Authoritan and Lania stood breast to breast on the narrow landing. The rubies in Lania’s headdress glittered against the Authoritan’s white robes, striking sparks off the scepter in his hand. He decorously kissed the mask at her cheek, careful not to disturb it.
“For the Silver Mage to develop his skills, he would need to attend the Conference of the Mages. The Mages strengthen one another, not unlike your sisters at Hira. Without their congress, he remains unschooled. His is a rudimentary magic, perhaps because of his tenure in Candour.”
“It was his choice,” Arian gritted through her teeth. “He chose to serve his city.”
“So?”
“So do not belittle him for it.”
The Authoritan clenched his hand in a fist and brought it down. Pain seared through Arian’s skull. She couldn’t withstand it. Lania witnessed her pain without protest.
“Then we have nothing to fear from either of them,” she observed finally. “Perhaps these little experiments serve no purpose after all.”
“Not quite.” The Authoritan helped Lania down the stairs, seeming to glide within the careful arrangement of his robes. He paused beside Arian, extending a hand to touch her sweat-slicked skin. Her face was pale, her body drenched in perspiration. She recoiled from the skeletal finger he dipped in a teardrop of her blood. He brought it to his lips and tasted it, his tongue flicking his skin.
“Invigorating.” His red eyes rested on her face and drifted down her body, an assessment that stripped her to the bone. Arian shuddered in response.
“Lovelier than you,” he said to Lania, missing her grimace. “What a pretty prize she would make for Nevus, as he cannot have you.”
A smile played on Lania’s lips. “There’s no hurry, Khagan. I’ve yet to plumb the depths of my sister’s talents. I would know the secret to her fame. Why was she selected as First Oralist? Thus far, the showing is not as impressive as I’d hoped.”
“No,” the Authoritan agreed. “Keep your pet until you tire of her. But make certain she expands your knowledge of the Claim. You are useless to me without your gifts.”
“It shall be my first concern, Khagan, I assure you.”
The painted mask of her face echoed the Authoritan’s contempt for Arian’s abilities. “There is nothing to be gained by bringing her to this mihrab. I will find another way to unlock her voice.”
“You fail to understand, Khanum. I bring her to this place for reasons of my own.”
Lania shot him a glance, her pale green eyes long and narrow. “And they are?”
He raised both hands above Arian’s head, his fingers poised to strike. “Do you mark how close we are to the underground cells?” He turned his gaze to Arian, his rictus smile stretching the corners of his lips. “Sing for your beloved, First Oralist. He is eager to hear your voice.”
It took her a moment to understand. Daniyar was here—near to her, yet kept from her—and the Authoritan wanted him to experience the agonies of her torture, to suffer them with her … She closed her eyes in helpless protest. She could bear his cruelties herself, but she couldn’t access the magic that would shield Daniyar from this. And though she longed for him with a fervent desire, she wished him away from her now. She knew what her pain would cost him—what his love for her had already demanded of his strength. She had served him nothing but anguish, and now he would be broken again.
Heart of my heart, he had called her. When he shouldn’t have loved her at all.
“Please, no,” she whispered to Lania. “Do anything you wish to me, but I beg you—do not do this to him.”
The Authoritan laughed, his voice high and wild with triumph. Then the savage power of his magic blasted her from all sides.
Her screams went on and on, rising to the skies … penetrating the depths of the cells. The grace of Hira was ripped from her spirit and her thoughts. She couldn’t stand aloof and apart when she was writhing in blood at the Authoritan’s whim. The answer came to her too late.
She needed to summon new weapons against an enemy like this.
ELENA WAITED IN THE NEAR DUSK THAT ENVELOPED THE HAZING. A member of the Usul Jade had left a message for her at the house across from the crumbling blue dome, telling her Larisa needed her. She wasn’t used to ignoring her sister’s commands or to being away from Larisa’s side. But she’d returned to the Gur-e-Mir to see what had become of Ruslan’s body. She’d found her entrance at the pishtaq to the tomb. Ruslan’s head was on a spike, his body dismembered, his limbs littering the courtyard. The Ahdath had forced his jade green bracelets into his mouth, which gaped open in a perfect round.
The sight of him was like a blade cutting deep into the bone, exposing the marrow of her grief, yet Elena didn’t cry. She couldn’t cry, no matter how deep the wound. She had learned to guard herself through practiced dissociation, but now her emotions raged wildly. Would everything she loved be taken from her with such brutal and cold finality? She removed the bracelets from Ruslan’s mouth and slipped them onto her wrists. Then she kissed both his cheeks with a tenderness she had never expressed before.
I should have buried you, spared you from this. I should have chosen you above any emissary of the Black Khan’s, any Companion of Hira. As Larisa should have also.
What didn’t you do for us, Ruslan?
She wanted to ignore Larisa’s summons—her rage, her grief were still too new. But if Ruslan was lost to her, Larisa was all she had left.
She would return and bury her beloved, but time was against her now. It was foolish of Larisa to have summoned her to the Hazing. The streets around the Gur-e-Mir were swarming with Ahdath. After the First Oralist’s sundering of the Registan, the Ahdath had doubled their patrols. They hunted the Usul Jade with a singular determination. She hadn’t forgiven Larisa, but she needed to get her sister out of the necropolis of the Hazing. She had already sent orders to the Basmachi to retreat, knowing Marakand was lost. She’d told them to regroup at the ruins of the Summer Palace. Its rugged surroundings would shelter them until Larisa returned. Then they would be able to get word to the warriors of the Cloud Door in the mountains. The time to strike at the Wall was almost upon them now. She knew Zerafshan’s men were ready, just as she knew that without Larisa’s support, she could not prod them into action.
It was time for Larisa to remember that she led the Usul Jade—her duty was to the women behind the Wall and to the people who still upheld the teachings of their father. As the daughters of Mudjadid Salikh, they bore a responsibility unlike any other: resist until the battle was won or until their resistance atrophied into dust.
As leaders of the Basmachi, she and Larisa were not tools to be used by the First Oralist, no matter the nature of the bargain Larisa had struck with the Black Khan. The First Oralist may have dismantled the Registan, but she’d also delivered Ruslan to his fate at the gates of the Gur-e-Mir. Ruslan, her dearest companion, the one who’d rescued her from Jaslyk, risking agonies greater than hers. She closed his eyes with her fingers, his bracelets softly striking hers. Then she spat out her rage on the ground.
She was on the hunt for the First Oralist.
And she would take her measure of blood.
SEVEN DAYS. SINNIA HAD BEEN IN JASLYK SEVEN DAYS, EACH DAY BRINGING forth new torments, new reasons to pray for rescue. Not that she’d been idle—her first course of action had been to attempt to rescue herself. The wardens of Jaslyk seemed to have no memory or knowledge of the Claim, and she had been able to use it with some success, escaping a room, a ward,