The Ghost Tiger's Lament

Chapter Thirteen

The hours passed slowly now through a mire of heat and silence. Though it was cooler on the water, the sun beat down upon them without mercy, and even the breeze weighed heavy and hesitant upon their skin. Ashne tied back her sleeves, longing for the ease of a southern tunic, wondering how Braksya managed to stand the stifling oppressiveness of his own robes.

Meanwhile, they took turns rowing, each keeping to their own half of the boat, allowing the other what little privacy could be maintained in such a small space. When night fell, they moored their boat in a patch of reeds and hid themselves beneath a tent of mesh to keep out the insects before drifting to sleep, lulled by the lapping waves.

This time, the old fears did not disturb her.

In the mornings she practiced with her sword, slowly adjusting her movements to compensate for her old wound. Sometimes he watched; more often than not, he continued to snore. A few times she noticed the tip of a snake’s tongue flickering out from within his sleeves, as if testing the air, but it seemed otherwise content to remain in hiding, and she too learned to ignore its presence.

Aside from brief breaks to eat and stretch their legs and seek evidence of the bandits’ passage or barter with local farmers, they stopped ashore only once, for Braksya to brew a batch of bitter moon tea. By then the cramps had been troubling her for at least two days, but she had mistaken them for the ghost pains of her injury until the blood came. Braksya had taken one look at her face and laughed and laughed until she shoved him into the water, cheeks burning. Her blood had not come for months. Was it any wonder that its arrival now came as a surprise?

The incident seemed to ease something between them.

“Have you always been like this?” Braksya asked from his end of the boat, later that afternoon, laughter in his eyes and his voice, though his face was straight and solemn as can be. “Even as a child?”

“Like what?” muttered Ashne, shifting her hold on the oar.

“Like —” He gestured about, palms spread wide, long fingers curved, as if grasping for words in the air. His clothes had mostly dried by then, but his shock of white hair framed his face in a bright wild tangle. Ashne would have thought him drunk if she had not already secretly checked his basket for any stashes of alcohol he might have picked up back at the village.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

His only response was, “What a serious little girl you must have been!”

“Is that so wrong?”

“No, no. I can just imagine it.”

“Zsaran and I,” she began, then hesitated. “We had no time to play around like the other children.”

“This Zsaran of yours seems nothing like you, however.”

“She isn’t,” Ashne agreed. “She...”

“Never mind her. Surely you have had some moments of joy and leisure in your short life.”

“I suppose,” she said doubtfully, listening to the distant cries of waterbirds, the occasional splash of glimmering fish leaping through the air. Her life before she met Zsaran was mostly a haze of hunger. Cold. Bone-deep fear, sharp at first, but over time dulled to an ever-present ache. Even after meeting Zsaran there had been many times when they had gone hungry, or shivered helplessly in the damp winter chills. But the fear... the fear had left her.

When had it departed, that bitter constant companion of childhood? Was it when the queen found them, plucked them from their miserable lives? Or earlier yet?