The Brat's Final Gambit
Chapter 44

Niam woke to pain. Only, instead of the sharp, livid pain of fresh wounds, he felt the deep, throbbing ache of broken bones, lacerations, and strained muscles mending. He decided that the latter was almost as bad as the former. At least he was in a soft bed large enough for four people sleeping side-by-side. The room he lay in was elegant yet simply furnished. To his right, a large window held back the afternoon light with the help of thick curtains upon which golden embroidered griffons chased themselves—whether in play or battle it was hard to tell. The table beside the bed glowed beneath the culmination of years of beeswax and constant polishing. Simple, solid furniture lacking in ostentation what they made up for in quiet, well-executed strength signified that the room was one of Count Joachim’s guest quarters.

When Niam stretched, he realized that his right arm was splinted and tightly wrapped. His lips felt parched and when he moved his jaw, little striations where the skin had split stung maddeningly. Slowly, he eased himself up and noticed a small figure curled up at his side.

Niam smiled and felt his heart swell with warmth. Bug slept quietly with an extra quilt covering her entire body up to her eyes. Gingerly, he moved his good arm and laid it so that he could smooth the hair back from her forehead and see the faint traces of soft dark circles where her irises remained hidden behind closed lids.

Movement from the doorway drew his attention away from his little friend. “It’s good to see you up,” Lexa Sartor said in a voice as soft as fresh velvet. “She’s staying here with her family while another house is being built. She refused to leave your side . . . except when we had to clean you, that is.”

Niam could tell that the bed linens were fresh, and he realized with alarm that someone must have cleaned him while he slept. She recognized the look spreading across his face, because she laughed. “Oh, it wasn’t me you goose. We had one of the older women do it.”

That made Niam feel only slightly better. To be fair to Niam’s sense of modesty, Lexa changed topics quickly. “I’ve brought you some broth. Joachim said nothing solid for a while. We were worried about you.”

“How long?” Niam asked. His voice was raspy.

“You’ve been heavily drugged for over a week,” Lexa said, sitting the tray down across his lap. “Drink in sips,” she said. “Don’t gulp it.”

Niam opened his mouth to tell her she didn’t have to worry about that. He felt too wretched to eat. But the moment the steaming bowl made itself known to his nose, Niam’s stomach growled and he realized that he was actually ravenous.

Lexa watched him drink his broth and regarded Bug thoughtfully. “She’s quite fond of you.”

“She’s odd like that,” Niam told her. Normally he would have made tracks away from Lexa as quickly as his legs could carry him, but today he felt too haggard to care. He had always known Alexandretta was too far above him on the social ladder to ever entertain the thought of a relationship. Besides, Maerillus would have killed him if he ever caught wind of anything more than the purest brotherly affections for the only Sartor daughter. Still . . . Lexa’s presence always brought a hot flush across his face, especially whenever she smiled.

Like now.

Niam surreptitiously took another deep sip to hide the fact that he couldn’t look away. Her stern features melted and softened whenever her lips curved upward, and when that happened, she always disarmed him.

“Well, I guess we all are odd like that, then.”

Niam inhaled some of his broth and coughed.

From the doorway, another voice saved Niam any more awkwardness. Lexa looked as if she had been about to say something important, but her face reacquired its typical detachment as Andromeda sartor entered with Maerillus.

“Are you bothering my sister?” Maerillus beamed brightly.

Niam felt his cheeks redden, but Lexa was quick to respond. “Shhh! Keep baying like that and you’ll wake Madeline.”

“Poor thing has been through a lot,” Andromeda said. “We tried to get her to come stay with us. We’re putting up a number of families with children who lost their homes, but the little thing said she wanted to be here where her family was.”

“Funny how her family turned out to actually mean you,” Maerillus said. “Kid’s got guts.”

Lexa’s reply was cross, though. “And yet you took her down to a trall’s cave.”

Niam sucked down more broth.

“I already told you that we didn’t know the trall was nearby. That was Salb’s cave,” he said, but Niam knew it was the wrong thing to say.

