The sharp curved sword cut through the thin aging paper between the steel rods of Aecha's fan. Quickly snapping it shut, she turned the fan as hard as possible to flip the sword from Baruti's hand to hers. Aecha pulled the sword out from her own weapon and pointed it at Baruti's neck.

"Haven't you already learned the steel fans? You should be teaching her new weapons, Baruti."

Aecha's mother, Nalah, stood on the bamboo porch of the training room. She stopped fanning herself to clasp both her hands behind her back. The soft breeze blew the fabric of her printed kaftan— the end of her signature single braided hairstyle gently blew as well. Almost uninterested, she scratched her temple with her pinky finger.

"It's repetition, love, and a master never stops training their main weapon," Baruti said with a laugh as he wiped the line of sweat from his brown forehead.

"Well, put the fans down. Breakfast is ready at home."

Nalah turned around without making sure her husband or child were behind her, the noise of her wooden sandals slowly getting quieter. Baruti and Aecha walked around the sandy fighting pit, collecting all the weapons that had been piled around the training room. With care, each weapon was put back in its place. Aecha turned to look at her father who was admiring the tear in her fan. He gently held the back of her head and tapped their foreheads together. Baruti gently massaged her right shoulder trying to alleviate the tension in her muscles— Aecha ignored the slight sting of the silver bands around her father's hands.

"You're doing good, pahori, just the throwing stars and chakram left. We'll have to replace the fan coverings before you go, you must remind me."

Aecha smiled as they sat on the porch putting on their leather slippers. Pahori, duckling. Her father's name for her whenever he was proud. They walked to their home in the middle of Baga Village. Baga, the last village of the ekehlay left untouched by plain men.

Men without magic, taoba, felt threatened by ones blessed with it from the gods, ekehlay. Ekehlay weren't seen as a blessing but half-demons by their non-magic counterparts. Closest to the capital of Dasu and spreading throughout the lands of Gaimi, the emperor killed or enslaved all ekehlay he could find until a few rogue groups remained. Any left alive now lived their lives under the commands of their taoba brethren. They were marked by silver bands around their hands with carvings of spells to keep them docile and unable to use magic in any way that would harm taoba. Silver bands marked and bonded them to the very bloodline of the royal family.

Baga became the village of escapees and survivors hidden between the Bungasan Mountains. The last without silver bands— except for the few like her father, refugees who were constantly reminded of the freedom they could've had. Many groups of ekehlay became a single tribe together. Ekehlay like the mind readers, the fire starters, and ones like Aecha's family. Dream weavers like her father and necromancers like her mother. It wasn't uncommon for different groups to mix in Baga. The village didn't see many pure-grouped ekehlay as the years went by.

Aecha and her father sat on the edge of the wooden porch that wrapped around the entirety of the raised home. They washed the sand from the training area off of their feet, enjoying the coolness that the jug of water brought. If it wasn't for the flowers put around their porch, Aecha wouldn't be able to tell her own house from the rest of the ones in Baga.

They were all light wooden houses— slightly raised above the ground. Sturdy porches wrapped around the entire house, two sets of walls where the outer were only put up during the storm while the inner was thin paper stretched onto wooden frames to let in the light. Almost everything was wood or paper. Baga wasn't as advanced as the other cities in Gaimi, they couldn't afford to be. Not without drawing attention. So, they chose to avoid the risk entirely and live the way the ancients did. The only building with electricity, and built like the newer stone buildings of other Gaimi cities, was the main hall that held the telegraph and radio for spying on the rest of Gaimi.

Aecha set her and Baruti's slippers in the small area at the front of their house that dipped slightly before stepping up into the home. She put out the lanterns, now that it was daybreak, and allowed the sun's light to flood the entire home. Baruti moved the sliding panels, with black moon bears and white necked cranes painted on them, in the middle of the big room to open up the kitchen area. Nalah insisted on keeping the panels up and the kitchen area closed off while she cooked. It was her "secret weapon" to having the best cooking in all of Baga. It kept the smells flavoring the food instead of the air, her words.

Baruti and Aecha began to make the dining room while Nalah finished cooking. From the corner of the room, they grabbed the wooden table and three of their large blue pillows and moved them to the center of the big room. Aecha stretched to reach the high shelf that held their utensils, napkins, and placemats. They sat on the floor in front of the low sitting table as Nalah brought the hot pot of breakfast over. Aecha picked carefully at her bowl of porridge and slices of pear.

