More or less that is the idea.  That souls are connected--this is the insight Kellhus offers in TTT iirc, but is an insight he doesn't seem to possess prior to the circumfix--and Kellhus and Moenghus both did not realize how by 'forcing' men and women to love them, that they allowed them inside as well.  Look above, Esmenet's perspective has seized upon three core Dunyain principles, the since of everything collapsing to a single PLACE, The Absolute, and The Unconditioned. She got the right words and roughly understands the concepts--Kellhus doesn't understand that he is leaking himself into Serwe and Esmenet.  Moenghus did not understand that he leaked himself into Cnaiur.

The Firewall description seems like a really good one.  Kellhus seeks to dominate, when Serwe and Esmenet willingly submit to his domination he in turn is unknowningly submitted to them as well.  His methods undo him.

And note that Esmenet pulls off the exact same trick in TTT when she is interroraped by the Consult.

Later in TWP, Esmenet reads Kellhus' exact thought,  as "am I strong enough." and grasps the trial to come before Kellhus says anything.

It's possible this "leaking" is a unique blindness to the Dunyain.  Kellhus labels Esmenet as Defective (after he remembers the way the Dunyain opened faces of 'defectives') for possessing both Animal and Intellect, for being dual natured instead of single natured--but in that memory, Kellhus experiencing an Animal nature reaction of revulsion, he represses the Animal side and prefers to believe this means he has mastered or eliminated it.  It's possible that the Dunyain repressing their Animal side becomes so automatic that they think they are no longer dual natured--in other words they are blind to it.  And it is through this vector of emotions that Kellhus is blind to that he is fully vulnerable and exposed to the 'hacks' preformed by Serwe and Esmenet.

Ala the endlessly, ceaselessly repetitive neuropath, Bakker repeats these revelations several times in the next esmenet sections, including her self-recrimination that she can't sustain this particular sensation described above and below.

The past crumbled, and the future evaporated. Her every heartbeat belonged, it seemed, to a different heart. She could remember the accumulating signs of death, wasting, as though her body were a candle notched with the watches— a light to read by. She could remember wondering at Serwë, who’d become a stranger in Kellhus’s arms. She could remember wondering at the stranger who walked with her own limbs.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8759-8761). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

His clear eyes reminded her of who she was: Esmenet. She drew up her waterskin and extended it with unwavering hands. She watched him pour her muddy life into a stranger’s mouth. And when the last of it trailed like spittle, she understood— she apprehended— and with a brilliance no less ruthless than the sun.

There’s more than me.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8765-8768). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

They alone spoke. They alone gazed and understood that they gazed. They alone loved, across all lands and all waters, to the world’s very pale. It seemed all passion, all knowing, was here, ringing in one penultimate note. There was no way to explain or to fathom the sensation. It wasn’t like a flower. It wasn’t like a child’s careless laugh.

They had become the measure … Absolute. Unconditioned.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8780-8783). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Grief for his compassion. Delusion for his revelation. Sin so he might forgive. Degradation so he might raise her high. He was the origin. He was the destination. He was the from where and the to which, and he was here!

Here!

It was mad, it was impossible, it was true.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8807-8810). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Men, Kellhus had once told her, were like coins: they had two sides. Where one side of them saw, the other side of them was seen, and though all men were both at once, men could only truly know the side of themselves that saw and the side of others that was seen— they could only truly know the inner half of themselves and the outer half of others.

thesis, antithesis

The measure of wisdom, Kellhus had said, was found in the distance between these two selves.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8886-8887). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

  That last bit would be a synthesis yielded.

For Kellhus, there was no distance between seeing and being seen. He alone was whole. And what was more, he somehow stood from without and saw from within. He made whole …

She bent her head back and gazed up into his eyes.

You’re here, aren’t you? You’re with me … inside.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8890-8893). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

But this Scylvendi…It was though be bore ancient calamities upon his brow.

If we take DA to be a prophet of the past, then he is making a prophecy here.  Note also that Cishaurim sorcery generates from the brow as well, so this is an association with that as well and perhaps ties into the prophecy.  And of course the similarity/synonym relation between calamity and catastrophe, with the latter being what the word Scylvendi means.

