SULIS WAS MAKING her bed when she felt something brush against her senses. She sat down quickly and crossed her legs. Alerted by her actions, Djinn leapt up with her and laid his head on her lap. Ava had already left for the eating hall.
It’d taken a month, but Master Tull had come through with beds for both Ava and Sulis, with stacked bedrolls instead of a mattress, but with a soft thick layer of bird down and batting on top. Ava declared it “perfectly divine,” and Sulis had to agree. Master Anchee and Grandmother had declined beds of their own, saying they could never sleep on something so soft. In the months of disappointment and aggravation and endless days that followed, Sulis had found great solace in having that softness waiting for her at night.
Sulis focused on the plucking she was feeling on her senses, wondering if this was another of Anchee’s tests. Another way for her to fail at all this magical energy work. She focused deep inside, stilled her mind, and realized this wasn’t an attack on her mind. This was familiar, tugging at a string she’d thought was lost, connected to a heart she knew as well as her own.
“Kadar?” she breathed and sent down their twin link. Her eyes filled with tears, and she brushed them away as silliness. One luxury she wasn’t allowed, as she was searched daily by her teachers for weakness.
Yep. Kadar’s voice filled her ears as surely as if he were standing there talking to her. She closed her eyes and pictured just that. Finally found the right thread.
How are you doing this? Sulis asked. I thought our twin bond was limited to just a short distance. And you certainly couldn’t speak through it before.
It isn’t just a twin bond, Kadar confirmed. I’ve learned to farspeak.
Farspeaking? When did you learn to farspeak? Sulis was astonished.
I’ve always had it, Kadar said. They blocked me, Sulis—Grandmother and the elders. I guess I should have trained at this place called Kabandha when I was a teenager, and they would have unblocked it then, but it never happened. His mindvoice had a tone of anger to it.
Sulis flushed. Because you had a crazy sister who insisted on pledging to the enemy, and they were worried she’d give you away. Sulis bit her lip. Kadar, I’m sorry.
She felt his smile, even if she couldn’t see it. Sand in the breeze, twin of mine.
Kadar, I’m in Kabandha, she told him. Trying to train. There’s this prophecy. . .
I know about it, Kadar told her. Alannah, of all people, told me about it when she unblocked me. Is Ashraf there? They told me he was.
Alannah unblocked him? Sulis held her questions as she felt the strain he was under to communicate across such a great distance. Yes, he isn’t allowed to leave and had to give a pledge. Ava is here and thriving. She is a part of the prophecy, too. How are your baby and Farrah?
Good. Datura is well, Kadar sent, though Sulis could feel some sort of tension or sadness there. Farrah will be happy about Ava. Sulis, I can’t keep this link going long. My head is splitting. This cat helps, but not enough. Not practiced yet.
Cat? You have a feli? Sulis was again astonished.
No, a Frubian Flamepoint house cat the One sent, Kadar responded, his mindvoice getting weaker. Will explain soon. Love and misses.
Love and misses, Sulis sent as strongly as she could, as his presence faded from their bond. She opened her eyes and realized that more tears were coursing down her cheeks. She missed him so much. Feeling him again, almost beside her, was like having a limb reattached. And now it was gone again.
“But now I know we can communicate,” Sulis told Djinn, who rolled onto his back for a belly rub. She ruffled his fur, then got up, and he made no move to follow. He’d probably nap in her bed for the morning, then go find some shade in the woods for the afternoon. Sulis glanced out the window, decided she was too late to get breakfast at the hall, and lightly ran down the steps to grab a bar of pressed fruit and nuts they kept on hand in case they just didn’t have time for a full meal.
She went to the garden to start settling into her meditation and chewed on the food while she thought. It was a shock that Kadar had such a talent. She wondered where it had come from. After months here, it had become apparent that Sulis’s main talent was her feli bond. Anchee had been left in charge of Sulis’s training for the dances while Clay was gone, but Grandmother was always at the lessons, observing and criticizing. She’d irritated her grandmother again and again by failing to see energies, by failing to bond with anyone else’s energies, by failing to ignore Ashraf completely, by not learning fast enough. Sulis wasn’t used to failing, and it left a bitter, nasty residue. She generally thought of herself as a happy person, but the past few months had made her dread rising in the morning, and she did so later and later to avoid the stares and whispers of the other warriors. The only thing she seemed to excel at was the unarmed fighting she did with Master Tull, and flowing from pose to pose of the sacred dances she was practicing for when Clay finally returned.
