The Countess smiled and gave the girl another hug.
“Anything you want. Either of you, seriously. If we have it, or can get it for you, it's yours for the asking.” Turning to the short builder she grimaced a little and let out a gust of air.
“Tor… Alissa, would you please excuse me for a moment? I fear my position requires me to impart some bad news to one of your ship’s crew. I hate this part of the job, I really do.” Her eyes took on a dark tone, somber and regal at the same time.
She didn't hesitate though, hating the duty or not, walking straight to David Derring and speaking softly for a few seconds, her right hand on his upper arm gently. After a bit he said something to her, and then broke out into a grin. Then he half tackled the Countess in a hug, swinging her around happily.
“Whooooo! That fucking bastard is dead! I'm finally free! Gretchen! We're safe, we're free! It's true, the official call to mourning has gone out already! Dad's dead!” He didn't dance around, but he pumped his fist with glee and Ali clapped rapidly.
From across the winding path Dara ran over and started celebrating with them, picking Ali up in a hug and swinging her around, then grabbing Davie and pounding him on the back hard. After a few minutes David gave her a slightly funny look. It had a smile at first, still happy, but faded to something more somber after a moment.
“I'm glad that you're happy too, and trust me, if you're ever going to be pleased over any death, this is the one to celebrate, but… did you know him? He… didn't harm you or yours, did he?” His jaw clenched and the words tightened when he asked. It was all too possible that his father had done horrible things to her. It showed on his face.
She dropped the disguise and the giant boy whooped again.
“Karen! You were with us all this time? Thank god, I was so worried he'd gotten you! Oh, gods… I have both of you back.”
If there were tears then, no one bothered to notice them overly.
That led to a retelling of the whole tale, for everyone that wanted to listen, their friends, Countess Printer and even the towns people. None of them hide anything of note or left things out. Tor cried and celebrated the man’s death himself then, even with the reek of death filling his nose and hearing a whisper of the dead man’s voice in his ears. Accusing him angrily.
It was worth it.
Completely and totally.
Tor hugged his new family in their “grief” and helped them plan what to do next.
Chapter thirteen
The capital was much as he left it, Tor noted, no new attacks or Major remodeling when he was gone. They'd even left the purple glowing river along the top of the city wall for some reason. People could, Tor supposed, use it for water, if they could reach it, but really it was too high to be anything but a decoration for most people. He could rig water pumps to carry the fresh water to cisterns for people if he got a chance. Fresh water never really hurt as long as nothing flooded.
If they were clever about it they could shunt the water off and use it for massive growing projects…
His house was smaller, now that it didn't have to hold four hundred and sixty odd extra people, the Wards having returned home nearly a month before, the day after the rest of them went off to Printer. The events had all been taken down, even the waterfall mountain, which was a shame, since it really broke up the otherwise empty skyline. Tor thought so at least. What did he know though? The wide open sky was pretty too, but a little plain, dressed only in its blue or gray.
Petra didn't go with everyone else from Kolb's group when they left for Wilderness Station, getting permission to stay with him, to help work on his fighting skills. Since he still wasn't working on anything building wise yet she'd decided to take advantage of it and push him to a new level.
By killing him over and over again apparently. She followed the old pattern, him running a lot farther than he wanted too, followed by lifting heavy stones until he couldn't lift even the little ten pound ones. Then, she, Karen and Davie would take turns beating him, or at times, they'd go after him all at once. Even with all that, paying more attention now and actually trying to improve, rather than letting the others beat him into it like at school, Tor slowly got better. That or the others were being nice to him for some reason. It was possible he knew.
Karen didn't tell anyone that he'd had her father killed, he'd checked with her just to make sure, but the man suddenly dying like he had earned some attention. Even the King raised an eyebrow when they talked about how coincidental it was. Tor had a problem with the man and left for a month, then, like magic, the man suddenly died… Tor shrugged, something far too casual for a King to see, but so automatic he couldn't help it really.
“People do pass away like that though. He was flying and crashed. No one saw it, but I've told people for a long time that you need to both have a shield and use it if you want to be safe. It's a little odd, but people can mess up. I've done it myself a few times, hitting my shield to turn it on, but really turning it off instead. It's one of the reasons for the new shields I made.”
It wasn't lying if Richard never asked, was it? And the monarch was so very careful not to. Maybe it didn't occur to him, since Tor and three of the man's own children had been either in Afrak or coming and going. Everyone agreed that they couldn't have done anything from there, could they? Rich really seemed suspicious though. Like he knew something.
Maybe he did. After all, his own spy, Trice, had set the whole thing up. She might have simply reported it. If so, then the King was backing his play, at least in private. If not Tor couldn't tell him, or the man would have to take action.
It was a law after all.
The chair Tor sat in was soft enough, and had nice wood working on the arms, smooth and hard. That was a good thing, because the Queen was asking him about his marriage pointedly. Her words a bit sharper than normal. It gave him something to grab on to while he tried to not react outwardly.
“So, now that the girls safe and sound, when will you be getting an annulment? Even if you consummated it so publicly the King can still end it for you, especially since you were responding to a known and intractable threat. You had to do it, of course, but now, well… No one expects you to stay married in a case like this.” Her tone implied that Tor had better be planning to dump the girl, or else they were going to have problems.
They were going to have problems then. He took a breath.
“Ali's going to Lairdgren next month and I decided to go back myself. I'll take lessons during the day and do my building work in the evenings and on break days. The enrollment should be going back up with the scholarships and hopefully, if we can get the proper letters to the Denno Brown, the Austrans will give up on killing me personally. Then we just need to figure out why they're at war with us at all and see if we can't smooth that over. That or destroy them well enough they don't come back for a few generations.”
Connie stared at him with real anger in her eyes. Rage, her breath coming in short pants, the King blinked at her.
“Dear? Are you all right?” He asked calmly.
She started shaking a little, her hands mostly, anger running through her, growing with each passing moment.
“Damn him,” Her breath caught half way through the him. “Damn him to the void!”
Him who, Tor wondered. Him Tor? What had he done? Help a girl not have horrible things happen. Check. Got lawfully married, also taken care of. Going back to school? Tor probably didn't really have to. He was making gold, more than he could spend, but that was why he needed to go back, to figure out economics and all the other thousands of things he just didn't understands yet and probably wasn't smart enough to ask. A class on social behavior in noble society would be good for instance. If there even was such a thing. If not, he'd need private tutoring from someone that would actually explain things clearly.