The ship descended far enough that Nikandr could lift Nasim up to the ladder. Ashan followed and Nikandr brought up the rear as the ship lifted. Nikandr’s legs and feet were burned by one last blast from two more akhoz, but he would count himself lucky if he had only blisters.
When he reached the deck, he found Grigory waiting. Five streltsi stood behind him-two held Ashan and Nasim; the other three held pistols at the ready.
Grigory jutted his chin toward the ladder. “If I hadn’t been given orders to bring you back, Iaroslov, I would have left you to them.”
Nikandr held his eye. “Spoken like a hound well trained.”
Grigory waved one hand, at which point two of the streltsi came forward and bound Nikandr’s hands behind his back. “We’ll see if your tongue is so loose when you return to a Khalakovo that finds itself in Bolgravyan hands.”
“Never.”
Grigory smiled. “By now Vostroma will have ordered the attack. ”Grigory shook his head sadly. “The eyrie will be taken first. Radiskoye will be saved for last, and it will be torn apart unless your father agrees to cede his islands to us.”
“He would die first.”
The smile on Grigory’s face was one of pure pleasure. “We can only hope, Nischka. And do not worry for your former bride. She has been promised to me, to reforge the southern alliance that has been, shall we say, lacking these last twenty years. I care little for that, but I will admit that I won’t mind sharing a bed with Atiana Radieva.”
Grigory paused, waiting for Nikandr to speak, and then his face lit into a smile and he released a full-chested laugh. “Your bride has just been stolen, Nischka. Can it be the vaunted Son of the North has no words?”
“She was never my bride,” Nikandr said, feeling his face burn. “She was a woman chosen by my mother, a woman as replaceable as your own mother.”
It was Grigory’s turn to burn red. His mother, Alesya, had been spurned by the Duke of Mirkotsk when he discovered just how homely she was. It had led to a small skirmish between the two duchies and had nearly led to civil war. Stasa had taken her as his bride, cementing his relationship with Dhalingrad, and he had refused to allow anyone to speak of the matter after they had been married.
Grigory stepped forward and struck Nikandr across the face. It stung, but Nikandr refused to bend.
“I’ll be sure to write to tell you how she tastes.” Nikandr could smell vodka on Grigory’s breath.
They were brought belowdecks-Ashan without his bracelets and circlet- and thrown into a small, windowless room near the center of the ship.
Nasim was taken elsewhere, no doubt so Grigory could turn his attentions on the boy before they reached the blockade. Nikandr started to think better of raising Grigory’s ire. He sincerely hoped the man didn’t do something eminently foolish with Nasim.
Like make him angry.
CHAPTER 53
Borund sat within the kapitan’s cabin, eying Atiana like a prisoner of war-like some Motherless wretch he was ready to drag before his father for questioning. On a silver perch fixed to the wall sat an old black rook with a chipped beak. Its eyes were not sharp, and it was preening its feathers, so Atiana did not think her mother or any of the other Matri were inhabiting its form. Considering what was happening on Khalakovo the possibility was even more remote. Still, she reminded herself to watch her tongue.
“Mother said you were glad to be there,” Borund said.
“I was not glad,” Atiana said.
“Then what were you?”
“Relieved to be out of the village.”
“And what were you doing there in the first place?”
“I told you. I had escaped from Radiskoye.”
“But why go to a Motherless village?”
“There were riots in the streets, Bora. You would rather I returned to Radiskoye?”
Borund shrugged his shoulders, which were not as round as she remembered them. No doubt he had not been eating well, rations being what they were. “You could have hidden in Izhny, or anywhere else for that matter. You could have stayed in one place until Mother found you.”
“You assume Mother was even looking for me. I practically tripped over her before she noticed me. I managed to get myself to a place where she could find me. That should be enough for you.” Borund opened his mouth to speak, but Atiana talked over him. “Enough, brother. You act like I wanted to be left there, when it was you and Father who abandoned me.”
“You were not abandoned.”
“Then what happened?” The feeling of betrayal she had felt on the eyrie-the ship pulling away, taking Borund and Father with it, while the barrel of a gun was being held to her head-all came back in a rush.“How could you have forgotten me?”
“I checked on the three of you before I left. Ishkyna said you had already boarded the yacht.”
“And you believed her?”
“Mileva said the same thing. Why would they lie?”
Atiana wanted to grab the brass seal sitting at the edge of Borund’s desk and throw it at him, but Borund had changed. He was harder, and she couldn’t act like she had years ago. He was being groomed to take Father’s place, and the last thing she could afford was to give him a reason to scrutinize her further. “Because it suits them, Bora. Do you even know what your sisters are like anymore?”
“Why were you gone?” he asked, ignoring her question. “Why did it suit them to lie for you?”
She knew she had to give him an element of the truth, but she did not trust him enough to give him the complete story. “I left to investigate the crossing of the suurahezhan.”
“When your father told everyone explicitly they were to do no such thing.”
Atiana shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I have? The Khalakovos had all but ceased their investigations.”
“I would think by now the reason for that was clear. They already had the ones who did it and were protecting them.”
“Perhaps, but if it were that cut-and-dry, why would they not simply hand them over?”
Borund smiled, the patronizing one he saved for his sisters when he thought they were being foolish. “Come, Tiana. You’re not so naive as that.”
“What? You still think they hired a Landless qiram and a witless boy to summon an elder spirit to kill Bolgravya? Nyet, Borund, it’s not so obvious as you think.”
He stared at her doubtfully.
“The spirits are not easily bound,” she continued. “It might as easily have attacked them.”
His face pinched into a look of annoyance. “There are things we will never know about the Aramahn. The man, Ashan, was arqesh, and the boy clearly had powers that can only be guessed at.”
“And what if they had summoned it? It is a dangerous thing to banish them once they’ve come. We know this. Why did it slip back through the aether if it had been consciously summoned?”
“Times change. In our lifetimes alone, the world has begun remaking itself. Who knows how the spirits might have changed in that same time or over the course of centuries?”
“You’re trying to give the crossing more meaning than it has.”
“Spoken like a true bride of Khalakovo.”
“They are the words of a woman who doesn’t like seeing lives wasted”-she pointed south, toward Volgorod’s eyrie-“which is exactly what’s happening now.”
“They brought it upon themselves.”
“ Nyet, Father brought it upon them.”
“And he was right to do so!” Borund’s face was turning red. “Khalakovo has been lording their gems and windwood over us for two decades. And for you-a daughter of Vostroma-they give us three windworn ships and a handful of gems? Did you know I told Father to throw their offer to the winds? He refused because we needed those ships, but then Iaros murders the Grand Duke himself so that he can have the mantle he’s been lusting after for years… It’s too much, Atiana. Too much. I don’t know how you can expect us to stand idly by when we were there to witness it. I thought your blood ran thicker than that.”