live here, they’re my quarters, too. And besides, she was intrigued to know who the voices belonged to.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, a figure was striding down towards her. It was Fia, tall and dark-haired, her sister’s closest friend. She saw Riv and nodded a greeting, though she did not stop, just carried on past her. She was looking away, but Riv noticed that Fia’s eyes were red-rimmed.
Still looking over her shoulder, Riv entered the chamber, a sizeable room that was home to almost thirty people. It was one long, large room, neat rows of cots along two walls, chests at the bottom of each cot, an aisle running down the middle.
There was no one else in the chamber.
Riv frowned.
Strange.
The shuttered window over her cot was open and she looked out into the street, but there was no sign of anyone. Riv shrugged and walked to the end of her cot, kneeling before her chest, home of all her belongings, although in reality they were not hers. The White-Wings renounced all worldly possessions, emulating the Ben-Elim in their devout desire to serve Elyon. All that they owned was given to them by the Ben-Elim, every item useful for the furtherance of Elyon’s kingdom on earth. She unlatched the bolt, slid it across with hardly a sound – the White-Wings taught discipline and cleanliness as if it were the path to holiness – and raised the lid, pushing it back to rest against the frame of her bed. Inside was an assortment of items: clothes, boots, a pair of iron-shod sandals, belts, her best cloak, her fire-making kit, knives of various blades and lengths, a short-hafted axe, rags and oils for the maintenance and care of her small armoury. She rummaged through them, reaching deep, and then pulled out an object concealed in a sealskin cloak. She laid it on the floor before her and carefully unwrapped it, revealing a curved bow.
Bleda’s bow.
A ripple of guilt at seeing it; it was not hers, had not been allocated to her by the Ben-Elim, and so in a way could be considered as her own possession, something that was forbidden.
But it is not mine, it is Bleda’s. I have just been looking after it for him.
She had seen him drop it on the day the Sirak had been cowed, all those years ago, the same day he had been taken by the Ben-Elim as a ward. It had just lain in the dirt long after Bleda had disappeared into the horizon and Erdene and Israfil had moved on to the privacy of a tent for Israfil to talk over the terms and details of the Clan’s surrender. As the sun had sunk into the hills Riv saw the bow still lying there on the ground, and without thinking had picked it up, wrapping it in a cloak and storing it with her sister’s kit. She’d brought it all the way back to Drassil with her, not really knowing why, except that something inside her had gone out to the boy as he’d been held in the air by Israfil, his brother and sister’s decapitated heads strewn upon the ground at his feet. She had thought how she would feel if it was her, with Aphra’s head rolling in the dirt. Not that the Ben-Elim’s actions were wrong, she knew that. The Sirak and Cheren had disobeyed the Ben-Elim’s Lore: to preserve life, to only slay Kadoshim and their servants. And the deaths that day had established a peace that had lasted five years, so Riv was satisfied that they were justified.
But the look in Bleda’s eyes …
She felt a wave of sympathy for him, because Riv knew that Israfil had punished Kol for the terrible act. Kol should have chained Bleda’s brother and sister and brought them before Israfil for judgement, but Kol had a reputation for taking things into his own hands, for being more spontaneous than most Ben-Elim.
All this time later and she had never returned the bow to Bleda, even though she had resolved to do so a hundred times. Something always stopped her.
She brushed the grip with her fingertips, worn leather smooth and sweat-stained from Elyon knew how many hours Bleda had practised with it.
Hundreds, if he is anything like Jin. To be able to do that, after five years of inaction.
The bow was about the same size as the one Jin had used with such skill, less than half the length of the longbow