BOOK 3: CHAPTER 4

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The babes slept in their chrysalises for two more months. Between the rough texture of the pods and the spikes along Idrus's stage-one body, Nala couldn't remember the last time she woke up without a cut of some kind.

Her bed of hay was crowded but she preferred it that way.

A robe covering the chrysalis, mostly for Nala's own safety, she stretched the morning's slumber from her body.

One pod nearly fell but Nala caught it in time. She compared it to the second one and smiled.

"Crane, of course." She swaddled them in the gunny-sack sheet, careful to keep them close to the wall. Though the bed was low, she was always fearful one might roll away somehow.

The suns had risen so she decided to seek Idrus out. No one. The Leveler King was still gone. All that remained of him were the broken tools by the door which he'd promised to mend.

Nala gathered the pieces now and tied the flat stone to the stick using parts of an old gunnysack robe. In her first stage, she would have used her bare hands to do the farming. She wished she could say the sorry state of her farm now was because of the long-forgotten war, or the floods, but that wasn't the true reason; she was just too weak.

She had the energy she needed, though long periods without food would leave her in distress. Too weak to farm, and too weak to get more food she needed in order to farm.

The week prior still fresh in her mind, she hated herself for allowing the Leveler King to return to the roost without her or the babes. Idrus hadn't offered, and Nala couldn't bring herself to.

Maybe he won't return. He'll forget us.

Nala didn't often work on tools within her structure. It was only lately that the Leveler King, in his stage-one body as Idrus, could take hold of a tool without breaking it. Keeping the broken bits as a reminder, Nala put off repairs until now. Idrus promised to take care of them. Today Nala did fix them without her Leveler's help, though, and she did it to remain bitter.

"You haven't even come..." Nala muttered. "Six days.... What could you be doing so long?"

Before this cycle had ended, the Leveler King had lived it as Idsel. The nights he sated himself with Nala out in the brush as Indel in order to take on the first stage again was something beyond Nala's imagination. It had been bliss.

To think they'd come this far. The Leveler King who, a season ago, had forgotten her here. Now and again when Idsel taunted her about the sorry state of the farm and food supply, Nala only smiled because it was so like the surly Leveler King who'd imposed on her almost two seasons ago; changing her life forever.

Nala fought to keep thoughts of her Leveler at bay. She was alone now until his return. Growing excited at the thought of Indel would only lead her stumbling to a bush, far from the farm, to coax herself and return to her senses. Even now whenever she imagined her Leveler, her body secreted for hours.

Though she thought better of it, Nala stood and decided to answer her need, though she was rarely frequent anymore. A noise in the distance made her freeze dead in her tracks.

She opened the door to see a blue hand raised, about to knock.

Nala swallowed down a yelp. The tough stage-two blue skin reminded her of her own which she'd shed seasons ago.

The face was nice to look at as well.

A tattered, half cracked, blue exoskeleton on his head, the Summoner stared at her wide-eyed.

He was young, and he plucked the helmet off, a wild mane of black hair stuck up.

"I'm...I'm sorry. I...." The stranger looked out at the untidy field and then tried to peer into the structure. "Forgive me my intrusion. The rains have me lost. I've newly awoken in this new stage and...and I have a hunger like no other. The berries I usually eat—"

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