who is her husband?
and yes, that is progress, but she can’t reach her knife if she is pinned down.. better practice some more! :P

Very cool. I like the complex relationship between respect and pity.

It’s an interesting story, seeing as how the husband can have them both whipped if she doesn’t learn self-defense, which makes me think period fantasy, but the setting, names and water fountain seem to put this in a much more contemporary place. Unless the whipping was a metaphor. :)

I was going for different-universe fantasy but not period fantasy, if that helps. Along the lines of the Chronicles of Elantra series, sort of. I didn’t mean the whipping as a metaphor at all :D