They collected the arrows together, cool wind catching the grass and the ends of their robes. Then they walked back toward the hermitage in silence.
CHAPTER FOUR
Arwa wished she hadn’t cried. But that was the way of grief, it seemed. She could never find it in herself to weep when she wanted to weep—when her tears could do her some good in garnering sympathy or banishing uneasy officials with too many questions to ask. She could only cry when it was most inconvenient to her, and when she desperately wanted to appear strong.
Her face was dry from the wind, the sun, the salt of her own ugly tears. When she returned to her room she washed her face clean. Her hands were shaking. She clasped them together, breathing deep and slow, and thought of the effigy of the Emperor. Timeless, its blank face the promise of eternity. There was comfort in that thought.
She wondered what Gulshera was doing right now. No doubt she was writing a message to the family she served, telling them all that she had learned from Arwa. There would be couriers passing the hermitage at some point, carrying messages from distant points across the Empire for the widows or for the guardswomen who protected them. One of those couriers would be able to carry Gulshera’s message to her masters swiftly, on horseback, unencumbered by the plodding weight of a retinue, or the necessity of a palanquin. After her long days of travel, Arwa could only envy their ease.
She wondered what Gulshera had written, wondered what message some old, venerable lord would be reading in the weeks to come.
Lady Arwa’s experience in Darez Fort was as expected.
Or perhaps:Lady Arwa has a secret. And I intend to uncover it.
She shuddered anew, and hoped she’d hidden the absences in her story, the lies, well enough to fool Gulshera, just like she’d fooled all her other interrogators. She’d spoken to Gulshera to win herself some peace, not to draw herself back into the tangled world of men and politics once more.
It hadn’t escaped Arwa’s notice that Gulshera had kept the noble family’s identity secret. Canny woman. She’d peeled Arwa’s tale and her tears out of her, all the while keeping her own confidences. Who Gulshera served, andwhyshe served—tucked away within the hermitage as she was, far from the political heartbeat of the Empire—all remained a mystery. Oh, Arwa knew Gulshera had access to a wealth of knowledge here, spilled from the mouths of the widows. But information was never gathered without purpose. What was the goal of the family she served? What did they intend to use the knowledge of the widowsfor?
Without answers, Arwa would have to remain watchful and wary. She had given Gulshera her tale of Darez Fort, but no doubt there were other things that Gulshera wanted from her—or would take and offer up to her patrons, if Arwa allowed her defenses to fall and said something foolish, all unwitting and unwary.
Gulshera had claimed to want to help her. But a woman could have many wants at once. And Arwa…
Well. Arwa had complex wants too.
She wanted to avoid Gulshera and hide like a wounded animal. She wanted to adhere close to Gulshera’s side, where she could watch her in return and eviscerate her secrets and learn exactly how much of a risk the older woman was to her safety. She wanted the weight of the bow in her hands again, a channel for her rage, and she wanted to feel nothing at all.
Gulshera had claimed that Arwa reminded her of soldiers who remained trapped in one dark moment of suffering, long after their bodies had escaped it. The truth was that Gulshera was not wrong. Part of Arwa was still trapped in Darez Fort. Part of her always would be.
No wonder she hungered for a weapon. She turned her hands over—her faintly scarred fingers, her right thumb scraped raw from contact with the bowstring—and felt the itch in them. The need. She didn’t want to be frightened ever again.
Oh, that want was the strongest of all.
Arwa squeezed her eyes shut. She clenched her hands together. Ah, pride be damned. She knew what she wanted to do. Worse, she knew what sheneededto do.
She didn’t go that evening or on the day that followed. But the day after that, when her heart felt less raw and her pride less bruised, she made her way over to Gulshera’s room and waited for the older woman to return from breakfast.
Gulshera had the grace to look surprised to see Arwa, which was kind of her. Her expression smoothed quickly.
“Lady Arwa,” she said. “I’m glad to see you here.”
Arwa nodded, once, in return. Then she said, carefully, “I’ve decided I would like to learn archery after all. That is… I assume you’ll still have me.”
Gulshera nodded, unsmiling.
“I have a bow for you,” she said. “And your own quiver of arrows. But this time you’ll eat before we go.”
“As you say, Aunt,” said Arwa.
There was no time for rest. The widows gossiped and whispered, and Arwa listened and learned how the world had changed since grief had swallowed her. There was a fresh famine in Durevi, a new sickness in a cluster of villages in Hara. Although shadow spirits roamed the Empire, and people spoke of unnatural terror and walking nightmares with faces of bone, there had been no repeat of Darez Fort. That was a blessing, at least.
When the widows slept, Arwa sat with her dagger and her blood and learned how long she could go without rest. Once, she thought she heard it again: a beat of noise like wings beyond the window. Her candle flickered like a baleful eye, and she stumbled to the lattice, her heart racing, terror a knife in her ribs, and saw—nothing. The night dark. The candle’s smoke.
She forced herself to sleep after that.
From Gulshera, she learned nothing but the bow and arrow. Gulshera was frustratingly good at keeping her own secrets close to her chest, but she did not ask about Darez Fort again, and for that at least Arwa was grateful. Instead, Gulshera showed Arwa how to string the bow—a job far better suited to two people working in tandem than one alone, as bending the bow against its natural inclination was a treacherous task—and tried to teach her how to shoot and actually hit her target.
“It’s lucky no one is relying on me to hunt for dinner,” Arwa grumbled, when she failed yet again to hit the easiest target. “We’d all starve.”
