The Straits of Galahesh

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

N ikandr woke in the chair sitting next to his father’s bed. The room was dark. Only the smallest amount of light came from the crescent moon through the high window. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes he realized he’d slept through the entire day.

He was ravenous, but he didn’t want to leave his father. Not just yet. He’d barely had any time with him before he’d fallen asleep.

He lit the small lamp at the bedside and for a time simply stared as his father’s chest rose and fell slowly. He looked old. He looked weary and white, as if he’d already begun taking small but unyielding steps toward the beyond. Nikandr was proud of him, though. He’d been brought to Vostroma little more than a thrall, but as his counsel had proven more and more invaluable, he’d risen in Zhabyn’s circle, even among the misgivings of men like Leonid Dhalingrad, to become the Grand Duke’s most trusted advisor.

He felt bad for Mother, who despite spending nearly all of her time in the aether had come to cherish her time with Father outside of it.

Still, they were born of the islands; they were hard, and they spent time with one another as they could, speaking when Mother took the form of one of Galostina’s rooks. Though her ban from using the aether had never formally been lifted, it had eased to the point that two years after the ritual of Oshtoyets, Nikandr had brought Yrfa here to Galostina so that Mother could assume her favorite bird to speak with Father.

A soft knock came at the door.

Nikandr rose and opened it, and to his surprise found Mileva standing in the hall.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She took a padded chair near the fireplace and warmed her hands as Nikandr moved his own chair over from the bedside. Mileva’s pale skin turned ruddy under the light of the low fire, making her look, momentarily, like one of the Aramahn. She leaned, elbows on knees, staring into the fire. In that small instant Nikandr could see the young Mileva. Many a night had he seen her do the very same thing among the halls of Radiskoye or Zvayodensk or Belotrova.

But then Mileva seemed to catch herself. She turned sharply, though not unkindly, toward Nikandr, and sat back in her chair. She crossed one leg over the other, and now she seemed like little more than a Duchess upon her throne, elegant and beautiful and cunning. Her eyes twinkled under the firelight.

“Has Atiana found you?” Mileva asked.

“I haven’t spoken to her in weeks. Not since leaving Rafsuhan.”

“She’s contacted no one on Kiravashya, nor any of the Matri we spoke to before we lost contact. Mother has tried to find her, but with the storms…”

“My mother found me near Elykstava, though I think it cost her dearly.”

“Thank the ancients for women like Saphia.”

“You speak so reverently, Leva.”

“No matter what you might think, I’ve always held your mother in high regard.” Nikandr chuckled, but Mileva seemed offended. “How could I not? Especially now?”

She meant, of course, because she was now a Matra herself, not just in name but in deed. She had become strong-not as strong as Atiana, but strong just the same. Nikandr had often wondered what the Matri shared with one another among the aether. It was completely foreign to him, but there could be little doubt the aether created a sense of sisterhood that could never have been born in the waking world.

“You’re worrying over Atiana and Ishkyna,” Nikandr said.

“Of course I am,” she snapped, a bit of the old Mileva returning.

“They yet live.”

“I know, Nischka, but I wonder under what circumstances? Surely the Kamarisi has them. What might he do to get what he needs? What would he stop at to find the weaknesses of the Grand Duchy?”

“Little.”

“Little, indeed. And here we sit while Leonid and Andreya rule in my father’s place.” She glanced over at the bed. “Your father, were he to wake, might have made a difference, but without him there is nothing to keep Leonid in check. I think he prays for Father’s death that he might take the Grand Duke’s mantle.”

“There is Konstantin.”

She paused before speaking. “ Da, there is Konstantin.” The way she spoke those words, and the way she looked into Nikandr’s eyes, he knew. She and Konstantin were lovers. Konstantin had long been married, and for all who saw him with his wife, they would say he was happy, but here he was, a thousand leagues from home… Perhaps it was simply a romance of convenience, but the way Mileva had spoken those simple words, it made him think that she wished her mother had chosen another for her hand in marriage.

Mileva’s eyes narrowed, as if she realized it was time to come to the point.

“They didn’t tell you of Grigory, did they?”

“What of him?”

“He was sent weeks ago with ships. He was to position them along the coast of Yrstanla such that they could be called to attack the northern stretch of Galahesh, should the need arise.”

“So why didn’t he?”

“He was sent across the downs, around the Sea of Khurkhan.”

