The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [127]
Rehada got onto hands and knees and crawled into the hole. Once she was inside, the temperature dropped. For a while the way ahead was pitch dark, but then her eyes adjusted and she saw faint light up ahead. She heard words being spoken, too soft to distinguish, and they stopped as she came near.
She reached a small, natural cavern lit by a glowing pink stone, a siraj, set onto a ledge. Her fears had eased when the boy had told her she was expected, but when she saw Soroush lying there in the cavern, wounded, all of them returned in a rush. He lay on a blanket padded by folded grasses. One thigh was wrapped in bandages dark with dried blood. His head was propped up by a rolled blanket. He was watching her, but the effort of contorting his neck seemed to cause him pain, and he rolled his head back until he was staring at the roof of the cavern.
Bersuq sat cross-legged nearby, as did another—an old, barrel-chested man with as much gray hair poking out from under his cap as there was black. His name was Muwas. Rehada had met him when she was twelve. He had been leaner then, but she recalled his stocky frame and the odd way he waddled when he walked.
They remained seated, staring at her as she approached.
“Leave us,” Soroush said.
Muwas stood and bowed his head to Rehada before stepping past her. Bersuq, however, gave Rehada a severe expression, weighing her.
“Go,” Soroush repeated.
Bersuq, silent as the earth, stepped past her, leaving the air scented with his heavy musk.
Rehada kneeled and placed a long, tender kiss on his forehead. “What happened?”
“I took a musket shot to the leg and passed out as Bersuq was taking me to safety. I nearly died in the waters below the palotza before Muwas found me and pulled me to the boat.”
“And Nasim?”
Soroush shook his head. “We nearly had him, but he escaped with Ashan. Your Prince left in a ship shortly after to chase him down.”
“He is not my Prince.”
“As you say.”
“Will you have them followed?”
He considered for a time, his chest rising and falling. “I don’t think it will be necessary. Ashan goes to Ghayavand, and if the fates are kind, he will return here with Nasim.”
“What makes you think he won’t run?”
“Because Ashan cares too much. If he can unlock Nasim’s secrets, he will return to close the rift. And if that happens, those secrets will be unlocked for us as well.”
“And if we don’t find him?”
“Then the fates have chosen our course. Now tell me”—he turned his head with obvious discomfort—“for I cannot think of an answer that will appease Bersuq. Why did you take the woman?”
“She is Princess Atiana Vostroma. Nikandr’s bride.”
Soroush smiled, and then laughed. “And you saved her?”
“I didn’t know if she had been followed. She saw little enough that the Landed didn’t already know. It seemed unwise to beg the entire Duchy of Vostroma—not to mention Khalakovo—to come hunting after us.”
He stared into her eyes, considering her words, but then he relaxed into the roll beneath his neck. “There have been times when I’ve thought the fates were set against us, but then something like this happens, and it renews my faith.”
“What do you mean?”
“Open the satchel there.”
He motioned to the other side of the fire, where Bersuq had been sitting. She upended the soft leather satchel, and three stones poured out onto the woolen blanket: jasper, alabaster, and tourmaline. The jasper must have come from the beach when the vanahezhan had been summoned, and the tourmaline, of course, she had liberated herself. She stared at the stone of alabaster, stopping just short of touching it. She knew from Soroush that this had been liberated when the havahezhan had been summoned. It had been the one to attack Nikandr.
Soroush was watching her carefully. “I have been blessed, I think, to be with Nasim for as long as I have. He did not mean to, but he taught me many things. It is because of him that I can sense the rifts, the places