Keo watched from the corner of his eye. Moordan seemed unaffected by his jab and only scowled at his bowl, wiping it with the hem of his sleeve.
Fierra introduced the two new boys who took to Keo quickly when they could see he was cut closer to their own weave of material than to Moordan's. Soon all at the table but Moordan were laughing as they each shared antics or adventures from their homes.
Ardle, the taller of the two new boys, said to Keo, "Moordan said you think you're going to be a creature handler."
There was challenge in the boy's voice, though there was also an edge of wistfulness that said, he wished he would, too.
The Southern Highway brought Keo no new challenges in the first few days of his journey. Paved with square, kiln-fired bricks, the road undulated slowly downhill toward the Capital more than two-hundred miles to the west. The only traffic sharing the road were the occasional coal wagons rumbling to the east. From short conversations with the drivers he learned they headed to the Southern Draw, hoping to find it free of snow, trying to be first to collect coal mined during the snowbound month’s winter.
"Keo,” his mother shouted from the kitchen. “Shelby Lacoore brought something by for you."
On the back porch, Keo stood above a large wool blanket spread across the boards of the veranda and examined his work from above.
On it lay three linen under tunics, three dark green pairs of woolen hose, a black wool tunic, a wool cloak and a waxed linen over-cloak with hood. Beside the clothes were few objects; a candle stub, flint and tinder box, a dozen sheets of writing paper in a thin leather folio, a pen with three nibs and two small bottles; one empty, the other corked and filled with ink powder.
Keo Noshahne climbed into the apple box to retrieve the last of the fruit nestled in the corners—an advantage of being only five years old. Four men had drug the box from a wagon only an hour before, heaped with glistening red and green fruit. Leaning out of the box, sorting the last of the fruit into barrels, Keo thought he had shown his older brothers and sister that he could work as hard as they did.
A momentary shadow darkened the apple box and sorting barrels, a shadow which would follow Keo the rest of his life.
The Kingdom of The Midlands has a natural resource unlike any other in the known world. Other kingdoms would kill to control it. Far out on the high plain which comprises most of the kingdom the great Midland's Swamp produces eggs of unusual hybrid creatures. Eggs which only specially empathic youths will be able to find.
Since a small child, Keo Noshahne has known he will be one of the exclusive creature handlers with abilities the world has never seen before.
Follow 15 year old Keo as he leaves the security of the Swamp Hills and enters the wider world of power and intrigue, on the path which will lead him to eventually become, "The Pariah".
