“I have seen enough. Open your eyes, Tuya.”

Tuya opened her eyes and inhaled. The sweat coating her body was not as profuse as usual. A blessing indeed. “So? What was the point of that?”

Yaha’s twisted grin boded of trickery and mischief, like she made a fool of Tuya by having her do drills tonight with her eyes shut. She ordered Tuya through all fourteen forms. Tuya moved through lion form, squatting low and pouncing into a flurry of thrusts. She held empagong, standing firm, digging in her heels, and knocking aside Yaha’s strikes with sound and instinct alone to guide her. She shifted into wind form, jumping and striking forth with light feet. She flowed into water form, dancing and dodging with graceful feet and flowing into precise counters. Tuya went through the other ten forms like they were a part of her and always had been.

Why do it without her eyes? Tuya wanted to decipher that grin and make sense of this nonsense. Alas, Yaha being, well, Yaha, she expected the mystery to drag on, for her to try to unsettle Tuya and make her lose her patience. It was working.

“You are ready,” Yaha said, with as much ceremony as if announcing the snails were done roasting.

“Ready for what?”

“Everything, Tuya.” Yaha put her hands on Tuya’s shoulders, kneeling to her level. “Your body has become a weapon, Tuya of the Hollows, and you know how to wield it. You are a spear.”

“I … am … a spear?”

Yaha nodded, vigorously, that lovely smile where her teeth flashed white against her dark face. “You are. One that will protect and one that will destroy. Wield yourself well, Tuya of the Hollows. You. Are. A. Spear.”

I am a spear. Such a powerful thought. Such an unimaginable concept. I am a spear. Yet, Yaha’s proud smile, the sweat on her body, the welts and bruises too, the memories of hard days and nights, of blood, of the feeling of power when she held the weapon, they accumulated. This little girl who hid and made herself small was gone. She would wield herself, as she did with Semug. Tuya was a spear.

“I remember the days where we took one step forward and two steps back. Now, every day, you are running up a hill and I cannot slow you down.”

Yes. I remember those days too. Days of doubt. How long has it been since I felt that way about the spear? About myself? Seasons changed and Tuya could not remember how long it had been since she felt stagnation. She thrived with the spear, with her eyes, with the wilding. She was so proud of the little girl who kept pushing through the doubts, through the setbacks, both those made by the traps in her own mind and those thrusted upon her by the world.

“I am proud,” Yaha said, her voice breaking, her eyes welling with good water. “It has been an honor, Tuya of the Hollows, to be your spearmaster. You passed your final test and have proven that you are worthy of the title of Mahagan Spear.”

“Thank you, Yaha.” Tuya let the tears flow down her cheek. So, this is what it is like. To have a mother proud of you. I like this feeling. She wondered whether the others would be proud of how she spent the last several seasons. Would Zaya be happy with her? She believed it to be true. Would Sarnai? Definitely. Her own birth mother? She hoped so. She hoped that the girl she died to birth would make her proud, proud like this. Tuya let out a sob, and for once, this crying did not feel like it came from pain.

“You will drive tyrants to their knees,” Yaha said, sniffling, “and when you do, tell them I sent you.”

Tuya put her hand on Yaha’s. “Tell them yourself, Yaha. We do this together.” Tuya leaned into her and put her head against the taller woman’s shoulder. “I love you, Yaha.”

Yaha closed the embrace. “And I would go to the bottom of the sea for you, Tuya. I will do whatever it takes to get you out of here, even if it means I must never see the white shores again.”

Tuya shook her head. “Don’t talk like that.”

“How do we defeat a chimaera?” Yaha demanded, once more the stern instructor rather than the proud mother.

“We do not,” Tuya rehearsed, her voice dropping. “We need a Volqori dragon knight, a Leverian master cognitive-affectomancer, or several phenomenal warriors with meladonite weapons.”

Yaha nodded, comporting herself with a few breaths. “Yes, Tuya. Even then, they can fail. Never has the world seen mightier warriors than the Gidiites and they had no shortage of meladonite. Dragons can be blasted out of the sky by the ram’s storm and cognitive-affectomancers cannot outrun a chimaera.”

“Why must you remind me of this now?”

“Because you will always be hunted, Tuya. Because...” Yaha sighed the heaviest sigh this world may have ever known. “Listen to me now, girl. I am not the one who can break tamer minds. I am not the one who shines hope into darkness. I am not the one who nurtures what is withered. I am not the one who can protect the Hollows, or the Isles, or all the lands threatened by the chimaeras.” Yaha jabbed at Tuya’s chest with her finger, driving this spearpoint into her heart. “I am not the one who must go on!”

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“You are not as useless as you think. You are not useless to me.” She hated that this moment turned from joy to sorrow. Why was this always the way of her life? Why could nothing ever just be good and stay that way?

Yaha shook her head, her eyes wet. “I am a spear, Tuya. Like the spear that is used in training, my life will not be pointless either, even after my point dulls or breaks. Because you held me, because you learned what you could from me, I have become worth more than I ever imagined I could be. Like a spear, if I must break so that you can go on, then I have served my purpose.”

