Nineteen: The Guileless
The petitioner’s bench was made of cold, hard ebony, as hard as the eyes of the panel of women in black that stretched out before her. Though Zohar knew that the members of the asahnim were ancient, their contemplative visages did not loudly announce the tale of their age. Their faces were partially hidden behind their translucent veils, but Zohar could see they were angular, and largely unlined, but their eyes—a storm and a sea expanded behind those eyes and Zohar knew that they witnessed mysteries she could never hope to understand. It was difficult to distinguish one from the other. All thirteen of them seemed to be duplicates of the others, except the one in the center. The woman Zohar knew must be Asahnanat, chief among them, wore a thick woven shawl of white wool over her shoulders. She seemed larger, her eyes darker, and her features harsher and more pronounced. Like the veils covering their mouths and noses, the tiashels on their heads were black. Obscuring the rest of their faces made their eyes that much more menacing.
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