Priests from the temple quickly came aboard to see that the entire ship was torched. Taj Hauk sliced through the ropes holding the boat to the stone quay. A light wind sprang up, and the flames began to leap higher as the vessel slipped out into the fjord and began to move downstream.
The young Dominus in the company of Corrado, the men of the family and specially chosen male guests would follow the ship out to sea, escorting it until it was burned to the waterline and sank. Lara invited the women of the family to return to the castle and watch the burning boat until it was no longer visible. They came, of course, but only Lara stood watching from a garden terrace until the flames were no longer visible. She struggled to sense his presence, but Magnus Hauk had truly gone for good. He had not lingered. Once more she wept softly, alone, for she wanted no comfort now. She needed to release her grief entirely so that she might be clearheaded, and better able to aid her son as he began his rule.
Corrado’s ship did not return that night. The mourners began to return to their own homes. Aselma and Narda would have remained waiting for Armen and Tostig, but their mother told them no. She promised them that Lara would return their husbands to them by means of her magic, but they must go. “I am going, too. And Sirvat, as well.”
As she saw her mother-in-law off Lara thanked her.
Lady Persis smiled the first kind smile she had ever smiled at Lara. “You need time to gather your strength, my daughter. Remember I know the truth of my son’s last wishes, and will keep your secrets. I will return when Taj is formally crowned.” Then she kissed Lara upon both cheeks with her cold, dry lips.
“She puts me to shame by her example,” Lara’s mother, Ilona, said sourly. “Come back to the forest with me. The old witch is right. You do need to gather your strength.”
“Your realm has never given me strength,” Lara replied. “I need to be here. Terah is from where I take my strength.”
“Let me have Marzina, then, for a brief time,” Ilona said.
“Not yet, Mother. Marzina needs to be with her brother and sisters now. I will send her to you in time,” Lara promised.
“You are so protective of that child,” Ilona complained. “I am her grandmother, after all. She is pure magic, and I have much to teach her, Lara.”
Lara felt a stab of irritation. “I wish you had been as thoughtful of me when I was her age,” she said. Then she relented. “Marzina is fortunate to have you, Mother.”
“Of course she is,” Ilona said calmly. “Do you think Persis can teach her anything of value? Persis would teach her to be obedient to male domination, and how to make conserves, and sugared violets. Bah! Marzina is magic, and I will teach her how to use it. With her bloodline she will be a great sorceress when she is grown.”
“She is Magnus’s daughter, a Terahn princess,” Lara replied in an even voice.
Ilona laughed. We know better, you and I, she said in the silent language.
Lara grew pale. You are cruel to remind me, Mother. Marzina must never know that the Twilight Lord violated me upon the Dream Plain when I was carrying Taj, and set his seed to bloom in me so that she was born when Taj was. You told everyone who would listen when I birthed her that she favored a Nix ancestress. No one has ever questioned her birth. Aye, magic courses through her veins, but the Twilight Lord was an evil being. I will not deny Marzina her talent, but I want it used only for good. Once you begin to teach her serious magic who knows what will be unleashed in her, Lara said.
And only you or I can educate her to control any wickedness that may arise in her, the Queen of the Forest Faeries replied.
“She is still too young,” Lara answered.
“She is thirteen,” Ilona responded.
“Let our lives settle themselves back into a normal pattern. I will send her to you before the next Icy Season,” Lara promised her mother.
“It is agreed, then,” Ilona said. “Farewell, Daughter.” And she was gone in a burst of purple smoke.
Lara sighed with relief. But for her daughters the castle was now empty of all guests. Everyone had returned home but for those with Corrado. She sought for her daughters, finding them in her private garden. It was a small, pretty space on a promontory that overlooked the Dominus’s Fjord. On three sides of the garden high, vine-covered walls offered a view of the water. On the fourth side a castle tower soared into the skies above. Lara slipped off her shoes before walking out onto the fresh green grass where Anoush, Zagiri and Marzina were now seated near a bed of bright yellow and white spring flowers. A small nearby miniature almond tree was in bloom, its pink blossoms delicately scenting the air. Lara came and sat with them.
“It seems strange without Father here,” Zagiri said softly.
“I cannot sense him at all,” Marzina agreed.
“He has gone,” Lara told them. “Sometimes spirits will linger, but his did not. I do not know why that is, but it is.”
“It hurt too much to stay,” Anoush told her companions. “He told me that before he went. He did not want any of us to stand still as if waiting for his return. He wanted us all to move forward with our lives.”
“Can you sense him at all?” Lara asked her eldest daughter.
Anoush shook her head. “He is gone, Mother.”
“His vessel must have gone far that those accompanying it are not yet back,” Zagiri noted. “It was a magnificent Farewell. I wonder that more Terahns do not do it.”
“Not all Terahns have access to the sea, or have vessels to burn,” Lara replied. “Usually such Farewells are reserved for a Dominus and his family.”
“What will we do now?” Marzina wondered.
“Our lives will continue as they always have,” Lara told her daughters.
“How can they without Father?” Marzina responded anxiously. “Nothing will ever be the same again, Mother! Nothing!”
“You are correct,” Lara said. “Nothing will ever be the same as it has been with Magnus Hauk in our midst. It will be totally different, and yet it will also be familiar. Although your father has left us, it does not mean we will change the pattern of our days. Tomorrow you and Zagiri will begin your lessons once again, and Anoush will prepare for her annual trek to the New Outlands to visit her father’s family. If Taj is back then he will resume his studies once more. Your father would not want us to stop living because he is no longer living.”
“Taj is the Dominus now,” Marzina replied. “Why should he need to continue studying? He is his own man.”
“Taj is still a boy, and his capacity for knowledge will never be satisfied, for he is like his father,” Lara said. “Besides, no man, or woman for that matter, should rule from a position of ignorance, Marzina. And none of us should ever stop learning.”
“You don’t know half of what you will need to know to be a good Terahn wife,” Zagiri remarked. “Even I still have much to learn, and I am four years your senior.”
“I do not need to know any more about cooking and soap making,” Marzina said scornfully. “I want to learn more magic. Grandmother Ilona has promised to teach
