Anoor nodded.
“I also think my father made her promise not to harm me.”
All the breath went out of her, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor, her mother’s words from earlier haunting her still.
“You’re training with that girl.”
It wasn’t a question; her mother had clearly been spying on her.
“Mother?”
Uka made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.
“Mother, why are you here?”
“If you won’t heed your grandmother, heed me. You need to exit the Aktibar.”
All the muscles in Anoor’s body ached with a weariness she hadn’t felt since the first day of training.
“Anoor, are you listening to me?” Uka leaned forward and Anoor flinched.
“I am listening. That’s one thing you did teach me. To shut up and listen.”
“Where has this insolence come from?”
“I suspect I’ve always been harboring it.”
Uka stood, her gray suit cloaking her in an extra shadow. She gripped Anoor’s chin between her fingers.
“You ungrateful child, I ought to kill you for the way you’re speaking to me.”
“Do it.” A part of Anoor was ashamed of the way she spoke to her mother, the Abosoms’ teachings having been drilled into her since infancy and overruling the reality of their relationship, but another part cheered her on. It had Sylah’s voice. “Then you’ll have to explain to the rest of the wardens what happened to your true daughter. You’ll have to explain everything.”
The grip on Anoor’s chin tightened, but she didn’t break eye contact.
“You think I can’t make you disappear?” She leaned in, her hot breath tickling Anoor’s ear. “Watch your step, little maggot of mine.”
The slap was sharp, and the kick was even sharper. Her two preferred forms of attack. No blood spilled.
Anoor dropped to the floor and curled around the pain in the pit of her stomach.
“Exit the Aktibar, Anoor.” Uka dropped something onto Anoor’s back. She winced despite the lightness of it.
Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes, but Uka wasn’t done.
“This next challenge I designed just for you. I do remember how much you hated the dark.”
Anoor had quivered from the words. They hurt more than the kick and slap combined.
“I’m beginning to realize my father wasn’t a good man.” Sylah interrupted her thoughts. She sounded like she was speaking from a place far, far away. “He hurt me in lots of ways, in ways I thought were helping to make me better…but…but they just made me smaller. I thought he loved me, but really…I think he saw me as a means to an end.” She placed a hand in the small of Anoor’s back. “But what I’ve learned, what I’m learning, is not to let those hurts define you. Use them like we use the anger, craft yourself from those little hurts, block by block. Build a fortress of pain, a castle even. And lord over it.”
Sylah leaned in, her glittering eyes ignited with a passion Anoor had never seen before. No fury marred her face, no scorn, nor sarcastic quips. Instead, Anoor trailed her finger around Sylah’s full lips, and Sylah’s eyes went wide at Anoor’s touch.
“Anoor.” Sylah’s voice was rough, a warning, a siren.
Anoor dropped her hand.
“Can I have fried yams?”