Nikandr’s shoulder flared in pain as he leapt. He grabbed the gaff rigging and slid downward. His hands slipped, but he caught the rope in the crook of his arm. It burned his skin until he slammed into the rigging block, barely catching himself.
He looked up as the heat from the fire below him intensified. Borund stood at the gunwale of the Olganya. A moment later, his father appeared next to him. They were in dire trouble. Without a havaqiram they would be at the mercy of the winds. It was possible to control a ship without a havaqiram, using the keels to control the heading of the ship against the prevailing winds, but the larger the ship, the more difficult it became. The Olganya was no Aramahn skiff, and would not respond well to such maneuvers.
Nikandr slipped over the side of the ship and made it to the nearby perch. The heat from both ships was strong-so strong that he was beginning to feel lightheaded. He held his sleeve to his mouth. He wished he could run toward solid ground, but the fire was licking the perch closer to the fore of the two ships. There was no way he would make it past them.
He felt something small strike his head. Then again.
He used his finger to probe his hair, worrying that embers from the fire were striking him, but the palm of his hand came away wet. More water fell, primarily on the Gorovna. The water cooled the air just enough for Nikandr to run the length of the perch. By the time he made it clear of the heat he was exhausted, and he couldn’t seem to clear the smoke from his lungs.
Two jalaqiram standing within the stone garden had their arms spread to the sky. Azurite gems glowed brightly in the dim light as they commanded the rain to fall against the ships. Rain hissed and steamed as it struck the Gorovna’s deck.
Nikandr saw Father standing nearby. With the blood along the side of his face, the dirt and glass in his hair and beard, the haggard look upon his face, it looked like he alone had defended Radiskoye against the traitor dukes. He stared at Nikandr with a strange mix of emotion on his face, so much so that Nikandr felt uncomfortable.
Ranos broke away from several soldiers and gave Nikandr a long hug, breaking the spell. “I didn’t know if I would see you again.”
“Nor I you.”
Movement caught Nikandr’s eye. Near the broken doors leading into the palotza, he saw a woman being watched by a strelet. He didn’t recognize her at first-she wore a dirty riding outfit, and her hair was tied back behind her head in a long tail-but it was Atiana. She stared at him with a soft expression, a worried expression. Stranger than the show of emotion, however, was her mere presence. He had thought her gone with the rest of her family. What was she doing here? And what had happened on the eyrie when Zhabyn had been called to the edge of the ship?
Three sotnik and a polupolkovnik came and spoke with Father, and as they did Jahalan and Udra arrived. The skiff that Nikandr had seen returned to him in a moment. “Father, forgive me, but I beg your permission to take the Gorovna.”
Father turned and regarded Nikandr anew.
“The skiff that was ripped from the Olganya… Ashan escaped with it-he and Nasim, both. I can still find them, but I must leave now.”
Father looked to the east. The night still reigned, but there was a band of indigo along the horizon. “The sun is already starting to rise. The blockade will find you before you could find such a small ship.”
“That’s why I need to hurry.”
“Ashan could be headed anywhere.”
“ Nyet. He is headed toward Ghayavand.”
When Nikandr had last discussed it with Ashan, he had seemed mystified by the possibility that Nasim might be one of the three arqesh who had destroyed the island. Whether or not that was true was no longer the point. Ashan believed it, and he would take Nasim there to discover the truth.
He also understood that Ashan would need him. The bond that was shared between him and Nasim was unmistakable. It was the key to a very large and complex problem-he’d admitted as much when they’d spoken of Ghayavand. Nikandr didn’t care, though. He sensed a need to discover the nature of their connection as well, and if it meant traveling to a distant island to do so, then he would answer the call.
Nikandr explained as well as he could, as quickly as he could, to his father. “I’ll bring them back for you, Father,” he concluded. “Please.”
“You won’t find them.”
“If I fail, I’ll return. I’ll bypass the blockade. It hasn’t truly begun in any case.”
