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She stopped when she heard footsteps coming from behind. A balding man with damp white hair hanging down in loose curls stood by the corner of the house. “You had something to do with my granddaughter, didn’t you, you filthy Motherless wretch?”

“Nyet, I—”

Rehada turned to run, but Ruslan grabbed her around the neck.

She tried to scream, but the only thing that came out was a muffled caw, like a diseased and dying gull. She kicked, but the older man stepped in and punched her in the gut. The air rushed from her lungs as pain blossomed in her stomach and ribs. She fought for air, to no avail. Nothing was coming, and the man’s hold prevented her from breathing. They dragged her toward the house. She kicked viciously, catching the old man off guard. Her heel connected hard with the left side of his face. He shouted and doubled over, holding his ear.

Ruslan threw her to the ground and pulled the thin boning knife from its sheath. He grabbed for her hair. She recoiled, kicking at his legs, but the other man had recovered, and he moved around behind her and grabbed her shoulders.

“Let her go,” Gierten said, still holding the circlet tightly in both hands.

“Get yourself down to the shore,” Ruslan said. “I’ll get you when we’re done.”

“She’s been kind... She wouldn’t have harmed Evina...”

Before she could say anything else, Ruslan stalked forward and slapped her across the face. “Get yourself down to the shore!”

Gierten held her cheek, a frightened look on her face. She glanced at Rehada, saying nothing, and then she turned and walked down the gravel path.

“Please don’t leave—”

The old man struck Rehada, hammering her ear so hard it began to ring.

“That’s for the kick. Now stop fighting or it won’t go well at all.”

Rehada didn’t listen. She kicked and thrashed,spun around on the ground, trying to loosen their grip on her. She screamed.

Ruslan managed to lay himself over her legs and climb up until he was straddling her waist. His father pinned her arms over her head.

“Please don’t do this. You don’t know who I am.”

“Don’t I?” He reached down with the knife. “You’re Landless. You’re nothing.”

“She is Maharraht—”

Gierten’s husband looked up just in time to see Soroush rushing forward with a khanjar gripped tightly in one hand.

“—and she is worth more than you and all your ancestors.”

CHAPTER 29

Soroush drove the khanjar deep into the fisherman’s gut while fending off a hurried counterattack. Ruslan’s eyes went impossibly wide. His face reddened. The knife fell from his grip and thumped softly against the earth. He grabbed at Soroush’s wrist, trying to pull the khanjar free, but Soroush was strong, and the man was already beginning to weaken.

The older man had been too shocked to move, but then he dove for his son’s knife. He never reached it. He was pulled backward and off of Rehada by Bersuq.

Rehada scrabbled away and reached her feet.

Bersuq was nearly fifty, but still he grabbed the other man around the waist and flipped him to the ground as if he were felling a lamb. He drew his own khanjar—a curving blade with runes worked along its length—and brought it down hard into the old man’s chest.

A ragged inhalation of breath accompanied the man’s panicked attempts at removing the blade, but mere moments later he fell back, lifeless. Rehada, breathing heavily, her fingers tingling, studied his face as she approached. As Bersuq pulled the knife free and stood, she reached his side, seeing details in the man she hadn’t noticed before—the deep lines in his tanned face; the spots along his brow from his days on the sea; his rough, gnarled hands; the scars that ran through the light white stubble covering his chin and neck.

His soul, even now, was crossing over to Adhiya, to join the hezhan until such a time as the fates decided he should return. She wondered if he would be reborn as Aramahn or Landed. There were those among her people, especially the Maharraht, that believed Landed returned