MadMaxine

  “You’re new.” The instructor, a rge ke’nia woman with short-cut hair and a wicked scar near where her upper body met her lower, looked me up and down. In pces, her greenish-brown scales had dulled to a pale tan, and a few streaks of gray stuck through her hair.

  Behind her, the rest of the css was moving through drills, practicing swings and stances. A low wall surrounded the small courtyard, over which vines and flowering bushes crowded for space in the shadow of the surrounding buildings.

  I saw the instructor tense, and I ducked out of the way of her fist before meeting her tail with my own. Her rough scales hissed as they slid along mine, but I managed to pull back into a loose defensive coil. One hand grabbed at the hard-packed dirt, ready to aim for the eyes.

  Instead of pressing the attack, she chuckled. “Not bad!” Then her eyes moved down to mine. “I gotta say, I didn’t believe the rumors, but I’ve never seen even a zhussen1 go for the dirt like that. Most of ‘em just take it to the jaw and compin ter.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She guffawed back, then looked at me askance. “You serious? Didn’t you learn all sorts of stuff at the Emerald Pace?”

  “Some. I had a better tutor elsewhere.”

  “We’ll see about that,” she replied with a smile. “Name’s Kyanii. I’m ssyri’zh, but I hate titles. If you’re in a real fight, by the time you get to some of these brats’ given names they’d already be dead.”

  Now, that I could get behind. “Issa, then.”

  She chuckled. “I figured. Let’s get you a weapon. If you can handle wood, maybe we can find something bronze for you to use today. Call me unprofessional, but I’d like to see you and that crazy elf girl fight.

  “She pulls her punches, but you can’t hide your reflexes.” Kyanii pitched her voice louder at the end, enough that Faru could definitely hear. I thought I saw her ears twitch, but that was it.

  She led me to a barrel full of what were basically sticks with handles, frowning. “Have to say, I’m sad I don’t see your sisters here. Is it true that old monster adopted an elf?”

  “Old monster?”

  “Hssen Tyaniis. I may not like titles, kid, but I like my head where it is.”

  “Sire wouldn’t care! And I’m an adult.”

  That got a raised eyebrow. “You’re young enough to me. And you must’ve had your head stuck in the mud if you don’t know.”

  I bit my lip.

  “Take a stick.”

  I took a stick. “She’s changed a lot.”

  “…Maybe she has. Get started over there; if you know your stuff, I shouldn’t need to tell you how to move, aye?”

  I nodded sharply, earning a shark-toothed smile from the old ke’nia.

  “I’ll be back in a bit.” She slithered with surprising speed toward the rest of the css, barking orders all the way.

  I turned my attention meanwhile to the dummy in front of me. It’d seen better day, and weeds crowded the base of the mock tail. With the blooming bushes behind, and a staccato of hissed commands, I felt myself falling back into Phaeliisthia’s estate. The sundial behind me, Zinnia watching from a window, and the faint sound of running water.

  Breath in, breath out.

  My lower body moved with memory, my upper with purpose. At the time I’d protested, compining about the endless long days moving from one task to the next. All the times I’d been beaten up in the name of training. All the old habits I’d had to break—or reinforce.

  I wasn’t the scrawny, small thing from years ago. And without a certain something nagging at the dark corners of my mind, I could really feel myself.

  Strike, shift, feint, strike.

  Crack!

  I watched the broken stick ctter off the nearby wall, the handle in my hand suddenly far too light.

  Someone gave a hissing whistle behind me, and I spun around. Kyanii held her hands up in mock surrender. “Your style’s a lot different. And even from that dispy, I can tell you’re not used to your size or strength. You fight like you’re smaller.”

  “I used to be.” Immediately, I felt my ear tips burning red.

  Kyanii held back a ugh with a hiss. “Look at you making an old snake ugh. Yeah, we were all a lot smaller once. Even your sire.”

  I blinked. “Wait…”

  “Not for long, just a year when she was a few years younger than you are now. But your sire came here too, you know. Most hssen do, if not all of them.”

