Kenevah rolled the ivory dice through her fingers, studying them intently. Then she grunted, hurling them against the stone wall of the chamber with surprising strength. The fragile dice shattered on impact. She reached out and took the empty hora pouch from Inevera’s hands, throwing it onto the pyre of her wooden dice. The velvet caught flame, giving off a thick, black smoke.
‘You may enter the Chamber of Shadows,’ Kenevah said, handing Inevera a new hora pouch, this even finer than the first, black velvet tied with golden rope. ‘Inside you will find eight alagai hora. You will carve your seven dice from them, preserving every shaving. If you make no mistakes, the last is yours to use as you see fit; if you need more, it will be a year’s penance for every bone.’
The Chamber of Shadows. Other nie’dama’ting spoke of it only in hushed whispers. Deep in the bowels of the palace, untouched by sun or candle or chemical light, it was said the chamber was so dark its walls seemed miles away at times, and closing in on one the next. A darkness so complete it seemed like the abyss itself, and if one was quiet enough, one could hear Nie whispering in the black.
Melan’s eyes were those of a tunnel asp as Inevera took the pouch.
No sooner had the Vault doors closed for the night than Melan shoved Inevera to the ground. She was fifteen, and Inevera not yet eleven. The difference was clear in their size, though not as great as it had been when Inevera first came to the palace.
‘My dice were nearly done!’ Melan shouted. ‘Another year at most, and I would have been able to take the white veil. The youngest since the Return! But instead I waste two years trying to teach sharusahk to a clumsy pig-eater, only to see her enter the Chamber of Shadows before me!’
She shook her head. ‘No. This will be your last lesson, bad throw. Tonight I kill you.’
Inevera felt her blood run cold. Melan looked angry enough to mean it, but what would the dama’ting do if she carried out her threat? She looked to the other girls around them.
‘I see nothing.’ Asavi, ever loyal to Melan, turned her back on the scene.
‘I see nothing,’ the girl next to her said, turning as well.
‘I see nothing. I see nothing.’ It was repeated like the names of the sharukin as each girl turned her back.
Melan had the other girls well trained. And why not? She was the Damaji’ting’s granddaughter, and undefeated among the Betrothed in sharusahk. The other girls looked to her as their leader, and she had indeed been expected to become the youngest dama’ting since the Return. Only her own mother’s order prevented that.
Inevera had never understood why Melan’s punishment was so severe, and had held on so long. Inevera had excelled at dancing and sharusahk. By her second month in the palace, her forms were as good as the other girls her age. Now, after two years, they were as good as any. Qeva should have lifted the ban long ago, but she had not. Why? It served nothing but to antagonize Melan. If the dama’ting thought she could teach her daughter humility this way, she was a fool.
And then, suddenly, it clicked, as Qeva’s words from two years gone came back to her.
If you prove not humble, competent, or strong enough to survive and advance to the white, then that is inevera.
Carving and warding were not the only tests barring the Chamber of Shadows. Qeva wanted the strongest leader for the Kaji, and she had set her own daughter to bar Inevera’s path, whether Melan knew it or not.
‘Scorpion,’ Melan hissed, coming forward hard.
But Inevera was through pretending to be weak. She had spent two years humble before Everam. Now it was time for strength.
Inevera had never fought back during these nightly beatings. There had been nothing to gain. But she had watched, and waited, and planned. She knew Melan’s weaknesses now, and in her mind she had fought this battle a thousand times.
She dropped down on one hand and the balls of her feet, driving her stiffened fingers into the point of convergence on Melan’s thigh. ‘Wilting flower,’ she said as Melan’s supporting leg lost strength and she collapsed to the ground.
Melan rolled quickly to her feet, massaging strength back into her leg, and Inevera gave ground freely, offering no aggression of her own. More than one of the girls forming a ring around them peeked over her shoulder.
‘You see nothing!’ Melan shrieked, and they quickly turned away.
‘We see nothing,’ they all echoed.
‘Lucky,’ Melan snarled. Inevera only smiled in return as the girl came at her again, meeting Melan’s cobra’s hood with a deft strike to her throat before melting out of her path.
‘Shattered wind,’ she said as Melan stumbled past, overbalanced and gasping for air. Girls were looking again, but Melan paid them no mind, turning and launching herself at Inevera, her kicks and punches moving like tunnel asp strikes, followed close behind by targeted strikes at Inevera’s own convergence points.
But Inevera bent and swayed like a palm in wind, seeing the lines of energy clearly as Melan set her feet and eyed her targets. Again and again she broke those lines, sometimes simply taking away her breath and balance, other times adding a sharp stab of pain to accentuate the lesson. She was careful to cause no permanent harm, though. Inevera had never told the dama’ting of how Melan and the other girls abused her, but she held no such faith in them. Qeva would be looking for excuses to deny her passage into the chamber, and killing or maiming her daughter would surely qualify.
But she was through being abused. Melan came at her again, appearing to use camel’s kick, but then flowing unexpectedly into ram’s horn, trying to smash Inevera’s nose with her forehead.
Inevera caught Melan’s robe, swaying to the side with a leg left in Melan’s path to trip her into a throw. She kept a hold on Melan’s arm, and if the other girl resisted, her arm would pop from its socket. As expected, Melan added her own momentum to the throw to avoid that, practically leaping along to crash into Asavi’s back. Both girls went down in a heap, and the others around them gasped and scattered.
Melan let out a low growl, twisting and scissoring her legs around Inevera’s feet, tripping her as well and rolling atop her. They struggled for several minutes on the floor, and here the older girl’s strength began to tell as she worked her way behind Inevera into a hold, bashing her forehead against the stone floor more than once. There was a flare of light behind her eyes after each one, leaving Inevera’s ears ringing and her equilibrium shattered.
She managed to free one arm as Melan pulled the cords of Inevera’s bido around her neck, sacrificing control for the hold. After all, what could Inevera do with one arm and Melan firmly planted on her back? She threw her head back to strike Melan’s nose, but the girl was wise to the trick, pulling her face back and to the side.
As Inevera knew she would. Quick as a flame demon, she stuck her index and middle fingers into Melan’s nostrils. Her fingernails were sharp, and they cut into the tender cartilage as she pulled hard, threatening to tear Melan’s nose clean off.
‘Will Asavi still want to kiss you when your nose is a ruined hole?’ she whispered.
Melan wasn’t the prettiest of the nie’dama’ting, but she was easily the most vain. She shrieked, dropping her hold in order to preserve her beauty. Inevera struck several quick blows in the ensuing chaos, then rolled away and got to her feet. Melan followed wobbling unsteadily. There was nothing she could do as Inevera scorpion-kicked her in the face, feeling Melan’s cheek and nose crumple under the blow. Melan hit the floor hard and struggled to rise again.