35
Niko
“I used to be afraid of the dark, you know.” Amec didn’t open his eyes as he spoke. “I drove my mother crazy with it. Wailing my head off as soon as she turned out the lamp. My father was a Guilded soldier, did you know that?”
“No,” Niko answered, though he knew it wasn’t necessary.
“He was captain of his unit before he was killed in the fighting down south. My mother decided I would be a soldier before I was old enough to not soil my pants. I’d cry in the dark every night, and she’d get so mad. How are you going to be a soldier if you cry like a babe in the dark?
“My grandmother was kind, though. Batty as a fairy-loving healer, but still kind. She told my mother not to be so angry. We were all born with a fear. Some from things so far in the past, only the stones remember the
