Vis had returned to his training with renewed determination after Koyla’s council. He’d almost succeeded in her office, had felt the surface of the Lucidil respond to his will. He was so close he felt his blood boil every time he failed. There was just that one last hurdle between him and a true mentor.
But it was a tall hurdle to jump, and much harder than it seemed. True control over the Blood of Rasha required complete control over one’s emotions. A mental focus clouded by feelings was distracted and weak, not becoming of a Rashani. The Daughters of Rasha must be bold and quick-witted, unhindered by fear or doubt, and especially anger. Vis had doubts in spades, and while he would not admit to fear, Koyla had been right in saying his anger was holding him back. His temper flared at the worst times, foiling every attempt at earning a Lucidil. That anger was the last barrier that stood before him, and he was finding it difficult to tear down after so many years of resentment.
Worse, Nue’s success had struck a large blow to his confidence, making his own efforts suffer. He hated blaming her for his shortcomings, but more often than not what triggered his temper was the memory of that silver ball cupped in her hands. How had she cleared that last hurdle? They’d struggled together since childhood, yet only Nue had managed to move on. It should have encouraged Vis, pushed him to try even harder. Instead, he found it disheartening; he’d always thought his more forceful personality would earn him his Lucidil first, but now he found himself struggling to keep up. Any day now, a Sikkat would be found for Nue, and they’d be pulled apart; a friendship that had withstood the social alienation of the Rashani, sundered by the very success they’d dreamed of. Vis had to pass the test, and soon, but every misstep broke his confidence further.
On the day when the news about Alis reached Utopia, Vis had been alone, self-sequestered away from the rest of the Enclave in an empty training hall. He was used to solitude, and though it was un-Rashani to think so, he found strength in it. Most Rashani shunned him at every opportunity and even in the dining hall, where hundreds ate every day, Vis would find the seats around him empty. Nue would be there at times when their timetables didn’t conflict, but that was rare. Just as well he was alone; how could he achieve proper focus with people nattering around him? No, if he was ever going to be a Rashani, he must keep his thoughts on himself, pushing out even Nue.
He sat cross-legged on the hard stone floor. There were benches along one side of the hall, but Syla had given him shit about sitting around all day, so he solved the problem in his own way. He clasped his hands around a training Lucidil, trying to pour his mind into it and shape it. This Lucidil was ownerless, discarded by an aged Rashani long ago and deemed unfit to be handed down to another. There was a bond formed between a Lucidil and its owner, deeply spiritual and utterly inexplicable to anyone who did not have the Blood. Lucidite was more than a simple metal; it was alive in some way, receptive to thoughts but having none of its own. Nue had described using her Lucidil as feeling like dipping her legs into a pool of cold water, sending almost pleasurable chills running through her. Bit by bit, she said, Nue would submerge herself, plunging her mind deeper with every shaping. Vis got none of that from the tool in his hands; it was damaged and worn, its shape not quite the perfect sphere it had once been. Anyone could use it, but it would never become a true extension of its user as it once had. That made it ideal for training inexperienced pupils, as it had enough give to allow them to practice, but a teacher could easily wrest control away if things got out of hand. Syla had snatched it from his grasp many times over the years, when she was particularly bored.
He bent his head forwards, nearly pressing his nose into the Lucidil’s surface. It yielded to his mind readily enough, but when he tried to shape it, the sphere only rippled. The fault was with him, not the Lucidil; his will was not strong enough, not focused to the sharp point it needed to be. Frustration mounted, swelling like a tidal wave, just as the ball began to shift, its perfect spherical form bulging in odd distortions.
No! Vis panicked, trying to suppress his anger. He was losing it, just as it had begun to respond. He tried to get a mental grasp on it again, but it slipped away. The Lucidil folded back into a sphere, neither accepting nor rejecting him. Another failure.
“Pathetic,” a voice hissed behind him.