“And THAT makes it BETTER?”

Andromeda cut them both off. “Children, let the girl rest before you start tugging on her to see which one gets the biggest piece.”

Niam grinned behind his bowl.

“I see that, Maldies,” Maerillus said.

Niam set the bowl down asked, “How are Kine and Joachim, Mrs. Sartor?”

“They were fine once the poison wore off. It took longer for them than it did for us. Gaius and I only got one strong dose. It looks like that bastard had been feeding it to them slowly over a month or more.”

Niam nodded his head. “I’m glad,” he said, sinking back into the pillows.

“Joachim has been scrambling to help repair the all the damage,” Maerillus said.

Niam pinched his eyes closed in shame and put his hands over his eyes to hide the embarrassment on his face. “I am so rude sometimes,” he said. “How is the rest of your family?”

Andromeda and Lexa chuckled. “They were caught up helping put out fires in Pirim Village,” Lexa told him reassuringly.

“Yeah,” Maerillus added. “Had no idea what was happening here until they got back.”

Niam sighed. “We all needed some good news,” he said.

“Indeed,” Andromeda said, then announced as Davin entered the room, “Why don’t we give the boys time to talk?”

Lexa nodded and gave Niam a small kiss on his cheek.

Niam, for his part, tried not to look nonplussed as she walked out of the room. When they were gone, Maerillus asked, “Is it me or is she acting . . . strangely all of a sudden?”

“She’s just happy we’re all alive,” Niam said a bit too quickly.

Maerillus frowned. “Maybe . . .”

Davin’s voice boomed brightly. “Good to see you finally up and moving!”

Both Niam and Maerillus looked at him and shushed him sternly. “You’ll wake her!”

Davin gave them a chagrined look. “Sorry!” he whispered loudly.

Niam tried smiling broadly at his large friend, but he was too sore to make it work. Instead, he grunted and asked, “I just want to know one thing—how did you manage to sneak up on Kreeth so easily? I saw you both lying on the floor unconscious one moment, and the next you were tossing the filthy monster into the fire . . . and how did you manage to get me and the count and Hammer out of the basement?”

“That’s two questions,” Davin said.

If Niam had felt any better, he would have thrown a pillow at him. Instead, he leaned over to Maerillus. “Will you please punch him for me?”

Maerillus balled up his fist and raised it.

“Okay,” Davin complained lightheartedly. “You’ve got to find your sense of humor.”

“I think the bees stung it out of me,” Niam said, wincing as he readjusted himself on the mattress.

In answer to the first question, Davin said, “The credit goes to Maerillus. I came round first, but Maer here did most of the hard work.”

Niam looked up at his rich friend, who shrugged his shoulders. “We were both on the floor as I came back around. Davin whispered to me not to move . . .”

Davin jumped in. “I knew that as long as Kreeth thought we were both out of the game that we had a chance.”

“But we needed to get close to him,” Maerillus took over talking again. “I thought he was going to kill you, Niam. Then I heard the Voice.”

“So did I,” Niam said.

“We all did,” Davin added.

Maerillus stumbled over his words as he tried to explain what happened next. “It told me to . . . I don’t know how to explain it . . . but I just knew that I could make it look like we were still lying on the floor. We had to be careful though. I almost blew it trying to do that AND hide us while we cut the bonds holding Joachim and Kine.”

“You had him so terrified that he never noticed we had moved them to a safer spot,” Davin said.

“I couldn’t believe it when you started laughing,” Maerillus told him. The wonder in his voice was plain.

“You spooked me as much as you did Kreeth. We both thought you’d lost it.”

Niam felt his face drop. “I had.”

“How did you do it?” Maerillus asked. “I mean you looked like a dog that made the mistake of picking on a pack of wild boars.”

Niam response was simple, “I gave up. I knew I was going to die . . . that we all were going to die. What else did I have to lose, right?”

Maerillus whistled.

Davin put his hand lightly on his shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t give up. On any of us.”

