Kared's Children - Prologue

The vendor’s eyebrows worked. "For you, master of the guard, with the apple, only two coppers."

"Robbery," Damon growled.

"Please, sir-"

Damon grinned and dug in a pocket. "You should charge me three coppers at least." He gave the vendor a five-copper piece.

The vendor smiled broadly and bowed. "Thank you, sir." His fingers danced over the selections on his stand. They stopped over the largest, plump melon. "For you, only the best." He dropped the melon into a bag, then handed it to Damon.

"Thank you, my man." Damon didn’t get paid much, that most certainly was true, but he was paid enough not to cheat a street vendor. He took another bite of the apple and melted back into the crowd.

. . .

Cara Bedelia touched the edges of the pie delicately. The street outside her narrow door was darkening, which meant that Damon would be home shortly. The boy worked long hours, and in the winter, like now, he needed to get his rest and to eat properly. He’d lost too much weight recently, particularly since he’d started training for the Guard, and she’d realized long ago she could see to the former by pestering him about it, and to the latter by ensuring he always had a hot meal awaiting when he came home.

As she moved around the kitchen, she mused about winters. She hadn’t known a real one since she was young, when she’d lived near the North Forest. She didn’t remember much about that time, but she did remember the snow. She remembered its beauty on the peaks of the northern Calaran. She’d been named for that mountain range.

She opened the door to her tiny, stone oven and tested the skin of the boar again. It was crispy and dry, just as it should have been. That meant the juices of the animal were stewing, basting the animal on the inside.

Cara mused, too, about Damon. He’d lived in her home for years, since she first had seen him, bedraggled and dirty on the street. She had taken him home, washed him and fed him. When he’d fallen asleep, he’d looked like a kitten curled on the mat she’d laid in the corner-or, at least, as much like a kitten as a gangly thirteen-year old could. She hadn’t said a word when she’d set out the mat; she just had done it quietly while he’d slurped his soup.

He hadn’t said anything about it, either, but the next day, when he’d shown up at her door again, and when the dirty copper pieces started appearing on her kitchen table, she’d understood that a relationship had formed. In truth, she’d needed him as much as he’d needed her. She was old, alone, and childless. He was young and starving for a chance at life, for attention and affection.

But it wasn’t as though he would let her be affectionate. He shied from contact like a skittish cat. It was no accident by which she continually compared him to a cat; it was of a cat that he reminded her. He kept to himself and showed her how he felt when he chose and fled whenever he felt too crowded.