The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [73]
The feelings of nausea in Nikandr’s stomach advanced. He swallowed several times without meaning to.
Ashan seemed to notice, for his expression turned to one of confusion, of concern.
Nikandr stood, knocking his chair back in his haste. “Did Nasim summon the hezhan?”
“I told you he could not have.”
“We could hang you, Ashan—you and Nasim both.”
Ashan seemed unfazed. “Of that I have no doubt.”
His stomach was growing worse. “You would do well to consider your answers more carefully the next time we meet.”
He left, locking the door with the gaoler’s keys, and rushed up the hall. Then he bent over and vomited, the contents of his stomach pattering against the stone. He heaved again and again—more and more sour liquid coming up. He knew Ashan could hear him, and the knowledge burned, but what was worse was the fear that was starting to well up inside him. The symptoms were growing stronger. Soon, everyone would know; it would be plain as day. And then, the long march toward death would be all that lay before him.
He stood, clearing his mouth of spittle.
Nasim’s door lay just ahead. He moved to it, listening for any signs of movement within. For no reason apparent to him, he was afraid.
Softly, he placed the key into the lock and turned it. It opened with a soft click. He found Nasim kneeling in the center of the room, holding his gut and rocking back and forth, a look of profound misery on his face.
Nikandr stepped inside. “Nasim?”
The boy didn’t respond.
“Nasim, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
Nikandr crouched down, hoping the boy would acknowledge him in some way. But Nasim only rocked, his breath coming in short gasps through flared nostrils.
“Nasim, please, speak to me.”
Father was going to demand answers, and soon. The life of the Grand Duke had been taken. The lives of everyone on the island—the gathered aristocracy included—were threatened, and they would all be looking toward these two to provide answers.
But Nasim appeared unready to grant this request, so Nikandr eventually left.
CHAPTER 20
Rehada often took walks around Volgorod. She told herself it was to steep herself in the ebbs and flows of the city, and that was true, but she knew deep in her heart that it was also because she was lonely. She catered to the richest of the Landed, pleasing them in the ways of the flesh, but none of them other than Nikandr had ever given her pause. She was shunned in Iramanshah for her refusal to cross the fires, to forgive those who had taken the life of her daughter, Ahya. Soroush, Ahya’s father, had told her many times to do so. What was one more lie in the stack you’ve created, he used to ask. There were many things she would do to make her life among the Landed appear innocent, but forgiving the murderous souls who’d taken Ahya from her wasn’t one of them. She would never forgive them. Never.
So she lived half a life—always on the periphery of Royalty, of the Aramahn, of the people of Volgorod. She traveled not only through the city, but all around the island and the others in the archipelago. She attended festivals, celebrations, even funerals, where the Landed would bury their dead in the ground instead of setting them onto skiffs and letting the wind take them where it would.
She approached the line where peasants stood in line for their dole. Today it was four blocks long, people waiting with barrows or straps to take home the grain they would be allotted. There were many of them—more than normal, it seemed—and they looked haggard, gray, as if they were slowly but surely becoming part of the stone of the city around them.
“Rehada,” a woman called, beckoning Rehada closer.
Her name was Gierten, and she was a woman Rehada had met several times at the summer festival in Izhny. She was holding the reins of a sickly donkey saddled with two baskets—one empty, the other with a nest of faded brown blankets.
She approached, trying to appear pleasant. Gierten had been heavy with child the last time she’d seen her nearly a year ago. Rehada had no real desire