They came to the stone at last. The frothy water rushed up to their feet with every exhalation of the sea. Muqallad climbed, but Sariya, sensing Nasim’s hesitance, turned and held out her hand. “Come, Nasim.”
Nasim stared at the stone, then back to Sariya’s hand.
Dread filled him. He didn’t want to die.
And yet he knew he deserved it.
The things Khamal had done… The hubris he and the other Al-Aqim had shown was reprehensible but perhaps forgivable. What was not forgivable was the sacrifice of the first akhoz, Yadhan, and the others that had followed. What was not forgivable was the sacrifice of Alif to allow himself to pass beyond the protections that had kept the rifts in place for so many years. Or manipulating Sariya and Muqallad so that they might take his life. Or knowingly allowing the rifts to spread beyond Ghayavand so that he might have a chance to repair the damage he’d caused.
Sariya waited expectantly. Her hold on him had failed. She was too weakened from her wound, and something had happened to her tower, barring her from the kind of power that had once come so easily.
She shook her hand, waiting for him to take it.
Muqallad merely stared down from the top of the rock, his dark eyes and strong face commanding.
Nasim could walk away. He could refuse them what they sought.
But why should he? He had only ever failed in his life. His touch was death. He was nothing, and he would have this life done with.
He took her hand and together the two of them climbed up to the top of the rock.
“Lie down,” Muqallad said.
Nasim complied. He stared up to the sky, where yellow clouds caught the last rays of the sun beneath an indigo sky. The first stars shone along the eastern horizon. His mind was afire with the things he’d done in his life, and he wondered if Alif had thought the same things. He wondered if he had given up, or perhaps, behind the veil of the nightmare in which he lived, he had come to believe in what Khamal was hoping to do.
Did Nasim himself now believe in what Sariya and Muqallad hoped to do?
He still felt the tug of the enchantment upon him. It held him down. It prevented him from raising a hand against Muqallad.
He wondered whether it had been Khamal’s lack of interest in studying the ways of the mind. Khamal, after all, had always been focused on the rifts and the barrier around Ghayavand that prevented him from leaving. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so singularly focused, Nasim might have been more aware of such things. Or perhaps if he hadn’t been hobbled for so many years, he could have broken Sariya’s hold on him.
But he couldn’t. All he could do was watch as Muqallad kneeled to one side of him, Sariya to the other. He listened to the waves and smelled the sea and felt the warmth of the black rock through the skin along his back.
Muqallad took from his robes the irregular shape of the Atalayina. Two pieces had been fused, but one piece was still missing, making it look like a knife had cut away a third of it. They placed it on his chest. The weight of it… It was difficult to comprehend. It felt as heavy as the world.
Muqallad pulled a khanjar from its sheath at his belt. With deliberate care he cut the palm of one hand. Sariya did the same, and then, holding them above Nasim’s mouth, they allowed the blood to drip down. Nasim did not wish to partake of their blood, but neither was he willing to prevent it. The salty taste entered his mouth, made him feel heady with power. Through blood, they hoped to lift the curse Inan and her followers had lain upon them, just as Khamal had with Alif.
How apropos, Nasim thought.
Alif had been lost, a soul that had perished forever when Khamal plunged the knife into his chest. Was Nasim any different? He was also a boy who had never truly lived, who would be lost to the worlds when his heart no longer beat within his chest. Khamal had taken Alif’s life, and now justice would be meted, for this, it seemed to Nasim, this ritual, was little more than a weighing of the scales in which his life stood forfeit in recompense for Alif’s.
The time was growing near. Sariya and Muqallad took the knife in their hands, not unlike the way they’d done with Khamal, though this time, instead of surprise on their faces, they had looks of sorrow and grim determination.
They raised the knife together. For a moment the edge caught the light of the setting sun, making it gleam, golden and bright.
It did not look angry, or vengeful, as Nasim thought it might.
It looked merciful.
He was ready to be done with this life, so when the blade was brought down, when it pierced his chest with white-hot pain, it felt like little more than bittersweet release.
The pain rose. Climbed high. Climbed well beyond the stars, beyond even the resting place of the fates.
It grew distant as he felt the warm flow of blood seep along his robes and along his rib cage. It pooled in his navel before tickling down his sides.
And all the while he breathed shallowly, watching the hands of the Al-Aqim as they closed their eyes and felt-as Nasim felt-the restrictions lift from them. These were bonds that had been with them for three hundred years, and now they were being lifted entirely.
They released the knife and stood.
Muqallad stared at his hands, then down to Nasim’s chest, then out to sea, where the sun was slipping beneath the horizon.
Sariya stared at the knife, at the blood. She swallowed, her blue eyes wavering. A tear slipped along one cheek, and when Muqallad turned and began climbing down from the top of the rock, she did not follow.
“Come,” Muqallad said when he was halfway down.
Sariya met his eyes. Tears continued to stream down her face. She seemed remorseful, but also curious, as if she were wondering how things could have come to this.
“Fare well, Khamal,” she said, and then she turned and followed Muqallad.
Over the sounds of the sea he heard the soft scrape of their boots on the rock, and then the crunch of their footsteps against the beach as they walked away. Softer and softer they became until at last he was alone.
As his lifeblood spilled, he felt the barriers around the island. They had been placed by the dozens of qiram, the followers of the Al-Aqim. What power they had held to keep them for centuries. But Khamal’s departure had weakened them, and soon-perhaps weeks from now, perhaps months-they would fade entirely. And then the fears of all who had stood upon Ghayavand when the rift had been formed three centuries before would at last be realized.
The rifts would spread. They would consume the islands. They would consume the sea. They would consume, in the end, even the motherland, Yrstanla, and the desert wastes to the south, even the plains of the Haelish and the wide, barren steppes that ran up to the Great Northern Sea.
The pain in his chest began to fade.
His fingers felt cold.
A high-pitched ringing filled his ears.
He stared up to the skies, wondering if the fates would embrace him or spurn him. Perhaps Khamal’s plans had been so complete that he was beyond even their power.
The light was fading as a soft crunching came from the beach. It grew louder and louder, but he could not find it in himself to turn his head.
Sounds of soft scraping came, as of someone climbing the rock, and soon he saw a form standing above him.
It was not Muqallad, nor Sariya.
He could not at first understand who it was.
But then he realized.
And he nearly cried.
By the fates who shine above, it was Rabiah.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
N asim looked up into the beautiful face of Rabiah. She’d come to take him. Of this he was sure.
She kneeled, and the moment she did, the numbness that had been spreading through him stopped. Then it receded, and the pain began to return.
She touched the knife, and pain seared through him-white hot at the center of his being, like embers hidden deep beneath the ash.