The going is still messy and wet, even if it isn't miserably cold anymore. The Jehannans are used to shifting ground-the trick is to never stay still, or else you'll sink or trip or get stabbed. Saleh has his own version: He can step lighter than some of the girls from his years of living in the mountains. You'd think living on huge rocks would be easy, at least with moving around, but sand has to come from somewhere.

Gerik finishes cleaning his weapons for the day, and he's about halfway back to his tent when he hears Saleh talking with (of all people) Neimi.

"-with a bow when I was younger," he finishes. "I came into magic rather late; most show signs at ten or twelve, but I was nearly fifteen."

"Really? It must have been..."

This explains why the sage is such a dead-eye shot-even when Gerik first met him, Saleh could hit nine out of ten times. Lute is already matching him in power, but she's still missing about a third of her shots (which she's always quick to mention in regards to how much she improved from the last battle, until she gets distracted by some random plant or insect and Gerik can finally leave).

"-couple of times?"

"No..." His voice has the edge of a politely forced smile. "It's been years since I last held a bow."

"Well, you never forget something like archery." Gerik sees Neimi smile encouragingly as she hands over her unstrung bow and quiver. "Let's see... Try to hit that ash branch over there."

Neimi points in the typical archer's manner-looking first, then swinging her arm out and holding it perfectly in line with her shoulder. It's so fluid that most people can't tell it from normal people, but Innes points that way, too.

Saleh takes a look as well, closing his right eye and focusing for a moment. Then he loops the string onto the bottom end, braces the bow against his legs, and carefully bends the bow until he can loop the other end around the top.

"Huh. I didn't know you were left-handed," Neimi remarks when he's done, which surprises Gerik because the bow is in Saleh's right hand. Unless she's suddenly forgotten the concept of right and left, a left-handed archer probably doesn't mean what Gerik thinks.

Speaking of suddenly, he's remembered that he's in the vicinity of the target. So he barges out noisily on purpose-never, ever startle someone with a strung bow in their hand-then gives the two of them a grin. "Hey there!"

"Hello, Gerik!" Neimi waves.

Gerik pretends to just notice Saleh holding the bow and raises a brow. "Don't tell me we're running out of tomes?"

"Oh, don't worry," she assures him, as well as the small crowd forming behind her and Saleh. "Saleh used to be an archer, and I wanted to see how good of a shot he is."

"Well..." He casts around for the rest of his sentence. Saleh has to be a decent shot at least, but he can't help feeling the habitual nervousness that comes with being between an archer and his target. Nobody likes a two-inch piece of metal stuck somewhere, and archers are trained to aim for vital areas. "Let me get out of the way first."

He joins the other ten or so people and waits.

"My gear won't fit you, but did you use a shooting tab?"

"No," Saleh shakes his head. "Only the snipers had enough for archers' gear, and the rest of us just made do."

The statement is brief, informative, and very suspicious-the scars on Saleh's wrists are old enough to match up, but they're pretty clearly from a knife even if they're where a bowstring would have hit.

Neimi winces. "Didn't that hurt?"

"For the first few months, yes, but Grandmother healed the worst of the cuts." He takes an arrow from the quiver, nocks it, and exhales. On his inhale he raises the bow, draws it, and aims in one fluid motion, closing his right eye again to aim. Three seconds later, right between his exhale and the arrow's flight, Gerik thinks he sees a blue thread flashing to connect target and weapon.

The arrow nearly splits the branch, but doesn't quite go through despite all the violent swinging. Saleh heads over to it, almost unaware of the spatters of applause while he grabs the branch and carefully works the arrow out of its landing spot.

"Master Saleh." Innes strides over. "I cannot believe you were a mere hunter."

"Whyever not, Sir?" Vanessa asks.

"It's preposterous for a hunter to go without some sort of protection," Innes informs them, "even with scarce resources. Hunters need their hands for more than shooting."

Saleh sighs. "Caer Pelyn snipers train from childhood, like most archers; but they do not use protective gear, for it would signify a necessity for weapons rather than desire to master the bow. Every cut that marrs their skin is a reminder that they have not yet succeeded. When they have tamed the bow at last, and are freed from their bodily injuries, they are given an Orion's Bolt and their first true target."

Saleh's never been bad with words, but there's something different about his voice now: Everything is so perfectly fluid that he has to have memorized the speech, either himself or from someone else telling him every day for years.

