The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [65]
The decision, strictly speaking, wasn’t Zhabyn’s to make. The Matri had arranged it, and by tradition, only they could undo it. But Radia had never been a willful woman; if Zhabyn declared the marriage to be dead, she would follow, and then there was little Khalakovo could do except hold the offered ships and trade agreements as bait.
When Saphia spoke again, she spoke slowly and deliberately.“Plans have been made, Vostroma. Documents have been signed.”
Zhabyn didn’t flinch. “Winds change, Matra. Should we ignore them when they do?”
Saphia seemed to lift herself up higher in the chair—an act that would take a supreme amount of will in her weakened state. During the pause that followed, the entire room seemed to lean forward. Finally, Saphia nodded once, politely, though there was no graciousness in the dour expression on her face. “A small delay will hurt little.”
And with that she reached up and patted Father’s hand, which rested on her shoulder. Father then turned her chair around and strode from the room, Ranos and Nikandr behind them.
CHAPTER 18
It had been three days since the attack on the eyrie. Nikandr was out beyond the palotza walls, hiking down the trail the suurahezhan had taken, his fourth time doing so. He came to the spruce a thousand yards from the palotza’s walls where the husk of the burned streltsi had been found. The scent of cardamom still laced the air, one of the telltale signs of a suurahezhan.
Little had remained of the man who had bravely charged forward to stop the threat of the suurahezhan from reaching those he had vowed to protect—a bit of cloth, charred flesh, but by and large it had been little more than a blackened skeleton.
The body had been taken away for interment two days ago, but Nikandr still whispered a prayer of thanks to the soldier, and for a life of honor and peace in the world beyond for the service he’d given. The poor soul had been on his stomach when he’d died, his arms stretched outward as if he’d been trying to claw his way across the frozen ground while burning to death.
Nikandr took a long swig of elixir.
The wasting had been troubling him all morning, and now he was getting the shakes. These symptoms normally passed after he’d taken a few mouthfuls, but today the effects were lingering. After tucking the flask back into his coat he continued downslope. A light, fluffy snow began drifting down from the bright but sunless sky. He had found three more clusters of streltsi, all of them similarly burned. Again he whispered prayers before continuing.
Finally he came to the site of the crossing, an unremarkable clearing that lay at the base of a century-old landslide. Three streltsi, armed with tall muskets and berdische axes, stood guard by five stout ponies. When they saw Nikandr coming, they slapped their heels together and bowed their heads. Nikandr bowed back and continued on toward Udra.
She was kneeling at the edge of a massive black stain that marred the surface of the clearing. Her eyes were closed, and every so often she would set her palms to the snow-covered ground before her and bow. Running across Udra’s path was a natural fault that still contained the charred remains of a large fire. The fault ran upward toward the palotza—a fact that seemed significant, though how, Nikandr couldn’t guess.
It was strange how bent the suurahezhan had been on Stasa—strikingly similar to how the havahezhan had attacked Nikandr on the Gorovna. He knew it had something to do with the wasting—there could be no other explanation—but he didn’t know just what the connection meant. Did the wasting attract the hezhan in some way? Did it anger them? Or was it perhaps that they were looking for a way back to Adhiya, the spirit world? Those with the wasting might provide some channel that allowed them to return to their natural place.
But if that was true—that there was some connection with the wasting—why had it chosen Stasa over Victania or Nikandr or one of the other nobles who had