But it’s not.

The first sweep arrived before she had even finished setting her feet. Kareem’s foot caught her ankle from the side and her whole body folded toward the mat.

Her shoulder landed first. Her hair fanned across the padding. Her pupils stared up at the lights of the chamber for a long, slow second.

What had just happened?

For a fraction of a second Ayla’s brain froze, too stunned to completely comprehend she was just thrown by a human without him using his trait.

"Up," Kareem shouted.

She got up, this time fully ready to defend against him, then fell.

Bang.

The mat protected her bones from fracturing, but it didn’t stop the pain. Ayla felt her every cell screaming in pain.

So she became angry. An angry Ayla was horrifying, so with a curled fist she kipped up to her feet. And he once again swept and she fell.

This continued. Only sounds of her body hitting the mat echoed inside the training floor.

By the fourth fall, Ayla had lost the calm she walked into the afternoon with. By the sixth, her teeth had begun to clench. By the eighth, a small, indignant sound escaped her throat as she hit the mat.

"Stop doing that."

Kareem looked down at her without expression.

"Stop falling, then."

She got up, set her feet. Watched him this time. Eyes locked on his hips, desperately wanting to see motion before his feet moved.

The hips did not move. His foot hooked her knee from behind. She went down differently this time.

Backwards.

Her tailbone hit the mat first. The pain bloomed up her spine and she yelped before she could stop herself.

"Stop throwing me!"

"Stop letting me."

"Fight like a gentleman," she furiously complained, sneakily attacking him again, and repeating the new fall once more.

She rolled onto her side. Her cheeks had turned deep red in anger. The flush traveled down her throat. She caught the color out of the corner of her eye and foundit only worsened her mood.

"This is not fair."

"Exactly."

"You are using techniques I have not learned."

"You will not have time to learn them when someone uses them on you in a Spire."

"I have a sword."

"And? Did you use it? It’s funny you are keeping it as an ornament," Kareem laughed disdainfully.

Only then did Ayla remember she hadn’t used the sword this time. It had been thrown away by Kareem somewhere.

When she looked around to find it, Kareem pulled her right arm and threw her over his shoulder.

Bang.

Ayla’s eyes spilled tears. It was not crying. She was simply annoyed. She got up again. She raised her hands the way Sarah had once raised hers across a dinner table.

Fists loose. Elbows close. Chin tucked. The pose had come from a memory of Sarah scolding Damien, which Ayla had filed without realizing she might ever need it for combat.

Kareem’s eyebrow lifted a fraction.

"Where did you learn that stance?"

"My mother." He almost smiled. He did not. He swept her ankle anyway and she landed sideways with a sound that was more squeak than yelp.

"Your mother’s stance is for arguing, not for fighting. Get up."

She got up. By the twelfth fall, she had decided to end this another way. She reached for Pyromancy. The trait did not respond. Her brow furrowed.

She reached harder. Nothing arrived.

The warmth in the chamber sat where the warmth always sat, but the door between her and it was not where it had been the morning before.

Something was in the way. Something heavy and blocking.

She reached for Bloodnet. For Acid Synthesis. For Shadow Stride. For Iron Will. For Eight-Wing Transformation. For everything in her arsenal that had ever responded when she had called.

None of them accepted her call.

Every trait was locked behind a door she couldn’t open. Her pupils widened as she reached for Kareem’s mind on instinct.

’Stupid little girl.’

Ayla’s face shifted to grim.

"Didn’t I tell you already you can’t use traits in martial arts training?" he asked in a mocking tone.

Ayla remembered that condition and lied, "I didn’t use them. See," she showed her palms.

"Little milk baby. Who do you think you are trying to cheat?" Kareem laughed as he pointed his fingers at the five dark devices around the training mat.

"When you were drinking your mother’s milk, I was hunting Darklings in the Crusade. Do you think you can cheat me?" he continued, "The seal on this room blocked every trait below Platinum."

She had nothing to say to that. She bit her lip harder.

The training or beating continued for thirty minutes.

Kareem didn’t strike her. If he did, she wouldn’t be this aggrieved now. He used his limbs and shoulders to throw her around.

This made her mood worsen.

Again and again and again, she fell. Each time she rose, he pointed out what had failed in her body.

"Your shoulders are too high."

"Your weight is on your heels."

"Your eyes are forward. Your hearing is what tells you a foot is moving toward your ankle, not your eyes."

"You twisted at the waist instead of the hip. You will throw your back out before you turn twenty."

"You held your breath when you fell. The fall is harder when you stop breathing."

"Your hands came up to break the fall. Your wrists will break before your hands save you. Tuck the chin and roll."

Ayla did every correction, and when she thought she could finally throw this daring man to the ground, he would find new corrections.

Her shoulders began to shake. Not from fear, but from the strain of standing up for the thirty-eighth time and from the humiliation of not managing to hit him at least once.

"Stand."

She stood. He swept. She fell.

"Stand."

She stood. And he repeated.

At the forty-seventh sweep, her body refused to stand. She lay on the mat, her arms trembling at her sides. Her breath came shallow and damp hair clung to her face.

Her eyes lost their focus as they stared at the ceiling silently. Kareem stood over her. He did not offer his hand.

"See. This will happen if you are trapped in an environment opposing your trait. You are nothing without it. You are a candle without a wick. The body must be ready, or the body will be the last weapon you ever lose."

The words drifted over her like cold water. She heard them as her thoughts started assembling in the silence.

She had not been humiliated like this since the humiliation from the man in that tunnel. In that, too, he had defeated her cleanly. That defeat had carried no scorn.

Kareem’s scorn was something new, just like how she had shown it to Jaxon, all his team members, and Kenji, and the humans.

So this was the feeling of being scorned at?

’I will eat his brain.’ She swore a vow. Maybe not now. Later, but for sure.

She bit her lips again. Harder this time. The skin broke and a bead of blood gathered at the corners of her mouth and slid down toward her chin.

That’s when the training floor door opened at the far end. Kenji walked in.

He had come for the lunch hour after Sarah nagged him to collect his sister from the Trainer Demon.

He stopped at the doorway, freezing at the sight of her on the ground. Kareem turned his head.

"Young master," he bowed.

Ayla locked her eyes with him, "Brother, he bullied me." A stream of tears flowed down from her eyes.