LITMIR.BIZ

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replace him, Kol decided. He cannot be trusted. But the man known as the emperor’s right hand, Jonah, was a different thing altogether. His heart was already dark, but he was very intelligent. Though he, too, sought power, he knew well how to serve a strong master. He could be content as my governor, Kol thought. And he is clever. Clever enough to have made Gaius Prospero’s number one wife, Vilia, his mistress without that pompous little man knowing. Kol chuckled. Aye, Jonah would be his governor in Hetar. The Forest Lords, the Coastal Kings and the Midlands would fall into line. Only the Shadow Princes could not be conquered, but the Shadow Princes were not known to be aggressive. Left to themselves they were unlikely to thwart his plans for conquest, for they did not involve themselves willingly with others.

       Kol watched as the rain began to pour down in thick gray sheets of water. His thoughts turned back to the faerie woman and he drew a deep breath to calm his beating heart. He had already built a luxurious and large apartment to house her and a wardrobe filled with silks and gauzes and furs. She would have views of the mountains from three sides of her rooms. Lara would lack for nothing while in his care. And he would care for her as no man ever had. His chancellor might have little use for women but Kol appreciated their beauty and their charm.

      I am already in love with her, he thought. Ever since the Book of Rule had revealed her to him, no day passed that he did not use the reflecting bowl to observe her. She fascinated him with her beauty and manner. He particularly enjoyed watching her with the children she had already borne. It was obvious that she was a good mother. He felt no guilt or shame at robbing those children of their mother. She did not belong to them. She belonged to him. He turned and walked back to the bowl, then waved a graceful hand over it so he might see her once more.

      * * *

      LARA SHIVERED suddenly.

       “What is it?” Noss asked her. “Are you all right? You have suddenly gone quite pale, Lara. Are you cold?”

       “Nay, but I just had the oddest feeling—as if someone was secretly looking at me. I have had it now and again over this last year. It only lasts a moment or two.” She shrugged her shoulders as if to shake off the sensation. “My faerie senses grow stronger. It is, I suspect, nothing more than that,” she told Noss with a chuckle.

       “The summer is almost over,” Noss remarked, “and soon it will be time for the Gathering. I usually look forward to it, but this year I am not. You will leave us after the Gathering concludes. And traveling with a new infant won’t be easy for me.”

       “No, it won’t be,” Lara agreed. “I keeping forgetting that your daughter will be born shortly. If my son is right and it is a daughter.”

       “Dillon is correct,” Noss said quietly. “When he makes a pronouncement like that he is never wrong, though he is yet a child himself.”

       “I will be glad to have the opportunity to observe him more,” Lara said. “I had not planned to send him to Kaliq until he was twelve but if his powers are strengthening I may have to change my mind. Don’t tell him I said so,” Lara finished with a small laugh. “He is so anxious to go.”

       “I suspect he wants to be someplace where his talents are not looked upon with suspicion,” Noss remarked. “There are always those who will be frightened of magic, and often he is thought of as more your son than Vartan’s.”

       Lara sighed. “If Vartan were still alive that would not be so.”

       “I know,” Noss concurred. “It is sad, but there it is and we cannot change it.”

       “I suppose not,” Lara agreed. “Has Bera said anything since we sent Cam away with Sholeh? And how is the woman we chose doing?”

       “I don’t think Bera realizes how many days have passed since the boy left,” Noss said. “Pakwa does well with her. Bera enjoys her company and she is a marvelous cook. I actually think Bera is putting on a bit of weight. She seems less intense with Cam gone.”

       “What a pity we cannot keep Cam from her entirely,” Lara murmured. “I hope Pakwa will remain when he returns. If Cam decides he doesn’t want her in Bera’s house he will make it difficult for her to stay.”

       “Pakwa has been warned. She will concentrate all her efforts upon Bera and ignore the boy. He will have his lessons to concentrate upon in the Icy Season,” Noss remarked. “And he will go to Sholeh again next year. Or perhaps to Rendor or Roan.”

       “Don’t allow him to become close friends with anyone,” Lara advised. “He must make no allies among the clan families.”

       “Lara, he is just a child,” Noss said softly.

       “He will not always be a child and Bera has put it in his head, you may be certain, that he should one day be lord of the Fiacre. Liam will live long, Noss. I know it. But you do not want Cam causing trouble among the Fiacre as your husband grows older.”

       Noss nodded reluctantly. “I cannot help but feel if we had been raising Cam it would have been different,” she said.

       Lara shook her head. “Nay, there is wickedness in him,” she replied. “He will need to be kept under control all his life.”

      * * *

      NOSS GAVE BIRTH to her daughter in very late summer. Mildri was a pretty baby and gentle of temperament. The time of the Gathering was drawing near. Magnus Hauk would join Lara and the clan families as he had done every year since they had come to the New Outlands. It was at the Gathering that they rendered him their tribute as their overlord. Lara had sent a faerie post to her husband telling him that Dillon and Anoush would be coming home with them. The Dominus wrote back that his sister, Sirvat, had come to help. She was already preparing rooms for the children despite the fact she was great with a second child to be born in late autumn.

       Anoush had grown closer to her mother now that she was not in Cam’s or Bera’s company. Having learned from Dillon of Anoush’s proclivities for plants, Lara had started a small herb garden with her daughter. They would transplant Anoush’s plants to a new garden in Terah, Lara promised. She also taught the little girl small facts such as lavender being an excellent agent for those troubled by sleeplessness and chamomile tea being good for the nerves. One day she took the child up on Dasras with her. They traveled to the Obscura, where they watched the sea creatures playing in the waves. Anoush was fascinated by it all. The angry look had left her eyes, to Lara’s relief.

       Then, on a perfect late-summer’s night, Lara and her two children lay upon a gentle hillock almost all of the evening and watched the flying stars streaking across the black skies before the moonrise. The earth beneath them smelled green and fresh with the early dew. Then with Dillon by her side Lara walked home carrying Anoush, who had fallen asleep.

       “It was a perfect magical moment,” Dillon told his mother. “Why do the stars fly, Mother? But for this night they seem to be still in the heavens.”

       “I don’t know,” Lara admitted. “That is a question we must ask Kaliq when we see him again, my son.”

       “And when will that be?” Dillon wanted to know.

       Lara laughed. “Oh, how you long to go to the Shadow Princes!” she teased. “But this will be the first time you have lived with me in several years. Let me have a little time with you, Dillon. I am certain Kaliq would agree with that.”

       “You grown folk, magical or mortal, all stick together,” Dillon complained.

       “’Tis the only way we can survive our young long enough to teach them,” Lara told him with a chuckle.

       They entered the lord’s house, then the servant who had waited up for them barred the doors. Reaching the chamber she shared with her children each time she visited, Lara lay Anoush down in her bed with Zagiri, who was already sleeping, and drew the coverlet over them. She kissed her daughters and then she kissed her son who had already climbed into his own bed.

       “Good night, Dillon. Sleep well.”

       “I don’t know if I can,”

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