The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [150]
“If this is so, then how could Sariya still live? How could there still be a struggle for this island?”
Ashan turned his gaze on Nasim, who walked ahead of them. “That is something we may find out before too long. I hoped that by bringing Nasim here he will understand the bond that lies between you, that he will be able, once and for all, to find his way fully into this world.”
“Erahm.”
Ashan nodded. “It is through you, his touchstone, that he has been able to make such progress. Believe me when I say he would not have been able to speak so lucidly were it not for the day you met him on the eyrie.”
“That tells me little of why you came here.”
“Then see for yourself.” Ashan pointed up to the sky. They had reached the ridge. The wind was stronger here. It played along the prairie in the narrow plateau on which they found themselves. Nasim was sitting among the grass, half-hidden, staring up at the sky. Nikandr looked to where Ashan had pointed and saw a swirl of cloudstuff pull away from the larger body above it. Something in his chest began to ache as the havahezhan darted to and fro like a hummingbird, but then—as if it had just spied the humans below—it shot downward. Its form, swirling tightly as it plummeted, could only be seen because it still held the mist from the clouds.
The blood drained from Nikandr’s face and he took a step forward, but he stopped when Ashan gripped his arm.
“He will not be harmed.”
The havahezhan continued to plummet.
The feeling within him, bordering on pain, began to feel more and more familiar. “Tell me,” he said, the thoughts still forming in his mind, “the hezhan that attacked me on Uyadensk, the one summoned by the Maharraht, could it be here, now, right before us?”
Ashan stared up at the havahezhan as it swirled and twisted, breaking away from its course toward Nasim. “Impossible.”
“I can feel it”—he pressed the tips of his fingers to his soulstone— “here.”
Ashan was silent as he studied the hezhan. “Do you feel as you did on the mountainside?”
He meant when Nikandr had summoned the wind to save them from the snow. “I do.”
The havahezhan dropped again. A swirl of dirt was drawn upward around Nasim. Nasim dashed forward, trying to touch the wall of air, but it moved fluidly, staying just ahead. And then Nikandr realized that he had been feeling something ever since he’d seen the spirit—even before he’d seen it. His soulstone... He looked down and found that there was the barest iridescent quality held deep within it. His chest still hurt, and it felt nothing like what it did when he was searching for his mother, or when he touched stones with someone for the first time. Those felt like a simple warmth that suffused his chest like the remembrance of a long, warm bath while lying in bed. This felt like an absence, a loneliness, as if something he had held precious within his heart had suddenly been taken away.
“How can it be, Ashan?”
“Perhaps it became attuned to you. Perhaps your proximity to Ghayavand has drawn its attention. Who can know such things?”
Nikandr watched as the havahezhan rose into the sky and vanished. In only moments, the feeling in his chest faded and was gone.
“How could it have found me?”
“Perhaps from the qualities of this place, its similarity to Uyadensk.”
Nikandr turned to regard Ashan who was staring at him calmly, with that small smile on his lips he always seemed to possess.
Ashan guessed his next question. “The rift over Uyadensk is not so different than here on Ghayavand. What began here centuries ago is now spreading.”
Nikandr shook his head, confused. “The blight?”
“Can there be any doubt? I don’t know how the rift that formed here remained in check for so many years. I don’t know what caused it to change. But I know that it has. A chain of events has begun, and we must learn the way to reverse it, before it is too late.”
Despite the warmth of this place, Nikandr shivered. “And if we do not?”
“Then I fear the entire world will become like this island. Inhospitable. Wild. The only reason