Bradley Beaulieu - The Straits of Galahesh

He dropped toward the water, limp, unable to do anything but let the currents of wind take him. Nasim, flailing wildly at the air with a horror-stricken expression, was too far away to do anything.

“ Neh!” he screamed while trying and failing to come closer to Nikandr.

And then a slight form barreled downward like a cormorant diving for the sea. It was Kaleh, Nikandr realized. She struck Nasim mid-air, and the Atalayina was knocked from his grasp to float free of the twisting, turning forms.

The two of them crashed into the sea.

Mere moments before Nikandr did.

He fell deep, the sound of it raucous in his ears. The air was pressed from his lungs. He flailed in the dark, not understanding which way was up. The salty water of the sea forced its way into his lungs, and he coughed, drawing in more while trying desperately to pull himself up toward the surface.

He kicked. He stroked his arms. All as the salt water burned his throat and mouth and lungs.

Ages seemed to pass, but at last he broke through to the surface. The waves fell down upon him mercilessly, pulling him under. He coughed reflexively, water spilling from his throat.

He tried to stay above the waves, but it was impossible. He was weak. So weak. And the waves threw him about, always tossing him back beneath the surface. He kicked. He pulled, but his strength was beginning to fail.

He grew angry and desperate, kicking at the crest of each wave to look for Nasim. He managed to call to him once, but heard nothing in return. There was detritus from the ship that had crashed into the Spar-some of which was still falling and striking the sea around him-but of Nasim he saw nothing.

And then it became too much. His anger was spent, and the waves once more began to drag him down.

Again and again the water fell upon him. Filling his mouth, slipping down his throat and into his lungs before he could clear the water away. He was beyond desperation. He was despondent, accepting, for he knew the end was near.

Until he heard a crash nearby.

He felt the water roil around him. He felt it push him upward. It lifted him, a column of water above the roiling sea. Not far away was a large piece of the ship’s hull, tilting and turning on the sea-tossed waves. On it was a man, and through his wracking coughs he realized it was Ashan.

He could see a wide area of the straits now, and he scanned the water desperately. “Nasim!” he called. “Nasim!”

He tried again and again as the water bore him toward Ashan. He searched, shouting until his throat was raw, but he received no answer, and saw no signs.

The column of water deposited Nikandr down upon the plank. Ashan, his face pinched with concern, moved quickly with strong arms to pull Nikandr to the center of the makeshift raft. In the clouds high above the Spar, a maelstrom spun. Dirt and debris caught by the wind rained down, biting the skin of his scalp and hands as he cowered from it.

Again Ashan called upon the water to bear them swiftly across the channel toward the northern cliff. Massive pieces of the Spar, which was still breaking up, crashed into the sea, sending plumes of water high into the air. On the far side of the straits, a column of stone calved from the cliff face, crumbling as it fell. When it struck the water, a massive wave formed and spread outward, consuming the distance toward the opposite set of cliffs.

Their raft reached a break in the cliffs, a shallow inlet. Ashan lifted them high on the mound of water as the worst of the massive waves crashed below. As they subsided, he set them down on a shelf of stone twenty feet up from the chaos below.

As the wind continued to rage, as the debris rained down, Nikandr looked to the sea for Nasim or for Kaleh, and though he searched and called through the harrowing hours that followed, he never found them.

Nikandr hoped to find Atiana on the northern side of the Spar, so when the storms finally died down, he asked Ashan to take him there. They flew up on currents of wind, and Ashan set them down near the Spar’s landing not twenty paces away from the auction house platform where he’d slipped Atiana’s soulstone necklace around her neck.

“We should divide our efforts,” Ashan said as he waved to Nikandr. “There are those I would search for as well.”

Nikandr wandered the streets of Vihrosh, asking questions of those he saw. Few braved the streets early on, but as time passed, more and more came out of their homes and began asking for news and inspecting the damage to their city. He spent hours, asking everyone he could if they’d seen a woman matching Atiana’s description, but they all shook their heads.

The storm-so fierce only a few hours before-seemed to have burned itself out entirely, so that by the time Nikandr gave up the search, the clouds cleared and the sun shone down. It was a strange reality to be faced with-a beautiful day after the devastation he’d witnessed.

When he returned to the Spar, Ashan stood at the landing with a young man of fourteen or fifteen. Ashan introduced him as Sukharam, and apparently he’d traveled far with Nasim.

“Do you think him dead then?” Sukharam asked. Clearly Ashan had told him of the final moments on the Spar and the water below.

“I hope not,” Nikandr said.

The boy’s eyes became more intense, almost angry. “Do you think him dead?”

It was a question he probably deserved an answer to, but Nikandr wouldn’t be pushed. Not now.

“I hope not,” he said again, and walked past the two of them.

He made his way to the broken end of the Spar and leaned out over the shorn edge to stare at the water below. He still had his soulstone. He had cast outward with it several times on his walk through Vihrosh, hoping to feel Atiana, and now he did so again. As it was before, he could not sense her, but neither could he sense anyone else-not his mother nor father nor any of the Matri. No one. The stone felt deadened, though whether this was due to their deaths or some artifact of the destruction of the Spar and the grand release of energy that followed he wasn’t sure.

Ashan stepped up beside him and stared down toward the water as well. His foot shifted a stone, which flew down toward the sea, its arc curving as the wind took it. “Sukharam was brusk, but he had a point.”

Nikandr shook his head sadly. “I don’t know if he died.” Where the knife had cut through his coat and shirt, he could reach through and touch the raw wound that Nasim had healed with the Atalayina. The subtle feeling that he was connected to Nasim was gone. And he was poorer for it. He’d always felt that he would one day find Nasim, that they would help one another close the rifts.

But now…

Now he didn’t know if that would ever be possible. Muqallad and Sariya had been stopped, but the world had been left in a terrible state. Who knew what would happen tomorrow?

Movement along the Spar caught Nikandr’s attention.

A skiff floated up and away from Baressa, making its way steadily toward the Spar, toward their location. After a wait that seemed like days, it crossed the gap at the center of the Spar and came to a rest nearby. Anahid was in the skiff, guiding it.

And Atiana was there as well.

As she swung over the side of the skiff, Nikandr rushed forward and swept her up in a deep embrace. He held her tight, a rush of emotions soaring inside him.

“I thought you were gone,” he whispered.

He heard her sniffling. “I thought the same of you.”

When at last they pulled away, she smiled and brushed away his tears. He brushed away hers and drew her in again, kissing her warm, salt-laced lips.

After taking his hand, she led him into the skiff. She beckoned to Ashan and Sukharam as well, and soon all four of them were inside, flying back toward the city.