Over the following weeks, I kept seeing Sita in my dreams; her and thunder. The thunder was striking me at the back of my neck and the hole extended till
it breached my chest, drowning my screams in blood and my inner life in horror.

I didn't want to accept it but I had to, Mairi was right and there was nothing we could have done, besides the fact that we were both one strike away from meeting a similar fate.

"What are you doing?" asked Mairi in her usual tone.

"Praying for Sita," I answered when she caught me whispering a chant and throwing flowers into the stream that was crossing the monastery grounds.

Our religion, the Faith of Zenith, says that all rivers flow together into one point in the depth of the ocean, and from there, down to the underworld. That's why we send our dead on burning piers on water, to find that path to the dark realm of silence.

It was a costume for Southerners to honor their dead by throwing flowers and other gifts for the deceased into flowing waters, so those could reach them and appease their souls. Souls that suffered a violent death were known to often not accept their condition, not find peace, and sometimes the energy they accumulated was so strong that they breached their realm, protruding into the world of the living, clinging to it as to the only thing they knew.

"Generally I would not care what you do, but if someone like your annoying friend Fera suspects that we saw stuff we shouldn't have, going stuff we shouldn't, it's going to mean at least more broken bones. It's been a whole moon circle already, try to get over it."

"I can't. I keep seeing her face in my dreams. It seems that everyone forgot she ever existed! Nobody is mentioning her ever since, as if she had never been here."

"And better neither do you."

"I can't help it," I snapped.

"Try harder if you know what's good for you."

"As shut up!" I screamed.
Mairi was looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and a strange kind of respect mingled with amusement. I couldn't hold her gaze for long, nor the sharp expression, and my voice softened while my lower lip started to tremble.

"It was the first person I watched dying," I replied in the end. "And it was awful." I sniffled loudly. "When my father was murdered, men invaded the estate and locked me in a room while my stepmother was killed in the adjoined one. I heard only the screams. Now I can't help picturing it too, very, very vividly."

"I am sorry to break it to you but it will certainly not be the last death you witness. You can choose to be a sensitive snowflake but that is not really going to help in this world. Life is like this, mostly horrible," she said in a harsh tone but at the same time, she kneeled beside me and wrapped one arm around my shoulders. With her other arm, she took a flower and tossed it into the stream smiling a bit. "The first cut is the deepest."

I felt mellow in her arms and sunk onto her chest crying. Unexpectedly she didn't ask me to back off, just stayed there for minutes brushing my arm softly with the knuckles of her left hand.

"Was your stepmother nice?" she asked at some point.

"She was nicer than my father and seemed to not hate me. Sometimes she told my father to spend time with me. He never did but at least she asked and she baked really good honey cakes. When they killed her she was with child, and unlike the previous many times, the child stayed with her till the seventh moon circle. I would likely have had a sibling. Maybe if it would have bared magic father would have been less angry with me."

Mairi scoffed. "Your father should have been angry with himself if he wanted to be angry with someone. He made you, not the other way around. I am sorry about your stepmom and the child and the honey cakes. I never had any."

"Thanks. See, you can be also nice."

She rolled her eyes.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anybody. I know you kill me if I do," I made fun of her just a little bit, just enough for her to show me the middle finger.

I asked Fera what that meant and she said it means 'go fuck yourself'. Then I was in the dilemma of not knowing what the word fuck meant, but I didn't want to ask to not appear dumb. I decided to figure it out on my own.

"Stand up. My legs are healed sufficiently. Today we can learn to climb."

"Mairi, you are very inconsistent in your actions."

"I am what?"

"I mean that you just said I should not attract attention and now you want us to climb."

"Well yes, dummy. The White Grace said we should pick fruit and we are doing just that. To pick fruit from the high branches you need to climb the damn three, don't you? It's a good first lesson."

"Oh. This is surprisingly thought through."

"Girl you really think one survives in the streets as a thief being dumb? Nobody is that lucky."

The lessons were in two words fun and painful. I was most certainly not a natural like Mairi and slipped and fell more times than I could count but in the end, when I reached the upper branches and could see the monastery grounds from higher up I felt accomplished and accomplishment is like a strange drug.

"Well done, your not-so-royal Highness. I thought you would suck more."

"Mairi you almost fell down from the branches because of the laughter."

"So? I can say you did good and make fun of you."

Chioma waved from below the tree.

"Come on, we have to go, it's dinner time."

"Why doesn't Chioma talk to me? I thought we have passed the point of mistrust."

"Dunno, she takes her time, plus she trusts people better after fighting them and your noble asses don't fight."

Moons passed by and I slowly accepted life in the priory as my present and future. There were the good things, like the friends that I made after all, mainly Mairi and Fera, and maybe with some effort Salma and Chioma, the neutral things, like the lessons and the daily life that was tiring but livable most days, and the bad things like what happened to Mairi and Chioma and later to Sita, and the future perspectives.

It had been a sunny day, and when the big star set, the three moons were aligned in the sky in one straight line parallel to the horizon. That particular day showed a glimpse of the future and it was, as expected, not pleasant. Like almost every time, something I didn't know about was happening in the priory.

We were taught from a very young age how the moons' positions signaled the beginning of the rain season, the middle of the star circle, and many other things depending on one's beliefs. For us manab, when the three moons aligned in the sky it was also the celebration of fecundity when we brought gifts to Arda, the goddess of earth. In the monastery, I learned that it was celebrated too, but in a more peculiar way.

It came as a surprise to me that after lunch we were all sent to bathe. Normally there were still lessons and work planned till the evening.

"Why is this happening?" I asked Fera, that knew almost everything that was going on in deep detail.

"Because it's Gray Day, or as the girls call it, market day."

