It is the last of the steps needed before…
Before what?
She turns back and sees Muqallad holding two stones. They are a bright blue with veins of copper and silver and gold. They transfix her.
She has held one of them. Hasn’t she?
Muqallad brings them together, and they fit perfectly. They are one.
Or soon will be.
The one from Aleke s ir, the Kamarisi, Hakan ul Aye s e, is summoned forth. The akhoz bring him to his knees before Muqallad. They hold his hands out, cupped, as if he is about to accept water into them.
The stone, the Atalayina, is set into them, and it is then that the Kamarisi’s face transforms. To now, he has gone willingly, placidly. He has accepted his fate like a lamb led to slaughter. But now it seems as though he has awoken to a reality he never thought possible. How this could be when he is helping to bring the world to its highest plane, she does not know.
She is not saddened by his look of terror as Muqallad forces his hands to close around the Atalayina. The man arches back and screams to the skies as Muqallad holds his hands tight. She feels the power coursing through him from Adhiya.
When Muqallad releases him at last, the akhoz skitter away, and the Lord of the Motherland, the Kamarisi of Yrstanla, falls forward and onto his forearms. He looks as though he’s praying to his fathers and his mothers, but she soon realizes her mistake. His hands are now one. They have been fused together, as if they were little more than clay, and within that grotesque mass-still barely visible-is the Atalayina. He now holds the pieces together as if his one fervent wish is to see this ancient stone healed.
Muqallad takes his hands and drags Hakan-immaculate boots kicking and thrashing against the trampled grass, tears streaming down his face-toward the post that stands at the summit of the hill. With a strength that surprises her, Muqallad hefts him up and drives him against the post. The man goes rigid. A large iron spike erupts through his chest, through his opulent clothes of silver silk and golden thread, and blood pours down his front as he eyes Atiana, face shaking, spittle flying from his mouth as he coughs.
He looks down at his hands, and then back to Atiana.
He tries to speak. His expression begs her to fix this. To make it right. To awaken from this nightmare that he and his empire might yet be saved.
But in this he will be disappointed, for he has been fooled like so many others-so many over the course of generations. It is the grand joke, the notion that there is free will, that one can work with a collective toward a greater good, a greater purpose. The truth is that such things can never happen on their own. They must be forced.
And the time is nearly at hand. Can he not sense it?
Her knife still bright with blood, she steps forward and looks up into his dimming eyes. “Fear not. You have done well. Better than could have been hoped.”
But he doesn’t listen. Blood stains his clothes, drips upon the cold ground. His eyes go distant. And finally his head slumps and his arms go slack.
Atiana feels a hand on her elbow.
It is the girl. She is leading her away.
Atiana follows, moving beyond the akhoz, who form a tight circle around the post. They are warm, Atiana realizes, and becoming warmer by the second. Already, though she stands ten paces back, she can feel them. The girl pulls her further and further away.
Until the first of them bursts into flame.
The akhoz arch back. They release their raucous calls to the cloud-filled sky. Another ignites, and like dry kindling the effect moves from one to another around the circle until all of them are aflame.
Muqallad watches as they twist in pain, their limbs bending at impossible angles. He watches not with satisfaction, but with sadness in his eyes. Perhaps he knows the end is near and does not relish it. Perhaps he wishes the world had arrived at this point by a different path. He turns to Atiana and regards her, as one might regard a flower or a child’s bauble. He thinks her inconsequential, and perhaps in the light of these great events he’s right.
Sariya merely stares at the burning hill. She seems to remain standing by force of will alone, though this final step seems to have granted her some small amount of strength.
On the hill, the body of the Kamarisi smokes. His skin blackens and then bursts into flame, as does the post he hangs upon. A moment later, the fire licking up from the akhoz pulls into a maelstrom centered on this burning man-centered on the stone he holds in his hands. The fire spins and is drawn upward like yarn from a skein. The thread thickens until a column of flame thrusts into the sky through the layer of clouds high, high above.
It rages on and on, the akhoz shrieking and barking and mewling while the fire rages. The Hratha watch, eyes bright, jaws set grimly. They stare at the sky, faces lit by the roiling column of gold and ivory flame.
Some time later-perhaps minutes, perhaps hours-the akhoz blacken. They still hold their twisted and pained positions, but are now little more than husks. A wind blows across the grounds, lifting the apple-sweet smell from the blackened remains. Some begin to ablate like the ash from a smoldering fire. Their forms collapse into clouds of powder, black and red and white, lifted by the updraft. More and more are consumed thus, their dark remains tainting the wavering column, which now burns amber and rust.
And then, in a sudden lift of wind and ash and gusting fire, the column burns itself out, until at last the sky breathes a sigh of relief.
The hill is utterly silent. Ash rains down on everyone like snow as the sun lowers in the west. Without a word being spoken, the Hratha close in around the site of the ritual.
Muqallad and Sariya and Kaleh stride up toward the hilltop. Atiana is close behind. The ash becomes ankle deep. Atiana wades through it-the ashes are warm, but little more, as if the Atalayina had stolen as much from the akhoz as it could-and she wonders briefly who these children might have been, who their mothers and fathers were, but then they reach the center of the ash, and there they find a mound filled with larger blackened chunks that somehow remained intact.
Muqallad sifts through the remains with his foot, until a glint of blue shines through. Atiana’s heart sings at seeing it. But she doesn’t yet know if the stone has been made whole.
As she holds her breath, Muqallad reaches down and picks it up. He blows upon it softly. The dust and ash fall away, revealing a stone as bright as any Atiana has ever seen. It does not glow, but it has a way of catching the light from the setting sun. It twists it and reflects it back in unexpected ways. It is powerful and beautiful, both.
Muqallad turns and holds it above his head.
And the Hratha burst into a cheer that is long and stirring and numinous.
Atiana, however-as caught up in these emotions she might be-remains silent.
As she stares at the Atalayina, now whole, she can shed only tears of joy.
For it is the most beautiful thing she has ever beheld.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
W ith the crow leading the way, the streltsi brought Nasim to a building near the center of the bazaar-the Kirzan, the massive central building and one of the oldest in this section of the city.
“Let me down,” Nasim said to the strelet, “or I won’t be responsible for what they do.”
The soldier, who had often sent nervous looks to the akhoz that galloped in a pack behind them, nodded and pulled his pony to a stop, at which point Nasim slipped to the ground and raised his hands to the akhoz. They stopped, their skin twitching, their lungs pumping like bellows, their necks straining as if collared.
“Rest,” Nasim said to them, meaning their minds as much as their bodies. Blood lust was upon them, and it would not do to have them remain so among allies. “Rest,” he said again, and motioned them to the empty stalls of the bazaar.