The Games for Nihon (BOOK THREE)

Chapter 8 - The Weaving Ceremony

... An arena. Created just for this event. It is not meant to last beyond the duration of the festivities, it will simply vanish, leaving no trace. Its ephemerality allows for impractical beauty, superficial embellishments that don't fulfill a function beyond the pleasure of the eye...

... The galleries are floating. They go higher or lower, nearer or farther, to allow the spectators to get the best view of events, and to feel - almost - as if they were part of the games. They are a part of games. One might even say that the real matches happen in the galleries, and afterwards, at the feast. One might say that. But one shouldn't. Not out loud...

... The floor of the arena is made of marble. There is nothing that reflects light better. And every detail is important. If you miss something, it could be fatal...

Sofia could not figure out how Master Whit and her disciples were doing it.

The large wooden frame, it seemed, was real. Somehow, Sofia felt as if she could tell by now if something was real or not. Real-real, that was. But she wasn't entirely sure.

Inside the confines of the frame, air billowed like the surface of water. At first, there were merely reflections of color. They didn't appear to have any particular meaning, they moved like a rainbow sliding over a puddle of oily liquid, getting caught for a moment, then dissolving into memory, leaving only traces behind.

"What does that mean?" Sofia whispered. "Have they started yet?"

Orì shrugged. She was more focused on the people who had come to witness the ceremony than the ceremony itself. Especially since, to her, nothing interesting was happening yet.

Sofia didn't like looking at her. She had left their room as the Orì she knew, the Orì she had first met. And while they had been walking to the throne room, where the ceremony was being held, she had seamlessly transformed into the girl who most resembled her mother. It made Sofia remember her betrayal, and it made her feel the way she had felt at the School when she had seen Orì again. When she had first seen her like that.

She turned to Ami. His eyes were fixed on the inside of the frame.

"I think -," he said slowly. "I think they are gathering their materials."

"What materials?"

"Just - everything."

Sofia barely took her eyes from the frame. She didn't want to miss the moment when it really began. Still, her eyes kept flicking back to Master Whit.

Master Whit looked quite young, but that didn't have to mean anything. Her face was smooth, but the skin around her eyes was crinkled as if she laughed a lot. This gave her a friendly, unthreatening appearance. Which also didn't have to mean anything.

Her mouth was small and pinched in concentration. She had a very high forehead and her hair only started to grow way back on it, and in the same color as her opalite skin, like a continuation of her face. It was bound into a tight braid that went far down her back. She was neither ugly nor beautiful nor anything in between. She didn't look like anybody Sofia had ever seen, so she didn't have a frame of reference. The most noticeable thing about her appearance, however, was the absence of lines on her cheeks. This could only mean two things. That she or her family had tried to cheat themselves into an older recorded dynasty, or that she was not from Dorian.

The disciples around her looked just as focused as their master. There were six of them. All except one had lines on their cheeks. One had only three, one had nine, two others ten, one thirteen. Sofia didn't know if that meant anything in particular. In all likelihood, they were far from all the disciples from Master Whit's following. Only the most talented ones.