The Twilight Lord

by Bertrice Small

  “Lady Persis is here,” Lara said.

  Ilona smiled sweetly. “She will be quite jealous that I have seen our new grandchildren first.” And with a wicked laugh she exited the birthing chamber.

  “One more push, my lady Domina, and the afterbirths will be expelled,” Aminta said briskly. “Then we must prepare you and your children for visitors.”

  The windows beyond revealed a glorious dawn breaking. It tinted the snows on the far peaks of the mountains a rosy golden peach. It would be a beautiful day and all of Terah would rejoice with the news that the Domina had birthed a strong son. Lara was exhausted with her long night’s labors. And she was distressed by the dark-haired female child who had followed her son. Something was wrong. She had planned a son. She had not planned another daughter, nor had she planned twins. And her mother knew something. And where was Kaliq? Why had he not answered her cry of distress?

  Aminta had finished with her. The midwife lowered the birthing chair so Lara might stand up, which she did. Her children had been placed in the willow basket. Mila quickly sponged her mistress with perfumed water and dressed her in a purple silk robe trimmed with gold and sparkling crystals. Lara was then settled in the birthing chamber’s large bed where she would remain for the next several days, recovering. A knock sounded upon the door. Aminta hurried to answer it as Mila brought the babies to their mother, fitting one in each of her arms.

  Ilona, having taken complete charge, tripped into the room with the Dominus, Lady Persis, Dillon, Anoush and Zagiri. “Ah,” she trilled, “here we are to see the newest members of our cojoined families.”

  Magnus Hauk stepped forward and took his son from the curve of Lara’s right arm. “I name this child, my first-born son, Taj, which means exalted.” He smiled down into the baby’s smooth little face. The boy’s eyes were tightly closed, his thick sandy lashes touching his cheek. The Dominus touched that smooth rosy cheek. “He is beautiful, Lara, thank you.”

  “And he looks just like you!” Lady Persis approved. “I am not so old that I do not remember the day that you were born in this very room, Magnus. I am well-pleased.”

  The Dominus handed Taj back to his mother with a smile. “And what have we here?” He took the infant girl from her mother’s left arm. “I name this child, my second-born daughter, Marzina, which was the name of her faerie ancestress whom she strongly resembles, Ilona tells me.” He turned to Lara. “You did not tell me you would give me both a son and a daughter, my love.”

  “We needed a son,” Lara said, “but I thought Zagiri would enjoy having a little sister to play with and I was not of a mind to wait, Magnus. I hope you are not too distressed with me. I wanted it to be a surprise for you.”

  Well done, my daughter, Ilona murmured silently.

  Where is Kaliq? I want an explanation! Lara snapped irritably.

  Patience, Ilona replied.

  The children now crowded about the bed so they might better see their new siblings. Anoush observed that Marzina looked more like her and Dillon with her tuft of dark hair while Taj was more like Zagiri and their mother and the Dominus. Dillon stared hard at his new sister and Lara knew he suspected something. Zagiri, however, was delighted to now be the big sister of not one, but two babies.

  “I shall compose a song for them,” she said. “Master Bashkar will help me.”

  “We must leave your mother to rest now,” Magnus Hauk said quietly. “She has had a busy time bearing your new brother and sister. Mila, take the twins to the nursery and arrange for another nursemaid to join the one chosen for Taj. Aminta, I thank you for your services. You will be well rewarded for this fine night’s work.” He turned to his mother and mother-in-law. “Leave me with my wife now, ladies.”

  Mila took each twin, placing them carefully in the willow basket, and hurried out in the company of the midwife. They were followed by the two grandmothers and the three children. Lara could not refrain from a giggle as she heard her mother-in-law say, “I don’t understand why you should have been in the birthing chamber, madam.”

  “Do not be silly,” Ilona replied tartly. “I am Lara’s mother. Where else would I be but at my beloved daughter’s side in her labors, Persis? Were you not with your daughters when they birthed your grandchildren?”

  The door closed behind them before Lara could hear Persis’s pithy answer.

