The Straits of Galahesh: Book Two of The Lays of Anuskaya (77 page)

The potbellied Betyom looked on this exchange in silent acceptance, but Konstantin jumped in. “My Lord Duke. My Lord Prince. Please, we shouldn’t waste time bickering. We don’t know when Yrstanla will return.”

“Very well,” Leonid said slowly, as if he were humoring Konstantin, who was twenty years his junior. “What news from Elykstava?”

“We captured a kapitan of one of the ships that attacked the spire. He confessed that their admiral was worried over an attack on the Spar. He recommended they not overcommit their ships, but the Kamarisi would not allow anything other than a full attack.”

“What of it?” Betyom asked.

“They’re overextended, admiral. If we can destroy the bridge, we can cut off any hope of reinforcements arriving.”

“This is senseless,” Leonid said, motioning to the map before him. “Their ships are
here
. What good would destroying the Spar do now?”

“Reinforcements could still be moving toward Galahesh, and it would cut off their lines of supply and their route of escape.”

Leonid frowned. “We need not worry about their
escape
, Khalakovo. We need to save Galostina and
her
spire, not the spire on Elykstava, which we had already decided to give them if they chose to take it, nor the spires on other, nearby islands,
nor
a bridge a thousand leagues from where we stand.
Galostina’s
spire. That is all that matters, and you’ve lost us three ships in her defense.”

“I would not give up the spires so easily,” Nikandr said. “They lost three ships on Elykstava as well, and we found critical information. If we could send ships, we might stand a good chance of taking the Spar.”

“We have no ships to spare,” Andreya said.

“I would need only five or six—”

Andreya’s flat look made Nikandr stop. “Have you come to serve,” he said, “or have you come to dictate?”

Nikandr looked at each of the men in turn, who looked at him as if he were a raw strelet who had yet to learn the ways of the wind. He had hoped that they might be convinced, but now he saw that they never would be. They might trust him to fly a ship, but beyond this they trusted him not at all.

“I’ve come to deliver vital information, and to serve in a way that helps the Grand Duchy.”

Andreya stood taller. “With the Grand Duke gone,
I
decide what helps the Grand Duchy.”

“
Nyet
, Polkovnik.” Nikandr couldn’t help but think of the proclamation that Borund had read in Radiskoye. He had stepped over a line by saying these words, but he was done with hiding from men who sought to control him, a prince of the Grand Duchy. “With my father unconscious and my brother out of reach, I am Khalakovo.”

Duke Leonid looked as if he wanted to spit at Nikandr’s feet, but Andreya seemed to be weighing his words carefully. His eyes were not angry—there might even be a touch of respect in them—but it was also clear that if it came to it, Nikandr’s claim to authority or not, he would take from Khalakovo the resources he needed. “I understand that you hope to protect us, My Lord Prince. But you fail to understand the situation. Yrstanla has retreated, most likely to weather the storm they’ve unleashed. But have no doubt—the moment the storm abates, they will return for the spire, and when they do, it will be all we can do to stop them. We have need of men like you, men who can command a ship and command a wing. I cannot afford to have you missing from the coming battle.”

“We might save the island only to lose the Grand Duchy.”

“Just now, My Lord Prince, Kiravashya
is
the Grand Duchy. Now leave. Think on what I’ve said.” He returned his attention to the maps before him. “And find some sleep. You look terrible.”

N
ikandr woke in the chair sitting next to his father’s bed. The room was dark. Only the smallest amount of light came from the crescent moon through the high window. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes he realized he’d slept through the entire day.

He was ravenous, but he didn’t want to leave his father. Not just yet. He’d barely had any time with him before he’d fallen asleep.

He lit the small lamp at the bedside and for a time simply stared as his father’s chest rose and fell slowly. He looked old. He looked weary and white, as if he’d already begun taking small but unyielding steps toward the beyond. Nikandr was proud of him, though. He’d been brought to Vostroma little more than a thrall, but as his counsel had proven more and more invaluable, he’d risen in Zhabyn’s circle, even among the misgivings of men like Leonid Dhalingrad, to become the Grand Duke’s most trusted advisor.

He felt bad for Mother, who despite spending nearly all of her time in the aether had come to cherish her time with Father outside of it.

Still, they were born of the islands; they were hard, and they spent time with one another as they could, speaking when Mother took the form of one of Galostina’s rooks. Though her ban from using the aether had never formally been lifted, it had eased to the point that two years after the ritual of Oshtoyets, Nikandr had brought Yrfa here to Galostina so that Mother could assume her favorite bird to speak with Father.

A soft knock came at the door.

Nikandr rose and opened it, and to his surprise found Mileva standing in the hall.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She took a padded chair near the fireplace and warmed her hands as Nikandr moved his own chair over from the bedside. Mileva’s pale skin turned ruddy under the light of the low fire, making her look, momentarily, like one of the Aramahn. She leaned, elbows on knees, staring into the fire. In that small instant Nikandr could see the young Mileva. Many a night had he seen her do the very same thing among the halls of Radiskoye or Zvayodensk or Belotrova.

But then Mileva seemed to catch herself. She turned sharply, though not unkindly, toward Nikandr, and sat back in her chair. She crossed one leg over the other, and now she seemed like little more than a Duchess upon her throne, elegant and beautiful and cunning. Her eyes twinkled under the firelight.

