***
The city welcomed dawn with the sizzle of extinguishing fires and squeak of mirrors being cleaned behind them. Dhanur rubbed her head, her hangover somehow worse even though she stopped drinking earlier than usual. Once begun, she quickly decided against continuing her morning stretches as her eyes felt as though they would throb out of her skull.
“No, no, not today,” she groaned.
With a discontented sigh, Dhanur descended to the kitchen area, sitting at the small table without a word, ignoring the roti already there. She struggled to peel open her eyes as her ungloved hand carded through her thick hair, free from its hood.
Dhanur blinked, brought her naked hand to her face, and stared at it. She didn’t remember fighting with her armor through the night and just then noticed she hadn’t taken it off before she left her bedroom.
She opened her mouth as if to speak but she only pointed at her hand.
“You came back, and, well, I helped you get undressed so you could sleep.” Janurana shrugged, pressing her tongue to her canines behind her closed lips. It was painless as her fangs were retracted.
Dhanur looked at her hand again, confused, trying to piece together when that may have happened. She blushed at the thought of Janurana helping her undress, but the destitute looking Kumari’s sprightly disposition forced Dhanur from her sleepy haze.
“Why’re you so, ya know, again?” Dhanur groaned.
Janurana quickly spun around and raised an eyebrow in confusion before she understood. “Oh!” Lowering her tone but grinning all the same, she said, “I slept really well!” She spun back around as quickly to stir another pot of soup, garnished then with cabbage and lemon grass.
“Alright.” Dhanur rolled her eyes, swallowing a repeat of the sharp request she’d made yesterday. Janurana’s accent took time to register yet again. As she waited for another soup breakfast, Dhanur fidgeted, rubbing her head as she remembered last night with her thoughts at the inn and the kindness Janurana showed in helping lift off her scaled armor when she got home. Her hand had trailed to her chest. Feeling the softness of her undershirt and how easily Janurana could have slipped one of her own arrows through it.
“So, your family,” Dhanur started.
Janurana stopped stirring.
“Wait, did I ask about that yesterday?” Dhanur scratched her head.
“Yes,” Janurana said, her expression frozen in a blank smile.
“Were they noble?”
Janurana lowered her head. “Yes. We discussed this yesterday.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah. Just, thinking of where you could go after this.”
“Have I worn out my welcome already? I do apologize, Madam warrior.” Janurana bowed.
“No, that’s not what I—Ugh.” Dhanur sighed and rubbed her temple. “It’s not that, I promise. Sorry.”
“Okay. I’ll finish this soup for you and get out of your way.” Janurana turned back to the pot and Dhanur rolled her eyes and dug the heel of her hand into her forehead.
Her inner voice was quick to speak up. ‘Two fish with one net.’
‘What?’ Dhanur thought back.
‘If you go to the Keep and ask to see the records, you can look up her family. That’ll help Janurana and you can see Aarushi again. You’ll know then if all this is a sign.’
‘You told me it was.’ Dhanur rolled her eyes.
Janurana focused on cooking, happy the conversation had ended.
‘I said this may be a sign,’ Dhanur’s inner voice continued. ‘Now you can make sure while you help this woman.’
‘And leap right into a charging bull, yeah. If the gwomoni were the ones who took out her family then—’
‘If they wanted you dead, you’d be dead. How many times until that’s understood? They won’t kill you. And even if they were the ones who did that to Janurana then you’ll know for sure and can go from there. And they’ve let you in before to see Aarushi. Just try.’
‘So, I can walk into their Keep with a person they clearly hate? If she’s right, they’ll probably kill her right there! That’ll be helpful.’
‘It’s not a perfect solution. But it’s the best right now. The guards on the wall must not have recognized her when they let her in, so maybe the Keep’s won’t. And it’s day so the gwomoni will be asleep. Now’s the perfect time.’
Dhanur grimaced, realizing her voice was right, and summoned the courage to speak. “Hey,” she called out.
“Yes?” Janurana spun, stick behind her, smiling tight.
Dhanur sighed, then folded her arms. “We can go to the Keep, peek at their records. That’ll probably have something on your family.”
