Heaven's Needle by Liane Merciel Page B

words out of the girl’s mouth confirmed her suspicions. “I’m sorry,” Evenna said, still blushing. “It’s just … I’ve never seen so many scars on a woman.”
    Asharre grunted. She supposed her stripes and welts, earned across a decade and a half spent fighting one thingor another, might be startling to a stranger. Over the years, her skin had become a tapestry of old hurts. “Lucky for them.”
    â€œAre they … did you … those aren’t from Oralia’s annovair, are they?”
    Asharre shook her head, understanding the girl’s trepidation at last. This was the first time Evenna would have been so far from home or temple, and the tales of the mountain people could be frightening to someone who did not know the truth.
    â€œNo,” Asharre said. “Most of them … the first man who taught me how to hold a sword was Surag One-Eye. He had to teach me, had to respect my oath as sigrir. You understand? It was his obligation as a warrior of Frosthold. But he did not have to like it, and he didn’t have to be gentle about it. Most of them weren’t. For a woman to become sigrir to negotiate her sisters’ marriages is not so strange, even today. For her to take up arms is … an old custom. Very old, and very rare. Even before the sun worshippers came to the north it was not a common thing. Most often, women took that oath when all the clan’s warriors had been killed raiding and warring and the only men left were graybeards and boys. So for me to learn the sword … it was not the same as saying that Frosthold’s warriors were feeble or childish, but it was not far from that, and most of the men were not pleased by it.
    â€œSurag was different. To him it was a source of pride, not an insult, that I wanted to learn the ways of war. He was … tradition was very important to him, and a sigrir who hewed to the old ways was, in his mind, a credit to our clan’s honor and fierceness. He was proud to teach me.
    â€œHe was the one who found us when Oralia and I left Frosthold.” Asharre closed her eyes. More than fifteen yearsago, that was, but the memory still grieved her. “When we disappeared, he tracked us. No one else did. We were not much loved in the clan. There had been rumors all winter about my sister’s afflictions. Most of them … most of them would have been content to let us go, and would have counted themselves well rid of her strangeness. Not Surag.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Evenna whispered. Her bare shoulders were so white they glowed in the thin gray light; her face was almost as pale.
    â€œHe tried to stop us. Surag One-Eye was, as I said, a man to whom tradition mattered. For us to go south, to join the Blessed, was a betrayal of the clan’s beliefs. He would not let us pass. I fought him. Surag was much more experienced, and still strong … but he was old, and blind on one side, and the cold did him no favors.” Asharre had never been more frightened in her life than she was on that winter morning, her teacher’s face become a stranger’s and a blade bare in his hand. Terror, and desperation, had lent her ferocity. “I did not want to kill him. But whenever I flinched, he cut me again, and finally it was clear there was no choice. So: that is where I got most of these scars. He taught me one last lesson as sigrir that morning.”
    Asharre finished washing—the water had grown cold—and toweled herself dry. Evenna followed suit more slowly, looking thoughtful.
    As Asharre was buckling the strap of her caractan back over her gray-green cloak, Evenna touched her forearm.
    â€œI’m sorry for your scars,” the young Blessed said.
    â€œDon’t be. Vanity is nothing. Scars mark what you have done.”
    â€œYes, I suppose that’s true,” Evenna said uncertainly. She rallied behind a smile. “I’m grateful to have such a