THIS WAS NOT what I had in mind, Sulis thought, panting in the morning sun, when I said I was ready to learn. I think she’s trying to kill me.
Sulis held the moving meditation pose her grandmother had guided her into, feeling her legs start to quiver. Her arms were outstretched, her legs in a lunging sort of position, and she was supposed to be breathing deeply instead of gasping.
A memory returned to Sulis, as she held the pose, of a fight between her mother and grandmother. She’d been very young and had been imitating her grandmother’s twisting flow. Her mother had found Grandmother teaching her some poses, flowing with her. She’d been furious.
“You aren’t going to force Sulis into your crazy religious cult.” Her mother’s voice had cracked in anger. “Sulis will make her own decision as I made mine. Keep your hands off my daughter.”
“The prophecy is real,” Grandmother responded. “Iamar, you daughter has a part to play in this, whether you like it or not. I am simply preparing her for her future.”
“You want to ruin her life, the way you have yours and Father’s,” Iamar snapped. “Stay away from my children. If you don’t, Gadiel and I will leave, and you’ll never see them again.”
Sulis gasped and stared at her grandmother, lowering her arms.
“My mother. I remembered a time, when I was young . . .” she said, to Grandmother’s frown.
Grandmother nodded, almost approvingly. “Yes. The energy of the poses brings clarity to the mind and breaks through emotional barriers.”
“I remember . . . Mother didn’t want me to learn these moves. Why? Why did she threaten to take us away?”
“Your mother was willful,” Grandmother said harshly. At Sulis’s frown, her face softened, and she shook her head. “It was not all her. I pushed too hard for her to accept my calling, to follow in my footsteps. She told me she was called by the One to Illian, and I told her she was lying to herself. It was the worst thing I could have done. After that, she rejected all the traditional teachings and refused to let me teach you and your brother.”
“But what prophecy? Why did she think you were in a cult?”
“I am preparing you to learn these things,” Grandmother said, the finality of her tone warning Sulis not to question her further. “Now raise your arms again and assume the full posture. The Warrior pose. Already you have seen how it rids the mind of emotional blockage.”
Sulis raised her arms and winced at the fatigue in her shoulders.
“You try too hard,” Grandmother said. “Ease and suppleness, breath and body—not force and willpower. Go through that sequence again, only focus on being at ease in your own body.”
“I can’t,” Sulis protested. “My stomach still hurts when I press into an up-face.”
Grandmother shook her head. “It is remembered pain, not real. Aneke says you are fully healed inside and out. You need to press through that not-pain to get to the real pain, which is in the emotions, in the head. When you do that, you will be fully healed. And when you are healed, we can go deeper.”
“So why is Ava doing sitting meditation while I’m sweating it over here?” Sulis protested.
“Your nature is Fire. Your energy is always moving, always swirling. You must move with your energy to tame it and quiet it. Ava is Earth. She must ground herself, set down roots to own her energy and body. You will both learn all the types of meditation and practice them for greater ease in body and mind—but your focus will be on the one that complements your nature. Not every meditation is right for every person. Stop complaining and do the flow.”
There was the sound of footsteps behind Sulis, who knew better by now than to look. She’d been shoved over into the sand several times now and learned to keep her focus. Grandmother glanced over at the newcomer, and a subtle change came over her as she stood taller, tucked her chin, and looked more regal. She went from exasperated teacher to powerful leader in the space of a breath.
“Take a break while I handle this,” she told Sulis. “Stretch, or you will stiffen up, and drink water to release the toxins.”
Sulis released the pose, shaking out her arms, and watched as her grandmother walked off with a tall, ebony-skinned man wearing a white cloak and turban, his clothes dingy from the dust of travel.
Djinn rubbed his side against her sweaty thigh, and she grimaced at the layer of shed fur left sticking to her skin as she pushed him away. She went to the water-hole aquifer under the date palms and carefully splashed the fur and sweat off her legs. Ava sat cross-legged under one of the palms and opened her eyes as Sulis sat down beside her.
“It’s so unfair you get to sit here in the shade and daydream while I have to do endless sun dances,” Sulis complained.
“She makes me do some sun dances in the morning and evening to be more flexible, so I can sit for longer,” Ava said primly, her eyes dancing, “But you are Fire, and I am of the Earth. You need to move like the flames to focus your energies, and I need to make like a rock and sit still.” She sighed and shook out her legs. “I think I’d rather dance than sit and try not to think. I’m exhausted from not thinking.”
Sulis grinned in sympathy, remembering her own meditation at the Temple. As always, the memory was accompanied by a pang of regret, and worry for Alannah, Lasha, Jonas, and the others she had left behind.
“You worry about everyone back home, too, don’t you?” Ava said.
Sulis nodded. “This is home for me. But I miss my friends back in Illian, at the Temple. I know we’d had just a year together, but I’ve never been as close to anyone as to them—besides Kadar. Alannah managed to smuggle a note back with Uncle Aaron, so I know she and Jonas are still in the city. But Lasha and Dani have been sent to the trading outpost, a couple days’ ride from here right at the edge of the desert, and sometimes I wonder if I should go there, to see them. But then I worry that I’d be arrested for the death of the Templar, and that it would make things worse. I sent a message for Lasha with Kadar, but I don’t know if he’ll have a chance to find her before they travel on to Illian.”
Ava nodded. “I worry about Farrah, and the boys and my little sister. Sometimes I think I should be there, helping Farrah take care of everyone.”
“You belong here, right now,” Grandmother’s voice said from behind her. “And starting now, neither of you will have time to worry.”
Sulis jumped and turned, giving her grandmother an exasperated glare. The old woman seemed to love sneaking up on Sulis, somehow not making a sound in the sand.
Grandmother grinned, enjoying Sulis’s irritation. The visitor stood beside her, looking regal in his white clothes.
“Why won’t we have time, Grandmother Hasifel?” Ava asked politely.
“Because I must go south. And you will be coming with me. Between traveling and your lessons, you will be much too busy to worry about anything but getting enough rest.”
The man frowned and spoke sharply to Grandmother in a language Sulis didn’t know, gesturing toward Ava, who gulped and looked down at her feet.
Grandmother replied clearly, so both girls could hear. “These are both my apprentices, my pairings of the heart. If you do not accept both, you do not accept me and can solve your problem on your own.”
Ava didn’t look up, but her shoulders squared, and she stood taller. The man frowned and glared at Grandmother, who gazed back in quiet amusement. After a moment, his lips quirked up slightly, and he shrugged. Sulis made a mental note to ask her grandmother what language he was speaking. It seemed familiar to her.
Grandmother turned her attention back to the girls. “Sulis, contact the stablemaster and tell him we will start out with mules and change to humpbacks at the start of the dunes. Ava, see to the kitchens: tell them I will be heading to the outpost with a party of seven. They’ll understand what I need; I’ve made this trip many times. Go now—I have more to speak with Master Anchee about.”
She turned to the master, and they started speaking again in that unfamiliar language, dismissing Sulis and Ava. The girls glanced at each other, then Ava started off toward the kitchen as Sulis headed to the edge of town. She could feel excitement rising in her, as she had when she and Kadar joined Uncle Aaron’s caravan for the first time. Life was moving once again, and she was moving with it.