Like the measure of night and day.
Like the turn of the seasons.
And soon… Soon…
She floats through the aether. Already she feels drawn toward the straits. It tugs at her like a piece of flotsam among the waves.
She fights, realizing that it will mean her ruin if she is drawn to its center, the place the maelstrom was the strongest and most unpredictable. But try as she might, she cannot fight it. With the straits so near, so strong, she is pulled slowly but surely toward the gap in the island.
Knowing she cannot fight it-remembering as well the first tenet of life in the dark, that of submission-she allows herself to be pulled; she moves with it, faster and faster, until she whips past the straits, feeling the depth and power of the confluence below. How strong it is. How fearsome.
And how truly beautiful.
In the aether the tall cliffs are bright, blinding white. Chromatic whorls form and diffuse in moments. The water is dark as midnight, but above it the currents of the aether clash, driving their power high into the air. Lines of power arc over the straits as well. They shimmer and scintillate, towering high above Galahesh, glowing like the chromatic lights of the Great Northern Sea.
She remembers her purpose here.
Arvaneh. The tower.
She is on the northern side of the straits. As she drifts southward she once again finds herself at odds with the currents of the aether. They fight her every step, threaten to draw her downward. So she turns, using that movement to catch the whorls that are left in its wake. She slips like a salmon through a frothing white river.
At last, she approaches the tower. Arvaneh’s tower. She feels threatened, as though touching its stones would mean the death of her. But this is one of Arvaneh’s powers-fear, plain and simple-and Atiana will have none of it.
She crosses the walls.
And everything changes.
The typical silence of the aether is replaced by a low susurrus. The lights of the aether are dim, as if she’s lost her ability to see in the dark.
She does not sense Arvaneh, but she senses another, someone like her, waiting and listening in the dark.
Who’s there?
She receives no reply, but she feels them retreat.
It is not one of the Matri. Her mind is foreign, her movements clumsy.
Atiana moves quickly toward it. She catches up, and now she can sense the tendril that leads back east through the city, across the acres of towers and markets and homes, toward a hovel set among the battered remains of the Shattering.
She sees there a woman lying in a stone pool set into the earth. A feeling wells up inside her as she stares, wondering how this could be. The woman’s form is the diaphanous white of all living things in the aether’s midnight blue, but there are tinges of yellow and red and green. Most of all there is black. It is difficult to see against the aether’s dark hue, but it is there. This woman is clearly a qiram. She may even be arqesh, one who has mastered every discipline.
And yet this woman has managed to enter the aether, a skill that has been the domain of the Landed alone for centuries. Of the Aramahn, only Fahroz has ever been known to take the dark, and yet here is another.
Atiana seizes the woman. She can feel her surprise. She doesn’t know she’s been followed, and she is weak, defenseless against such an attack.
I asked you who you were.
Still there is no response. She could force the woman from the aether now if she so chose, but why? She needs to learn more.
She tightens her hold, feels the woman squirm beneath her grasp.
Ushai!
Atiana eases her hold.
My name is Ushai. Ushai Kissath al Shahda.
Atiana remembers her. She was a servant of Fahroz. She was the one who’d led her from the lake deep below the village of Iramanshah. It made sense, then. If Fahroz knew how to take the dark, surely she would have taught others. It is something she’d have to give more thought to.
Why have you come, Ushai?
I’ve come for the same reason as you, I suspect, daughter of Radia.
And why is that?
To study her.
Arvaneh?
Sariya. The Scourge of Ghayavand.
Atiana feels her body jerk in the basin. It cannot be, she says. Sariya is trapped.
Trapped no longer, and better you become aware of it now before her plans are unleashed.
You’re lying.
Arvaneh means “one of three” in Kalhani. She broke free of her bonds years ago, and when she did she returned to the desert where we believe she was born. From there she arranged to be purchased by one of the Kamarisi’s men. After moving to Aleke s ir to join his harem, she spent months watching him, creeping her way into his mind, and now she has taken him. She came with little, but now she has the resources of an Empire at her beck and call. It is her. Do not doubt these words. Now please, release me.
Atiana realizes that the hold she had on her would be painful. She releases her completely, confident she can find her should she choose to flee. I would-
Atiana feels a disturbance in the currents, a pressure that fills her, not with pain, but something akin to it.
I would speak with you. Face to face.
Ushai pauses. What’s happening?
The pressure increases. Atiana expands her awareness, allowing it to encompass more of the ruins, more of Baressa. She knows it must be coming from the straits, but it doesn’t feel like a simple disturbance or a clash of currents. It feels as though part of her is tearing, as though a part of her has begun to burn.
Memories and emotions come to her unbidden. Running through the halls of Galostina, bright with excitement. Unbridled fear while staring down for the first time from the gunwales of a windship. The drip of water in the drowning chamber. The earthy smell of rendered goat fat. Father staring sternly down at her, his sad eyes filled with disappointment. A candle that she touched with the tips of her fingers, heating them to the point of pain before yanking them away.
And on and on. She is in this moment completely and utterly at their mercy.
I do not-
And then the pain increases sharply, and her world goes white.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T he air around Nasim was chill and damp, but it had a mineral sharpness that did much to keep him alert. The tunnels seemed only big enough for the sound of their climbing, plus the occasional drip of water. Neither he nor Rabiah had spoken since heading out from the collapse at the entrance. They hadn’t felt the need, and to speak felt as though they would give away their position-to whom, Nasim didn’t know; it simply seemed wise to talk as little as possible.
The tunnel was complete darkness, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t move through it. Nasim taught Rabiah how to draw upon her vanahezhan to feel her way along the tunnels. Nasim thought of drawing upon the vanahezhan as well, but Rabiah was weak, and only one of them needed sight, so he followed her closely and obeyed her instructions when she gave them. If he was blinded in the meantime, he didn’t mind. He had taken too many liberties with Rabiah already, no matter that it had been to protect them; allowing her to have sight and lead them both somehow felt proper.
Her earth sight was fouled when they came across water, even a trace amount of it. The first time it happened they heard only a trickle. The second time they heard nothing. The walls of the tunnel were damp-that was all. Nasim assumed there was a hidden stream within the earth, yet still it was enough to rob her of her newfound sight. They scrabbled, low to the ground, warding their hands in front of them to make their way beyond the deadening effects of the water.
They might have drawn upon a jalahezhan, but they were loath to do so. There were plenty around, but they might be drawn through the veil with even the smallest of contacts. The vanahezhan, however, seemed to be drawn to the collapse of the cavern, which now laid far behind them, leaving Nasim and Rabiah to choose from the lesser of them, the ones less likely to cross in this strange place where the worlds practically touched.