Neimi's bow is a war-bow-it's taken down deer, enemy horses, and maelduin in one or two shots. But when Saleh inspects his arm, it only bears the faintest of reddened skin. He unstrings the bow, returns the arrow to the quiver, and hands everything back to Neimi. "I trained for five years before I became a mage."

And then he leaves.

"Any other talents you've got hidden away, Saleh?" Gerik asks when they're among the last to get to bed and the fires are dying down. He's trying to be casual about it, but he has a feeling that he already knows the answer.

"No." A sheepish chuckle. "With my magic turning up so late... I was terribly behind the other mages."

"You? Lagging?"

"Not in progress," Saleh clarifies. "In preparation. It only takes a few years to learn magic; sooner if we're pressed for time, like Ewan. But magical combat is far different from normal combat... Especially from the training of a sniper."

Gerik listens to him when he changes the subject. How they started by shooting at targets for two years, then smaller targets for another year, then moving ones. How they were sent out from thirteen to sixteen with six arrows for the first three months, then four, then two, and then a single arrow for the last three months and a full year. How every shot counted once it left the bow whether it hit the target, or the right target, or missed completely... And how he'd had to give it all up just before his sixth year.

He tries to stifle the spurt of flame, but it grows and soon Gerik can't see in the white blaze. The heat knocks Gerik over while someone screams-and when he shakes off the painful green haze, a charred skeleton swims into his vision.

Saleh is checking his arms when he finishes, and Gerik finally decides to ask. "So, what does Caer Pelyn use in their bowstrings-wire?"

"Linen, cotton... the usual." He rubs at his wristbands like he's trying to erase the underlying cuts from his skin. "It took me a while to tell Grandmother."

It's not rare for people to learn another weapon, except for the myrmidons devoted to their blades. He's learned to use axes in a matter of weeks-but he never had to give up swords. "Why?"

"I was... angry." Saleh smiles, not sincerely, and it cuts into Gerik's skin like a forlorn desert wind. "I was seventeen and angry, and I didn't want anyone pitying me or forcing me to talk about it. Why else would young people not talk about things?"

Gerik is surprised when he laughs, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing since Saleh's smile turns more genuine. "Did she make you talk?"

"No." Saleh has a relieved sort of gratefulness. "What was there that she didn't know? I'd lost my parents and wasted years on a useless talent."

Gerik knows he's digging himself deeper, but he keeps going because things are starting to click into place in the back of his head-every cut that marrs their skin... "Why you, of all people?"

His jaw tightens, then relaxes. "It was hard to let go of five years. And I was young, and irrational."

Gerik frowns and grabs Saleh's wrist when he starts up the chafing again. "Stop doing that, Saleh. You're gonna..."

He eyes his restrained hand in confusion. "Going to what? They're scars."

Gerik hasn't figured out what that last part would have been. But that mask Saleh's been hiding under is coming off now, really coming off instead of just slipping, and for some reason... he doesn't like it. He forces a laugh. "Sorry. Reminds me of someone with sunburn, trying to peel the skin away too early."

Saleh's eyes take on the gold of the blistering Jehannan sun. "Gerik, I don't need rescuing anymore."

For all the looming hurricanes in Saleh's voice, there's a drawn-bow tenseness in his shoulders that Gerik can feel all the way down to the wrist he's holding. He feels like he's an archer's target again, trying not to get shot-only this time he's walking the line between making Saleh mad, or pretending to believe him when he says he doesn't need rescuing.

He takes a breath, and he doesn't let go.

Notes: Terribly sorry for the wait. Also, I don't advise anyone trying to shoot a bow without protection because it hurts like crazy. This was artistic license, and it should stay that way. I do NOT want to be the reason for someone permanently damaging something because they took a fictional concept seriously.

This chapter took a while to get right. I didn't want Saleh to be the stereotypical (former) cutter who's emo and wants a hug, because self-mutilation doesn't work that way. Worse was that I was never satisfied with the last sentence-that is, until I took a break and listened to The Killers' "When You Were Young." The music makes you want to dance like an idiot, but then the lyrics come in and you start getting nostalgic in a bad way, so you end up feeling restless and uncomfortable. I tried to put in that feeling during Gerik's talk with Saleh.