The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [141]
After waiting for the pair of guardsmen to pass her window, she unlatched the window and opened it. It swung open soundlessly. She had tested it the day before, and after finding a light squeak she had used the rendered fat from her dinner of roasted chicken to grease the hinges.
She swung herself outside, mindful of the river rock that sat in the flower bed beneath the window. She slipped to the nearby hedges, watching the guardsmen along the wall. Their attention was turned outward, however— after the attack, they were still wary of a threat from the outside.
Moving as quickly as she dared, she made her way to the place where Nikandr had come with his dog, Berza. She had forgotten about the path that led down from the palotza to the cliffs below, but when she had kneeled next to Nikandr that day, consoling him for what her brother had done, she had noticed the uppermost reaches of it and remembered.
She moved through two squat, gray boulders to the thin path. She turned along the first of the switchbacks, feeling the wind press her against the stone face of the cliff before turning sideways and threatening to pull her from it entirely. The wind played tricks—as much for her as for the ships that found themselves too close to it—but she continued at a fast pace, unable to believe her luck.
Don’t count yourself lucky yet, Tiana, she told herself. There’s still a ways to go.
Nearly an hour later, she came to the end of the trail. It ended some hundred feet above the surface of the waves. Years ago, it had continued on all the way down to the sea itself, but the Khalakovos had considered it not useful enough to repair when a quake had ripped away a good portion of it. That only served to help her cause; no one would think to search for her here, thinking her incapable of braving the waters below.
Indeed. As she stared downward—the water churning, white and frothing with rage—she found herself doubting. Doubting that she could jump. Doubting that she could rise to the surface. Doubting that she could make her way westward to the shore and arrive in Volgorod unseen.
This was foolish, she thought. Why risk such a thing just to speak with a woman whom she wasn’t sure she could trust? Would Rehada help? Would she be able to help?
Perhaps, Atiana thought, and perhaps not, but she had to try, and all that stood in her way was the drop from this cliff.
The wind picked up, blowing scree against the side of her face. It bit her skin. Stung her neck.
She stared at the waves, crashing in unending rhythms. Her breath came quickly, and desperately.
She stared up, wondering if it were too late to return.
And then a bell began to ring, over and over, the alarm that she’d escaped.
She stared down, taking a full breath, releasing it slowly.
I can do this, she thought. I am a Matra, in mind if nothing else. I have taken the dark, and I have braved the currents beyond this world to return whole. If I can do that, I can brave the waters of this world.
“Ancients protect me,” she whispered.
And she leapt.
She arced downward with increasing pace, the sound of the surf breaking against her ears.
And then she crashed against the surface of the water.
CHAPTER 43
“Land ahead,” Udra said as she stared over the bow.
Nikandr scanned the horizon and saw an island—perhaps twenty leagues long—so green it looked like an emerald jewel against the sapphire glass of the sea.
“It is Ghayavand,” Nikandr said, remembering it from his dreams.
Ashan’s skiff, less than a league ahead, began to descend. The island loomed much larger now, and for a moment the skiff was lost among the darker colors of the island’s forests. Nikandr felt uncomfortable following so closely. Ashan had had his way with them, but that didn’t mean it had to be so now, here at the end.
“Take us around