"Dalla!" Rain hissed at Gren's mother. "You know to be respectful!"
"But they say that my Gren invited an evil in and now that evil has stolen him away. I say they killed my son and are making up lies to cover their crime!"
"Dalla, you are the one making up lies," Tiearan breathed a tortured sigh. Gren had been before him all along and Tiearan had never gone looking for the root of the boy's unexpected surge in power. He'd thought Gren had suddenly chosen to apply himself. He couldn't have been more wrong. "I have checked this myself. I believe that the Queen does not realize the damage as yet, so we will attempt to set it right. Gren tapped into the core somehow. Most likely, at the insistence and with the instruction of the one who spirited him away from here. I was remiss in not looking for the reason behind his increased power. Yes, he displayed ability that I previously thought he did not possess. I admit I was hoping that he was one of the multitalented—we have none of those remaining, now."
"Except for you," Rain dipped her head respectfully to Tiearan.
"He did not get this from the sun crystal?" Gren's father was bewildered. "He told me you were allowing him to use it."
"Not until there at the last, and then only a tiny amount. Nothing that would have enabled him to do as he did," Tiearan muttered.
"So, what will you have us do, since you are so sure my son is at fault?" Dalla wasn't giving up on her son's innocence.
"Your Gren allowed his mind to wander and it was ensnared by an evil. Do not think I have my head in the pastures all the time," Father Willow snapped. "All of you—I am ashamed to call you Fae. You betrayed yourselves the moment you chose to take that child. We all know of the mistake made after that. Then, when judgment was promised to all of us, we began to grumble and place the blame on the boy when it was our fault. Those words of blame were spoken in front of your children, were they not? What did your child do as a result, Dalla? Redbird, you should have sent that boy home long ago. Yet you remained selfish, and here we are. Tiearan, when you are ready to form the Circle, call me. I will be with my animals until then. They do not deceive." Father Willow stalked out of Tiearan's home.
"We still have two of ours in the Queen's dungeons," Clover's mother wept. "What will become of them?"
"It was your son who got my Laral in this trouble," Laral's mother pointed an accusing finger at Dalla. "If he dies, his blood will be on your hands."
"Stop this! Stop now!" Tiearan tried to calm the chaos erupting inside his home.
* * *
"Yes, good," Master Morwin nodded in approval as he looked over Toff's report. "See, the Fae thought to protect themselves by placing one of their own upon the throne. Tell me what happened after that, young one."
Toff had never had lessons such as these. In the Fae village, he'd memorized his lessons and did his sums and such. Morwin was forcing him to think things through.
"Well, the Fae were peaceful and did not engage in violence," Toff was well acquainted with that concept, having lived among the Green Fae all that time. "King Corle, being Fae and not human as he appeared to the others, did not know how to lead his people into battle when he was attacked from the other side. The enemy overran his kingdom and then attacked the Fae forests, killing most of the Fae and destroying their forests and fields. The Fae should have left things as they were and tried to approach the real King Corle instead of taking him and placing a changeling in his stead. Master Morwin, did you hand me this assignment because it closely parallels my own situation?"
Morwin grinned, wiggling his bushy red eyebrows. "Yes, young one. You see this isn't the first time the Fae have made a mistake."
"I know that now," Toff sighed.
* * *
"I have information." Ry said the words in a singsong voice as he waved his comp-vid at Toff and Tory. Toff was slipping into clean clothing after working at the winery all afternoon. Dinner was fast approaching and he had to get ready.
"What's that?" Tory swiped at Ry's comp-vid, almost taking it from his brother's hand.
"I have information on the woman Shadow was supposed to marry and have children with." Ry's smile was wide. He was proud of himself for tracking this down.
"Who was she? Is she still around?" Tory flopped onto Toff's bed—his space was in the center of their shared suite so it was easier just to meet there.
"Melida of Belancour," Ry said.
"Get out," Tory laughed. "The Belancour Clan? Ry, sometimes your looks make me forget you have brain cells."
"Dad says that's the objective," Ry laughed.