“That’s madness!”

“It was dangerous, true, but Father needed leverage should things go sour with the Kamarisi. We know he arrived on the southeastern shores of Yrstanla. He was headed north, but the winds were rough and getting rougher. I wasn’t able to find him again before the first of the spires were felled, and now… Now it’s impossible.”

Nikandr leaned back, making his chair creak. In the fireplace, a log crumbled, the embers releasing sparks into the air. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Do you believe the words of the kapitan from Yrstanla?”

He nodded carefully. “I do.”

“Do you believe Andreya is right in keeping you here?”

Nikandr glanced over to his father. This was treasonous talk. He hadn’t agreed to join Andreya-not yet, anyway-but Mileva certainly had.

“You don’t have to answer,” Mileva continued, “but you could use Grigory’s ships. You could find the men you need to destroy the Spar, and Konstantin might have his brother back.”

“And you your sisters and father.”

“The Grand Duchy needs them, Nischka. You can’t deny it.”

“I need no incentive to find them.”

“And yet Andreya’s words hold you back.”

“They make sense.”

Mileva stared at him. One moment the firelight was playing against her porcelain skin, and the next she was standing in a rush, as if she found this conversation suddenly distasteful.

“The Yarost is the first ship on the third quay of the eyrie.” She turned and strode toward the door. “It will be empty and unguarded, but only this one night. And I will be in the drowning basin.” She opened the door, pausing for one brief moment on her way out. “Choose wisely, Nikandr, and quickly.”

And then she was gone, leaving Nikandr alone with his thoughts.

He sat alone, wondering how wise this could be. The ships of Yrstanla would return soon. They could not give the Grand Duchy too much time to recover, and the wind, though still strong and unpredictable, was beginning to subside, at least enough that stout ships of war could be put to sail. In a day, perhaps two, they would return, and Nikandr didn’t want to be missing when that happened. As Andreya had said, they could focus on Galahesh after the battle.

“Nikandr.”

Nikandr turned, realizing the softly spoken name had come from his father. He moved to the bedside and took his father’s hand in his.

“I’m here, Father.”

“Go,” Father said.

“Go where?” Nikandr had spoken the words before he realized that his father had heard everything that he and Mileva had talked about.

Father coughed and turned his head, though even this simple act seemed to pain him. “Go. Find Grigory. Find the others if you can, but at all costs destroy the Spar.”

The moon was a sliver in the nighttime sky, giving Nikandr and the others plenty of cover as they slipped quietly from the halls of Galostina and into the frigid air. A dozen, they numbered: he and Anahid, Styophan and nine of his best men. Nikandr felt his hezhan and called upon it to still the winds as the men unlashed the lone skiff from the ship they’d flown in early that morning. Was it truly the same day? It felt like he’d been here for a week.

As they filed in and released the mooring ropes, Nikandr watched the palotza carefully, particularly the doors and the towers along the curtain wall that protected Galostina everywhere except at the eyrie, where the protection was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to the valley floor.

He saw no one. Relief began to fill him as they dropped below the level of the eyrie, but when they began to rise and fly toward the mountain, he could see clearly a doorway of the palotza and within it, framed by the faint light coming from within, the silhouette of a man. They were too far away for him to have any idea of who it might be, but a moment later, the door closed, leaving the palotza in darkness save for the handful of lantern-lit windows.

“Who was it?” Styophan asked.

“Who can say? But best we put the wind beneath our sails as quick as may be.” And so they did. As the wind blew fiercely-tossing the ship about-Nikandr drew upon his hezhan as he’d rarely done before, partially to combat the winds but also to hasten them toward the eyrie. He felt it in his gut, in his chest, the hezhan hungering, feeding off of him. He coughed, stifling the discomfort. They needed this speed.

They reached it before fifteen minutes had passed, but it still felt too long. A swift pony could have reached the eyrie by now.

He brought the skiff up beneath the Yarost, the ship Mileva had told him about. He was sure it would be well outfitted-the threat of Yrstanla required it-but he was also sure Konstantin would have had it provisioned with extra rations and extra munitions in case Nikandr took this bait.

They came even with the deck, and though the wind was still strong-especially as it swept up along the mountainside to blow among the moored ships-Nikandr and the others moved quickly and efficiently. They had discussed this over and over before leaving the palotza. One by one, they leapt over to the ship as Nikandr and Anahid held her steady.

