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I watched her and listened, her words closing overlinted like an owl’s, and her face was calm as the moon

“Now, you listen Before they come to separate us, I must tell you the

story of my apprenticeship, so that you can come to knohat I knohat you would have learned on your own, and your sisters too, if the King had not landed on us like a rock dropped froht As it is, you must take what you can from these old bones”

The girl stopped her tale with a press of her gentle lips, looking off into the night with eyes of shadow and woven web

“You stop and start like a stubborn tortoise,” the boy said flatly, “always pulling your head in just when I want to hear ”

The girl size, but could not quitethe last vestiges of the roasted dove

“But I must rest a little We can sleep for an hour, then I will continue” She paused, blushing to the tips of her teets cold here at night”

She ainst her For long ainst each other as though the one had not slept every night of his life beside a brother or a sister, and the other had not spent every night of hers in blosso her hair like river rushes, until finally, she was asleep, and then, the softening of her limbs a kind of permission, drifted away himself

But it was not very long until he was shaking her awake, thirsty for her stories as a beggar in an endless desert

THE TALE OF MY LONG YEARS OF STUDY IS TOO ether, ht, the last night of irlhood It is a good story to tell here in the shadowed corners of the earth, in this deep-within-deep place, where the sun falters

My , and her e there was no one to teach ive me a place in the tribe Instead, I was sent away, packed into a cart with hides and jewelry to pay for ht by the witch-woht as a fire ripping through the steppes My li across the wide ees hardly affected me

When I arrived,Thurayya was very strict—she distrusted nness, my red hair, and my simple name, andbut serve her; sweep her hut, polish her blades, carry her water, co to me I slept outside the hut, under the stars and cushioned by dry grass Only in the second year did she allow in irl? I don’t know But I could not bear to bring you up, or Quiver, or Sheath, that way Perhaps I a as my old mistress

The first night of that second year, I lay stiffly against her old, y white hair turned almostat me, she suddenly spoke

“Listen, Bent-Bow, you little goat See if you can’t learn so yaks…”

OPEN YOUR EARS, AND LET THE SKY IN