Sirius had wounded him gravely, though not permanently. If he had been thinking, he might not have offered his arm as sacrifice. It made shooting painful. His skill had not been damaged by the effects of such savagery, but this came with experience. Ezekiel had been trained well by those before him, and it showed. Their fashioning of the boy into a weapon had been stunted by his emotional development, which was ripped asunder by one man’s act of violence. Without Corvus, there might never have been a demon inside of him. The de le Poer believed in demons, and he believed certainly that his life had been tainted by the touch of one such beast.
The noise of another drew him from his meditation, but the bandage was already applied over his arm by that point. Max was sight these days—he was filthy and huge, scarred by combat and looking more capable then Ezekiel had imagined. He wore a hatchet on his side and carried a bow and arrow. War suited him, Ezekiel thought darkly, and wondered if he had made a mistake in fashioning a version of himself out of a child lost in the wilderness.
“Max,” he replied curtly, and took a drag on the smoking stick. “All quiet, then?”
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