“We’re aristo,” Titian said in a small voice.
“We certainly are, which is something your uncle Daemon takes pains to remind me of from time to time.” A finger under her chin brought her head up until she looked at him. “Since you want to draw, why are you unhappy?”
“Because you would be disappointed in me when you found out.”
She couldn’t have stunned him more if she’d smacked him with a rock. It took him a moment to find his voice. “Witchling, the only way you could disappoint me is if you allowed someone’s meanness to push you away from doing something you love. If you don’t feel strong enough to meet that meanness on your own, you come to me and I will back you all the way.”
Suddenly his arms were full of a girl doing her best to squeeze the breath out of him.
“Thank you, Papa.”
He didn’t see that he’d done anything to deserve thanks, but he cuddled her and let her sniffle until her feelings settled. His were churning with a fury that needed an outlet, but he’d deal with that later.
“I’m heading out to see your uncle Daemon,” he said. “Would you let me show him your drawings?”
Titian hesitated, then eased out of his arms and handed him the pad. “You’ll bring it back?”
“I will bring it back.” He hesitated. Andulvar was too young for that adventure on the river, but why hadn’t Titian been invited? “Jaenelle Saetien and Daemonar are back. Did they tell you they were going to the river?”
Titian nodded. “Daemonar said he didn’t think I’d have fun helping Jaenelle Saetien today, but he promised he’d take me to the river another day so that I could draw the waterfall.”
He and his firstborn were going to have a little chat about sharing information within the family. “Maybe we can all go there some afternoon soon. Your mother and I can make up a hamper and we can have a picnic by the river.”
She gave him that shy but sunny smile—the smile that said she still believed her papa could fix anything.
“Come on.” He vanished the drawing pad and led her back to the eyrie. “Unless your mother caught them in time, your brothers will have everything out of the cold box and half the food in the pantry spread over the kitchen in search of a proper snack. You might as well lay claim to your share.”
She might be gentle and a little shy, but when they walked into the kitchen, she wasn’t afraid to tussle with her cousin or her brothers in order to get what she wanted. As far as he was concerned, that was a first step to her learning that she could also hold her own against the meanness of outsiders.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“No,” Marian said, tapping the kitchen table. “These are the choices for a snack. Pick from what’s on the table or wait until dinner.”
Daemonar, Jaenelle Saetien, and Andulvar looked away from the cake cooling on the counter.
“But . . . ,” Jaenelle Saetien began.
Marian tapped the table again. “What’s here or nothing.” She watched Lucivar and Titian enter the kitchen. She knew that look on her husband’s face, but she supervised the tussle of who got what, and she noticed how Daemonar didn’t look at his father or sister—and how he fended off his cousin and little brother but let Titian claim the second piece of his favorite treat.
When everyone had made their snack choices, she put a Purple Dusk shield around the cake before walking down the corridor to the laundry room. Considering the Jewels Daemonar and Jaenelle Saetien wore, a Purple Dusk shield wasn’t any kind of barrier, but breaking that shield to get a treat they’d already been told they couldn’t have would have brought Lucivar’s wrath down on their heads.
Lucivar walked into the laundry room moments after she did. After centuries of marriage, she still felt that flutter in the belly when she saw him, still remembered how he’d refused to see her as “just a hearth witch” and had pushed her to find her own strength and stand up for herself—and for him. Being the second-most-powerful man in Kaeleer, he needed someone who could love him without reservations. Someone who could also accept being loved by a man like him.
The Warlord Prince of Askavi. The Demon Prince of Askavi. Their lives had changed when he’d accepted the need to take control of the whole Territory of Askavi instead of just ruling Ebon Rih. She’d never had many friends, even among the Eyriens. Witches from aristo Rihlander families—the other race that lived in Askavi—didn’t have any common ground with a witch whose inclinations leaned toward domestic skills like cooking and keeping a house, and every generation of that short-lived race speculated about why Lucivar Yaslana had married—and stayed married to—someone like her. Outside of Nurian, the Eyrien Healer, the only other Eyrien woman living in the eyries nearby was Dorian, Lord Endar’s wife. There was nothing wrong with Dorian, although the woman seemed dissatisfied with nothing and everything of late, but Marian never felt quite comfortable being around her because she had the same name as Marian’s mother, and memories of her life before Witch saved her and brought her to Kaeleer weren’t something she could set aside.
It wasn’t easy being the wife of the ruler of a Territory, but the man . . . Oh, the man more than made up for any troubles that came with his title.
“Since neither of them needed a Healer, I gather Daemonar and Jaenelle Saetien’s adventure was successful?”
Lucivar huffed out a low laugh. “If that’s the measuring stick, then it was successful.”
Oh, dear. “Do I want to know?”
“No, you really don’t, but I’ll tell you when I get back if they don’t tell you first. As it is, I need to go to Dhemlan and explain this adventure to Daemon.”
Marian braced a hand on one of the laundry tubs and reminded herself that any day that didn’t end with one of her children testing boundaries to the point of needing a Healer . . . was most likely a day when the children were visiting their aunt and uncle and she didn’t hear about whatever it was until much later.
“And Titian?”
Lucivar stepped closer. “She’s fine. She’s inherited some of her mother’s talents but expresses them in a different way.”
Now, that was intriguing.
“I have to go.” Lucivar’s voice sounded low, a little rough. But the kiss he gave her was warm and full of promise. “I may not make it back for dinner, but I’ll be back tonight.”
“And we’ll talk?”
He gave her the lazy, arrogant smile that always meant trouble. “Sure.”
He went out the side door to catch the Winds and ride the Ebon-gray Web to SaDiablo Hall in Dhemlan. She went back to the kitchen to see if there was anything left to put away and was surprised to find Daemonar combining the remaining food into a covered dish to go into the cold box.