  Magnus Hauk smiled, as amused by the two older women as his wife was. “They will always squabble for precedence,” he said. Then he bent and kissed Lara’s lips. “You looked tired, my love, as you well should be. But before I leave you to your rest I wanted you to know how delighted I am with your surprise. Taj will not be so babied growing up now that he has a sister by his side. You were clever to consider it.”

  “I did not realize she would look quite so different,” Lara answered him.

  He shook his head at her words. “She will indeed be a great beauty one day,” he noted. “And she is not really all that different from Anoush. Three beautiful daughters.” He smiled at her. “I am a happy man, my love.”

  Anoush’s father was dark-haired, Lara wanted to say, but she did not. This baby was nothing like Anoush, whose dark brown hair was lit with red and gold highlights. Marzina had hair that was blue-black. And skin that was too pale by far. She was clearly not a mortal child, while the boy that had shared Lara’s womb with her did possess mortal blood. Still, thanks to her mother’s words, no one thought it odd that this infant was so very different. And Magnus had easily accepted her and given Marzina her name.

  “I am glad you are happy, my lord,” Lara told her husband. Then she yawned and he jumped from the bed where he had been seated at her side.

  “I have been thoughtless,” he said, then he bent and kissed her again. “You need your rest, my love.” With a loving smile at her he left the room.

  Lara lay in the great bed looking out at the beautiful day. The sky was a clear, bright blue. The sun beamed down and it was obvious that spring was nearer today than it had been the day before. She needed to sleep but she could not. Not until she had some answers to the myriad questions troubling her.

  And then Kaliq stepped from the far shadows of the chamber and walked across the floor to sit by her side. “You will want to know what has happened, of course,” he said to her and he took her hand in his.

  “The female is not Magnus’s child,” Lara spoke. It was a statement, not a query.

  “Nay, she is not.”

  “How could this have happened?” Lara demanded of him. “And why?”

  “The why I do not know,” he said. “The how I can but surmise.”

  “Tell me,” Lara replied.

  “Do you remember when you met Kol upon the Dream Plain and he forced you? You wanted to know how such a thing could have happened when the Dream Plain is a neutral place. Do you recall what I told you then?”

  “You said he had taken the power of an incubus to be able to do what he did to me,” Lara said.

  “Precisely,” Kaliq said. “And when he assaulted you he left his seed within you. It waited until you were fertile with the Dominus’s son to reveal itself and grow along with the boy into the daughter you birthed this day, for Kol could not create another son.”

  “You are telling me that Marzina is Kol’s offspring?” Lara’s voice was shaking.

  The Shadow Prince nodded silently.

  “And is this, too, a part of my vaunted destiny, Kaliq?” she asked him bitterly.

  “Nay,” he said, wanting to reach out and enfold her in his arms. Wanting to comfort her, but knowing that if he did she would shatter. The past few years would have destroyed a mere mortal and they were now close to destroying Lara. He had to force her to be strong in the face of this news.

  “Then this is Kol’s revenge upon me,” Lara said softly. “I sent his kingdom into chaos by giving him twin sons. I would not mother those children. So he has forced another of his children upon me to be born with my husband’s son so I will have no other choice but
to mother it.” Silent tears began to slip down her face.

  “No one will ever know,” Kaliq said quietly.

  “I will know,” Lara told him bleakly. “How can I love this child, my dear lord and friend? How? Yet I will have to pretend so as not to raise questions over what would surely be considered my odd behavior in rejecting one child while adoring the other.”

  “Listen to me, Lara,” the Shadow Prince said sternly to her. “Marzina is innocent of her creation. And thanks to Ilona there will never be any questions about her strange beauty. Everyone believes, will believe, that she is Magnus’s daughter. The twin sister of the heir to Terah. Part of her is your creation and you will raise her as you have raised your other children. With love and with caring. With tradition and with manners. With a strong morality and the knowledge that in the end the light always outweighs the darkness. Kol has sought to revenge himself on you. You can turn the tables upon him by raising Marzina to be so filled with light that she will blind him should he ever come near her. And you are the only one who can do this, my love.”

