I think there’s only one emotion in the whole world that every person as felt at least once and that the feeling that your stomach is about to fall through your boots because your so nervous and excited. I was standing outside, lined up with all the others, waiting for the Choosing. Every year all the fourteen year old girls are chosen by a Master. The Masters are three years older than us.

Let me explain my situation to you. I am a girl and I am a keigo. A keigo is very much like a bodyguard or servant, but the keigo is always female. We are trained to serve and kill.

There are two classes of female, keigo and daigo. A daigo is a female born into a wealthy or influential family. You don’t even have to be that wealthy or influential, you just have to be above the Limit Sum. At the birth of each female child, a family has to pay the Limit Sum. If they can’t, the child is taken from them and they become a keigo. If they can pay then the child is a daigo.

A keigo is considered an orphan. We don’t know our parents.

Boys are a completely different matter. When boys are born, they don’t have to pay the Limit Sum. A boy is considered above that. If a boy’s family can pay, they go to the Academy at sixteen and learns a career that carries on throughout their life. If they can’t then he learns his profession from his father. Masters live in rooms with their keigo and study to pass exams which can dictate the course of their lives.

When their seventeen they choose a keigo to protect and serve them. Some just want sex, while others completely ignore their keigo until they want something. A keigo stays with her Master until she is too old to serve anymore, then she is killed.

Keigos are never freed. Keigos never get married. Keigos never have children. There’s only been one case in history where all three of their impossibilities were met.

Ours is a life of complete servitude.

Duke Serint, Chancellor of the Sixth Realm and Chief Principal of the Masters’ Academy of Higher Learning, sat in the Royal Box and the proceedings begin. The Lord’s Master of Ceremony announced the proceedings, “Every year, on the 14th of the Cat Month, the young Masters choose a keigo who will serve them for the rest of their lives. This ceremony is the coming of age when a boy becomes a man. Step forward and choose your servant wisely.” The Master of Ceremony bowed to the assembly then turned smoothly and strode to the side of the stage. The boys stood in a straight line on an opposite dais with a bridge to our stage, dressed in a ceremonial white robe with a black sash. The crowd murmured below them.

The first Master in the line was the first to come onto the stage. He was the one who did the best in the opening exams, nicknamed the Keigo Tests. He had the best score out of everyone.

The boy was tall and lanky, sandy hair. He glanced nervously at the Royal Box then down at the crowds below his feet. Then he took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, before walking across the bridge. He stepped onto the stage and the crowd became instantaneous hushed. He looked down the line of us. We each wore brown hose, a long white tunic with slashes to the hips, a black belt, our swords strapped to our right thigh, a dagger strapped to our left, our hair chopped to boy’s length and a medallion with pictures on it, noting our scores, abilities and ranking.

Sandy Hair went for the predictable Number One. Number One was Serieni, although she wouldn’t be called Serieni ever again. A Master renamed his keigo when she joined him. Serieni was beautiful and quick, a perfect match to her exquisite name. She lacked emotional control that was essential to keigos, though. She couldn’t take defeat and that made her both dangerous and weak.

I came second.

The Master slaps the girl in the face, a tradition. The blow resounded like a whip and Serieni’s face snapped backwards. It had been a hard blow then. It was also tradition to slap as hard as you could. It was supposed to show the keigo that you’re a strong Master. It’s supposed to win our loyalty. It also showed that the boy wasn’t confident in himself. He needed to use tradition and luck to stabilize himself. Weak.

The boy turned and walked to the side of the stage where two lawyer scribes stood. Serieni followed.

The next boy in the line was surprising. The moment Sandy Hair slapped Serieni, he started across the bridge with no quandaries. He was tall and broad shouldered with midnight hair and black eyes. He was extremely handsome He moved with sure, confident steps onto the stage. I felt a faint flicker of hope. I wanted a good, strong Master who commanded my loyalty. Most of the boys in the line were thin, dorky looking excuses for humanity, too caught in books to care about their bodies. Forbidden contempt felt heady in my stomach.

He passed me immediately and continued down the line glancing at each girl as he went. Surely my medallion showed my proficiency. I was Second. I found this mildly insulting.

He reached the last girl and turned around, continuing back up the line. This one was definitely taking his time, but I applauded his judgment silently. Although some had been ranked lower, they still had very good assets to a training Master. It was best to be careful and not chose your keigo in a rush of foolishness.

My eyes drift to the assembled crowd. Each year it was a spectacle for the masses to come watch. Vendors came out too and hawked their wares. It was almost like a festival down there. Up here was different. Up here, the course of our lived were changed irrevocably and it was entertainment to them. Familiar anger made my heart beat faster. I was unprepared for what happened then.

SLAP!!