Vis started, whipping his head around. He hadn’t even heard Syla come in, but she stood only a few feet away, a black capelet hanging over her shoulders. Her arms, clad in white sleeves, crossed over her chest, strangely complimenting her smirking features. Despite the facade of amusement, her grey eyes bored into Vis with hatred and ridicule. Although she was in her early forties at the oldest, some event in her past seemed to have soured her prematurely and added about ten years of lines to her face, which only enhanced her contemptuous expression.
Vis stood, Lucidil clutched in one hand like a good throwing stone. “It doesn’t reflect well on your abilities as a teacher if I’m still pathetic after a decade of training. Perhaps I might improve if you were present at our sessions more often.”
Syla’s smirk shifted into a particularly unpleasant sneer. “No amount of training will make you a Rashani, boy. You may have the Blood of Rasha, but that doesn’t make you fit to hold a Lucidil. What I find pathetic is that you’re still trying at all. Your birth was an accident, and it will take another to let you climb any higher. Give up and stop wasting my time.”
“I’ve heard this one before,” Vis observed, calmly sitting down again. He gazed at the Lucidil, feigning another attempt at shaping it. “Besides, I wasn’t aware you had anything better to do with your time, considering you volunteered for this. Given your secret lust for me, I thought you enjoyed being here. That’s right, I know, and I’d be happy to oblige you if you’ll just put a bag over your head.”
Syla’s face twisted in disgust. “I would never!”
Vis met her expression with mock surprise. “Oh, have I gotten too old for you?”
“Your jibes are the only things growing old, freak,” Syla returned.
“As old as you?”
“Your training might go smoother if you talked less,” Syla said, tersely.
“Yes, it’s much easier to pick on someone when they don’t fight back, isn’t it? You truly are a model Rashani, Syla.” Vis gave up the game and dropped the Lucidil. It bounced and rolled with a wet, metallic sound and came to a stop about a foot away. “Was there something you wanted? You clearly don’t mean to teach me today.”
Syla brushed a hand across her dark hair, which carried a few strands of grey. “If I had any sense, I’d leave you here and let you find out yourself, but the Council specified that everyone must attend. Come, there’s been some trouble, and a gathering’s been called.”
Vis’s ears pricked up. It was rare for the Council to call gatherings. “What kind of trouble?”
Syla scowled. “You’ll find out when you get there! Now get off your ass and change into something presentable!” She didn’t even wait for him to stand before striding out of the room. She’d said her piece, done her duty only to the very letter, and now it was up to Vis to act on it. Surely, a student could not ask for a better teacher.
Vis collected himself and returned the old Lucidil to the storage closet at the back of the room before leaving the training hall. A disturbance filled the corridors of the Enclave as women rushed in the direction of the gathering hall. Vis pulled his hood up and inserted himself into the steady flow, to no objection. They were in too much of a hurry to notice that Vis Unclaimed walked among them. It was glorious; a rare moment of anonymity that he wished he could savour. He was, for a few fleeting minutes, a part of the Sisterhood. He walked in step with them, following the current through the halls, meeting with other streams that poured into the wide basin of the gathering hall.
There were approximately ten thousand Rashani and Rashani trainees, which was only a tiny fraction of Utopia’s population. One third was spread across the galaxy on missions at any given time, and another third served to assist in law enforcement across Utopia. The gathering hall had been built to accommodate all of them, its high green walls enclosing the space of a city block. From the outside, it resembled a massive pyramid wedged in the centre of the Enclave. The floor was bare stone, as carpeting the space would be an arduous task worthy of legend, and all Rashani were expected to stand. A raised platform stood in the middle of the room, holding the Rashani Council above the swarming crowd.
