Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
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bright.I miss the blue or red walls sometimes , she thought, stepping forward; then she stopped again<br />
as Sakai' ra's voice continued. "Kh'eeredo, you're treading somewhat on her honor as a warrior."<br />
A whisper of pacing feet: Megan, she could tell <strong>by</strong> the short steps. "No, I'm not. She has thezight of the<br />
house <strong>and</strong> her own behind her <strong>and</strong> all the pride <strong>and</strong> honor someone with her potential has. She'll be a<br />
warrior when she's of age, two years from now. Wereyou one at fourteen?"<br />
"When I came back from my test I was considered one."<br />
"Well," Megan said tartly, "I am hardly going to let you give her a knife <strong>and</strong> a rope <strong>and</strong> kick her out in<br />
the middle of winter—"<br />
"Well,Zoweitzum on that!" Shkai'ra broke in.<br />
"She's my daughter-of-choice <strong>and</strong> I don't want to see her get her brains spattered on an Arkan<br />
warhammer <strong>by</strong> mischance or mistake."<br />
A sigh. Sova could almost see the shrug. "Right. Right. It's your part of parenting. So she stays here, safe<br />
in school."<br />
"It's because I love her,akribhan . Books <strong>and</strong> stability are what I think she needs—especially after what<br />
happened."<br />
"Now, don't start that again—"<br />
"All right, love. But dragging her all over the Midworld is a hurt I don't want to add to the others. The<br />
tea water must be boiling now."<br />
Their footsteps faded into the kitchen. Fishhook mewed <strong>and</strong> launched off Sova's shoulder, gliding down<br />
the hall in front of her, to thump, a bit of orange fluff, in front of her chamber door. The girl followed<br />
slowly.<br />
There was a stuffed bear, Sova thought.His brown fur was worn mostly off on his rump, one of his<br />
bead eyes was missing. Franc said I chewed it off when I was a ba<strong>by</strong>, but I think he was lying just<br />
to annoy me… well, I guess I might have. Babies do that sort of thing . Yesterday little Ness had<br />
eaten a sow-bug, before anyone could stop her. Yesterday, just afterZhymata Megan <strong>and</strong>Khyd-hird<br />
Shkai'ra had left to seek Lix<strong>and</strong>.<br />
Sova felt her blade whip through the air with easy ripping speed, saw her wrists, thickened with long<br />
daily practice, <strong>and</strong> a little veined, likekhyd-hird's or a man's.To do as smooth a cut in sparring as I<br />
can going through the First Nine Cuts; that's the hard part . When she looked in the mirror now, she<br />
saw cheekbones <strong>and</strong> a sharp chin where before there had once been round ba<strong>by</strong>-fat.I'm becoming a<br />
woman . Those lumps on her chest, they were no longer pretenses, but breasts, proper breasts, shaped<br />
like a woman's. One day she had noticed her hips <strong>and</strong> legs were no longer the slightly-fleshed<br />
stick-bones of childhood, but flared <strong>and</strong> curved, as she'd imagined when trying to see herself grown-up in<br />
her old mother's big mirror.<br />
But her arms <strong>and</strong> shoulders had bulges that had never been part of the mirror-picture; the arms <strong>and</strong><br />
shoulders of a teenage boy, it seemed to her, somehow glued onto the trunk of a maiden.