Throughout her entire life she’d looked upon things and people that stood apart. She was Esmenet, and that was her bowl, the Emperor’s silver, the Shriah’s man, the God’s ground, and so on. She stood here, and those things there. No longer. Everything, it seemed, radiated the warmth of his skin. The ground beneath her bare feet. The mat beneath her buttocks. And for a mad instant, she was certain that if she raised her fingers to her cheek, she would feel the soft curls of a flaxen beard, that if she turned to her left, she would see Esmenet hovering motionless over her rice bowl.

Somehow, everything had become here, and everything here had become him.

Kellhus!

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 7344-7349). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

This occurs just moments after Kellhus scrapes clean the parchment of the Tusk (let's just bracket and ignore that Kellhus thought a few pages earlier that he scraped Serwe's soul clean as though it were parchment and that Serwe's perspective believes she has been supernaturally healed after that event).

This occurs just moments after Esmenet sees Kellhus haloes for the first time (though she doesn't describe them as haloes).

Note that this is the best explanation we have so far for how Kellhus does what he does with Serwe's heart.  What Esmenet experiences here is that she becomes Kellhus for a moment, that they are the same (we're even cued by the text to think of Esmenet's heart, her beating heart is her only connection to her physical body in this moment). 

And in this presentation as Esemenet sees it, we are presented with a dialectic, thesis, "Everything had become here;" antithesis, "and everything here had become him;" synthesis, "Kellhus!"

Or as presented before the author simplified it, "She stood here, and those things there.;" antithesis, "Everything, it seemed, radiated the warmth of his skin;" synthesis, "if she turned to her left, she would see Esmenet hovering motionless over her rice bowl."

Esmenet has her world rocked because the otherness of things is refuted and in accepting the refutation she becomes Kellhus for a moment.

The text continues:

She breathed in. Her heart battered her breast.

He scraped the passage clean!

In a single exhalation, it seemed, a lifetime of condemnation slipped from her, and she felt shriven, truly shriven. One breath and she was absolved! She experienced a kind of lucidity, as though her thoughts had been cleansed like water strained through bright white cloth. She thought she should cry, but the sunlight was too sharp, the air too clear for weeping.

Everything was so certain.

He scraped the passage clean!

Then she thought of Achamian.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 7349-7356). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Note that Achamian seemingly collapses this connection between Esmenet and Kellhus, in a sense it indicates why Kellhus needs Serwe to die rather than Esmenet, because Serwe can maintain the synthesis longer, 'is she strong enough?' and Esmenet's connection is disrupted by her connection to Achamian

Also there's a suggestion here that Esmenet is experiencing Kellhus' thoughts, 'a kind of lucidity, as though her thoughts had been cleansed like water strained through bright white cloth,' and Kellhus is nothing if not "certain."

And note the experience Esmenet goes through in her 'single exhalation.'  She is absolved.  The timeline/dialectic here is, "Kellhus erases"  "Esmenet is absolved" "Kellhus rewrites Esmenet" (I'm taking the archaic root of shriven which is related to 'to write', which is probably an absurd reach by any standard).

I don't think Kellhus realizes what really happens for Esmenet, he thinks she suddenly sees him as a god because he deepened his voice and looked at her with a different expression, but Esmenet sees him as a God because she experiences what it is like to be Kellhus.

And there's also the possibility that Kellhus in this moment really does 'heal' Esmenet's soul, perhaps that is the answer to the dialectic of esmenet, the synthesis, if you will. 

Esmenet Stands Apart from all things not Esmenet, Kellhus is all things in one including Esmenet, Esmenet is absolved/forgiven/shriven/healed.

But it's momentary at best, she later thinks that she cannot rinse away the sin, as she experiences the sin rinsing away when she's unified with all things/Kellhus.

I think there might be more than meets the eye in this passage, but I actually disagree with the section you put in bold being significant. That specific sentence looks to me like a man in desperation, finding similarities between a woman and child that might have looked like someone he knew in the past. Or perhaps finding a kindred spirit in the common flight of a common enemy.

Other sections, like the original passage where the arrow misses, sees like it could be fate. How hard would it be to hit a stationary man on a horse? That said, later, when more arrows miss, I think that could just be difficulties hitting a moving target from horseback and much less likely to be some kind of intervention.

I didn't think that the 'whore of fate' was actually a goddess, more of an idea to describe chance, but turns out I forgot about the Goddess Anagke (The Goddess of fortune, also known as "the Whore of Fate").

