“Well . . . sure.”
“Your father wants that too. He wants those shields to hold. And if you’re pushed to it, he wants you to have some skill with a weapon so that you can whack the crap out of that dog while you’re waiting for the guards.”
“Jillian!”
“What? You live with three Warlord Princes. You’ve never heard any of them say ‘crap’?”
Uncertain of the ground, Titian ate the pie. While she was chewing over Jillian’s words, she somehow polished off the greens and the bread as well.
“Papa doesn’t want me to go.”
“Of course not. You’re his little girl. Hell’s fire, Lucivar was miserable when he escorted me to Little Weeble for my first apprenticeship in a court, and I wasn’t that far out of reach that he couldn’t check on me every day. He didn’t, and I think it cost him, but he could have.”
“The school is in Amdarh. Uncle Daemon will be there.”
“You think your uncle will be any less strict?”
“No.” But Uncle Daemon wouldn’t beat on the shields she could create until they failed. Would he?
“Daemonar will help you work on building stronger shields,” Jillian said. “So will I. I’ll be around for a while.”
“But the paperwork has to be turned in soon if I’m going to start school in the fall with the other students.”
Jillian bumped arms. “I bet that if you work on those shields and show your father that you can protect yourself, you’ll find that all the arrangements have been made and all the papers signed. Your father didn’t set up this test so that you would fail. He expects you to succeed, and then he’ll have to let you go. But I’ll tell you what Prince Sadi told me. After you’re gone, send a letter home once a week to let your parents know how you’re doing.”
“Papa doesn’t like to read.”
“I said that, too, but I wrote the letters, and I realized long after that first apprenticeship ended that Lucivar had read those letters often enough to remember every detail.” Jillian smiled. “Write the letters for your mother and father, but include a sketch or two with each letter, something especially for him.”
“You’ll really help me work on the shields?” Titian asked.
“Of course I will. I’ve got some time now if you want to get a little more practice in today.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
Sighing, Lucivar backed away from the glass doors and dropped the sight shield. He’d chucked Daemonar and Andulvar out the door right after the meal, giving them permission to fly a couple of circuits around Riada on their own. Nothing new for his firstborn, but a heady freedom for his youngest.
Marian wasn’t in her workroom, reading or doing needlework. She wasn’t in the bedroom napping. He went out the door in the laundry room and found her in her garden weeding.
“Are you sure you feel up to doing this?” he asked as he knelt beside her.
She just looked at him.
He sighed, ripped a weed out of the ground, and tossed it in the basket.
“Did Jillian convince Titian to eat?” Marian asked.
“Yeah, she did. And now they’re out there practicing shields.”
She smiled. “You’re teaching your daughter how to leave us. That’s your job.”
“I don’t like my job.”
“Yes, you do. Not today, but you do.”
Couldn’t argue with that.
He watched his darling hearth witch weed the flower bed. He wanted to smash boulders into gravel, not daintily pluck weeds from among the flowers.
“Have you heard from your brother lately?” Marian asked.
“Not since Daemonar made the Blood Run.” He’d have to talk to Daemon soon, get his assessment of the school and the teachers and . . . “Why?”
Marian gave him a kiss that held some sympathy swirled with amusement. “I’m just wondering what sort of argument Jaenelle Saetien is presenting to Daemon to convince him to let her go to the same school. After all, if Titian and Zoey will be attending . . .”
Lucivar sat back on his heels. “Oh, Hell’s fire.”
“What’s that saying about misery and company?”
He snorted. “Like that, is it? Well, get in the boat with the rest of us while I tell you about Jillian’s scheme.”
She was not astonished. She wasn’t even all that surprised when he told her. Instead she looked thoughtful and said, “I hadn’t realized she’d gotten this far.”
Lucivar blinked. “You knew about this?”
“Jillian had mentioned it the last time she was home.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“She wanted to surprise you.” Marian smiled. “I think she didn’t want you to ask Daemon until . . .”
“Never. She wants to do this on her own, without his help or mine. Otherwise, how will she know that her work has merit?”
“Oh, dear.” She burst out laughing. “Your daughters are being difficult, aren’t they?”
Difficult? Hell’s fire, yes. Which meant they were growing into the women he hoped they would be.
TWELVE
Daemon walked through Tersa’s cottage, giving the downstairs rooms a quick inspection. Manny lived next door and still did the day-to-day tidying, but she had reached the late autumn of her years and her eyesight was fading. Not so much that she couldn’t cook or bake or get around on her own, but he noticed that she needed more help these days with some tasks, which was why Helene, the Hall’s housekeeper, sent some of her younger staff to the two cottages each week to “help with the heavy lifting.”
The arrangement worked for everyone, mostly because Helene’s argument for providing the help was that it gave him peace of mind. Which was true. Knowing his mother and the woman who had been his caretaker during the violent and painful childhood he’d endured with Dorothea SaDiablo were looked after helped quiet the cold, deep rage that could rise in him with little warning.
Tersa wasn’t in the cottage, but her psychic scent and the feel of her fragmented mind told him she was nearby. He went out the back door and headed for the herb beds in the garden. She’d been weeding, but now she sat back on her heels, staring at the plants.
He angled his approach so that she would see him—assuming she was seeing anything in the world around her. He crouched beside her, balancing on the balls of his feet to avoid getting dirt or grass stains on his black trousers.
“The plants are growing well,” he said, wondering if they were going to talk about the herb bed in front of them or something else. With Tersa, he could never tell.
“They are growing well,” she agreed. “So are the weeds.” She pointed to one plant, then another. “Hard to tell which is which.”
“Not so hard if you recognize one.”
“Can you tell one from the other?” She brushed a hand over the two plants. Now they looked the same.
A chill ran down his spine, twanging the leash that held his temper.
Tersa scooped up a double handful of soil. “Good soil, rich with tradition, nurtured by the power that rules. But some gardens have imported Terreillean soil. Weeds like that soil. They grow fast and thick. The roots aren’t so deep yet that they can’t be plucked from the garden. They aren’t so widespread that they can’t be purged.”
No, they weren’t talking about plants. Centuries ago, Tersa had spun a tangled web and had seen the first warning of trouble in Kaeleer. He’d seen that web, had read the warning—and had become dangerous to everyone in that part of the Keep. When the rage had quieted, he couldn’t remember what he’d seen and neither Tersa nor Witch would tell him. All his Queen would say was he would recognize the danger that the web had revealed.