Pronunciation Guide (will be updated with requests):

Yume: YOU-may

TW: Brief sexual assault of a minor

The driver slapped the butt of his horsewhip against the cart, and the girl opened her weary eyes with a start. 

She had never seen a city before. She knew only of nets and fishboats and long, curved walks from cottage to cottage. Here the cart took up half of the road, and houses were built on top of each other. The rooftops stretched out far into the road, cutting into the air above the cart with curved edges. 

The man once again began rapping the stick against the side of the cart, and the trembling children began to file off of it. The girl looked at her companions. She looked to be one of the oldest among them at thirteen, and she guessed that the youngest girls were probably around nine. Every one of them looked hallow in both body and spirit, and they shivered in the shadows of the tall buildings. A few girls were weeping silently.

"Get in line, and don't make any noise!" The man barked. The children did as they were told while the man aggressively knocked on one of the nearby doors. Soon, a fat middle-aged woman with greying hair and almond eyes stepped out. The girl had never seen anyone look so luxuriously plump, and the idea of having so much surplus food made the pain in her stomach more intense than usual.

The fat woman gestured to the first child in line to come forward, and when she did the woman roughly grabbed her chin and examined her face and teeth. 

"Kairasuk," she said. The man nodded and grabbed the child by the collar. He dragged her back onto the cart. 

The rest of the line went quickly, with all of them being declared Kairasuk and being placed back on the cart. Two of them were touched up the skirts before hearing the declaration. 

Then it was the girl's turn. She slowly made her way towards the fat woman until she, too, was clutched around the jaws with nails like talons. The woman parted the girl's lips with her thumb and forefinger and gazed at her face for a moment. 

"You're a pretty one, aren't you?"

Suddenly, the woman thrust her hand up the young teen's skirt, and the girl was horrified when she felt the pain of a pinch between her legs. Still, she did nothing to protest. She was petrified into stiffness. 

"Shirizhena," the woman said. This girl was the first to be declared as such, and fear once again filled her veins. She wanted to go back on the cart where she was surrounded by at least twenty other girls just like her. The woman roughly shoved her to the side and told her to stand still while she finished. 

The girls following her were all declared Kairasuk, with another girl getting pinched and put back on the cart. Then a girl with cloudy eyes was brought forward. She was noticeably prettier than the rest, with golden skin and a symmetrical face. She, too, was pinched and declared a Shrizhena. The first girl felt herself breathe a sigh of relief. She may not be on the cart, but she wouldn't be alone. 

Soon, all the girls had been gone through. The fat woman passed the horsewhip man two bags that rattled with a melodic sound as it moved, and the man drove off with the other children. 

The fat woman turned to the two little girls she had purchased and pointed at the cloudy-eyed girl. 

"You. Your name is now Zoya." Then she turned to the first girl. "And you are Yume. You may call me Auntie."

"When do we see our mothers again?" Yume asked, after summoning all her bravery.

"Silly girl. You belong to me, now."

"We're slaves?" Zoya asked.

The woman laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. Slavery is illegal in Zahran. Your families merely got paid for providing that man with potential financial upstarts, and that man will be paid by others for providing them with laborers. The practice is only used for young girls like yourselves. Anyway, you should feel very lucky that you were both chosen by me. You can call me Auntie."

Yume's mother had told her that getting on the cart would lead her to a better life and that they would be reunited in a few days. Yume started to wonder if her mother was coming at all. 

A few days later, the new girls were scrubbing Auntie's floor. They had a long list of chores to complete every day.

"Why did she pinch us?" Yume asked Zoya confidentially. "It made me feel terrible." Yume scrubbed the floor dutifully while she spoke.

"She was seeing if a man had been there," Zoya replied wisely. She was a year younger than Yume but had already assumed the role of the knowledgeable one.

Yume stopped working, perplexed.

"Why would a man be there?" Yume asked.

"To make babies."

"What?"

"Men have three legs. One leg is very small. A man puts his small leg in there to make a baby. If a man has been there, you can tell. The finger will come back dirty."

"Why would it come back dirty?"

"Because doing that with a man makes you dirty."

"But then why would she pinch us?"

Zoya shrugged. Yume was pretty sure Zoya was wrong about something, but she didn't know what it was.

The girls dipped their rags back into the bucket, strained them out, and kept scrubbing.

"So these are the new girls," a voice said at the top of the lopsided stairwell. She was maybe fifteen or sixteen, and she was breathtakingly beautiful.

"I'm Annika," she said, "and I'm about to be sent off to serve an admiral."

"What does that mean?" Zoya asked bravely. Yume kept scrubbing, afraid of the consequences of talking with this girl.

"You girls are going to be serving very powerful men. There is no need to worry; we're no kairasuks."

"There were lots of girls they called kairasuks. What are they?" Zoya interrogated.

"Kairasuks are pleasure women," Annika replied matter-of-factly. "No honor in that."

"What are pleasure women?"

Annika smiled. "You two are so young."

"Not much younger than you!" Zoya protested. "Yume is thirteen!"

Annika rolled her beautiful eyes. "Relax, relax, I'll tell you."

Even Yume stopped her scrubbing and looked closely at the older girl.

"Pleasure women let men inside of them for money."

"Ohhh," Zoya nodded wisely. "See? We can understand things."

"What does that mean?" Yume asked.

Annika laughed. "I have to go to dance class," she said, flouncing out the door.

Zoya turned to Yume.

"Why did you let her know you didn't understand?" She asked, annoyed.

"I wanted to understand," Yume explained, alarmed at her new friend's sudden frustration.

"Never let anyone know what you do or don't know, Yume. That's just stupid."

Later that day, Auntie called them to her room.

"You will both be enrolled in various classes that are necessary for Shirizena to take. I am paying for these classes just as I purchased both of you. You are both in enormous debt to me for this. Your job is to learn as much as you can, as well as you can, and make a career for yourself that will allow you to pay me back in full. If you do not, I fear your lives will be very miserable."

"Yes, Auntie," the girls replied in unison. Yume felt cheated. She felt her eyes fill up with tears as she looked to the floor. A droplet fell on her big toe.

"There's no use in crying, girl," Auntie scolded. "This life is far better than anything you would have lived before."

Auntie passed her a gray cotton robe.

"This is who you are now, Yume."