"How much longer till you master the curved sword?" her mother asked.

"A day?"

"And then the throwing stars? The chakram?"

The biting tone in her mother's voice was not missed on Aecha. She was almost twenty-one, there couldn't be much time left before the Emperor's Competition. The only event she dedicated herself to preparing for meant nothing if her preparations weren't complete. She needed to be ready for the event when the time came.

The competition— and more importantly, winning it— was what Baga had been training Aecha for her entire life. She was supposed to be a spy, a warrior. Their assassin. For all the eligible women in Gaimi, the competition was the chance to become the crown prince's betrothed. The future empress. For Aecha and the other ekehlay, it was a chance to do something about their enslavement.

Most ekehlay had markings that signified their magical abilities. Three silver dots above their left eyebrow. But dream weavers, necromancers, and the now extinct silver tongues were born with none. Aecha was the first born to the dream weavers in a long time— the only girl since then. And once her birth became known in the village, her fate was sealed.

The dream weaver was to spin a nightmare for the taoba. She would train to win the competition, she would become the prince's bride, and she would kill the emperor and the prince. The bands would fall with their deaths. Without the blessing of the royals, the silver would melt like ice on the palms of ekehlay. They would rise up and magic would sing out uninhibited once again in Gaimi.

"I'll learn them quickly, Mother."

Nalah made a noise of approval and jerked her head towards the washroom, relieving Aecha from the table to go clean before her classes. Aecha lit a fire under the pile of smooth stones to heat while she collected clothes from her room. When they were hot enough, almost burning, the stones were placed in a bucket in the tub. She walked into the toilet room across the hall. After making sure the bucket of water poured into the toilet led the waste away from the house and down the drains into the village's cesspit away from town, Aecha went back to the now warm tub of water. Her feet played with the edge of the stone bucket as she relaxed, eyes threatening to close and get a moment more of the precious sleep that she abandoned in order to get up early and train.

Aecha quickly tied the ribbons on the ankles of her navy pleated cotton pants tightly before slipping her leather shoes back on and leaving. She grabbed the cloth sack of lunch and jumped off of her porch. The red dust kicked up around her shoes, some of it sticking, as she moved through the village. The water in the bamboo canteen loosely tied to the navy ribbon around her waist that kept her pants up sloshed back and forth with each step she took.

"There you are, Chisanko. I was starting to think you would skip again for your training," Aecha's friend, Jira, called out from her porch as she slipped her foot into her wooden sandal.

Chisanko, little nightmare. Jira's affectionate pet name for Aecha. Born under the same blood moon twenty years ago on Juwol— the first day of the week— the dream weaver and the shapeshifter were inseparable. Aecha slowed down just enough for her friend to hop off the porch and join her. They walked step in step to the hall of magic. The hall of magic stood as the marker for the very end of Baga. While traditional schooling ended when they were younger, magic was something to constantly learn and perfect. The two bowed to the pale old woman who stood in the doorway, hands behind her back, as she waited for them.

"You're late," Baba Min said with no emotion.

"Aecha's fault."

Jira smiled cheekily as she placed the blame on her friend. Her brown eyes that stood bright against her dark brown skin practically disappeared as a smile took up more than half her face. Aecha pursed her lips while Baba Min looked at the two of them with a quirk of an eyebrow and a half smile on her wrinkled face.

"I would have left her but you know how selfless I am," Jira continued with no shame.

"Two laps around the hall then join the shifters at the big tree by the river."

"Yes, Baba."

Aecha watched her friend take off, long locs hitting her back, before following Baba Min inside. She always practiced with the other rare ekehlay. There weren't enough of certain groups. Dream weavers, space benders, shadow sneaks. All made nearly extinct and not enough to practice their magic in large groups like the shifters. So, they learned basic magic and turned to the history of their elders for their own specific skills. Aecha and the two shadow sneaks, twins Doumu and Dae, had no histories. Emperor Anta, the current emperor's grandfather, burned most of the scrolls of the ekehlay.

All of the dream weaver and shadow sneak scrolls burned before they could be saved. They had to rely on second hand accounts passed down from older ekehlay who knew one of their kind or passed someone like them once. The twins were lucky. They had their parents to teach them. Baruti knew almost nothing about his own magic. He and Aecha's teachings stopped when Aecha was about eight. Aecha's dream weaving was strong; but not as strong as it could've been with the scrolls.

