“He will see through it,” Ishkyna said.
“You know better, Shkyna. Have you even heard of Kapitan Malorov?”
“I am not the Matra.”
Atiana was surprised. There was fear in her sister’s voice. She would have to be careful. “Mother keeps as much track of the military as you or I do. You have little to worry about there.”
“What if she touched stones with all of them before they left?”
“As quickly as the blockade was cobbled together? Unlikely, and I’m surprised at you. I thought you’d be eager to spread dissent in this-how did you put it? — farce of a war…”
“Farce or not, Mother would find out soon enough what I’d done.”
“And you’ll simply tell her the truth, that I asked to go.”
“For what purpose?” “Unfinished affairs.” “Nikandr?”
“I’ll reveal everything when I return to Vostroma.”
The rook flapped over to the open window and clucked. “I’m afraid, sister, that this is something I cannot do. I may like to pull at loose strings, but this is too much.”
“Shkyna, please! It will work.”
“I know it will work. I’m worried about my hide once it has.”
“Mother won’t do a thing.”
“ Nyet, but Father will. He has changed as much as Borund. It’s too much to ask. When you reach the island, we’ll play trump-you and I and Mileva, like we always have. You’ll be a world away from your troubles, and in no time you’ll forget Nikandr and his stubborn family.”
“Ishkyna!”
The rook had already flapped out of the window. Atiana watched it wing through the rigging and climb higher into the overcast sky until it was lost in the white canvas of the landward sails.
CHAPTER 54
Rehada entered the mouth of the cave at dusk. The height of it was so low that she had to bend over to reach the interior. She could smell wood burning, and when she turned a corner she found the source. In the center of the natural cavern burned a meager fire. The smoke trailed upward and was lost through a long crack in the stone ceiling. Soroush kneeled on the far side, pointedly ignoring her approach as he stirred the fire with a partially burnt switch. When his brother, Bersuq, saw her, he stood and motioned for the two others sitting next to him to follow. They were forced to hunch over, making them look like a line of the walking wounded.
Rehada kneeled on the opposite side of the fire and watched as the orange light played across Soroush’s dark skin. His turban lay on top of his folded outer robe. His long black hair was pulled over one shoulder.
“Where is Muwas?” Soroush asked without looking up.
“Taken. Burned.”
The silence between them lengthened, deepened. Soroush had been burned himself five years ago. Rehada could only imagine what it must feel like, to be cut off from touching Adhiya, to never again feel the bond with a hezhan. It would be an empty life. At least for a while. Perhaps forever.
Rehada reached into the pouch at her waist and retrieved the azurite gemstone. It was smooth, no larger than a thrush’s egg, and even though she wasn’t aligned with water, she could feel the power emanating from within it.
“At least he was able to find this for us.” She set it down near the fire, close enough for Soroush to reach.
He picked it up, turned it in his fingers as the firelight played against the silken surface. “You witnessed it, the burning?”
“I did.” “You did nothing to protect him?”
“I-there was nothing I could have done.”
“Nothing?”
“You were not there, Soroush. He was caught with blood upon his hands.”
After setting the stone down next to the fire, Soroush regarded Rehada. “The woman I knew-the woman I sent to this island seven years ago- would have fought for his freedom.”
“You would prefer that I had? That I were dead like Ahya?”
Anger flared in his gray-green eyes. “I’ve never told you, Rehada, but the men who murdered Ahya… Nearly all of them are dead, most by my hand. It took years, and by the time you left for Khalakovo, I had begun to feel thin, worn down, as I do now. Like a hawk no longer hungry for prey, my thirst for revenge faded.”
She glanced toward the cave’s entrance, making sure the other men had truly left. She had never heard Soroush speak this way. His anger was fading before her very eyes.
“And if my own thirst is thus,” he continued, “I wonder what it must be like for you.”
“You think I don’t have the stomach for it any longer?”
“Our minds are not made for such things.”
“My mind is as filled with hate as it has ever been.”
Soroush shook his head. “I doubt that, daughter of Shineshka.”
“You doubt that I would wipe them from the islands if I could?”
“If it were so easy as that, neh, I think you would. But it is not easy. It is harder than I ever thought it would be. And I have seen the same struggle within you — don’t think I haven’t. The Aramahn are a clean people, are we not? But it is impossible to lie in the mud and not have it cling to you when at last you rise.”
“What of you?” Rehada shot back. “How can you go on if your will has left?”
Soroush was silent for a time. The fire had begun to die, but he stoked it back to life. “There was an attack years ago on Nodhvyansk. Lohram and Bersuq and I had just landed on the island, and we heard of a group of our people being chased by a Landed warship. We didn’t find the windship in time, but we found the six who had fallen to their deaths when their skiff was blown to bits by the ship’s cannons.
“One of them, a woman who had seen eighty years, had nearly saved herself. We found her lying in the tall grasses, the gem within her circlet dim, her body broken. She took my hand as I kneeled next to her and looked into my eyes. She could barely take breath, but she forced these words out before she died: ‘Forgive them… Please, child, forgive them. Do not take revenge on my account.’ I asked her how she could say such things when those men had caused the deaths of so many she had loved, and she said: ‘Because I love them as much as I love you.’” Soroush took in a deep, halting breath. “She loved them as much as she loved me. I stayed by her side until she died, but I will not lie and say that I comforted her. I hated her. I hated the words she had spoken, not because she could find it within herself to love those that deserve none of it, but because the Landed have forced us to this, squabbling amongst ourselves while they take everything.
“It is easy for me to sustain myself now. I admit that I do not think of Ahya as often as I should, but I think of that woman every day. I think of her and reflect on what has become of us. I long for the day we can move freely among the winds, as we once did, but I no longer believe it will happen in this lifetime.”
Rehada watched Soroush with a mixture of sadness and regret and anger. She wished the same determination ran through her veins, but she had to admit-to herself if no one else-that it no longer did. Something had been burned out of her by the lake when she had asked Atiana for forgiveness. She saw-for the first time in a very long time-some of the promise that her mother had spoken of when she was young. She had believed that the Landed would eventually reconcile with the Aramahn. It may take lifetimes, she’d told Rehada, but it would happen.
Without saying another word, Rehada stood and held her hand out to Soroush. He stared, the fire and the shadows warring against his face, and then he dropped the blackened switch into the fire and followed her to the blankets that lay on the far side of the cave.
With slow deliberation they pulled the clothes from their bodies until it was just the two of them, skin-on-skin, embracing and kissing, then exploring and finally groping. Rehada lay down, pulling Soroush with her. When he entered her she arched her back both in pleasure and in pain. Soroush had always been a gentle lover, but he thrust into her powerfully now. It felt as though he was filled with anger-or perhaps regret-that they might never see each other again.