Niam looked at his two best friends, and then down at Bug who still slept soundly at his side. “Me too,” he said, smiling. When he looked back at his friends, he felt his chest become heavy. “He told me that there were more of his kind around.”

“I heard,” Davin said.

“As to that,” Maerillus told them, “We’re meeting with Joachim once Niam is ready. He wants to talk to us about everything that happened.”

“Good,” Davin said. “I’ve got a feeling that none of this is done yet.”

“Not by a long shot,” Joachim said several days later as they all gathered in a semi-circle in front of a blazing fire in the Count’s private office. Niam had to be pushed there in a wheeled chair because he was still weak and sore. “Too many matters are still up in the air.”

“Like my head,” Niam said with a lazy, lopsided grin slanting across his face.

“Don’t get to liking that that syrup of poppy too much Maldies,” Joachim warned him. “I’ve seen what it can do to people. You’re going off of it sooner than you want to.”

The world was a merry place as long as he was on the syrup, but when he went off . . .

“You’re bedside manner is as bad as Kreeth’s,” Niam frowned.

Joachim ignored this. Davin wanted to know what they were going to do about tracking down the men who had helped Kreeth by setting the fires in Pirim Village. “Someone assassinated all of the men we caught the night everything went down. The only ones we interrogated were common criminals and had no clue who paid them.”

“Which means there were professionals involved,” Gaius said sourly. “But we already knew that.”

Joachim nodded his head slowly. “Indeed. Some of the men were . . . I suspect, from Kalavere. We’ll never prove it, though.”

“On account of that damned Eason,” Gaius said in disgust. “He’s hid all of the evidence by now.”

“No, my friend. Fortunately for Eason, you are wrong.”

Everyone looked up at this. “Fortunately how?” Gaius demanded.

“Fortunately for him that he is dead,” Joachim said coldly. “His days were numbered after what he tried here. I wasn’t going to let him hide behind the backs of my enemies in Pallodine, but it wasn’t me that got to him.” Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Who was it, then?” Niam asked.

Joachim made a sour face. “Eason was too greedy and intent on getting back at me for something I did to him years ago to realize he was in over his head. Now I’m afraid Dosir has been appointed as interim magistrate over Kalavere.”

The room grew uncomfortably quiet. Kalavere Province was now in the hands of their enemy.

“Where’s Kine?” Niam asked brightly to lighten the mood. “I miss him, don’t you?”

Niam felt Davin’s hands close around his mouth, but continued trying to talk until everyone looked at him and he grew quiet. When Davin removed his hand, Niam managed to say, “This is great stuff,” before Joachim threatened to have his tongue removed.

“Jolan Kine has gone away for a while,” Joachim said once everyone was quiet again. “We have to move quickly before our enemies can regroup. Kreeth has allies in the court, toads that were willing to give him their backing. Good thing for us that you three interfered with Kreeth and that Eason moved too quickly. Otherwise they might have succeeded. Mr. Kine is already in Pallodine. There are things happening there that concern me—and I have to try to put down as many rumors about you three as possible . . . IF it’s even possible.”

Niam raised his hand. Too many things were swirling around inside his head to keep it together. Davin shushed him again, but Joachim sighed and said, “Go ahead Mr. Maldies.”

“Was it better for us when we just had tralls trying to kill us, sir?”

Across from him, he saw Gaius stiffen and frown. His eyes shot toward Maerillus. In an instant, Niam knew even in the state that he was in what the answer was, and what it meant for the youngest Sartor in the room.

“I’m sorry,” Niam said, but Gaius spoke up.

“In your own unique way, you are right,” he said. “The danger for you three hasn’t gone away. You’ve managed to throw the covers off of something that threatens us all.”

“And now that the people behind this might be exposed, you managed to grab a great many enemies for yourselves,” Joachim said in a sober voice. “With any luck I can focus their attention on me for the time being.”

“But what was Kreeth up to? He wanted something other than the Khadihar, something else.”

This question seemed to irk Joachim, whose face twitched as Niam spoke. “I don’t know, and we need to find that out,” the count said unhappily.

