Free Children of the Wolves by Jessica Starre Page A

looked down at the stones, his face screwed up with even more intense anxiety. His hand inched forward toward one of the stones Jelena held in her palm. Then he snatched his hand away. Jelena glanced sharply at him. “What is it, Samuel?” she asked.
    He gave her another angry look, the anxiety gone, replaced by a coating of sullenness that coarsened his features. “No,” he said. “It isn’t right for me to take it. Everything we have, all that we receive, we share with everyone,” he recited fiercely and glared at her.
    She thought with astonishment, He believes I tried to set a trap for him. But why would he believe that? She wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t test him like that, but she looked at his closed face, doubted she could get through to him, and sighed again.
    â€œVery good,” she said, just as if she had been testing him. “Very good, Samuel, that’s exactly how a future leader of the tribe should decide.”
    Still, she would have felt a lot better about the future of the tribe if he had grabbed one of the stones, hightailed it into the forest, and found a very good hiding place for it.
    â€œCome on,” she said. “Let’s show the others.” Samuel nodded. The anger on his face had been replaced with resignation. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he followed her across the compound to the main hall. The other trueborn children didn’t accompany them but scattered to various duties and occupations. She wished she hadn’t come upon them; she wished she’d kept walking.
    Jelena ushered Samuel into the dining hall. Spotting a group of adults still comfortably ensconced at one of the tables, she walked over and said, “Samuel has made an interesting find for us.” She rolled the stones gently onto the table. The storyteller, lazily regaling stories of his escapades to his table companions, stopped speaking at her action. The adults nearest her glanced at the stones with expressions of polite interest, but the stonecutter leapt to his feet, grabbed a couple of the stones and said, “Those are precious stones, my boy! Where on earth did you find them?”
    Samuel didn’t quite understand what the older man meant, but at length the stonecutter reminded them that his pastself had been a jeweler and that he had cut gemstones just like this to display their beauty. In the world that had gone before, stones such as these were worth as much as all the pigs they owned, he contended. Wide-eyed, Samuel stammered out the location of the sapphire field, in one of the caves that dotted the area, and one he most assuredly should not have been exploring on his own. But no one thought to chastise him for the lapse.
    The adults handed the stones around the table, examining them, staring quizzically at them, then turning to the stonecutter for further explanation.
    â€œAn hour or two with these stones,” he crooned, “and I could create a masterpiece that would dazzle the eye and take your breath away. If I had the right tools. I would need the right tools. I could get the right tools,” he assured himself. Then his shoulders slumped and he plucked at his beard. “But who understands the value of gems?” he muttered to himself. “Who takes them in trade?”
    Rufus looked across the table at him. “The ones who have what is sufficient,” he pointed out quietly. “The ones who have abundant livestock and fertile fields and plenty of drinking water; stout trueborns and newlyborns with talents beyond which we can reckon.”
    Jelena straightened as Rufus spoke. If Samuel’s gift truly could be used for the betterment of the people, then he would be much appreciated for his contributions, even if he hadn’t found his calling yet.
    â€œYes,” the stonecutter grunted, acknowledging the wisdom of Rufus’s words. “You mean the Sithans and the Trinitarians.” He plucked his