Healing Ties (Ties, Book 2) | ✓

Chapter 31

Fanner walked along the ridge of a small mountain, picking his way across rough rocks. He was alone, he didn't know where he was, but he was unafraid.

And then he took one more step and the rock he'd put his weight on proved unstable, tilted, and sent him tumbling down the side of the mountain. He caught himself before he could fall too far, but his hair tangled in the branches of a skeletal shrub. He reached up to tug it free and then abruptly came awake as his hand made contact with flesh instead of wood.

Fanner scrabbled back on the bed as a child laughed, keenly aware of where his hands were and what they were touching, but this wasn't like last time. He hadn't done anything. He hadn't come close to it. And if he had... he looked over the group of three girls in front of him. They were children, he was fairly sure, but even the smallest was almost as tall as him. These weren't tiny, fragile things like Jasper that he could kill in a moment of confusion.

The light caught on something in the smallest girl's hand and Fanner realised she had several strands of his hair clenched in her fist. Had she pulled it out?

"What...?" Fanner asked, but the girls were already running to the door of the guest cabin, still laughing. They pulled up sharply in the doorway.

"What's going on here?" a new voice asked, and as the girls backed up, a woman entered the cabin. Everyone here was tall, but this woman felt especially so, and the tone of her voice made Fanner feel like he was in trouble even though he had only just woken up and he hadn't done anything.

"Nothing," one of the girls said, sending a glance Fanner's way as though calling on him to back up their story.

"I just woke up," Fanner murmured, though he wasn't sure he was being asked at all. The woman's eyes had been firmly on the girls.

The woman's eyebrows lifted, her gaze locked on the smallest girl. "What's in your hand, Liss?"

"Mm..." Liss said as she slid her hand behind her back.

The oldest girl pushed Liss' shoulder with her clenched fist. "Show her. You can't lie to her!"

Liss brought her hand out from behind her back and held the strands of Fanner's hair up for the woman to see.

The woman finally turned to look at Fanner. "And you just woke up, you say?"

Fanner opened his mouth to respond, but no words would come out. He nodded instead.

The oldest girl stepped forward. "I'm sorry, Zunda. We pulled his hair out when he was sleeping because we wanted to see if it was really gold. It was stupid."

"He's Yore's guest, Raya. What would he say about this?"

Emotions flooded across Raya's face as she pressed her lips together. She dropped her gaze. "He would be disappointed. He taught me that being kind is the most important thing. This wasn't kind."

"No, this wasn't kind," Zunda said, her eyes locking with each of the girls' in turn. "Well, he's awake now and I doubt he'll be going back to sleep after all this, and if I know my son he won't be up for a couple of hours yet. Liss, Raya, Nadya, you girls will just have to take care of our guest until Slone wakes up."

The girls all nodded, Raya much more sincerely than the other two. After Zunda had left, Liss let out a loud sigh as she turned to Fanner.

Raya smacked her on the arm. "Don't."

Liss approached the bed and opened her hand, letting the hair she'd stolen sprinkle down onto the blanket. "You can have that back, I guess."

"Liss, Raya's right," the other girl, presumably Nadya, said. "Yore's gonna be mad if we're rude."