In the morning, I walked to the river to wash myself. The Trewars were not far away, and we waved to each other. It was a pleasant morning, the air still a bit chilly, but it was shaping up to be a wonderful sunny day. I hid between some bushes to undress myself and wash up. The two suns appeared a bit smaller than our sun in the sky, with Ethea higher up than Ghomer, but their heat was enough to pleasantly warm my skin.

From the three moons, only the bigger one, Kragath, the red moon, was visible in the west, soon to be gone.

Later, Ju appeared with Mike, bringing all the dishes to wash them at the river. Ju used her magic to splash the dishes with water, but they still needed to be taken by hand one after the other, where Mike helped.

I imagined magically washing the dishes in a more efficient way.

Once they finished, and Ju dried the dishes, I put them in my inventory and left with her. Ju went to talk with the rest of the Trewar group, while Alice and the Lynx were probably somewhere doing their morning routine too.

I went to see how Hew and Tom were feeling when I heard Mike yelling. I turned to see him in the water, a little deeper than his knees.

To his right, Tehia screamed as loud as she could: "Run to the shore!" while I saw Elenia running towards him.

I started to run towards him. It was not further than one hundred meters and I'm sure I was beating the world record for one hundred meters, but he was already yelling desperately while the water started to bubble around him.

"Agapas!" Elenia yelled while running into the water towards him.

Agapas are small carnivorous fishes that live in Guarava's rivers, and all over the warmer parts of the continent. They are something like the piranhas of our Amazonas. Judging by how slow he was moving, and being probably already bitten, he had no chance to survive if an agapas swarm was on him. And that crazy girl is entering the water to him?

Being still too far away, I could not see them, but I saw the water bubbling around him and did the only thing that passed through my mind: I dumped my whole mana around him in a swirling black cloud. It looked like a small black swarm of locusts that surrounded him, plunged into the water, and expanded around him, coloring the water dark gray.

It worked like a giant black bolt, and dozens, if not hundreds, of dead fishes filled the waters with their white stomachs around him. Elenia did not stop; she went to him and dragged him towards the shore. As we met on the shore, she was breathing hard while admonishing him.

"I told you, I told you to keep the charm on you always! Keep the charm with you, always! Where is the charm?"

A dumbfounded Mike only nodded towards his shirt on the shore.

"In... in the pocket..."

"Idiot! Keep it with you," she admonished him.

As they were rambling there, I looked with horror at their burnt legs: they looked as if they had been barbecued on a raging fire, while some pieces from his legs were missing. Luckily, my spell had cauterized his wounds, and Ju materialized next to us and started to heal them.

The next moment, Tehia was there and bowed to hug her daughter with tears in her eyes. Dark vapors were rising from the water with hundreds of dead fish in them.

The whole commotion had taken less than ten seconds, but we needed more than half an hour to recover from the shock. I learned that the Trewars were using some ointment to rub their legs with, which could eventually repel the agapas, but not when they were swarming like that. Such an agapas swarm would have eaten a buffalo in less than ten seconds.

We ate together with the Trewars, and everybody talked again and again about what had happened. When we finished, we prepared to leave at about the same time as them. They had two chariots pulled by two pairs of black oxen with three horns, the typical Guaravian ox.

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To my surprise, they proposed to walk together and invited us to use their chariots. I saw no reason to turn down their proposal, so we placed Hew inside one chariot. That was much better than having him carried by two of us, now that the Lynx was gone hunting. The rest of us walked beside as did some of the Trewars. They insisted for me and Ju to also join them in the chariot, but I preferred to walk, while Ju and later Tina took up their offer.

Elenia did not say a word about the happenings of last night, but she sported the silvery-looking knife proudly. Well, inox quality, sharp point, about eleven centimeters long, lightly jagged blade, shaft made of the same metal, but very easy to hold, well balanced. There were only twelve such knives in this world, I guess.

After a while, we met Lynx. He was waiting for us by the side of the road, and once we reached him, he started walking beside me.

“A lady may walk, but should mostly ride, isn't it?” he whispered in my ear.

Was this an invitation to ride? I glanced at him surprised, but it seemed that it was, so I was soon admiring the world from an elevated position. To be able to chat with him, we went about one hundred meters in front of the chariots. The pretext was to scout for dangers, but the road seemed to be pretty secure. On the way, we met a couple of caravans walking the opposite way and greeted each other. People were looking full of wonder at me and my mount, and at one time, kids came running and approached us to five or four meters. Kids have no fear!

Once we were alone again I opened the conversation.

“So you did spy on me!” I exclaimed.

“Can't you forget that?” he questioned.

“How long did you spy on me?” I insisted.

He shrugged.

“Several days? A week? I wanted to know you better. What better way was there if not by observing you?”

“And you stood there the whole night when I slept in Matt's room? That must have been so boring! Was that the only night?”

“No, it was not the only night. At first, it was boring, true, but the end was worth it. It was really funny to watch!”

“That was not funny!” I protested and thought about changing the subject.

“Well, what do you say," I questioned, "what do you think about the future life in the barony?”

He shrugged. "I'm happy you're going to have a solution!"

Something in the way he said that raised my alarm bells.

"What do you mean?" I questioned. "We will have a solution! The barony should be big enough to feed all of us!"

"It's kind of you to think of me, but frankly speaking, the life of a mount is not what I intend to experience. I accepted a temporary deal with Cala to bring White Flower in security, but now she is gone. I want to roam some place and make it my kingdom, or something like that." He shrugged again. "I'm a predatory beast, Lores, not a mount!"

That struck me like walking over the line of an express train just as it passed through.

"You cannot do this to me," I mumbled. “Do you want to leave me?”

"Now, now, little lady, don't cry. We will meet again sometime, and besides, I still want to accompany you to the barony, to see it with my eyes. Maybe I'll come later to visit you after all. You know, I plan to have a family sometime..."

"I'm not crying!" I protested while tears were running down my face, but I managed to smile as I thought at cute little lynxes "You promise you'll visit me?" I asked.

"I promise I'll think about it," he answered. "Now, maybe it is not the right time, but you should think of Alice and how you convince her to stay with you."

"Wait! No, that cannot be! Not Alice! Did she tell you she wants to leave me?"

He sighed. "No, she did not tell me anything like that, but I overheard her talking with Tina. Alice has some charity work in Lillytown. Who will pay for the orphans now that she is gone? She used to be away with Cala, but she always returned there, brought money, and visited the orphanage. Next year, the great migration starts. Maybe they both want to be there, Alice to help the orphanage during migration, and Tina to be back with her family."

Desperation was starting to grip my brain. Everybody wants to leave me?

"She cannot risk that; the emperor would capture her again," I said.

"Maybe, but she might not want to be separated from Alice. The two have gotten very attached. But I'm not sure if Alice has already decided to go; maybe she will decide to stay."

I sighed. Why do things have to be like this? In the game, he would stay with me as a mount and be happy with it! And Alice? Why would she ever want to leave me? Oh, drats! But on the other hand, what could I offer him? A life as a mount? Where he shouldn't even talk when others are present!

“As I said, she hasn't made a decision yet, and she may choose to stay with you. But at some point, you should talk with her and ask her if she wants to stay. You could also try to help her; she doesn't know what to do with Sid.”

We continued in silence for a while as my brain worked hard to think of a solution.