I reeled back and raised a hand to my burning cheek. The attractive Master had come back up the line and slapped me. It hadn’t been hard at all, but because I was unprepared, I had shown both my surprise and hurt. I heard muffled giggles from the other keigos. I had disgraced myself and the black, burning hot eyes of my new Master proved it. His eyes told me that I had best not fail again.

A blanket of sadness seemed to fall over me. The boy turned to go to the lawyer scribes and I followed. Predictable. The boy gave his name, which I took paid attention to; Asano Seriddij. The clerks seemed both shocked and awed, so I took note. The name sounded vaguely familiar and when I pressed my memories for details, an old lesson came to mind. It was on the history of the Guardian Emperor’s family and this boy’s name had come up within the line. I pressed harder. A royal cousin’s third born.

It wasn’t enough to warrant the title of Guardian Prince, but definitely enough blood to give him a Guardian Lordship and the royal name. Asano Seriddij must be the given part of his name because if his blood carried strains of the imperial line, he must be named Heridnaja fe Dhanba Nuya seti Asano Seriddij, Guardian Lord, Apprentice Master, and so on. He was important.

The lawyer scribes took me aside and asked my given name. Their keigos, strong grown women, watched them from a side line, alert for any desire or danger. My Master wasn’t allowed to know my given name at all. It was supposed to bring bad luck. I was supposed to forget it. I told them.

The boy waited for me and the clerks. When we came back, he signed his name and became my official owner. I was as much a slave as any deprived, chained dog. I was no longer an entity. I was a small shadow of the boy before me.

The boy walked away and I followed behind him. We exited into a room where Serieni and Sandy Hair were speaking in low voices. The room was empty, but for a mirror, another door and two chairs Sandy Hair glanced up at the boy and his gaze darkened, before it slipped to me. The leering eyes looked me up and down before turning back to Serieni’s perfect, curvy form.

The onyx eyed boy scanned the room and noticed the other exit. He headed straight for it and I followed behind, toying slightly with the sword handle. I doubted I’d have any need of it right now, but then again, when a boy first gets his keigo and they don’t know each other’s patterns is the best time to strike. Or even before that, when he’s defenseless. Outside the door was a long corridor with many doors leading off. Into dressing rooms I presumed.

The boy walked and I trailed behind. He opened a door at random and slipped inside, followed closely by an alert me. The room was large and dusty, filled with old tables and chairs that might have been used in some long finished performance, but were too valuable or forgotten to get rid of. There were slated windows slightly ajar on the walls, letting a stream of golden light in. It illuminated the dust that floated lazily in the air.

The boy named Asano turned around and stared at me. I stared at him as well. Silence reigned between us. I didn’t want him to speak. I didn’t want the words to crush my old lifestyle and break me. But they must come, as they did. The boy smiled coldly and I realized his dark eyes held no warm emotion, but that didn’t scare me. Even his words couldn’t scare me, even as I begged for them not to come. We were trained without fear. “I’m going to use you mercilessly to get what I want. Your feelings don’t matter. If you get hurt, I expect you to heal then get hurt again, all for my cause. Your life only matters so long as I have need of you.” I nodded. It was too be expected.

“Can you speak?” The Guardian Lord asked. I nodded again, a tiny smile gracing my constantly distant face. “I will give you only one exception at this moment, keigo.” I blinked and looked up at him, surprised. “As I will choose your name, I wish you to choose one for me, although it can not be idiotic. You may call me this only when we are alone and only if I am not displeased with it. Name me something interesting or forfeit the right to name me at all. When we are in public I will be called Master or Benhara Asano.” I blinked, again surprised. Benhara. An Apprentice Magic Master. Of course, this could also be broken down into a hundred categories. The curriculum for the Academy was both impressively diverse and exceptionally wide ranged. There were over a hundred thousand different divisions and sub divisions of career paths and courses that could be taken. The Academy housed about three hundred thousand students and their keigos.

I used my voice for the first time that day. It was also tradition to remain silent until your Master first spoke to you, although rarely was it followed scrupulously. “I can give you a name, Master?”

The boy nodded impatiently, but didn’t say anything. I thought for a moment, studying the boy before me. He looked more a man than a boy and I probably should have called him such, but in my mind, I saw a boy beneath the man’s face. It was chiseled and rugged, classic good-looks that would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the slightly too large mouth and the slightly crooked nose. If it wasn’t for the one eyebrow slightly higher than the other and the slightly too broad cheekbones. The more I looked at him, the more I realized how imperfect his features were, how he only appeared classically handsome if you didn’t study him to carefully. But to me, he was even more fascinating in detail. I had always been enthralled by the walk, irregular facial features and gestures of people. Their very movements captivated me, in a strange abnormal way that my friends and teachers implored me to forget.

Yet I could not forget the grace, clumsiness and slow dances of the people around me. I was increasingly aware of the tiniest body movements, the smallest change in facial expressions. It began to unnerve everyone, my constantly peering eyes. I stopped staring before I became ostracized, but my obsession never left me.

