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"Because you're strong," Yager said, his brown eyes bright and eager as he looked at Luo Wei. "You're really something. I want to follow you."
She just looked smart. Weak as she was, she could still get so many people to do things for her. That's what a wise person was like!
Yager had always dreamed of becoming a wise person, but the God of Wisdom had never favored him. Luo Wei was living proof of everything he'd imagined , and he envied her deeply for it.
"Little one," Luo Wei said, channeling her best domineering-CEO energy, a wicked smile curling at the corner of her mouth. "You're not qualified to stay by my side. Not yet."
Yager bristled. "I'm smart!"
"What good is smart?" Luo Wei pointed at Troy. "Haven't you heard that raw strength beats ten clever tricks? Come back when you can take him down. Then we'll talk."
Yager studied Troy's face with intense, careful attention, committing every feature to memory. "Hmph. I will beat you."
Troy: ???
He'd just been standing here minding his own business. Who had he offended?
Luo Wei saw his wounded look and chose not to. "Come on, Troy, get them home. We need to head back when you return."
"...Fine."
Troy grabbed Yager by the scruff of his neck and tossed him onto the Griffin's back.
"Sit still, brat."
He swung up behind the children, tied all six of them together with a single rope, blew the bone whistle, and launched into the sky.
The Griffin cast one reluctant glance back at the polar bear. Its master hadn't even started playing yet, so it felt awkward about eating. CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP. Keep it warm for me. I'm eating and playing when I get back.
The polar bear's fur exploded outward like a sea urchin. It made a small, miserable sound. Being terrorized was one thing , being eaten was another. What kind of monster does that?
Well. A Griffin wasn't exactly a person.
The polar bear buried its head in its paws and refused to come up for air.
"Gale, Beryl, start dinner." Luo Wei's voice was even. "Make a portion for the little wolf too. Heat up two beef patties for her."
"Yes, Master." Gale and Beryl headed off to cook.
"Yves, get the carriage inside the city gate. Find somewhere sheltered from the wind."
"Chris, clear out a stone hut. We're sleeping there tonight."
"Yes, Master." Chris and Yves answered in unison.
All four slaves set to work. Luo Wei went back to the carriage and lifted Gladys out.
"Shh. Don't make a sound. Just be the little wolf."
"Awoo~" A soft, small howl.
Winter days on the ice plain were brutally short. In what felt like a blink, dusk swallowed the light.
Luo Wei carried Gladys into the hut Chris had tidied up, sank onto the soft cashmere cushion, and closed her eyes.
---
Deep in the night, the northern wind screamed against the walls outside. A group of strangers followed a scent trail through the dark until they reached the ice plain fissure.
"Young Master, it's just ahead."
A shifty-eyed man addressed the white-haired figure seated at the front of the ice wolf sled.
"Are you certain?" The white-haired man stared at the stone castle ahead, his expression baffled. "My sister fled south. Why would she be at a stone city in the east?"
The shifty-eyed man dipped his head respectfully. "I cannot say, Young Master, but the Young Mistress's scent leads here without question."
The silver-haired man frowned in silence. Then he raised one hand. "Everyone off the sleds. On foot. Not a sound."
"Yes, Young Master!" The dozen-odd subordinates answered as one.
Dark night, howling wind. The group slipped into the stone city and began moving through the dense cluster of huts, checking them one by one, hunting for any trace of their escaped Young Mistress.
The polar bear in the neighboring hut heard them first. It slapped its paws against the wall in agitation, trying to warn its master that something was wrong.
Next door, the hut was pitch black. The little wolf lay curled warmly against Luo Wei's chest. When the noise reached her, she lifted one snow-white paw and pressed it over her own ears.
Who's making that racket. So annoying.
Gladys grumbled, rolled over, and went right back to sleep.
The movement jolted Luo Wei awake. Her ears caught the soft rustling sounds outside.
Someone was there.
Her eyes opened. Her right hand snatched the magic wand from beside her in one clean motion, and her gaze locked onto the stone hut's window, sharp and still.
Clouds shifted. A thin blade of moonlight cut through and fell across the floor.
In that pale light, Luo Wei saw a long, slender shadow standing just outside the door.
It bent at the middle, as though leaning down to peer inside.
Luo Wei narrowed her eyes. She rolled out of bed without a sound, wand in her right hand, a sharp dagger drawn in her left, and walked to the door.
"Yves? Is that you?"
She asked it casually, and in the half-second the shadow hesitated, she drove the dagger through the curtain.
CLANG!
A ringing crack of metal on metal. The wind-blocking cloth Chris had carefully hung for her split around the blade of a sword. Luo Wei's dagger met steel and the collision sang out bright and clear.
The curtain tore open. Through the narrow gap, she found herself looking at a face that shared seven parts out of ten with Gladys.
She blinked. "You're..."
He recovered faster than she did. He stepped back and withdrew the sword in one fluid motion, pressing his free hand to his chest.
"My apologies, beautiful lady. I've disturbed your rest."
"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Reginald — Young Master of the Ice Wolf Tribe. I'm looking for my sister. Her name is Gladys. Have you seen her?"
"Gladys?" Luo Wei glanced back at the silver wolf sprawled like a starfish in the middle of her bedding, then looked at him with a complicated expression. "She's in my bed. Are you here to take her back?"
"No, no, no." He shook his head quickly. "I was only worried something had happened to her. I came to check."
Luo Wei pushed through the curtain and stepped outside. A ball of flame bloomed at the tip of her wand. "You're her brother?"
Reginald's eyes fell on the wand, briefly surprised. "Miss, you're a..."
"My name is Luo Wei. I'm her classmate." A short pause. "And her friend."
Something in Reginald's face softened. "Gladys has mentioned you. Thank you, Luo Wei. Truly — thank you for being willing to be her friend."
"Gladys is honest and warm. Being her friend is my pleasure." Luo Wei meant it.
Reginald shook his head. "Even so, I'm grateful. She struggles to express herself — the children in the tribe were always getting scared to tears around her, and no one her age really wanted to spend time with her." He paused. "You're the first friend she's ever brought up on her own, after all these years. Thank you for putting up with her."
"It's nothing." Luo Wei studied him with open curiosity. "You don't seem as frightening as she made you sound. You clearly care about her. Why not just tell her that?"
Reginald sighed. "Gladys is afraid of me. I can't blame her. We're twins. But when our mother gave birth to us, something went wrong."
Their mother had been a fiercely stubborn woman who'd kept hunting with a spear straight through ten months of pregnancy. One day, after she'd brought down a snow hare, she was struck by sudden labor pains. She collapsed in the snow and delivered two babies right there.
Reginald came out as a normal infant. Gladys came out as a wolf cub.
She had awakened the Ice Wolf Tribe's rare bloodline, thrown back across generations , and she was born not as a child, but as an ice wolf.
Their mother hadn't known she was carrying twins. Dazed and exhausted from the birth, she scooped up Reginald , and then noticed a tiny, hairless wolf cub lying in the snow beside her. She assumed some ice wolf had simply abandoned its young and left it with her.
➤ Next: Gladys's Miserable Childhood
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