“I thought so. Despite my explaining how much of each ingredient had to be added, she was a bit . . . slapdash . . . about it, because measuring took time and stirring took time.” Daemon smiled. “Then she announced that there was something she had to do and that she would be back in a few minutes.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that excuse. It’s your own fault—and mine—for having bright, clever children.”
“Hmmm. Well, my clever child bounced into the kitchen about thirty minutes later to find her papa reading a book and the cake ingredients looking exactly the way she’d left them. When she started to express her disappointment, I reminded her that I had offered to help her make it, not do the work, and since she didn’t want the cake enough to put any effort into making it, there would be no further pestering of Mrs. Beale or me or anyone else, because further pestering would result in a loss of privileges.”
“Would the cake have been edible?”
“Not likely. But that, too, would have been a lesson.” Daemon seemed to weigh something before finally asking, “Did your two behave differently after receiving their Birthright Jewel? I don’t remember them being different, but I didn’t see them every day.”
“Titian shied away from doing any kind of Craft for about a month because, once she had her Summer-sky Jewel, doing even basic Craft was important and maybe she’d been doing it wrong. So Marian and I ended up teaching her the same things she’d been doing, because she wasn’t a child anymore; she was a girl. She was certain she would be held to a higher standard because she wore a Jewel.”
“She wasn’t wrong,” Daemon said.
“No, she wasn’t wrong.” Lucivar huffed out a laugh. “The boy, on the other hand, acted like he’d finally learned some manners when he received his Green Jewel. That lasted less than a week. In the years since then, he seems committed to being more and more of a pain in my ass. He’s on the cusp of leaving boyhood behind and embracing the changes that come from being a youth. I figure the pissing contests will start in earnest when he’s fully into adolescence.” He considered Daemon’s question and his mood. “You worried about the witchling?”
Daemon didn’t reply. Then, “I’m starting to appreciate how much thought and care Saetan took when he began training a young witch who wore extraordinary Jewels, how firmly he had to draw the lines. Being special is its own kind of burden.”
“Maybe it’s like the sexual heat,” Lucivar said. “The people around you have to adjust to its presence. And then the people who mean the most to you get used to it and you’re accepted for who you are.”
“What if you’re not accepted for who you are?” Daemon asked softly.
Why did Surreal really leave to check on the estates? Being Eyrien and wearing the Ebon-gray, he didn’t think twice about making blunt observations or asking questions no one else would dare ask. But the jagged feel of Daemon’s psychic scent warned him not to push for answers. Not yet. Instead, he said, “Well, old son, if you ever need reminding of how much you’re accepted, just come here and I’ll knock you on your ass a couple of times. That should help you remember.”
Daemon laughed, as Lucivar hoped he would.
No sign of Jillian when he walked Daemon to the front door. No sign of Marian or Titian either, but Daemonar rushed out to say good-bye to his uncle and convey the news.
“Baby Andulvar made a big fart and sprayed poop all over before Mother got a clean diaper on him,” Daemonar announced.
“Don’t sound so excited, boyo,” Lucivar said. “You and I are going to help clean up the room.”
“But, Papa. It stinks in there.”
Lucivar gave Daemon a lazy, arrogant smile. “Sure you need to go?”
“I’m certain,” Daemon replied dryly.
Lucivar watched his brother’s gliding walk across the flagstone courtyard in front of the eyrie. Daemon never looked like he was moving fast, but he covered a lot of ground.
“He could have stayed and helped.”
Lucivar looked at his son’s sour expression. “Oh, I expect he has enough shit of his own to deal with. Come on—we need to help your mother.”
A boy had rushed out to make the poop announcement, but it was a young Warlord Prince who was another step closer to adolescence—and the sharper temper that went with maturing—who helped him clean that room so that Marian could deal with the baby.
FIVE
Dillon hunched in his seat on the Rose-Wind Coach, hoping he wouldn’t be recognized by any of the other passengers. Then he sat up and called in a book. Better to look unconcerned. Just a young Warlord traveling for business or pleasure, but certainly not involved in anything sordid.
Not many of the Blood were taking this Coach. Its destination wasn’t one of the places where the aristos played and courted and pressured the rest of the people in Askavi—Blood and landen—into believing they were too important to follow the Blood’s code of honor.
He should have thought it through, should have realized a city where aristos flocked wouldn’t be a safe place for someone like him. Carron must have been furious when she learned her father had paid him to leave town. She must have contacted Blyte and the two of them written their vindictive letters to all the aristo girls of their acquaintance as soon as he’d left town. The bitches here had been looking for him, waiting for him. He’d barely settled into the hotel and walked down the street for a meal before they spotted him and the whispers started.
“That one can’t keep his trousers zipped. He’ll give anyone a ride.”
“Amusing enough, but he’s from some insignificant branch of some minor aristo family tree.”
“Are the knees of your trousers shiny, Lord Dillon? Must be from all the time you spend on them.”
They circled around him like a pack of savage dogs until he had no choice but to pack his trunk and flee to another town. Hopefully the aristos in the next town would be from minor branches of a family, more like his own parents. A place like that wouldn’t be of interest to Blyte’s or Carron’s family. Maybe the aristo bitches would leave him alone for a while.
Dillon turned the pages of the book, but he wasn’t reading the words. He spent the journey thinking about what he’d been told by the one Warlord who had dared to talk to him after the girls began their vicious whispers about who he was and what he’d already done in girls’ beds.
“You think you’re being mistreated—and you are,” the Warlord had said. “But at least you’re still alive. My cousin got caught by Lady Blyte’s ‘if you loved me’ spell and couldn’t get free of her until he didn’t have a copper left to buy her presents. Then she destroyed his reputation and his honor, making him sound like a street whore who went with any woman who snapped her fingers.
“My cousin barely lasted a month after Blyte and her cronies went after him. The young men who had been his friends avoided him, afraid to have their reputations stained by association. His family didn’t know how to counter the verbal attacks. The boy had made a mistake with one girl, the wrong girl, but the girl and her friends kept twisting the story, turning Blyte into the victim of an unscrupulous boy. I offered to report Blyte’s conduct to the Province Queen, but before I was granted an audience, my cousin took a bath in his own blood.
“He didn’t think it through, though. Didn’t drain the power from his Jewels before he opened his veins. He made the transition to demon-dead and most likely is in Hell now, still trying to make sense of why loving a girl had destroyed his life.”