“Has Atiana found you?” Mileva asked.

“I haven’t spoken to her in weeks. Not since leaving Rafsuhan.”

“She’s contacted no one on Kiravashya, nor any of the Matri we spoke to before we lost contact. Mother has tried to find her, but with the storms…”

“My mother found me near Elykstava, though I think it cost her dearly.”

“Thank the ancients for women like Saphia.”

“You speak so reverently, Leva.”

“No matter what you might think, I’ve always held your mother in high regard.” Nikandr chuckled, but Mileva seemed offended. “How could I not? Especially now?”

She meant, of course, because she was now a Matra herself, not just in name but in deed. She had become strong—not as strong as Atiana, but strong just the same. Nikandr had often wondered what the Matri shared with one another among the aether. It was completely foreign to him, but there could be little doubt the aether created a sense of sisterhood that could never have been born in the waking world.

“You’re worrying over Atiana and Ishkyna,” Nikandr said.

“Of course I am,” she snapped, a bit of the old Mileva returning.

“They yet live.”

“I know, Nischka, but I wonder under what circumstances? Surely the Kamarisi has them. What might he do to get what he needs? What would he stop at to find the weaknesses of the Grand Duchy?”

“Little.”

“Little, indeed. And here we sit while Leonid and Andreya rule in my father’s place.” She glanced over at the bed. “Your father, were he to wake, might have made a difference, but without him there is nothing to keep Leonid in check. I think he prays for Father’s death that he might take the Grand Duke’s mantle.”

“There is Konstantin.”

She paused before speaking. “
Da
, there is Konstantin.” The way she spoke those words, and the way she looked into Nikandr’s eyes, he knew. She and Konstantin were lovers. Konstantin had long been married, and for all who saw him with his wife, they would say he was happy, but here he was, a thousand leagues from home… Perhaps it was simply a romance of convenience, but the way Mileva had spoken those simple words, it made him think that she wished her mother had chosen another for her hand in marriage.

Mileva’s eyes narrowed, as if she realized it was time to come to the point.

“They didn’t tell you of Grigory, did they?”

“What of him?”

“He was sent weeks ago with ships. He was to position them along the coast of Yrstanla such that they could be called to attack the northern stretch of Galahesh, should the need arise.”

“So why didn’t he?”

“He was sent across the downs, around the Sea of Khurkhan.”

“That’s madness!”

“It was dangerous, true, but Father needed leverage should things go sour with the Kamarisi. We know he arrived on the southeastern shores of Yrstanla. He was headed north, but the winds were rough and getting rougher. I wasn’t able to find him again before the first of the spires were felled, and now… Now it’s impossible.”

Nikandr leaned back, making his chair creak. In the fireplace, a log crumbled, the embers releasing sparks into the air. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Do you believe the words of the kapitan from Yrstanla?”

He nodded carefully. “I do.”

“Do you believe Andreya is right in keeping you here?”

Nikandr glanced over to his father. This was treasonous talk. He hadn’t agreed to join Andreya—not yet, anyway—but Mileva certainly had.

“You don’t have to answer,” Mileva continued, “but you could use Grigory’s ships. You could find the men you need to destroy the Spar, and Konstantin might have his brother back.”

“And you your sisters and father.”

“The Grand Duchy needs them, Nischka. You can’t deny it.”

“I need no incentive to find them.”

“And yet Andreya’s words hold you back.”

“They make sense.”

Mileva stared at him. One moment the firelight was playing against her porcelain skin, and the next she was standing in a rush, as if she found this conversation suddenly distasteful.

“The
Yarost
is the first ship on the third quay of the eyrie.” She turned and strode toward the door. “It will be empty and unguarded, but only this one night. And I will be in the drowning basin.” She opened the door, pausing for one brief moment on her way out. “Choose wisely, Nikandr, and quickly.”

And then she was gone, leaving Nikandr alone with his thoughts.

He sat alone, wondering how wise this could be. The ships of Yrstanla would return soon. They could not give the Grand Duchy too much time to recover, and the wind, though still strong and unpredictable, was beginning to subside, at least enough that stout ships of war could be put to sail. In a day, perhaps two, they would return, and Nikandr didn’t want to be missing when that happened. As Andreya had said, they could focus on Galahesh after the battle.

“Nikandr.”

Nikandr turned, realizing the softly spoken name had come from his father. He moved to the bedside and took his father’s hand in his.

“I’m here, Father.”

“Go,” Father said.

“Go where?” Nikandr had spoken the words before he realized that his father had heard everything that he and Mileva had talked about.

Father coughed and turned his head, though even this simple act seemed to pain him. “Go. Find Grigory. Find the others if you can, but at all costs destroy the Spar.”

The moon was a sliver in the nighttime sky, giving Nikandr and the others plenty of cover as they slipped quietly from the halls of Galostina and into the frigid air. A dozen, they numbered: he and Anahid, Styophan and nine of his best men. Nikandr felt his hezhan and called upon it to still the winds as the men unlashed the lone skiff from the ship they’d flown in early that morning. Was it truly the same day? It felt like he’d been here for a week.

As they filed in and released the mooring ropes, Nikandr watched the palotza carefully, particularly the doors and the towers along the curtain wall that protected Galostina everywhere except at the eyrie, where the protection was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to the valley floor.