he now understood her earlier deception. “I turned the Khanum’s prisoner over to my men for escort. Then I arranged for your friends to travel safely through Black Aura Gate.”
“What friends?”
Larisa answered for him. “The First Oralist.” She seemed to search for words. “And her consort, the Silver Mage.”
Elena’s lips formed a snarl. “You watched the First Oralist abandon Ruslan, yet you risked yourself to deliver her consort? I don’t know you anymore, sister.”
Tears formed in Larisa’s eyes. “Yes, you do.” Her voice cracked. “Do you imagine Ruslan’s death is a loss you suffer alone? Do you think the Companion of Hira doesn’t have a list of losses as long as your right arm? A man she loved was blooded before her eyes.”
Elena faltered. “Blooded?”
“Yes. Her grief brought down the Registan.”
Elena remembered her primary mission. “And the Gold House?”
Illarion answered. “The Gold House wasn’t harmed. The Claim knew who to destroy.”
Elena repudiated his words with a wave of her hand. “Were you there? Did you see it?”
He nodded, waiting. Elena’s breath caught on a sob. “Then the Claim couldn’t have known, could it? Not if there’s a single one of you left to walk on this earth.”
The bitterness and grief in her eyes held him long after she’d turned away.
Larisa drew Elena into the shadows. Moonlight spilled over the curves of the double cupola’s domes. Beneath the chipped and feathered bricks of the domes, blue-glazed tiles formed calligraphic patterns that swam in the play of shade and light. The faintest breeze disturbed the shoots of grass sprouting from the brick. It stirred the hair at the back of Illarion’s collar. He watched as the sisters muttered to each other in secret. He’d wanted to smile when Elena had suggested taking him captive, but her rage was too raw to suffer his condescension. He rubbed a hand over the bruise on his sternum. He wouldn’t misjudge her again.
He was due back at the Wall. And he was due to report to the Khanum. But before he could do either of these things, he needed to get these sisters out of the city to Jaslyk. Though Jaslyk held other dangers. They would have to face down soldiers of the Crimson Watch. They would also be risking a run-in with the Technologist—the madman who supervised the prison.
But if there was a chance to save the Companion, Sinnia, the risks they were taking would be worth it.
Doubt gnawed at him: Could the Companion still be alive? And if she was, did Larisa and Elena stand any chance of successfully bringing about a rescue?
Larisa interrupted his thoughts. “Come with us,” she said. “We know how to circumvent the patrols. Unless you think you’ll be missed.”
He studied the two sisters standing side by side, each with a knife in one hand and a sword in the other. Larisa was by far the comelier of the two, but it was Elena he couldn’t look away from, Elena who burned with a volatile fury that reminded him of the First Oralist raging against the murder of her friend with a fury that had fired the sky.
“I can spare a day or two before I must return. The Authoritan will send a regiment from the Ark led by Captain Nevus. Nevus is to assume control and command of the Wall. If I’m not there to receive him, it will raise suspicions.”
“That sounds like they don’t trust you.”
He raised an eyebrow, as if to remind them both that his presence in the Hazing at their side gave the Ahdath reason to doubt him.
Elena snorted, then pressed on.
Illarion followed the women through the double cupola, where the body of the soldier he’d killed lay hidden in the shadows. He prodded it with his foot. “They’ll take it for a Basmachi kill.”
“As it would have been,” Elena snarled at him. “I didn’t ask for your rescue.”
Illarion ignored this. His stomach had lurched at the sight of the man’s assault upon Elena. She’d been helpless, a fact she wouldn’t admit to him. Or to any man, he suspected, though she had let her sister tend to her wound with an indifference that spoke to what the sisters had endured.
He focused on answering Larisa as she led the way down the hill, moving in and out of the shadows of the Hazing’s once-graceful mausolea. She stopped for a moment at the Tomb of the Living King, adjusting a floral decoration on its faience. It rotated east without a betraying sound. He wondered if the Tomb of the Living King held any significance for these sisters beyond a place where they left messages for the Basmachi. He’d seen grown men fall to their knees crying at the door to the tomb, pressing their lips to its inscriptions. For himself, he was a man without religion. When everything was holy, nothing could be holy.
“Nevus is the Authoritan’s man. It was the Khanum who chose me as second to Araxcin. The Authoritan prefers his own men in command, but the Khanum will call me soon enough.”
“Then go to her.” Elena’s scowl was fierce. “We have no need of your escort.”
So she would go to Jaslyk. Despite the rift with her sister, somehow Larisa had managed to persuade her to rescue the Companion of Hira. “I’ll see you safely to Jaslyk,” he answered, keeping his voice even.
Elena gave a mirthless laugh. “We know Jaslyk better than you ever will.” She spat again at his feet, narrowly missing his boots. He suppressed the urge to yank her by the hair and offer her her blade in kind. But Larisa Salikh was watching him, her narrow eyes pale and intent.
Nor was Elena finished. “If you make it to Jaslyk, Ahdath, you won’t be leaving alive.”
The message Larisa had left wasn’t to abandon the Hazing. She trusted Illarion no more than Elena did, but he’d told her something she hadn’t known, something he wasn’t aware that he’d betrayed.
He didn’t have command of the Wall. And the new commander, Nevus, wasn’t due to arrive for another day or more.
She knew what the Ahdath were capable of. She was equally aware of their deficiencies.
For a day at least, the Wall was undefended, the opportunity she’d been waiting for—a chance for the Basmachi to weaken the Ahdath’s defenses from inside their own stronghold. A task she couldn’t accomplish on her own—not if she was headed to Jaslyk with Elena. She tipped her head to one side, weighing the risk against the gain. Strike too soon or miss the chance altogether? Success depended on timing. Her mission was to rout the Ahdath without allowing the Talisman to overrun them, exchanging one set of masters for another. To weaken the Wall as she hoped to, she’d have to take the risk.
She sent a message to Zerafshan. And prayed his men were ready.
“WELCOME TO THE EAGLE’S NEST, EXCELLENCY. I TRUST YOUR RIDE across the mountains was not too arduous, and that your treasure remains undisturbed.”
The Black Khan stirred from his perusal of a message delivered to him by hawk.
