Atiana floats along the wind, her awareness encompassing the sea, the air, the islands hundreds of leagues away. She is no longer of her body. She is of the world, no different than the clouds or the currents of the sea.
But there is something, a scent that reminds her of who she used to be. Who she is. But how can this be? How can Nikandr be among them in the aether?
It doesn’t matter. He is present, and that is enough. Through him, she can feel another. The boy. Nasim.
She is not experienced in navigating the dark, and yet she knows what she is seeing has not been noticed before-at least by the Matri. There is an imprint of Nasim in Adhiya and an echo in Erahm. He walks between worlds…
Such a thing cannot be-she knows this-and yet here it is.
And it explains much. His confusion. How else would a boy grow up when struggling to understand the very world that holds him? His pain. How could he not be torn? His attraction to Nikandr, a lodestone, a raft among the waves.
It is because of Nasim that Saphia was attacked. It is because of him that Atiana is attacked now. He has allowed the hezhan to follow-or perhaps he doesn’t even realize. Either way, they feed upon her, as they do the Matra. If she could draw him closer to Adhiya, the hezhan may not be so easily able to follow.
She pushes with all her might, as she did with the babe. She has little strength, but she feels it working. The worlds, at least in this one small place, are pushed further apart. Nasim slips toward Nikandr and toward the physical world.
And then her strength is lost.
She woke once, though she was unable to open her eyes. She lay there on the edge of sleep, on the edge of waking, for a long time, and she heard people speaking-most likely of her-but try as she might she was unable to rouse herself to wakefulness.
She dreamed of storms wracking the island. At first she thought it was Kiravashya, where she had been born and raised, but she came to realize it was Khalakovo’s largest island, Uyadensk. The storms were so fierce that they wiped the island clean. Gone was the city; gone was Palotza Radiskoye; gone was Iramanshah and the tiny fishing village of Izhny; everything was gone, and afterward it felt how the beginning of the world must have felt: pristine and full of hope.
As she had hours or days before, she woke several more times, and again she was unable to wake fully. She tried. She railed, but whenever she did she would slip backward into her dreams, and her screams of impotent rage would be directed toward Mileva or Ishkyna or Father for leaving her here.
And then the cycle would begin anew.
She shivered as something brushed the skin along her forearm. She had difficulty opening her eyes, but when she saw who sat next to her bed, her lethargy faded.
“Matra,” Atiana said, pulling herself up in her bed. She took in the room, realizing she had been returned to her cell deep beneath the palotza.
Saphia studied her with sharp eyes. Her skin was pink and healthy. She leaned to one side in her chair, perhaps to ease her pain, but otherwise she seemed more hale than she’d been in years. “Are you well, child?” she asked. Her voice was not scratchy, an indication that she had been awake and free of the aether for some time.
“I am tired. Nothing more. May I ask what news?”
“The blockade continues. My husband has been treating with your father, to no avail.”
Atiana shook her head. “He won’t back down, not with Bolgravya and Dhalingrad pushing him so, but neither will he go to war over me.”
“Over you, nyet, but there is more in the balance. The failed abduction of Nasim. The wounded and dead. But more than anything, the reasons behind your marriage. We are all of us in trouble, and I think it strikes your father worst of all.”
Not wishing to admit the truth of it, Atiana didn’t respond.
“You don’t have to reply-I know how dire the situation is on Vostroma-but now that a wall has been erected between north and south, it will be difficult to tear down.”
“Has my father asked of me?”
“Through your mother he has demanded your return, and for the death of the Grand Duke he has asked for the ships that were promised as well as the alabaster.”
Atiana couldn’t help but chuckle ruefully. “For the good of Bolgravya, of course.”
“Of course.”
She wanted to ask if her father had asked of her well-being, but she knew better. She was still-no matter how well the Khalakovos might be treating her-in the awkward position of political prisoner, and Father was not a man who would show any outward signs of concern or affection, even for his daughter, even now, and though it burned, Atiana knew he was right.
Saphia drew in a deep breath. “I came to speak with you of your time in the dark.”
Atiana’s memories were faint, nearly to the point of forgetting them altogether, but she was getting better at stitching her time in the dark together. She worked backward from the end, telling Saphia her story in bits and pieces. As she did, the entirety of her memories returned.
Saphia considered her words. “Nasim’s hold on me seemed no harder for him than toying with a mouse. And in the end, when I was released, I don’t believe he understood what he’d done. He seemed to forget me in as little time as it had taken to seize me.”
Atiana paused, Saphia’s words reminding her of those final moments with Nasim. “There was something more…”
Saphia’s gaze sharpened. “Go on.”
“I don’t know whether you felt it, Matra, but Nasim… He walks between worlds.”
“What do you mean?” Saphia’s words were clipped.
“He lives in Erahm and Adhiya, both. I felt it when I followed the trail from you to him. It is why he is such a troubled child. I believe it is why he didn’t understand what he’d done to you, and why he forgot you so quickly. He thinks you and I are as ephemeral as the hezhan.”
Saphia frowned. Her gaze became distant, perhaps reliving the horror of the past week in her mind, but then she seemed to focus once more on Atiana. “How did you secure my release?”
