The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [47]
The bird shivered, the orange glow of the fire playing against its slick black coat, and then it was still.
Father asked to speak with Jahalan alone, and this time Nikandr didn’t mind.
“Nischka?” Father said as he reached the door.
Nikandr turned.
“Tell no one of this.”
“Of course, Father.”
And then he left.
He was bone tired, but he couldn’t go to sleep just yet. He had to deal with Atiana before she told anyone about what happened on their ride. He was worried that she’d already told her sisters, but there was a chance she would have kept quiet about it, at least these last few hours, and that she was cool enough that she would listen to reason.
He took a small lamp and walked to the far side of the palotza, to the bath house. It was empty and cold and dark. Beyond the massive tub in the center of the room he opened the door to a small closet, reached beyond the stacks of towels on the lowest shelf, pressing a certain space along the wood. He heard a click and the shelves swung inward. He stepped into the frigidly cold passage and closed the door behind him.
The passageway was lined with bricks, but as he traveled lower, he was walking through the body of the mountain itself. He knew these passages well, though even he—who’d scoured them whenever he’d had a chance as a child—didn’t know all of them. He knew enough, however, to make it to a similar closet in the wing where the Vostromas and their retinue were staying. He reached it after several brisk minutes of walking; then he left and padded down the tall hallway toward Atiana’s room.
After reaching it, he knocked on her door softly.
He heard nothing inside.
He tried again, louder.
Further down the hall, a door swung open, and Nikandr’s heart leapt out of his chest. A woman leaned out into the hall—Mileva or Ishkyna, he couldn’t tell which. Her hair was pulled up into a sleeping bonnet, and she wore a thick nightdress, but her feet were bare. A curious look came over her when she recognized him, like a cat catching a mouse it hadn’t known was there. Then the look was gone, and she padded toward him over the cold tile floor.
“My dear Nikandr,”she said, her words soft,“have you become so smitten with Atiana that you feel you must steal into her room in the middle of the night? Is she such a treasure?”
Ishkyna.
“She is a jewel beyond measure,” Nikandr replied, just as softly.
One of Ishkyna’s delicate eyebrows rose. “A jewel you wish to polish before it’s been given to you properly?”
“A jewel I would look upon, nothing more.”
She stared at his shoulder, perhaps at the dust he’d collected on his way there through the hidden passages. He waited for her to speak, refusing to rise to the bait.
“This is highly irregular. What would Aunt Katerina think?”
“She would frown, but you, I think, will not.”
“And how can you be so sure?”
“There is little harm in a talk between a man and a woman two days before their marriage.”
She took a step forward. She was close enough to touch now. “That depends on what happens after the words are done, Nischka.” She took another half-step forward. “Words can lead to many things, can they not?”
He could smell the alcohol on her breath, the powder in her hair. The tight line of her lips arced in a meaningful smile as her eyes closed once. Her nipples stood out, her breasts rising in the cold air of the hall. She was beautiful, as Atiana was, and he found his throat tightening at the thought of where, indeed, words could lead. He had always thought of these three sisters as girls, children, but this was no girl standing before him. Ishkyna was a woman grown.
“I only wish for a word, Ishkyna.”
She glanced at Atiana’s door, then her head tilted toward her room, and finally her gaze returned to Nikandr, daring him to take this one step further. When it was clear he would not, she took a half step back and said, “Pity,” and then she turned the handle of Atiana’s room. It swung open soundlessly as Ishkyna swept back to her room and closed her door behind