Vis lingered at the edge of the crowd, knowing that he was bound to be picked out now that the rush was over. He kept his hood up, watching as the Councilwomen arranged themselves around the podium. The chattering of the Rashani was silenced as the women on stage bowed their heads and began a short hymn. The crowd joined in, their voices mixing into a contralto din that thanked the Goddess Rasha for all she had given their world. Quietly, Vis murmured the words, unsure if Rasha was even listening. The legends said that Utopia had once been a barren land, almost inhospitable to its human colonists. Rasha had come upon the settlement and felt pity for them, and transformed herself into a rain that poured all across the planet. Wherever a drop fell, flowers sprang from the ground, and life began to flourish, until Utopia was the beautiful world of plenty it was today. Rasha had sacrificed herself to create the environment in which her daughters could sprout and thrive, but although she was dead, she flowed through the veins of every Rashani, directing them to carry out her will. Vis didn’t understand how that worked, but to question it would only draw the ire of the others. So he recited the prayers, wondering what Rasha had planned when she’d made him a boy.
It was Koyla who stood at the centre of the podium when the hymn died down, her expression grim. Vis gave her his full attention. Anything that could trouble such a wise woman must be a serious matter. She adjusted the microphone, then took a deep breath, as if gathering courage for what she had to say. “My Sisters, I bring grave news. A tragedy has befallen the Consortium of Croish.” The assembled Rashani became still as Koyla related what was known about the attack. Vis hadn’t even known about the negotiations, as the politics of the galaxy rarely affected Utopia and never touched him. It was embarrassing to realize that he recognized less than half of the names Koyla spoke of as if they were commonly known.
“Among those absent is our Sister Alis, Daughter of Cire,” Koyla continued, her voice heavy with grief. “We do not know her whereabouts, or even if she is alive.”
A low wail escaped the crowd, and Vis shared in the grief that rolled across the room. The loss of a Sister was always a tragic thing. Koyla let the moans run their course before speaking again.
“Please, Sisters, have strength. There is hope that we might soon know. The Aquila Alliance has invited us to investigate the site of the attack and discover the answers they struggle to find. Praise Rasha, that they trust we had no hand in the attack.”
A commotion broke out among the Rashani as volunteers surged towards the platform, pushing each other out of the way. While Vis had heard of Alis before, he hadn’t known she was that popular. He counted five proper Rashani begging Koyla to let them go, and almost ten trainees behind them.
Koyla rapped a hand on the podium to bring them to order, the microphone picking up and amplifying the sound across the hall. “Thank you for your enthusiasm, Sisters, but please be patient. The Council will select a suitable Rashani to send to Croish before the day is done. Alis will be found, no matter her condition, but peace between the Kinship and the Aquila Alliance hangs on the results of this mission. Whoever we send must be wise, skilled, and very careful. War between our biggest clients would be problematic, and tragic. We must have time to find the best candidate.”
The gathering broke up shortly after that. Koyla led a prayer for Alis, and then asked that everyone go about their business and not let the bad news weaken their resolve. The crowd dispersed, the hall filling with a cacophony of voices. As they moved towards the exit, Vis went with them, head bowed to hide his face. He had gotten out of the gathering hall and was planning to return to his training, when he felt a sudden tug on the back of his hood. A second pull yanked the cloth from his head and exposed him. He kept his head down and walked faster, trying to pretend nothing had happened.
He didn’t even see the woman in front of him until he walked into her. He took a step back and lifted his head. Five young women had formed a ring around him, cutting off an easy escape. Vis met the eyes of the one he’d walked into and felt her smouldering anger. It wasn’t really him they were angry with, Vis knew; it was the business with Alis that rankled them, but without a clear perpetrator in reach, they had settled on him. Vis understood that kind of anger, the sort fostered by a situation that couldn’t be changed.
The woman in front of him, a tall athletic type with short blonde hair, folded her arms and sniffed, her nostrils flaring as wide as her eyes. “Thought I smelled something putrid. What are you doing here, freak?”
Vis didn’t cower, knowing it wouldn’t change anything. “I came to hear the Council speak. My teacher said that everyone had to come.”
