Imperial

27. Soraya

Soraya and Dashna circled each other in the low sand pit, their stances ready and their muscles tense. This lesson was a private one in a small training yard inside of the inner palace complex.

Soraya still tried to participate as much as she could with the others who had acquired the gods' powers, but this way often proved to serve her better. Her duties as empress consumed too much of her time to give her much room to attend the training, and while it helped to show citizens that she was fighting amongst them in this war, keeping a certain distance between herself and the common people was preferable.

Besides, Soraya much more enjoyed her private lessons with Dashna. The former thief was now by far the most adept of all the gifted ones at using her powers, and was a good teacher as well. Soraya had got an explanation for this out of the girl- in Turan her father had been a bhajanh, a master of the art of hand-to-hand combat. Dashna had learned all that he knew before she'd fled from the sands altogether.

Soraya enjoyed hearing about Dashna's life in the desert as they fought and trained. It was like hearing a story out of the books in the royal library that Soraya had so adored as a child. Strange- it had only been a year since those days, yet she firmly felt that she had been a child then, and was a woman now. And yet the shadow of the daevas still hung over them both as they talked. Soraya firmly shut down any discussion of the topic, changing the subject if Dashna attempted to bring it up. Soraya had made up her mind: if the daevas were real, there was nothing she could do about them until she sat upon Sazia's throne.

"Move your arms closer together," Dashna instructed, demonstrating the movement herself. She twisted her body around, keeping her arms close to her chest, and then extended them outwards as she stepped into a fighting stance. A large spout of flames roared into the empty space of the sandpit.

Soraya furrowed her brow, concentrating on memorizing the movement. She twisted her body, keeping her arms as close to her chest as she could and did as Dashna had done. Flames extended from her hands, three times the size of what Dashna's had been despite the fact that Soraya's movement had been shakier.

"Exactly," Dashna said approvingly. "Your form is perfect. You only have to practice enough so that you can execute it faster and, eventually, so that the move becomes second nature to you."

Learning that much had taken hours of practice and sore muscles. Soraya cringed to think about the huge amount of time and effort it would take until she reached that point, but she wiped the sweat from her forehead and nodded.

Dashna laughed at Soraya's pained expression.

"Is the training going along well, then?"

Soraya and Dashna both paused and turned at the voice. Massoud approached them with a crooked smile, jumping into the sand pit and sending up a dust of sand with his landing.

"It is," Soraya replied. Dashna scowled in his direction, clearly bothered by the interruption to their training. Soraya held back a sigh. Though cocky and arrogant, Massoud's help was invaluable to her armies, and her soldiers were slowly but surely improving. She surmised that he wasn't a bad person beneath all his bravado. "What brings you here?"

He shrugged. "I've been curious to see these powers of yours in action," he replied, eyes alight with curiosity. "I wonder if they're quite as strong as I've heard, or if it's a bit exaggerated. And so I came to observe your training."

"To observe our training?" Dashna spoke, arching a brow. "Or to see how you'd fare in a fight against such powers?"

Massoud turned his gaze to her, as if taking note of her for the first time. The easy smile never left his face. "Worried you might lose?" he replied with a wink. "Don't worry, lotus blossom- I wouldn't really hurt you."