They’d only had two dizzying weeks with Clay before he left and had not heard from him in three months. In that week, he’d shown Sulis all the moves of power as individual poses. Then how to string those together to form dances that drew on specific energy. Sulis had drawn stick figures to help her remember, but she would not have gotten far without Master Anchee’s gentle teaching. He’d been studying them for half a century and guided her when she forgot. Now Sulis could easily remember the order of the poses in the sets and practiced each pose flowing seamlessly into the next.
The last they’d heard about Clay had been a month ago, when he was spotted in Frubia.
“You missed breakfast,” Ava said, waking her from her reverie. “They had fresh-fruit bread, and I brought you a couple of slices.”
“You aren’t supposed to take food from the hall,” Sulis reminded her while eagerly helping herself.
Ava snorted. “What will they do, throw me out?”
The girls looked at each other and burst into laughter. The Kabandha residents were so eager to make their “Loom” happy that Ava didn’t dare complain about anything lest someone be punished or removed for making her unhappy. Ava saved her complaints for Sulis, and Sulis saved her complaints about Grandmother for Ava. As a result, they’d bonded even more, become more like what Sulis imagined sisters should be. More like what she and Kadar used to have.
“I just spoke with Kadar,” Sulis said, and Ava’s eyes widened. “He managed to communicate with me, mind to mind.”
“How?” Ava breathed.
“Well, he said he’d been blocked before and is now unblocked. There are some things I need to say to Grandmother about that,” Sulis said. She grinned. “He also said that things are good, and Farrah and our niece Datura are thriving. And he seems to be getting harassed by a house cat.”
She and Ava laughed again at that.
“Ah, greeted by laughter. Is that bread for me?” Clay’s voice shot their heads around. Ava jumped to her feet and took the old man’s pack for him, leading him over to where Sulis sat. Sulis gave him the remaining bread as he settled beside the stream and gave a great sigh.
“That is over,” Clay said cryptically. “The seeds have been sown. Other hands will harvest and bring in the fruits. I am here now for a good while.” He shook his head ruefully. “At least as far as I can see into the future. What has been happening?”
“Well, we have beds now,” Ava said enthusiastically as Clay munched his bread. Ava had instantly adored Clay, hardly leaving his side those first two weeks. “I made them put one in your room since you said your bones ache. And we’ve learned a lot. And Grandmother won’t leave Sulis alone even though she is trying hard and just being nice to Ashraf.” Clay met Sulis’s eyes, and she looked away. “And I’m ready for a new pattern. I’ve been drawing the old one in my dreams, like you said would happen. I missed you,” Ava concluded with a sigh.
Sulis smiled. This was the most vocal Ava had been with her teachers. Sometimes it seemed like Ava was two different people, the normal silly girl she’d probably been in Illian, and a darker, utterly serious adult whom everyone relied on. It seemed she saw Clay as the master of everyone at Kabandha and the righter of all wrongs, so she could let herself be younger, put the burdens on him for a while. As Clay closed his eyes and hummed softly, as though contemplating her stream of words, Sulis wondered if Ava was right.
“I will try out this bed,” Clay declared, opening his eyes and holding a hand out to Ava. “I will put my pack away and settle in with Ava’s help. Sulis, let the others know I am back, and let the masters know Ashraf will be released from training because he is needed by me for this entire week.”
Sulis watched the girl lead the old man into the house, then turned to gather the others. She found she was smiling. Things were changing again, and hopefully for the better now that Master Clay was back. Maybe he could point out what was going wrong when she tried to see the energies that were so apparent to her Grandmother and Ava.
They gathered in an area at the back of the house late that afternoon, where it was shaded from the sun. Ashraf leaned against a tree, keeping a watch on the area with another guard Sulis had seen once or twice. Djinn lay with his heavy body against Ashraf’s shins, watching the gathering with interest. The feli seemed to take pleasure from disobeying Sulis’s silent commands to leave Ashraf alone. The more she discouraged Djinn, the more he sought the Frubian, sneaking off to spend almost as much time in the men’s dormitory with him as with Sulis these days.
The Chosen sat on the grass in a half-moon, with Clay as the focus in the center facing them.
“So,” Clay said, clapping his hands once. “Ava showed me her chalk mandalas. She closed her eyes and still was able to get the lines correct. Dare I hope the rest of you have made your assignments a habit?”
Sulis looked down, not willing to admit how much she had failed the past few months.
“Sulis,” Clay chided gently, and she looked up again. “Show me the core form. Don’t let anything anyone does interrupt.”
