Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

‘Who?’ Nona asked. The name seemed familiar.

‘Safira – the one who trained her.’ Ara turned to stare past Nona and Alata at Zole, who returned the stare, her face a mask. ‘She was expelled from the convent for stabbing another novice when she turned her back on her after defeating her in Blade class.’

‘A lie.’ Zole’s lips gave only the slightest twitch to release the words.

‘How do you know stuff like this?’ Clera asked.

‘Who got stabbed?’ Nona asked.

‘I know because my father keeps me informed of matters that affect me.’ Ara kept her eyes on Zole, her food untouched. ‘Sherzal has been hunting all across the empire for possible two-bloods, chasing down any thread her Academics can find. She picked up this one,’ she nodded towards Zole, ‘after my uncle outwitted her troops and got me safely to the convent. Sherzal will be trying to get her in with us as a spy, perhaps as an assassin too.’

‘You think too much of yourself.’ Zole bit into her bread and swallowed in two chews. ‘Highness Sherzal lost interest in you long ago.’

‘Because she has you?’ Ara snorted.

Zole didn’t reply, just kept on eating. The others, tired from the previous day’s labour, from rising early, and from a long wait in the cold, followed her example. While she ate, Nona stole glances at the new girl. She had the flat features of the ice-tribes: broad cheekbones, eyes like black stones. Without any other clues she could as easily be a boy as a girl.

Bray sounded far too soon and Nona limped from the table still chewing, bringing up the rear with Darla, hunched against the wind as the Grey Class novices headed for Blade Hall. Ten yards from the doors, now closed behind the rest of the class, Darla slipped on sheet ice. She fell heavily, unable to break the fall with her injured hand. Nona braced herself and offered her arm for the larger girl to lever herself back up.

‘Don’t need your help, squirt.’ Darla snarled, slipping again as she tried to rise.

Nona stayed where she was. ‘When the convent’s full of strangers we don’t need to fight each other.’ She reached for Darla’s elbow. ‘We’ll be sisters one day.’

Darla grunted, but she let Nona take some of her weight as she got up. They came through the doors together, ears stinging from the ice-wind, faces red.

Sister Tallow waited for them on the sands, Zole beside her in scarlet and silver, the rest of the class already vanished into the changing room. Up on the benches Sherzal, the high priest, and Abbess Glass sat surrounded by attendants. Sherzal’s soldiers lined the walls, having pushed the stuffed leather combat dummies out into the hall to make room.

Darla and Nona hurried across to the tunnel, heads down to avoid Sister Tallow’s disapproval. Nona entered the familiar warmth of the changing room to find Clera just getting up, dressed and ready to return. The heat of the pipes always reminded Nona’s body to expect a fight – that and the smell of the place, young bodies and old sweat, something a day’s cleaning couldn’t erase.

‘Fist-habits today.’ Clera grinned as she passed them. ‘We get to pound on the new girl!’

Nona was second-last out of the changing room, leaving Darla still fumbling with her ties. The broken finger would save her hair – Sister Tallow would rarely shave a novice for lateness if they had a genuine excuse. Nona bit down on her pain and jogged out onto the sand as easily as she could, with every ache and injury from the past two days screaming at her. Grey Class watched her arrival.

‘Good.’ Sister Tallow didn’t seem minded to wait for Darla. ‘Novice Clera, a demonstration for the class of the blade-fist kata.’

Clera stepped forward, her smile vanishing as she focused on the complex set of moves required, a long dance of violence demonstrating all the main forms of the art, stressing every muscle and joint a body owns. Zole stood beside Sister Tallow, her face without expression, dark eyes glinting.

Nona glanced across at Ara and found a similar lack of expression on her friend’s face. The echoes of unspoken words trembled across her lips, her eyes fixed on some point beyond Tallow and Zole. Perhaps on the tall windows, each offering a deep blue infinity of sky.

Clera moved into the kata, her speed dazzling, snapping out kicks above her head with so swift a tempo that to most of her audience it would be nothing but a blur of motion. She leapt forward, skidding into a crouch with her head almost touching the floor, before jumping up, feet pulled in, leaving almost room for Nona to walk beneath. A series of blocks and punches followed in the prescribed order, intermixed with spins and reversals. Sand sprayed beneath the balls of her feet, a suspicious amount of it in Zole’s direction.

A minute later and the performance ended with a jump-kick high enough to break the jaw of a gerant prime. Ninety separate moves woven together and executed at breath-taking speed. Clera returned to the front row, flushed and making an effort to hide how winded the exercise had left her.

Sister Tallow turned to Zole. ‘Perhaps you could demonstrate your training for us now?’

Zole inclined her head a fraction. ‘I know blade-fist, Noi-tal, the Scithrowl kill-game, and elements of the Torca. Which would you prefer to see, Mistress Blade?’

Sister Tallow frowned. ‘The Torca is rarely seen …’

‘She’s trained with the Noi-Guin,’ Clera hissed. ‘Must have. They kill anyone else who teaches Noi-tal!’

‘If I may?’ Sherzal raised her voice from the stands. ‘Perhaps a more practical demonstration? Zole could spar with one of your novices. Nevis was telling me that you have a girl who passed the ordeal of the Shield within weeks of entering the convent?’

Abbess Glass glanced down at Sister Tallow, who gave the smallest shake of her head. Nona felt the tension leave her and unclenched her teeth. Tallow knew that Darla could hand out quite a beating.

‘A different novice, perhaps?’ The abbess turned back with a smile. ‘Nona has had a difficult week. Perhaps Novice Arabella?’

Sherzal echoed the abbess’s smile. ‘I would like to see this Nona of yours against my girl.’

Beside the emperor’s sister High Priest Nevis lifted a hand. ‘The Shield still has to guard the Argatha, bad week or not. This should be good training for that duty.’ He waved proceedings on.

Abbess Glass started to rise from her seat then fell back, returning the hard line of her mouth to the smile she had momentarily misplaced. ‘Of course.’

‘Nona.’ Sister Tallow beckoned her forward. ‘Show our guest how we fight at Sweet Mercy.’

Nona stepped forward, meeting Zole’s stare. She felt a heat rise, somewhere deep, just beneath her ribs. The girl’s eyes held a challenge – the sort she’d not sensed since she first saw Raymel Tacsis. A killer’s confidence. And something inside her burned in answer. Nona had yet to fight within Blade Hall. For two years she had learned and learned, practised until her muscles tore and her bones creaked. Sister Tallow had pitted the novices against each other constantly, and yet to Nona those were not fights. They were contests. Contests between friends, or at least classmates. Even when Darla came against her on the previous morning Nona hadn’t, in the marrow of her bones, considered it a fight.

‘Mark the corners.’ Sister Tallow pointed to the practice dummies and the novices hastened to drag four of them to mark out a square, two girls struggling with each dummy – rough man-shapes of leather stuffed with horsehair, set on wooden posts that bedded in heavy and rounded bases so they would rock rather than fall.