In terms of difficulty, Cnaiur is drawing arrows and firing back and hitting a target every time.  I think the passage I bolded is important, because besides the symbolic significance of a woman having just given birth, that bolded passage is what indicates some supernatural connection, any warrior who has lived as long as Cnaiur has been one of Fate's "lovers" for many years.  In this world there is no chance or happenstance or lucky breaks, Cnaiur has been surviving for a long time for a reason. And his recognition in that moment seems to indicate the woman is more than what she seems.

**
As for the assertion it was Gilgaol, that doesn't make sense because Cnaiur enters this scene on the basis of FLEEING from battle and war, I think in those circumstances, Gilgaol wouldn't be riding him as he probably does in other circumstances.  However WHY did Cnaiur flee?  He fled to save Serwe.  Again, not a circumstance that Gilgaol would favor (saving a woman, a whore, why should a warrior care about such things?).  However it does seem like a circumstance that FATE might favor, Cnaiur risking himself and his reputation and SACRIFICING the battle for a whore (like fate).

And also note after this sequence, when Kellhus meets Cnaiur he discovers that Cnaiur's face has been wiped completely blank and that he can no longer read him.  this plays into why he keeps Cnaiur around, though Kellhus does a blindingly obvious post-hoc rationalization that it is pity he feels (look at the text, Kellhus doesn't have a thought that could be construed as pity, he recognizes a blank face and then does a rationalization that he feels pity and stops thinking about the disturbing fact of the blank-faceness (heuristic compression?)).  The only other instance we can really 'assume' that Kellhus encounters a face he cannot read is Sorweel who was blessed by a god...

And if you really want to get into conspiracy theories, Cnaiur is blessed by Fate so he can save Serwe.  Fate causes Cnaiur to draw the battle to the encampment of the Scarlet Spires, which turns the defeat at Anwurat into a nominal victory.  Fate doing this allows Cnaiur to save Serwe.  By Saving Serwe, Fate preserves Serwe for the upcoming Circumfix.  By blessing Cnaiur, Fate causes Kellhus to preserve the only character who can do battle with a Skinspy and defeat them in open combat (at the Circumfix).  Fate, by getting Cnaiur to abandon/sacrifice the battle, assures a later victory at the Circumfix.  Because Kellhus intended to kill Cnaiur but was MOVED by something he did not grok (just like when he WITNESSED the rape of Serwe).  Kellhus being typical blind Kellhus attributes this Movement to world-born emotions (like pity), when the reader should be thinking it is possible that Kellhus is being manipulated by the Gods in these instances, yet his arrogance blinds him to their presence and maneuvering.

Serwe references the horns again at the beginning of the interro rape sequence.

The White-Luck Warrior
Frontispiece:
The heavens, the sun, the whole of nature is a corpse.  Nature is given over to the spiritual, and indeed to spiritual subjectivity, thus the course of nature is everywhere broken in upon by miracles.
   —HEGEL, LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY III

Chapter One: The Meorn Wilderness
Without rules, madness.  Without discipline, death.
   —NANSUR MILITARY MARCH

Chapter Two: The Istyuli Plains
We belittle what we cannot bear.  We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies.  The best way to secure one’s own deception is to accuse others of deceit.
   —HATATIAN, EXHORTATIONS

It is not so much the wisdom of the wise that saves us from the foolishness of the fools as it is the latter’s inability to agree.
   —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN

Chapter Three: The Meorn Wilderness
The bondage we are born into is the bondage we cannot see.  Verily, freedom is little more than the ignorance of tyranny.  Live long enough, and you will see: Men resent not the whip so much as the hand that wields it.
   —TRIAMIS I, JOURNALS AND DIALOGUES

Chapter Four: The Istyuli Plains
All ropes come up short if pulled long enough.  All futures end in tragedy.
   —CENEIAN PROVERB

And they forged counterfeits from our frame, creatures vile and obscene, who hungered only for violent congress.  These beasts they loosed upon the land, where they multiplied, no matter how fierce the Ishroi who hunted them.  And soon Men clamoured at our gates, begging sanctuary, for they could not contend with the creatures.  “They wear your face,” the penitents cried. “This calamity is your issue.” But we were wroth, and turned them away, saying, “These are not our Sons.  And you are not our Brothers.”
   —ISÛPHIRYAS

