0.6

“You said we were going monster hunting,” Myron, my littlest cousin, grumbled, petulantly swiping wheat stalks out of his face. “You’re a liar. Lio the Liar.”

Spring had turned to summer, and we were traversing one of the Rosy Dawn’s many farms. Located on the other side of the eastern mountain range from the city, the cult’s agricultural lands stretched nearly to the coast on the horizon, where the Ionian Sea loomed. Fields of barley and wheat and vast olive orchards made up the bulk of the cult’s yearly crops, though there were small fig orchards scattered throughout the landscape as well.

The land was practically swarming with slaves and had been for weeks now. It was harvesting season, and this year was shaping up to be a plentiful one.

Idly, I smacked the back of my cousin’s head for his cheek. He yelped and went stumbling into the stalks.

“My virtuous heart won’t tolerate such insults,” I informed him seriously. He pouted, shaking wheat seeds out of his curly blond hair. “Especially when the monster I promised you is just up ahead.” He looked eagerly to where I was pointing, palming the little dagger he carried on his belt, only to groan.

“That’s just a slave,” Myron complained. In the distance, a crouching slave carved methodically through stalks of wheat with a sickle. A tall reed basket sat beside him, which he deposited the stalks into as he went.

“What did you think I meant by hidden monster, little cousin?” I asked, amused. His nose scrunched up as if I had just served him a great indignity.

“Something dangerous, like a harpy or a chimera or-”

I waved a hand. He’d list every nightfire story he’d ever heard if I let him.

“You don’t think he’s dangerous?” I asked. By this point, we were close enough for even Myron to sense if there was any latent pneuma in the air. He focused intently on the slave, who either hadn’t heard us approach or didn’t care to acknowledge us. Myron’s expression twisted in disdain.

“He isn’t using any pneuma. I knew he was just a slave.”

“Ho, then by all means, strike him down. I’ll see that you aren’t punished for it.” I waved a hand invitingly. Myron, for all his faults, was not his older brother – Heron wouldn’t have hesitated, but he eyed the slave with sudden uncertainty.

“Kill him?” he asked.

“If you can,” I said obligingly. “Unless a slave is too frightening an opponent for you.”

He scowled. “I don’t need to kill him to prove you’re a liar. Watch me!” With that, he dashed forward.

Pneuma within the sixth rank of the civic realm propelled my littlest cousin across the earth at breakneck speed. The slave had paused in his harvesting to stand and stretch, and he turned at the sound of pounding feet just in time for Myron to leap with all the grace of an olympic long jumper, bronze dagger whipping like a snake’s fang towards the slave’s shoulder. It wasn’t a fatal blow, even with the strength of a cultivator behind it.

And then it wasn’t a blow at all, as the slave struck the blade from my cousin’s hand with his sickle. Myron didn’t have time even to voice his shock, because the slave then palmed the boy’s face with his free hand and dunked him into the tall reed basket.

We both watched silently as the boy’s pale legs kicked wildly. I glanced at the hidden monster.

“Sol,” I greeted.

“Griffon.”

“How goes the harvest?”

“Well.”

Myron howled in outrage, muffled by all of the wheat stalks he’d been stuffed into. I wondered why he didn’t just tear his way out of the basket. It wasn’t as if it would require any particular effort on his part. He was a cultivator, after all.

I kicked the basket over, spilling my cousin and a sizable amount of wheat onto the ground.

“What was that act for?” I asked him, genuinely curious. Myron hacked and spat, glaring mutinously at me while he fruitlessly tried slapping his tunic clean.

“I wasn’t acting,” he said hotly. “I couldn’t pull myself out!”

“Was the reed basket too strong for you? Couldn’t break through?”

He rolled his eyes. “He’s stronger than me. Why would I break his things?”

“Wise,” Sol said approvingly.

“He’s a slave,” I chided my littlest cousin. “His things are our things.”

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