“As to that . . . what is a Khadihar, and is there any way to put the thing down for good, or is it going to stay there like that below the ground?”

“Another question in a long line of things we have no answers for,” Joachim said flatly.

“What do we have answers for?” Niam asked.

Joachim’s face grew dour. “That there are problems in the east again, after hundreds of years . . . and that is worse by far than anything we’ve seen here.”

“He said something about the Necromancer Kings,” Niam said with a shudder. “He told me that he was making himself more powerful than they had been . . .” his voice trialed off as another memory occurred to him. Suddenly the effects of the poppy didn’t seem to be working as well. “Great Lord!” he exclaimed. “This started in the east. He told me what happened, that his family were traders, that they stumbled upon something in the mountains. He made a deal with the things they found . . . his family refused and they were killed for it.”

Joachim nodded his head. “Everything I’ve been able to dig up about Kreeth supports this.”

Davin spoke up. “Sir, the Necromancer Kings—the Dread Lords fought them. Those wars destroyed civilization.”

“That would be correct,” Joachim said gravely.

Niam noticed that across from him, the color drained from Gaius’s face. Maerillus saw this, too, but clearly didn’t know what to make of it.

Niam, however, was like a dog with a bone and did not want to let the topic go. “Besides partially explaining why Kreeth was here to begin with, what does this have to do with us? We’ve been give these abilities for a reason, so what is this all about. I don’t know if we’ll be able to survive another sorcerer.”

“And Kreeth did say he wasn’t alone,” Davin observed.

Gaius and Joachim looked at one another for a long moment. Gaius looked back to his son with an expression of worry.

“What is it?” Maerillus asked. If there’s something we need to know, I think the truth needs to come out. “It’s not like we are some kind of Dread Lords meant to fight things like necromancers and sorcerers. We barely survived.”

“My grandmother had a rare gift,” Joachim said slowly. “Sometimes, for special occasions or events, she had the ability to speak the truth of things to come. Many years before you three were born, on her deathbed, she gave up her last prophecy in the presence of several other people. Your parents.”

“What did your grandmother tell you?” Niam asked quietly enough for his words to be swallowed by the crackle of fire burning in the hearth in front of them.

Joachim’s features appeared more angular and gaunt in the orange glow of lamps and fire. In this light, his face seemed too sharp, as pointed and cutting as the words he spoke. “She said that a shadow from the east was growing, and that people would be born to stand against it. You three are the first of many, and it will be up to you to find the others.”

Niam looked at his friends. The look on their faces became grim and stony. “We’ll never have normal lives,” Davin said.

“This is why I was always treated differently,” Maerillus said.

Gaius nodded his head. “We knew it was important for you three to remain close.”

The more Gaius talked, the more Niam slowly felt a hot lump welling up deep within his guts. At last he could hold it back no more. “My mom and dad knew, and they left me to fend for myself and pushed me off on your family and the Hapwells,” he said bitterly. “That’s just great!” he blurted out.

Joachim’s words hit him like a slap across the face. “Not another word! Your mother and father have had to endure the one thing everyone in this room has feared!”

“But they haven’t been here for me . . . not since—” and there he stopped, unable to finish his sentence. He wanted to scream, to yell, to summon the wall of force he threw at Kreeth and break everything in the room, but he just sat there in the chair and gripped the edges of his seat instead. “They left me alone,” he said, unable to tell whether anger or grief made his words falter.

Joachim sighed. “I sent them away,” he said at last. “They did the best they could do. Your mother wanted to take you and run. I convinced her otherwise. She and your dad are trying to protect you right this very moment. I have asked them to travel east where I have a number of contacts who keep an eye on things beyond the Shakta waste, and I think it would be nice if you showed them a bit of respect.”

Niam was incredulous. “Why them? Why did you send my parents east?”

“Because that is where your mother was born,” Joachim said.

