they would all be looking toward these two to provide answers.
But Nasim appeared unready to grant this request, so Nikandr eventually left.