When the Wind Calls, Page 4

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  AVAILABLE JULY 2016

  Jedda had the purse in his hand. He was just about to turn away when a hand grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him in his tracks. The grip held him firmly, and all attempts to twist himself free- failed. The hand that grabbed him was much larger than his own. And it belonged to a very well dressed, clean and elegant man. Cold sweat beaded on the back of his neck, as he froze. He was both terrified and truly surprised. How had he gotten caught? He never got caught.

  Jedda didn’t know what might happen to a boy caught stealing from a So’Har. Did they hang people for that? He really didn’t know. He had heard horror stories- but he presumed most of those were the kind of tales that always circulated through the back alleys and hidey-holes. People told stories, especially to young children and newcomers, stories to scare them, and also to serve as cautions, warnings.

  “You’re very good,” The well-dressed man said, towering over him. Jedda looked up at the man through straggly red-blond hair tangled and messy. He stood frozen, like a rabbit before the hawk, not even daring to blink.

  “Where are you from, boy?” the man asked. Still silent, a tiny quiver, barely a twitch, of the deep fear he felt. The man shook him by the collar, holding him firmly- but trying not to make contact with the very unwashed boy he had in his grip. “Where do you live? Speak up! Don’t press my patience.”

  “Below the canals,” Jedda spit out, trying to tell enough to satisfy the man, but vague enough not to give away any of his friends, or the little hiding-hole that had been his home for several years now.

  The man nodded, as though his suspicions were confirmed. He looked Jedda up and down, taking in some level of information, or weighing a decision. Jedda felt that his fate was, literally, in this man’s hands, in this very moment.

  “You survive on the streets?” he asked.

  Jedda nodded in reply, a bare flicker of movement.

  “You don’t normally get caught, do you?”

  Jedda shook his head, a tiny motion, no.

  “Just a bit ‘lucky,’ at your street skills?”

  Another nod.

  “And you’re very good at moving around, and going unnoticed?”

  Jedda nodded again, wondering how this strange man knew him so well. The two sides of his mind raced, chasing down the aspects of the question. Did the man know him? And, why would he, a homeless, fatherless half-breed, be of any interest to this wealthy, powerful man.

  “Now. If I were of a mind, I could sit you in a hot kettle of fish,” the man noted, eyes narrowing.

  And look for The Chanmyr Chronicles: Book1 coming Fall 2016