The Shadow Queen (28 page)

“Mother, this is the young man I told you about, and I have remembered who he is,” Anoush said excitedly.

Lara turned, smiling, but, seeing the young man with her daughter, her smile faded. “Cam, son of Adon the Curst and his wife, Elin,” she said. “I would never forget you.”

Cam dropped to his knees before Lara. “Lady, I was but a child when the terrible deed was done. Do not, I beg you, hold me responsible for my parents’ crimes. But for my own childish wickednesses I do beg your forgiveness.” He looked up at her hopefully. “I have admired Anoush since we were children, and would ask your permission to pay her my court.”

“He has made himself invaluable to Sholeh,” Roan spoke up. “He is one of her finest herders, Lara.”

“Bad boys can grow into good men,” Rendor added.

“This man’s father killed your father,” Lara said to her daughter. “Knowing that, can you allow him your company?”

“His father was the one at fault, not Cam,” Anoush responded. “But I am not Zagiri. If you forbid it then I will send him away, Mother.”

Lara looked at Cam as she debated what to do. Perhaps he had changed, and Anoush liked him. If she forbade them each other her daughter would do her best to obey, but forbidden fruit was always sweetest. Eventually Anoush would be unable to keep her promise to her mother, especially if the young man begged and begged. Better she not forbid them. If Cam misbehaved in the slightest Anoush would chase him away. Anoush had been sheltered, it was true, but she was past twenty. It was time for Lara to let her eldest daughter fly. She sighed. “Very well,” she told them. “You have my permission to pay Anoush court, Cam of Rivalen. Anoush, you have my permission to receive this suitor but only in public, or if Gadara or some other suitable woman is with you. Do you both understand me? Remember, Anoush, remain with Cam for two nights, and you will be considered wed among the clan families. Do not do it. If this association progresses to a point where you both wish to wed let us do it properly.”

“I swear it will be so, my lady Lara!” Cam said, and then he stood up, grinning.

Anoush was wearing the same silly look on her face as Cam.

You did the right thing,
Ethne said.
He is her first suitor. She should tire of him soon enough. But I will admit he is handsome.

His beauty is almost ethereal,
Lara said.
I am not easy with this, but how could I forbid her? I do not want another incident like Zagiri.

Zagiri’s fate is a different one from Anoush’s. Remember she is Vartan’s child,
Ethne said.
This place is her world. You have seen how happy she is here.

I know,
Lara replied, looking at her daughter, who was now in animated conversation with Cam.

“That would be an interesting match,” Roan of the Aghy said.

“They are cousins,” Lara responded.

“Cousins marry,” Roan noted. “But would Vartan approve, I wonder.”

“Vartan had a large heart,” Rendor of the Felan said. “He would not have held the lad responsible for his parents’ evil.”

“I remember him as a boy. He was wicked,” Lara recalled. “Dillon disliked him intensely, and felt he had designs on Anoush that he should not.”

“Of course he was wicked. Everyone expected it of him because of Adon and Elin. And old Bera was never right in her head after Adon murdered his brother. She clutched at Cam, and spoiled him terribly. Taking him away from her was the best thing Liam could have done. It’s made a man of him. Ask Sholeh if you are concerned,” Rendor told Lara. “She will tell you the truth of the matter.”

“I will ask Sholeh,” Lara said, and, leaving the two clan lords, she went off to find Vartan’s kin, who was head woman of Rivalen village.

Sholeh was aging, as were the rest of them, Lara thought as she greeted her. The long auburn hair was streaked with silver-gray. The two women embraced, and Sholeh said before Lara might speak, “Cam came to me to ask my permission to speak with you about Anoush. Has he come to you yet?”

“I am not comfortable with his interest in my daughter,” Lara said candidly.

“He is not the boy who came to me,” Sholeh said. “We have made him a Fiacre to be proud of despite his grandmother and his parents. You cannot hold Adon’s behavior against his son.”

“Nay,” Lara agreed, “I cannot, but I remember him as a young boy. He was wickedness incarnate. Yet now he seems to have become a fine young man.”

“He is!” Sholeh replied. “And he is an excellent herder, Lara. If one day he became a husband for Anoush it would not be the worst thing that could happen. And such a union would help to put an end to his parents’ memory.”