Chapter Five: The Western Three Seas
As death is the sum of all harms, so is murder the sum of all sins.
   —CANTICLES 18:9, THE CHRONICLE OF THE TUSK

The world has its own ways, sockets so deep that not even the Gods can dislodge them.  No urn is so cracked as Fate.
   —ASANSIUS, THE LIMPING PILGRIM

Chapter Six: The Meorn Wilderness
Everything is concealed always.  Nothing is more trite than a mask.
   —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN

If you find yourself taken unawares by someone you thought you knew, recall that the character revealed is as much your own as otherwise.  When it comes to Men and their myriad, mercenary natures, revelation always comes in twos.
   —MANAGORAS, ODE TO THE LONG-LIVED FOOL

Chapter Seven: The Istyuli Plains
... and they scoff at heroes, saying that Fate serves disaster to many, and feasts to few.  They claim that willing is but a form of blindness, and conceit of beggars who think they wrest alms from the jaws of lions.  The Whore alone, they say, decides who is brave and who is rash, who will be hero and who will be fool.  And so they dwell in a world of victims.
   —QUALLAS, ON THE INVITIC SAGES

Ever do Men use secrets to sort and measure those they love, which is why they are less honest with their brothers and more guarded with their friends.
   —CASIDAS, ANNALS OF CENEI

Chapter Eight: The Western Three Seas
Complexity begets ambiguity, which yields in all ways to prejudice and avarice.  Complication does not so much defeat Men as arm them with fancy.
   —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN

Chapter Nine: The Istyuli Plains
The shape of virtue is inked in obscenity.
   —AINONI PROVERB

Chapter Ten: The Istyuli Plains
There is morality and there is cowardice.  The two are not to be confused, even though in appearance and effect they are so often the same.
   —EKYANNUS I, 44 EPISTLES

If the Gods did not pretend to be human, Men would recoil from them as spiders.
   —ZARATHINIUS, A DEFENCE OF THE ARCANE ARTS

Chapter Eleven: Momemn
This one thing every tyrant will tell you: nothing saves more lives than murder.
   —MEROTOKAS, THE VIRTUE OF SIN

No two prophets agree.  So to spare our prophets their feelings, we call the future a whore.
   —ZARATHINIUS, A DEFENCE OF THE ARCANE ARTS

Chapter Twelve: Kûniüri
Skies are upended, poured as milk into the tar of night.  Cities become pits of fire.  The last of the wicked stand with the last of the righteous, lamenting the same woe.  One Hundred and Forty-Four Thousand, they shall be called, for this is their tally, the very number of doom.
   —ANONYMOUS, THE THIRD REVELATION OF GANUS THE BLIND

Know what your slaves believe, and you will always be their master.
   —AINONI PROVERB

Chapter Thirteen: The Istyuli Plains
Gods are epochal beings, not quite alive.  Since the Now eludes them, they are forever divided.  Sometimes nothing blinds souls more profoundly than the apprehension of the Whole.  Men need recall this when they pray. 
   —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN

Chapter Fourteen: Momemn
The truth of all polity lies in the ruins of previous ages, for there we see the ultimate sum of avarice and ambition.  Seek ye to rule for but a day, because little more shall be afforded you.  As the Siqû are fond of saying, Cû’jara Cinmoi is dead.
   —GOTAGGA, PARAPOLIS

Any fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing.  Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made fools.
   —AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN.

Chapter Fifteen: The Library of Sauglish
In life, your soul is but the extension of your body, which reaches inward until it finds its centre in spirit.  In death, your body is but the extension of your soul, which reaches outward until it finds it circumference in flesh.  In both instances, all things appear the same.  Thus are the dead and the living confused.
   —MEMGOWA, THE BOOK OF DIVINE ACTS

Yet the soul lingers like a second smell
A sailor wrecked at sea, it clings
Lest it sink and drown in Hell.
   —GIRGALLA, EPIC OF SAUGLISH

Interlude: Ishuäl
The heroes among us, they are the true slaves.  Thrust against the limits of mortality, they alone feel the bite of their shackles.  So they rage.  So they fight.
   We only have as much freedom as we have slack in our chains.  Only those who dare nothing are truly free.
   —SUÖRTAGAL, EPIMEDITATIONS