Seven Witches

twenty-seven

Hera;

When everyone was away during the middle of the day, too busy to look behind them for a limping girl carrying a bow and a quiver filled with arrows, Hera went to the camps. It was much harder now since she couldn't ride the horse like before, but it was worth it.

She was still not entirely healed, was still not allowed to have any solid food, but that did not stop her from practicing her aim. She was careful enough not to bruise her arms or to overwork herself, as she had recently discovered Paul had a sharp eye and missed no details.

"You should give yourself time to heal," he had warned her when he first figured out she had been sneaking off to practice. Of course she did not listen, because he was always worried and sometimes it was over minor things.

Hera picked an empty place, somewhere in the camp where she was alone to practice. She picked her usual bow, one made of metal and thick strings. And her arrows, made of fine European red cedar.

She placed the arrow in its rest, pulled the bow string tightly, the tension travelling throughout her entire arm. Her muscles ached in protest, the stitches on her side threatening to tear her open.

Then the arrow went flying, and hit the floor left to the target. Hera did not wait, had picked another arrow from her quiver and set it, for once thankful for having the breasts of an underfed boy so that her arm went perfectly across her chest.

She thought of Paul carrying her dying body and running towards the palace, her name a prayer on his lips. Thought of how Cythera sat on her bedside one night and cried, thinking that Hera was asleep and would not know. She recalled her own feeling of guilt and self-loathing as Paul told her what her sister had done to Ivan, how ugly his corpse had been.

With all these thoughts running through her head, she released the arrow, all her frustration going along the thin piece of wood. The metal tip embedded itself onto the edge of the target, not quite where she wanted it to be but better than missing entirely.

Hera was panting, each breath irritating the wound further. Perhaps she should return to beating dough and making bread every morning, afternoon, and evening, return to plain tedious Hera. It would be safest and easiest, but she did not want safe and easy anymore.

Another arrow was set, and another after it. She kept firing one after the other, until her quiver was empty and her arms were twitching, until she had two arrows close to the centre.

Until the deep crippling shadows in her stopped their murmurings, until there was no wish in her heart but to put back the shattered bones to make something much stronger.

~

Cythera was careful to not make a sound, careful to not be seen or felt. She wondered if she should glamour the two of them, but that would arouse questions that she was not ready to answer. Her heart was thundering, and the Tsar behind her was making way too much noise. "You are a lousy thief," she whispered, looking at him grinning from the corner of her eyes. "Now do not say a word."

Then she hid their voices, the least she could do, or else they would sure be discovered.  The glamour took a part of her attention, but not all of it. So the two kept walking, now faster that they did not have to be as quiet.

The man kept looking around as he moved, and just as she predicted, he did not leave the palace. He headed towards the stables, still carrying the bag in his arms tightly and cautiously, as though he carried a child in it.

When she was sure that the man was inside and won't be leaving soon, she motioned for the Tsar to follow her, the two hiding behind the wooden wall of the stable. The figure waited and waited, anxiously petting some of the horses.