Free Dead and Buryd: A Dystopian Action Adventure Novel (Out of Orbit Book 1) by Chele Cooke Page A

but he had seemed that way, the way he held command. His dark hair, the same as her brother’s, was now heavily sprinkled with grey, his beard going the same way. Yet his bright green eyes still sparkled with the energy of a much younger man. Despite his strength and skill with a weapon, Lyle Lennox had become a carver, taking wood and whittling it away to create useful objects. For his joining present to Georgianna’s mother, he’d made an entire cooking set, large enough for a family of six.
    Taking one of the small wooden horses from Braedon, Georgianna galloped it across the boy’s knees and up his arm until she nuzzled it into his neck, neighing playfully. Braedon giggled and tried to wriggle away until Georgianna handed him back the toy.
    Georgianna turned back to her father and frowned.
    “Beck says hi,” she told him with a careful smile.
    It was odd to think that her father had been friends with Beck, knowing the man now as the marshall of the Belsa. But apparently, when they were young, Beck Casey and Lyle Lennox had been thick as thieves. Beck had trained as a hunter and scout, Lyle as a carver and carpenter, but the two remained close whenever they were in camps. Now, however, the two barely saw each other.
    “Of course he does, lazy bastard can’t get over here himself,” her father chuckled. “How’s that girl of his doing?”
    “Lacie is great,” Georgianna nodded enthusiastically. “She’s a really fast learner.”
    “Good. It’s about time you had an apprentice,” he claimed, pointing the knife he was using to clean the hide at her. “No good letting those talents go to waste.”
    Nodding, Georgianna reached out and pulled her bag towards her. While her father hadn’t originally been happy to know she was visiting the Belsa to help out, knowing how badly the Adveni wanted them eradicated, he had slowly come around to the idea as long as Beck was looking after her. When Georgianna had brought back news that Beck had a young girl living with him, a girl the marshall was treating like his own daughter, Lyle Lennox had been over the moon. He wouldn’t tell Georgianna why, of course. He said it was none of her business unless Beck decided to tell her on his own, and that she was not to ask him about it.
    “I still need to meet that girl,” her father announced thoughtfully, scratching the edge of his knife against his jaw. “Beck’s a good man, a loyal Kahle, but those tunnels are no place for a young girl.”
    He looked pointedly at Georgianna and nodded very suddenly:
    “You’ll bring her here! Lots of people to help out this way, you could call it work!”
    “She’s wanted, Da’,” Georgianna lamented. “A drysta runaway.”
    Her father tilted his head to the side and dug the knife a little further into the hide as he tried to think up a reasonable solution. After a minute, he finally huffed, which Georgianna knew to take that he’d not been able to think of one. No doubt it was annoying him. He wanted to meet his friend’s daughter.
    “You know, you could always come down to the tunnels with me,” she suggested. Glancing beneath her eyelashes at her father, Georgianna quickly occupied herself with opening her bag, like her suggestion had been perfectly innocent.
    “And risk being hauled off as a Belsa?” he asked. “Who will look after your nephew when I’m buryd, huh?”
    Georgianna opened her mouth to argue but quickly closed it again, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to convince her father to visit the tunnels and Beck. Scooping Braedon off her lap and onto the dried grass, she carefully got to her feet.
    “I’m going to check on the stew.”

  7 Love and Loss
     
Braedon was sprawled on Georgianna’s lap asleep by the time his father returned home from work. Splattered with paint, Halden flopped straight onto the floor next to his sister and son. He rolled to the side, kissed Georgianna’s cheek in greeting, and