Ch 4 Little Sister

Barely four and a half feet tall, Little Sister’s diminutive frame hid her true age. Her youthful features and petite build blended easily with the student population, masking years that had hardened her in ways Gilly could not see. Cropped slate-blue hair framed high cheekbones, and intricate thermal patterns, like an archaic script etched into her skin, traced her neck and shoulders, hinting at a history older than the classroom itself.

Gilly watched Mother glare up at the late arrival, noting how hard she worked to keep disappointment from showing. The corner of Gilly’s mouth lifted in a small, private smile; she felt a strange pride in Mother’s attempt to mimic human temper. Every tiny motion, how Mother stepped from behind her desk, the way she smoothed her coat, read like a practiced performance. A thin hiss of annoyance slipped from Mother as she climbed the auditorium stairs.

“So glad you finally decided to join us, Little Sister. Did you not consider the ramifications of being late? The state of mind that might put our children in before their Final Binding? If any fall tomorrow night, will it be your fault because of this infraction?”

Little Sister’s face registered disbelief; Mother’s words landed like knives. Gilly understood the logic behind the rebuke: complete physical and mental surrender was the only way to endure the Bindings. Yet Mother’s own anxiety was unmistakable, a suffocating tension that radiated outward and infected the room before she even realized it.

“I… I am their protector,” Little Sister stammered, her voice tight with conviction. “Always have been. Always will be.”

Mother’s reply was a study in controlled coldness. With a practiced, almost ritual gesture, she smoothed a stray strand from her immaculate hair. “Excellent. Then be seated. Let us proceed.”

Little Sister nodded and moved to the far back wall. She waved her hand just above the soil; roots from the Mother Tree rose and coalesced into a chair. At first, it was formless, then it took shape. Familiar, like the other seats. Gilly spared her a quick look of compassion. Little Sister returned the glance with a shrug and a downturned mouth, eyes avoiding direct contact.

Mother paused at the head of the room and let her gaze sweep the students. A grimace tightened her features. “I must offer my sincerest regrets for this disruption. Knowing the depth of Little Sister’s devotion, I ask for your understanding of her lateness.”

She shook her head once, mournfully, then leaned back against her desk and tapped her wristlink. A video flickered on the front screen. The students sat motionless, mouths slack, eyes wide.

“With less than one hundred of you remaining, it is a stark testament to the brutal reality of the Binding process. Two hundred of you first emerged from sterile grow tubes, only to face the harshness of the Middle. The losses you have endured are not abstract numbers; they are the measure of what this place demands. Those of you left are proof of resilience. Each prior Binding has given you strengths, gifts forged in suffering, that will be indispensable against the most formidable Binding yet to come.”

The video showed the Binding Chamber: a clinical, humming space where bound students writhed under an electrifying ritual. The fear on their faces pressed into Gilly like a physical weight; it pooled in her chest and made it hard to breathe.

“Unlike previous Bindings,” Mother continued, “the Final Binding’s decay can occur rapidly, within minutes. If the body of the one about to rupture isn’t incinerated, the outcome is catastrophic. Watch this.”

The screen focused on a young man strapped into the apparatus. At first, he looked merely nervous; then panic took him like a wave. Gilly could not bear to watch. She turned her face away as the feed showed the ritual’s failure: the young man convulsed, his systems collapsing in a sudden, catastrophic failure that left no dignity in its wake.

Gilly’s stomach dropped. The image burned behind her eyes even after she forced herself to look back in the room. The Mother Tree’s faint pulse underfoot felt suddenly distant, as if the world itself had stepped back to watch. Every lesson about Sparring rooms, the Gardens, the long hours of practice and endurance. Everything that had been a distant, abstract preparation, snapped into sharp, immediate terror.

If the Final Binding could end like that, what chance did Gilly have? The thought lodged in her like a stone. She had trained, practiced, and hoped, but hope felt thinner now, a fragile membrane stretched over an abyss. Gilly imagined the Upper, its glittering Houses, the betting houses’ nightly tallies, the promises of invitations, and felt them recede into something unreachable. Alone, without a Gift, she pictured herself left behind: a symbol high on a wall, a body in the Middle, a future that narrowed to a single, terrifying point.

The classroom hummed with the low, stunned breathing of the students. Mother’s voice, steady and unyielding, filled the space again, but Gilly heard only the echo of that one image and the cold certainty that the Final Binding would not be merciful.