The palace was a maze of polished wood and silk, but for the Lionesses, it held a deeper, darker, and more intricate geography.
Ji-su had been meticulous. Days after the nod, she sent a seemingly routine request—Maya was to bring a specific historical text from a rarely used wing of the palace archives late one evening. The instructions were simple, but the timing was critical: the two-hour window between the final watch-change and the first hint of pre-dawn light.
Maya moved like a ghost, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. The Sankofa pendant felt cold against her skin. She found the archive door and pushed it open; the scent of ancient paper and dust filled the air. She located the designated shelf, but the book was already gone. In its place, Ji-su's small, elegant handwriting marked a different instruction: Behind the tapestry of the Winter Hunt.
Maya located the enormous tapestry depicting a Joseon king on horseback. The fabric was heavy, woven with threads of silver and deep indigo. She reached behind it, following the instruction, and found not stone, but a hidden seam in the wall. Pushing against a loose brick, she felt a quiet mechanism engage.
A small section of the wall slid inward, revealing an opening just large enough for her to squeeze through. Ji-su was waiting on the other side.
The passage was narrow and lined with raw stone, lit by sputtering, oil-fed torches. The air was immediately cooler, drier, and heavier with the scent of aged incense and polished wood—the smell of history and serious intent. This was not a room for palace politics; this was a room for war.
The room they entered was circular, its walls lined with racks of antique-looking weapons and diagrams of complex physical forms. It was the Lioness training sanctuary.
"Welcome, Anansi," Ji-su said, using Maya's birth name for the first time. The sound resonated deep within Maya, a painful, exhilarating validation of her identity.
"This room has existed since the first Sankofa bearer arrived centuries ago. It is protected by a complex, centuries-old ward. We train here, we strategize here, and here, you will shed the skin of the fisher-girl," Ji-su stated, her voice sharp and uncompromising.
Ji-su became an immediate, unforgiving master. The training started with the basics: endurance, discipline, and understanding the palace's inherent weaknesses. "Your first task is to learn not to flinch," Ji-su commanded, striking a heavy wooden target mere inches from Maya's head. "Fear is noise. We are silence."
The primary focus, however, was the retrieval of memory through movement. Ji-su taught Maya the Lioness martial art form. It was unlike anything she had ever seen—not the stiff, linear combat of Joseon, but a flowing, circular sequence designed to use the opponent's strength against them. It incorporated sudden jumps, low sweeps, and devastating strikes delivered with the palm or forearm, designed to dismantle armor and disorient an enemy quickly.
Ji-su demonstrated a fluid sequence, every movement radiating deadly grace. "This art," Ji-su explained, her eyes hard, "was created by women. It relies on agility, surprise, and using the enemy's momentum. It is the language of West-Seu strength."
Maya struggled. Her body remembered the grace of the ocean, but the martial structure was foreign. Ji-su was relentlessly demanding, pushing Maya to the point of collapse, only to offer a brief, cold cup of water and command, "Again."
As the hours passed, Maya felt a painful, physical awakening. The unique, fluid movements were stirring latent memories, not as visual recollections, but as innate muscle knowledge. With every drill, with every painful bruise, Maya felt her lost memories resurfacing not as images, but as intrinsic power.
She was no longer Maya, the anomaly. She was Anansi, the Lioness, being forged in the hidden fires of the palace. The training was brutal, but it was necessary to prepare her for the battles to come.