The stirring stick fell from Janurana’s hands, clonking onto the floor as her smile became pained. She turned to snatch it up. “I already explained to you,” Janurana started, flustered. She kept her back to Dhanur and fiddled with the stick. “My family, they’re gone.”
“I know, I know,” Dhanur tapped her fingers. “I just thought, maybe, there’d be something. Even if these nobles were the ones that did your family in, they probably don’t remember you. There’s no way you look the same. Right?”
Dhanur shrugged as she finished, half convincing Janurana, half herself. Janurana stared at her soup as if it held the answers at its bottom. “It was quite a long time ago,” she murmured.
“So, there ya go. We can go in, say you’re somebody else or whatever, just ask to look over the records, and see if maybe any of your family is out there,” Dhanur said, not noticing Janurana flinch at her last words. “Even if they don’t like you, they’ll keep records on where enemies are, if they’re smart, heh.”
Janurana continued to stare at breakfast, the peas becoming softer and softer, nearly melting as they cooked.
‘Even if they don’t like you,’ Dhanur’s words ran through Janurana’s head, then she remembered something Dhanur had said at the inn.
“The nobles, when you said they were the same as others, what did you mean?” she asked.
Dhanur bristled at the question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean how are they different?”
“You mean…” Dhanur balked. She cocked her brow. “You know about the gwomoni?”
Janurana’s entire body seized at the word. She nodded.
“Huh.” Dhanur blinked, leaning back, thinking out loud. “Right. Guess a noble herself would know ‘bout them.” She ground her hand into her forehead since she had spent so long worried that Janurana was a gwomoni agent sent to kill her.
Janurana’s eyes flared. “Know about them? They’re why I’m Outside! Th—!” She stopped before her voice cracked. “They murdered my family. I’m surprised you know.”
“I ain’t friends with them either.” Dhanur rubbed her temple again. “Blood sucking freaks. Hegwous and Gehsek’re why I’m not a warrior anymore, put it like that. Do you know them?”
The names were vaguely familiar and Janurana tried to place them but her mind was completely blank. “Hegwous and…”
“Glad someone else around here knows,” Dhanur pressed on. “Said if I ever mentioned them they’d—” She shook her head. “They’d be pretty upset. I know—Knew a noble once who opposed them. Any enemy of theirs is a friend of mine.” Dhanur thunked her fists together, her draw hand closer to her chest, and bowed deep.
Janurana looked down at Dhanur, then to her own sari, worn and repaired, but still clinging to the small semblance of beauty it once had. She hadn’t seen any family so far. She’d be with them if she had. Regardless, she caressed the biggest patch by her hip. Its familiar bumps of what lay beneath it both calmed and stressed her.
“You need not get so involved.” Janurana suddenly bolted for her parasol, sitting by the door next to Dhanur’s bow. “You have already helped more than I could have asked for.”
“It’s fine!” Dhanur shouted, snatching Janurana’s wide sleeve. Janurana shot her a surprised and offended look, as one might give a disobedient servant. Dhanur balked and let go, but furrowed her brow obstinately. “Fine, do what you want, whatever.” Dhanur crossed her arms.
Janurana flinched at the suggestion, but she looked at the door, almost ready to leave.
“But, ya needed help and I’d be a pretty dowsing bad person if I didn’t give it. It’s what I should do,” Dhanur sighed. “Besides, I’d like to go there too.”
“But they—”
“I know you know.” Dhanur finished Janurana’s sentence as if that’s what she said. “Look, they’re dowsing monsters, I know. But I used to work for the Maharaj so they’ll at least let us inside. And I’d like to see her anyways.” Dhanur took a single breath. “So, ya gonna let me help you or not?”
Janurana stared at the door. “The Maharaj, she’s…”
“Dark, no. She’s not a gwomoni like the rest of them.” Dhanur scowled.
Janurana let out a sigh then nodded to Dhanur.
“Thank you.” Dhanur returned to the table.
“Shouldn’t I be saying that?”
Dhanur pouted as Janurana giggled. “The soup’s probably done. We’ll head to the Keep after this.”
