Victor Trent was about to die of frustration. He had told Joy Young to climb a ladder and hang a yellow cloth banner, but she’d gone and hung a white one instead.
In Veridia, white banners were for funerals, but in Niphoria, they carried another, deeply taboo aning.
"I... I’m sorry, Family Head. I’ll go change it right now."
Aurora Sinclair lowered her head and scurried back, her panicked retreat making Victor Trent’s brow furrow.
She had been ssing up her tasks for several days straight.
He was starting to suspect she’d been sent specifically to be the bane of his existence.
After leaving, Aurora Sinclair quickly made her way to the courtyard where the pregnant won were imprisoned.
There were no guards today. It was a day of mourning, so everyone had gone to the front courtyard to help.
Wearing a mask, Aurora Sinclair slipped into the courtyard and owed twice.
A young woman imdiately ca and opened the door for her.
For the past few nights, Aurora Sinclair had been coming to treat the catatonic pregnant woman. The young woman had discovered her on one of these visits.
The young woman had begged Aurora to save her too, saying she didn’t want to give birth to a "monster."
"Is she awake?" Aurora Sinclair spoke into her watch, and the question was repeated in chanical Niphorian.
The young woman nodded.
Aurora Sinclair walked into the room. On the bed, the pregnant woman’s eyes blinked a few tis, her unfocused pupils gathering a little light.
Sealing pressure points with Golden Needles was a technique difficult to reverse. Other than the one who placed them, almost no one could remove them.
Without knowing the exact technique the user had employed, the slightest mistake in removal could leave the victim permanently catatonic.
It had taken Aurora Sinclair five or six days of research before she dared to act, finally removing the needles last night.
’By my calculations, she should be waking up right about now.’
"Why did you save ?" the pregnant woman asked weakly, a hint of resentnt in her eyes.
Suddenly, the pregnant woman’s expression changed, and she clutched her stomach, crying out in pain.
"What’s wrong?" A flicker of panic appeared in Aurora Sinclair’s eyes.
"I... I’m... in labor..."
Aurora Sinclair placed a hand on the woman’s belly, and her expression changed instantly.
She pressed a few more of the woman’s pressure points. "Watch her," she said, then ran outside.
Just then, the watch that had been silent for so long actually relayed a ssage from Alvin Morgan. Aurora Sinclair’s eyes lit up instantly.
She stopped in her tracks and asked, "Morgan, how do you deliver a baby?"
***
The front courtyard was crowded with mourners, all queued up and inching their way inside.
Suddenly, a servant of the Yamada Clan wearing a special mask burst into the mourning hall, fell to his knees, and shouted, "Clan Leader, Michelle is in labor!"
The Clan Leader of Yamada froze for a mont, then his eyes lit up with ecstasy. He shot to his feet. "Hurry! Go and welco the Son of God!"
After five or six hours of labor, the woman finally gave birth to a healthy baby.
Overjoyed, the Clan Leader imdiately bestowed a na upon the child—the sa na as the recently deceased silver-haired man.
The mourners had planned to leave in the afternoon, but with this joyous event in the Yamada Clan, the guests were all asked to stay for a special ceremony.
「That night.」
Aurora Sinclair knelt dejectedly in her room, enduring a lecture from Mama Young.
"Where have you been all day?"
Her face fell as she mumbled an excuse. "I got lost. By the ti I finally made it back to the main hall, you were all gone."
"And you have the nerve to make excuses? You couldn’t even handle getting a yellow banner! The Family Head is furious..."
"One more screw-up like this and you’re being sent ho."
Aurora Sinclair laid on the flattery, using the sa sweet-talking techniques she’d seen Leigh Miles use to pacify their master until Mama Young was finally mollified.
Once Mama Young was sound asleep, Aurora Sinclair changed her clothes, put on her mask, and crept toward a specific room.
But this ti was much more difficult. The rear courtyard was usually unguarded by Night Watchn, but now, it was being patrolled by nurous experts.
There were even masters from the Yamada Clan hidden on the rooftops, their power at least at the level of a Grandmaster.
When she finally got close to the new mother’s room, she found it surrounded by the Yamada Clan’s experts. It was an impenetrable periter; not even she could get inside without being discovered.
She circled back to the other courtyard she frequented, but it was the sa there. It seed they were on guard against soone.
「In a certain room.」
A figure vaulted nimbly through the window.
The woman inside shot up, asking warily, "Who—"
"It’s ..."
The woman breathed a sigh of relief and respectfully perford an Ancient Martial Ceremony. "Miss Aurora..."
"Neve, what does the Clan Leader of Yamada an by ’Son of God’?"
Neve Sherwood thought for a mont before replying. "The ancestor of the Yamada Clan was one of the three great Martial Gods of the Ancient Tis. He had a signature martial art called Beastification. It allowed him to use his Power to temporarily transform parts of his body into those of a beast, enhancing all his physical abilities. Because of this, he was the strongest of the three Martial Gods and was known in the Ancient Tis as the Son of God..."
Aurora Sinclair suddenly felt she had a rather profound connection to the people of this clan.
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