The Archer

Part 6

"Aslin, there are two men here to see you." Bitta's gentle voice drifted in from the portico entryway.

Aslin started, sitting up from her lounging position, her eyes darting between Ero and his sister. She felt her heart thudding loudly, cursing herself for how easily she seemed to startle and cower these last two days. She hardly felt like herself, wishing only to be close to Ero, to stay within sight and earshot of him all the time. Her body was perpetually tense, poised always for flight or fight.

"Authorities?" she queried, her voice wavering, and Bitta came closer to her, bending and taking her hands.

"No, Aslin," she said reassuringly. "Your uncles."

"My . . . uncle?" she echoed confusedly, momentarily imagining her father's brother had sailed here from Tiria to bring her home. But then she remembered the two brothers of her mother, the uncles she had never met, whom the King had written to upon her arrival.

She stood then, smoothing out her hands on her gown, looking down at the fabric and half expecting to see streaks of blood from her hands. But the fabric was clean, it was always clean, but the blood was always ready in her mind.

"Shall I come with?" Ero asked mildly, standing too.

"Yes," she answered easily. Of course she wanted him to come.

The three of them walked to a flowering courtyard where Bitta had shown the two men. Looking at them, Aslin noted immediately how uncomfortable they seemed in the splendor of the garden. They were both burly men with dark beards, similar in expression and dress. They stood close to each other, as if trying not to touch anything around them.

When they saw her they separated, and Aslin looked up at their faces, searching for an echo of her mother and finding it, if dimly. If it was Tiria she would curtsy to them, but it was not, and she was not sure how to greet them. One took a step forward and cleared his throat.

"Are you Aslin, daughter of Askira, daughter of Ashanka and Jondro?"

Faintly she remembered the names of her deceased grandparents, names hardly ever spoken by her mother.

"I am," she answered in Almanian, to reassure them she understood.

"Then I am your elder uncle Giru, and this is your younger uncle, Roth," the man gestured to the other man beside him, though Aslin could not distinguish any stark differences in their ages.

"Younger by minutes only," Roth smiled, taking a step towards her, and Aslin smiled too. She hadn't known her uncles were twins.

"I am happy to meet you both," she said softly, feeling a strange ache in her heart.

The two men looked at their feet with apparent shyness, and shifted their weight nervously as they took in the sight of the Prince and Princess behind her.

"We have come to bring you back with us," Giru said abruptly, and Aslin's eyebrows rose.

Roth elbowed him and elaborated, his voice smoother. "My brother and I both have good land east of here, far inland, with flocks of sheep and dairy cows. Your letter said you were used to such living?"

"Yes," she nodded in assent. "My family raised sheep as well in Tiria."

Both men nodded in approval, and Roth went on, seemingly the more talkative of the two. "It has long been in our blood. That, and a penchant for war, which it seems you have also inherited."

Aslin almost laughed, the sensation foreign in her throat.

Both men smiled to see it, and Roth went on, looking at her kindly. "Giru has a girl about your age, and I have a veritable army of small ones, all eager to meet you."