The pair sat in silence while Dhanur ate, but Janurana didn’t mind. It was nice simply having someone nearby, so willing to help. She gave the same excuse as yesterday for not eating and merely fiddled with her hair, pulling out any new knots. She hadn’t noticed it before, but Dhanur’s skin was incredibly smooth and her brows well–manicured. Even if her hair had yet to be combed, she clearly put the effort into grooming herself well.
It looked nice.
***
The Keep was the center of the Capital, literally and figuratively. It housed the functionaries of the city including the nobles who presided over the bureaucracy, the storehouses, the military barracks, and the temple of the sun in which the Maharaj reigned as high priestess alongside being ruler of the city. The Keep’s walls shined blindingly, being made from imported alabaster stone, a beacon and reminder of its power to those who may deign to forget. Towers of the same mud brick that made most of the Capital rose to watch the city and the surrounding Outside. They were the only thing one could clearly see behind the white walls. The rest of the Keep was ostentatious enough to have three floors with painted trim, faded by the sun but still beautiful. The windows were closed during the day to keep the cooler night air inside and keep the thicker dry season dust at bay. Despite a few courtyards, the Keep was as densely packed as the city.
The main way to the Keep was filled with traders setting up their stalls and the populace pouring out to be first in line. Local brickmakers rolled out hand drawn carts full of mudbricks and sold from there, blacksmiths sent their apprentices to secure the best calling spots for repair services or find imports of tin. The same was true for all Daksinian cities and their markets, and for both upper and lower class sections. Exclusive to the upper class portion were scribes who sold slabs purporting to be myths or Light miracles, though few could actually read them. Mostly, the scribes sold their services to encode family histories or tall tales while painters sold their services to touch up any murals that decorated the upper class homes. In the lower class section, the people themselves painted. But throughout the whole main way market were food traders, mostly foreigners who had come in from the western ports. They opened their cartons of lemon grass, cabbage, hard peas and lentils, or dried meats from animals that no Daksinian had ever seen.
Despite the increased prices because of the importation, foreign and hard fare was fast becoming the new staples of the city diet. With the Scorching burning many smaller towns and making trade between more farm focused cities harder, the rulers in the Keep were forced to supplement the drop with extensive food shipments from the western ports they controlled, crewed by experienced merchants to whom a dangerous last leg of the journey was nothing. Even before the Scorching, the Outside was dangerous to work. Any new town or city needed a horde of armed guards to man bonfires at night while the palisades or walls were being built, something only governors or the Maharaj herself could afford. Only veteran travelers or entire armies dared long term exposure.
Dhanur and Janurana jostled through and approached the Keep’s man–made hill. With each step it grew taller, weighing on both of them. Janurana gripped her parasol tightly as it shaded her, while Dhanur walked silently beside her, stoic, but fisting her hands as if she held the bow slung over her shoulder. Both fixed their stares on the sealed gate.
As they closed in on the Keep’s entrance, its two city guards continued to converse. One leaned on their spear and other the wall, both complaining about an unexpected shift change. Dhanur and Janurana took a few steps forward, still weren’t noticed, and Dhanur cleared her throat. Nearly dropping their spears, the two guards held up their hands.
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“Ma’am, please state your,” the first guard paused and faltered at Dhanur’s powerful scales and gleaming white bow, despite her lack of a quiver. Not sure of who the northern woman was supposed to be, he stumbled with his words. “Oh. Uh, apologies but only warriors and nobles may enter the Keep?”
Dhanur couldn’t help but purse her lips in rejection. ‘Guess they don’t all remember me.’
‘They look young. Could be new,’ her inner voice added.
Dhanur extended her arm to present Janurana, as if she was only a bodyguard, but had to turn around as Janurana didn’t introduce herself. She was staring off into the distance. “Uh…”
“Hm? Oh!” Janurana startled. She had gotten lost looking over the walls of the city, swearing she had seen a view just like it somewhere on her travels. She sauntered forward past Dhanur with a smile. “Yes. You may address me as,” the slightest pause, “Shzahd. If I may, I wish to speak with the Maharaj of your Keep and view the Capital’s family records.”
