C3 Chapter 3

She surfaced to the maintenance building, tucking her naksha in the sheath at her ribs before encountering anyone else.

Footsteps ran the tunnel behind her. Beska didn’t turn, she already knew who trailed her. A figure turned the corner, nearly ramming into her when she stopped to slide open the door that would allow them into the building proper.

The girl stopped to breathe, but Beska pressed forward.

“That went well,” Cyli commented from behind her shoulder. She poked her head around Beska’s arms, her short black curls bouncing wildly about her face.

“If by well you mean I failed, miserably.” Beska stepped through the opening and waited for Cyli to follow. She did and the servant’s frock the girl wore strained with the movement. Cyli was thirteen and growing quickly; her stout proportions ensured nothing fit as well as it should. Beska would have to find a larger set for her friend, perhaps a woman’s frock with the proper adjustments would suit the girl better.

The round face peered up at her, black eyes sparkling, color flushing her brown cheeks. Beska fought a smile, the child was an imp sent to torment her.

“You still have your head...and limbs,” Cyli reminded, flashing white teeth.

“Yes, but no nakshana.”

Beska changed from her ceremonial robes and back into her own servant’s frock, ensuring that her sheath sat neatly, and gathered the bag she had left in a dark corner. Then they moved through the storage room, barrels of salt and other cleaning components crowded the floor in rows.

There was no fancy reflective lighting in the maintenance buildings, and the room itself didn’t even have a lantern. Light streamed in from the corridor, casting long shadows against the floor.

“Yes,” Cyli muttered, shaking her head. “I can see why that would be more worrisome than your limbs. Sister, the Mother is giving you another chance at a test. I heard her back there, defending your position to the other Mothers present. As far as I know, that is unheard of.”

Beska grunted. “A test I’m not allowed to retake for two years.”

“A vast amount of time to be sure. By then, you’ll be too old to even lift the nakshana. They’ll have to tie it into your feeble hands.”

Beska snorted. If there had been any blessing about the day she had been brought here from the Onyx Aerie, it was that this girl was the one the Sisterhood sent to her. Cyli to mentor Beska on the ways of the Amber Aerie, and Beska to mentor Cyli in training. Despite their age difference, they had been fast friends since the first night. Almost true sisters.

“I have duties in the Onyx city. I have already been gone too long.”

Cyli shrugged. “Your only duty is to Valarious,” she recited, the first tenet of the Sisterhood. “He will take care of all else.”

They had broken free from the building and were walking at a quick pace toward the servant’s district, housed toward the back of the Aerie. It was still long before dawn would brush the eastern sky, long enough for Beska to head to the bath house before she saw to her duties.

The moon was still high above the outer wall, casting a glow to the white stone of the street. Even here, away from the lords and ladies of the Aerie, the Shifters had potted plants and gardens wherever space allowed. These were not flowering, not for show at all, but there was still something beautiful about all that green splayed against the white stones of the streets and alleys. When

Beska had been a small girl, this was somewhat how she had imagined paradise. Of course, paradise was also a place where she might be taken care of just for being herself, no conditions placed upon her simply existing. At age five, she supposed a girl was allowed such dreams.

Now she knew better. Paradise did not exist, and if she wanted peace, and enough coin to live comfortably, it was something she had to earn herself. And if, sometimes at night, in the dark of her room, she was still that little girl wishing someone would value her enough to consider her needs, well then, she stomped that feeling away and dreamed about rising in the Sisterhood. Rising until nothing, not even her own longing would have power over her any longer.

“This looks like trouble...,” Cyli muttered, slowing and reaching for her own dagger. It wasn’t a naksha, she wasn’t qualified for one just yet, but any sharp blade could do its own devastating damage.

They had entered one of the housing towers of the Aerie and had climbed the stairs to the third floor where their shared rooms were, but the hallway wasn’t empty. Standing in front of her door was a slender, almost frail looking teen with wide blue eyes. Her black hair was cropped close to her head with only a few long tendrils left at the front that dangled along her chin. She wore pants, too, loose ones that hid her figure and a strangely patterned shirt. A heavy and rather ratted sack sat at her booted feet.

Beska stared before a deep sense of resignation crept through her. Of all the tricks the gods could play on her, this was the worst.