The woman’s lips parted just a crack, showing her upper teeth. “The call was for all Rashani, which you are not.”
Vis noted what the woman was wearing: a blue training tunic, embroidered with a Utopian rose over the heart. “Neither are you, from the looks of it.”
The fist came at him like a bolt of lightning, a sudden flash and crack against his right eye. He stumbled back in surprise, clutching his face where the numbing blow had landed. The woman closed the distance between them in a single stride, grabbing hold of Vis’s collar. She lifted her other hand and held it up for Vis to see as it closed into a fist and pulled back.
“Demina, stop!” the nearest woman in the circle exclaimed. “He’s not worth it.”
Vis watched through one eye as the woman named Demina halted, her fist held taut like a stone in a sling. She looked at her companions, then back to Vis, and anger visibly gave way to an annoyed pout. She released him and strode off with her entourage in tow.
The strength of Vis’s legs gave out and he dropped to his knees in the middle of the hallway. The witnesses to the encounter gave him a wide berth, a few turning back to stare a moment before hurrying off. Vis ignored them, touching a hand to his right eye. It hurt when he tried to open it, and he could already feel the skin around it swelling.
He could’ve fought back. The one thing Syla had taught him was how to fight, and he was skilled with a practice baton. Even without a weapon, he could’ve given Demina some bruises to match his own, but his heart wasn’t in it. Whoever came to break up the fight would’ve just blamed him for starting it anyway.
No more training today. He was going to find some ice, and then he was going back to his room for the rest of the day.
* * *
Vis lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling while he pressed an ice pack against his face. His living quarters were cramped, with hardly any room to fit even the clothes drawers. He sometimes liked to joke that he lived in a closet, but that was a slight exaggeration. Where most sleeping quarters in the Enclave held two or three, Vis had been given his own private room, which suited him just fine. It was perhaps the only benefit of being an outcast.
Outcast. An ugly word, and maybe too strong to describe him. Not every Rashani treated him as Demina or Syla did, and the laws that allowed him to take Rashani training at all had been upheld. A true outcast would have been disowned by the Sisterhood and barred from the Enclave, as Zira had been.
Vis had not meant to think of her, but Zira had a way of worming her way into his mind at unexpected moments. Once she was there, he couldn’t help but hold her as the focus of his thoughts. To many, she was known as Zira the Heretic. She had been born Zira, Daughter of Lindi, but the Council had declared her actions so heinous as to bring shame to her mother’s name, and they had given her the new title. Zira, notorious for her rebellious spirit, had warmed to the name immediately, using it with pride as she and her pupils left Utopia before her banishment was officially decreed. That had been twelve years ago, when Vis had been a boy of six, and just as lonely as he was now. He liked to think Zira would have taken him with her, if he’d been older and more independent. He would’ve made for an eager pupil and a loving son.
That was his secret shame, the nagging suspicion he’d held for years. She had not claimed him at birth, nor was there any evidence that she had ever had a child, but at the core of his heart was the possibility, the hope, that they shared the same blood. Just admitting that might be considered heresy to some. As Zira had gone against the laws of the Rashani, maybe her rebellious blood had created a child whose very existence challenged thousands of years of Rashani knowledge. It had a poetic ring to it, if nothing else, and Vis was drawn to the prospect.
He remembered meeting Zira only once, just before she’d compiled her beliefs on the role of the Rashani in the galaxy into her manifesto, Rashani Reborn, and thus earned herself the scorn of the Council. Vis had been wandering about the Enclave library, where books were kept on all knowledge deemed too sacred to store digitally. Children were not allowed there, but Vis had been small and had already learned how not to be seen. Curiosity had drawn him there, along with the guilty-but-pleasurable feeling of being somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. His reading abilities had been limited, and he’d been more interested in the beautiful paintings on the walls than the dusty books that lined the shelves.
