She has none of Muqallad’s features.
She isn’t Muqallad’s daughter at all. She’s Khamal’s.
A shiver runs through him as the implications work themselves through his mind. He is not Khamal. He is Nasim. He is his own, linked to Khamal only by the whims of the fates and the threads of souls. He knows this, and yet Khamal feels like his sire. Kaleh feels like his kin. A sister, a cousin, blood of his own blood, though he knows this isn’t true.
As he breathes, he stares into her pitying eyes and finds that he cannot do this. He isn’t made for such things, and yet it feels, however disturbing the notion, like failure.
What have things come to that the lack of will to kill another feels like failure?
He finds-perhaps through his confusion, perhaps because of the simple awareness of it-his control over the curtain around them slipping.
As the world returns to normal, Kaleh turns and walks into the opening, and as the sounds of footsteps upon the stairs resume, the opening closes around Kaleh.
Nasim stood near the village’s central tower. The qiram still stood at the edge of the circle facing outward, protecting the village against another attack though everyone knew Muqallad had already done what he’d come to do. His retreat after Kaleh’s arrival had all been a ruse so that she could remain in the village and become close to Nasim once he arrived.
How easily he’d been fooled, Nasim thought. How quickly he’d believed her story. He’d been so desperate to speak to someone similar to him-someone who understood at least in part what it was like to be of the Al-Aqim-that he’d overlooked all else. That Fahroz and Ashan and the wisest of the village’s mahtar had also been fooled was no consolation. He should have known better.
On the platform, Majeed, the mahtar that would take Fahroz’s place as Mirashadal’s leader, held a burning torch. It guttered in the wind but remained lit as he touched it to the skiff that held Fahroz’s body, which was wrapped carefully in a white shroud.
The wood within the skiff lit. Another mahtar touched the wood. The skiff lifted and floated eastward.
Nasim could see Fahroz lying within, the white cloth catching fire.
“Fare well,” he said softly, his words taken by the wind.
Ashan, standing next to him, put his arm around Nasim’s shoulder. He allowed it to remain for a moment, but such closeness still discomfited him, and he shrugged it off.
He remained while many left. He watched the skiff drift away as the smoke trailed black against the incessant gray of the high clouds. He remained until he could no longer see the skiff against the sky.
“There was so much I wished to say,” he whispered, “and now you’re gone.”
Dozens of memories played within his mind, each of them begging for a voice. But anything he thought to say sounded weak and miserable, unworthy of being spoken in Fahroz’s honor.
He caught, near the horizon, one last wisp of smoke. A tear slipped down his cheek as he watched it disperse, Fahroz’s final farewell.
“I don’t know who my parents were,” he said softly, “but surely, if Ashan is my father, you are my mother.” He took a deep breath, and while he released it, his chest shook with the emotion he was keeping inside. “Thank you,” he whispered.
He cried then. Cried for a long time, but in the end, he knew this was no time for lamentation, or for grief.
He left without another word, retreating to his room. He began gathering his few belongings into a bag, but before too long, a knock came at his door.
He sighed, closing his eyes, wishing he could leave without seeing another soul. But he knew he would have to speak to Ashan. It might as well be now.
When he opened the door, he was surprised to find not Ashan, but Sukharam.
“If you’ve come to lecture me, you can leave now.”
“I wish to speak.”
“ I don’t.”
Nasim tried to close the door, but Sukharam held his hand out, preventing Nasim from doing so. After a glance behind him, he forced his way into the room and closed the door behind him. “I know what you’re doing.”
Nasim went back to his bag, putting the last of his clothes into it. “I suppose you’d like a ribbon.”
“I want to go with you.”
Nasim cinched the bag, refusing to turn. He didn’t want help, and he certainly didn’t want it from Sukharam, who would only be a constant reminder of his failures.
“You can’t control a skiff,” Sukharam continued. “Not in these winds. Not alone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t. Whatever you did in the tower with Kaleh, we both know it was only in passing. If you leave alone you’ll die before you reach Galahesh.”
Nasim turned to face Sukharam. “How did you know I’m going to the straits?”
“Because that is where Muqallad must go.”
“The question was how you knew.”
Sukharam was pensive for a moment. He looked around the small room, looked toward the dying light through the window over Nasim’s shoulder. “I never thought your goals were foolish, you know.”
“You merely thought me incapable of achieving them.”
Sukharam laughed sadly. “I was upset because you refused to include us. You refused to let us in, including Rabiah. You refused to ask for help.”
Nasim grit his jaw. He wanted to walk past Sukharam, wanted to leave this room and take the skiff as he’d planned, and trust to the fates that he would be able to reach Galahesh on his own.
But he couldn’t. Sukharam was right. And there was a part of him that knew it would be a grave disservice to Fahroz and Rabiah if he were to refuse Sukharam’s help.
Especially Rabiah.
In the end, there was nothing for him to do but step forward and embrace Sukharam for all he was willing to do. After all Sukharam had been through, after all he’d risked already, he deserved the chance to see this through. He kissed Sukharam’s cheek and pulled him away. “I’m glad to have another.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
N ikandr, blinking sleep from his eyes, stood on the deck of the old six-masted yacht he’d taken from Elykstava. He was standing in Jahalan’s position near the base of the starward mainmast. It felt wrong-like a dishonor to Jahalan-but in his heart he knew Jahalan would be proud. It was something they’d rarely talked about-his ability to commune with spirits of the wind-and now that Jahalan was gone, Nikandr was sorry for it. Jahalan could have taught him much, and now he’d squandered the opportunity.
Would that you were here, Nikandr thought.
The ship bucked, sliding this way or that under the fierce winds that howled through the rigging, stole warmth from the skin, threatened at all times to upend the ship. Only through Styophan’s skills as a pilot, and Nikandr and Anahid working together, had they been able to come this far. This storm was the strongest he’d ever seen in his time on the winds. He knew it was due to the spires falling. The seas and the winds seemed to be in a rage, seemed to be vengeful, as if the spires had controlled them too long and they were now taking their revenge.
Nikandr pinched his eyes, shook his head vigorously. This did little to shake the feelings of sleep that stole over him every time he began to relax. They’d been sailing for nearly two days, plotting a course wide of Alotsk and Balizersk, the next two islands in the Vostroman archipelago.
He’d felt craven in doing so, but the information he’d received from Fuad, the Yrstanlan kapitan, had been too valuable to do otherwise. He could not risk meeting the enemy and being killed or captured-not with information like this-and so they’d gone wide with only Anahid and Nikandr to act as dhoshaqiram and havaqiram. He wasn’t comfortable with more people learning of his abilities, but enough rumors had spread from what had happened to him in Oshtoyets that it would surprise few, and would merely confirm their fears of him as a Landless sympathizer.
At last, just as dawn was breaking, the mountains of Kiravashya appeared on the horizon.