The Final Strife

“But I need nine strikes’ sleep.”

“Nine?” Sylah was incredulous. Papa had trained them to survive on fewer than three strikes of sleep, and since his passing she’d rarely got through five strikes of the clock.

Anoor hung her head. “I read for two strikes, sleep for nine, then go to school. Every day the same thing. Sometimes the library and at the end of the week I ride Boey, my eru, around the gardens for two strikes…” There was horror in her words. Sylah was about to disrupt everything in her life.

She’d asked for it.

“Now we have a new routine. We’ll be cutting out the reading and shortening the sleeping. You don’t need more than six strikes to sleep.”

Anoor opened her mouth to argue, but Sylah cut her off.

“If you want to get to the final trial, you have to fight for it. Simple as that.” The girl was a fool if she thought it was going to be easy.

Anoor paused, then a small smile crept up her face with a flicker of confidence.

“All right. Let’s start then.”

Sylah stretched out her aching muscles. It would be the first time in six years that she would fight without a joba seed. She had begun to rely on the drug to dull the pain of a fight and block out the chaos of her mind. Now she’d have to confront both.

—

Sylah need not have worried, they never got to any fighting. After two strikes she could see that Anoor was at her limit. They hadn’t even got around to warming up; all Sylah had done was try to focus Anoor into battle wrath, the meditative state that would aid her Nuba formations. Anoor was drenched in sweat, despite not moving.

“Am I doing it?”

“Can you lift your arm with just anger?”

“No.”

“Then try again.”

Anoor tried one more time, her muscles tensing, her shoulders nearly reaching her ears. Sylah could hear her using the breathing exercises she had instructed. Then she collapsed, the breath going out of her.

“Time to stop. Now, bloodwerk.” Sylah sat down and crossed her legs in front of Anoor.

“Give me a moment.”

“Well, if you want to get some sleep before the dawn run, we had better start now.” Anoor groaned.

“Where’s your inkwell then? Get it out and we’ll begin with the basics.”

Sylah narrowed her eyes.

“I haven’t got one, can’t I just use yours?” The question was loaded. Sylah would have loved to take a look at Anoor’s inkwell, just to prove her theory she was using someone else’s blood.

“You haven’t got one?” Anoor gasped. “No, you can’t use mine. Besides being…unhygienic,”—her heart-shaped mouth twisted—“it all depends on the distance of your vein so the stylus can slot directly into it. How do you not have an inkwell?” Sylah looked away.

“I had a sheltered upbringing, I told you.”

“Okay, well you’ll need to get one tomorrow.”

“Where?”

“You’ll have to buy one at an armorsmith. Show them your birth certificate and token; they have to track inkwells and register them against the Ember’s name.”

“Oh. I lost my birth certificate.”

“Well, you’ll have to find it or apply for a new one. It takes two mooncycles,” Anoor said flatly.