"What? Belancour? Who are they?" Toff asked, confused. He'd never heard that name, but being sheltered inside the Fae village had kept him from many things.
"They turn out midlevel wizardry," Ry replied, making himself comfortable against Toff's thick pillows. "Nothing near what Grey House can do or a couple of other houses. Their big thing is spelled jewelry. It protects against minor attacks, but if you want the good stuff, you go to Grey House."
"And it's ugly," Tory added. "Everybody knows you went to Belancour if you get a look at the jewelry."
"Sissy says it's overpriced, too. For what it does." Ry agreed. "They charge about three-quarters the price of a Grey House piece, for half the protection." Toff drew his blackened jewel from beneath his tunic—he refused to take it off. It had turned an even darker black, resembling obsidian.
"Toff, have we ever told you how lucky you were that Sissy made that and was able to rekey it to you?" Tory grinned at Toff.
"I'd be dead now," Toff nodded solemnly, tucking the jewel back inside his shirt.
"Worth the price," Ry sighed.
"So, Melida of Belancour," Tory whispered as they walked down the lengthy, marble-floored corridors to reach the dining hall.
"The records don't give much," Ry hissed while Toff and Tory listened. "Grey House forced a writ of detachment, when they found out Melida was pregnant with somebody else's whelp when she got to Grey House. Melida's lying about the Cloudsong stuff didn't do her any good, either."
"Don't say any of this around Mom," Tory whispered to Toff as they made a turn into the dining hall. Toff nodded. He knew how the information might be hurtful.
* * *
"Ry?" Toff, already dressed in pajamas, slipped inside Ry's bedroom.
"What, bro?" Ry looked up from a game he was playing on his handheld.
"While ago, you said that Grey House got a writ of detachment for that woman. I didn't know what that meant, so I looked it up on my comp-vid."
"Yeah? Did you find what you wanted?"
"Yes." Toff sat on the edge of Ry's bed. "But I'm confused. You only need a writ of detachment if you are already married." Ry's fingers stilled on his game keys.
"Holy crap," Ry muttered and sent a shouted mental message to his brother.
* * *
"I have no use for him." Marid of Belancour paced in front of the magistrate. "He's, well, he's not right. We've not even bothered to teach him, because of this. Now that he's orphaned after his mother's accident. I want to turn him over to the state."
"I don't like this—the state can't arbitrarily accept children just because a family doesn't want them. What about his father?"
"Melida wouldn't say who the father was. Never gave that information."
"She was never married?"
"Twice. Her first mate was killed; the second one forced a writ of detachment."
"Who was the second one? Was she pregnant while married to either of her mates?"
"She was pregnant while married to both, although her second mate wasn't the child's father."
The magistrate stared at Marid of Belancour. He remembered all too well the legal debacle on Cloudsong. He huffed out a sigh and pulled up the legal records for their home planet of Shaaliveer.
* * *
Lissa's Journal
"A letter from the judicial system on Shaaliveer," My assistant, Grant, dropped the envelope on my desk. "How are you feeling?" he added. With a worrie
d frown and an eyebrow lifted, he asked the logical question. Likely it was because my face was turning a pale shade of green.
"Queasy," I muttered, holding a hand against my belly.
"Do I need to get someone?" Grant was backing up. He was vampire, just as Heathe, my other assistant was. His nose, like any vampire's, was quite sensitive. "Lissa, are you going to hurl?" he asked in alarm.
I didn't answer; I was too busy losing my breakfast in the wastebasket. Grant was out the door and shouting for a healer in less time than it took to blink.
* * *
"Nissa?" Shadow stood in the doorway of Nissa's tiny workshop—Calebert had given it to her to learn alongside Frimus, a Second-Tier Wizard who taught some of Calebert's more promising students.
"Daddy?" Nissa looked up from her work—she'd been imprinting a spelled design into a gold-washed sword pommel.
"Nissa, come with me, baby, your Great-Grampa wants to see us." Shadow held out his hand. Nissa finished off the spell she'd just done on a whorl design before setting the heavy sword aside. Nissa felt her stomach tighten. Was Great-Grampa going to send her down to her former level? She was working as quickly as she could.
