I can do this, she thought. I am a Matra, in mind if nothing else. I have taken the dark, and I have braved the currents beyond this world to return whole. If I can do that, I can brave the waters of this world.
“Ancients protect me,” she whispered.
And she leapt.
She arced downward with increasing pace, the sound of the surf breaking against her ears.
And then she crashed against the surface of the water.
CHAPTER 42
As the sun began to rise, the bell at Rehada’s door jingled. It rang again, and once more by the time she had managed to rub the sleep from her eyes and pull on her robe and make her way down the creaking stairs. When she opened the door, she stared, dumbfounded.
By the fates who live above…
Soroush had been right. No other than Atiana Radieva Vostroma stood before her, wearing a beaten woolen szubka around her shoulders and a simple cotton babushka to hide the color of her hair. She looked exhausted. The skin of her face was grimy with dirt. She was shivering from head to toe, yet she seemed hesitant to ask Rehada for entry.
“Come,” Rehada said, stepping out into the quiet street and guiding her in with an arm around her shoulder. “You’ll catch the hacking for sure, dressed as you are.”
She guided her to the sitting room, in the center of which was a mound of pillows. There were two chairs beneath the small round windows set high into the wall, but Atiana chose to sit among the pillows instead. Rehada guessed it was a ploy to put her more at ease-few women among the Landed gentry would do what she had just done-but she still gave her a small nod of approval before moving to the cart that held the liquor.
Rehada poured two glasses of vodka and diluted them with cider. “There have been riots,” Rehada said while holding the glass out.
Atiana accepted it. “I was careful.” She took a healthy swallow and swished the liquid around her mouth before downing the rest in one big gulp.
Rehada sat, sipping at her own drink. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”
“You nearly didn’t…”
“Why? What happened?”
Atiana shook her head, pulling the babushka off with a look that Rehada could only describe as defeated. “I–I’ve come because of the rift. We both know it’s the cause of the deaths-the children, the babies. What I don’t understand is why it’s happening or how we can halt its progression.”
“Why do you care? Surely at this point you could leave and summon your father’s ships to save you.”
“I care because what happens here could happen anywhere. Vostroma, Yrstanla, Rafsuhan. Anywhere.”
Rehada looked this woman up and down, trying to weigh the truth of her words. The defeated look in Atiana’s eyes was gone. She stared back resolutely, and more than that-she seemed hopeful, as if something she had long considered out of her grasp had been placed before her and was now there for the taking. She seemed, Rehada finally conceded, sincere, and so she answered in the only way she could.
“What would you have me do?”
“I need to take the dark. With Radiskoye no longer an option, Iramanshah is all I can think of, but I’m afraid they will think me a spy and refuse me access. I need you to help.”
“That seems a simple thing.”
“There is more.” Atiana stood and poured herself another drink-no cider this time. “Nasim…” Her words trailed off, as if she were considering whether or not the line behind which she was standing should be crossed.
“Go on,” Rehada said softly.
“During the attack, he seized the Matra as easily as I would a moth and held her for days. He nearly killed her. I managed to turn his attention elsewhere, and I did it by pushing on the walls of the aether.”
Rehada frowned. “Pushing?”
“The babe that died… The same thing happened then-the feeling that the walls were closing in-and it happened again when I took the dark in Iramanshah.” Atiana shook her head while staring into the clear contents of her glass. “It is the key to these things-I feel it in my bones-but I need to take the dark again to unravel it.”
Rehada paused. “I am not a woman trusted in the halls of Iramanshah.”
“I know,” she replied, “but they will trust you in this. They must.”
Rehada wondered how much of this Soroush had seen.
Probably little, but he had always been one to listen to the signs around him, to heed them when they came. He was also one to put himself in a place to hear them, and she wondered if she could ever commit to the cause the way he had.
Probably not, she realized, but she could do this at least.
“Then come, Atiana Radieva. Come with me to Iramanshah, and we shall see what we shall see.”
The sound of gunfire lit the afternoon sky as they prepared to leave. Rehada had changed into sensible clothing, and Atiana already looked enough like a peasant-especially with her hair hidden-so they decided it best to leave her in the stolen, threadbare clothes she’d been wearing when she arrived. Rehada had no hezhan bound to her. She had released hers only the night before. Though she might have taken another, it would have been difficult, and she could not risk showing any propensity toward violence in front of Atiana. She could not risk revealing that she was Maharraht.
And besides, Rehada thought, it was probably best not to draw attention by wearing her circlet on a day like today. They would simply be two women, traveling out of the city toward the south of Uyadensk.
As they opened the door, two flatbed wagons trundled down the street, headed toward the center of the city, toward the sound of the fighting.
Rehada closed the door again, peering through the crack in the door to watch them. On the beds were a dozen men bearing crude weapons-long knives, scythes, pitchforks. Only a handful bore muskets, but these were the men that watched the buildings around them most closely, as if they expected to be attacked, or were perhaps looking for those that might run to the Boyar to report their location.
When they turned further up the street, Rehada led Atiana in the other direction, but she had been paying too much attention to the wagons. If she had been watching more closely, she would have seen the two men standing in the shadows down the street.
When she did see them, she already knew it was too late.
“Quickly,” Rehada whispered as they turned right and began heading downhill toward the river.
Atiana said nothing. She had seen them too.
When they reached the end of the alley, Rehada dared one look back.
The men had reached the mouth of the alley. They were moving quickly now.
“Run,” Rehada said.
They did, moving as quickly downhill as they dared. The stone buildings-mostly homes with small shops at the lower floors-were all two and three stories. One had a low stone wall fencing the yard and an iron gate. She leapt over the wall and grabbed a round stone. After motioning Atiana to duck down, she launched the rock across the street, down an alley that forked some twenty paces down.
She ducked down low, pulling Atiana with her, as she heard the heavy footsteps of the men approaching and the clatter of the stone as it skipped down the alley.
The soft pad of boots came nearer.
Atiana’s eyes were wide, and her chest was heaving with her rapid breath, but she seemed to have her wits about her. From inside the voluminous sleeve of her szubka, Atiana pulled a rusted kindjal. It looked worn, but its edge gleamed in the late afternoon light. She stared into Rehada’s eyes, making it clear she would fight if needed. Perhaps she was not so callow as she had seemed that time on the beach.
Rehada placed a hand on her wrist as the footsteps approached. In the distance, the sound of the river could be heard as the summer melt rushed toward the sea. Voices roaring in anger rose above it.
Then, without warning, the footsteps receded, and were gone altogether.
“Come,” Rehada said.