“They have two dozen ships, Nischka, with more on the way.”
Outside, the two jalaqiram had put out the fire on the Gorovna and were trying to stem the tide on the Tura, but it was too little, too late. The ship was damaged beyond repair. By now the fire would have compromised the ability of the windwood to maintain its buoyancy. Soon the ship would sink and snap its mooring lines, as heavy as any waterborne craft.
“Father,” Ranos said, “they wanted the arqesh and the boy. Surely with the two of them gone they’ll stop this madness.”
Father pulled a grimy hand down over his mouth and along the length of his beard while looking at Atiana further down the hall. “There is his daughter to consider now.”
“He’ll have her back. Surely you won’t-”
“He won’t be satisfied with just her. He needed the marriage for the ships we were to provide. Nothing has changed. He needed them then and he needs them now. He had hoped, clearly, to use Nikandr as a wagering chip, but with that unavailable he will demand his daughter and the ships and offer nothing in return.”
Nikandr watched as Jahalan and Udra and a half-dozen other Aramahn gathered in the garden. They spoke amongst themselves, looking occasionally to the bodies of the dead Maharraht and the section of the palotza wall that now lay in ruins.
“Father, forgive me, but you said it yourself. Mother is ill, and I saw with my own eyes what happened to Nasim when she was attacked. He may be the only way to revive her.”
Father considered his words, but just then two young men were carried in on canvas being used as makeshift stretchers. They were alive, but unconscious. They looked bloodied and broken. Father watched them go by. His jaw worked and he seemed to become smaller. But then he stood tall and took a deep breath.
“Go to your mother, Nischka. Keep her company in her time of need.”
“Father-”
“Go!”
Nikandr remained, the blood settling in his veins as Father paced toward the room where several dozen people were being administered to by the palotza’s small and suddenly overwhelmed cadre of healers. Atiana, escorted by her assigned strelet, went as well, perhaps to comfort her wounded countrymen.
Outside, Udra had stepped onto the Gorovna. She reached the starward mainmast and looked along its length, her arms spread, her head to the sky. It looked as if she were mourning the ship-and perhaps she was considering how intimately she’d been involved in the curing of the ship’s wood. Dhoshaqiram looked upon the ships they’d built as children, and although the Gorovna wasn’t dead, it had been sorely wounded.
Jahalan was speaking with the other Aramahn, and a dozen other men-streltsi and servants-were still clearing away and organizing the bodies of the dead.
Nikandr coughed, a ragged sound. He tried taking in a deep breath, but that only made things worse. Ever since the fire it had felt as if he had been buried alive, the air slowly being squeezed from his chest. He felt completely powerless. He had been so close to reaching Nasim, and now it felt like it had all slipped through his fingers.
Before he knew it, he was walking toward the doors that would lead him to the eyrie.
“Nikandr.”
He turned and saw Atiana standing near the infirmary. He nodded to the strelet, and Atiana stepped forward, her eyes darting toward the eyrie as she came. She stopped just before him, and Nikandr found himself confused. A part of him was enraged at what her father had done, but another part, the part that remembered how she had looked at him upon seeing him safe, saw a woman he wanted to take into his arms, especially considering what he was about to do.
Atiana spoke softly, “You will find him, won’t you?”
He nodded, seeing no sense in denying it.
“There is something in that boy…”
“There is, and he may just be the ruin of us all.”
Father’s voice echoing into the hallway caught Nikandr’s attention. Time was slipping away. If he didn’t leave now, he would never be able to.
“I must go,” he told Atiana.
“Wait.” She gripped his wrist. Her skin was warm. With her other hand she pulled out her stone from within the depths of her white riding shirt. “Touch stones.”
He pulled his own necklace out, and Atiana gasped.
He looked down and understood what had surprised her.
His stone… by the ancients, what had happened?
It lay dead as a piece of granite.