HER REVENGE: Candles For The Dead

Learning How To Fall

The training hall was not what I expected.

I thought it would be full of weights and mirrors like a normal gym.

Instead, it was just mats. White mats, worn in the middle from too many feet. The air smelled like sweat and disinfectant. There were no mirrors. They didn't want you looking at yourself.

About ten people were already there. All older than me. All moving like they knew exactly what their body could do.

Nia left me at the door. "Maya will find you. Don't run."

"I wasn't going to run," I whispered, but my legs were already telling me to.

A tall woman walked up to me. She was not smiling. Her arms had scars, thin white lines that looked like old cuts.

"Tessa?" she said. "I'm Maya."

"I know. Nia said—"

"You have a fresh tattoo?" she interrupted, looking at my shoulder. "Good. Don't let it touch the mat for two days."

I pulled my shirt tighter.

"You ever fought before?" she asked.

"No."

"You ever been punched?"

"No."

"Good. Then you have no bad habits to unlearn."

She didn't ask me to warm up. She just said, "Fall."

I stared at her. "Excuse me?"

"Fall down. Now."

So I dropped to my knees. Awkward. Like a child.

"No," Maya said. "Not like you are praying. Like someone pushed you."

She put her hand on my shoulder and pushed. Not hard. But I was so tense that I fell straight backward, my head almost hitting the mat.

The boy with braids laughed.

Maya didn't laugh. She knelt beside me. "If you fall like that in the street, you will crack your head open. You will die. Your enemy won't even need to hit you twice."

She tapped the back of my head. "Tuck your chin. Always. Chin to chest. Your head is more important than your pride."

For the next hour, that was the lesson. Just falling.

Maya made me fall forward, backward, sideways. She would clap, and I would have to drop and roll. She would whisper my name from behind and push.

At first I was embarrassed. Every time I fell, I could hear that boy snicker. My face was hot. My knees were red.

But around the twentieth fall, something changed. I stopped trying to look pretty. I stopped trying to catch myself with my hands.

I tucked my chin. I let my shoulder take it. I rolled.

Thud. Roll. Stand.

Thud. Roll. Stand.

"Better," Maya said. It was the first good word she gave me.

"What is the point of this?" I asked, breathing hard. "I joined to learn how to fight, not how to fall."

Maya looked at me for a long time. "Everyone who comes here wants to learn how to punch. No one wants to learn how to fall. But you will fall more than you punch, Tessa. In this life, you will be knocked down more times than you can count. If you know how to fall, you can get up. If you don't, you stay down."

She was right. I had been down since my father died. I had stayed down.

"Again," she said.

This time when she pushed me, I didn't close my eyes. I saw the mat coming. I tucked. I rolled. I was on my feet before the pain even hit.

For the first time, the boy with braids wasn't laughing. He was watching.

Maya nodded. "Enough for today. You will be sore tomorrow. Don't complain about it."

I touched my shoulder. My Bateleur was throbbing, but in a good way. Like it was alive.

I was sore. I was sweaty. I was still at the bottom.

But I was no longer on the floor.

I followed Maya out of the hall, my legs feeling like they belonged to someone else.

Nia was waiting in the corridor.

She looked at me and smiled. "You survived."

"Barely."

She laughed. "That's normal."

I leaned against the wall. "Is every day going to be like this?"

"No."

I looked at her hopefully.

"Some days will be worse."

My hope disappeared.

Nia laughed again and started walking. I followed her through another hallway. The building seemed bigger than I had realized. Doors lined both sides, most of them closed.

"Where are we going?"

"Your room."

"I have a room?"

"You do now."

She stopped in front of a plain wooden door and handed me a small key.

I stared at it.

"You're staying here?" I asked.

"Unless you decide to leave."

I thought about that.

Leaving sounded easy.

But then I remembered my father's face. The questions that had been left unanswered. The people responsible for taking everything from me.

I closed my fingers around the key.

"I'm staying."

Nia's smile faded slightly. "Then tomorrow, the real initiation begins."

I looked at her.

"I thought today was the initiation."

She shook her head.

"Today was just training."

She opened the door.

I stepped inside, suddenly wondering what I had actually agreed to.