One Year and Four Months Before the Brilliance.

Arana looked down at the vials on the table before herself and Zahara. She knew each tiny bottle was filled with clear liquid with no odor or taste. Yet she imagined a vile coat of something thicker than mud every time she drank it.

Today she stared at the vials longer than usual while Zahara reached out to take hers and consumed the liquid in one swig.

Arana glanced at Zahara, who had shaved her head clean again like hers.

Zahara looked back at her as she set the vial down. "What's wrong?" she asked, their eyes meeting.

"Nothing." Arana turned back, focusing on her own vial still filled with that clear liquid. Then she looked up at Master Taoro, who sat across the table.

The Maestro busied himself with his notes, writing and murmuring to himself. The red of his robes flashed the only bright color in the room—his workshop of nothing but walls, wood, and metals. The roof rose high above them for at least two levels. It was a structure made to house something massive.

"How are you feeling?" Master Taoro came up from his papers. He glanced at Arana first, then looked down at the untouched vial.

Arana finally reached out, taking the drink to her lips and drinking its content to the last drop. It was like water over her tongue, but she had difficulty swallowing it.

She counted the many times she had done this—sixty-eight. The first and second times had been curious. Without knowing what the liquid was, Arana and Zahara obeyed the Maestro when he told them to drink. After a few more days, they felt the effects.

"The same as yesterday," Arana answered.

"And you, Zahara?" Master Taoro turned to the other girl,

Arana heard Zahara take a deep breath before speaking. "Are we supposed to feel different, Master?"

The Maestro regarded Zahara with a concerned look, placing the papers beside the empty vials on the table. He tucked his hands on his lap and said, "Do you feel different?"

Zahara nodded.

"How different?"

"I feel... stronger? I'm not sure. I think something changed, but I don't know what. My shoulder healed too fast. The healers said so. I feel faster, and I can last longer in the day during training." Zahara explained what she felt, and Arana had the same revelations, too—the same effects that were turning them into something divergent, something more. But what?

Master Taoro smiled at the answer, a wide pleased grin that wrinkled the sides of his bright eyes.

"What are you doing to us, Master?" Arana asked. The question should have materialized sooner—as soon as they met the man that day under the gazebo on the hill.

They received not only an invitation to dine with him but an order to work for him. They didn't know what he was doing. They didn't know what he was trying to achieve. But that's what soldiers were for, wasn't it? To do as they're told and to never ask questions. But the words came tumbling out of Arana's lips.

Master Taoro's grin settled into a soft smile, still looking pleased. "I'm trying to create a solution to our kingdom's problems."

"What problems?" Zahara asked.

The Maestro turned to the wall behind him, looking at nothing specifically. When he waved his hand, he gestured at something imagined. "What do you think is beyond the sea?" That direction behind the wall pointed to the south beyond Daracka.

"Suluna?" Arana answered, voice wavering with doubt.

"No." Master Taoro pointed a finger in the air and waved it once at Arana. "Beyond the sea is our enemy. Not only Suluna but all the lands that set their eyes on Daracka with the hunger to conquer us." His voice deepened as if he spoke of something grave.

"But—" A protest came from Zahara. "No one has come to conquer us."

"Not in recent times, but they have come in the past. From the north and the south. And they will come again." Master Taoro waved his finger again, this time at Zahara.

"But what are you doing to us?" Arana went back to her vaguely answered question.

Before he spoke again, the Maestro settled himself, smoothing the belly of his red karkan. He was not that old, but sometimes his movements made him seem older than he looked. Slow and measuring time. "When I asked you to do this, you swore you would do anything for Daracka."

Both girls nodded.

"I am using you to experiment on lakar. To see its effects on the human body when consumed. I have learned that every person takes to it in different ways. You two, by far, have the most promising results." Master Taoro smiled again.

Lakar. So that's what they were drinking. But how? Lakar was a black rock. How could it become a clear liquid? Arana's head wrapped around questions. She never thought that they were swallowing something from the island's grounds.

The Maestro continued to explain. "You see, I have figured out that the human body has the perfect temperature to convert lakar into energy. Once inside your bodies—" he pointed at the girls, "—the lakar should break down and stay contained within your system unless it is directed out of you. But that is all in theory. I am trying to prove it, and you are helping me."

Arana knew the stories, the legends that told of the power within lakar. But no one since the old kings had ever used it. People believed that the power of lakar had gone when the line of the old kings ended. Their time now came into a modern age—one of discovery, when legends were only suitable for children on their beds.

"This lakar and whatever you're building. You're creating a weapon, aren't you?" Zahara asked. It amazed Arana how calm her voice had been when the question came out as a realization. Her face stayed neutral. Unreadable.

"You've always been clever, Zahara. I'm surprised it took you two months to figure that out." Master Taoro stood up from his seat and stretched his legs. He was a tall man who towered over both girls but looked frail and tired.

Sometimes Arana pitied him. He worked too hard. Whatever he did took too much toll on his body.

"My wife will be coming to visit." He said to both of them.

"You have a wife?" The question came out before Arana could stop herself. It sounded offensive—a doubt on the Maestro's manhood—but he didn't take it like that, and he only smiled.

"Yes, I have, Arana." He moved from behind the desk, passing them and walking to the center of his workshop. "Now, you remember your oaths. Those you learn here should be kept secret."

It started to rain outside, and the patting of droplets came soft and far from the high ceiling. The air turned from warm to mild, then to cold in only the time it took for the Maestro to move a few paces.

Arana and Zahara turned, following him with their gazes as he stepped in front of an extensive metal framework. The hull rose higher than him—a structure connected to a series of parallel tubes ending in different chambers. It was incomplete. Some parts still opened, exposing the gathered gears and cogs within. But it was nearing its absolution.

This machine was what the smiths worked on during Arana and Zahara's off-schedule with the Maestro. This was the cause for the excavation on the sides of the hills on Bickra, the motivation for them to consume lakar, and the means to protect their kingdom from these enemies that Master Taoro described.

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