"Baby, this doesn't have anything to do with your work. Calebert says you're doing fine—he just has to make sure you understand exactly what he wants from you, otherwise you tend to do too much. He has to reel in your talent so it's suitable for the job at hand." Shadow actually smiled at Nissa.
"Good," Nissa sighed with relief. "Do you know what Great-Grampa wants?"
"Not much of it. We need to hear it from him, I think."
Nissa walked beside her father as they traversed the endless halls and corridors of Grey House. Protected by wizardry and enlarged too many times to count, Grey House filled nearly the whole side of a huge mountain. Grey Planet was small—as small as a planet might be and still be considered a planet. Surrounded by spells and wizardry of Greys uncounted, it appeared to anyone without talent as a burned-out asteroid circling its sun. Nissa had seen the beauty of the mountain range surrounding them since she'd first been taken outside Grey House as a small child. Nissa reached over and slipped her hand inside her father's much larger one as they walked along. Shadow Grey squeezed her fingers lightly and held on.
* * *
Lissa's Journal
"Lissa, are you well?" Gavin was there in moments, but Karzac had already arrived and removed the offending smell (along with the wastebasket) from my study with power. I leaned back in my chair, a cool cloth draped over my forehead. Karzac was kneeling next to the chair and stroking my belly while light formed around his fingers.
"Better now," I mumbled.
"Sometimes we just have to deal with this," Karzac said softly, making slow circles over my skin.
"Gavin?"
"Cara mia?"
"Open that envelope on my desk—the one from the courts on Shaaliveer."
Gavin lifted the envelope—it was heavy and bore the crest of the Shaaliveeran judicial system on the front. Forming a vampire claw on a single finger, he slit it open carefully and drew out the contents.
* * *
"Daddy, we already found out about it—Tory and Ry had to do an assignment over the economic impact that Trell's destruction had on the Alliance. One thing led to another." Nissa toed a carved leg of Great-Grampa Glendes' desk. The leg resembled the head of a sea serpent. She wasn't looking at her father, her grandfather Raffian, who'd also come, or her great-grandfather. She was worried she'd be in trouble for the information she held.
"Nissa, they are offering Melida's child to us. And to your mother, since she was Shadow's other mate at the time. Melida was married to your father for a short period of time, although they were never close." Glendes looked across his desk at his great-granddaughter. He should be holding her in his lap or next to him to deliver this news. Why had he held back all this time? The poor child looked completely lost. Nissa held so much of her mother in her. Glendes sighed.
"Are you going to take him? Or her?" Nissa amended her first supposition.
"Nissa, this child will be turned over to the courts on Shaaliveer if someone doesn't come forward."
"Does he have talent? Why won't his other family keep him?" Nissa didn't understand this. The mindspeech she'd gotten from Tory indicated that the Belancours were doing fine.
"We don't know what he has—they haven't bothered to send him through the rite." Glendes slid a photograph across the desk toward his granddaughter. Nissa glanced briefly at Glendes before lifting the photo. She gasped at the image.
* * *
Lissa's Journal
"Lissa, do not hyperventilate—I only got your stomach calmed down," Karzac was attempting to get my head pointed toward my knees.
"What," I wheezed, "did those idiots," another wheeze, "think they were doing?" I was breathing with difficulty and trying to straighten up at the same time. Karzac shoved me down again.
"Lissa, you should have waited to go Looking," Karzac scolded gently.
"She," I huffed, "took," another wheeze this time, "drugs." I started coughing.
"Love, do not distress yourself," Connegar appeared, causing Gavin and Karzac to step aside. Connegar knelt beside my chair and placed one hand on my forehead, the other on my abdomen. "There, that's right," Connegar soothed as a calming light formed around me. "Take this one as yours, Lissa, and Reemagar and I may be able to set some things right."
"But he's fifteen," I wailed in distress.
"Does that mean he needs love less?"
"No." I reached up to wipe away the tear that insisted on falling. "Connegar, what are we to do?"