He had first laid eyes on Zira as he rounded the end of a bank of shelves, and he’d immediately pulled back and hidden behind it. She’d been seated at a table in one of the library’s many nooks, books splayed open before her as she worked on a personal computer. She’d been quite a sight, wearing a scarlet robe in place of the traditional blue, with long caramel hair framing a pretty but thoughtful face. Vis had watched from behind the bookcase, unsure what to make of her.
Zira’s eyes had remained on her work, but a smile had quirked her lips. “I know you’re there, little one. Why don’t you come out here and say hello, like a proper child?”
Vis’s first instinct had been to run and find a better hiding place, but then he’d felt Zira’s mind brush his own, projecting an inviting warmth. It was one of the simplest expressions of a Rashani’s power, but it had been completely new to Vis, not like the dull disinterest he felt from his caretakers. Cautiously, he had come out from hiding and approached Zira’s table, his feet seeming to move on their own.
Zira had turned to face him, her smile as warm as the emotions she projected. “That’s better. Why were you hiding from me?”
Vis had lowered his head, fearing a reprimand. At that time, his experience with grown women had been limited to the Enclave nurses, normal women with none of the Blood, whose attitudes towards him had varied between distant and strict. To be faced with an actual Rashani was almost terrifying. “I’m not supposed to be in here. I’m sorry.”
Zira had leaned forward, speaking in a hushed tone. “Well, to be honest, I’m not supposed to be here either. I’m on probation—I broke a silly little rule and the Council told me to stay in my room. That’s right, they ground Rashani too. Not fun, is it? How about we make a deal? I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me.”
Vis had nodded, swearing to secrecy like they were making a sacred blood pact. They shook on it, and then Zira had rustled his hair affectionately.
“You’re Vis, aren’t you?”
Vis had been stunned. “How do you know my name?”
Zira had shrugged, glancing over either shoulder. “I don’t see any other boys in the Enclave. Who else would you be?”
Vis had blushed, feeling stupid. Now confident he wasn’t in any trouble, he’d craned his neck to see the books strewn across the table. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, research,” Zira had said, waving her hand dismissively. “I’m writing a treatise on what we Rashani should be doing, but these boring old books are the only place I can find the information I need. You’d be surprised how many silly laws are written in here.”
Vis had not known what a treatise was, but the fact Zira hadn’t assumed he was a dumb child who wouldn’t understand had warmed him to her. “How can the laws be silly? They’re the laws—you have to follow them.”
“Nooooot necessarily,” Zira had said. “Laws are just like rules, only bigger and snootier. But neither of us are following the rules by being in here. Why can’t the same be done with the law?”
Being a mere child of six, this little nugget of insight had exploded young Vis’ mind. For a brief moment, the world expanded out before him, but he did not feel small. He began to grasp that there were possibilities waiting out there, ones he might grasp at if he was careful enough. Then the ingrained fears of being a child returned, smothering his sudden ambitions.
“But if you get caught, you get disciplined,” he’d said, recalling the slap of the nurses’ flat sticks that left his arms red and sore.
Zira had frowned. “That’s possible, but risks need to be taken sometimes. You can’t bring about change without courage. That’s my dream, Vis—to change the Rashani, to take hold of our Sisters’ hearts and turn them to a better path. It scares me, knowing what I must do and that many will hate me for it, but it’s the right thing to do. I can’t give up just because I’m frightened of being caught.” As she’d spoken, she’d seemed to become huge, larger than life, a giant stretching out a woman’s body. Vis had listened with rapt attention, not quite grasping the meaning of her words. It was the emotion at the core of what she said that resonated with him.
When Zira had finished, she’d turned the full force of her soon-to-be infamous charisma on him, her smile branding a mark at the centre of Vis’s being. “And what is your dream, Vis?”
Vis had looked at his shoes, feeling nervous and ashamed. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Zira repeated. “I don’t believe you. You want to be a Rashani, don’t you?”
