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‘Work with your younger cousins. Some of them are not even all that much older than yourself. There is much you could learn together.’

‘No matter how true your aim, a single well-trained amazon is still only one, and never so strong as a pair of well-trained sisters. Utilize your company.’

‘We are one family, Naqenni, and born to be that way. It is in our blood as designed by the goddess, and the further we sever ourselves from our kin, the more polluted and weak we become. Never underestimate the power of your allies in blood.’

The older she got, the more insistent Kasama became about ‘instilling’ in her the importance of making bonds not only with her sisters — those from the first blooming and the younger ones alike — but also with her alkidike cousins in the tribe. This was due in no small part, according to Kasama herself, to Naqenni’s increasing reclusive nature. The more independent she became, the less she wanted to do with any of them, and at any given opportunity, she distanced herself: long swims in the rough surf of the shoreline that stretched into the night hours on occasion, self-administered solitary training sessions where she ran through the jungles as far as she was allowed and then farther still, practicing her hunting and tracking and taking her bow wherever she went.

Climbing.

Collecting.

And reading.

She’d read every useful text available to her — which was, under the circumstances, not especially impressive. The tribe had a very limited selection of written material, its focus almost entirely on the physical, but that did not stop her from pouring repeatedly over the texts of Aisha they did have, scrawled by previous mystics and copied over. It brought comfort, and seeing as she was the first of Elzira’s daughters, it seemed only appropriate that she should internalize the history of their sister-goddess—even as she waited impatiently for the arrival of their own mystic. At some point she came to the conclusion that that would be the day her destiny and history truly began.

All of her life thus far was training and preparation, but when Elzira gave her and her sisters their first mystic, then they could begin truly carving forth their path, since at that point, they would at last have someone to properly record it—and be a speaker for their goddess.

Until then, she could only hone herself.

It would have been easier, she thought, if it came with less interruption.

“No.”

“It is already arranged, Naqenni. You will meet with her at the north edge of—”

“No.”

“This is not a choice—”

Naqenni stood to leave. Her caretaker mother’s arm snatched at hers, gripping like a noose and locking. Immediately, Naqenni tensed, body taut as she rounded on Kasama, grit teeth bared. “You—”

“You, first daughter of Elzira or not, are still a child here and under our guardianship. You will meet with Akacia Unali-Kallisan at the north edge of the tribe. You will hunt from her. You will learn from her. And you will cooperate with—”

“She. Hates. Us,” Naqenni spat. “Everyone knows she’s a traitor. She doesn’t worship Elzira. I heard she wants to leave and return to the rest of them. The matron mother should have had her cut up and fed to the—”

Kasama’s strike was not gentle — flat across the face and stinging — but nor was it rough enough to bruise, and it was the shock of it that seized Naqenni’s tongue. A second later, Kasama’s fingers were pinched tight to Naqenni’s chin, holding her face forward and upturned towards her. “Our matron will do exactly as she sees fit, exactly when she sees fit. Until she deems anyone a traitor, Akacia is family and you will respect her as family. Now…”

As the shock wore off, Naqenni’s expression twisted from raw, wide-eyed bewilderment, to furious backlash, and she shrieked when she lunged, but Kasama’s grip locking both of her hands the next instant was immovable.

“Think of it this way, sweet flower child. If anyone can convince her that you and your sisters are the future, surely it’s you…unless you believe Ceylinae would be more suited?”

Naqenni stared, the twist of her face unfurling back to bafflement, and then a slow, heavy frown as she eyed her caretaker mother. She knew it was a jab. Needling, goading, even to suggest—and yet, there was enough truth in it, that her drive to lash out petered back, and when her posture had normalized, Kasama released her grip. Naqenni took a step back, still scowling, and met Kasama’s stare.

“You don’t think I can,” she accused, though the words came quiet despite their stiffness, under her breath. “You think Ceylinae would do bet—”

“Of course you can,” Kasama said. “But not with the attitude you had a moment ago. Check yourself, child. The goddess has set you on an important path. Do not let your ego poison it.”

For several long moments they stood that way, gazes locked and Naqenni’s lingering scowl fixated on her caretaker mother’s face. At last, though, she turned herself stiffly away, and out of the tent. No sooner had the tent’s flap fallen behind her, then the words came from behind her, quieter.

“You were too accommodating when she was young, Izari…”

“If the matron knew you hit her—” Izari’s voice was, as-always, softer as compared to Kasama’s, and in this case laced with an undercurrent of what sounded almost like fear.

“Children learn how to recover from what ails them by suffering ailments, and recovering…she is learning, still, and the world will have much more to throw at her than an open palm. She will not speak of it.”

Lips thin, Naqenni strode forward, out of earshot, and towards the edge of the camp. She had hours, yet, before the meeting she had been arranged for, and she spent them running, but by the end of it, when her feet finally lead her back to where she was set to greet Akacia, her mood managed to be no less heated or tangled. No less brittle or foul.

When she spotted the other girl, she remembered the morning’s conversation — the proposition of being the spokesperson for her sisters, setting some example and ‘winning’ over a woman she fully considered to be traitor to their cause — but even with her best efforts, her pulse only beat to an angry rhythm in her chest, hard and fast. And when she goaded her lips into a smile, it was as though her teeth were knives being pulled from their sheathes, simply waiting for an alternate location to bury themselves.

“Cousin.”