“It should never be forgotten that Adon killed his own brother, Vartan, Lord of the Fiacre, or that he was encouraged by his wife, Elin, to commit the deed,” Lara said in a hard voice. “And it was done out of jealousy, malice and envy.”

“Aye,” Sholeh responded, “they should be forgotten along with the terrible murder they committed. They should be forgotten entirely. Only the memory of my kinsman Vartan the Heroic should remain bright among the history of our people, and of how his wife, the faerie woman Lara, took her singing sword, Andraste, and slew the murderers of her husband, Vartan, taking vengeance for herself and her children as was her right. But Cam should not have to suffer for his parents’ crime.”

“I can see you have come to love the boy, Sholeh,” Lara said quietly. “Very well then, but I will hold you responsible for his behavior. If he should hurt my daughter in any way he will suffer the same fate as his parents.”

“You are harsh,” Sholeh said. “Will you never forgive Adon and Elin? Has your life then been so difficult since Vartan’s death?”

“It is not up to me to forgive those two. That is the province of the Celestial Actuary, but I will never forget what they did. My life has been what it was meant to be, but I never thought that Vartan’s life should have to be sacrificed.”

“Yet you could not have wed Magnus Hauk had Vartan not been gone,” Sholeh pointed out.

“My marriage to Vartan was not meant to be forever. I am faerie, and I love whom I choose,” Lara replied.

“You have changed from the girl you once were though you look exactly the same as you did when we first met. I envy you that,” Sholeh told Lara with a grimace.

“Because I am young in my own race’s time I have never had to watch the friends of my early years age,” Lara said. “I have to admit that I do not like it. That drop of mortal blood that runs through my veins has made me sensitive to the passage of the years. My mother says if I did not have that bit of mortal blood in me that I should not notice time at all.”

“I suppose there are disadvantages to every race,” Sholeh said.

The High Council met on the last day of The Gathering. Lara took her seat among the clan families’ representatives. She brought Taj with her, and introduced the young Dominus formally to all the lords of the New Outlands clans. Taj promised to honor all of the promises his late father had made to the people of the clan families. They in return swore their fealty to Taj, and paid their yearly tribute. The clan leaders were impressed with young Taj’s manner and air of assurance. And comforted that Lara was his mother.

“He will be a fine man one day,” Rendor of the Felan, the council head, said to Lara. “Magnus would be proud of him.”

“He was,” Lara answered him.

“How long will
you
rule?” Rendor asked candidly.

“At least five more years,” Lara told him. “I have appointed Taj’s uncles as his little council, which satisfies the Terahns, and allows them to believe that Taj is truly their Dominus. Marzina calls me a Shadow Queen.” She smiled at her old friend.

“We missed Marzina and her tricks this year,” Rendor said with a smile.

“She is with Ilona, and very happy. It is safer for her in my mother’s forest right now,” Lara told him. “Especially after what Zagiri did.”

“There is one thing I have learned from Prince Kaliq,” Rendor said. “Everything happens for a purpose, Lara. You may not comprehend that purpose, but it is there. The Celestial Actuary, or Great Creator as the Terahns call him, does not make mistakes.”

“You know how I dislike the
mysteries
in life, Rendor,” Lara reminded him.

Rendor laughed. “I know,” he said. “You would see everything immediately, and understand it all, but life even for a faerie woman does not work that way.”

Lara nodded, and she bid her old friend farewell. Then she went with her son to each of the clan lords and said their goodbyes. After, her magic returned them all home quickly as it did each year. Coming to The Gathering usually took several days.

Back in Liam’s village of Camdene the Dominus had a request of his parent. “Mother,” Taj said, “could Gare and Sinon come back to the castle with me? They have some learning, but would have more. And I would like to have my two friends to study with me this year. With my sisters gone now the castle is lonely.”

“If their parents will allow it I see no reason for them not to come,” Lara told him.

“Let us find them now, then,” Taj said excitedly.

The parents of both Gare and Sinon were at first reluctant to allow their sons to go, but the enthusiasm of the three boys convinced them that this would be a great advantage for their sons.

