He did have scars, but they were long healed – more badges of honour than unsightly blemishes. It was not that which made the girls gasp, but the tattoos on his shaved, muscular skin. All over his body, there were lines and small circles, the black markings running up his limbs and all over his torso, onto his neck and shaved head.

Qeva dropped her robe as well and they stood nude, facing each other, though as always she kept her veil in place. She motioned, and Enkido attacked, moving with sudden, frightening speed. He outweighed the woman twice over, but it did not seem to slow him as they grappled and he put her quickly into a submission hold, lifting her feet from the ground so she could find no leverage.

But the dama’ting seemed unconcerned. She shifted slightly, then drove two stiffened fingers into one of the tattooed points on his chest. Immediately one of his arms slackened, and she pulled it away like the arm of a toddler, twisting from his grasp and flipping him onto his back.

‘All of Everam’s creatures are guided by lines of power and points of convergence, where their muscles, tendons, bones, and energy meet,’ the dama’ting said. ‘These are places of great strength, but also vulnerability. Touch the right place, and even the most powerful will lose their strength.’

She beckoned and again the warrior attacked, this time refusing to grapple, striking with lightning-fast kicks and quick, snapping punches like the strikes of a tunnel asp.

But the dama’ting bent like a palm in a windstorm, flowing this way and that, his blows never striking home. Finally, she reached out almost gently while he was mid-kick, pressing one of the points marked on his supporting leg. It collapsed under him, and while Enkido managed to control his fall and quickly come upright, his leg was now slack and would not support him. He stood balanced on the other, hands up protectively as he waited on the dama’ting’s command.

Instead, she turned back to the girls. ‘Trained in Sharik Hora, Enkido was the greatest sharusahk master the Kaji Sharum had known in a hundred years. No man of any tribe could stand against him, and alagai quailed at the sight of him. More than one dama’ting sought his seed to bless their daughters, and through them he learned of our art. But though he begged time and again, he was forbidden to learn it. The Damajah teaches that no man can be trusted with the secrets of flesh. At last, the Damaji’ting took pity on him, and told him that only by yielding his tongue and his freedom would he be allowed to glimpse our secrets. He broke his spear over his knee right there, using the point to cut out his tongue and sever his own manhood, root and stones. Bleeding to death, he laid them at the Damaji’ting’s feet. No longer a man, he was healed and blessed with the right to aid in your training. You will accord him every honour.’

As one, Inevera and the other girls bowed to Enkido. Though he was only a eunuch, he looked at them all with the stern eye of a drillmaster assessing his nie’Sharum, and when he spoke with his hands, the girls quickly obeyed.

Inevera kept her hand on the Evejah’ting but did not open it, eyes closed as she recited the holy verse:

‘And from the sacred metal did the Damajah forge the three holy treasures of Kaji.

First, the cloak,

Sacred metal hammered into supple thread,

Sewn into the finest white silk with wards of unsight.

Months she laboured,

At Everam’s will,

Until the eyes of the alagai slid from Kaji in his raiment,

As easily as her fingers coated in kanis oil,

Slid along his skin.

Second, the spear,

Sacred metal pounded thin as vellum,

Etched with wards,

Rolled seventy-seven times about a shaft of hora.

The blade she made of the same sheet,

Folded and fused with hora dust

Seven times seventy times

In the fires of Nie’s abyss.

A year she laboured,

At Everam’s will,

Until the edge she ground with diamond dust,

Could cut the skin of Nie Herself.

Last, the crown,

Sacred metal warded on both sides,

Masking the many powers she blessed upon it.

Fused to a circlet cut from the skull of a demon prince.

The nine points princeling horns,

Each set with a gem to focus its unique power.

Ten years she laboured,

At Everam’s will,

Until the demon lord himself could not touch the thoughts of Kaji,

Nor approach if the Shar’Dama Ka did not will it.

With these treasures, Kaji became the most feared of all warriors,

And the cowardly princes of Nie

Fled the field whenever he drew the folds of his cloak.’

Qeva nodded as Inevera finished, gesturing to the workbench the nie’dama’ting had gathered around, where bowls of metal filings were arranged, ready to be melted down. ‘Precious metals conduct magic better than base ones. Silver is better than copper, gold better than silver. But the transfer is never perfect. There is always loss.’

She looked at Inevera. ‘What is more precious than gold?’

Inevera hesitated, though she knew better than to look to the other girls around the workbench for aid. At last she shook her head. ‘Apologies, Dama’ting. I do not know.’

Qeva chuckled. ‘You might truly be your namesake reborn if you did. The Damajah, blessings be upon her, gave us many secrets in her holy verses. But in her wisdom, she kept others still in her mind lest they be stolen by her rivals. Now many are lost to the millennia. The wards of unsight, the powers of the spear and crown, and the sacred metal.’

She took up a bowl. ‘And so we begin our lessons with copper …’

Weeks passed, and Inevera found herself standing before a silvered glass, drawing wards around her eyes in soft pencil. She had practised the sigils a thousand times, as they were in the Evejah’ting, and inverted, as she must draw them in the mirror for full potency.

Some of the older girls, Melan and Asavi among them, had progressed beyond pencil, wearing delicate circlets of warded coins across their brows, but Inevera’s first circlet was still a clinking collection of unfinished coins and gold wire in a pouch at her waist.

Qeva inspected her closely when she was finished drawing, holding her chin in a firm grasp and roughly turning her head this way and that. She said nothing, giving only a slight huff of satisfaction, but that breath meant more to Inevera than the most glowing compliment. If there had been the slightest flaw, the dama’ting would have announced it derisively to all and made her wash her face and draw anew.

Inevera felt a chill as the dama’ting touched a finger to a small bowl of black liquid. It looked like ink, but she would have known from the stench alone that it was the rendered ichor of demons.

It was warm when Qeva touched the barest smudge to her forehead, but it did not burn as Inevera feared. The spot tingled like static, and she could feel the magic crawling across her skin, drawn to the pencilled wards, dancing along their delicate lines.

And then her eyes came alive, and Inevera gasped for the wonder of it, her centre lost. The dim wardlight of the room was washed out by light from every corner, drifting across the floor and seeped in the walls, shining in the spirits of Qeva and the other girls. It was Everam’s light, the line of energy they reached for and drew upon each morning in sharusahk, the fire in their centre that gave life and power to all living things. It was the immortal soul.

And she could see it, as clearly as the sun.