  “Can I?” Lara wondered in bleak tones.

  “Yes,” the Shadow Prince said. “You can. You have always trusted me, Lara. Trust me now. You will not be harmed by loving this unexpected daughter of yours. And she is yours. Not Kol’s. Yours! I promise you as much as I can that he will never again harm you or anyone whom you love. I see now by simply confining him to his castle I gave him far too much freedom. I will correct that error in judgment. And the Keepers of the Dream Plain will forbid him entry from now on. With this evidence of his abuse, I have convinced them to do so.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Lara asked.

  “I will place him in the deepest, darkest part of Kolbyr. No one will know where he is, not even his faithful Alfrigg. He will be blinded and chained, without food or drink, for the next thousand years. No one will hear his cries for his vocal cords will be frozen so he will not be able to make any sounds at all. As for his offspring, Kolbein and Kolgrim, I will put it in Alfrigg’s mind once the Twilight Lord has disappeared that in order to protect Kol’s sons he must hide them in separate places until they are grown. At that point the factions shall once again rear up behind them and it will be a fight to the death to determine the next Twilight Lord. Unfortunately, even I have not the power to erase the darkness forever, my love.”

  “Who does?” Lara asked him.

  He laughed almost ruefully. “That task belongs to the mortal race,” he told her.

  “The Celestial Actuary has a sense of humor then,” Lara replied. Knowing that Kol would no longer be able to reach out to her, she was beginning to feel a little bit better about her situation. Kaliq was right. It wasn’t her newborn daughter’s fault how she had been created. Kol wasn’t Marzina’s father. Magnus was. And she was Marzina’s mother and she would love her child as she had not loved Kol’s sons. “Will Kol be able to dream?” she asked the Shadow Prince.

  “Nay. Each day and each night will be an eternal monotony for him though he will not know one from the other.”

  “Let him dream of me now and again,” Lara said. “And let the dreams be painful beyond measure for him. Let his two rods burn with a fire that cannot be quenched. Let the pain continue until he can get me out of his mind, my lord prince. I need to know that I have had my revenge on the Twilight Lord not for the destiny that was foretold for me, but for his assault upon me on the Dream Plain.”

  A slow smile lit Kaliq’s handsome face. “Thus speaks an icy faerie heart,” he said. “It will be done, my love. It is most worthy of you. When I tell Ilona she will be proud. And you will love the little princess? Your mother’s tale was quite clever.”

  “I will love her,” Lara promised. “And Ilona is nothing if not creative.”

  “I must go now,” Prince Kaliq said. “I would be in Hetar when Vilia births her son. Jonah will shortly have an heir.”

  “Will Vilia survive? She is not a young woman,” Lara remarked.

  “Vilia will more than survive,” Kaliq told her. “She will thrive.” He bent and kissed her forehead. “Sleep now, my love,” he said, smiling as her eyes closed and she slumbered. Then stepping into the shadows from whence he had come, he was gone from her. Now he stood in the darkness of a corner in the house of Hetar’s Lord High Ruler as the lady Vilia gave birth to her son. Kaliq muttered a soft incantation so that the lady who had just begun her labor would birth the child quickly. To everyone’s surprise Vilia did just that. Her labor was swift and virtually painless.

  “It is a boy!” the midwife screamed joyfully, catching the baby as it was expelled from its mother and holding it high for all to see. The infant screamed loudly.

  The room was crowded with Jonah, Lady Gillian, Lady Farah and several of his most devoted supporters from the magnate class along with several of the magnates who up to now had not supported Jonah. Jonah’s half sisters were present, as was Vilia’s family led by her uncle, Cubert Ahasferus, along with Aubin Prospero and his two sisters and their husbands. The Lord High Ruler of Hetar had made certain that there would be no doubt about his son’s birth. As the child howled, the audience to his birth clapped their congratulations.

  Jonah took the baby, still covered with blood and birthing fluids, into his hands, and holding him up again declared, “I accept this child as my son. He shall be called Egon, the formidable one. None shall stand successfully against him.”

  The audience again clapped wildly.

  The infant was taken back by the midwife, cleaned and then put with his mother.

