In The Darkness. Damantha Makarova

only for a little while. For instance, the castle had an amazing library with loads of scrolls and books from all over. She found books from her home world and started reading them at first. Then she turned to books from other realms – fortunately, the librarians kept the books well-organized. But there were books she couldn’t read – for instance, there was a closed off part of the library, where librarians wouldn’t let her go.

      One of them even told her that even if she did – she wouldn’t be able to read those texts, as they were written in a language she could not know as it was native to the Dark Realm.

      The other thing that kept Kara a little bit sane – was cooking her own meals. Though not allowed a knife, she utilized her hands for the purpose. Instead of cutting tomatoes – she tore them apart making them mashed. Instead of dicing onions and garlic – she broke them into pieces. And when she was in need of meat – she asked for a slice from the cooks. But she never allowed them to cut it up for her. Instead, she softened the meat by beating it with her fists before frying it in the pan.

      This unusual way of preparing a meal was very strange to the cooks – as well as for the shinobi that followed Kara everywhere. Most of the time – when she was cooking something, everyone would look closely at the way she did everything and sometimes she would catch curious looks and even some kind of respect.

      One day after preparing a meal, Kara took the bowl and walked to one of the few windows that she was allowed to look through. It led to an inner court where various people waited to be received by the shogun.

      Kara stood there, slowly eating her food, when suddenly someone grabbed her hand and jerked it outside together with the bowl of food in it.

      Hitting the window frame with her shoulder, the young woman grunted from the sheer force she was pulled by someone.

      «Ah, my fair lady! We are starving!» she heard and a man in tattered clothes appeared. He was holding her hand very tightly, not allowing her to pull it back. The second man was greedily eating from the bowl.

      «Let me go!» Kara hissed at them, hanging on with her free hand on the frame.

      Before the men could say anything else, Kara noticed a black shadow run up and a katana fly through the window to one of the men’s throats.

      Kara felt the bowl snatched from her fingers, and her hand being released at once. She pulled her hurting arm inside and ran off, feeling the overwhelming pain in her shoulder. She knew exactly what kind of pain it was – the shoulder was dislocated.

      «Shit!» she hissed to herself, cradling the arm.

      This meant only one thing – she needed to fix it as soon as possible. She felt her shinobi protector touch her back, but threw his hand off.

      «Don’t touch me!» she screamed in both – pain and anger.

      She stepped up to a pillar and pushed the joint back into the socket, feeling the pain wash over her in waves that made her eyes see darkness.

      When she finished, she stepped away, still cradling her arm not to stress the shoulder more. The shinobi tried approaching again, but Kara was so hurt and irritated that she screamed at him again:

      «Leave me alone!»

      And then she ran off to where she usually stayed only at night – in the cellar, behind the bars of her cage. All she wanted at that moment – was to be left alone. She stayed in the corner for hours – unbothered by anyone, until she finally dozed off into sleep.

      But her sleep didn’t last long.

      She awakened to a brutal kick in her stomach. When she looked up, trying to catch her breath – she noticed one of the samurai she saw in her first few days. Incapacitated, she was unable to fight off the other two men, who caught her arms and quickly tied them to one of the bars of the cage.

      They were talking – but she didn’t understand a word they said. She did understand, however, what was about to happen. Her shoulder was very painful and she was tied, but she still had her legs free, so she started kicking and hitting her attackers. Angry and growling, she tried as best as she could to throw off the men who started tearing apart her haori.

      She couldn’t care less if they wanted to rape her just for the sake of it or to get revenge on her for killing their friends and comrades. All she cared about is not letting them do it at all.

      But it was an extremely difficult task, since she was hurt and tied. And with each hit she took from her attackers, she was feeling less and less capable of fighting. Feeling her strength leaving her, Kara screamed in anger.

      And that’s when the man who was on top of her flew back and crashed into a pile of boxes near the cage.

      Kara pulled her legs to her face, covering her body as much as she could. Through the pain and blurry vision she saw how the shinobi beat her attackers with what she could only call true cruelty. One of the men ended up with a broken wrist – he will probably never recover and be able to use that hand again to wield a katana. The other one was beaten senseless by such a long and strong series of punches that he could have died, if the shinobi wouldn’t have stopped at some point. And the last one, who finally got free from the boxes he was thrown into, received a few hits, but was knocked unconscious.

      Before letting her consciousness slip away, Kara saw the shinobi walk up and untie her hands.

      When she came to her senses again, she was covered by a blanket, her injuries were treated and her shoulder bandaged tightly.

      Feeling ashamed and a little broken, she didn’t even want to get up. But she noticed that Ayame was sitting by the cage door.

      «I am sorry for what happened last night.» She said to Kara. «This will not happen again.»

      Kara remained silent. She would have rolled over to face the wall, but couldn’t because of the sore shoulder. Instead, she simply pulled the blanket over her head and remained in her bed.

      To Kara’s surprise, everyone respected her wish not to talk to anyone or be disturbed. Food was brought to her, but she refused to accept it. She took only the herbal teas Ayame provided every day – those made her injuries feel less painful.

      But after five days passed her shinobi protector walked into the cage and offered her his hand. She refused to get out of bed, but he shook his head and picked her up instead.

      Kara didn’t fight – she finally gave in to the life she was thrown into. She didn’t care anymore – these people could do anything they wanted with her.

      The shinobi carried her through the castle and into one of the smaller gardens. Kara couldn’t believe that she was outside and the breath of fresh air gave her some strength back. The man gently set her down on the wooden floor of a tiny teahouse, and a servant brought them a tea set.

      Kara kept silent all the way while the shinobi prepared her the fragrant tea. He didn’t say a word, and Kara was grateful that he didn’t. It gave her the possibility to listen to the wind and the birds that surrounded the teahouse.

      When the shinobi passed her the cup, she smiled faintly and he bowed.

      The tea he made was delicious and warming, but the feeling of the sun on her skin warmed her even more. Whatever she felt for the past few days now seemed far away.

      «Thank you.» Kara said to the shinobi.

      He bowed again, acknowledging her words.

      «Thank you for saving me that night.» Kara said, sipping her tea. «And for today. I needed it.»

      The man bowed once more – collected and self-disciplined, as always.

      They stayed in the garden for at least a couple of hours before Kara felt her strength returning. When she stood up to take a short walk around the garden, her shinobi stood up as well and followed her – a silent and vigilant guard.

      Kara