The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [31]
Nikandr wanted to laugh. He wouldn’t be alive in ten years if he didn’t find a cure for the wasting. “We knew it would take time.”
“And by then the blight might have moved on, as it has done with Rhavanki.”
“Can you deny that things are becoming worse, that the next time it returns it may well destroy us?”
“In truth, I know not. What I do know is that we have to protect our family now. This year. And to do that I had to seal your marriage.”
Nikandr shook his head. “What do you mean?”
“Zhabyn and I signed the papers today.”
His words were heavy, and it was clear there was more to the story than this. “And what might have changed Vostroma’s mind so easily?”
For the first time, Father turned to Nikandr. The wiry beard framing the lower half of his face and running down his gold-threaded kaftan gave him a truculent look. “The Malva will be given to them.”
“My ship?” The Malva was the ship he and Jahalan and Udra had been sailing the last two years to investigate the blight.
“My ship, Nischka, and I will do with it as I please.”
“I have many things planned.”
Father shook his head, his beard swaying back and forth over his kaftan. “Nyet. The Malva will be returned to us when the Gorovna is delivered to Vostroman shores, but when it does, you will no longer be given leave to go where you will. I need you to command a wing of the staaya. The Maharraht have become too bold.”
Nikandr’s stomach, which had been fine the entire day, chose that moment to wake itself from slumber. Like a yawning hole in the ground, nausea spread through Nikandr’s gut and chest, but the feelings were nothing compared to the sense of foreboding over what might be lost. “I will not shirk my duty if that is what you ask of me, but please do not ignore what Jahalan and I have done.”
“You have done well, Nischka, but the Malva is already his. You will sign your papers tomorrow, and then you will ensure that you spend more time with the Vostromas.”
“There is little choice.”
“And yet you found time to visit your woman in Volgorod, twice in the past week.”
Nikandr stared up at his father, angry over being watched so. “Father, forgive me, but I will see whom I please.”
Father smiled. “You are not your own man, Nischka. You have never been, and the sooner you get that into your head, the better off we’ll all be.” He stood, staring down at Nikandr. “In time, such things can be overlooked, but not now, and especially not during Council. All it will take is one more perceived insult—one more—and Zhabyn will take his contracts and grant them to another Duchy, no matter that it makes him poorer in the end.”
He made his way to the door, his slippered feet falling against cold marble tile. In the fireplace, a pile of coals crumbled, sending the sparks flying upward.
“Mark my words.” The door clicked open. “If I find that you’ve been visiting that Motherless whore again”—he stepped into the hall before turning, his expression so grim it made Nikandr cold—“she will not live to see another sunrise.”
CHAPTER 9
Rehada lay on her pillows, the redolence of Nikandr’s musky scent fading but still present. The embers in the nearby hearth crumbled, creating the faintest of sounds as sparks flew upward, and it reminded her of just how long she had been lying there, lamenting. She rose and threw three logs onto the nearly dead fire, lighting it with a simple summons of the spirit bound to her. She stared into the burgeoning flames, yearning for the freedom to be in Nikandr’s arms, knowing that such a thing could never be.
As these emotions played themselves out she realized she had allowed herself more fantasies than she had been willing to admit. Years ago, when she had arranged for their first encounter, she had hated him just as much as she hated all the Landed, perhaps more. He had been childish and full of himself, but his time among the winds and the growing blight had somehow tempered him, and she had found him to be interested in the ways of the Aramahn, more than she would have guessed. It had never