Sulis slowly got to her feet. The others moved to the sides of the clearing, giving her space. Sulis took the first Warrior position. She focused her breath, finding the rhythm that sounded like the ocean waves as she inhaled and exhaled, clearing her mind to begin the twenty-seven-pose form she’d been practicing. She began with the salutations and moved fluidly to the moon forms, the positions and energy changing as she stepped and held, breathed and moved. Every step was steady, every position felt energetic. But Grandmother told her that she should see lines of energy as she flowed, and each pose should weave that energy in a certain way. Sulis saw nothing and just felt the movement of the poses, losing herself in the movement and flow. She finished in the second Warrior position, looking over her pointing arm at Ashraf, who grinned broadly, appreciating her effort.
“Ah, beauty,” Clay said delightedly, clapping his hands. “Did you see, she didn’t break form or notice when I spoke to her, when I threw that stone at her. Yes, you are ready for the next step.”
Sulis plopped on the ground, both glad that Clay seemed impressed and worried that he hadn’t noticed her flaws. The rest settled down again, and Ava shoved Sulis’s shoulder in approval.
“She didn’t control the energy,” Grandmother critiqued disapprovingly.
Sulis rolled her eyes. Grandmother was still mad that Sulis had yelled at her at midmeal for not unblocking Kadar. She was sure to give everyone an earful about Sulis’s faults because of that.
Grandmother continued the critique. “She created energy without control and did not make it into anything. And she has not dispersed it now that it has risen. She left a mess of energy.”
Clay looked at Grandmother. “I didn’t ask her to control the energy,” he said mildly. “I asked her to learn the dance so she could move in her sleep. She has clearly done so. Why are you angry with her?”
“There is no point to raising the energy if you can’t control it,” Grandmother said dismissively. Her voice was defensive. “She claims she can’t control it, but I think she is getting distracted.” Grandmother waved a hand toward Ashraf, who frowned at her.
“You don’t like our protector?” Clay asked. “He seems like a handsome fellow to me.”
“Too handsome,” Grandmother countered. “As I said, a distraction to a young girl.”
Sulis was about to interrupt, furious that her grandmother would treat her like a child, but Ava put a hand on her arm and shushed her.
“So you are afraid he is after Ava?” Clay countered. He glanced over at Ashraf, who shook his head theatrically. “No, I didn’t think so. And Ava is the only young girl here. All the others are adults.”
Sulis watched in fascination as Grandmother seethed. She started to say something, paused, then tried again. “If Sulis loses her heart to this man, how will she be able to push that bond aside when her brother comes to be her Guardian? How will she focus on the path she and her brother must take? The twin bond must come first to keep all of us safe!”
“Her brother is not her Guardian,” Clay said quietly.
Sulis had rarely seen her grandmother speechless. She could see the woman’s thoughts spinning as she absorbed the information.
“He must be. They have a strong bond; I’ve seen it,” she said, shaking her head. “If not, then what part does Kadar play?”
“I don’t know, exactly. He has a part, but I do not see it as one of the Guardians,” Clay said thoughtfully. “He is in my visions. But he is not among the Chosen.”
Grandmother thought on that a moment. “But she’ll still need to keep herself open for her Guardian. I know from Palou what a personal relationship that has to be. We don’t know yet when he or she will arrive.”
“He is already here. You, as a Shuttle already bonded with your Guardian, should have recognized him for what he is.” Clay looked over at Ashraf, who raised his eyebrows in surprise.
Sulis felt her heart beat strangely in her chest as Ashraf looked over at her. Sulis told herself it was just relief she was feeling. Relief that she finally understood having this much attraction to someone she hardly knew. It wasn’t love or even lust. It was just a bond between two with the same purpose and destiny.
“If he’s it,” Grandmother scoffed, “then why can’t she control anything with him around? Guardians are supposed to enhance control, not take it away.”
“Sulis does not control the energy because she can’t,” Clay said patiently. “That’s why I didn’t ask her to. She is Fire, her energy wild but rising, expanding, drawing fountains of wild energy for the Weaver to work through her cloth. Sulis will dance beautiful patterns with our Earth element Ava. Anchee, as Wood, will send the energy to everyone in the weave, and your Water will funnel it back to the Weaver, who, as Metal, will weave back together what was once whole. Sulis’s Guardian must also be Fire to enhance that energy, and her twin is not.
