Markswoman (Asiana #1)(86)
Rustan released her, his eyes burning into hers. “You can defeat her. I know you can.”
Kyra smiled reassuringly, not trusting herself to speak.
Then Rustan was gone too and for the first time in months, Kyra was quite, quite alone.
Chapter 30
The Hall of Sikandra
Kyra stepped out of the Sikandra Hub, which stood halfway up a rocky hill, surrounded by the arid brown of the Uzbek Plains. But it was what brooded on top of the hill that held her gaze and caught her breath: a massive fortress surrounded by an unbroken stone wall.
She had heard about the fabled Sikandra Fort from the elders of Kali but had never paid much attention, or imagined that anything man-made could be so huge. The gray stone of the crenelated walls glinted in the sun, doing little to hide the two magnificent towers rising within the complex, one on each side. Two huge bronze statues—one of a man, and the other of a woman—crowned the flat roof of each tower. Notches and rectangular gaps punctured the walls that surrounded the fort—to allow for the discharge of weapons, Kyra guessed. Were those battlements older than the war itself? She could remember a history lesson in which Navroz had mentioned that Sikandra Fort was one of the few monuments remaining of the Age of Kings.
The Age of Kings . . . that was before the war, perhaps even before the Ones arrived in Asiana.
There it stood in the middle of nowhere, defying time and space. The nearest village was by Lake Azkal, almost a hundred miles away. Yet the fort must have been of great importance in the olden days. The Sikandra Hub, after all, had been built at its feet.
A stream of people filed out of the Hub ahead of Kyra, men and women talking and laughing as they recognized one another and exchanged news. No one gave her a second glance, cloaked and hooded as she was.
She climbed up the hill behind the crowd heading for the fort, on a steep and twisty road that snaked between boulders and sheer drops. It was much warmer here than it was in Kashgar, and Kyra was soon sweating under her cloak, wishing she could discard it. Almost everyone else was dressed as if for summer in the Ferghana Valley, in pastel cotton shirts and loose trousers. There was even one group of wild-haired folk who wore nothing but strings of beads and animal skins around their waists.
The entrance to the fort was through an arched stone gateway, guarded by a watchtower on each side and topped by notched parapets. The air was cool here; the walls were several meters thick. Kyra followed the crowd through the gateway, craning her neck to see the carvings on the distant roof above—warriors on horseback, sword-wielding women, a row of archers. She tried to imagine a time when sentries manned the gate and archers prowled the parapets above, while kings and queens plotted conquests within the secure heart of the fort.
And then she was through the gateway and Sikandra Fort rose before her in all its splendor. The floor beneath was paved with cool gray stone. A massive, rectangular edifice lay directly ahead, surrounded by a covered portico. Smaller buildings and intricate sculptures dotted the paved courtyard in which Kyra found herself. And to each side of the main building were the tall towers she had seen from the hill.
Kyra longed to linger and read the inscriptions on the sculptures, and explore the small buildings, which looked like temples or memorials. But there was no time. She made her way to the main building, like everyone else. Serving girls and boys were stationed at the top of the steps leading to the entrance hall. Kyra accepted a welcome drink of strained yogurt and stood aside, wincing at its sour taste.
There were so many people, of every hue and garb imaginable. Kyra knew that there were hundreds of clans and tribes in Asiana under the Kanun of Ture-asa. But knowing was one thing, and seeing quite another. The representatives flowed up the stairs, chattering to one another in myriad tongues. This was Asiana, and Sikandra Fort was the heart of it all—at least for one day in the year. How Nineth would envy her this particular adventure.
As she thought of Nineth, her excitement drained away, replaced by numbness. No, Nineth would not envy her. Nineth would tell her that she was mad for challenging Tamsyn, and attempt to drag her to safety, much the way Shurik had.
Thinking of Shurik turned out to be better. Some of her anger returned and Kyra squared her shoulders, straightened her back, and strode in behind the last of the stragglers with such a firm step that she almost bumped into three elderly women in front of her. Embarrassed, she apologized and slunk into a corner, keeping her face hidden beneath her hood. She scanned the people around her, trying to spot the elders of Kali.
But the crowd was too thick, and the hall itself simply enormous, a vast, circular space lined with arched doorways and elongated windows of brilliant colored glass that let in a muted light. A domed ceiling soared overhead, painted in rich detail with animals, people, and what looked to be strange hybrids—half-human, half-machine. The floor was smooth marble, patterned with concentric rings of an intricate geometric design that made you dizzy if you looked at them too long. Yes, it was easy to imagine that kings had once held court in this graceful space.
The Hall of Sikandra reminded Kyra of the place Shirin Mam had taken her to in Anant-kal, the night she gave her a “last lesson” in words of power. There were differences in the shape and size of the halls, and in the quality of light that streamed into them. But the feel was the same. They both belonged to a different world, a world that was now gone. They were all gone—the kings and queens, the men and women of learning and talent, and, above all, the mythic Ones who had graced Asiana with their presence all those hundreds of years ago.