stricken look touched Ilona’s beautiful face. “You will be careful, Cirillo,” she said to him, her hand touching his silken sleeve. “And you must come quickly back, for your father will give me no peace until you are safely again within our forest kingdom.”
“I’m being asked to find a door, Mama, not fight Belmair’s dragon,” Cirillo said patiently to his mother. He patted the hand clutching his sleeve.
“You are sometimes reckless, Cirillo,” Ilona said. “I would simply beg you remember that you are heir to our forest kingdom.”
“I will remember,” he promised her. Then he turned to Kaliq. “Can we go now, my lord?” And he stepped next to the Shadow Prince.
“We can,” Kaliq said, enfolding them both in his cloak, and before either Ilona or Lara could say another word the two men were gone.
To Lara’s amazement her mother gave a little sob. “Mother!”
“He is my baby,” Ilona said, and she wiped a single tear away. “I am allowed a tear now and again, Lara. The last time I wept one was the day I left you.”
“He will be all right,” Lara comforted her mother. “And he will be with both Kaliq and Dillon. He’ll return in a day or two with all sorts of gossip about Belmair, and you will enjoy listening to him spin his tales of adventure.”
“Do not speak to me as if I am some old woman,” Ilona snapped, her composure restored. Then, “Are you going home now?”
“Nay, I think I shall remain with you for a few days, Mother, if you would not mind my company,” Lara told her. “Magnus has taken Taj to visit his uncle at the Temple of the Great Creator, and Anoush is watching her sisters.”
“Well,” Ilona allowed, “I suppose it would be nice to have your company. It has been some time since we have had a good visit. Every time I go to Terah that wretched old cat, Persis, invades your castle, and we have no time together. Yes. Remain if you choose. I do not object,” the queen of the Forest Faeries said. “What gossip do you have?”
“Hetar wants Marzina for Egon, but Kaliq says no,” Lara replied.
“He is right,” Ilona answered. “I hear the boy is a little tyrant. Have you heard that a civil war has broken out in the Dark Lands between the adherents of your twin sons?”
“I don’t want to know,” Lara said in a hard voice. “They are Kol’s, not mine.”
“You birthed them,” Ilona reminded her daughter. “Everything is going quite nicely, my daughter. Kol remains imprisoned where none can reach him, and his brats have begun a war to further disrupt the Dark Lands. No one knows where they are, of course, but each of them has his adherents. They quarrel for supremacy. Eventually, of course, when they reach maturity in a few more years they will come into the open, and then, Lara, the real fun will begin. One of them will have to be killed, and since neither of them under their own laws can destroy the other it will be both fascinating and exciting to learn which one will survive. It could take years before the Dark Lands are again in a position to threaten the rest of Hetar. You did a great service, my daughter. Because of you the light is stronger than the dark,” Ilona concluded.
“It is a part of my life I can never forget, Mother,” Lara told her parent, “but I do not wish to remember, either. Please do not remind me of it.”
“Then we will speak on your half brother, Mikhail. He has been elected to the High Council as a representative for the Crusader Knights,” Ilona said. “And he is, it seems, quite respected. Your wretched stepmother, of course, is not satisfied. She wanted him to follow in your father’s footsteps. Her other four roughnecks are all in training, for as the sons of John Swiftsword they are entitled to places within the ranks of the Crusader Knights. Mikhail holds a position among them, but prefers to serve within the political venue as opposed to the military. Of course none of your stepmother’s brats will ever be the swordsman your father was,” Ilona said smugly.
“Hopefully the Crusader Knights will never be needed again,” Lara told her mother. “The women of Hetar are slowly but most surely gaining equal power with the men. But it is a waiting game, I fear. In the meantime it is good that young men like Mikhail are willing to serve on the council. We speak now and again, and he is a forward-thinking man. I will forever be grateful to my father for telling him of me when Susanna would not. When he came to me on the battlefield after we had defeated Kol’s army of darkness to tell me that John Swiftsword was dead, and that he had been proud of me…” Lara own eyes grew teary with the memory. “I promised myself then that I would stay in contact with him no matter my stepmother, and I have.”
“He is a fortunate mortal to have you as his half sister. Did you tell him of your father’s faerie blood?” Ilona asked.
“Aye,” Lara said, “and he laughed when I did. He said it would be our secret, and he would not reveal it to his brothers or his mother. Mikhail is a good man.”
“How long do you think Kaliq will keep Cirillo away?” Ilona said, changing the subject. “I imagine if it is not too long Thanos need not know until after the fact.”
Lara laughed. “I think you are safe keeping Cirillo’s whereabouts from his father. As long as Thanos is involved in his arboretum you will be safe from his curiosity, Mother. The trees are his passion, aren’t they? So let us, you and I, enjoy ourselves these next few days while our men are about other things.”
Ilona smiled. “I never thought to have a friend in my daughter, Lara, but I can see that I do. Aye! We will drink wine and eat sweetmeats and do the outrageous things that women love to do. I have these two marvelous mortal masseurs I have enchanted. Shall I call upon them?” And the queen of the Forest Faeries smiled wickedly.
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