“You’ll be on your best behavior.”
“I’m eighteen, Fa, I think you can trust me not to pick my nose.”
Her father snorted. “If you were ten years younger, I would be less concerned.”
“Fa,” she said with what patience she could muster. “I’ll be fine.”
He heaved a sigh, as if he didn’t believe her, but chose not to argue. Together, they made their way down the garden path to the building’s front door, where her father paused again to gather himself, then couldn’t go on. It fell to her to ring the bell.
They heard footsteps approaching across a wooden floor, and the door was opened by an ancient woman, the sleeves of her white linen shirt rolled up as if they had interrupted her at another chore. She gave them one short bow, then waited silently. Once she had heard what they wanted, she gestured in invitation, stepping back from the door.
The building’s interior was pleasantly cool, its fixtures tastefully restrained. There wasn’t a lot of furniture, pale wood that gleamed with polish. The floors were bare and sparkling-clean, tiles of white and jade at the margin between floor and walls and around the fireplaces, a number of attractive ink paintings on the walls. Several open windows boasted wind chimes fashioned from what looked like broken bottle glass, adding a bit of color and soothing background noise to the household, which seemed unnaturally still.
The old woman left them in a space with a view of the garden in the rear, a mosaic of flowers and decorative grasses nodding in the breeze. After leaning their packs against one wall, they settled on pillows at the room’s center. While she adjusted her hips on the padding, Qanath wondered at what they knew.
This was the home of the great Avatethura Master Xaritu anKebbal, one of the Embodiments of War. Everyone knew Xaritu anKebbal had stopped taking in pupils a handful of years ago, but they had thought it meant Kebbal was fallen on hard times and struggled to make ends meet. Having seen his house, she was no longer sure. There wasn’t a lot of clutter, but the art on the walls was worth more than her father would make in a year.
If Xaritu anKebbal hadn’t stopped training young people in his secret arts because he couldn’t afford to feed all those extra mouths, why had he done it? It was curious in its own right and raised troubling questions about their quest. When she came up with this wild idea, she’d assumed this man would happily take on a new student if he was able. Offering to help pay her own way was sounding less persuasive than she’d hoped.
The old woman reappeared, setting three small red-glazed cups on the floor by their knees. She had yet to speak. When she left, Qanath and her father both took sips of their drinks to settle their nerves. It was beer and cold, and Qanath set the cup back on the floor shaking her head. No, Xaritu anKebbal wasn’t in financial difficulty. Not if he could afford to waste sorcery chilling his beer.
They could feel the master of the house coming before he entered the room. The floorboards creaked in protest, and in spite of all the wide-open windows, the air grew still. Heavy, as if a storm approached. Qanath glanced at her father and saw him swallow: she wasn’t the only one who felt the man’s menace weighing on the air.
He didn’t pause in the doorway to assess them but came straight to the pillow across from theirs and sat. He was half a head taller than the men she had previously thought of as big, his shoulders wide and roped with muscle, his hands as broad as spades. He had no shirt on, which seemed fitting, and his hair coiled on the floor in a complicated braid. He had a long, scholarly visage, and his eyes were quiet with thought.
After he had taken a moment to study them, he said, “Greetings.” His voice was as deep as the rumblings of the angry earth.
Qanath tipped her head, leaving her father to respond. They had agreed he was the one to do the talking. They wanted to give the impression that Qanath was respectful and obedient, even if it wasn’t entirely true. “Greetings, Avat Xaritu.”
He flicked the title away. “Call me Xar, everyone does.”
Her father bowed his head but chose not to use the nickname. Qanath wouldn’t have wanted to either. “We are aware that you have taken in no pupils for a span of years, Avat, but we wondered if you would be willing to hear our story and reconsider.”
“I’m certainly willing to hear you out after you came all this way,” the man replied, and his eyes had shifted onto her now, openly curious.