Benhara Asano shifted the tiniest weight on his feet, showing his impatience, even as his face was perfectly impassive. His body looked almost like he was uncaring about my reply, but the subtle turn of a shoulder towards me and foot shifted told me that my answer would make a difference.

A sudden abrupt thought came to mind and I gave a tiny smile again. The boy’s eyes tightened slightly his chest muscles tightened infinitesimally. “I’ll name you Dmara Easron.” The Dancing Soul.

His eyes widened and he laughed. It was a rich, full bodied thing that could not be duplicated or faked. His eyes shut, his mouth opened and his head went back. The boy stopped eventually and looked at me with sudden, vividly warm black eyes. “You have no idea how true that is.” The boy jumped abruptly, pirouetting with one leg flung high, flipped midair and landed in the neat, starter pose. The move was simple, brilliant, smooth and above of filled with a depth of breathtaking joy. In a single dance, this boy had commanded my loyalty.

I bowed low, seeping right leg behind me and my arms out. It was also a dancer’s move, but one of the utmost respect. His boy was not only my Master, but also my senior in the Graceful Art. He seemed surprised by my instant, dancer response. I spoke the old language to him, a language that had been interspersed through all the Arts over hundreds of years. It was a language I’d only learned because of my specialist classes. I was pleased to use it.

“Lekmer furden na sukla enginoa.” Your wings command me.

“Handra jebraden fe ourden cendula. Yaro na dranoa.” My wings shelter you. Serve me well.

I rose out of my bow and he nodded at me. “I shall name you something meaningful, little keigo. It’s not every day that I find another Dmara Easron. I shall name you Nia Furden fe Sinclan.” I closed my eyes to keep from crying. Many keigo’s today would receive horrible, uninteresting names of the common ilk. Mine was precious because it was unique and sacred. Soaring of the Night Wolf.

“I will call you Nia for short.” I nodded.

“Then I shall call you Dmara for short.” He smiled slowly. It was a beautiful smile, even as I saw deadly ambition and pain in my future. This was a boy with a purpose and the means to achieve. Even giving me such a beautiful name as Soaring was a way to gather my loyalty.

I envisioned a hard life ahead of me with many twists and turns. Throughout, though, I would remain loyal and steadfast at my Dmara Easron’s side. He had gained my loyalty in a single, movement and I was lucky. The worst thing would be to have a weak, stupid master for a lifetime.

Dmara reached into the inner pocket of his robe and pulled out an ink pen and a tiny pot. To my training eyes, the light symbols around the shaft of the pen and the lid of the pot spoke of magic. I nodded. He was going to mark me.

“Come here.” I walked to him. “Take off your tunic.” I did so, showing my carefully bandaged chest beneath. Because of the effort to flatten my breasts, they were squished together, giving an ample view. I blushed slightly, but the Benhara’s eyes slid away as quickly as they had alighted. “Lay down on your stomach” I knelt and lay flat on the floor, inhaling dust and dirt. He leaned over me

Dmara Easron dipped the pen in the ink pot and muttered something in the old language. A short burst of light blinded me momentarily, but when I blinked it was gone.

I felt the cold brush against my lower back only a bit above my abdomenon, then insignificant pain. I could feel the smooth movements as he created the symbols of something on my back. I would probably never show another person my body so it didn’t matter what was on it. At least not to me.

He finished the characters and muttered low words. Again there was a burst of light, but this was accompanied by hot, white pain. I growled lowly, a harsh, dangerous sound that had been trained into us at the feel of any pain. It disappeared as quickly as it came. “Alright get up.” He sealed the pot and wiped the brush on the floor, leaving long dark marks. “There’s a mirror over there. Go look.” I glanced where he pointed and noticed a cracked, old mirror in the corner of the room.

I crossed swiftly and turned around, craning to see what had been written on me. I twisted and peered down. A quick gasp filled my mouth with dusty air.

It was only my new name. Nia Furden fe Sinclan. Soaring of the Night Wolf. Tears dripped down my cheeks without any hope of end. I had expected to be branded with the name of my owner. To be given my name on flesh…it was a freedom no one could hope to expect. It was a message that my body was my own and for my own uses. I would not end up a bed toy for Dmara or be given to his friends to play with. Dmara Easron had given me a choice in who I wanted to touch.

He slipped up behind me and stared at the tears on my face. “Don’t cry.” It wasn’t empathy, but an order. My tears dried up instantly. An order would stop them.

“Here.” He handed me my tunic. I pulled it on. “Come.”

He stepped out into the hallway and I followed, a hand slipped under my lung tunic to hold my sword hilt. A keigo’s duty was to protect and serve her Master, but in this, I had chosen the Dancing Soul.