Tuya shook her head, shook her whole body in firm disapproval of Yaha’s sacrificial fantasy. “You would be another mother who leaves me behind with all these promises, with all this responsibility, without you to help me.”

Yaha clenched her jaw shut, her mouth drawing into a line as more water pooled in her eyes. “I would be a mother who died so her daughter could live! Would you ask any other mother to let their child die? Would you ask any child to die just because their mother died? You would have us both die and let Gurgaldai have his victory!”

Tuya threw up her arms. “I would have us both live! You speak as if there is no other way! You do not get to take the easy way out, Yaha! You chose this life with me that day on the shore! I did not save you so you could toss yourself away like a broken spear when things got too hard!”

“Tuya of the Hollows! We! Cannot! Defeat! A Chimera!”

Tuya crossed her arms, turned off the light her eyes emitted, and leapt into the water, letting the cool chill try to abate the rising heat of her anger. Always this! Always Yaha must be the cynic!

Even in her anger, Tuya could sense Yaha’s mind working hard to rein in her fury, her desperation to make this point, to give Tuya one more lesson before she would not be there. Yaha succeeded, her scream turning into a soft plea. “Gurgaldai ezen Celegan took my world away from me. I refuse to let him take the world away from everyone else. When the chimaeras come, you must go on. Promise me, Tuya. Promise me that if a chimaera closes in, you will leave me behind. Promise me that you will go on after I am gone.”

Promise me, Tuya. She closed her eyes, lowered her head into her hand, and wept. She wept for Yaha, for Zaya, for Sarnai. Tuya wept for all the mothers of the Hollows. She wept for Masarga who would lose her mother and, yes, she even wept for her birth mother who had to give away her daughter, and likely paid her life for birthing her. Once more, she was a little girl in Zaya’s arms, being asked to make a promise for a reality she could not accept. Being asked to let go, to carry on. Tuya was tired of letting go, tired of carrying on alone. Was there nothing in this world that she could hold on to? Nobody that she could carry along with her? No. She could not accept this. She would not!

Tuya would not let Yaha die like she did Sarnai! She would not let Yaha leave her as Zaya did! A part of her knew it was folly, but she refused to accept that a chimaera could stop them. That day on the coast, all those seasons ago, and the raw indestructibility of the chimaera demanded her acknowledgement. Yet, she refused to even consider it. They would not encounter the chimaera for their plan would work. Even if they did, they would find a way to evade or kill it. She would not accept anything else.

Tuya opened her eyes, her heart still, and her mind firm. “I cannot make that promise, Yaha.” Yaha lowered her head and held it in her hands, shaking it as if Tuya could not see her disappointment without looking at her face. “The day we met, you promised to never give up on me. I hold you to that promise. We will escape. Me, you, and Darrakh. We will leave before Gurg even knows we are gone. We will flee to where no chimaera can find us.”

“I hope you are right,” Yaha said. Tuya did not need to link with her to know Yaha did not believe.

There was silence save for the small rush of the stream. Tuya, dampened, let her thoughts drift away, seeing nothing but the wall ahead of them where the water rushed out into the ocean below. The ocean where last they fought Chimaera on the beach.

“How is your boy, Pelianna?”

Tuya perked up. Yaha spoke in Leverian, as they usually did in their grotto. It had been many days since she learned a new word. She seized the distraction with no small enthusiasm. “What is a Pelianna?”

Yaha’s cheeks were puffy and high, her eyes wide and bright, with her top teeth showing. Her impassive tone of voice a jarring contrast to her mischievous smile. “A story for another day. When you are older.”

Tuya groaned, narrowed her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest. “You will not have to worry about chimaeras, Yaha, because I will be turning off the light and leaving you in this cave!”

Yaha’s belly laugh rumbled off the walls, echoing in Tuya’s ears, in her heart. She chuckled at that wide grin and felt her cheeks rising.

“I see my diplomacy lessons have been taking hold,” Yaha said, once her laughing subsided.

“Yes, Yaha, I am learning how to be insufferable. Thank you.” Tuya bowed.

Yaha pinched Tuya’s cheek. “And you are welcome. With a face like yours, you can get away with it.”

“Ha ha ha.”

Yaha’s hand slid from cheek to shoulder, and her smile lit Tuya’s soul. “Speaking of your cute face, why don’t you run along now. Go talk to your Elior, my precious Pelianna.”

Two new words in one day. “My Elior?”

“A story for—

“Another day.” Tuya made her voice as stupid as she could, trying to imitate that musical Mahagan lilt, “When you are older.”

Yaha gaped at her, mouth wide, before launching into another belly laugh. Tuya took her exit, showing the woman her back before she could rein in the laughter and rebut. No, the best move was to not relent on the attack, to keep driving while your opponent was on their back foot. Such was the way of the spear, the way of Captain Yaha of the Sixty Four. “Am I older yet?”

“Not yet.” Yaha chuckled. “But you will be soon. I fear.”

Tuya sighed, her mind dwelling on the last two words Yaha whispered.

“Good luck, Tuya. I suggest you bring your spear. Just in case.

“I am the spear,” Tuya turned back, filling the cavern with hundreds of glowing specks of silver light that would shine long after she left, “thanks to you.”