Page 30 of The Gilded Ones

But I will survive it all, I remind myself sternly. I will survive this and whatever else happens next.

Oyomo, help me endure it.

In less than an hour, I’m clean and clothed in scratchy green robes and leather sandals. I’m also as bald as all the other girls subjected to the assistants’ razors. If I ever had any doubts about my new status, they were erased the moment my hair was tossed into the furnace like it was nothing. The Infinite Wisdoms states that a woman’s hair is her greatest pride, the source of her gracefulness and beauty.

Now none of the girls here have any.

As of this moment, I’m truly nothing more than a demon, my last claim to femininity stripped away. The realization roils inside me, a nausea that builds as the matrons and their assistants usher us down the building’s warrenlike halls into a massive central hall. A line of girls is waiting there, each one clothed in leather armour and bearing wooden swords. Like ours, their hair was shaved clean, but it’s regrown to nape-length for most. I suppose that means they’ve been here a few months at least.

These must be the girls who were sent here before us, the older alaki.

At the very front stand a trio of unmasked women, the red and gold banner of the Warthu Bera rising proudly behind them. My eyes are immediately drawn to the woman in the middle. She has dark-brown skin, powerfully muscled arms, and a stern, unflinching gaze. Most striking of all is the bright red clay that daubs the intricate braids coiled around her head. It’s immediately familiar, as is the woman’s silhouette.

The silent commander from Jor Hall!

It’s her – only now she’s unmasked and wearing dark green robes, a large golden pin at her shoulder. On it is the eclipse symbol from the archway. Where have I seen it before? The question niggles at me.

I have to force myself not to look down when she steps forward and raises her hand in salute. Around me, other girls do the same, pained expressions in their eyes. This is probably the first time they’re seeing so many unmasked women too.

“Hail, our honoured alaki neophytes,” the stern woman calls out.

“Hail!” the armoured girls echo her, their voices a single, powerful entity.

Chills rush through me at the sound.

The stern woman continues talking, her booming voice echoing through the hall: “On behalf of his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Gezo the Fifth, honoured sovereign and ruler of the One Kingdom, our beloved Otera, I bid you welcome to the Warthu Bera.”

“Welcome!” the armoured girls repeat.

“I am Karmoko Thandiwe,” the woman says, “head instructor at the Warthu Bera, the glorious training house in which you stand. Refer to me with any other title, or mispronounce my name, and I will cut out your tongue for your insolence and put it in a jar to keep me company.”

At her words, the atmosphere chills and girls look at each other, frightened. I silently try to sear her name’s pronunciation into my memory: Than-DEE-way, Than-DEE-way.

Karmoko Thandiwe continues her speech. “To my left is Karmoko Calderis.”

She motions, and a brunette of almost bearlike proportions lumbers forward and examines us with the single bright blue eye not covered by a leather eye patch. The eclipse pin gleams at her shoulder as well.

“She will serve as your weapons master in the coming months.” Karmoko Thandiwe motions again, and Karmoko Calderis steps back with a curt nod.

“To my right is Karmoko Huon,” Karmoko Thandiwe says.

A small, kind-looking woman with pale skin and dark eyes steps forward. Her black hair cascades like a river down her back, tiny jewelled flowers adorning it. She doesn’t seem like a warrior at all, and her gentle smile as she nods at us only reinforces this impression. She also wears the eclipse pin, and when she absently strokes a finger over it, my heart beats faster, though I don’t know why.

“She will serve as your combat master,” Karmoko Thandiwe says.

The kind-looking woman steps back, her dark eyes glancing almost tentatively over us. Again, I silently wonder how this woman was chosen to become our combat master. She’s like a butterfly, so delicate and beautiful, you could crush her if you weren’t careful.

Karmoko Thandiwe continues: “From now until such time as you leave the Warthu Bera, we, your karmokos, your teachers, will serve as your guides. Each of us standing before you has served as his Imperial Majesty’s Shadows, the deadliest of all his assassins. We have all earned notable places in the Heraldry of Shadows, the book that lists the exploits of our kind – the book that sits here, in the famed Warthu Bera, the House of Women.

“We are proud to have been trained within these very walls, and are even prouder to give you the same honour. From now until you leave this training ground, you will work harder and feel more pain than you have ever felt in your life, until we mould you from the weak, useless girls that you are into warriors – defenders of Otera. Conquer or Die, this is our motto here.”

My eyebrows gather. Warriors? Defenders? Are the karmokos certain they’re talking about us? I peer at Karmoko Huon again, trying to imagine her as a deadly assassin. If she of all people can be a warrior, perhaps the same is possible for—

Something is coming…

The unwelcome premonition tingles under my skin, and I stiffen. “Britta,” I rasp, my breathing shallow as I turn to my friend. Does she feel it too – heightened awareness, panic crawling up her spine?

Do the other girls? They all seem as calm as ever, but they have no idea what’s about to happen. I remember all too keenly what happened at the village the last time I felt this way. The blood, the fear, the bodies littering the snow…

---