The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (61 page)

“I won’t be, Bahett. She hasn’t changed her mind. She still seeks indaraqiram.”

“She does not, and perhaps I’ve misspoke. It is not
I
who will convince you, but Sariya herself.”

“She is trapped.”

“Just so, but you can reach her in the aether. You can find her as you have before. Go. Speak to her, and you will know whether she is telling the truth.”

Atiana paused, debating on whether or not to say more, but this was not the time to mince words. “And there is you.”

“You think you cannot trust me. But know this. Sariya and I have come to an understanding. I have agreed to help her, and she has agreed to leave my mind my own.”

“She would not keep such a promise. Not for long, in any case.”

“True.” He reached forward and caught the spinning stone. “But through this, I can
feel
her intent. Were she to break our compact, I would crush it, and Sariya would be drawn to the other side as quickly as a fallen star.” Bahett’s expression turned to one of pleading. It was an act, but she could see the fear in his eyes as well. “Take the dark, Atiana. Look into Sariya’s soul, and you will find that I speak the truth.”

“She took me before, Bahett. You know this. I thought I knew her mind—I was
sure
of it—but I did not. She fooled me, well and truly.”

“But then you didn’t know she was spying upon you, learning the ways of your mind and the Matri. You know her well now, and you won’t be easily tricked.”

That was true enough, and still, part of her was screaming for her to deny Bahett. This was something Sariya desperately wanted. Or at the very least that
Bahett
wanted. And yet what could she do otherwise? She did not wish to leave Sariya to her own devices. She wanted to weigh the truth in her words. But how could she trust her own judgment in the presence of Sariya?

“I will contact Ishkyna and Mileva,” Atiana said at last. “They will not be fooled even if I am.”

Bahett nodded and placed the glowing stone back into the wooden case. It was an awkward thing, as Bahett had only one hand, but she made no move to help him. As he slid the lid closed, he smiled and said, “Very well.”

Bahett called for Habram. A short while later he came with Ushai and led her back into the nearby forest. They walked through the sparse rake pine before coming to a clearing, in the center of which was a conical hillock with an obelisk standing at the peak. The obelisk looked to be made of obsidian, though it was mottled grey, not the deep black of the spires.

Near the base of the hillock, lying on a bed of brown pine needles, was Kaleh. After motioning to her, Habram and Ushai continued up to the top to inspect the obelisk. Atiana knelt near Kaleh. She brushed the hair from her eyes and stared at the young woman’s face, realizing that she looked older than she had mere days ago. By the ancients, the things this girl had seen. The things she was going through even now. Atiana knew the battle she was waging within her mind. The girl was strong indeed to hold Sariya off for so long. Then again, Sariya had been dominant for nearly two years. It would wear on her to fight for so long, while Kaleh could wait, bide her time. She had probably found weaknesses in Sariya during that time, weaknesses she was exploiting even now.

It was telling that Kaleh had not gained dominance, though. The two of them were at a stalemate, and now it would be up to Atiana to decide their fate.

After a time, Habram and Ushai returned. Ushai had a look of grave concern on her face as she looked on Bahett, and when she stared into Atiana’s eyes, her look grew even more dire. But then she pulled herself taller, as if she’d come to some serious decision about her own fate, and walked into the woods while Habram came close and squatted near Kaleh’s side.

“What is this place?” Atiana asked, jutting her chin toward the hillock.

“It is one of the places where the Al-Aqim and the Tashavir tried to stem the tide of the growing rifts after the sundering. There are dozens like them across the island, near the shore.”

“They failed.”

“True, but that was merely one attempt of many, before they stumbled on the children, the akhoz.”

“I thought they’d all died.”

“The akhoz?” Habram shrugged. “Who knows. In Alayazhar there may be one or two who still wander the forgotten streets.”

Ushai returned with a censer and wood. Habram took these from her and set them near Atiana. He began to draw from a suurahezhan to light the wood aflame, but Atiana waved him away.

“
Neh
,” she said. He looked at her, confused and cross, but she continued, “This place… It… I will not use my blood. Not yet.”

