The hezhan move about the city, perhaps searching-for what she does not know. As she approaches, she realizes she was wrong. These are not hezhan. They are of Adhiya, but they are also of Erahm. Their colors-blue mixed with tendrils of red-remind her of the babe she saw, the one that had been… assumed by the vanahezhan. She has not thought of it before, but the act of assuming a bird like the rooks is eerily similar to what she sees here, only it is a hezhan assuming a human instead of a human assuming an animal, and it forces her to rethink the very nature of the hezhan.
One of the creatures moves faster, and she is drawn toward it because nearby there are four men, and one is Nikandr. They hide in a building as the creature stalks toward the open doorway. It sniffs the air and appears ready to step inside. She knows that if this happens it could mean the life of all four of them, but she does not know how to prevent it. She moves around one side and tries to call its attention toward her. If it notices her efforts, it does not show it.
A moment later it opens its darkened mouth and calls soundlessly to the sky, and when it does, there is a subtle shift in the aether. She feels, in that one small moment, a lattice of connections that span the entire city. It starts near the water-at a tall tower that is strangely intact-and spreads outward like the shattering impact of a stone upon a pane of leaded glass.
She was ready to search for the rift on Khalakovo, but here is something so much larger, so much more dangerous. She wonders, staring at it, whether this could happen to Khalakovo. Could something spread so far? Or would it take intervention of some sort?
As she studies the faint but powerful lines of the web covering the city, she realizes that there are telltale signs she might look for on Khalakovo. The aether lies between worlds; it is neither of Erahm nor Adhiya, and yet of both, for it stands between them, separating them, binding them. When she rides the aether, she remains at its center-the safest place. But these tendrils that spread from one world to the other are in fact easier to discern near the edges. If she can expand her awareness, as dangerous as that is for a novice, she might be able to find it more easily.
She returns her attention to Nikandr and the men, she sees that the creature has left. It pains her to leave, but she knows that she must.
Ancients keep you, my love, she whispers, and allows herself to be drawn back toward Iramanshah.
As she nears the island the presence of others become known to her. It is the other Matri, but like a blind woman grasping ineffectually for an intruder she is unable to find them.
Mother, she wills. Saphia.
They do not answer, but the sense that she is being watched grows. She wonders whether having gone to Ghayavand has anything to do with it. It feels no different than the times she had been in Radiskoye or Galostina, but that doesn’t mean that there is not some primal shift in perspective that occurs when drifting through the aether from within the confines of Iramanshah.
She tries to relax her mind further while keeping tight rein on the aether. Again the winds buffet her, and she uses this to attempt to locate the source of the disturbance. She tries for long moments, refusing to think about the time she has already spent. She must act quickly, but not recklessly, and she cannot allow her thoughts of the material world to affect her or she will be thrown from the aether in moments.
As she had in Ghayavand, she allows her vision to expand as she navigates the currents. At the edge of her vision, she sees it, and though it is impossible to look upon it directly she can perceive a white line as thin and bright as a distant lightning strike running the length of the island. By and large it runs beneath the ground, trailing, perhaps, the hidden inner workings of stone. There are several places, however, where it rises to the surface, and even one where it swirls above ground like a dust demon.
She approaches, and as she does, faint thoughts come to her. She is sure that it is the Matri communing with one another, but she is again unable to discern their thoughts to any coherent degree, so she focuses on the swirling energy before her.
It is here that the suurahezhan crossed over. She knows because of Nikandr’s description of the place and also because of the tinge of red that remains on the ground beneath the swirling storm of energy. This is the rift that spans the aether and binds Adhiya to Erahm. It is why the spirits have been crossing, and surely the presence of such a thing would cause other effects-the imbalance of the two worlds touching might cause poor crops, might it not, as well as the erratic behavior on fishing grounds?
She places herself in the locus of the crossing, hoping to sense more than she can while spread so thinly. It is a difficult thing, for the aether is wide and lends itself naturally to a widening of one’s self, to a thinning of the senses, and as she focuses, she feels the pull of the aether upon her. She becomes disoriented. She can feel not just this island-Duzol and Grakhosk and Yfa are the strongest-but others as welclass="underline" Kravozhny and Yrlanda and even little Ishal far to the east. Beyond these she can feel the pull of the other archipelagos. Mirkotsk and Rhavanki and her motherland, Vostroma.
She takes hold of the aether before she is pulled too far, before her mind snaps over the immensity of it all. Experiencing so much is beyond her. It is beyond even the Matri, she is sure.
She realizes, as she moves away from the location and considers it from a safe distance, that it was the rift that had pulled her so. She had known that it had spread among the islands, but she had no idea how interconnected it was. The sense that she has found something truly important is breathtaking, but it is also unnerving. She has found it, yet it is completely foreign. It is an act of nature. How can she hope to combat this? How can any of them?
As she considers moving closer to the swirl of light, she hears the voices once more. She is surprised, however, to feel the mind of her mother.
Daughter, is that you?
Her first instinct is to hide, but she does not know how to do such a thing, and after thinking about it for a moment it seems cowardly.
It is I, she says.
The feeling of her mother intensifies, and as it does, so do four other presences. She has not spoken with any of them in some time, but she knows them to be the other Matri, the ones currently aligned against Khalakovo: Dhalingrad, Khazabyirsk, Nodhvyansk, and Bolgravya. She wonders why their presences feel so near when Saphia and the other Matri might be able to sense them. But then she feels a disturbance in the aether, an echo of life crossing over. It feels distant, but only because her mind is so focused on the rift. As she expands to encompass more of the island, she feels them. Deaths. Many of them. It is centered on Volgorod’s eyrie, but there is more coming from Radiskoye.
It can mean only one thing: her father has lost his patience and the blockade has progressed to all-out war.
Child, where are you? A moment later, she feels her mother’s surprise-she knows that Atiana lies within the lake in Iramanshah. What are you doing there?
She debates whether to reveal her true purpose, but in the end she realizes it would do more harm than good. Whether she likes it or not, Mother is too loyal to Father, and the chance that she would betray her confidence is too great.
She portrays a sense of indignance that she hopes is enough to fool her mother. I have been trying to find a way to reach you since I left Radiskoye.
She feels a probing as her mother attempts to read the truth in her thoughts, but Atiana is not so young as she once was. She is able to harden the walls around her, enough to make her mother back away.