Anoor smiled at the sour plum reference.
“It was implied, she’s the chief of chambers, after all.”
Sylah opened her mouth to snap back, but it was then that Gorn returned.
—
It wasn’t until the sun dipped beyond the horizon and Gorn had excused herself for bed that the real work began. Sylah had spent much of the evening rearranging the wardrobe to suit Anoor’s training needs.
“You can’t run, fight, box, or fence. What can you do?” Sylah held her head in her hands.
“I can swim. But I suppose I haven’t done that in a while. Mother told me I embarrass her when I wear a bathing suit, so she banned me from lessons.” She spoke the anecdote quickly, as if she were simply commenting on the weather.
“Why would that embarrass her?” Sylah said, confused at why anyone would be embarrassed by Anoor’s curves.
“You know…I’m…” Anoor ran her hands down the waves of her body. “And she’s…”
Anoor flicked a wrist toward Sylah’s willow frame.
Sylah cocked her head but didn’t say anything.
“Oh!” Anoor brightened. “I’m pretty good at archery.”
“Archery?” Sylah thought of her sister Fareen and her bow and arrows. She reached for the plait that contained one of Fareen’s old bow strings, but her fingers met air. Her fingers trembled with the loss.
“Well, when my mother realized I hadn’t…inherited the fortitude to exceed in every sport imaginable, she found me something I could do that was…stationary.” Anoor fiddled with the hem of her silk blouse. “I think it was meant to be an insult, but in the end I was very good. I can bring up my bow set and show you.”
“That’s something, at least, but let’s maybe keep the bow and arrows out of the bedchamber for now.”
Sylah ran her hand over her shaved skull.
“Right, we have six rounds to get you through in six mooncycles. Aerofield, tactics, stealth, mind, bloodwerk, and combat, in that order. The first round commences at the end of the mooncycle. That’s just under four weeks away…” Sylah rocked back on her heels. Four weeks. They had four weeks to prepare for the first task.
“Yes.” Anoor simply smiled.
Brat.
Sylah stood up with a rush of blood to her head.
“Time to get to work. Tonight, we’re going to learn some basic stretches and how to focus the mind. But starting tomorrow we need to increase your fitness. Before the Keep wakes, we will run around the courtyard once and up the five hundred steps, the next day twice, then thrice, and so on.”
Anoor’s smile had fallen.
“If you’re as good at archery as you think you are, the first trial should at least be easier than the others.”
“I suppose.” Her voice was quite small. “It does sound like a lot of work.”
“Yes, Anoor, it is.” She threw her name at her like an insult. “It’s going to be a fucking great deal of work, but you know what? You chose this.” Sylah’s arm began to shake, and she recognized the prickling of the early stages of a seizure. The oncoming weakness in her muscles. The nausea that lurched up from her toes to the tip of her tongue. “You chose this. You chose to do this to me.”
Anoor’s eyes flashed.
“Yes, I trapped you. Yes, I shaved your hair. But no, I did not do this to you.” She pushed her curling bangs out of her eyes. “You did this to you. Even if you had made it to the sign-up, you weren’t going to get very far in the state you were in. Red stains on your teeth are one of the last stages of addiction. You were a few seeds away from death. So don’t hold that over my head.” It was one of the longest speeches Anoor had made to anyone ever. Her breath came out in short, quivering puffs and her eyes threatened to leak. Suddenly she peeled away from Sylah.
“Where are you going?” Sylah’s voice was stony.
“Bed.”
“No, you’re not, we have a deal. That means you need to start training tonight. Then you need to start teaching me how to bloodwerk.”