The new name almost fit Janurana’s accent, but only half way.
The guards still looked confused. Janurana looked noble, and they heard odd foreign nobles may show up soon for an embassy, and one could only acquire armor like Dhanur’s by having it bestowed.
They stepped aside.
Dhanur and Janurana entered the lush garden of the Keep beyond its doors. With its exclusivity, the aristocracy and nobility had an undisturbed monopoly on the well–tended greenery. The common people mostly knew the arid plateau, dusty streets, occasional communal garden, and tradesmen of the bazaar hawking the food of distant lands instead of from southern cities elsewhere on the plateau.
The nobles were nowhere to be found in the morning. As the gate opened, Dhanur clenched her fists again, prepared for confrontation, but they grew slack as she saw no one. Almost with disappointment, she sighed.
“Ooh!” Janurana rushed to the budding flowers with almost unnatural speed. Her eyes sparkled at their quality tending, the vast array of colors, and genuine magnificence compared to the dead mundanity of the Outside. Even during the wet season it was rare to find a grove of flowers so dense on the plateau. Each brick planter box was just high enough for anyone to sit comfortably with trees at every corner to provide ample shade. Stone walkways split each with one near the wall being a pool filled end to end with blooming lotuses of every color. Local flora was supplemented by foreign shipments, creating a borderland between the two where new hybrid species were allowed to grow.
“Let’s go already.” Dhanur waved her hand forward.
“Can I enjoy the greenery for a moment?” Janurana rolled her eyes but obliged.
“I, uh.” With a stutter, Dhanur swallowed her words. “So, what was that name you gave yourself earlier?”
“I made it up,” she replied quickly.
The entrance into the Keep itself was as striking a contrast to the garden as the garden was to the Outside. Stone paved every floor as the garden, much more ostentatious than the basic laid mudbrick of Dhanur’s home. While dust inevitably settled, the few nicks and buffed edges told the keen eye they were routinely swept. Scenes of past events be they conquests or repeats of the Light’s miracles and wondrous landscapes of the plateau in full bloom decorated each wall the light graced. They easily drew Janurana’s attention, filling her with the splendor of their detailed artistry. Her gaze flew upwards as well as she tried to untangle the maze of walkways above her linking the doors of the second level.
Dhanur strode deliberately forward. The chambers and entrances of the upper level, the support columns, and art of the lower grew sparse as they reached the imposing throne room doors of the Maharaj, modeled after one of the great gates.
There were no guards and not a single noble still. Dhanur scowled deeply. With trembling hands, she gripped the handles.
“Ja—Shzahd.” She motioned to the doors with a nod.
Janurana’s whole body tensed at the word coming out of someone else’s mouth. For an instant that felt like forever, she was dead in her tracks. She blinked once more at the intricacies of the Keep, closed her parasol, and caught up. As Dhanur shoved the doors open, Janurana gawked as the esoteric maze of entrances and walkways above gave way to the explosive emptiness of the throne room. Aside from the back wall’s window, showcasing a perfect view of the Capital, the swaths of golden lace blanketing the walls, and a haze of burning incense, there was only the throne.
The throne of the Maharaj was a lounging platform. Like a bed made of cotton raised high above the cold floor at the center of the room. Rather than being situated at the back, the central placement meant the main entrance into the room could be changed regularly, modeled to fit the circumstances of the time. While there was an entrance to the room from all four directions, mimicking the walls and their gates, before the war with the north, the south facing entrance was the focus. Dignitaries, nobles, governors and the like would come mainly from that direction, so the southern courtyard and entrance was more splendid with more stunning paintings and plants. But the direction had been reversed for the war with the north. Although it would be changed again when needed, this could be done without having to move the throne on which the Maharaj lounged, its base was simply adapted so it faced the north door.
The Maharaj seemed to grow out of it, her gleaming crimson and golden sari blending with the crimson and gold laced pillows strewn about her. The Maharaj had her head on her hand, her fingers parting her glistening black waves of hair behind her bronze chain tiara. As the pair entered, she continued to lounge, but they couldn’t tell if she was aloof or asleep. Two nobles were pressed right against the throne’s base. Governor Doivi rubbed her eyes since both she and Governor Hoika were up far past their bedtime. Their voices became clearer as the pair approached.
