Chapter 40: Rebels.
"Ask your questions!" Lee surprised everyone by sitting down and making himself comfortable on a small pile of hay. The pseudo-adult action performed by a child lessened the tension in the barn, and for some reason his confidence allowed Freeda to heave a silent sigh of relief.
"Alright!" Cai was intrigued. He glanced around, but didn't find anything to sit on. After awkwardly scratching his head, he sat down next to Lee, and said, "Tell me about the spark!"
"I'm not good at using it yet. Ingrid knows." Lee said, his words proving he was still a child, "But I'll get better. Meditation really is a drag ..."
"That's not what he's asking!" Slade said, "Where and how did you get it?"
"I took it from the wooden box!" Lee shrugged, but seeing Slade's unsightly expression, quickly added, "Initially I wanted to prank Drevin by hiding his new dagger near his brother. You know ... so that he got the emperor angry. But then I found the place where Lance was preparing for the ritual and everything happened on it's own. When mom noticed what I did, she decided to flee the city, and then we came here."
"But why did you do it?" Cai asked.
"I really, really don't like those people." Lee gave the correct answer with a straight face, "They're not good people. Not like the ones we have here, in the country.
'Should be fine now.' Lee said to himself. He couldn't appear to be too smart, but it was impossible to act dumb either. And people shouldn't interrogate a child too much.
"See? He's one of us! He is kind of slow with training, but otherwise he's really smart. Tess always called him genius and he draws really well." Ingrid happily said, and Lee gifted her a hearty smile.
The men were not so easy though. Enzo didn't say anything, but both Slade and Cai seemed to be deep in thoughts. But before Freeda had another outburst, Cai spoke first.
He said, "While it sounds nice, someone could've trained him to say this. After all, three years have passed since the event. We'll need more and it shouldn't be too hard for you to understand if you're a genius, right?"