***

“If they’re here, they’d be in this hall,” Aarushi Aabha said, wrapping her hands around the bronze lock bar to the Keep’s records. She prepared her stance, ready to war it free, and yanked it to the side. The thick door creaked as it slid open.

The hall inside was a corridor descending in levels like an elaborate staircase. Rows and rows of shelving sat on each section of the walls, filled with slabs of clay detailing every possible record from taxes to war, conversations or raids between governors, even a few reports dating far back to the Rivers and their fall including the descriptions of how the spillover of their collapse created the Lost Valley south of Daksin. There were even codices of foreign lands and their magic. Desks waited on every level diving deep into the earth. Should an extension be needed for new records the hall was simply lengthened with the most commonly used volumes kept at the front. Janurana took a few tentative steps forward, half forgetting she didn’t need permission to cross every threshold inside a house into which she was already invited. Her eyes quickly focused and adjusted to the darkness as she searched for the end of the corridor. It was almost hypnotic. She closed her eyes again, taking a deep breath of the scent of aging knowledge only the nobles knew. 

Dhanur pulled a piece of pyrite and flint from her belt. She prepared to strike up a small wick on a nearby table, but noticed the last remnants of an oil lamp’s wick flickering away further into the hall. She walked down to light a much larger torch from the wall sending the warm light flooding into the hallway.

The light from the torch traveled far further than the lamp and knocked Janurana back two steps through the door. Just like the fires outside the walls, she was unable to pass through the new barrier. Instead of asking, she continued to gawk at the hall of records until called.

Dhanur watched Janurana stare, standing on her tiptoes as if she were peering over a cliff. She narrowed her eyes.

 “Come on,” Dhanur beckoned.

Janurana quickly pushed through the barrier while Dhanur twisted the torch to let the fire catch a hold all around it and blew out the lamp. 

“Shzahd?” Aarushi made her way to the enormous clay index slab sitting upon a pedestal worthy of its girth in the middle of the path leading down. “Shzahd? We would first begin by trying to remember your family name or a trade.”

Wishing she could continue staring deep into the abyss, Janurana took a quick glance around the room. There were no other nobles, nor even a guard. She caught eyes with Dhanur, who simply nodded. Janurana sighed. She shook her head, patted her temple, and picked at her cuticles. 

“Malihabar. That is my family name. But, that’s all I have.” Janurana sucked her teeth.

“You surely must remember something more, Shzahd. Perhaps you have your family seal?” asked Aarushi Aabha, offering a reassuring tone. 

“I would have mentioned!” Janurana snapped. An almost unearthly rage growled from her deepest depths. “A moment to—!” Janurana caught herself and bowed, hands pressed together and touching her forehead. “I apologize, Great Maharani. I’ve found myself emotional, excuse my outburst.”

Dhanur and Aarushi were taken aback by such vehement anger, sounding as if Janurana currently sat upon a throne with armies under her command ready to act out her rage. Regardless, Aarushi returned to the task at hand first with simple minded focus.

“I’ll start searching. Do you remember the region in which they resided?” Aarushi Aabha spoke softly, bending over to scrutinize the miniscule carvings in the clay. 

“How did you get Inside? How do you not have a seal?” Dhanur pulled Janurana aside.

“Do you?” Janurana shot back and yanked her arm away.

“Shzahd?” Aarushi called.

“Yes, my Maharani?”

“Do you remember the region in which they resided?” She repeated with the exact same tone.

Janurana’s eyes grew with the slow intake of breath as her lips tightened. ‘A few more nights in a bed would have been nice,’ she thought.

Aarushi Aabha’s cocked her head. With dull minded simplicity, searching the list of family names. Dhanur, holding the torch aloft, released a silent sigh at Aarushi Aabha’s vapid reaction.

“Maaaa…” Aarushi Aabha thought aloud, focusing on the index before her.

As she trailed through the names, her fingers gliding with poise and care, Janurana’s expression continued to tighten.

‘A few more days of peace. Another few nights in a bed without thinking of this,’ Janurana growled in her mind, miming the words with her lips.

She drifted back into the nearest shelf. When she bumped into it she felt herself shaking. She tried her best to calm herself, gripping her parasol for its comfort but dropped it as she knew any more twists might break it. As it left her hands fear and apprehension, anger and frustration, it all descended on her in an overwhelming wave. Her knees buckled and she collapsed, tablets from the shelf coming loose and clattering to the ground. 

“Whoa! Janurana, what?” Dhanur leapt to her side. 

She was ignored. Janurana drew in a heavy wheeze before catching her breath, bracing herself on the ground. As quickly as her episode came, it passed. She stood up, smoothing her clothes. 

Dhanur was frozen mid–reach, concern wrinkling her features. Then came confusion and annoyance. “What was that?” 

“I just wish,” Janurana sucked her teeth. “I told you I didn’t want to do this.” 

“What?” Dhanur’s mouth hung open while Janurana straightened her back and returned to her place beside the Maharaj, who was still hunched over the index, only looking over and waiting for the situation to resolve. She didn’t even register Janurana’s real name.

“All is well, my Maharani. Shall the search continue?” Janurana said with poise.

Dhanur stared, then glared, then growled. She angrily stormed over, ready to slam the torch into the Maharaj’s hand, but thought better of it. She lit the wick on the stand so Aarushi could actually see what she was reading, and glimpsed into her empty eyes. With a single slow blink she passed through the door, slotted the torch in a sconce outside, took up post in the middle of the doorway, and turned purposely away from the two high-born women inside.

“Now, where were we?” Janurana asked, giving Dhanur only the slightest mind.

While they worked, Dhanur bounced her leg and firmly crossed her arms as she sulked in the doorway. Occasionally she’d peek down the halls seeing only a single Keep guard staring her down and hang her head at the memories she had among the Keep’s halls. Instantly, her mind returned to Aarushi, who was only a few arm lengths away, but may as well have been in Uttara or south in the Rivers. They were so quiet behind her, so focused. She peeked behind only to see the Maharaj’s back, bent ever so slightly over the index. Janurana’s dangerously perfect posture was obvious as she lit a second wick and descended into the depths to find a referenced slab among the shelves. As she offered her findings to Aarushi Abba, Dhanur watched them pour over the increasingly old tablets. With them being side by side, they could have been mistaken for sisters. Their rounded features and thick black hair, Aarushi’s straight, Janurana’s so curly, their highborn posture and well–made clothes, the resemblance was striking, though Aarushi’s nose was sharper and Janurana’s brows thicker. Dhanur sighed.

Janurana’s polite smile remained, her episode long past. She was sucking her teeth often, though. 

Each slab the Maharaj and Kumari examined required more and more care as they discovered further and further damage to the information chiseled upon them. Sometimes entire tablets were missing, or whole rows gouged out from them. 

Janurana was happy to see little of her family mentioned. But as she further inspected the slabs, doing her best to brush off any flecks of dust from each one she brought, she noticed how odd they were. Janurana reached inside her sari, feeling her seal to remind herself what an old clay slab should feel like.

The ones she found looked and felt recently altered, and the Maharaj was even more confused.