Niam felt as if his head were filling with information too quickly for him to be able to sort through what Joachim was telling him. His voice came out heavy and thick, and he raised his hands in exasperation. “What else don’t I know about my family? Did my father grow me from magic watermelon seeds? The next thing we know you’ll tell us we are actually a bunch of Feythean changelings or that we’ll start molting on our eighteenth birthdays.”

“Don’t be melodramatic.” Joachim said testily.

“There’s not enough poppy in the world for that!” Niam shouted.

Joachim interrupted Niam before more anger had a chance to build up. “When your mother was a little younger than you are now, my father met her family close to the edge of Shakta territory. They were slaves in the lands where people can be bought and sold as cattle. Your grandfather saved my father’s life. Out of gratitude, he paid their owner a small fortune, purchasing their freedom and bringing them back here to live. Your mother told only a handful of people what she had once been. It was a thing she hoped to put behind her.”

“And a thing I sent her back into the heart of—for you three,” Joachim said in an arched voice.

“I should never have found out this way,” Niam insisted. The throbbing aches spider-webbed across Niam’s body began insistently making their presence known. “I need more medicine,” he said, wanting nothing more than to go to bed and stay there until the world dissolved like salt in a bowl of warm water.

“When they return, I think you need to talk to them instead of focusing on things from only your perspective,” Joachim said, but not unkindly.

“Sure,” was Niam’s only reply.

For the rest of the evening he said little, speaking only when spoken to, and then only with short answers. Everyone gave him his space, though he could have cared less whether anyone was put off by his reticence. Before bed he was finally given more medicine to ease his pain, yet despite the relief it brought, sleep was a long time coming.

Gaius Sartor and Count Joachim walked across the former grounds of Garrolus Kreeth, inspecting closely the work of destruction that had been necessary to scour as much of the area as possible free of the necromancer’s evil taint.

Gaius’s gaze was devoid of expression as he surveyed the surrounding landscape. He knew how he appeared to most observers. Strong emotional displays were always frowned upon within his family, yet today he felt the blankness of his face was a necessary thing, for no emotion could possibly show that would meet the ugliness of what surrounded him. At the center of the ruined ground lay a burnt hole, as if a festering cyst had worked its way from the bowls of hell to the surface and burst, disgorging the charred remains of Kreeth’s manor.

Around them, large piles of wood and dead shrubs burned or smoldered like volcanic vents where everything—everything—that had grown within the circumference of the man’s magical influence had been ripped up, cut down, and then raked or dragged into great pyres. The fires burned still, and gave to the surrounding land the appearance of cursed ground.

No. There was no need for expression. The desolation around him expressed what he felt for him.

Reading his mind, Joachim broke the doleful silence as he said, “We found more of the man’s things in the forest, but they couldn’t survive once they got more than three quarters of a mile out. Kine told me that this was done over many years by addling layer upon layer overlapping of spellwork across the estate.”

“You really think nothing else made it out?” Gaius asked, his voice grim and uncertain.

“We’re almost certain that no more tralls run free. My troops are working around the clock in rotating shifts clearing the caves and tunnels of anything remaining.”

Gaius raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s wise. After all the boys told us about what lies on this end of the network, how can you even think of sending men down there?”

“They’re not going as far as that,” Joachim reassured him. “The tunnel leading to the pit is being sealed off. From this end we’ve filled in the entrance with rocks and concrete. This entire hill will be walled off and guarded by a company of heavily armed troops. I’ve asked the Abbot to help as well..”

“Oh. That’s all?”

Joachim grunted. “For now.”

“It won’t be enough if what we think is coming arrives before we’re ready.”

“For now all we have are rumors from the east,” Joachim said, scowling. Along with many isolated events that add up.”

Now it was Gaius’s turn to frown. “We do have one other thing,” he reminded him.

“Oh?”

“My son and the other two boys.”

Joachim’s voice softened. “I know it’s hard.”

“Andromeda cries herself to sleep at night sometimes,” Gaius told him. “For all of the boys; for our children; for Madeline and her cousin; for all dead and their loved ones. More than anything—and this is the hardest of all—she cries because of the darkness bearing down on us and what it will bring.”

