“He doesn’t love me?”
Rehada had smiled. “Of course he does, but perhaps not as much as he does his quest for understanding.”
Ahya had been quiet for days after that comment, and Rehada had felt terrible about it, but she refused to leave her child unprepared for her father’s departure as she had been when she was a child.
Ahya had confessed what she had said to Soroush, and Soroush had been deeply hurt. It became clear that he loved Ahya more than Rehada would have guessed, and her thoughts about his devotion to his daughter cut him deeply. He was a hard man, and he felt it was the best for her. It was his way of loving her, so that she would be prepared for the world to come, so that she would be ready to embrace the journey before her and move closer to vashaqiram.
Rehada had caught up to Ahya in the field and walked beside her as the bitterly cold breeze played among the stalks of grass.
Then suddenly Ahya had turned, tears streaming down her cheeks, and embraced her. “I’m sorry, Memma. I’m sorry.”
As they had hugged, Rehada began to understand. Ahya thought she had driven a wedge between them by telling a secret. But in truth, there was nothing to be ashamed of. It was something she should have told Soroush herself. Her daughter had been honest where she should have been, and she was deeply embarrassed over it.
“Child, stop your tears. There is nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.”
Ahya had buried her head into her shoulder and said, “Please. Please forgive me.”
Rehada had leaned her head in close to Ahya’s ear and whispered. “I forgive you.”
Rehada came out of her dream whispering those words to Atiana. She felt her own tears creeping down her cheeks and leaking, salty and hot, into the corners of her mouth.
“I forgive you,” she said one last time, to Ahya, not to Atiana.
And then she felt Fahroz’s hand on her shoulder. “Enough, Rehada. It is enough.”
She pulled away and found the older woman crying nearly as hard as was she. There were no tears in Atiana’s eyes, but there was a certain shock there, and a faint look of apology. Rehada was not, surprisingly, angry at this. She had shed too much of that emotion already this day and so she simply nodded to her.
“Come,” Fahroz said while walking toward the doors, “let us go to the lake.”
CHAPTER 48
Atiana had been sure, in that small instant after Rehada had confessed that her daughter had been killed on Nazakhov, that she had somehow orchestrated the attack of the suurahezhan on Radiskoye’s eyrie. But as the questioning continued, she became less convinced, and when the Aramahn beauty had begun crying upon her shoulder, she was not at all sure that Rehada could be turned to such violence… It seemed as though she had locked her emotions away for so long that it would be inconceivable for her to perform murder and still hold such feelings inside. Surely, if that had been so, they would have been released like vapors from a bottle.
Still, the entire experience had been jarring. She hadn’t known that Rehada had been a mother, and certainly hadn’t known what sort of pain she had gone through. It was strange, once again, to be faced with a different reality than the one she had pictured for Nikandr’s lover.
One thing bothered her about this, though. Clearly Rehada had harbored resentment for the Landed since her daughter’s regrettable death. Why, then, would she remain here in Uyadensk and flirt with the aristocracy? Why wouldn’t she simply take to the winds or stay with her own kind? Perhaps what she said was true: that she wished to know a place as she had Nazakhov. But that didn’t explain her attraction to Nikandr. It may be that she wanted to use him, to place herself in a position of power that she could achieve in no other way.
The thoughts fled as they moved deeper into the village toward the lake. It had not been long since Atiana had taken the dark, but as always, a churning in her gut began to rise as the ritual approached.
The lake, once they reached it, felt different. The first time, it had been a unique experience. She had known about the lakes in the villages, but she had had no idea what sort of power they held. She wondered if the Matri knew that they could be used in the same way as the drowning chambers. Surely they must, but who would use them? Only a handful of Aramahn in all the world could do such a thing; Fahroz was perhaps their most adept and still she was like a child to Atiana, who in turn was like a child to the longstanding Matri.
Despite these assurances, the lake seemed like a weakness, something that should be dealt with. In time, if she had any say over it, she would.
Fahroz and Rehada led the way to the shoreline. They waited as Atiana disrobed, at which point they worked together to rub the rendered goat’s fat over her body.
She lay back in the freezing water and with the other two women’s arms holding her, floated free. She fought against the urge to shiver, to stiffen, and found that this time it was much easier than any of the others had been. She wondered if, in time, she would begin to yearn for the aether as Saphia did.
She relaxed and fell deeper into the embrace of the water as the constricting tube through which she breathed became less and less of a hindrance. And soon… Soon…
Her mind expands to fill the lake and the cavern that holds it. It is an easy thing to do, and for the first time there is pleasure-a release that occurs at the moment of crossing-and she thinks immediately to Saphia and her constant desire to wander the aether. Is this the first sign that the same will happen to her?
The transition occurs faster than in times past, but it is no less easy. The winds seems more turbulent, and she wonders if that is due to her lack of mastery or the state of the island.
She moves beyond the lake, hoping to find a frame of reference from which she can view the rift. She failed to find it the last time, but she is not so inexperienced as she was then. She thinks about her past failures, but she is convinced that things will be different now.
As she searches, she feels the presence of another. It is not like the feeling of communing with one of the Matri. Instead, it is the feeling of a soulstone, one she has touched in recent weeks, and she realizes with a start that it is Nikandr’s. As the winds of the aether rage around her, beckoning her to give of herself more fully, she allows herself to be drawn toward the stone. It is dangerous, what she does. She is not so experienced yet that she can take this shift lightly. She knows that if she does not maintain awareness of herself in Iramanshah, she might be lost forever, but she is well grounded in the lake, and Nikandr’s light is bright. It will make, she hopes, the return journey easier; her body in the lake and his stone will act like spires for a windship, anchoring the ley lines so that she might traverse them home.
She finds herself hovering above an island, not unlike any of the dozens of others sprinkled around the Great Sea, but she soon realizes that this is vastly different. Worlds different.
She can feel with the lightest touch the hezhan that inhabit the island. They are spread thinly in most places except for one location-a city nestled between two arms of a mountain that travel down to the sea. The city is large, but it is also bereft of life. Gone from its houses are roofs and walls. Stone fences lay shattered. The taller buildings closer to the center are broken and torn; some are mere husks.