Suddenly realizing what he had done, Jardir straightened, but there was no response to his commotion. He swept the wreckage into a corner and began a sharukin. The practiced series of sharusahk movements centered him as no prayer ever could.

The events of the last week swirled around him. Abban was khaffit now. Jardir felt shame at that, but he embraced the feeling, and saw the truth beneath. Abban had been khaffit all along, and Hannu Pash had shown it. Jardir had delayed Everam’s will, but he had not stopped it. No man could.

Inevera, he thought, and embraced the loss.

He thought of the glory and elation at killing demons in the Maze, and accepted that it might be many years before he could feel such joy again. The dice had spoken.

Inevera.

He thought again of Hasik, but it was not inevera. There, he had failed. He had been a fool to drink couzi in the Maze. A fool to trust Hasik. A fool to lower his guard.

The pain of his body and the passing of blood he had already embraced. Even the humiliation. He had seen other boys in sharaj mounted, and could embrace the feeling. What he could not embrace was the fact that even now Hasik strutted among the dal’Sharum thinking he had won, that Jardir was broken.

Jardir scowled. Perhaps I am broken, he conceded silently, but broken bones heal stronger, and I will have my day in the sun.

Night came, signaled only by the extinguishing of the lamp in the hall, leaving his cell in utter blackness. Jardir didn’t mind the dark. No wards in the world could match those of Sharik Hora, and even without them, the spirits of warriors without number guarded the temple. Any alagai setting foot in this hallowed place would be burned away as if it had seen the sun.

Jardir could not have slept even if he had wanted to, so he continued his sharukin, repeating the movements over and over until they were a part of him, as natural as breathing.

When the door of his cell creaked open, Jardir was instantly aware. Recalling his first night in the Kaji’sharaj, he slipped silently to the side of the door in the darkness and assumed a fighting stance. If the nie’dama sought to give him a similar welcome, it would be to their regret.

“If I wished you harm, I would not have sent you here for training,” said a familiar woman’s voice. A red light sprang to life, illuminating the dama’ting he had met the night before. She held a small flame demon skull, carved with wards that glowed fiercely in the darkness. The light found her already staring right into his eyes, as if she had known where he stood all along.

“You didn’t send me here,” Jardir dared to say. “You told Dama Khevat to send me back to the Kaji’sharaj in shame!”

“As I knew he would never do,” the dama’ting said, ignoring his accusatory tone. “Nor would he have made you khaffit. The only path left to him was to send you here.”

“Without honor,” Jardir said, clenching his fists.

“In safety!” the dama’ting hissed, raising the alagai skull. The wards flared brighter, and a gout of flame coughed from its maw. Jardir felt the flash of heat on his face and recoiled.

“Do not presume to judge me, nie’Sharum,” the dama’ting said. “I will act as I think best, and you will do as you are bidden.”

Jardir felt his back strike the wall, and realized he could retreat no farther. He nodded.

“Learn everything you can in your time here,” she commanded as she left. “Sharak Ka is coming.”

The words struck Jardir like a physical blow. Sharak Ka. The final battle was coming, and he would fight in it. All his worldly concerns vanished in that instant, as she closed the door and left him in darkness once more.

The lamp in the hall flickered back to life after some time, and there was a light tap at the door. Jardir opened it to Khevat’s youngest son, Ashan. He was a slender boy, clad in a bido that extended upward to wrap over one shoulder, marking him as nie’dama, a cleric in training. He wore a white veil over his mouth, and Jardir knew that meant he was in his first year of training, when nie’dama were not allowed to speak.

The boy nodded in greeting, then took in the wreckage of the cot in the corner. He winked and gave a slight bow, as if Jardir had somehow passed a secret test. Ashan jerked his head down the hall, then headed that way himself. Jardir took his meaning and followed.

They came to a wide chamber with a floor of polished marble. Dozens of dama and nie’dama, perhaps every one in the tribe, stood there, feet planted, practicing the sharukin. The boy waved a hand for Jardir to follow, and the two took their places in the nie lines, joining in the slow dance, bodies flowing from pose to pose, the entire room breathing in unison.

There were many forms Jardir was unfamiliar with, and the experience was quite unlike the brutal lessons to which he was accustomed, where Qeran and Kaval shouted curses at the boys, whipping any whose form was not perfect, and demanding that they flow faster and faster still. The dama practiced in silence, their only instruction watching the lead dama and one another. Jardir thought the clerics pampered and weak.

After an hour, the session ended. Immediately a buzz of conversation started as the dama broke into clusters and left the room. Jardir’s companion signaled him to remain, and they clustered with the other nie’dama.

“You have a new brother,” Dama Khevat told the boys, gesturing to Jardir. “With only twelve years under his bido, Jardir, son of Hoshkamin, has alagai blood on his hands. He will stay and learn the ways of the dama until the dama’ting deem him old enough to don his blacks.”

The other boys nodded silently, bowing to Jardir.

“Ashan,” the dama called. “Jardir will need help with his sharusahk. You will teach him.” Ashan nodded.

Jardir snorted. A nie’dama? Teach him? Ashan was no older than he was, and Jardir waited ahead of boys years his senior in the nie’Sharum gruel line.

“You feel you need no instruction?” Khevat asked.

“No, of course not, honored dama,” Jardir said quickly, bowing to the cleric.

“But you feel Ashan is not worthy to instruct you?” Khevat pressed. “After all, he is only nie’dama, a novice not yet old enough to speak, and you have stood with men in alagai’sharak.”

Jardir shrugged helplessly, feeling that very thing, but fearing a trap.

“Very well,” Khevat said. “You will spar with Ashan. When you defeat him, I will assign you a more worthy instructor.”

The other novices backed away, forming a ring on the polished marble floor. Ashan stood in its center and bowed to Jardir.

Jardir cast one last glance at Dama Khevat, then bowed in return. “Apologies, Ashan,” he said as they closed, “but I must defeat you.”

Ashan said nothing, assuming a sharusahk battle stance. Jardir did likewise, and Khevat clapped his hands.

“Begin!” the dama called.

Jardir shot forward, his stiffened fingers going for Ashan’s throat. The move would put the boy out of the fight quickly, yet do no permanent harm.

But Ashan surprised him, pivoting smoothly from Jardir’s path and delivering a kick to his side that sent him sprawling.

Jardir rolled quickly to his feet, cursing himself for underestimating the boy. He came in again, his defenses set, and feinted a punch to Ashan’s jaw. When the boy moved to block, Jardir spun, feinting an elbow jab to his opposite kidney. Again Ashan shifted, positioning himself correctly, and Jardir spun back again, delivering the real blow—a leg sweep that he would complement with an elbow to the chest, putting the nie’dama flat on his back.

But the leg Jardir meant to sweep was not where it was supposed to be, and his kick met only air. Ashan caught his leg, using Jardir’s own strength against him as he followed through with the exact move Jardir had planned. As Jardir fell, Ashan drove an elbow into his chest that blasted the breath from him. He hit the marble floor hard, banging his head, but was moving to rise before he felt the pain. He would not allow himself to be defeated!