Markswoman (Asiana #1)(64)
*
“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why did you miss the midday meal?”
Kyra gave a start as Shurik materialized by her side. She had been preoccupied after leaving Astinsai’s tent and hadn’t noticed where she was going. Her steps had taken her back toward the shaded grove. Shurik must have followed her in.
“I’ve been with Astinsai.” Kyra told him what had happened, omitting the part about her being “a girl with many questions.”
Shurik’s face twisted in comic horror as he listened. “Don’t ever drink that stuff,” he warned. “Look what it did to Rustan.”
Kyra stopped walking and sat down cross-legged in the shade of a jessora bush. “Rustan has drunk Rasaynam?” she said, surprised. “I thought none of the Marksmen had touched that potion in years.” But even as she said it, she remembered the haunted look on his face. Perhaps if you had done what I did, you would feel differently.
“None but my good friend Rustan,” said Shurik, sitting down next to her. “Astinsai made an exception for him, like she seems to have made for you. She must dislike you both very much.”
Kyra laughed. “Don’t be silly, Shurik.” The katari mistress was surely above liking or disliking anyone.
“Don’t drink it, okay?” said Shurik, suddenly anxious. “I couldn’t bear for you to change, the way he changed.”
“How did he change?” asked Kyra, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. It wasn’t necessary; no one was around. The Marksmen rested in their tents after the midday meal, resuming classes and chores in the evening.
“He used to talk more and laugh more,” said Shurik. “We sparred together every day. He would tell me if he had a new trick to disarm me, or if he was fed up with the food, or if he thought an elder was full of gas. Now he barely looks at me. And it’s not just me. He hardly talks with anyone.” He trailed his hand on the ground, clearly struggling not to betray his hurt.
“To be fair, he spends most of the daylight hours teaching me,” said Kyra. “It doesn’t leave much time for anything else.”
“This happened before you came here,” said Shurik. “Rustan was sent to take down a mark in Tezbasti. When he came back, Astinsai made him drink Rasaynam. I don’t know what he saw, but it must have been bad, because he’s not been the same ever since.”
He gazed into the distance, his mouth compressed in a hard line.
“What do you think happened in Tezbasti?” asked Kyra, but she had begun to put two and two together. Something had gone wrong with the mark and he blamed himself for it. No wonder he was so grim all the time.
Shurik pulled at a stalk of grass and twined it around his finger. “I don’t know what happened. He won’t tell me. I tried to get him to talk once or twice, and had my head bitten off as a reward. But let’s not talk about him anymore.” He glanced at Kyra. “Let’s talk about us. Do you think we can use the Akal-shin door to get away from this place?”
Kyra stared at him in disbelief, too stunned by the turn of conversation to respond.
“We could go anywhere we wanted,” he continued. “No one would be able to follow us. I wouldn’t mind setting myself up on a farm somewhere, with nothing to worry about but the rain.”
Despite herself, Kyra smiled. Shurik had grown up on a farm in the fertile Peral River delta, and a part of him still yearned for it, especially in this barren land where it was a struggle to grow anything.
Shurik caught her hand. “You smile. Surely you know by now how I feel for you. I love you.”
Kyra withdrew her hand quickly, hot and uncomfortable. “Shurik, you do not love me. I happen to be the first girl you’ve met in ages, and so you believe yourself to be in love. What you’re suggesting is crazy.”
“You are not the first girl I’ve met,” he said. “I’ve seen women in Yartan, Kashgar, and Tezbasti. Some were quite beautiful and I admired them from afar. I forgot their faces as soon as I left town. You are different. I see you when I close my eyes. I think of you even in my dreams.” He caught her chin and drew her face to his. She gazed at him, mesmerized by the play of emotions on his face.
“Do not say I cannot love you,” he whispered. “Say instead that you can learn to love me.” He bent down to press his lips on hers. Kyra was so startled that a moment passed before she jerked her head away.
And looked right into Rustan’s cold blue eyes. Kyra stared at him in consternation. He stood opposite them, leaning on the woody stem of an ephedra, looking as if he had swallowed some of Astinsai’s bitter spineroot brew. How long had he been standing there, watching them?
I wasn’t really kissing him! a part of her wanted to scream. But another part said—What business is it of his? Let him think what he wants. It doesn’t matter.
But it did matter. It mattered when Rustan said, “I thought you wanted to continue your lessons this afternoon. It appears that I was mistaken.”
He walked away, silent as he had come, as always. Kyra gazed at his retreating back in dismay, wondering if she should go after him and say that yes, she wanted to continue her lessons. Suppose he refused? She became aware that Shurik was speaking:
“. . . always interrupts us at the wrong time. It’s almost as if he’s spying on us. Thinks he’s an elder already, I suppose. We’ll be well rid of him when we’re out of here.”