Book 2 Ch 6: Unseasonable Cold

They took a brief break a few miles up from the dead troll, and Michael found himself surprised to be shivering a bit as a cold wind blew in their direction from the East. He looked up and saw a number of dark clouds heavy with moisture. He looked at Lance.

“Is it normal to get this kind of weather?” he asked.

Lance shook his head. “We sometimes get cold winds like this from the middle-sea at the capital, but this far inland? No, this is very strange.”

He looked at Francesca who was sitting close to Davi, drawing his thick wool uniform jacket tightly around her shoulders as she shivered a bit from the cold.

“How about you? Any weather like this happen in Tusinia?”

She shook her head. “Not this far into summer.”

Michael frowned. “How many summers have you spent here, in this world?” he asked.

“Twenty four,” she said. “And I had to grow up the slow way. Of course that means I won’t rapidly age and die like the rest of you.”

“That’s a myth,” said Lance. “We had a governess at one of my father’s estates that had been aged by the witch water and she didn’t age any faster than anyone else. In fact she seemed very healthy.”

Francesca shook her head. “That poor woman. Probably forced to do unspeakable things for the nobility of Stent.”

“That doesn’t happen.”

“Oh? You’ve never heard of such a woman being abused?”

He looked uncomfortable and shifted in his seat. “Those occurrences are rare. Most women are left to peacefully perform their jobs and are freed when they are completed.”

“And how many people do you know that made it to ten years?”

“I wouldn’t have met them! Most are placed in larger towns further from the capital once their service is completed.”

Michael held up a hand.

“Please, I didn’t mean to start an argument.”

He was curious about what Francesca was saying, but he didn’t have proof either way. There was propaganda coming from both directions and his own experiences in Stent had been very mixed. At the academy almost all of the students had treated him like a dog, but he’d met several reasonable and even kind people as well. Kline, Meera, Dugan, Marta, all had treated him fairly. On the front things were just as mixed, with plenty of the rank and file being sensible about thanking the man who healed them, but plenty of others being cruel. Bayle had been a decent sort, but he also seemed like he would kill him at the drop of a hat if it was good for Stent. If not for what had happened, he would still be there, serving his sentence. Maybe there would be something he’d be able to do for the takers that were still there at some point, but for right now the focus was on surviving to get that chance.

“Did you leave much behind in Tusinia?” he asked.

Francesca nodded. “Just about everything. The family that raised me after I was found to be a taker, the friends I’d made, my house, my cats.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “Don’t be stupid. It was my choice. I don’t want to be relegated to finding holes filled with shiny rocks for them to fund wars for the entirety of my new life, there’s too much to see.”

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Davi scoffed. “Too much to see being different shiny rocks.”

“Shiny rocks that have no equivalent on Earth. Shiny rocks that are magical and make no sense. Also, not all of them are going to be shiny… I assume.”

“Well, it’s good to be passionate. I don’t miss my job back on Earth. Miss a lot of other things, but not work.”

“I wouldn’t mind being on the stage again,” said Pyotr wistfully. “Especially with these new young joints. I get to do plenty of dancing still though. It just leads to more things dying.”