(Damien POV)

  “Christopher.  Chris!”  I call out, somewhat annoyed.  I had been searching for my cousin for the past half-beam, but to no avail.

  A boy with flaming red hair pops out from around the corner.  He slaps a hand over my mouth and tugs me to the ground.

  “Shhhhh,” he hisses.

  I sigh around his fingers.  “Chris get your hand off.”  I pull his hand of my face, disgusted at the sweatiness of them.

  “Oh, Damien.  Sorry, I’m hiding.”  Christopher smiles sheepishly.

  “I can see that. Brünhilde again?  You really should stop bothering her.”  Brünhilde is a member of my person guard, and Christopher has a horrible crush on her.

  “But she is my soulmate!  My love!  The light of my life!”  He throws his hands out dramatically.

  “She hates you.  She uses you for archery practice.  And didn’t she run you over with a donkey once?”  I had thought that was a rumor, but judging from Christopher’s wince when I mention it there might be more fact then fiction here.

  “She. . .just expresses herself differently!  I know we are fated to be together.  She just has to see that too!”  Christopher smiles dreamily.

  “Suit yourself,” I move a little bit away from him, wondering if idiocy is contagious.  “Father wants me to on the STK headquarters,” I mention, “And I also want to see if they’ve found the cure yet.  Do you want to come along?”

  Christopher mulls it over in his head.  “STK?  Sure.  And while we’re at it, your personal guard needs a new mage and His Royal Majesty requested another healer for you.  Glen retired last week and Fern isn’t that good of a healer.”

  I frown.  “Glen retired?”  The old man had been around since before I was born.  We weren’t close, but I thought he’d at least let me know.

  “Yup.  He’s seventy-eight earthcycles old, what do you expect?  And Fern is a terrible healer, now that I really think about it.  Why do we keep her around?”

  “Reasons.”  I mutter.

  Healers are very rare to come about, and most of them are pretty weak, (or at least that was Father’s argument.). The truth is, Fern is the daughter of one of Father’s good friends.  He has already pointed out several times how ‘affectionate’ Fern is towards me.  I don’t like her that way though, and I’m definitely not her type.  We tolerate each other mostly to please our parents.

  “I will see you at the entrance in twenty dials with the rest of the guard,” I say to Christopher.

  “Even Brünhilde?  She’s—”

  “Mad at you, I know.  And yes, even Brünhilde.”

  “Make that thirty dials then.”

  I grin at my best friend, the head of my personal guard.  “See you then.”