  “And you…”

  “Look at me, Issa. I’m old. I’m gd you dodged for my knuckles’ sake, but my back aches where your tail smmed mine. Not many nobles strong enough to do that. You look like a spitting image of her too, except your eyes.” She winked. “And you’re a little smaller.”

  This time, I bit my tongue before I could act like a child again. “Still bigger than I’m used to.”

  “We can fix that. You not being used to it, anyway. How long do you have here?”

  “Uh… a year maybe?”

  “Sure. Do you mind me asking who your other trainer was?”

  “Phaeliisthia,” I answered honestly, with no small amount of pride.

  Kyanii whistled. “Don’t think I could do any better, but I can bring you up-to-date at least. Not in these sessions, though. You have any time in the mornings?”

  Instinctively, I had a feeling telling her I would rather sleep would be a bad idea. And morning private lessons would give me a good excuse to go out and look around for wherever secret information might be kept.

  “Yeah.”

  “I saw that pause. You’d rather sleep, wouldn’t you?”

  “No!”

  Kyanii rolled her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be good at lying if you had to grow up where your first instinct is back away and throw sand in their eyes?”

  “Kyrae did most of that.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Your elf sister?”

  “Yep!”

  “You should invite her to come along in the mornings. I’m no elf, but I’ve trained more than a few. Not the Deepwooders, of course.” She tossed another gnce back at Faru, who was currently dressed as a bush, beating several mia five times her size in a dead sprint around the courtyard’s well-worn track.

  “Can Ssiina come too?”

  “Why not! Now, we’ve still got plenty of time, so let’s get you a proper weapon. Not gonna have you spar Faru yet, but we’re gonna need good weight distribution if we want you to improve.”

  I couldn’t help but wear a smile as Kyanii trained me, giving pointers toward using my size to my advantage.

  “Remember this: you’re rge—you won’t be able to move all of yourself quickly compared to an elf or a nia’el.” She gnced back over her shoulder at the exhausted rest of the css. “Unless they have a bow or sigilcraft, remember that they’ll need to come to you. Make them, and make them regret it. You can move your upper body around quickly while threatening with your tail. No one will be able to match your reach.”

  “What if they do have a bow or sigilcraft?”

  Kyanii shrugged. “You might need to get away, or close the gap to them—I’ll bet you’re fast when you get moving. Your rger scales, if not already, will soon be able to protect you from most threats if stories of your sire’s prowess are any indication—so keep your upper body safe.” She grinned. “Or rely on your sisters. Now keep up with what I’ve shown you—I ought to go back to the rest of the css, get everyone situated.

  “If you’ve got a question, just shout.”

  With that, she slithered away, leaving me with a loaner weapon in a corner of the courtyard. Immediately, I thought of my duel with Faru. Make her come to me.

  Thinking that, I threw myself into my practice, shadow powers tucked into a small corner of my mind as I fought with nothing but keen bronze and my body. Under my scales, I wasn’t quite all flesh and bone. At least not how I should be. The difference was in the way I could bend, move, stretch out. Shift. But not here—not under so many watchful eyes and the bright, burning sun.

  Phaeliisthia would have told me something about foundations. Building upon stone rather than silt. Augment solid fundamentals with the power I would continue to make mine, that was the key to all this and I understood it more than ever as I moved, dance-like with closed eyes. I needed this. To protect my sisters and to not be a liability; to stand up to my curse even in the face of the mistakes I’d already made.

  “Hey, Iss—”

  To the left, feint with bde strike with tail, pull out, dart in.

  There was an “oof” and a thump, and I opened my eyes.

  Faru was picking herself up from the ground, wincing. “Apologies! Guess I should’ve shouted first, huh! Buuuut! Iwannaseemore! Why didn’t you do that during our spar the other night?”

  I shrugged. “Didn’t know to, honest. Feel like a bit of an idiot now, but I didn’t really fight like I was big—figured I was small.” I gestured down at myself, watching out of the corner of my eye as the mia from the css filed past us and out of the courtyard.

