“Here,” Christof sighed, handing me a long shaft of wood with a handle, “you are untrained, essentially. It is not proper for you to hold a sharpened weapon in this arena.”

I cocked my head at him and Damien just shrugged.

“This place,” he gestured, “has certain rules. We feel inclined to follow them when we are here. It was easier to just train you with your own sword, but here that is not how it is done.”

“We had to earn the right to sharpen our blades,” Kein said wistfully. The men all chuckled at the memories. Training had been hard work. They reminisced about bonding and learning together. It had been something they enjoyed.

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“You will respect the blade more when you have earned the right to use it,” Evan informed me as he gestured to the center of the field.

a blade fun and treated it Like a game before. In this place, sword work was taken seriously and there

first night I learned how to hold a sword and how to stand with one. There were standardized positions the men moved me through. The slow motion exercises

through the prearranged pattern. Bane told me the movements would eventually be rote. My muscles would move me

as we did a slow step-turn combination. “They

movements I’d seen my grandmother do at the gym. I did understand the motions grandmother

Child Keepers wandered out to watch us. They sat in front of us in the stands and I dropped my eyes to avoid looking at them. Damien noticed the second I did it and expressed his

in the presence of others. You can’t fight staring at the ground and you will not train doing that.

my head and pleaded with him. “The boys will not understand. They will

care. My argument fell on deaf ears. I would

us as the sun fell in the sky. At first they seemed confused. As they watched my little display, I heard them snicker and

group finally got bold enough to come down into the arena with us. I heard their friends placing bets on how long they’d

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