And yet…
That very same power felt distanced, as if it were too far for the likes of him to reach.
Sukharam stared at it with wonder in his eyes. “Do the other two feel the same as this?”
Nasim frowned.
“What is it?” Rabiah asked.
Nasim hesitated, embarrassed though he wasn’t sure that he should be. “I feel nothing. Or very little,” he amended, “which is more than passing strange since this had surely been Khamal’s piece of the Atalayina.”
Sukharam held out his hand. “May I hold it?”
Nasim did not feel possessive of it, but he also felt it too powerful for Sukharam to hold. And yet, here they were on this island where they hoped to unlock the secrets of these stones. He had chosen Rabiah and Sukharam for a reason.
He handed it to Sukharam. When their hands touched, Nasim felt for a split second a deepening of the world, but then it was gone as Sukharam took it and stared into its depths.
“Strange that so much has happened because of it,” Rabiah said, her eyes every bit full of wonder as Sukharam’s.
Not so strange at all, Nasim thought.
“Come,” he said, standing up. “There is much to do, and much to think upon.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
K hamal stands beneath the celestia’s dome, facing southward. He spreads his arms wide, breathing deeply while staring up at the dome’s interior. The constellations patterned into the mosaics twinkle in the light of the dying sun.
Dawn tomorrow brings the summer solstice. It is a time of strength, of heightened expectations. It is an important time for Ghayavand, at least as far as the Al-Aqim are concerned. The akhoz become emboldened at such times, and it is more important than ever that Khamal take care so as not to be caught unawares.
But the solstice is made of more than ill tidings. It benefits him and his fellow arqesh, should they choose to avail themselves of it. He will use the dawn to his advantage, unleashing the first of the steps that will one day-hopefully one day soon-free him from this island prison once and for all.
Footsteps approach from the north, scratching over the gritty marble steps that circle the celestia. He doesn’t turn, but instead waits for Muqallad to approach.
“The cardinal points do not listen,” Muqallad says. “You should know this better than I.”
“They watch over the island, Muqallad.”
“Perhaps,” Muqallad says, stopping nearby, “but if they do they are little more than witnesses. Amused witnesses.”
Khamal takes one last breath, and then turns to face him. Muqallad wears a simple robe the color of the setting sun. His black, curly beard hangs almost as far as the wide leather belt that wraps his waist.
They rarely see one another, each of them preferring to meditate alone on their imprisonment and on the rifts and on the island itself, all in hopes of breaking the curse that’s trapped them all. They’ve seen each other even less since Muqallad returned from his exile. Khamal and Sariya had banished him for a time for his words and thoughts. He had wanted the Atalayina even then. He had wanted it so that he could finish what they’d begun. The sundering to him had merely been a mistake-in his eyes, the world could still be brought to indaraqiram.
For this, he had been punished, but on his return he had seemed contrite. He had seemed penitent. Khamal knew now that it had merely been to bide his time so that he could turn one of them to his side.
“I would speak with you,” Muqallad says, motioning away from the celestia.
Khamal looks up to Sihyaan, the island’s highest peak, where Sariya takes breath. Muqallad chose this time so that there was no chance they would be interrupted.
“Walk with me,” Muqallad says.
Together, they stride between two massive pillars of the celestia and take a bricked walkway that leads down from the hill toward the oldest part of Alayazhar. From this vantage they can see the blue swath of the sea on their left, and ahead, the northern reaches of the city, nearly all of it in ruins. The dark, snowless peak of Sihyaan looks down over the city, brooding and angry.
“We’ve been here too long, I think,” Muqallad says.
“And why do you say that?”
“We strive, all of us, for a way to heal the damage we’ve caused, but we do it in our own way. We’ve been searching for so long that I wonder if we’ve started to see one another as obstacles.”
“Is that how you see it?” Khamal asks.
“I?” Muqallad shakes his head. “ Neh. Not I.”
“Me, then.”
Muqallad does not answer.
The wind blows upward from the base of the hill, bringing with it the smell of sea and sage as their footsteps crunch along the path.
“Sariya knows you have her stone.”
“It isn’t her stone,” Khamal replies. “Nor is it mine.”
“Of course. But there has been a shift in power because of it. It grants you something you shouldn’t possess.”
Khamal stops, forcing Muqallad to do the same. “I cannot give her the stone back.”
Muqallad squares himself to Khamal. His chin rises. His jaw juts ever so slightly. “None of us can be allowed to keep two pieces.”
“You spoke to me of taking all three, Muqallad.”
“I spoke not of taking them, but of working together.”
“To widen the rift. To bring about indaraqiram.”
Muqallad raises his hands, as if to forestall the argument. “I told you. I’ve thought better of such things.”
“Forgive me if I doubt your words.”
“I speak the truth, but I wouldn’t ask you to trust me.” He motions to Sihyaan with a look over his shoulder and a wave of his hand. “I ask you to trust Sariya.”
“She’s become too close to you.”
“She hasn’t,” Muqallad said.
“She visits you often, and you visit her.”
“She’s been trying to dissuade me, Khamal. And she’s succeeded. We will meditate, as we have. We will learn. We will heal what has been torn. It’s time we began to work together again. It’s time we trusted one another. And that begins with her stone.”
Muqallad steps in and hugs Khamal. The gesture is surprising, but also tender. They haven’t done so in years. Decades.
“Don’t believe me,” Muqallad says as he pulls away and grasps Khamal by his shoulders. “Believe her. Go to her when she returns and speak to her of it. It’s time we voiced our fears and brought them into the light of day. Only then can we move forward.”
Khamal doesn’t know what to say, but he can’t deny that he wishes to speak to Sariya as they used to. He also wants to believe that Muqallad speaks the truth, but he knows that these are lies spilling from his mouth. It’s why Khamal stole Sariya’s stone in the first place. She and Muqallad had already begun making plans against him. But they need that stone, and they don’t know where it is. They cannot risk forcing the issue, not while there’s a chance he’ll give it up willingly.
Khamal had hoped that he would be able to find a way to get Muqallad’s stone as well. But it’s too late for that. He needs to find a place to hide the stone so that they won’t find it, at least until his own plans bear fruit.
“I’ll speak with her,” Khamal says at last.
“Good,” Muqallad says. “That is good.”
Nasim woke, sweating.
The room was dark, and he could sense more than see Rabiah kneeling over him.
“It’s all right,” Rabiah said, stroking his hair.
It felt good, her tender touch, but it came so close on the heels of the bitter emotions he’d borne witness to that he pushed her hand away.
“It’s all right…”
He could hear the hurt in her voice, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not now.