Clay shook his head and chuckled. “You are not a teacher, Joisha. How many times have I told you this? Yet still you meddle and expect everyone around you to be immediately perfect. You are leader, you inspire from a distance. Leave the teaching to masters like Anchee, people with patience and humility. And more importantly, leave your granddaughter alone! You let your relationship with her mother color your reactions toward her. Until you gain nonattachment and can see Sulis as Sulis, and not as Iamar, do not speak to her about the dances, do not criticize her, and do not glare at her the way you are glaring at me. Understood?”
Grandmother frowned at Clay, and he exaggeratedly scrunched his face up and frowned back. She started chuckling.
“Fine,” she said ruefully. “I suppose I should know better by now. I hate teaching beginners. But it isn’t an easy habit to break.”
Clay grinned. “Meddling never is. Now go fetch me the warrior’s master so I can rearrange Ashraf’s and Palou’s lives. You already know everything I’m about to teach, and I don’t need you fidgeting.”
Clay did not watch Grandmother leave. He glanced over at Ashraf and the other warrior.
“Ashraf will be with us most days. We will also have Palou, Joisha’s Guardian, join us. They will still be taking their physical training with the warriors, but all other trainings and meals will be taken with us.”
Clay turned back to the group. “We will begin to work together from now on. Sulis and Ava will work on patterns in the main hall in the mornings. You three Chosen will begin to understand each other’s energy in the afternoons.”
“And what will Ashraf do?” Ava asked the question Sulis bit back.
“Ashraf will begin to get used to his Shuttle’s energies,” Clay said. He grinned and winked at Sulis. “And Sulis will stop treating her Guardian like an unwanted and unnecessary pest.”
Clay addressed Ashraf. “I want you to go to Sulis’s training with Master Tull and let her know you are the Guardian for this Shuttle. She will begin training the two of you how to work together as a team. Once this core group is working together, you will learn how to enhance Sulis’s energy.”
He looked seriously at Sulis. “But to do so, you need to surrender your reluctance to be near him. You need to get to know him as another person and become friends.”
“Friends I can handle,” Sulis muttered, glancing over at Ashraf.
“Then friends is where we will start,” Ashraf said softly. “And I’ll try not to ask for more.”
“But what about me?” Ava asked. “And Master Anchee? Where are our Guardians? Will we have time to bond with them?”
Clay shook his head. “I only know when something is in front of me,” he said, his tone a little frustrated, “or what I have seen in my dreams. I have to trust that if your Guardians have not appeared, they will at the right time. Perhaps you are not so hardheaded and untrusting as Sulis is, so you won’t need as much time to bond.” The last was said with affection as he reached out and ruffled Sulis’s hair.
“Gee, thanks,” Sulis said dryly.
“Anytime,” Clay said. He grasped her hands and drew her to her feet. “Now, you and Master Anchee will dance your forms. You will see, they will mirror each other.”
“I don’t understand why you call it a dance,” Ava said, wrinkling her nose. “It isn’t like any dancing I’ve ever seen. It’s too precise.”
“It’s a weapon’s dance,” Ashraf interrupted. “It isn’t like social dancing. It’s similar to the sword dances we warriors practice to hone our footwork and thrusts.”
Clay nodded approvingly. “The weapon is the energy you raise with the poses; the weaving of those energies is what makes the dance beautiful. Now Sulis and Anchee, stand thusly.”
He stood Sulis and Anchee facing each other, just a few feet separating them.
“There isn’t enough room,” Anchee said. “We will trip over each other.”
Clay nodded. “And possibly knock each other over. But this is about how much space you will have in the Obsidian Temple. And you will add Joisha and the Weaver to the mix, so it will become even more crowded. You’ve learned to do the dances in your sleep. Now you need to be awake enough to do the dance while being aware of another in your space and modify your steps accordingly.”
He and Ava stepped to the side as Anchee and Sulis stared at each other.
Anchee grinned at Sulis. “I’ve never done this with a partner,” he said. “We’ll have to adjust the speed of our flow to keep in step with each other.”
Sulis nodded. Anchee stepped into his Warrior pose, and Sulis did the same.
“We’ll try not to laugh if you fall,” Clay offered, and they both turned their heads to glare at him. He grinned. “Or at least, we won’t laugh too loudly.”
By the time they finished, Sulis’s body was slick with sweat, and she shook droplets off her hair. Her eyes stung with the salt that had gotten into them. She and Anchee had never managed to knock each other over, but it had thrown her having someone facing her and doing the moves as though with a mirror image. She’d forgotten the flow three times, and Clay had ordered them to stop and restart. She would have felt bad, but Anchee had forgotten once and he’d been practicing his flow for decades. He was nursing a scratch on his cheek where Sulis’s outflung arm caught him, and they both had lumps on their forehead from being too close coming into a bow and prostration.
