Bradley Beaulieu - The Straits of Galahesh

Soroush stared at the chalcedony stone, shaking his head back and forth ever so slightly.

“I can touch Adhiya. I can bond with a hezhan.” He twisted the necklace between his fingers, making the stone spin before allowing it to fall against his chest. “I can feel it even now.”

“You?” He squinted, incredulous. “A qiram?”

“I do not know what to call it,” Nikandr said, unwilling to place that mantle upon his shoulders.

He looked down to his araq, then back to the soulstone. Then he stood and whipped the glass down to the corner. The glass shattered, the liquor splattering against the whitewashed wood. “You think I would help you?”

Nikandr rose to meet him.

Soroush reached out to snatch Nikandr’s soulstone, but Nikandr grabbed his wrist. Soroush tried again, but he was weak.

And then his other hand shot to Nikandr’s neck.

Soroush squeezed as Nikandr fought to pull him away. He finally managed to do so, his fingers raking across Nikandr’s throat, as the streltsi stormed in through the cabin door and grabbed Soroush by the arms.

“You think I would help you?” He spit on the floor between them. His eyes were crazed. He looked at Nikandr with such hatred, such venom, that if Soroush had been able he would surely have struck Nikandr dead.

Nikandr nodded to the streltsi. They left with Soroush, closing the door behind them, and as the sounds of their retreat diminished, Nikandr continued to stare at the door, his chest heaving with breath.

All as the wind outside howled.

A tiana pulls away from the currents of the north. She still feels Nikandr’s stone, bright like a lantern in the fog. He is distant, though, and as she retreats toward Kiravashya, he fades and is lost altogether.

It was painful to witness his fall and near death, not only because she cares for him deeply, but because she feels going to Rafsuhan-with or without Soroush’s help-is a fool’s errand. But she also understands that Nikandr believes it is the only way to learn more. And, she admits, Nikandr has a way about him of convincing others to follow him, of making them believe he is in the right. If anyone can convince Soroush to help, it will be him.

Before returning home, she stops roughly halfway. To the east is Khalakovo. To the west, and due north of Vostroma, lies the island of Ghayavand. She’s tried dozens of times to penetrate the shroud that surrounds it. At first it was nearly impossible to even sense. It felt as though there was simply open sea-no land at all to ground her-but eventually she came to sense its boundaries, and then she tried to move beyond them. Each and every time, however, she was rebuffed. There was something-something very strong-that kept her at bay, far from the shores of the island.

She’d felt something like it once before when the rift on Duzol had been at its widest and Soroush had begun his ritual with Nasim. It felt the same then, as if there were some yawning gash between the worlds that might swallow her whole if she came too close. And yet there was one important difference. Within the keep of Oshtoyets, she was drawn toward the rift. Had she wanted to, she surely could have entered it, and who knew what might have happened then? Ghayavand, on the other hand, prevents her from reaching it. There are seals, guards set to protect it from unwanted eyes. Nikandr thinks this is Nasim’s doing, or at the very least Khamal’s-the arqesh he had once been-but Atiana isn’t so sure. She knows Nasim, knows his scent, and there is not a single trace of him in the wards that stand against her.

She tries again to enter Ghayavand. She tries harder than she has in the past. Perhaps if she can sense Nasim, she might be able to convince Nikandr to abandon his plans. But it is not to be. She is rebuffed, as she always is, and she retreats exhausted toward home.

Palotza Galostina is old, the oldest of all the palotzas. She was built and rebuilt over the course of centuries. The drowning chamber lies a hundred yards below the surface of the cold and bitter landscape. It is toward this chamber that she heads, shifting in the aether, watching the twinkling souls of those with whom she has touched stones. Her father. Mileva and Ishkyna. Aunt Katerina. They are all within the palotza’s walls, safe from the elements. But there is something else that attracts her, a shifting of light near the spire, the obsidian tower that she uses to guide the aether as part of her daily regimen.

She wills herself closer.

Against a canvas of midnight blue, near the base of the spire, the aether ripples. Lightning strikes the spire’s tip, and it flashes, blinding her momentarily. When her vision clears, she approaches the base. A woman stands there. She wears the dress of an Aramahn, with doeskin boots and long, straight hair.

Atiana cannot hear-the aether is deadly silent-but she can see the woman’s mouth moving. She is whispering, mumbling, while staring up and down the length of the spire, as if accounting for its dimensions, its history, its power.

Atiana thinks to assume a rook, to warn the palotza guard, but this woman… There is something about her. Though she hardly seems older than Atiana, she has the look of someone ancient, of someone who long ago came to know the intricacies of the world. Fahroz Bashar al Lilliah possesses some of these same qualities, but even she pales in comparison to this woman.

The woman is arqesh. Atiana knows this. But for some reason there seems to be little peace within her.

The woman continues to stare as a storm rages over the island. Lightning strikes again, and she turns her head. She looks toward Atiana, not directly, but close enough that Atiana fears she has been discovered. The woman cannot harm her, and yet she fears for her life just the same.

Atiana moves quickly toward the closest of their rooks, Zoya. Assuming the rooks is second nature, especially at times like this when she’s lost any sense of her own body. As she slips into the rook’s form, Atiana extends Zoya’s wings, she flexes her talons and inherits her sharp eyes.

Zoya fights. She caws. She stands upon a golden perch near the base of the palotza’s curving grand stairwell and struggles to retain herself while pumping her wings and hopping along the length of the perch.

But Atiana soon wins. After two quick beats of her wings, Atiana launches herself from the perch, flapping and gliding toward the far end of the hall. She lands at the feet of the two streltsi who guard the door.

“Open it,” she says.

“At once, Matra.”

Soon she is out in the driving rain. She flaps hard to gain altitude, to crest the ridge that runs near the palotza grounds, and then she’s off, winging hard toward the spire.

She hears the rain now, and when lightning strikes, branching in the sky before her, she hears the thunder, feels it in her chest and talons and wings.

She searches for the woman, but cannot find her.

She caws, the rook momentarily regaining control as her emotions run high. She regains control and circles the spire. She caws again and again as she searches the grounds frantically.

In the end, however, she searches in vain.

The woman is gone.

The next day, after recovering from her turn in the drowning basin, Atiana took to the halls of Galostina, striding with purpose toward Bahett’s apartments. She thought at first she would take to the palotza’s hidden passages, to keep prying eyes from knowing her business, but the more she thought about it, the more the idea irked her. This was her home, and if she wished to speak with the man she had chosen to marry, she would walk in the open, head held high, and meet him face-to-face.

At the tall, arched entrance to the wing Bahett and his entire retinue had been given, two Yrstanlan janissaries wearing burgundy coats and tall white turbans bowed their heads. They said not a word, making Atiana wonder what they’d been told. Did they think her little more than his wife already? And if they knew, who else knew? Did Bahett think her some sort of servant? A woman to be beckoned when he willed it?