"Fuck," whispered Mairi from behind me. I didn't even hear her coming. That must have been heritage from her thief days. I still didn't know what that damn word meant.

"Is it bad?" I ask, having noticed that this 'fuck', which seemed to be a verb and sometimes also a noun, usually came connected with something bad.

"I didn't catch the one from the previous year but Chioma saw the previous two and..."

"Well Zaretha, if you like being looked at like prey, merchandise, or in an even worse way..." said Chioma.

I was not entirely sure what she meant but it painted a picture.

Sometime later, after having bathed and dressed in fresh clothes, all girls and all sisters gathered in the dining hall that was cleared of tables and chairs except the one of The White Grace.

We were arranged in a half circle according to our age. The line started with the younger girls, the youngest being around seven.

If a child didn't display magic traits till the age of five or six it is mostly excluded that it is a late bloomer, and likely empty. Since most people couldn't sense magic like my father could, that was the common metric.

I looked at the red-eyed midrib girl in front of me for a while. She seemed very passive, not nervous like many others. I didn't recall having ever heard her talk. Her eyes were very beautiful, light red with pink highlights and bordered by black, making a nice contrast with her brown skin, but she felt somehow even more broken than the rest.

The door opened. The sisters started singing and The White Grace entered followed by around twenty men. A few of them were dressed in the fashion of the capital, others in that of the cues of the desert, and others in the style of The Free Realm of Tajir or the Province of Almeida. There were certain two, whose clothes I just couldn't place but their skin was fairer than that of the others so through deduction, I concluded, they must have been from the mountain clans.

Mairi was at my right, followed by Fera, Chioma, and Itotia.

The sisters stopped singing and the men sat down at a table being served wine and food.

"Tell us, master of gossip, what do you know about this star circle's noble buyers," Mairi addressed Fera in a light whisper, to my surprise. The action actually made total sense. Fera was the one that knew best what was going on in the priory. She gave Mairi a half smile, knowing her power.

"The fat one is Sahib Yatir, he lives in the west of the realm and goes rarely to the capital. He is very rich and often buys concubines but has a wife that is sick yet not dead. The one to his right is Sahib Aldam."

"What is wrong with him? He is rather young and not ugly. "

"He also tends to have many concubines but not at the same time. They... don't last long. None of them is a saint but he is said to be particularly perverted."

Mairi sighed and tried to not roll her eyes as she would have wanted to, to prevent attracting attention.

"Is there any of them not awful?"

"Hard to tell, not all are looking for themselves, some do for their sons or masters," said Fera.

"Step forward," said The White Grace.

The first five girls of the half circle stepped before the spectators. They were the ones that would come of age in the next star-circle. The males would choose and make their bids to the White Grace that evening.

"Amal and Yara will make excellent wives and Mala, Atalaria, and Nadaria, worthy concubines."

All of them were looking at the floor and seemed frightened.

The sisters stepped behind them and at a sign of The White Grace they removed their garments.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Chioma who could barely keep her hands from trembling. That was odd, she was always so composed but I don't think anybody could be comfortable in such a situation.

The men stood up from the table and started moving around the girls observing them. I felt for all of them and for my future self.

One of the men grabbed Amal's chin.

"She is comely but a ghazal would take some time to give you a son," said one man.

"At least the process would be enjoyable," joked another, touching the feathers on Nadaria's back and descending with the hand down her spine. "This one is nice to look at, and eus, which will likely give you sons quickly but is as low born as they come."

"No touching," said The White Grace and removed his hand.

"But I suppose we can look at the others if none of them is to our liking," said the one called Sahib Aldam.

The White Grace nodded and the man started walking towards us.

Chioma started shaking more violently.

"What is wrong with her?" I whispered to Mairi.

"I don't know. Chioma, what's wrong?"

Fera elbowed her to be silent because that man was approaching.

He stopped in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders, his eyes sparkled like metal when he looked into mine. I knew then, that he possessed strong magic but he was also very frightening.

"A beautiful manab girl. How old are you?"

"Not her," said the White Grace.

The man frowned displeased but moved on and stopped in front of Chioma, that was a step away from fainting judging by the ashy complexion she had at that moment.

"Ah you," he said and smirked. Then he just walked away unaffected.

I was looking at Chioma frightened. It looked like she was going to faint.

"Mairi, lord Revlon would like to see Atalaria fight. Come on, she needs an opponent. You others are dismissed," said The White Grace interrupting the scene.

The breath I was holding was released only after we left the room.

A bit concerned about Mairi I looked back when Chioma grabbed my arm and started running, pulling me after her.

She ran out of the building and inside the garden till we were far away hiding behind tall trees and bushes.

Her hands were still shaking and she was breathing heavily.

"Chioma we have to go back. If they see we ran away we will get a beating."

"No, Zara. You have to stay here. Sahib Aldam always gets what he wants and that is worse than a beating."

"He did something to you, didn't he? That is why you are so frightened. He did something... more horrible than a beating..." I said but my voice was only a whisper in the end.

"He... Made me do things I didn't want to, that make one worthless and without virtue. And..." Chioma was crying. The girl that was mostly emotionless was crying. Whatever that man did to her must have been horrific. "And if The White Grace finds out, or anybody, nobody will want to take me when I come of age and they will either oblige me to stay here as a sister or I ..."

Or they would kill her. They likely would.

It started raining slowly and the drops mingled with the tears on her cheeks.

"Virtute is in one's soul, that is what our gods say," I started telling her gently and wiping the tears from her face. "And there are still three years for us to find a solution. We will find one, I promise. I found one the other time too... It is going to be all right," I told her, stroking her back gently. Even if I wasn't certain I knew what the problem was, I was certain it was something horrible.

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Thoughts? As always welcome to share.