“Excellent,” Clay said quietly. Behind him, Ashraf grinned in approval, and Sulis found herself grinning back.
“Well, the head smacking was pretty funny,” Ava added. “But I thought it was beautiful when the two of you were moving together like that. Well, in a gawky, just-getting-going sort of way. Like a newborn foal getting to its feet.”
Anchee ruffled her hair, and she ducked away.
“Ick, you two are sweaty,” Ava said, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t know how Grandmother Hasifel will fit between the two with her dance. They’ll run into each other constantly.”
“She won’t,” Clay said. “Her dance is around the two, unifying them.”
“It is a spinning dance,” Anchee added. “Very fluid. It looks nothing like ours, and is wild and uncontrolled.”
“She will learn to control it with two others to mind. Or her whirling will be like a sandstorm, taking everyone down in her path,” Clay chuckled, obviously enjoying the image. He raised his head suddenly. “Dinner. Smells like steaks. The warriors must have had a good hunt.” He turned and started off to the eating hall.
Ava shook her head. “For someone so scrawny, he sure likes to eat.”
Anchee nodded. “I think for much of his young life he never had enough. Now he appreciates every bite. Watch him eat; he makes a meditation out of it.”
“I’m heading to the bathhouses first,” Sulis said. “I’ll meet you there.”
When she entered the eating hall, Sulis hesitated, then sat beside Ashraf. She suddenly found herself tongue-tied, which was silly because she’d seen the man every day for the past few months. Or at least, she’d been pushing him away with sharp retorts and sarcastic comments that entire time.
He seemed to sense her reticence and passed her the bread without comment, making certain she had sea salt in front of her and fetching her a glass of water. Sulis realized he’d been doing that the entire time they’d been at Kabandha, but she had pushed away those kind gestures as well. Anything she could do not to seem soft in front of her teachers.
Sulis glanced around for her grandmother and found her at a different table. She was resting her white head on the shoulder of her Guardian, Palou. Grandmother had introduced Sulis to Palou the first month they’d arrived. She had seen Grandmother with him from time to time but never this intimate. Sulis was surprised to see a feli’s head sticking out from under the table, its chin leaning against Palou’s thigh. At first she thought it was Djinn, but then she realized the head was spotted like the wild felines. The man palmed the feli some meat, and it slipped back under the table.
Clay was watching Sulis when she turned her attention back.
“Grandmother’s Guardian has a feli?” Sulis asked.
Clay nodded. “I have seen that all the Chosen Guardian pairs have at least one feli between them,” he confirmed. “Palou there attracts wild feli, much like I’m told you used to. This female has chosen to stay with him.”
“Female?” Sulis asked, and looked around for Djinn. She realized that two tails snaked out from under the table, and one was not spotted. “That’s where he’s been spending his time. I thought it was with Ashraf.”
“He has spent some time with me,” Ashraf said. “But since she went into heat, he’s spent much more time with her.”
“Into heat?” Sulis asked, wondering how she could have missed all this. She’d have to find a moment to speak to Palou about their feli. “So she is carrying his kits?”
Clay’s eyes sparkled. “See what happens when you are off feeling sorry for yourself?” he teased. “Your feli gets mated while you miss out on the mate right in front of you.”
Sulis blushed, having forgotten how forward Clay could be. She was unable to look at Ashraf, whose low laugh rumbled beside her.
“I didn’t see it either,” Ava confirmed. “It’s not like feli are known for their faithfulness or anything.”
“He seems pretty smitten,” Ashraf confirmed. “More than a typical feli. Of course, I see more of the two of them together since Palou is in the dorms with me, and his feli likes to stay with him.”
“Will the kittens be friendlier than the wild ones?” Ava asked hopefully.
“It depends on how wild the mother is,” Sulis said. “Maybe it’s the human bond that makes the Temple feli atypical. You’d like a feli of your own, wouldn’t you?”
“If the One wishes me to have one,” Ava said wistfully. “It may not be in her plans for me.”
They all looked over at Clay, who widened his eyes. “Don’t look at me! All I get are fragments of dreams, teaching lessons. Perhaps Ava ends up with a feli, but it isn’t important to teaching you, so I won’t see it. Perhaps you are counting kits before they are born. Don’t look to this old man to decide your future. That is in your hands.” He grinned. “Mostly. And the One’s.”