A Married Woman's Pace

“Honey! Twist your wrist another half-turn and strike upward from there!”

Kara sat with her legs crossed and her chin propped on one hand, watching my struggles in a thoroughly relaxed pose.

Whenever a wooden sword shattered, she smiled with her eyes and gently stroked her belly.

“Yappi. You can hear everything from in there, right? Isn’t your dad incredibly cool? Just look at how he isn’t giving that professor an inch. If you want to grow up to be a great warrior, start picturing your dad’s moves now. Got it?”

You might wonder what kind of mother uses the sound of wooden swords shattering as prenatal music.

But Kara was the daughter of the Winterclaw chieftain, wildness woven into her very bones.

There was no finer or grander prenatal music in the world.

She wore a beaming smile as she admired her husband’s dependable back.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

Just then, an unusual scraping sound reached Kara’s ears...