Inevera woke to find someone hovering over her in the darkness. Her eyes were adjusted to the darkness, but it was still little more than a silhouette, moving cautiously to keep quiet. She caught her breath a moment, then remembered herself and began an even breathing to feign sleep. She let herself snore softly, as her mother often did.
Inevera had no possessions save for her Evejah’ting and hora pouch, nothing to use as a weapon, if such would even do her good against a room full of girls who despised her. Could they kill her here, in the dark, and get away with it? She tensed to run, though there was nowhere she could run to. Even if she could find the door in the blackness, it was barred from the outside.
But the silhouette moved past, shuffling to Melan’s bed. There was a rustle as the blanket was thrown back.
‘I think she might have heard me,’ Asavi whispered.
There was a pause. ‘She’s asleep. I can hear her snoring,’ Melan said. ‘And who cares what the bad throw thinks?’
Inevera lay in her cot, trying to keep the rhythm of her snoring steady as she listened to the sounds of kissing and whispers of love from Melan’s cot. She had never kissed another girl, never even considered it, but she did envy them. Inevera had never felt so alone.
Inevera woke again, this time to a stabbing pain in her side. She cried out, half sitting, and saw Melan drawing back her foot for another kick. ‘Up with you, bad throw.’
The wardlights were active again, and most of the other girls had already woven their bidos. Aching to make water, Inevera moved quickly for the privy curtain, but Melan caught her arm. ‘You should have woken sooner if you wanted time for that. The dama’ting will come at any moment, and if your bido isn’t fully woven when she arrives, a full bladder will be the least of your worries.’
Inevera’s face went cold, and in an instant she was leaping for a fresh silk, her discomfort forgotten. The other girls watched her with scowls on their faces as she quickly wove her bido.
Asavi spat at Inevera’s feet. ‘So she’s a weaver’s daughter. It proves nothing.’
Barely a moment after Inevera finished tying, the heavy doors to the sleeping chamber opened and Qeva stood waiting. The girls lined up in only their bidos, and Inevera followed them out of the Vault and into another great chamber of the underpalace.
‘We begin each day with sharusahk,’ Melan advised. ‘You will not speak. Do exactly as the dama’ting does.’
Inevera nodded as the girls lined up in neat rows, each standing two paces apart. Qeva strode to a small dais at the front of the room, reaching to unfasten her robe. The silk fell away in a whisper, and she stood nude before the assembled girls, save for her veil and headscarf.
Slowly, she began doing a series of stretches. The other girls copied her, and Inevera struggled to do the same. Qeva’s flesh was smooth and muscled, soon coated in a sheen of sweat and scented oil. Inevera wondered how such slow movement could make the woman sweat as if she had run in the hot sun for an hour.
The movements were gentle and precise — nothing like the broad, brutal motions Soli had practised. But though gentle in appearance, the poses proved far more complex than Soli’s. Inevera was forced to attain positions she hadn’t known possible and hold them for extended periods of time. Never-before-used muscles screamed at the strain, and she broke into a heavy sweat, heart thumping as she struggled for air. It seemed no amount of gasping could pull in a full breath, and she feared that at any moment she would lose control of her water.
Qeva leaned forward on her left leg until her body was perpendicular to the floor, arms out before her as if to embrace. Her right foot raised high into the air and curled back over, toes nearly touching her tailbone.
Inevera attempted the pose, but lost her balance, pitching forward onto her hands.
‘Hold pose,’ Qeva said, and the other girls were left balanced in that precarious position as she stepped down from the dais.
‘Stand up straight,’ the dama’ting commanded. Inevera got quickly to her feet, and Qeva put one hand on her bare chest and the other in the hollow where her shoulders met. ‘Breathe in through your nostrils. Deeply.’ She squeezed, and Inevera had to overcome the resistance to inflate her chest.
The dama’ting grunted. ‘Out. Slow.’ She continued to squeeze as Inevera slowly let the air out at an even pace.
‘Again,’ Qeva said. ‘Breath is life. If you have breath, you have your centre. If you have your centre, nothing can truly touch you. You will not feel hunger or pain. Not love nor hate. No fear. No anxiety. Only the breath.’
Already, Inevera felt herself calming. The insistent cries of her full bladder and empty stomach faded as she followed the path of her breath from her nose to her belly and out again. Around her, the girls began to wobble, strain telling on their faces as they held the difficult pose.
‘With me,’ Qeva said. Still squeezing, she began to breathe in a slow rhythm, and Inevera paced her own breaths to match. ‘As the breathing cleanses your mind, these will hone your body, until the two act as one.’ When they were in sync, the dama’ting took her hands away and grabbed Inevera’s arms, spreading them wide above her.
‘Cobra’s hood,’ Qeva said, and glanced at the other girls. ‘Resume.’
There were sighs of relief throughout the room as the girls all stood straight, reaching for the ceiling with arms spread.
‘These are the sharukin,’ Qeva said as she guided Inevera through the next several movements, gently correcting her posture. ‘Vulture’s beak. Jackal’s spring.’
She leaned Inevera forward into the position she had stumbled in. ‘Scorpion’s tail.’ The dama’ting stepped her left foot on Inevera’s, holding her in place as she hooked her right foot around Inevera’s right ankle and lifted her leg until she could catch it, pulling it higher and higher, then bending it over until Inevera felt her tendons straining to the limit. She gasped and wobbled.
‘Breathe,’ Qeva said. ‘You are the palm, and breath is the wind. Use its power to lead you back to balance and guide you from one form to the next.’
Inevera returned to the rhythm, and found the steady breathing did indeed aid her. Qeva noted her renewed balance and nodded, returning to the dais.
The lesson went on for some time. Inevera still wobbled and felt awkward, her joints stretched into fire, but she kept her breath steady, and was relieved when Qeva finally relaxed, reaching into a box beside the dais. There was a clatter of metal and she came away with four tiny cymbals, one strapped to each thumb and forefinger.
At a nod, Melan went and took up the box, taking her own cymbals and passing it along. All the other girls did the same, and soon they were back in place, waiting for Qeva to begin this next part of the lesson.
Qeva turned to stand in profile, her hands held high, cymbals poised. One leg was stretched out before her, the other kept close.
The other girls assumed the same pose, and Inevera did her best to imitate it.
‘Knees bent,’ Qeva said. ‘Weight on the balls of your feet.’
When Inevera corrected herself and found her centre, the dama’ting clapped her cymbals four times, each time snapping her round hips so they cracked like a whip.
‘All,’ she said, and repeated the move. The other girls copied her with practised precision, but Inevera found the move trickier than it looked.
‘Again,’ Qeva said. ‘Watch closer.’
Again she rang the cymbals and snapped her hips, and again the move eluded Inevera. At first she could not figure out how to move her hips, and then her cymbals were out of sync with the others. Doing both at once seemed impossible.