“Maharaj. Time to sit up,” Hoika stated. He raised his green clad arm to illustrate his point.
“For what?” she asked, sleepily rubbing one eye.
“You have a visitor. Now, rise to greet them. Hurry,” Doivi demanded, fiddling with her sash impatiently.
“Excuse me.” The Maharaj’s eyes narrowed as she processed what was said. “You can’t speak to me like that.”
They flinched at her outburst and tried to quiet her with submissive platitudes, but the Maharaj caught sight of the pair entering. Though she was plenty relaxed before, she drifted even further away at the sight of them. Her head fell back to her hand, her eyes glazed over, and she fell silent. The governors, who had been bold enough to give her orders, exchanged sidelong glances, then smug grins.
“We’ll take our leave,” Hoika stated as both bowed, slinking away from the throne and out the door from the throne room. A pair of Doivi’s personal guards from house Deuhera held it open on the other side. Their helmets were accented by a plume of peacock feathers. The guards and record keeper who would normally be beside the Maharaj were nowhere to be seen.
Doivi however, couldn’t resist. As her compatriot went through the door into the sanctums of the Keep, she came about, avoiding any direct light as she unnaturally slid across the floor. Although her sari wasn’t as massive as the Lord’s black cloak, nor as heavy as Janurana’s, it still hid the legs of any woman moving softly. But her speed was wrong and she glided across the floor like a cart with no bumps on the road.
Her saccharine grin made Dhanur’s blood boil as her bow almost cried out on its own for the monster’s blood. She couldn’t hide her rage and preparations for battle. Rather than the serene focus she had at the inn, she shook with an uncontrollable lust for death.
When governor Doivi stopped right in front of her, neither flinched nor changed their expressions.
“Dear little warrior—Oh. Not a warrior anymore. So sorry, lower class. But the spy master wasn’t my friend,” she cooed. “Taking over her network has made my life so much easier, thank you.”
Dhanur didn’t respond, which Doivi took personally. She fiddled with her sash harder.
“Perhaps you should have missed Gehsek entirely and let him kill you. What do you think you can do by yourself with her now?” Her words oozed from her lips with perverse glee as she motioned to the monarch. “You’ve lost. Why not go to your nice new home with your free shells and jewels. Maybe return to the inn. That quiets the voices, no? Keeps her alive too.” She chuckled with a repulsive symphony and siphoned all confidence from Dhanur as she slipped away.
Dhanur did her best to keep herself composed, but as Doivi left, Dhanur looked up to the throne and the Maharaj who hadn’t arisen from her slump. Her fists loosened.
“Dhanur?” Janurana, who had turned her head away and stayed between Dhanur and the noble, stepped forward, unsure if she should have spoken.
“Huh?” Dhanur snapped around. “Oh.” She shook her head, rubbed her temple, and did her best to take in a few deep breaths before proceeding. At first, she couldn’t bring herself to look at the Maharaj again. Though, as she drew closer, her resolve grew again, if only out of spite her mind repeated ‘maybe’.
“Maharani.” Dhanur bowed, her fist trembling. Behind her, Janurana did the same out of instinct, though she bowed further at her hips.
The Maharaj sat up, her focus returning slightly. “Well, a pleasure, warrior. You look familiar.”
“Yes, Aarushi!” Dhanur shot up suddenly, her eyes aglow. She smiled with as much force as the anger she had earlier. Further in the keep, the governors who had left felt their ears twitch. “We worked together after the war! It’s me!”
“Oh! Yes! The dhanur… Um…” The Maharaj circled her hand trying to remember. As her eyes settled on Dhanur’s bow, however, they went glassy once more.
And all at once, Dhanur released a sigh that rattled through her bones. Her dour expression came back with crushing force and a posture to match, as if the whole keep itself had fallen upon her. “Of course. Just a dhanur.”
