“Nasim!” Rabiah cried.
She helped turn him over.
She called to him, but Nasim couldn’t hear her. He could only stare up at the blue of the sky.
When Ashan had brought him here years ago, he had felt the island. He’d felt the mountain peaks, the forests, the grassy plains. He’d felt the shattered city, Alayazhar. He felt all these things now, but he also knew that he was tied to it like he hadn’t been before. He was part of this island, as the Al-Aqim were. He was trapped. There would be no chance of leaving.
He wondered, as stars played in his vision and Rabiah continued to shout his name, why he hadn’t felt the same thing the last time. Surely this was Muqallad’s doing, or Sariya’s, he thought. Surely he hadn’t felt it before because the two of them had yet to reawaken from the trap Khamal had lain for them.
But he felt a certain familiarity to this. It was as if he had done it himself…
And then it struck him. The wards that had been in place, keeping Khamal and Sariya and Muqallad here. That was what he was feeling. Not a trap laid by the others. Why, then, hadn’t it happened the last time he’d come? The answer was obvious, though. He hadn’t been himself when he’d been here last. He’d been only half a boy. The other half had been lost in Adhiya. The wards had not sensed him, but he was healed now, and surely whatever had been done to keep Khamal here was now working against him.
He was trapped, well and good. He knew this, but it also brought a sense of peace. He’d come here not planning to leave, but believing it was possible. He knew now that it wasn’t. He knew that he would never leave, not unless he healed the rift or he died. It was a notion that was more freeing than he ever would have guessed.
So much so that as the pressure in his chest eased, he started to laugh, and once it started, he couldn’t stop.
Rabiah knelt over him, a look of shock on her face, like she wanted to slap him. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. He almost wanted her to.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
“The wards,” he said, pulling himself up to lean against the skiff’s hull.
“What about them?” Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at him closely, as if she wasn’t sure he was completely himself.
“I’m trapped, Rabiah, as Khamal was. As Sariya and Muqallad are. We are together again, as we were for centuries.”
“As Khamal was, not you.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” Nasim reached up and scratched his scalp vigorously. It did little to shake the feelings of confusion from his mind, but it brought him back to himself. He realized they were drifting beyond the island. “Summon the winds. Bring us in.”
She glanced at the sail, clearly nervous.
“You won’t have trouble now. Just be careful not to allow it too close to you.”
She nodded. Rabiah. Beautiful Rabiah.
She took up the reins and summoned the wind to guide the ship. They landed on a grassy plain to the north of Alayazhar. Part of him wanted to view the city, but another, the part that was terrified of this place, was simply not ready for it.
As he swung over the gunwale of the skiff and onto solid land, Rabiah rubbed her hand along his back. “We’ll find a way.”
Rabiah always seemed to know his mind. He looked into her eyes and in them saw compassion and hope, both of which, Nasim thought, were wholly misplaced.
CHAPTER NINE
N asim debated on building a shelter, but he was afraid to do so, at least until he knew more. The aether was too thin here-so thin that he dared not risk communing with a hezhan again until he and the others had become accustomed to it.
Sukharam left to find firewood, and when he returned with a thick bundle of branches, he told them of the keening he’d heard to the south. “It was haunting,” Sukharam said, “like a lone wolf baying for its pack.”
Nasim gathered a pile of brown needles from the wood and ran a steel across the flint he’d brought from Trevitze. Sparks flew. On the third strike, it took, and he began building the fire quickly. “It’s most likely a dhoshahezhan crossed over from Adhiya.”
“Will it be drawn here?” Sukharam asked.
Nasim shook his head as the fire built. “From what I remember, the hezhan are confused here. They’ll give chase if you come too close, but they don’t search for life as they do from beyond the veil. Here, they have it already, so in a way, they are content.”
“In a way?” Rabiah asked as she squatted down on the far side of the fire.
Nasim shrugged, struggling to find words. “They’re also conflicted. They want to return to Adhiya, even though they yearned to touch Erahm while there. I think they know this place is not natural. They know this is not the way of things. And they yearn for the freedoms they had while drifting in the currents of the world beyond.”
They brought out the blankets from the oiled canvas sacks and laid them out around the fire.
“Where will we go?” Sukharam asked. He was sitting on his blanket, his arms around his knees. Although he had a look of cold discomfort about him, he was staring straight into Nasim’s eyes. It was good to see. Perhaps when they’d reached the island, Sukharam had crossed some sort of threshold as well.
Rabiah, lying on her blanket, her head propped up by her hand, stared intently at Nasim as well.
“Tomorrow we go to Alayazhar. There is a celestia on a ridge near the bay. More than anyone’s, the celestia was Khamal’s. It was his demesne, his source of strength and the place he felt most comfortable. If there was any place he would have left me clues, it would be there.”
Sukharam asked more about the island, the last time Nasim had been here, the memories he’d inherited from Khamal; and Nasim did the best he could to appease him, but what Sukharam was looking for wasn’t something Nasim could grant. He wanted to know what they would do and how they would do it. These were perfectly reasonable questions. Nasim just didn’t know how to answer them.
“We’ll know more tomorrow,” Nasim finally said. “Get some rest. It will be a long hike to the city and back.”
Sukharam eventually fell asleep, but Rabiah stayed awake. The fire played against her dark skin, giving her a ruddy glow that only served to make her look more beautiful than she already was. The flicker of the fire lent depth to her eyes. It made her appear old, like one of the fates, and the way she looked at Nasim made him feel like she could stare right into his soul.
“Are they here?” Rabiah asked.
She meant Sariya and Muqallad, of course. “I can’t feel them, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Did you feel them when you were here last?”
“I did, but I wasn’t the same then. This place affected me differently.”
“They may have traps set on the celestia.”
Nasim nodded. “They very well might have.”
“And what of Ashan?” she asked.
The fire between them snapped, sending a cloud of embers floating up and into the night sky. The embers mingled with the stars like gemstones-citrine and diamond against a field of obsidian dust.
“I’m worried that he’s been taken,” Nasim said, still staring at the sky. “I’m worried they’ll use him against us.”
Rabiah was silent for a time as she too stared up at the stars. Almadn stood brightly overhead, her amphora overflowing with wine. “You cannot allow it,” she said at last. “You can allow nothing to distract you from what needs to be done.”
“I know,” Nasim lied.
Though he was not at all sure of the answer. Ashan had done much for Nasim. He had cared for Nasim, taken him from Soroush when Soroush was trying to use him. He’d brought him to Uyadensk, where he’d met Nikandr, and he’d guided him from harm when the Landed were out for his blood. He was a man he would do much for, a man he might even die for, if it came to it. So he was not at all sure he could just leave Ashan to the fates if that’s where his path led him.