Chapter 79
A brick-red kemben wrapped around her chest simply, yet it still revealed the lines of a well-trained body.
Her bare shoulders showed skin that was not pale like most Byzantines, but rather the warm brown tone typical of tropical lands.
Her long orange hair, an unusual color that Nirma had never seen on people from any region, was half tied back with a small sparkling hairpin beneath the light.
From her ears hung flower-shaped earrings that swayed gently whenever she moved.
Yet the thing that captured Nirma's attention the most, the thing that kept her left eye fixed in place, was the thin scar that stretched from the corner of Ashita's left eye to her temple.
A fine cut mark, long healed, whitened by time, yet still clear enough to be seen from several steps away.
When Ashita smiled, the scar slightly pulled the corner of her eye, creating a unique expression, a mixture of beauty and bitterness, of softness and painful experience that could never be explained with words alone.
Nirma felt a strange urge to ask about the scar, to learn the story behind it.
But she held herself back, because she knew this was not the time for personal questions, that there were far greater matters they had to face together.
Beside Ashita, Tegara Wicaksana stood with a posture that was more relaxed yet still alert, like a soldier resting but ready to rise at any moment.
A checkered jarik cloth wrapped around his waist down to his knees, revealing strong calves and well-trained leg muscles.
Meanwhile a sleeveless vest made of thick brown linen left his broad chest open, revealing muscles shaped by intense training, perhaps training that was never taught in any Byzantine military academy.
A thin batik headband circled his forehead, giving him a strangely semi-formal appearance, half rebel and half noble.
At his waist, on both the right and left sides, were two objects that immediately made Arya widen his eyes even further.
A small kris with a finely carved hilt, and a short golok which, though simple, was clearly sharp enough to end someone's life with a single slash.
A simple bead necklace hung around his neck, swaying slightly with each breath he took.
On his feet, just like Ashita, he wore only simple wooden sandals that lightly tapped against the stone floor with an unintended rhythm.
Nirma calculated their ages in her head, comparing them with her own age of twenty-two and Arya's twenty-four.
Ashita might be around twenty or twenty-one.
Tegar one year younger, perhaps twenty.
Kretek.
The sound came from Nirma's left hand, one after another, six times in succession, like dry branches snapping beneath the steps of a giant in a silent forest.
Arya beside her turned quickly, his eyes widening when he saw how Nirma's knuckles had turned white, how the veins on the back of her hand bulged like cords pulled too tight, how her entire body suddenly stiffened like a stone statue carved by the most merciless sculptor.
He had never seen Nirma like this.
Not once in the four years they had worked together.
Not during the dozens of nights they had shared danger and secrets.
Not during the hundreds of interrogations and chases they had endured side by side.
There was something in Nirma's left eye now, something he had never seen before, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand even though he did not fully understand what was happening.
Ashita, the girl with the thin scar on her face, smiled.
Not a smile of victory.
Not a mocking smile.
But a smile that was strangely more terrifying than either of those things.
A smile that said she had waited for this moment for years.
That she had prepared herself for this meeting since she had been small enough to believe in bedtime stories.
That she had imagined thousands of times what it would feel like to stand before the woman who had taken both of her parents in a single night.
To stand before the sixteen-year-old girl who had been too young to kill, yet had done it coldly.
To stand before Nirmala Surdaya who now stood before her with clenched fists and narrowed eyes filled with hatred she could not hide.
"Do you remember, Nirma?"
Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, yet each word fell like a large stone into a calm pond, creating ripples that would never stop spreading.
"Do you remember that night?
The night when I was only six years old.
The night when my father and mother took me for a picnic by the lakeside.
The night when I saw a teenage girl standing before them with a pistol in her hand.
The night when I heard two gunshots and saw two bodies fall to the ground with gaping holes in their chests?"
Tegar beside Ashita remained silent.
His face showed no expression, but his hand automatically moved toward the hilt of the kris at his waist, a reflexive motion showing that he was ready for whatever might happen, that he would protect Ashita with his life if necessary.
Arya, on the other side, also prepared himself.
His sword was already half drawn from beneath his robe.
His eyes moved quickly between Nirma and Ashita, trying to understand what was truly happening, trying to process the information that had just exploded before him like a bomb he never knew existed.
Nirma, whom he had always known as the toughest investigator in Constantinople, Nirma who remained calm even in the most dangerous situations, Nirma who never showed weakness in front of anyone, now stood with a trembling body, with hurried breaths, with her left hand clenching tighter and tighter until her joints cracked again.
Kretek.
Kretek.
Kretek.
As if she were trying to crush her own bones.
Nirma's left fingers slowly loosened, one by one, like someone who had just released a deadly grip from a cliff after hanging for hours.
Arya beside her remained in a ready stance, his sword still half drawn, but he could feel that the tension inside the room had slightly changed, no longer as thick as a moment ago when that dark past had exploded before them all.
Ashita still stood where she was, her smile unchanged, her gaze still piercing.
Yet something moved at the corner of her eyes, something that might be interpreted as surprise, or perhaps admiration, or perhaps respect she was unwilling to admit.
Ten seconds passed in silence, filled only by the sound of the breathing of six people facing one another in that dimly lit room.
Ten seconds in which Nirma and Arya did not take their eyes off Ashita and Tegar.
Ten seconds in which Ashita and Tegar also did not move, only staring, measuring, trying to read what was hidden behind each other's eyes.
"How is King Henry I?"
Nirma's voice came out suddenly, breaking the silence like a stone thrown against a glass window.
Arya turned quickly, his eyes widening, unable to believe that in a situation like this, in the middle of a meeting between the murderer of someone's parents and the long-lost child of the victims, Nirma instead asked about the King of England who ruled in the year 1101.
That faint smile still adorned Ashita's face when she finished answering Nirma's question about Henry I.
A smile that was never completely warm, yet never completely cold either.
A smile that always stood on the boundary between friendship and hostility, between understanding and threat.
To be continued…