"Hush, now, the Wizards of Grey House are here. With your daughter."
Chapter 11
Trikleer Belancour stared at his shoes. One was larger than the other. It didn't matter—he couldn't walk anyway—the smaller foot was attached to a shorter, withered leg. One of his hands, too, looked the same—withered and nearly useless. Trik had learned to feed and dress himself one-handed over the years. He ghosted about the Belancour Manor—the lower level of it anyway, in a motorized chair.
Since his mother's death, none of the family bothered to speak to him. Even Melida had gone for days without speaking to her only child. Marid, Trik's grandfather, refused outright to test Trik for talent. Trik had overheard too many conversations during his fifteen years. Conversations that always began with "He's useless without both his hands."
Trik had come to hate those words. His right hand wasn't completely useless. He used it to brace things, or he could grasp lightly, if it were clothing to be slipped on. Trik used every bit of what he had to the best of his ability. He'd taught himself, too—thankfully, someone had shown him his letters early and he'd picked up reading quickly. They wouldn't have bothered, otherwise. Now, he often sneaked into his grandfather's library at night, pulling down books that wouldn't be missed with a pole he'd devised himself, with a little help from two younger cousins. It would reach up and grasp things that were too high for him to get any other way. Family members usually grumbled if he asked them to do it for him.
Now, he'd been asked to dress nicely for visitors. For Trik, it was his nicest outfit, handed down from one of his cousins. Seev had outgrown just about everything, and this particular tunic and pair of pants hadn't seen much wear before Seev needed something larger. Trik hadn't asked why he needed to dress nicely—he'd heard the whispers. If these people didn't take him, he'd be sent off to one of the state-run homes and spend the rest of his natural life there, an oddity that nobody wanted.
* * *
Toff had seen the photographs, just as Ry and Tory had. Tory swallowed hard at the image; Ry's expression had been grim. Toff's heart thumped painfully in his chest—here was likely another who'd been bullied and ignored because he didn't have what the others did. Now, Toff stood between Queen Lissa and Roff, while Tory and Ry stood with their fathers. Karzac had come, too, with Connegar and Reemagar.
Toff learned how
easy it was for the Larentii to disguise themselves. They looked like any other humanoid, now. They were waiting in a reception area of Belancour Manor until the contingent from Grey House arrived. A Belancour Wizard—an old woman, stood near the door, waiting for all of them to gather before taking them to see Trikleer Belancour.
"Toff?" Nissa's voice was almost breathless when she tapped him on the shoulder. Toff's grin was wide with relief as he hugged Nissa, lifting her off the floor the moment he turned around. He'd been afraid she wouldn't be allowed to come.
"I missed you," Nissa whispered in Toff's ear as he set her down again. Nissa stepped back and adjusted her finely woven tunic; the fabric was dyed a beautiful shade of green. Toff thought Nissa looked very pretty in it.
"Come with me," the female wizard snapped, bringing Toff's attention back to their mission. He thought he heard a slight snicker from Lissa before they all moved forward.
"Straighten up, Trikleer," Marid ordered sternly as Trik leaned over a bit to catch a first glimpse of the group of people walking toward Marid's private study. Trik stared, his mouth open. The woman was stunning. And the man standing near her, did he have wings? Marid hadn't given him any information regarding the identities of these people—he'd only said that his mother had ties to them somehow, and since Marid could no longer keep him in his home, he would either go to these people or to the state facility. After getting a good look at these, however, Trik knew what his fate would be. All these people were whole and pleasing to look upon. Trik had none of that. They would turn him away without even speaking to him. That's why he was shocked throughout when the woman walked up to him, took his withered hand in hers and said, "Hello, Trikleer. Are you well today?"
* * *
"Call me Trik," Trik had no idea how he'd come to be seated between the woman who'd introduced herself as Lissa, and a man who said his name was Connegar. Trik thought that slightly humorous—someone had named his son in the Larentii fashion. Everyone knew Larentii names always ended in "gar." They were having luncheon at Marid's formal table today—Marid ordered an appropriate meal for his guests, at least.
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