Steel and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy by LaJonn O. Klein Page B

gone out to feed Koa?  Had not everyone else feared the Wolf’s ‘demon,’ then I might not have met him.  I might not have been championed.  I might…..”
                  “Such thinking plagues us all at times, imp,” he said, sitting beside her on the flat stone she used as a seat.  “Do you not think I plagued myself over the years after you, and the rest of our family vanished.  We never even found their bodies.  ’Twas as if you all just vanished.”
                  “For a time, I even forgot myself.  Only that bloody day remained in my memory,” she told him.  “I…..I tried hard to forget.  To just….”
                  She sighed.
                  “Eric, I was a slave.  Some part of me still feels I am a pretender,” she said, looking down at the silk finery brought for her after Mira, as the princess was called now, was forced to tend her as a proper maid.
                  “So, you’re not just out here pining over your champion,” he asked teasingly after a moment.
                  “I fear what is yet to come.  What I might yet face.  What if mother never survived?  What if….  Will I still be welcome when people realize I’ve been the lowest of slaves in a Galdyn pen?  When they learned I was….violated when yet a child?  I do not feel…..”
                  “Amalia,” he said, putting an arm around her.  “Trust me.  All of Valdor will welcome you with open arms.  They will cheer that you survived the worst those dogs could throw at you.  They will cheer that a Valdoran princess returned with a princess of her own in tow as her slave.”
                  “She technically belongs to Koa,” she murmured, still thinking of how he looked back to her just before he had seemed to just vanish into the shadows after night fell, carrying the missives her brother had written for the mad king who had begun yet another war for whatever the reasons. 
                  “I doubt she would wish him as master, any more than he wishes her from what I saw of him.”
                  “Still…..”
                  “You’re as argumentative as Bella, too,” he teased.
                  “Let us just be still, Eric.  After all.  Your men need their rest,” she murmured, staring around her at the men in their bedrolls, knowing he had doubled the watch since her return.  Outside the camp, Jengus’ men were camped, with Talia.  The royals, too, had been kept with the mercenaries, save for Mira, who now served her as maid when needed.  Talia, however, did not seem to mind.
                  She was, Lia noted long since, a very passive person until she was compelled to heal.  Then, even the worst villain was offered her touch, she realized.  It was, she thought, a peculiar gift.  Still, it said much of the woman that she didn’t even try to resist healing even apparent enemies.
                  “So do you,” Eric told her.  “Come back to the tent.  You should rest, and cease to fret.  From what the commander says, Koa often comes and goes as he wills in such a manner.  I had heard of it myself, true, but seeing it…..”
                  She knew why Koa had walked away from camp now before departing.  He could have panicked his own allies had they seen him just…..melt away, and vanish as he did. He had not even truly done anything at the duke’s, but just his reputation was enough to make the men cow before him.  Even the duke had tiptoed around like a frightened child.  She could just imagine how they would have reacted had they actually seen him use his power.  She did not realize that they had seen far more than she knew.
                  “All right.  I am a bit tired.  I am just not used to being allowed to rest so early,” she said, and followed him to the tent