Shanna tripped over a loose step and barely avoided landing on her face. Once she'd regained her footing, she turned around. "A gift? People aren't gifts. Are you saying you're a slave?"
He laughed again, louder this time. "No, forgive me. I fear some nuances are lost between languages. It is the highest of honors to be what most other countries translate as 'bodyguard.' I'm afraid there's no perfect translation. The literal translation is 'giver of blood' or sometimes 'giver of life,' though we usually just say it 'bloodgiver' as all one word. At the age of five, I was fostered with the royal army to begin training as a soldier, since it takes decades to learn the things I know and many of them require the sort of memorization we possess only as children." It was too dark to see him clea
