LITMIR.BIZ

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tunnel through which she had traveled earlier, she was quickly gone from his sight. She stepped from the tunnel into the small windowless room she used for these journeys, and hurried back to her bedchamber where she was relieved to see her husband sleeping soundly. Lara slipped back into bed.

      When the morning came she told her husband, “I think I shall go and visit my mother today, my darling. It has been some time since I last saw her. The children will be at their studies, and Anoush will work in her herbarium as she does most days.”

      “Must you go?” he grumbled. “I miss you when you are gone. How long will you remain with Ilona?”

      “A day, possibly two,” Lara said, stroking his rough cheek. “Isn’t it better I go and visit with her, than she come here? You know as well as I do that your mother has a spy or two among our servants. The second my mother arrives, yours will be close behind. Then they will quarrel over the children as they always do. I just want to spend some time with Ilona without any fuss.”

      He chuckled. “Why are you always right?” he asked her.

      “Because I am,” she teased back.

      “Go then with my blessing, Lara, my wife,” Magnus Hauk, Dominus of Terah, told her. “Go and enjoy your faerie world with your faerie cakes and wine. And take my love and deepest respect to your mother. Maybe I will call Dillon home to visit with me while you are gone. We haven’t seen him in some time, either.”

      “Dillon contacted me last night on the Dream Plane,” Lara lied. “He is off on some magic business of Kaliq’s, and will be gone several weeks. He didn’t want us to worry, Magnus, my love.”

      “Drat!” the Dominus swore lightly. “Well, perhaps I shall take Taj and visit Uncle Arik at the Temple of the Great Creator. It’s time my son began learning some of the responsibilities that will be his one day.”

      “What a grand idea!” Lara said. “Give your uncle my love.” Her conscience was now clear.

      They dressed and ate breakfast together. Then Lara sought out her children to tell them she was going to visit their grandmother.

      “Your father and Taj are riding to the Temple of the Great Creator and so it will just be you girls,” Lara said. “Anoush, I expect you to keep order among your sisters. Zagiri, Marzina, you will listen to your elder sister, remembering she speaks for me. And no, Marzina, you may not ride Dasras in my absence. He is much too big a horse for so little a girl. Do you understand me?”

      Marzina looked up at her mother with her beautiful violet eyes. “Yes, Mama,” she said meekly. “But can I ride out on his daughter? She doesn’t have Dasras’s wings, but she goes so swiftly on her four feet. And, yes, I will take a groom with me.”

      “If Zagiri goes, too,” Lara said, “yes, you may ride your own horse.”

      “Thank you, Mama,” Marzina said.

      Zagiri rolled her eyes. It was a look that said “she’ll disobey you if she thinks she can get away with it.” “Give Grandmother my love, Mama,” Zagiri said.

      “I will bring her all your loves,” Lara said, and then kissing each of her three daughters, she hurried off to the small windowless room she used for privacy. Closing the door she looked directly at a wall and said silently, Open! A shimmering tunnel of light appeared before her. Again her silent voice commanded, Golden road I wish to roam. Take me to my mother’s home. Then she stepped into the tunnel and walked quickly through it, exiting into the dayroom of Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries.

      “Good evening, Mother,” Lara said. “Kaliq should be joining us shortly.”

      “Lara! What a lovely surprise!” Ilona said rising to kiss her daughter. She drew Lara down onto a pale lavender silk couch with her.

      “If Kaliq is coming it must be important,” Ilona noted. Wine! A carafe and three crystal goblets appeared on the low brass table before them. “Can you give me a hint?” Ilona smiled, reaching out to stroke Lara’s face, an almost mirror image of her own, with her slender fingers.

      They looked like sisters separated by a year or two rather than mother and daughter. Their faerie blood allowed them to age very slowly. Ilona was over four hundred years old, but she didn’t look a day over twenty-five.

      “I am here!” Prince Kaliq suddenly appeared. “Ah, Lara, you arrived before me. Have you told your mother yet?”

      “Told me what?” Ilona filled the three goblets with wine.

      “Nay,” Lara said sweetly. “On reflection, I thought I should leave it to you, my lord.” She smiled brightly at him.

      “I will tell half,” he bargained with her, “and the second part needs my voice. You must tell your mother the beginning.”

      Lara stuck out her tongue at him. Turning to her mother, she said without any preface, “Kaliq has recently told me that Dillon is his son, and not Vartan’s.”

      “Of course he is,” Ilona replied calmly. “All that talent for magic he has did not come from just you, and it certainly didn’t come from Vartan who could do nothing more complex than shape-shift into a bird.”

      Lara looked astounded. “You knew?” Was she a fool that she had not guessed it?

      “I suspected it although each time I broached the subject yon wily prince either denied it or led me into another topic,” Ilona said, amused. “Well, I am glad now that it is all out in the open. What did Magnus said?”

      “It is in the open only in the magic world,” Lara said. “I have no intention of telling Magnus. Despite my husband’s best intentions he is still jealous of Kaliq. I wish to remain with my mortal husband until he is no more. If I told him that Kaliq is Dillon’s sire, do you really think he could accept it? Especially as he loves Dillon as his own. You will say nothing to him, Mother. Do you understand?”

      “I can’t believe he hasn’t figured it all out himself,” Ilona muttered.

      “I didn’t,” Lara replied. “I believed Kaliq when he lied to me. After all, is not the great Shadow Prince my closest friend? My friend would not lie, but he did, didn’t you, Kaliq?” She smiled at him again, but it was a wicked smile. “Now, do tell my mother all the rest of it, my dear friend,” Lara said in dulcet tones.

      “You are still angry with me,” Kaliq said softly.

      “Aye, I am,” Lara admitted. “If Magnus ever learns the truth he will think that I lied to him because he believes his faerie wife to be indomitable.”

      “Now, do not quarrel with the man, Lara,” her mother said. “Shadow Princes rarely fall in love, but if they do their love is an endless one. Kaliq cannot help himself.”

      “Thank you, Ilona,” the prince responded drily.

      “Tell her,” Lara taunted him, and she laughed when a tiny flash of irritation appeared in his bright blue eyes.

      “What?” Ilona repeated.

      “My son was needed on Belmair,” Kaliq began.

      Ilona’s green eyes darkened. “What have you done?” she demanded to know.

      “A powerful sorcerer was needed on Belmair,” Kaliq continued. “The old king was dying. The dragon could find no successor to him, and the king’s daughter, the sorceress, wanted to be queen in her own right. Belmair is not ready for such change. Their world has found perfection by living in an orderly fashion. Change needs to be introduced slowly to the Belmairans, Ilona. You know I speak the truth. With King Fflergant dying, an heir had to be found. The sorceress needed a husband, and Belmair needed a new king. I spoke with the dragon myself, and she agreed that Dillon was the answer. The sorceress needed a husband she could not intimidate although if the truth be known the dragon could teach her little, and Cinnia, for that is her name, can only do simple sorcery. But she is beautiful and clever, and Dillon is already half in love.

      “Belmair,

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