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while doing so?
    Seeing Borund watching him, Nikandr kissed the stone as though he were thanking the ancients and stuffed it back inside his shirt.
    The Gorovna eased back into balance as the breeze bore them southward like a seed upon the wind. The crew, seeming to realize the danger had passed all at once, cheered and whipped their woolen hats in circles over their heads. Even Borund appeared to be caught up in the emotion as he rushed forward and took Nikandr in a bear hug, lifting him from the deck.
    “Let go of me, you big ox!”
    “Ha ha!” Borund twirled him around several times before finally setting him back down. “How did you do it?” he asked with a grin as wide as the seas.
    Nikandr could only shrug. “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t know?”
    “That’s what I said.”
    “Then you’re the luckiest man I know, Nischka!” Borund picked Nikandr up and twirled him around again, laughing the whole time.
    “Enough!” Nikandr said.
    Borund set him down as the cheering finally began to subside.
    “Set sails, men. Let’s go home.”
    The crew did so, and though at first they did not sail smartly, the master soon brought them in line with his booming voice while Gravlos steered for the shipyard.
    Nikandr, meanwhile, moved to the gunwale and scanned the island below for some small sign of the skiff. There could be no doubt that they had been Maharraht. What wasn’t clear was the purpose behind their attack. The Gorovna might have represented a juicy prize had they been able to take it—even juicier with Nikandr and Borund aboard—but in attacking they had also announced their presence. Why settle for two princes when Council was upon them? Why not wait for the ships of the incoming dukes?
    Nikandr continued searching for a long while—both for the answers to his questions and for the escaped men—but as he had feared, he found neither.

    High within Palotza Radiskoye, the setting sun angled in through deeply recessed windows. It fell upon a tall black rook, which unlike the golden band around its ankle or the silver perch upon which it stood, seemed to absorb the light completely, making it black as night in the dying light of day. It did not preen nor move along its perch, but instead studied Nikandr with an intelligent gleam in its eye. It was Mother’s favorite, Yrfa, the one she inhabited most often, though whether this was due to some form of affinity or because the bird happened to be the easiest to assume, he didn’t know.
    “You sensed nothing?” Nikandr asked.
    “Nothing,” the rook replied, “until the hezhan had entered this world.” The words, though spoken through a primitive tool, had the cadence and inflection of his mother’s voice.
    A gold chain swung lazily from Nikandr’s hand in time with the beating of his heart. Hanging from the end of the chain was his soulstone pendant—still darkened, an effect that had proved all too permanent. He pressed his fingers to his chest, recalling the sharp pressure as he was blacking out. “How could they have done such a thing?”
    “There was a similar occurrence when I was still young to the ways of the aether. Four years into the Great Drought, a havahezhan crossed. It was two days after the equinox, and harvest was still in full celebration in Izhny. It headed straight for the festival grounds. It ripped three children limb from limb before vanishing.”
    Nikandr shivered, wondering if the hezhan had been about to do the same to him. He rubbed the smooth surface of the stone, barely able to sense the cracks. It had been given to him at birth; since his blooding day he had never been parted from it. It had held the tale of his life, his essence; now, he didn’t know whether his legacy had been tarnished, or worse, wiped away altogether. Even damaged as it was, the stone would one day be placed in the family’s mausoleum beneath the palotza. It was something he—like any member of a royal family—looked forward to leaving behind