She sat down at her favorite spot in the hall, the large rotunda foyer next to Dae and Doumu who stayed pressed up on the cold stone walls. She worked on conjuring a small yellow flame in the palm of her hand. It would never become bigger than a candle flame— she wasn't a fire starter. All ekehlay could do a little bit of magic from every group but unless it was their speciality, it would never get past the most basic level of children.

Most did not bother to learn the magic of the others since they couldn't get very far. Aecha, the nightmare promised, had no choice. At an early age she had learned to accept that she didn't have many choices in her life. The way she would learn every weapon, she would learn every magic skill. She would perfect them and advance them as much as she possibly could. And would then have to learn to stretch those limits and see if she could push just a little further.

Aecha snapped her finger in an attempt to move the flame from the palm of her right hand to her thumb. She huffed as the flame fizzled out. The fire starters had entered the hall during their break— all of them wearing minimal clothing and glistening in a layer of sweat from playing with fire all day under the hot Baga sun. One of the fire starters walked over to Aecha.

"Snap once more."

She did as he said. The man wrapped his umber hands around hers and blew on her thumb as she snapped. A bright flame burned blue for a second before dulling to orange when the fire starter stopped feeding the flame.

"Keep your thumb straight, envision your hands feeding the flame. Your blood should run hot like the kindling."

"It burns," Aecha said with a grimace as she tried to pull away. The man kept his hand on hers.

"Ignore it."

Aecha watched the flame before deciding she couldn't take the burning any more and blew it out herself. The fire starter pulled his hand away and watched intently, waiting for Aecha to try on her own. She snapped once more and the flame appeared.

"They were right. The Dream Weaver learns quickly."

He smiled at her and walked away— the fire starters' break now over. Dae and Doumu materialized from where they had been hiding in the darkness of Aecha's shadow. Dae threw herself dramatically over Aecha's lap, the silver dots almost blending into her pale skin under the lights in the hall. Dae and Aecha looked more like twins than Dae and her own brother. Same full lips, round noses, coily black hair, and thinner almond eyes. If it wasn't for their skin, no one in Baga would be able to tell the difference. The shadow sneak enjoyed it, constantly threatening to live with her "true family" when Doumu or their parents annoyed her.

"Five years and you think Ajij would get over his crush on you," Dae said as her fingers worked to untie Aecha's canteen and hand it to Doumu.

"Ajij?"

Doumu frowned as he tasted only water in her canteen. "He doesn't like to help the other fire starters, doesn't like to help anyone really."

"He's going to ask you to go pearl fishing when you come back from the competition," Dae continued.

"If he wanted to ask Aecha, he had five years to do it. Do you want to go stalk him?"

Doumu and Dae dropped the water canteen back in Aecha's lap and excitedly walked into the hall, slipping in and out of the shadow left behind by the objects there. Aecha grabbed her cloth bag and the canteen— not bothering to tie it back around her waist— and went to the river to find Jira, constantly snapping a flame into existence as she walked.

The shifters were still at the large bright red ginkgo tree when Aecha reached them, most of them choosing to eat their lunch there. She waved to all of them as Jira stood up to leave with her. The pair didn't go too far— the shifters could still be seen in the close distance— but they wanted to eat on the river and enjoy the few heavily grassed spots that existed in the village. The two spread their lunches in front of each other, swapping back and forth the food they brought. Jira always gave her friend the cylinders of dough deep fried in brown sugar that her mother made.

In exchange, Aecha would hand over her cheese stuffed potato fritters that she took extra care to make herself. Aecha took her shoes off and dipped her feet in the slow-moving saltwater river. Both women stripped off their gray cropped open cross-collar outer jackets and sat under the blistering sun in their white sleeveless undershirts. Jira stretched and let her back hit the grass, Aecha following suit.

"Do you know when you leave for Dasu?" Jira asked as she split a potato fritter in half.

"The minute they announce the competition. I would imagine it's soon. Wasn't Prince Koa born under the same blood moon as us?"

"Same moon. Same day. Same time."

"Then..." Aecha sucked the brown sugar off of her thumb. "A month or two at most maybe. The Fervid Season is coming to an end. Wouldn't it be better to host the competition while it's still warm? No one wants a challenge outside in the snow."

"Aecha! Aecha!"

The women sat up at the calling of Aecha's name. They turned to see Doumu running towards them. A messenger, the elders, and her parents were right behind him. Once in front of her, the elders and her parents bowed deep. The messenger handed her a fresh telegram.

"They've announced the competition. You leave for Dasu in a fortnight."