He stood and stared down at her, then looked around the clearing and regarded Atiana anew, as if he’d just now realized that he’d woefully underestimated her.

“Very well,” he said carefully.

“The Atalayina,” Atiana said.

A Kohori man had just come to the clearing carrying a hinged wooden box. Atiana had to keep herself from staring at him.

It was the man Aelwen had killed. Or, rather, it was Aelwen herself in the Kohori’s form.

It was strange seeing her—him—in this place, as if what had happened in the desert had merely been a dream. In fact, she was not even sure it
had
happened until Aelwen looked over at her with grim purpose. She said nothing, but her face had an expression of desperation on it, as if she were no longer sure of the path she was following.

Habram waved him over and motioned to the ground near Atiana. Aelwen set the box down and opened the lid, revealing the blue stone, the Atalayina with its striations of gold and copper and silver. The way it twisted the sunlight was hypnotic. It felt eager for Atiana to begin.

Soon enough
, Atiana thought.

She set the box between her and Kaleh. She was careful not to touch the stone itself, but the smooth edges of the wooden box.

When she closed her eyes, the frame of mind she sought came easily. She’d done so a thousand times before in the drowning chamber, and more recently with the rising smoke from her own burning blood. She’d done it on Oshtoyets as well when she’d caught a musket shot in the chest, and again on Galahesh when Sariya had caught her in her grasp. Yet those times outside the drowning chamber had always seemed like flukes, things she could never have repeated. Now she knew they were all facets of the same jewel. All of them—the drowning basin, the smoke, hovering near death—they had all borne her toward the aether until she’d been close enough to touch it. Here, the aether was so close no such ritual was needed. She need merely strip the world away until she could sense the veil that separated Erahm from the dark of the aether.

The Atalayina, strangely enough, was no settling force. It still felt eager—too eager—and that was a disturbing notion, indeed, in this place of all places.

But she was able to set these thoughts aside.

And soon… Soon…

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Atiana floats before Kaleh. She sees her in the dark, a diaphanous white against the depthless blue of the aether. She sees Habram and Ushai and Aelwen who ate the heart of a Kohori man. She feels the strange intent of the Atalayina. But more than anything, she feels the chaos of the rifts. They are so near they lash at her. And yet she does not fear. Her time on Galahesh taught her well. The wild currents of the aether running through the straits two years before were every bit as strong as the aether that swirls over Ghayavand now.

She draws away from Kaleh, allows herself to feel more of the island, and through this she is able to sense its center. There is another place like this one, a hillock with an obelisk. It stands on the shoulders of Sihyaan, the tall mountain peak near the center of the island. It was there that the sundering occurred three centuries before, when the world was nearly undone.

It may still be undone
, Atiana thinks.

Slowly, she expands her awareness, widens her mind until it encompasses the island itself. She can feel the rifts deeply now, and they make it difficult, even painful, for Atiana to cast her mind beyond.

Mileva
, she calls.
Ishkyna.

She hears nothing, so she presses harder, casts her mind farther. She moves beyond the Sea of Tabriz toward Vostroma, toward Yrstanla as well, until she is spread as wide and as thin as she has ever been. She feels the dark depths of the sea, the wide plains of the Motherland, the very currents of wind, and she wonders: is this how Ishkyna feels every moment?

It is through this one small musing that she senses Ishkyna’s presence.

Ishkyna,
she calls again.
Ishkyna, hear me
.

Ishkyna doesn’t respond, however. She, too, is spread far and wide, and it reminds Atiana of the first days after Ishkyna had become lost in the aether. Atiana calls again and again, and she begins to worry.

She cannot hear you, sister.
It is Mileva.
We are lucky she’s still with us.

For a moment, Atiana’s heart fills with joy. She hasn’t spoken to Mileva since she left Vostroma.

What’s happened?
she asks at last.

She was near Alekeşir helping Nikandr to escape when a rift was torn wide. We nearly lost her then and there.

A strange mixture of relief and worry roils within Atiana. She still doesn’t understand how Ishkyna was saved, how she survives in the aether though her body lies dead in the mausoleum far beneath Galostina. It feels as though every moment will be Ishkyna’s last, and it only becomes worse when there’s some strange event like this one.