And Liam, Lord of the Fiacre, spoke in favor of such an arrangement. “Retaining the friendship of the young Dominus is a good thing,” he said. “It is to the clan families’ advantage for a new generation to be part of Terah. It is not like the old days when we were content to remain isolated in the Outlands. These are the New Outlands, and our survival requires a new tactic. Send your sons with the Dominus. You may be certain that Lara will watch over them herself. They will be safe.”

The permissions granted, Lara sought out Dasras, and told her stallion that she would ride home alone. “I have told the boys I will send for them in two days.”

“It will be like the old days, mistress,” Dasras said as she mounted him. Then he began to race down the long meadow, his snowy-white wings unfolding as he ran. They ascended upward into the blue skies heading across the fertile plains beneath and toward the Emerald Mountains. Lara could see as they traveled over the hills that the autumn was coming. Here and there she spied spots of red and gold as the trees began to color. Briefly she was overcome with sadness. She and Magnus had returned home together at this same time last year. Dasras had carried them both, and they had all laughed and talked, recalling their summer idyll. The stallion always had wonderful stories to relate as most people overlooked the fact that the magical beast was intelligent and so they ignored him, speaking freely.

“What did you do when Roan asked you to leave his meadows?” Lara asked the great horse as he flew.

“Why, I went to another meadow, mistress, taking a dozen delightful mares including my own beloved Sakira with me. Roan’s young stallion blustered and bristled. I spoke with him and offered to fight him, but I warned him if I did I should win because I have magic. I would overcome him, and then I would geld him myself. Oddly he did not annoy me after that. He is a beautiful creature, mistress, but a complete fraud. He gallops about the meadow tossing his head, flinging his mane back and flaring his nostrils as he snorts. And as he basked beneath the light of the full moon, admiring himself in the meadow pond, I jumped the hedge separating us, and spent the next several hours impregnating every mare I could catch and mount. Roan will have a bumper crop of colts next spring I can guarantee, and most of them will be silver-white.” Dasras chuckled wickedly.

Lara laughed heartily at her stallion’s recital. “Roan, of course, will know what you have done,” she said.

“That youngster he’s pinning his hopes on would be better off gelded,” Dasras replied dryly. “He will only produce ordinary offspring, but Roan is no fool. He will see that sooner than later. Now, mistress, tell me what troubles you, for I can see you are disturbed. Is it that you will miss your Aghy lover?”

“Nay, I kept him for pleasures just a short while. I am sad because for the first time I have noticed those I love growing older,” Lara said. “And when they are gone with whom will I share my history? With whom will I talk?”

“We will share our history, and we will talk, mistress,” Dasras said.

“But your time is certainly limited, too, Dasras,” Lara replied.

“I was created to live as long as my mistress,” the horse told her. “I will be with you as long as you exist in this world.”

“Oh, I am glad!” Lara said. “When Magnus died so suddenly and unexpectedly last spring I began to realize the true frailty of mortals, Dasras. It saddens me.”

“Do not waste your time bemoaning that which you cannot change,” Dasras advised Lara. “Enjoy what you have, and the time you have with those who give you happiness, mistress. It is true you will outlive three of your children, but the other two will be here for you. You will get to see a grandson, a great-grandson and other descendants rule Terah after your son. And Anoush and her descendants will keep you connected with the clan families even after Liam, Rendor, Roan and the others are gone.”

Lara’s sadness evaporated, and she leaned forward to pat Dasras’s neck. “Thank you,” she told him. “I had begun to wallow in self-pity. My mortals still have many years ahead of them. Oh, Dasras! What would I do without you?”

“You would do very well, mistress. Not as well as you do with me, of course,” Dasras told her drolly.

Lara laughed, feeling lighter now that she had gotten her foolish fears off of her chest. “Look!” she said, pointing below. “It is Sapphire Lake. We are halfway home.”

Dasras galloped on through the blue sky. They finally crossed the Emerald range of mountains. Below she could see the small villages and farms of Terah. Eventually the coastline came into sight, the Sea of Sagitta beyond. From her vantage point Lara could see at least four of the fjords, and then she saw the castle of the Dominus looming up from the green cliffs. She had always thought it beautiful with its towers and turrets, with its terraced gardens that hung out over the fjord.