Again, Vis was astonished by Zira’s apparent mind-reading powers. Had she known through hearsay, or had she been that good at puzzling people out? He had nodded, hesitantly. “But everyone says I can’t. They say only a woman can be a Rashani. Some of them say I shouldn’t have been born.”
He’d been surprised when Zira left her seat, kneeling down to meet Vis at his level. She’d held his small shoulders, making him meet her dark brown eyes.
“They’re talking nonsense.” Her voice was soft and intimate, filled with more kindness than he’d ever felt before. “All you did was break the rule everyone thought couldn’t be broken. Maybe there are only women Rashani now, but you’ve already taken the first step to changing that. If you want to be a Rashani, then become a Rashani. It’s all up to you—don’t let some old women tell you what can and can’t be done.”
Vis had carried those words with him ever since, always having them when needed. They had probably shaped him into the young man he was now, and if he could, he would’ve given Zira his deepest gratitude for that advice. It was only after they had quietly parted ways, when Vis was puzzling over her kindness, that he’d wondered if they might’ve been closer than he’d first thought. So kind, so encouraging, so warm; all these things he thought a mother should be. There must have been some reason why she had not claimed him. Perhaps she had known the dangerous path her actions would one day lead her down, and did not want to put her child at risk by association. The cynical part of Vis told him he was being delusional, and his personal sliver of traditional thought cried heresy, but he still clung to the secret possibility twelve years later.
In the end, it hardly mattered. After breaking so many rules that the Council had banished her, Zira the Heretic had shone brightly but briefly. She and her band of ideological rebels had swept across both the Kinship and the Alliance, taking on tasks that traditional Rashani would not. They engaged freely in skirmishes between nations, throwing aside neutrality to repel Imperial incursions. The Council denounced them at every turn, declaring them improperly trained and dangerous, hoping to deter potential clients. But Zira hadn’t needed to be asked to get involved. She’d never hidden her belief that the Bythos Empire was the greatest evil in the galaxy, and threw herself eagerly into any conflict with them, regardless of whether her allies welcomed her. The exact circumstances of her death were vague, but the handful of her comrades that returned to the Enclave to beg forgiveness claimed she’d been killed in an attack on an Eclipse-class Empire battleship. While the rest of the Enclave cheered the death of the heretic, Vis had hidden in his room, as he did now, and wept. But while Zira was gone, and all her writings burned, her words to Vis remained to push him towards his dream. He would be a Rashani.
Someone knocked at his door as he brooded, bringing his thoughts back to the present. He checked the alarm clock on the drawer crammed next to his bed; he’d been lying there for a few hours now. He hadn’t even noticed; it felt as if he’d relived that entire old encounter in real time. He set the ice pack aside and went to the door.
Nue waited on the other side, wringing her hands. Her eyes widened as he poked his head out into the light of the hallway. “Oh, Rasha—your eye!”
“It’s fine,” he assured her. The pain had died down, leaving a cold, numb sensation.
“What happened?”
“I said it’s fine,” he repeated, more forcefully. “Did you want something?”
Nue’s face fell. “Do I need a reason to visit you?”
Vis caught himself before he said anything further. He was such an ass. He took a short breath to calm himself. “I’m sorry—today’s been a bad day.”
“You don’t say. Who did this to you?” Nue’s voice was quiet, but Vis could sense a few flickers of anger from her.
“Some stupid girls,” Vis answered, honestly. “Please, let’s not talk about it.”
“All right—any luck with the Lucidil?”
That might be the one thing he wanted to talk about less than his eye. He shook his head. “Let’s go for a walk.”
The gardens stretched out from the dormitories, accenting the paved paths between Enclave structures with Utopian roses and other vibrantly-coloured plants native to the planet. It was the work of countless generations of bored, planet-bound Rashani, trying to cultivate the same sense of exotic excitement their travelling Sisters must have felt. Vis didn’t know if they’d found satisfaction in it, but their efforts had changed the Enclave into a work of art. Vis and Nue walked the looping paths around patches of gorgeous flora, taking in the smells of Utopia.