  Faru burst into a fit of giggles, branches and leaves shaking. “You? Small? Your tail’s longer than me—just the actual tail, not your whole longer body; that’s probably longer than most ke’nia head to toe, er, tail-tip. You know what I mean!”

  I snorted, covering it inelegantly with a hiss. “You’re not that short!”

  “Yes! You’re just huge!”

  “Now I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not!”

  “Oh, it totally is!”

  I pouted. “That just makes it worse!”

  “How unbecoming,” an unfamiliar voice said in mian.

  I turned, tilting my head at the speaker. She was an unfamiliar nia’el wearing the sort of expression I’d expect on my cousin Deziiya.

  “You’re making a nuisance of yourselves.” The woman, probably around my age, looked down at Faru. A sneer! That’s the expression!

  Faru growled, I held back a hiss.

  “So we can’t have fun?” I asked. Remember, Issa. Talk first—punch only if needed.

  The unfamiliar nia’el turned back to me, eyes glinting. “You’re new here, so I’ll let you off with a warning. Don’t associate with such barbarism; we’re all better than that.”

  I punched her in the shoulder. She reeled back, upper body crashing into her friends next to her. While I tensed for a fight, she just looked at me aghast, hissing with fangs extended. “How dare you!”

  “Easy. You talked shit; you got hit. Now we’re even.”

  Her and her friends looked me over, but they didn’t try to jump me. I was probably about the same mass as all three of them, now that I got a better look.

  “Even!?” the jerk shrieked. “Do you even know who I am? A-and this is the Spring—you cannot commit such violence here!”

  “Just did. And I don’t give a shit who you are.”

  Her friends pushed her upper body back up. “You will!”

  “Nah, no way.” I smiled, showing my own fangs and teeth. “Get lost, will ya?”

  Underneath the smile and my bravado, I had to try really hard for my hands not to shake. It didn’t matter who they were: Ussyri Tahaksa would hear of this and I’d have to do another ablution. Right now I was too damn angry to care.

  For a moment, we stood opposed to each other, Faru’s continued growling the only sound between us. Then one of the three’s eyes went wide and she whispered to their leader. Who immediately went as pale as sand.

  Before I could think of anything else to say that would keep me sounding confident, they slithered away in a rush. Before they were out of earshot, Faru had gone from growling to doubling over in ughter.

  “You… wowthatwasgreat!” She took a deep breath, stumbled through another ughing fit, then continued. “I mean, I could’ve handled ‘em—always do. But that was straight out of stage py or something! I think—the only ones I’ve seen are during the hunting festival for Tuo—nevermind, you don’t wanna hear that. But you were like ‘Talk shit, get hit’”—she mimed my voice, pitching hers down and stringing out the s sounds—“and they were crying. Wow! So anyway, uh, thank you! For the show too! Oh their faces when they realized you weren’t a boa were unmatched.”

  Realized I wasn’t a…

  “Oh.” I felt my cheeks flush.

  “Wait, you didn’t know? Oh that’s even better!” She roared with ughter again, losing her footing and falling on the ground. Which only made her ugh harder.

  “That makes sense, I guess. Probably thought I was ke’nia.” I waited for a response, but didn’t get one. “Faru?”

  “G-gimme a m-minute!” She pulled herself up and straightened out her branches, taking an exaggerated breath. “Wow! So those jerks are local snake nobles. Think they’re better for it and all that, but they can’t even recognize a keniel until she shows her fangs!”

  “Snake nobles?”

  “Ussen, whatever. Don’t you have css?”

  I blinked. “Shit. Don’t you?”

  She shrugged.

  “You wanna get in worse trouble?” I asked.

  “Trouble’s fun!”

  I gnced at where the trio of apparently ussen had retreated to. “For you maybe, I need to go.”

  “I gueeesss I shouldn’t make whatever they’re gonna do to me worse. Fine. I’m headed the same direction. Run together?”

  I smirked. “Only if you can keep up!”

  She darted away before I’d even finished talking.

  MadMaxine