  The guests to his birth then departed the chamber, leaving Jonah alone with his wife. When the infant cried, Vilia put him to her breast, and when he tugged upon it a great rush of maternal love overwhelmed her and tears filled her eyes.

  “You may nurse him for one month until you have regained your strength again,” Jonah told his wife. “I have already chosen a wet nurse, my dear one.” Seeing the protest in her eyes he continued, “I need you to return to your work with the women of Hetar. Remember that in three months we shall hold our first elections. I want at least half of those elected to be of the fair sex.”

  “You chose a wet nurse? I think you mean your mother chose one,” Vilia said sharply. “I will choose my own wet nurse for Egon. One I can trust not to poison our child through her milk.” She gazed down adoringly at the infant. “Is he not beautiful, Jonah? And look at that midnight-black hair of his. It is like silk to the touch.”

  “He is very pale,” Jonah noted. “You are certain he is healthy?”

  “He suckles strongly, my dear lord,” Vilia assured her husband.

  “I like watching you nurse him,” Jonah said. “I am jealous, however. One month, Vilia, and no more. I mean it.”

  “You want to suck upon my nipples yourself,” she taunted him.

  “And stuff you with my manhood,” he replied bluntly.

  “You have my permission to visit the Pleasure Houses,” Vilia said sweetly.

  “Nay! I have not these last months and I will not. I will lust for you until we couple again, my wife. There is no weakness in me as there is in other men,” he told her.

  Vilia smiled archly at him. “Nay, there is not. Nor was there ever. That is why I fell in love with you all those years ago, Jonah. You are strong. You do not give in to your baser nature as Gaius Prospero did. You know what you want and you take it and you hold it. In one month I shall turn Egon over to a wet nurse of my own choosing. And I will give you pleasures beyond measure as we work together to rebuild Hetar.”

  He smiled one of his rare smiles at her. “You are indeed the most perfect woman for me, my love,” he told her. Then kissing her brow, he arose, saying, “You will want to take your rest now. I will send the child’s nursemaid to take him. Sleep well, my lovely Vilia. I am well pleased with you.”

  She watched him go, and then handed over her new son to his nursemaid with the instruction, “Bring him to me when he hungers again.”

&nb
sp; “Yes, my lady,” the woman said and hurried out with the now sleeping infant.

  From his place in the shadows Prince Kaliq had seen and heard all that he needed to, so he slipped silently away back to Shunnar.

  Vilia lay back in her bed and considered the road that lay ahead of her. The creature who had called himself her cousin had not lied to her. She had birthed a son, an heir for Hetar. She wondered if she would ever see Kol again. She had never known that her ancestress, Ulla, had shared the sorcerer’s affections with another. Another who had given a son. That part of Ulla’s history had never come down to her female descendants but then Ulla would not have wanted it known that she shared a husband with another woman. Was Kol’s line a male one as her line had been a female one?

  Vilia remembered the time just before her marriage to Gaius Prospero. She had always known the history of Ulla as handed down to all the females in her family. What she had not known and was then told was that in each generation a single female was said to carry the sorcerer’s blood more strongly than her female siblings and cousins. That female was identified by a small black birthmark in the shape of a star on her left shoulder. Vilia had that mark. And her mother had whispered to her, it had been foretold that the twelfth generation would rule Hetar. Of course her mother, being a properly raised Hetarian woman, believed that Vilia would rule through her husband and so had Vilia. Only the women in her family knew these secrets. Not even her uncle Cubert, the current patriarch, was aware of it.

  For now, however, Vilia mused as she lay in her comfortable bed, she would allow Jonah to rule for her. She sensed that her time had not quite come. She wondered if the Domina of Terah had birthed her son yet. Tomorrow she would advise Jonah to send a message to Lara and Magnus Hauk that Hetar had a strong young heir. They should cultivate closer ties with Terah. By the time Egon was grown Hetar would be restored to its glory, and if he and the Dominus’s heir were friends, might it not be easier to betray and conquer? With those happy thoughts in her head Vilia fell into a deep sleep.