“My daughter,” a gesture in her direction, in case Xar anKebbal might have thought he spoke of a different girl who wasn’t present, “has much to recommend her. I know she’s older than the usual student, but if her body is less malleable, her mind is more mature. She would have no qualms about working in your household to pay her way.” His voice faltered, and Qanath knew he entertained the same doubts she had. “She has completed the Novitiate at the Collure.”
Xar anKebbal had watched her father politely while he spoke, but that got his eyes back on her. “Have you really?”
In answer, she pulled the satchel she wore ‘round her shoulders onto her lap and flipped the flap open. Withdrawing the tube of scarlet lacquered wood, she pried the top off and turned it upside down. She passed over the scroll of vellum that fell into her hand.
She felt a stir of anxiety handing something so precious to a stranger, but he took it in a gentle grasp. It looked fragile in his massive hands, but the vellum barely crinkled as he unrolled it cautiously. He held it only briefly, eyes searching for and finding amidst the florid calligraphy the crucial details. As he passed it back, he said, “You graduated. This seems like an odd place for you to come next.”
“We would never presume to propose my daughter for your Legacy, but it was our understanding that one need not serve the, the, the—”
“Ethos,” Xar anKebbal suggested.
“Thank you, yes, the ethos of the school to learn its arts.” He added nervously, “Forgive us if we were wrong.”
“The ethos of any school is so complex and varied it makes no matter. Just so, vengeance may be immediate or biding, indiscriminate or precise.”
“Ah,” her father said uncertainly. This intricate mysticism was a mainstay of the Empire’s culture, and ordinary people like them respected that. But it wasn’t every day you sat down face-to-face with it and had a chat.
“This is still a strange place for you to be,” the Avatethura Master continued. “Your daughter already has a career laid out ahead of her, and if she had a genuine interest in athletic pursuits, you would have done this the other way around.”
Her father’s hand trembled as he took up his beer, taking several sips to calm his nerves and bolster his resolve. When he spoke, he did so bluntly. “Her mother won’t acknowledge her.”
There was a pause buzzing with strangeness, then Xar anKebbal said carefully, “That is not a situation one encounters often.”
“Her mother is Sinesplas.”
“Ah,” the fighting-master said, drawing out the word. “When you say she won’t acknowledge her child, you mean she won’t name the girl her equal and elevate her social status above yours. And you are…?”
“Pemets, all our children are.”
Someone entered the room. Qanath looked up and felt her mouth open. The man who had strolled through the open doorway was only maybe a few years her senior, barefoot, wearing nothing but a loose, diaphanous shirt and a pair of undershorts so small they left his hipbones exposed. This would have been worth staring at anyway, but the man was a barbarian, almost the first that she had seen. His skin was pale in comparison, and his hair was astonishing; not dark red or dark brown like she was used to hair being, but white.
He watched them sidelong as he crossed the room, and his gaze was assessing. She didn’t think she was imagining the unfriendliness. When he came to a patch of wall that suited him, he crossed his arms and leaned back until his shoulders met the plaster with a thump. He fixed his stare insolently on her, one pale brow cocked skeptically. He was hot as the Rock of Ceda at noontime in the summer season, but she didn’t think she had ever encountered anyone for whom she felt a more perfect or immediate dislike.
“And you?”
Her father elbowed her surreptitiously. She started, eyes swinging back to the massive man at the center of the room who held her family’s future in his hands. “I’m sorry?”
“What is your opinion? Of this dispute between your parents? Your father believes you belong alongside your mother, ordering the world, but your mother seems to feel the life you already have is suitable. Who do you think is right?”
Qanath stared at him for what felt like an eternity and had to have been at least a minute in real time before the question finally reordered itself in her mind in such a way that she was able to understand it. She had expected to be grilled on her qualifications, her dedication. She had rehearsed her answers all the way here, lying awake nights while her father rested. It figured he would want to know about something else.
“I have two younger brothers.”