“Right, right.” The Maharaj snapped upright at Dhanur’s words, brushing off that part of the conversation. “My apologies, I must have you confused with someone I knew. I am Aarushi Aabha, Maharaj of Daksin and priestess of the sun. How can I serve my people?” She bowed her head slightly.
Dhanur’s expression warped from depression to flat. Each blink took seconds to complete as the Maharaj watched blankly, brainlessly waiting for anything to happen. Dhanur didn’t move and stared at the ground. She felt as though her mind should be racing, that her inner voice should be trying to make an excuse for why coming to the Keep didn’t work. But she could only repeat in her head ‘of course. Of course. Of course it didn’t work. Of course we’re back where we started. Of course nothing’s going to change. Of course she doesn’t remember me, the nights we spent together watching the moon in the towers or by the fire in the Outside after training while Muqtablu slept. Of course she doesn’t remember the time I left her bedroom in the morning and found her father about to enter, the time she lured a vetala to a pocket forest so I could surprise it from up top. Of course finding a girl like her meant nothing.’
Janurana looked between Dhanur and the Maharaj as Dhanur stayed silent. Even when she was drunk and slumped over a table, her head didn’t hang so low. The Maharaj looked on, simply waiting for the response. After a few agonizing moments, Dhanur inhaled, straightening up as she did so.
“Maharani Aarushi Aabha, ruler of the plateau and priestess of the sun, I am Dhanur, in service of the Capital and my noble ward Shzahd. She is highborn, separated from her family. We seek the use of the Maharaj’s familial records so she can reconnect with her house.”
Any hint of joviality and familiarity had left Dhanur. She spoke with the discipline of a soldier addressing their commander. Her eyes passed right through Janurana, addressing her without acknowledging her presence, simply going through the motions.
Janurana let out a breath of her own. Her first step forward required an inordinate amount of effort to enter the situation, but as she approached, the Maharaj inspected her sari. It wasn’t the typical expected apparel of those allowed behind the Keep’s gate. Its grunge and repairs only registered as difference, not destitution.
Aarushi’s eyes focused and unfocused, like a smith inspecting a spearhead’s sharpness. She cocked her head as she determined Janurana must not be from her walls.
“Ah! Diplomacy!” The Maharaj announced like a child figuring something out.
Janurana stepped forward, taking longer than she would have liked. Dhanur had mentioned that she looked like someone, and with the Maharaj’s round cheeks, Janurana wondered if Aarushi was the person. But without seeing her reflection, she couldn’t be sure. Regardless, she came forward to bow with her hands together before changing to a bow like Dhanur. “Madam Maharaj—Oh, excuse me. Maharani.”
“Please, young lady, no need. You two are not the same.” The Maharaj slunk back into her pillows, waving off the mistake.
Janurana pressed ahead with no lapse in poise. In an instant she fit perfectly into the slot, the memory of the court having not faded in the slightest once she got going. “My name is Shzahd. When I was a child, I was forcibly separated from my,” she paused for only an instant, “family. The war and Scorching forced and kept us apart. My memory of them is fading but I hope through perusing your records I might unlock a forgotten fragment and reunite with them. Through your magnificence, grace, and blessing, I might be able to return home.”
Dhanur blinked at Janurana’s flawless performance. The Maharaj placed her hand on her chest softly in sympathy. She sat forward then rose serenely from her throne.
“Poor thing. Of course I’ll offer any means I can.” Aarushi Aabha opened her arms in a welcoming gesture, basking in the refreshing civility and humility of Janurana’s request, then yawned. “You’ve come at quite the opportune time. Service is always my priority and this is a welcome distraction.”
“The stresses of the court, no?” Janurana giggled, covering her mouth with her parasol.
For the first time, the Maharaj’s gaze focused on it. Her eyes narrowed as she fixated, letting its image mull over in her mind, thinking on who and what she had seen using such a thing. Her gaze briefly sharpened before she reverted to the catatonic glassy eyed trance she’d entered before.
“Maharani?” Janurana inquired.
“Yes.” The Maharaj snapped out of her trance. “Yes. Yes, of course, um… What was your name again?”
“Shzahd,” she replied with a smile tilted towards comfort, as one might remind an ailing elder for one’s name.
