Free Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) by Chrystalla Thoma Page A

something to eat, both you and I need it.”
    Elei followed him, stomach rumbling at the thought of food. Kalaes took different packages from the bags and spread them on the kitchen table. Elei stared at Kalaes’ hands, at his strong set of shoulders. Whereas his face was smooth and young, his hands were lined and bore the mark of several non-lethal diseases. Elei easily recognized the spiral scars left by urion , he had one of his own on his chest, and the circular ones left by trieter , where the larvae had eaten through the tissue before they’d been found and extracted. He remembered how that had felt, the wiggling, maddening sensation, and the sharp pain of their jaws as he’d suffocated them with a wet patch and pulled them out, one by one.
    He shivered.
    Then Kalaes turned his wide smile on him and Elei ducked his head. “Lots to eat, and none of Maera’s mash breakfast!”
    Elei had no objection to anything that could be eaten, mash or not, so he just nodded and picked at the packages, curious. He recognized a couple, the box of red mushrooms, blue bread made of sapphire-algae, two pieces of smoked eel, a basket of K-fungi blooms. His mouth watered. He reached over and grabbed a knife to cut the bread, then realized with a start he was weighing it in his hand, judging how well-balanced it was for throwing, and frowned.
    Cronion still hadn’t relaxed completely. Then again no colors flashed around him, so maybe it was a matter of time until it did.
    He bent to work, cut the blue loaf into thin slices, watched them pile. The smell of spices made him lift his head and he watched Kalaes mixing flour and eggs in the bowl. He stopped slicing bread and stared at the dance of Kalaes’ hands stirring and adding ingredients, spices and salt. There was something familiar about what he was doing.
    “You’re making fooncakes!” His heart hurt with a bittersweet pain.
    Kalaes turned, his hands stilling, and Elei looked down, horrified at himself. For he knew exactly whom he’d seen making fooncakes that way before, and who had taught Kalaes.
    “Pelia taught me,” Kalaes said in a flat voice and turned back to the pan.
    Elei let out a long breath. He wondered if Pelia had been as much a mother to Kalaes as she’d been to himself. Teaching him how to speak all proper, to cook and clean, to better his reading, to look after himself and to nurse himself to health after a bout of disease. Wondered if she’d also held Kalaes’ hand when he was sick and brought him medicine and food, if she’d admonished him to ignore the others’ teasing and bullying, if she’d taught him to recognize affection when he saw it and embrace it.
    Only to lose it again.
    Elei shivered and laid the knife on the table, not trusting his hands. Cronion had never controlled him so much before; the balance between it and telmion had been near perfect — one making him aggressive, the other meek. Together they made him whole. Sometimes he wondered who he’d been before the twin infections. He’d been so little when he contracted them he couldn’t remember what it was like not to have them. Sometimes he wondered if he would like what lay underneath it all. If there was anything left.
    Kalaes flipped the fooncakes and dished them out into one of the orange plates. He turned, placed it on the table, along with a bottle of water and two glasses. He emptied the K-fungi in a bowl and pulled a chair. Elei sat down too, trying not to think too hard about what came next, about this being his last day here, in this little apartment, about leaving and trying to make ends meet in a place, in a life where he knew no-one and nothing.
    “Hey, don’t look so morose.” Kalaes reached out and gave him a light shove. His smile was back, wide and inviting, and Elei relaxed a little more. “Eat, here, the blooms are good, and my fooncakes are the best in town.”
    Elei chewed slowly, savoring the sweet blooms, and the cakes which were spicy and tangy. The bread