Everything evaporated as I stared at Master Damien. How I had wished to do that very thing many


    times over, but I didn’t know how to knock out aman my uncle’s size. Desperately, I wanted to learn.


    “It’s easy,” Master Damien told me. “We’ve been learning to fight since we were very small.”


    It was the strangest dream I’ve ever had. I watched as my young Masters learned to fight. It was like


    they invited me to share their memories, by morning I felt Like a Warrior.


    I was awake and nauseated by the time the men Let me out of the box in the morning. I leapt up and


    ran for the bathroom. Had I spent one more moment in there I would have thrown up on myself.


    That afternoon at the Keepers I crept along the dunes until I was mostly alone. The other girls that


    came down here did so for quiet. I wasn’t making noise, so they ignored me.


    It had been a strange dream, but I felt like I knew how to fight. I searched my mind and found memories


    from the dream. I swung and kicked the way I had seen the men do. It seemed I had the right idea, just


    no strength or practice with the movement.


    Fuji and Rose came down and wanted to know what I was doing. As soon as I saw them I stopped, but


    they stayed.


    ‘s it a new dance, Ciara?” Fuji asked.


    “No,” I said trying to figure out what to call it. “I was just fooling around. My…uncles taught me to fight


    and I was just doing the moves they showed me.”


    It was a usible lie.


    “Show us,” Rose encouraged settling down.


    I demonstrated the moves, but I was far less adept than the figures in my dream had been. We all


    laughed as I struggled to get better. It was a fun and distracting way to spend the afternoon.


    ninjanovel


    The men came and got me at night as usual. We went into their rooms and they stood at the threshold


    staring at me. Usually they went down the bathhouse now, but they didn’t look like they were getting


    ready to go.


    “When will ite?” one of them asked me. don’t understand, Master. When will whate?”


    “The menstruation,” he pronounced carefully. “It has been seventy day cycles since thest one. We


    are being patient. You told us this was a regr cycle. They should be even.”


    A terrible thought came to me then. The sickness every morning was not illness.


    “Yes, it should,” I said raising my hands and taking a step back. I was sure they should not know. “It’s


    not something I control. My body does it when the hormones-“


    “What is that word?” the long haired man interrupted me.


    I tried desperately to exin, but this was one of those times. They locked me in the box that night for


    not being honest. To me, it seemed they just preferred to sleep without me. For once I was d to be


    alone and panic on my own.


    My period waste. The men didn’t know what that meant, but I did. Ate period meant something


    very different from what they feared.


    My mother had suffered morning sickness with me. She’d lost weight and had to be ced on


    supplements. Even my grandmother had suffered the damned sickness with every one of her many


    children. This seemed so much Like what they described.


    It couldn’t be, I assuaged myself. Master Damien had said this could not happen. He and his Brothers


    had been so sure, but the truth was hard to refute.


    I had menstruated, which was odd. That must mean I was fertile again.Content is property of N?velDrama.Org.