Joachim’s jaw worked as if he were chewing at a something hard that he could not swallow. “Until Brent and Karen return, we have what’s in front of us. I’ll need you to watch things from this end while I go to Pallodine. My men know I’ve placed you in charge.”

Gaius closed his eyes. “That’s not a responsibility I want,” he said quietly. My businesses are . . . ” he was going to say all I care to manage, but Joachim cut him off.

“They’re going to have to rest in the hands of the rest of the Sartor family. You have a duty to do this.” The Count’s voice became hard as he finished his last sentence.

Gaius knew something like this was coming. “It’s been a long time since our last campaign.”

“You’ll remember how to do it,” Joachim said flatly.

“Fine,” was the only thing Gaius could say.

“Look,” Joachim said, turning to his childhood friend, “I know that when you came back you wanted to get away from the fighting, and you have. If I could trust anyone else to do this in my place I would have spared you, but Pallodine has become a nest of scorpions. I can’t go there and have to watch my back here at the same time. If I don’t do this, we will have too many unwanted eyes focused here, and you and I know those boys need more time.”

“If things go bad . . .” Gaius began, and his voice hardened now, “I will protect them at all costs.”

“You know what to do. Things are ready with the Vandin.”

Gaius nodded his head.

Joachim’s voice was still stiffly resolute on what had to be done to prepare for the future. “I have a blade master coming from Caledon to work with the boys, and before the year is out, we will have more teachers arriving to work with them.”

“They’ll need it if they are to survive,” Gaius said.

They walked back to their horses, and on the ride back to Joachim’s estate the count looked bothered. Soon enough, he addressed his concern. “How are the boys?”

Gaius felt a pang of anxiety at this question. “As far as I can tell, they’re trying to make their way back to a new state of normalcy. On the outside, they’re mending. Inside? I feel my son growing farther and farther away from me with each month that passes.”

Joachim thought about this for a while. So much of the future depended on these three boys, and Gaius knew that Joachim wondered whether or not they should have taken more of a direct hand in preparing them for the struggles ahead.

Yet there were many unwanted eyes watching, sometimes covetous, sometimes hostile, often both, not just from Pallodine, but as recent events demonstrated, from Kalavere as well. What had kept the boys safe for so long had been the anonymity of their upbringing. Brent Maldies and Carl Hapwell had both sacrificed good careers as officers to return home and raise their children in in the Valleys. But their protective cover had begun unraveling the day Davin fought the thieves in Kalavere and healed a young girl. Only a few knew what the boys were, but their involvement in the situation with Kreeth and Count Eason now put them in a light that would inevitably draw curiosity from enemies.

“For now I think they deserve a rest,” Gaius said. “They can still be boys a little longer.”

Joachim smiled a little at that. “Remember when we were that young?”

Gaius chuckled. “We were more full of dreams than brains.”

Joachim shook his head. “If I remember, you were the brains of our little group. Brent and Carl were the dreamers.”

“Look at us now,” Gaius grumbled.

“Duty,” Joachim sighed.

Gaius nodded his head. “Responsibility.”

“Life,” they both said at the same time. Both grew silent, however, as memories filled them. Gaius knew that many of those memories were painful. If life could be likened to a painting, then loss framed it so that even the best of moments in retrospect always took on a bittersweet pigments from the heart’s palate. “Those last three campaigns changed everything for us,” Gaius said. “So much death and horror. I wanted to come back, though Brent and Carl would have kept on going.”

Joachim’s smile vanished, and his face became as grizzled and hard as ever. “We all knew our duties waited,” he said. Perhaps it was thoughts of their own youths that made him say, “I know you are worried about your son, but he has a good head on his shoulders. He and Davin are smarter than we were, that’s for sure.”

Gaius made a sound in the affirmative.

“And then there’s Maldies . . .” Joachim said. His voice trailed off, leaving many things hanging in the air.

“He’s always been a rebel,” Gaius said.

“Some colts need to be broken,” Joachim pointed out.

