Free People's Champion by Lizzy Ford Page A

to hear.
    Oh, Gods. Lyssa and the nymphs were starting to transform
from children into young women. I wasn’t ready for that change. Not
yet. Maybe not ever. My first instinct was to back away and
disappear. Discussing a woman’s monthly cycle was as far from my
comfort zone as anything could be.
    “Some people are slow ,” the other nymph,
Leandra, taunted.
    “You can never have kids if you don’t have
one,” Hectate said matter-of-factly. “You’re going to be a lonely,
old maid, and no boy will ever kiss you!”
    No, I was not at all ready for this stage of
raising a daughter.
    Too stunned to speak let alone react, I saw
the look in Lyssa’s eyes before she launched up and tackled the
blonde girl but was too surprised to stop her. Leandra screamed.
Alessandra drove the nymph to the ground and punched her before I
caught her around her waist and hauled her back.
    Leandra scrambled to her feet, glaring at the
angry Lyssa. “You hit like a priest!” she shouted at
Alessandra.
    “Then come back and let me hit you again!”
Alessandra wriggled in my grip.
    “Enough,” I said quietly. “Leandra, sit over
there. Alessandra, there.”
    Alessandra pushed my grip off her and obeyed
grudgingly. Leandra went to the other side of the campfire. Prying
Alessandra off a nymph had become second nature. My sweet Lyssa had
a temper and the combat arms training to cause harm, if she wasn’t
careful. The priests believed her aggression to be a stage. For the
sake of others, I hoped so. For her sake, I hope she remembered how
to punch better than she spoke Greek when she was out of this
stage.
    An awkward silence fell. Secretly relieved by
the change of subject, I was trying hard to erase the image from my
mind of my little girl kissing anyone ever, let alone growing up
and wanting to leave the forest and me behind. The priests had
tried to talk to me about what to expect, but I ignored them. In
hindsight, I should have listened.
    Leandra and Alessandra were glaring at one
another. At times, I was concerned that Lyssa wasn’t quite …
normal. At least, not compared to the nymphs, who were probably not
remotely normal either. But I had no one else to compare her
behavior to, and the differences between her and the nymphs were
clear on most days. They excelled in school, rarely threw temper
tantrums, and were generally less wild than my Alessandra. I didn’t
care if she was wild, but every day, I witnessed her struggle to
fit in with the other girls. She, too, was aware of how different
she was, and this hurt me on a level I wasn’t able to escape or
treat with medicine.
    It was this concern that led me back to a
topic I didn’t feel remotely qualified to discuss.
    “Is there a reason you haven’t started … uh,
your … female cycle?” I asked, uncertain what else to say. “Are you
eating well? Sleeping enough?”
    “Herakles!” Alessandra groaned.
    “I don’t want your training to interfere with
your development,” I reasoned.
    She covered her face with her hands,
embarrassed.
    Leandra giggled and then laughed.
    “Don’t you laugh at him!” Alessandra bolted
to her feet.
    I tugged her back down. She sat heavily,
fuming.
    “That’s not how it works, Herakles,” said
Hectate. “When she’s mature enough, she’ll start.”
    “That’s right. You’re just a silly little
girl, and we’re women now,” Leandra added.
    “Like I want to bleed to death every month!”
Alessandra retorted. “At least I won’t end up pregnant if I kiss a
boy!”
    “Like any boy would kiss you!”
    I was starting to sweat just listening to
them. “No kissing, no boys,” I growled, unable to help it. “And no
one is getting pregnant. Understand?”
    The words came out much harsher than I
intended. Even Lyssa gazed up at me in surprise.
    “Yes, Herakles,” the three girls
chorused.
    I preferred breaking up fights to discussions
of boys, kissing, pregnancy … Gods, I wasn’t going to survive Lyssa
going through puberty or