Chapter 5

“So,” she said when she was washing her hands in the basin. Talfryn grinned.

“Thanks,” he said. She shook her head.

“I worry about you more every year.”

“Why?” asked a voice from the bed, and they both looked over at the traveler, awake now. “He’s a bloody fire wizard.”

He sat up on the cot and examined his stitches. Talfryn winced as his mother glared at him. It was better to change the subject and hope that putting off her lecture would mean she’d forget it.

“You’re up,” he said to the traveler instead. “Did you jump through that window?”

The man shrugged and flinched, then grinned.

“There were five of them.”

Glenna rolled her eyes, thinking they were discussing some bar fight. Talfryn supposed it was, in a way, but he was never going to hear about it if his mother didn’t get to bed and let him stay up talking to this man. Five people wanting to kill him? This had to be good. And for once, this was part Talfryn’s story, too. He wanted to know how it started.