“And some just break,” Gaius’s double entendre was obvious.

Joachim grimaced. “We just have to hope he doesn’t fall apart.”

“Then we will have to let him rest for a while,” Gaius said. He quoted a famous philosopher. “Joy is too often a fleeting thing and innocence dies with experience.”

Joachim nodded. “For just a short while, they can hold onto what they have left.” The two of them took the rest of the ride in silence, worrying about the future and privately mourning the past.

Winter lasted three more weeks, pushing itself into spring until at last it broke its back on a warm spell that finally brought relief to the Lake Valleys. Nimble shoots pushed eagerly through last year’s hard, dead bark and emerged like supple little emeralds, soaking up the morning light and glowing with the green intensity that only spring allows before summer’s hues darken into less glorious shades of life. Bug sat with Niam looking out at the first flowers; dandelions blossomed like brilliant suns across the fields, and in the orchards, fruit trees opened themselves across the land in mats of pink and white. Everywhere, bees thrummed busily about the fields, and the air was heady with the perfume of spring.

“The first green leaves and flowers are beautiful,” Bug said as they sat on a stump, watching three foals frolic in the pasture spread out before them.

“You ought to come see the fields that were burned off several weeks ago,” Niam said to this, “When the sun rises, the new blades of grass light up and glow. I’ve always loved seeing that.”

Bug chewed on a blade of hay, and Niam noted for what was probably the twentieth time recently that Bug seemed to have lost weight. Already skinny, she now appeared to be rail thin. “I was talking to Davin and Maerillus this morning, and we all would love it if you ate with us this week.”

When she looked up, she brightened and asked, “Really?”

“Of course!” Niam’s cheery note made her smile even more.

Bug’s smile faltered a bit as a thought crossed her mind. “But what if I don’t feel like eating much?”

“You need to eat something,” Niam told her. “Pretty soon you’ll be thin enough to use as a sewing needle, and if that happens, you’re not going to like what I use you to sew up. You know there are a couple of colts that are ready to be neutered, don’t you?”

Bug screwed her face up in a silly expression of disgust. “You wouldn’t!”

Niam nodded his head gravely. “Yep. I’ve already cleared it with Mr. Sartor.”

“That’s just disgusting!” Bug said.

“Where do you think we get BLT salads from?” Niam playfully asked.

“BLT?”

“You know, balls, lettuce, and tomato?”

“That sounds like the kind of thing Card would like to do,” Bug told him.

Niam grinned. “I don’t think he’s going to be doing anything with his or anyone else’s balls for a very long time.”

“Somebody should neuter him,” she said fiercely.

“Well,” Niam countered, “They’ve got to eat something don’t they?”

Bug scowled and stuck her tongue out. “Salb smelled like smoke and raw meat,” she complained. “Every time I smell roast or mutton now it makes me sick.”

“We’ll cook chicken,” Niam reassured her.

“Really? I thought the Sartors used theirs to lay golden eggs,” Bug replied.

Niam tousled her hair and mussed it up. “They say the gold makes them taste better.”

“I don’t know,” Bug said uncertainly. “I bet gold’s hard to get out from between your teeth.”

“Clogs up your plumbing, too.”

“Eew,” Bug complained. “Boys are gross sometimes.”

“No,” Niam said. “Seriously. That’s why Sartors sometimes lay golden eggs, too.”

“Eew!” Bug said loudly.

“Hey! I’m just saying!”

A devilish grin spread across Bug’s face. “Have you ever peeled one?”

Now Niam made a face and followed it with retching sounds. “That’s just gross!”

“I’m just saying,” Bug told him as they laughed at the terrible joke.

Bug lay her head against his shoulder, and in a quiet voice, asked, “Niam, will you always be my best friend?”

Niam put his arm around Bug’s shoulder and held her tightly against his side. He thought about all that had happened since the fall. He missed Sarah. She missed Corey. But for now, as they sat together, they had one another . . . and for Niam, that was something worth living for.

“I can’t imagine life any other way,” he said warmly.

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