2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows by Ginn Hale Read Free Book Online Page B

rings.” Her expression turned sad and she clenched her hands into fists around the chains. “But I have never forgotten that I am a descended from Eastern queens. I have never stopped looking for others like me. My people. I always knew a few of us had to have survived. Our home may be lost to us forever but we will never forget that there was once a great kingdom where there is now only that hideous chasm.”
    John felt a pang of sympathy for the woman. Her pained expression and voice alone would have elicited his compassion, even if he had not understood her words. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
    She said, “I have prayed every night since I was a child that I would find you.”
    Laurie and Bill both looked to him for an explanation but John didn’t want to interrupt Lady Bousim.
    “Later,” he whispered.
    Ohbi held out a thin white circle of cloth and Lady Bousim took it and wiped the tears from her eyes.
    “I’m so foolish,” Lady Bousim whispered. “Inholima must not know that I’ve been crying when she comes back or she’ll run to Rashan Pivan right away and tell him.”
    “How did you know that we were from the East?” John asked. He wasn’t sure how well she would take the revelation that they weren’t. If he could avoid telling her, he thought that would be for the best.
    “I’m sorry to say that I didn’t recognize you at all the night you brought warning to us on the Holy Road. When Ohbi peeked out from the carriage and described you to me, I thought you must have been some filthy peasant. You disguised yourself very well. But then Rashan Pivan came to me and told me that you, a ragged peasant, had stood against the demoness, Ji Shir’kurod. I knew you couldn’t be a common man, so I sent Bati’kohl to attend you in the bath and to listen to you when you were alone among yourselves.”
    John had thought that he had heard someone outside the door.
    “Bati’kohl brought me a piece of your raiments before he burned them.” She slipped her hand inside one of her long sleeves and pulled out a small strip of blue Gortex.
    Ohbi gave a small gasp as she saw it.
    “I have never seen such a brilliant color in all the world,” Ohbi whispered.
    “You never will again.” Lady Bousim turned the material through her fingers. “The great queens of the East are all gone and all that remains of their splendor is this scrap. My great-grandmother had gowns the color of the sunset and of violets. They all had to be burned when she went into hiding. Not a single thread could be saved.”
    “I’m sorry,” John said.
    “You’re sorry for me?” Her expression verged on defiance, and then she smiled. “I think I am sorry enough for myself. You must not indulge me too much or I will have myself weeping again. And what do I have to cry over that you three do not have worse? Here you three are, starved and beaten from a lifetime of living at the edge of the world. Here you are among strangers whose language only one of you knows and whose customs are all wrong to you. And yet you are not crying. It makes me proud to see you and a little ashamed that my ancestors hid among the nobles when yours did not.”
    She pondered the scrap of blue fabric in her fingers and then handed it to Ohbi.
    “Burn it.”
    The girl reverently carried it to the fireplace and then dropped it into the flames.
    “Seeing the three of you together,” Lady Bousim went on, “I knew at once that you were the children of Eastern mothers. Your golden hair, his blue jewel eyes, and Loshai.” She gazed at Laurie like she was looking at work of art.
    “Silver hair, pale eyes, delicate witch’s bones,” Lady Bousim said. “I might have known just looking at her. But I wouldn’t have been sure. It was only when I saw the three of you together before me and Bati’kohl had told me that you spoke in a strange language that he had never heard before that I knew instantly who you are.”
    “Do you think others here know?” John