A tousled head ducked inside and a familiar voice said, “Good evening, gorgeous one.”
Kyra lay back and groaned. “Shurik, you gave me such a fright! What are you doing here?”
Shurik crawled in and tied the flailing tent flap closed with practiced ease. He sat down and cocked his head, grinning at her.
“Seeing if you’re all right. This is the first night since you arrived that we have a bit of wind, and I thought you might be awake.”
“A bit of wind,” repeated Kyra in disbelief. “I’m thankful it hasn’t blown the tent away and me with it.”
“That happens sometimes in spring and early summer,” said Shurik. “Eight years ago we had such a storm that we had to take shelter in Akal-shin. We hid in a crevice while the wind screamed around us. It took everything we had: tents, windbreaks, shrubs, even some of the camels. But this hardly ever happens later in the year. There’s no need to worry.”
“Well, thank you for the words of comfort,” said Kyra drily. “Now if you have satisfied yourself that I am alive and well, perhaps you will leave? I don’t know what the elders would do if they found you in my tent at night, but I wouldn’t want to be around to watch it happen.”
Shurik put a hand on his heart. “For you I will risk the wrath of all the elders of Khur, dead and alive.”
He tried to say this in a dramatic whisper, but the effect was somewhat spoiled by his having to shout to be heard above a particularly loud screech of wind.
Kyra looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. It had taken Shurik all of three days to convince himself that he was in love with her, the Kanun be damned. She liked him, of course, and he was a good-looking boy with his curly brown hair and merry smile. But she had been as discouraging as it was possible to be without hurting his feelings. The rules about chastity and obedience might be in place only to lend weight to the text of the Kanun, but she had not made her vows to Shirin Mam lightly. Besides, he was young—the youngest Marksman in the Order of Khur. He had taken down his first mark with Rustan while rescuing a caravan bound for Kashgar from a band of nomadic outlaws, but he’d confessed Barkav hadn’t assigned him any marks since then—a fact that clearly rankled.
“Tell me what’s troubling you.” Shurik stretched out next to her and leaned his head on his arms, gazing at her out of warm brown eyes.
Kyra moved a few inches away from him. His nearness made her feel a bit awkward. Not that she was the least bit attracted to him, she told herself, but she didn’t want him getting any ideas.
“What makes you think I’m troubled?” she said. “I mean, apart from the fact that I’m probably going to get sliced in half by Tamsyn’s blade.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Shurik frowned, the change in his face from sunny to dark so abrupt that she involuntarily moved another inch away from him.
“I won’t let you do this,” he said. “Throwing your life away will do no good to your Order. And you will be throwing your life away, if what I hear from Rustan is correct.”
“What have you heard from Rustan?” demanded Kyra, ignoring his peremptory tone.
Shurik waved a hand. “Oh, that you are not ready. Perhaps if you trained for ten years, you would be a match for such a one as Tamsyn Turani. But now, he says, you are like a child playing with fire, who won’t know until it’s much too late that fire can burn.”
Kyra sat up, the cold forgotten in her anger. Rustan thought she was like a child?
“I know about fire,” she said. “I know about death. Far more than you and your precious friend can possibly imagine. Dying doesn’t frighten me.”
“Hey, don’t talk like that,” protested Shurik, looking wounded. “If you die, what will happen to me? I’ll have to run away and become a hermit or something.”
Kyra smiled unwillingly. “You’re already a hermit,” she reminded him. “You live in the middle of a desert. There’s nowhere to run.”
Shurik gave a deep sigh. “And to think I was content with my lot until I laid eyes on you.”
“You do talk nonsense.” Kyra gathered her rug more closely around herself.
“It’s the truth,” insisted Shurik. “All I ever wanted was to be a good Marksman. Now all I want to do is scoop you up in my arms and take you far, far away from here, to a place where no one can follow us.”
“Shurik,” warned Kyra, “behave yourself. What would Barkav say if he could hear you talking like that?”
“He’d have him doing penances from sunup to sundown, and push-ups in between,” said a dry voice, and for the second time that night Kyra nearly jumped out of her skin.
It was Rustan. He had come in so quietly that neither of them had heard him. Now that Kyra thought about it, the wind’s roar had slowly muted to a distant moan. Their voices must have carried beyond the tent. The realization heated her cheeks. How much had Rustan heard?
“And what are you doing here?” she demanded.
Rustan held out a small glass bottle filled with golden-green liquid. “I was walking and heard voices, and thought I’d give you this. Astinsai’s spineleaf oil works well for muscular aches and bruises.” He glanced at Shurik and his tone became cooler. “I trust I was not interrupting anything.”
Shurik, who had sat up when Rustan entered, lay down again with his arms crossed behind his head. “Maybe you were and maybe you weren’t,” he said. “But I hope you’re leaving soon.”
“He most certainly is,” snapped Kyra, “and so are you. I need to sleep and this is my tent, not a guesthouse. In future you will ask permission before you enter—both of you.”
She stood up and pointed a finger at the entrance of the tent, ignoring Shurik’s injured expression. They left, Rustan not even glancing at her as he flicked the tent flap away and stepped out.
Kyra bent down and tied the flap with a double binding knot. Let’s see them untie that one. She shook her head in exasperation. Men. Thought they could walk in on her whenever they wanted, say whatever came into their arrogant heads, and stroll out without even an apology. Give her spineleaf oil for her bruises, would he? She picked up the little bottle Rustan had left behind and glared at it before tossing it into a corner. Serve them right if they were caught leaving her tent by one of the elders, preferably by Ghasil. He didn’t like her at all, and he would pounce on any Marksman he thought was getting too familiar with her.