Nue was quiet as they idly strolled. She replied to Vis’s questions with distracted stammers, and he sensed a storm of conflict from within her. Vis kept the talk light, giving her time to sort out whatever she clearly wanted to say. He was in no hurry; after the news about Nue’s Lucidil, Vis doubted whatever she had to say would have as strong an impact.
Minutes passed, the sun striking yellow petals and turning them gold, while the closed buds of Utopian roses unfolded as the two walked by, awakening to their presence. Vis thought that now might be a good time to say something more substantial. “This stuff about Alis sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it?”
Nue swallowed, nodded, said nothing. She held her hands so tightly together that Vis began to wonder if they’d been glued together.
He carried on. “I hardly knew her, but I guess she must’ve been popular. Popular enough for others to get angry about, at least.” He absentmindedly touched his bruised eye. It seemed to have stopped swelling. “Did you know her?”
Nue looked at him as if he’d just erupted into birdsong, then suddenly shook her head. “No—well, yes. I met her once or twice, at parties. She was one of those people who stands out in a crowd, even when she didn’t want to.”
“Parties?” Vis raised an eyebrow. “Rashani parties? I wasn’t invited.”
Nue bit her lip, one of her many guilty habits. “I only went to a couple. You probably wouldn’t have enjoyed them—I didn’t have much fun.”
Vis held Nue’s gaze, mildly suspicious. “I’m sorry to hear that. You’ve gotten awfully quiet—what’s on your mind?”
Nue swallowed again. “The Council has already selected a Rashani to visit the Consortium. Mela, Daughter of Donia.”
“Oh,” Vis replied, unsure why that would upset Nue so. He was glad to hear the Council was dealing with the situation in such a quick manner. “I guess I must have missed the announcement.”
Nue took a deep breath. “They haven’t announced it yet. It won’t be public knowledge until tomorrow at the soonest.”
“Then how do you know?”
“They told me.” Nue’s face scrunched up as if she were about to cry. “Mela is my Sikkat, Vis—I’m going to the Consortium with her. This isn’t how apprenticeships normally begin, but Mela’s considered the best choice to send, and the Council says this will be an excellent opportunity to learn by seeing a Rashani in action.”
It was a warm, sunny day, but Vis felt ice cold. The colours of the garden seemed so muted, suddenly, as if joy itself had been sucked out of them—sucked out of him. For an instant, everything seemed to spin, until his foot landed on an uneven tile and he nearly tripped. He caught himself and felt Nue’s hand close on his arm, steadying him.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
Vis brushed her off gently and stood up straight. “I’m fine. Congratulations. I don’t know really know Mela, but if the Council puts their trust in her, she will make for an excellent mentor. When do you leave?”
“A couple of days,” Nue answered softly. Suddenly, her arms were around him, her face buried in his chest. “Oh, Vis, I don’t want to go! It’s too soon, a-and I’m not ready yet! What if I have to fight? I can hardly use my Lucidil!”
Vis remained still, letting Nue catch her breath. In his head, he was still working through the knowledge that she was leaving. His only friend, gone. It brought him down to a dark place.
“You can’t refuse,” he forced himself to say. “You’ve been given an opportunity any trainee would kill for. You must go. I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“But what if it’s not?” Nue lifted her head to meet his eye. “Whoever attacked the Consortium might have killed Alis—a trained Rashani. If she couldn’t fight them, how can I?”
Vis did not like seeing Nue so distraught. It didn’t suit her at all. “Alis was caught by surprise. You and Mela will be prepared. As for fighting… maybe I can help you there, at least a little.”
“How?” Nue asked, releasing him.
Vis smiled. “Let’s go find a training hall. I’m going to show you how to be a fighter.”