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.
He gave her a measuring look that reminded her that he wasn’t a boy anymore—that he was, in so many ways, his father’s son.
“Did Father tell you?” Daemonar asked.
“He left that to you,” she replied.
Another measuring look. Then Daemonar took a clean plate out of the cupboards, selected some of the food he’d been about to store, and set the plate in front of her before fetching glasses of water for both of them.
So she sat and ate and listened while her firstborn told her everything.
Lucivar dropped from the Ebon-gray Wind to the stone landing web in front of SaDiablo Hall. Built thousands of years ago by Saetan Daemon SaDiablo to be his family’s seat, it was an imposing structure of gray stone, with so many wings, rooms, interior courtyards, and gardens the place could be its own village—was, in fact, the main source of income and employment for the adjoining village of Halaway, despite there being only three members of the family in residence.
The Hall was also testimony to the differences between his life and Daemon’s.
His eyrie had as many rooms as a modest mansion, but it was still small enough that Marian took care of the housekeeping and cooking, with help from him and the children. Occasionally she had “helpers” from Riada, the closest Blood village in Ebon Rih, but those were youngsters who wanted to learn hearth Craft from Marian Yaslana—or who were willing to trade time doing chores in exchange for lessons in weaving since Marian was becoming known as a “loom artist.”
For many years, he’d had one home to look after and the valley of Ebon Rih to rule. He also had a Dhemlan estate that had vineyards and made wine, but he didn’t oversee it directly any more than he oversaw the town house in Amdarh, despite having use of one side of the building.
Even now, with him ruling all of Askavi, his home and work were fairly straightforward.
Daemon’s life was so much more complicated.
The Hall, which was Daemon Sadi’s primary residence, employed close to two hundred people to take care of the building, cook the meals, work in the stables, and tend the grounds and all the gardens, both the exterior gardens and the interior courtyards that provided light and greenery to bedrooms, sitting rooms, workrooms, and all the other rooms that massive structure contained.