And Nikandr?

He survived, though where he is now we don’t know. What of you, sister? You’ve reached the shores of Ghayavand.

I have, and I need your help.

Atiana explains everything, her conversation with Bahett, Sariya’s plans, her fears over being fooled by Sariya once again.

It’s dangerous,
Mileva says.
We may gain more by simply slitting her throat.

We may
, Atiana replies,
but what if we’re wrong?

What if we’re right?

That is why you must help. If Ishkyna cannot come, we will call on Saphia.

She is not in the dark.

Then Paulina.

They cannot come, Atiana. They are not strong enough to reach Ghayavand. It will be you and I or it will be none.

Then come, sister. Help me. The time here grows short. I can feel it.

Mileva paused, but not for long.
Very well, sister. Let us see what Sariya is about.

Atiana draws herself back. She moves down toward Kaleh, who struggles every bit as much as she had in Kohor. How she can keep this up day after day Atiana has no idea. She wonders if either of them really knows who or why they’re fighting. Perhaps they both feel trapped by the other. Perhaps they both feel like they’ve won.

Atiana can feel Sariya now that she’s come close. Here, too, Galahesh has prepared her well. Had the two of them not been so entwined in the days and final hours before the Spar had been destroyed, she might not have known how to find Sariya, how to discern her from Kaleh, but now it’s child’s play.

Together, Atiana and Mileva probe Kaleh’s mind. She seems deadened, a common enough thing. When people sleep and do not dream their mind is deadened like Kaleh’s is now. It’s simply a matter of finding her somewhere within the darkness and drawing her forth. When they approach and attune themselves to Kaleh’s mind, Atiana senses thoughts, and when she comes closer still, she begins to sense the edges of a dream. She smells flowers. She feels tall stalks of grass brush against her skirt. She feels the wind as it blows against a field of ivory brightbonnets.

Atiana knows she’s being drawn into Kaleh’s dream, but she allows it. She can feel Mileva’s mind near hers. It feels like it did when they were children, when the three of them—Atiana, Mileva, and Ishkyna—shared a bed and they would hold one another’s hands to fend off fears of the darkness. As Kaleh’s dream brightens in her mind, she allows Mileva’s hand to slip through hers.

Running through the field below her is a girl. She runs with abandon, her head turned toward the sky, her fingers touching the tips of the flowers, chasing bees from their bells.

As Atiana walks toward her, she slows.

Then stops.

Then turns to regard Atiana coolly.

She is seven, perhaps eight years old. Her face is the face of a child, full of innocence, but it is dark as she watches Atiana’s approach.

The wind picks up. The skies darken.

“I mean you no harm,” Atiana says.

“I know.”

This is Kaleh as she truly is, Atiana realizes, or at the very least as she sees herself. “Do you know why you’re here?”

The girl takes in the landscape around them. The wind kicks up, tossing Kaleh’s light brown hair and making the brightbonnets wink as they toss to and fro.

“Here in this place? Or on the island of Ghayavand?”

“You know that we’ve arrived…”

“I know much, daughter of Radia. I know why you’ve come.”

“I was taken here.”

“So you would not have come had the Kohori not taken you?”

“I would have come by a different road.”

“Yet you’ve arrived at the same place.”

“Without allies. Without my love.”

Kaleh’s innocent face brightens, and she begins skipping around Atiana. “Are they necessary for you to do what you must?”

“And what is that? What
must
I do?”

“Kill Sariya. Free me. Summon your Matri here. Who knows but you and the fates?” Kaleh stops and pulls up one of the brightbonnets. She begins plucking tiny petals from around the bonnet’s black eye, tossing them to the wind.

As Atiana watches, she wonders if she should kill Sariya. She isn’t opposed to it, but she also wonders what has happened between these two. It seems important, as does the existence of this very place. It is very much like the place of Sariya’s making that Atiana was drawn into while on Galahesh. She found Nasim there, and she witnessed him liberate the third and final piece of the Atalayina.