I am a completely normal Faeren citizen, if not for the fact that I am the third concubine to Shavarox. It isn't the fact that I am a concubine that is unusual so much as the person that I am a concubine to. Constant warfare has lead to the ration of men to women to skew wildly. The Shamans eventually made concubines an accepted and legal entity within society. There is grumbling among the conservatives who claim that "life bonding" as they call it should be between two fated individuals, but the significant pressure of many unmarried women and their families quickly overwhelmed their protests.

  No, the truly unusual part about me is that I am married to Shavarox. Shavarox is the war leader of several Faeren tribal villages. It is their responsibility to organize war parties at the command of the coalition's council, along with responding against skirmishes from outside the home of all Faeren, the abyssal forest. The prestige of Shavarox indirectly lead to my prestige to rise along with his. I have never felt like this was fair, because I am actually quite ordinary. I don't have a green thumb or great skill in any trade. The only notable trait of that I can profess is that I am apparently "pretty" according to most people. I have the rare and unique trait of red hair, which has lead me to be desired by many.

  I have always hated my red hair. I was treated as a princess by all the other village children, but it always came down to my hair. no one seems to remember any of my likes or dislikes, but they do remember my read hair. It was almost like I was reduced to just my hair. Well, if all anyone cares about is how pretty I am, then I might as well use it. I have always felt beneath Shavarox in every way that I can think of. I was convinced that they wouldn't accept me into their family. I think that I was hoping that they wouldn't accept. I was sadly surprised when Shavarox accepted my proposal easily, and eagerly. This crushed any pride I had left. The only part of me that is worth noticing is... that I am beautiful. I decided to make the most of it anyway, and decided to ignore my wounded self esteem.

  It was my duty to bear Shavarox children, but for the past four years I hadn't been pregnant a single time. But then, when spring was giving way to summer, a fortnight passed without the monthly bleeding, and after I went to visit the tribal shaman they told me that I had finally become pregnant.

  As soon as I got home, I celebrated with a small feast laid out on the table for myself, of cured meat and dried fruit. I will finally have a family! It had been so long that I'd felt like a heavy weight was on my shoulders, and I felt I could breathe again. I never knew my mother or father, and so I have always felt alone in this world; Even once Shavarox took me as their concubine, I still felt alone. I drank myself under the table every time they laid with me, he seemed angry every time we met.

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I will raise them myself, and will give them all the love that children should have. They will not be like me! I promised myself.

  But six months into the pregnancy, I wake up with a piercing pain in my belly, and a deep fear touches my heart. No, no, NO! Not them, please, I can't lose my baby. I fell to my knees crying in pain, I wanted to go to the shaman for help but it was like I was paralyzed by pain.

  I lost my sense of time in pain-induced delirium, but when I came to it was still night time. There was a pool of blood underneath me, and my knees wobbled as I staggered up to my feet, using the wooden cabinet next to me as support. I need to keep moving. I thought in desperation as I slowly made my way to the front door, leaning against the walls for support, before unlatching the door and making my way out into the cold.

  It was a beautiful night with the full moon illuminating frost on moss growing between cracks on the cobblestone road. With most of the men at war or already dead, jobs like maintaining the roads increasingly went undone. Walking along the road, I support myself on the wooden fences, trying to talk myself up.

  "I-Its fine. The shaman is well experienced in these kinds of problems." Stop deluding yourself, you know as well as I do that this is what a miscarriage looks like. I'll lose them I know it! I flinched away. Shavarox will be furious, surely he'll set me aside, now. I'll always be alone"

  I continued to stumble onwards until I reached the shamans hut near the center of the village, made of stacked stones with a conical roof, unlike the typical wood and thatch houses that most of the clan used. Firelight spilled from the seams of the wooden door, but as I tried to get closer, my vision blurred around me. With some effort, I push myself to raise my fist and knock on the door even while the world goes white around me.

  A desolating numbness fills me, and my legs give out from under me, collapsing down against the door frame. Before I fall into unconsciousness, my last thought is of the children I will never get to see.