The Weavers knew they were coming, and they were watching and waiting.
Reki walked slowly back through the camp towards his tent, a lean and thoughtful figure, the wind flicking his hair about his face. His boots crunched on the lifeless, stony soil. He was running over events in his mind as he had a hundred times before, examining them, turning them to consider from all angles.
The council with the nobles of the Empire and the Libera Dramach had been remarkably quick, all things considered. For the first time Reki had really appreciated what he had taken for granted all his life, that the Weavers, and latterly the Sisters, provided something so valuable that they simply could not ever go back to the way things had been. Men and women from Araka Jo, Saraku, and Izanzai had talked to each other face to phantom face via the power of the Sisters, though almost nine hundred miles separated them. A conference had been carried out, with terms and suggestions bandied back and forth, in less than a day. Without the Sisters, it would have been a labour of months, whether by an exchange of letters or by attempting to assemble them all in one place. He understood then, truly, why the Weavers had become so indispensible to his ancestors, and how they had come to the situation they had were in now.
When the desert folk's part in the plan had been laid out, Reki had agreed without much fuss. Unbeknownst to the Sisters, he had been intending something very similar anyway. It had become clear to him that they were fighting a losing battle in Tchom Rin. If they were content to merely defend against the Aberrants, then eventually the Weavers would come up with some way to overwhelm them, whether by new types of Aberrant, by demons, or by sheer weight of numbers. It was prudent to attack while they still had strength to do so. His scouts had traced the Aberrants from Izanzai, seeking a source to strike at. All those who had returned came back with the same news. Though they could not find the exact place, they knew the general area, and it was in the vicinity of Adderach. Reki had not been surprised.
And so, while he had been in the midst of plotting an assault on Adderach, the Red Order came to suggest he did exactly that. Yet he could not shrug an uncomfortable suspicion that the Sisters thought he and his men expendable, and that they were merely intended as a decoy.
Well, let them think what they would. He would show them how desert folk could fight. And they had Sisters too, gathered from the dozens scattered across Tchom Rin, to defend them against Weavers and to get them through the barrier of misdirection surrounding the mountain monastery.
If Reki could dispose of the threat of Adderach, then they would no longer be beleaguered on two fronts, and they could turn all their attention to Igarach in the south. If the Sisters' intelligence was accurate, then they needed only to hold the Weavers off till next winter; and with Adderach out of the picture, it could be done.
And then there was Cailin's assertion that maybe, just maybe, getting the Sisters to that witchstone might be enough to end this war. That was a prize worth trying for.
He picked his way between campfires, returning the greetings of the soldiers as he neared his tent. He was discomfited tonight, a subtle notion that something was amiss. Posting extra guards and sentries had not eased his fears. He tried to shake it off, to return his mind to matters at hand, but instead he found himself drifting, as he so often did, towards thoughts of Asara.
Trust is an overrated commodity. One of Asara's favourite sayings. And she should know. For he was beginning to suspect that trusting her had been something of a mistake.
He had not known peace since she left him all that time ago, heading to Araka Jo on some secret purpose of her own. At first, he had been tormented by not knowing, mocked by possibilities; and then, when that had become too much to bear and he had sent his spymaster Jikiel to find answers, he had been racked with guilt at betraying her. But now things were even worse. He had thought his love could withstand anything that Jikiel might discover about his wife's past, but when the spymaster returned it was with news that was entirely unexpected.
Asara had no past.
His initial reaction was to dismiss this as evidence of the spymaster's limits. After all, he had to fail sometimes. But Reki had had experience of Jikiel's abilities, and he could not convince himself of it in the end. The spymaster was far too good to come up blank like that. If he could not dig out the truth of any matter, then Reki was convinced that there was no truth to be had.
But of Asara, he had found nothing. Her family name, which she had said was Arreyia, yielded no answers. It was a common enough name, for it was very old and had spread widely. Saramyr names ranged from those derived from archaic Quraal, like Asara and Lucia, Adderach and Anais, to more modern ones which arose after Saramyrrhic had evolved, like Kaiku and Mishani and Reki. There were other Asaras, of course, but none matching her description, her talents and her circumstances. Jikiel had heard of a spy called Asara tu Amarecha who had worked for the Libera Dramach in recent years, but he discounted her eventually. She was not desert-born, and Reki's Asara certainly was, unless a person could fake their bone structure, their skin colour, the shape of their eyes.
Jikiel had probed the limits of his spy network as the puzzle became more intriguing. Whispers and hints were followed up and came to nothing. He sought information from those who had met her in the Imperial Keep during the time she had first seduced Reki, but they had no answers to give. He asked in places of learning, for she had been incredibly knowledgeable and well-travelled for one so young and it hinted at a childhood of study or adventure or both, but no clues were found. He worked on the assumption that she had changed her name, maybe even that she had disguised herself with a different manner, different hairstyles and clothes. He was adept at seeing through such basic deceptions. And still, nothing.
Eventually, he had exhausted all possibilities and was forced, shamefully, to admit defeat. In the end, he could report only this: that the woman who was to become Reki's wife had not appeared to exist prior to that day she turned up at the Imperial Keep.
Reki was still thinking about the implications of that when he walked past the guards outside his tent – not noticing the wry grin that one gave to the other – and found Asara waiting there.
The tent was tall and wide enough to stand up in, but inside it was bare and spartan except for a thick bed of blankets and a lamp placed on the groundsheet. The lamp threw light up and onto the curves of his wife's face and body, capturing her as she half-turned at his entrance. The surprise at her presence and the breathtaking beauty of her robbed him of speech for a moment.
'I promised I would be back, Reki,' she said. 'Even though it meant I had to track you through the mountains.'
He opened his mouth, but she stepped towards him and put a finger to his lips. The scent of her and the touch of her skin was intoxicating.
'There will be time for questions later,' she said.
'We have to talk,' he murmured, some remnant memory of his previous sour thoughts inspiring the need to protest, however feebly.
'Afterward,' she said. She kissed him, and he gave up any more attempt to resist. He had yearned for her every instant she had been gone, and now that she was here he could not restrain himself. Their kisses turned to caresses and took them onto the bed, where they sated their passions with one another long into the night and past the dawn.