“I pushed on the walls of the aether.”
“Pushed?”
“I know no other way to explain it. I felt the walls close in around him, just like with the babe in Izhny, just like in Iramanshah when you were…”
“When I was what?”
Atiana stared, trying desperately to hide her fear.
Saphia pulled herself higher in her chair, staring down at Atiana with cold, piercing eyes. “When I was what?”
“When you were preparing to assume the boy.”
As Atiana laid there, she felt as if Saphia could lay her bare with little more than her will and a cold stare. “You understand, Atiana”-she let the words fall between them like a gauntlet-“it would be unwise to repeat such a thing…”
“I do, Matra.”
“The damage it could cause Khalakovo is immeasurable.”
“Of course, Matra. I would never think of mentioning it.”
“Yet you did, here, with me.”
“Of course. It was something you needed to know.”
Her voice lost some of its edge. “You were speaking of Iramanshah.”
“ Da,” Atiana said, pausing to regain her composure. “I’ve thought on it much. The narrowing is related to all of these events. If I could take the dark once more, knowing what I know now, I’m sure I could find more.”
“Knowing what you know now…”
“ Da, Matra.”
“ Nyet. Rest. Regain your strength. When that is done, we will speak again of the dark.”
She rang a bell sitting on the table next to her, a signal that Atiana’s audience was at an end. Atiana knew already that Saphia, despite her promise to speak again of the dark, would never allow her to enter it again.
But Atiana needed to. If she was ever going to find out what was happening on Khalakovo, she would have to do so outside the walls of Radiskoye.
Olgana entered the room, preparing to take Saphia away, and Atiana realized she could not remain in this room and have any chance of escape.
“Please, Matra,” Atiana said as Olgana reached Saphia’s chair.
Saphia held up one hand, forestalling Olgana.
“This room weighs upon me, more than you can know.” She motioned to the dark, stone walls around her. “If I am to recover, I would see the sun.”
Saphia considered the room before resting her steely gaze on Atiana once more.
“Let it not be said that the Khalakovos do not repay their debts.” She waved her hand, and Olgana wheeled her around and steered her toward the door. “You will have your old rooms back.”
Days later, Atiana stood at the windows of the room she’d been prom-ised-the ones her family had been given upon their arrival-and drew back the curtains to stare out into the southern gardens. The sun had yet to rise, but its light could be seen on the horizon, pale yellow against the indigo sky. The windows opened to allow air to flow in those rare days of summer, but she could easily use them to leave the confines of her room. That would only deliver her into the garden, but the garden was all she needed.
After waiting for the pair of guardsmen to pass her window, she unlatched the window and opened it. It swung open soundlessly. She had tested it the day before, and after finding a light squeak she had used the rendered fat from her dinner of roasted chicken to grease the hinges.
She swung herself outside, mindful of the river rock that sat in the flower bed beneath the window. She slipped to the nearby hedges, watching the guardsmen along the wall. Their attention was turned outward, however- after the attack, they were still wary of a threat from the outside.
Moving as quickly as she dared, she made her way to the place where Nikandr had come with his dog, Berza. She had forgotten about the path that led down from the palotza to the cliffs below, but when she had kneeled next to Nikandr that day, consoling him for what her brother had done, she had noticed the uppermost reaches of it and remembered.
She moved through two squat, gray boulders to the thin path. She turned along the first of the switchbacks, feeling the wind press her against the stone face of the cliff before turning sideways and threatening to pull her from it entirely. The wind played tricks-as much for her as for the ships that found themselves too close to it-but she continued at a fast pace, unable to believe her luck.
Don’t count yourself lucky yet, Tiana, she told herself. There’s still a ways to go.
Nearly an hour later, she came to the end of the trail. It ended some hundred feet above the surface of the waves. Years ago, it had continued on all the way down to the sea itself, but the Khalakovos had considered it not useful enough to repair when a quake had ripped away a good portion of it. That only served to help her cause; no one would think to search for her here, thinking her incapable of braving the waters below.
Indeed. As she stared downward-the water churning, white and frothing with rage-she found herself doubting. Doubting that she could jump. Doubting that she could rise to the surface. Doubting that she could make her way westward to the shore and arrive in Volgorod unseen.
This was foolish, she thought. Why risk such a thing just to speak with a woman whom she wasn’t sure she could trust? Would Rehada help? Would she be able to help?
Perhaps, Atiana thought, and perhaps not, but she had to try, and all that stood in her way was the drop from this cliff.
The wind picked up, blowing scree against the side of her face. It bit her skin. Stung her neck.
She stared at the waves, crashing in unending rhythms. Her breath came quickly, and desperately.
She stared up, wondering if it were too late to return.
And then a bell began to ring, over and over, the alarm that she’d escaped.
She stared down, taking a full breath, releasing it slowly.
I can do this, she thought. I am a Matra, in mind if nothing else. I have taken the dark, and I have braved the currents beyond this world to return whole. If I can do that, I can brave the waters of this world.
“Ancients protect me,” she whispered.
And she leapt.
She arced downward with increasing pace, the sound of the surf breaking against her ears.
And then she crashed against the surface of the water.