Eighteen now, taller, wiser and far more experienced than she had been when she had left home, the woman now known to the world as Silver, sat on a fallen log somewhere east of Khand. She had long since adopted the grey and black clothing which would become her customary garb but had only recently acquired the kukri's which she would use for her defence for many years to come. Most importantly, to her mind at least, she had acquired the very thing she had come to the borderlands of Khand to find.
It had taken her four years to come this far, the need for coin and food having slowed her journey considerably. It had taken a further six months to gain what she had come for. It had been easier than she had expected. The men here, unlike those in the more northern areas, had little interest in her money or trinkets. What they had asked for was altogether more easy to supply.
After all, she had never put much value on the act of coupling. Intimacy of the physical variety had never struck her as particularly intimate or even significant. It fulfilled a need in both parties, supplied some release and offered a good degree of pleasure, but beyond that it held no real worth to her. Personal truths were a much more precious thing to her mind and that is exactly what she had been seeking. So, after several months of learning the language, both spoken and written, from these men she had, as had become her way, disappeared into the night, leaving not a trace that she had ever existed.
Now, several days journey away, in a secluded spot near a river, she finally felt secure enough to complete her mission. Slipping her hand into her satchel, she withdrew the letter that she had taken from the house in which she grew up. She stared at the stained and faded envelope for the longest time, heart in her throat as she imagined what she might read within. She turned it over and over, hands shaking from anticipation - or was that nervousness? - as she gazed upon the seal, broken long before she had taken possession of it. Pulling herself together, she eventually flipped it open, carefully sliding the page from within and, sucking in a lung full of air to steady herself, set her eyes to the words that she had only just finished learning how to read.
Rajana, the pleasantly curling script spelled out.
Forgiveness we beg for sending you away as we do. It is not our will. It is not our whim. It is the last wish of your mother and done for your protection.
Hashima, she was named, our daughter. Dutiful, beautiful, but possessed of a rebelliousness that we could never entirely shake loose from her nature. Wed to a great Warlord, a man of power and strength, youngest of his brides but only tenth in his eyes. She grew lonely and dispassionate.
Then, into her husband's possession, came your father. Strong and warm. He gave her attention. He gave her sweet words and promises. He gave her warm nights in return for her setting him free. But those promises were never kept; when he fled, he did so alone.
Her crime discovered with the birth of her daughter, a tiny babe of the wrong hues, her husband sentenced her to death for the shame she had brought upon him, as is his right.
She first named you Rajana, a star fallen to the sand, the only true love of her short life. We took you at her request but would not have been allowed to keep you. Her husband wanted you gone and we have not the wealth or strength to prevent it. To see you slain before our eyes or to send you away to distant lands; this was our choice.
We give you over to the care of your father. Although his actions have been less than honourable, we can only hope that he will take pity on the child he helped create and hold you as close as she would have done.
Although you would have been cherished here, we beg of you: do not come home, for this place holds naught but death should he find you. Do not look back, but instead forgive us, for we lose not one daughter this day but two.
Be brave, Rajana, be strong. The world can be a place of cold and cruelty, but you have within you the blood of warriors, the heat of the dunes and the heart of Hashima!
There was no signature, no way to tell who had written this missive. A grandparent, she surmised, given the choice of words.
Silver wiped a tear from her eye as she gently folded the letter, slipping it back into the envelope and secreting it away in her satchel for reading again at a later date. So, that was the name she had once held. That was why she had been sent to Rohan and not, as the woman would have it, because her real mother despised her too. For good or ill, it had been done as an act of love by people she would never know, and although the first fourteen years of her life had been horrendous, she had come into her own since then. Now she was free. Now she was her own woman. Now she was walking the world with her head held high no matter how much her heart quaked and quailed. It may not have been the life envisioned for her by Hashima or these nameless others, but it was hers and she'd be damned if she let anyone take it from her!
