Preparations were being made; the hunters had picked up their activities, disappearing for longer and longer periods of time, and the smell of smoke and drying meat could be found anywhere in the community, indoors and out. Djinn moved through the halls burdened by heavy loads. Classes were longer, more purposeful; even Harabi's lessons had developed an unusual clarity, and the djinn stayed on topic most of the time.

The words in everybody's ear. Setareh had finally spoken; they were mobilizing for war. Every community was to prepare a force to send, and theirs was no exception. Sofha gathered, listening to conversations, that Zana was going to send a contribution of five hundred djinn, and all four loop-bound. Soha had yet to be personally instructed of this, but knew it all the same.

"Stop the fireball." Hvare's hand swept around, as if throwing one of Firou's green balls, and light formed, a fireball rushing towards Soha. Soha focused on making the light halt in mid-air; it did not, crashing into Soha's bare stomach instead, the flames sticking there for a moment until Soha focused on stilling the air, and the light faded. "Throw back."

Soha focused on vibration, on containment, on motion of containment. Red and yellow light burst into being and motion, flying towards Hvare. It vanished at the halfway point. "Stop the fireball." And another light began flying towards Soha, in turn.

It took seven more tries to get the trick of making the fire vanish - Hvare said nothing, just repeating the two phrases as they alternated tasks - which was exactly what Soha tried after the fireballs landed. Stilling the air itself, rather than trying to halt the motion. Getting the fireballs Soha threw at Hvare to cross the midway point was harder, and required continued focus and effort. When the lesson ended, Soha could throw a fireball most of the way to Hvare most of the time, and could stop Hvare's fireballs reliably before they impacted.

The other djinn practiced line formations, and Hvare paused in the training with Soha occasionally to bark at them, displeased if they paused for a moment in trying to bash each other down; a growling order if a line broke, a different growling order if neither line broke. Hvare hammered on the students to work together, to try to stop their opposing line from working together, to fight more fiercely.

The next day's lesson was lightning, and they worked at the same time; lightning couldn't be stopped, as Soha quickly discovered, and must be redirected instead. The trick here was to focus on two arcs of lightning; one, not quite realized, intercepting the path that Hvare's lightning would take, and causing it to move along the path Soha had created.

And the lines of students got more shouting. Every day Hvare got a little more intense, occasionally stepping away from Soha to push students back into line, or paused their lessons to yell orders at particular students who weren't moving quickly enough. Bruises accumulated, purple and blue hues an increasingly common sight in the baths after each lesson.

The lessons in magic weren't particularly changed in view of the preparations being undertaken; Soha learned to create gales of wind, which was relatively straightforward, and to move sand around. The latter practice was somewhat interesting, as there was a room set aside for exactly this purpose, with many djinn working at this particular practice; using expectation, will, magic, to lift from an urn of sand a column.

If there hadn't been others practicing, Soha suspected it would have taken several lessons to figure it out. Shaping the sand was not just a matter of forcing will upon it; the sand wanted to fall back down, and it felt impossible to keep track of the full volume of it, much less impose any kind of will upon it; the trick ended up being to form a shell of sorts around the sand, and creating a rotating internal spiral of shell, which with each rotation pushed the sand back up.

Water, as it transpired, was very similar to sand, but it seemed for some reason particularly easy to work with the shell. But with sand, where the shell was manipulated to work against gravity, the column of water could be held in place with the shell itself. Soha wasn't sure why; the water felt ... sticky, somehow, and it was easier to manipulate.

And then the magic lessons began repeating themselves, now with an emphasis on shaping. Fire was expected to look like birds - Soha hadn't seen any birds, but Anaz demonstrated the shape, a flatness with a lumpiness in the middle. Then other shapes; cubes, spheres, other animals. The animals tended to be the hardest, most complex shapes.

Neither lightning nor sand could hold complex shapes, and the practice here was to create more. Two arcs of lightning, then three, then four. Soha began seriously struggling at four, finding it difficult to mentally alternate between four different things quickly enough to maintain them. Sand, likewise, was columns, and here Soha struggled to create two.

Water, however, was easier to shape, and exercises in shaping went over the same kinds of shapes as fire. The lessons in water felt ... somewhat repetitive, falling slightly behind the same shaping lessons in fire. Soha persisted.

The magic lessons came to a close; Soha hadn't improved much, but according to Anaz, there wasn't much improvement to make. Magic just was, and you had to know what you wanted to do with it to meaningfully practice, leaving Soha somewhat confused as to what kinds of ways of thinking could meaningfully impact the rather unimpressive achievements Soha had made so far. Soha asked Fan and Sidou about it.

"Your lessons are being cut short, I think we're leaving in three or four days." Fan was uncharacteristically brief in the explanation, looking ... tired. The djinn's eyes had trouble staying open, and yawns were frequently hidden behind a hand.

"It's exciting, isn't it?" Sidou was sitting forward in the dining hall bench, food largely untouched. "We're going to see battle. I'm going to see battle. I thought I'd be stuck here forever, just ... making more djinn." That was ... Efre had mentioned a duty to reproduce. Soha studies Sidou's expression, which was indeed excited. Perhaps that was not a duty Sidou had enthusiasm for.

"Yes, yes, we're going to war." Fan's hand waved in the air over a nearly empty plate. "If we're lucky enough not to die ourselves, we'll see dead peri by the hundreds if not thousands. Maybe we'll get to burn some of their children." Sidou's expression darkened.

"They killed our children in Southreach, and captured others for their damned geis. They killed and took our people. We are going to fight their soldiers, and free our people. We're not going out to kill children." The bickering had begun again.

This had become the new normal. Fan had grown increasingly withdrawn, and Sidou increasingly energetic; Sidou looked forward to fighting the peri. Fan ... didn't seem to, and spoke more with resignation about the future than enthusiasm.

The assembly was large; the dining hall had been emptied, and Zana stood on a platform that looked like a table had been shortened by cutting most of the legs down. Soha stood next to Fan and Sidou, surrounded by a sea of red faces in a variety of shades; red flesh, red and blue cloth almost all that could be seen. It was standing room only, and some djinn were holding young children aloft to see Zana address the crowd. The room was filled with a low rumble of voices.

Zana raised a hand, coughing deliberately, and then making a throat clearing noise; the chatter immediately started dying down.

"I'll keep this short, as we all have duties. I am certain everyone here has heard by now of the attack on Southreach. Setareh has asked every community dispatch forces to join a host, to retake the Southreach, and afterwards mount a punitive expedition into peri lands. We will of course meet our duties. Seven hundred and fifty will be sent, as well as the loop-bound.

"We will not stand idly by while the peri take our lands and our children. Two drops of peri blood shall be spilt for every drop of djinni blood that has been lost. Thus it has been, thus shall it be. The preparations are made, and our contribution to the force will leave for Bastion tomorrow.

"Those departing have already been informed, but any who wish to see the rosters, they are available in the administrative offices. Make your farewells to friends tonight, the force will leave at first light. We shall see our friends and companions return in blood and glory, for duty calls, and djinn answer.

"There will be a fire feast tonight. Make it your duty to join, to wish fortune and frenzy on those departing."

Zana stepped down off of the podium, a gentle roar of conversation sweeping back up, and several djinn moved forward to speak with the elder. Soha looked at Fan and Sidou; Fan's mouth was pressed in a line, expression grim. Sidou's eyebrows were drawn down, lips parted around teeth that were exposed in something that was not a smile at all. Fan broke their mutual silence.

"It begins."