“Right, right.” Another brush of her hand. “Come with me, young Kumari.”
Aarushi Aabha ushered her forward leaving Dhanur behind. Her rigid military posture was only broken by her hanging head. She continued to curse in her mind, repeating ‘of course’. Occasionally she shook her head as if that would make her ten second long blinks go faster. She looked back to the door, then scoffed. ‘Of course this was pointless. Of course I walk in and just get this. Of course she doesn’t remember telling me stories I hadn’t heard before or getting angry that I didn’t see when she was hitting on me.’ Dhanur knocked her head. ‘Of course she doesn’t remember breaking up arguments between me and Muqtablu. Of course she doesn’t remember when Muqtablu left us. Of course this is the last memory I get of her. Of course they won. Of course.’
The governors went about their day with a perverse glee.
Janurana stood in the doorway as the Maharaj continued forward oblivious. She had seen Dhanur depressed at the inn, or at least so drunk on who knows how many cups of beer that she didn’t have the energy to be anything but. Still, her tentative hope being so effectively crushed was a different despair.
“Dhanur?” Janurana beckoned softly as she was being led away.
Dhanur followed silently and immediately.
Aarushi led them through another door into another hall. The way to the records was a labyrinth. Maharajs, nobles, and generals had all added, removed, and revised entire sections of the Keep for their own convenience or necessities. Only those who were raised in such an environment could navigate it. Oddly, the design served a purpose. Should invasion ever come, the near–nonsensical layout of the Keep ensured those who hid within it would be protected from the invasion.
Aarushi Aabha continued down the halls with Janurana following close to her side, but ever so slightly behind, as she should.
“Young Kumari, tell me, how did you come to be separated from your house?” Aarushi asked.
Janurana opened her mouth to speak, but she froze, as she did when speaking of her cover name but for much longer.
Aarushi Aabha continued forward awaiting a response, but when none came she turned and found Janurana locked in position far behind. She was clutching her parasol painfully. It was a testament to its craftsmanship that it didn’t rip asunder. Dhanur, who was staring at the floor as she walked, smacked heavily into Janurana. Both snapped into action from the surprise.
Janurana cocked her fist, ready to slam it into Dhanur’s face.
Dhanur leapt back, all sadness gone as she focused, slipped her bow from her shoulder, and reached back for an arrow that wasn’t there.
The two keep guards further up the hall lowered their spears and began sprinting at the pair.
“Shzahd?” The Maharaj called as if she didn’t notice the clattering of bronze behind her as the guards stopped.
Janurana flinched again at the name, chastising herself for choosing it. She threw Dhanur the slightest scowl.
But before Dhanur could scoff and retort, Janurana resumed walking with Aarushi Aabha.
“Are you alright?” The Maharaj continued.
As Janurana reassured the Maharaj that all was well, Dhanur shook her head and put her bow away. ‘I don’t look like a dowsing gwomoni,’ she growled to herself.
‘You’re just as ready to fight them as she is,’ her inner voice retorted.
‘This is all going so well. Janurana’s mad for whatever reason and Aarushi doesn’t even remember me. Of course she doesn’t remember me…’
Her inner voice went conspicuously silent.
‘Everything we’ve done together and fought together, all our days and nights together, jokes, awkward and embarrassing things when we were drunk, that time I said she should probably wear a different sari and she smacked me, barely a half moment of noticing me. She was my dowsing lover and she’s dowsing gone.’
When she wasn’t staring at the floor, Dhanur watched Aarushi’s smile. It was blank, but a smile. Occasionally she would look to Aarushi Aabha’s forehead, open and empty. Her hair was parted to either side and the slightest indentation was burned between her eyes, visible only if one knew what hanging jewel had been removed from the chain tiara that rested heavily on her forehead.
‘It was so beautiful,’ Dhanur remembered.
She would often stare into the massive red gem and wonder how such a tiny chain held it up. But it had long since been taken from Aarushi. Dhanur’s gaze fell directly back to the floor and she kept her head down as she passed the Keep guards, who watched them intently. Janurana did the same, strategically hiding her face with her hair or keeping Aarushi between her and them as she passed.