Viktorija Adelyte Kazlauskas

Chapter One

Zolzaya didn’t know what was happening, and it happened hours ago. She’s fine with admitting that she didn’t know what was going on.

For years, she would wake up in some box or underneath a bridge.

Not even sleep helped her much. She was a light sleeper. It meant she woke up whenever someone made noise in the apartments near her own.

Zolzaya was also nervous about the fact that a woman would pop in around breakfast. A woman she didn’t know, a woman who would learn that Zolzaya was a street rat and would most likely treat her as such.

Looking around her new bedroom, she could see how she would be able to keep her things safe. The little she owned in a small saddlebag that had been abandoned and the only thing that Zolzaya could even guess the reason behind such a wasteful decision was that it had a bit of blood on it.

A caretaker, she would be given a caretaker that would tutor her on how to read and write and teach her the basics of weapon training until she found a weapon that suited her, which might take years of training.

Zolzaya will be allowed in the Academy along with everyone else at the age of twelve and will finish with them when she is twenty-six.

What she had been told was normal outside wartime. Soyolmaa told her this while they went to the Batbayar compound to get her new clothing. She was given some deels that were made for toddlers, and the doctor told Soyolmaa and Dörvöd that she would always be small for her age, since she had missed more than one growth spurt. It meant she would have to wait until she was eight to thirteen to have any major growth.

Zolzaya didn’t know what this meant, it was simply what the doctor and Soyolmaa told her.

Sighing, she quickly dressed and touched the blue of the fabric, it looked different from the blue that Soyolmaa and Dörvöd were wearing.

“You’re up early,” Soyolmaa said, appearing in her bedroom, “I’ll be your caregiver from now on.”

“What does that mean?” Zolzaya asked.

Soyolmaa looked at her, before kneeling and fixing her clothing, getting a brush to help her with her hair.

“I’ll help you clean, learn and prepare your meals for the day,” Soyolmaa said, helping her sit down on a stool, “you’ll be sponsored by the Batbayar Clan, and we wear dark blue since you are sponsored. You will wear sapphire blue and be given the last name Sapfir; those with this last name are either sponsored, bastard or mission babies, during wars war babies as well.

That’s if the mother wants to keep the child and raise them as their own, bastards, missions and war babies are named Sapfir-Batbayar. All clans in our village do the same to help with teachers within the sect and the academy.”

“Why?” Zolzaya asked.

“Because your qi is unknown to us, we don’t know what training you will need until it shows up,” Soyolmaa said, braiding her hair into two braids.

“Mmm,” Zolzaya said.

“I will be teaching you manners as well, young one,” Soyolmaa huffed, “we will have to wash the streets off you, but remember them well, for those years will help you in the future. Now, we will have breakfast before I start your writing lessons.”

“So early?” Zolzaya asked.

“You have a lot to catch up on, three years' worth of knowledge,” Soyolmaa said, “then we’ll be keeping you ahead in case something pops up that we need to work on.”

“Okay,” Zolzaya said.

It was going to be hard work, Zolzaya thought. But it would be worth it since it meant that she'd never have to worry about having an empty stomach.