Then Anahid was over and finally Nikandr made the leap himself, his men catching him and steadying him as he used his hezhan to reverse the wind and push the skiff away. It twisted like a leaf on a pond, floating away until he was sure that he could release it and leave the winds to do the rest.

By then the men had already begun preparing the ship, most moving to the perch to release the mooring ropes. They were only half done when lights appeared above at the eyrie master’s house and an alarm bell began to ring.

Clang-clang-clang-clang.

“Quickly, men!” Nikandr called.

He joined in, forgetting the winds as he leapt over to the perch and helped Styophan with one of the last three mooring ropes. They were heavy, and though they worked as fast as they could, he could already hear the shout of men, hear their footsteps as they worked their way down from the upper quay. They would arrive in little time, and when they did, Nikandr and the rest wouldn’t stand a chance.

Nikandr moved to the middle of the perch. The first of the streltsi, each bearing a musket, were already rounding the last of the switchbacks. Nikandr allowed his hands to fall to his side. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He felt the rage of the wind, felt it course up along the hills and valleys until funneling up toward the snowcapped peak of Beshiklova with an energy he’d rarely felt.

As the bell continued to clang, Nikandr bid the wind to give him all that it could. He directed it as the walls of a valley would. He bid it to heave itself against the quay.

It did. It rushed against the streltsi as they were leveling their weapons. The wind blew them like autumn leaves, pushing them against the cliff at their backs. The sound of it… Nikandr had never heard the like, the shrieking as it ran through the rigging of the eyrie’s ships, the pound of canvas as sails came loose, the hollow thudding as ships were thrown against their perches. The insistent and fearful orders of the sotnik were nearly lost among the gale, but Nikandr knew they were readying themselves.

“The ship is free!” he heard Styophan shout.

Nikandr didn’t care.

Rarely had he felt so deeply connected to his hezhan. Perhaps he’d felt this way in those first few encounters on Uyadensk, when he’d not known the nature of the hezhan, nor his bond to it, but those times had been brought upon by his link to Nasim. Since then he’d been nervous to draw too heavily upon the spirit, but he did not feel so now. Whether it was an abandon that came from desperation or a trust that had been slowly built over the years he didn’t know, but he allowed the hezhan to take more of him than he ever had before.

“We’re free!” Styophan shouted, this time at the top of his lungs.

He knew he should release the hezhan, at least enough that he could move to the ship, but for the moment he couldn’t. He was lost. Lost among the winds. Lost in the in-between space between Erahm and Adhiya.

Had Jahalan felt this way when he’d communed with spirits? Did Atiana feel like this while taking the dark?

Had he been more aware, he might have seen the men on the perch to his left. He might have seen them train their muskets. He might have seen the flare as the gunpowder flashed in the pan.

Searing pain sliced across his shin, just below the knee.

He cried out, buckling and falling to the stone perch.

He heard the buzzing sound of a musket shot whip past his head.

The wind died in one final gust as his men dragged him toward the ship.

The Vostroman streltsi along the quay set their muskets on the top of their berdische axes and sighted along them.

Nikandr’s bond was not yet broken, however. It had been shaken, but he was able to draw upon it again, forcing it to assault the streltsi before they could fire.

Too late. The crack of four muskets rose above the howl of the wind.

One of his men cried out. Nikandr heard him fall to the deck.

“Help me,” Nikandr asked Styophan. “Quickly before they can reload.”

With his arm around Styophan’s shoulder, he managed to stand, managed to call upon the wind to push the Yarost away from the perch. A lantern came arcing from the ship next to them. It dropped against the deck, spilling oil and lighting the deck in a wide swath.

“Douse those flames!” Styophan called.

The fire was bright enough that Nikandr could see the streltsi clearly now.

And they could see him.

They paused, all of them frozen. They had thought that Yrstanla had come. They thought themselves under attack from the West. They had not expected men of the Grand Duchy, much less a prince of the realm, to steal into the eyrie and take one of their ships.

Two of the men had finished reloading. They lined up their muskets once more, training them on Nikandr.

But their sotnik stepped in the path of their shot, waving his hands, forbidding them to fire.

Reluctantly they lowered their weapons, but the looks of shock and disgust on their faces were telling. Nikandr’s abilities were not common knowledge, but they could clearly see that he was summoning the winds.

Only his hand-selected men had known before. But now…

Now the entire Grand Duchy would know.