Lessons in Archery ... and Life (Attn: Tia/Roan)

[Jack]

Tia listened as Cassie explained how to accommodate for a longer shot. She was about to add to the Novice’s list, but anything she had to say dissipated with Cassie’s admission to killing a Whitecloak. Somehow, explaining what happened offered some sort of odd calm that allowed the woman to fire off a good shot. What do you say to someone who admitted to killing another human being?

The Accepted studied her pupil, and picked up on telltale signs of grief. It was clear Cassie felt guilt for killing the man, even though he would have very likely killed both her and her brother had she not killed him first. Tia understood guilt. The Novice hadn’t moved her arm after she fired, still holding the bow straight. Stepping up, Tia reached over and gently guided the woman’s arm so that it and her bow hung at her side.

“Novice, you did what you must to protect your brother and you. You offered him a more merciful death than he would have given you if he’d known your ability to channel,” Tia explained. She shook her head, “Taking another’s life is never easy, but there are times when we may not have a choice.

“I know the guilt you bare. When the Seanchan attacked, a friend wanted to show me his new talent for Traveling. Without realizing it, we walked right into a Seanchan camp. They collared both of us,” Tia explained, her voice trailing off as she reached up and touched her own neck. “I was forced to kill innocents. One was a child no more than ten years of age. The Sul’dam used my ability against my will, forced me to kill for her pleasure and her goal.” She swallowed back the knot she felt form in her throat, refusing to let her emotions get the better of her. . .not here, not now.

Tia met Cassie’s gaze, “You killed to defend the life of one you hold dear, and there is honor in that. I killed at the whim and whimsy of a woman with no regard for life. Taking the life of another should never be easy, but I would trade my experience for yours except I wish no one else endure what I did while I was under the Sul’dam’s control.”

Concern was etched on Tia’s face and she spoke with a gentleness that came with understanding, “Coming to terms with the grief and guilt you hold is not easy. I know I am haunted each and every night with nightmares. Perhaps I am not one to offer advice, but I would say be gentle with yourself Cassie Majere of Tar Valon. You killed in defence of your life and life of your kin. This does not make you a killer, and if there is any peace in what I’ve said, so much the better.”

Cassie was almost listless for a moment, her sins laid bare to the world. She hadn’t opened up about it except to the Mistress of Novices, and only then after so much emotional trauma had oozed out of her like some toxin.

Those eyes still haunted her, dull, almost soulless, eyes belonging to a boy who would have killed either she or her brother without a second thought.

She’d stabbed him once, found a kidney on her first mark, and kneed him in the groin. She could have left him there to bleed out...

... and then Tia spoke. And she listened. And her heart nearly died then and there when the other woman told her story.

The Seanchan at Walker Manor were so civilized, so accommodating, and respectful of the fact that Cassie could channel when she was brought there by her uncle. When she came to the Grey Tower, however, and heard of the stories of not only the last Seanchan Siege but one that preceded it, When she had confronted her roommate Ellessya, a flaming Seanchan princess who had come with her from Walker Manor, about it, the woman did the only sensible thing: she slapped Cassie and admonished the Majere on jumping to conclusions that all Seanchan were the same.

But there was a difference. Tia had been the victim, of both this batch of Seanchan, and her own Talent.

“I had a choice, Accepted,” she whispered. “He was already down, on his knees, because I had stabbed him in the kidney. He was no threat, not for a boy his age. I slit his throat because it was there.”

She turned then, her amethyst eyes back on the target. She was quick, the arrow already nocked and the bow raised. She let out a breath as she released the arrow, the missile leaving the bow without hesitation. Cassie didn’t drop her arm as the arrow flew, aimed slightly toward the left, and hit a quarter-finger below the target center.

“What I regret most is trying to save his life, trying to stop him from bleeding out, and not worrying about my brother first,” she said harshly. “The worse part is he will forgive me and say I have a gentle heart, when in truth was that for one instant I saw all the lives that boy could have taken and the families he would leave grief stricken or destroyed, and acted.”

She dropped her bow, letting the weapon clatter to the ground.”And then I regretted it, and I see his face, waking and asleep. After Ellessya is asleep, I drink myself into a stupor hoping I don’t dream, but they still come.”