by Anne Bishop
Living at the Hall was different from living at the eyrie. Different in size, different in the way they lived. Sometimes Daemon wondered if Jaenelle Saetien would be better off living in Amdarh with Surreal, except Surreal traveled so much as his second-in-command, visiting the family estates as well as checking in with Dhemlan’s District Queens and Province Queens. He needed to stay at the Hall most of the time for everyone’s safety. That meant he took responsibility for Jaenelle Saetien’s education, whether it was overseeing what she was learning at the school in Halaway or giving her lessons in Craft and Protocol.
He suspected her lessons in Craft and Protocol were going to be a problem today.
Something had happened shortly before he and Jaenelle Saetien left Lucivar’s eyrie to return to the Hall, something she didn’t want to tell him about. Something more than the things they had discussed on the way home. But that something had been the source of her growing unhappiness last night and had turned into agitation this morning, so he’d given her time to think about it or work through it. Gave her every opportunity to talk to him about it.
Now that agitation was going to bump up against the rescheduled lesson time, and he couldn’t make further adjustments to the day. But how could he deny her the space to regain her emotional balance when he required the same thing? How could he say her feelings weren’t as important as scheduled lessons because her feelings wouldn’t put the Blood in danger if she lost control?
And what would he be teaching her if he buckled under her drama and emotions instead of insisting that she fulfill her tasks within the family, even if those tasks were simply showing up for her lessons?
As Jaenelle Saetien flung the door open and rushed into his study, Daemon looked at the clock on the corner of his desk and said mildly, “You’re late, witch-child.”
“Mikal’s here, and I really, really need to go out riding with him,” she said, sounding breathless.
“You really, really need to stay here so that we can do your Craft and Protocol lessons,” he countered.
“Papa! This is important.”
Daemon hesitated—and cursed himself for the hesitation.
After he’d been taken away from his father immediately after his Birthright Ceremony, nothing he’d wanted or needed had been important. Now everything in him wanted his daughter to have what was important to her. But giving her everything she believed was important at a particular moment was as bad for her as being given nothing—and he fought that inner battle almost daily because she was just a little older than he had been when Dorothea had put a Ring of Obedience on him and . . .
He shoved those thoughts away. He couldn’t allow memories of his life at that age color his decisions about Jaenelle Saetien’s life and what she needed rather than wanted.
“Why can’t you talk to Mikal for a few minutes here?” he asked. “Or ask him to come in after his ride and talk to you after your lessons?”
“Because I can’t.” Her voice turned wheedling. “We’ll just take a short ride, and I can have my lessons after that. Please, Papa.”
Knowing how long she could stretch out a short ride, he said, “Let’s see your schedule.”
“What?”
“Your schedule,” he repeated patiently. “That thing you and I work out each week so that we both know when your required appointments, which include lessons, are going to take place, as well as the social invitations you chose to accept and what you need to do in preparation for those invitations.”
“I don’t know where it is,” she mumbled.
Daemon doubted that was true, but he called in his copy of her schedule and turned it around so that she could read it. He pointed to the lessons that had been crossed out that morning and written in for the afternoon.
For now, actually.
Then he pointed to the outing she had arranged before she had gone to Ebon Rih. “You and your friends are supposed to see a play in the village this afternoon. It starts at a specific time. When we spoke this morning, you asked me to adjust your lesson time so that you would still be able to change clothes, meet your friends, and arrive at the theater before the play started.”
“I know, but talking to Mikal is important.”
“Important enough to give up going to the play?”
She stared at him. “I can get to the play on time!”
“Your lessons take two hours, witch-child. We do this three times a week. You know this. You’ll be home from the play in time for dinner. Mikal can join us, and you can talk to him then.”
“I need to talk to him now.”
She wasn’t going to listen to him, so he accepted that she was going to experience the emotional equivalent of skinned knees. “Very well. Your Craft lesson will start one hour from now. I will tell you when half the time for the ride is gone so that you know when to return. Your lessons will not be cut short. If you’re late, you won’t go to the play. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” she said, rushing out of the study.
Had she understood? Not likely. But she would.
He sighed and rubbed the ache that was building at his temples. A minute later, Beale tapped on the study door, walked in, and placed a large mug of specially blended tea on the desk.
“Trouble?” Beale asked as Holt tapped on the door and walked in.
Daemon looked at the two men who were his consultants when it came to dealing with children. They not only had the benefit of observing how Saetan had dealt with Jaenelle Angelline and the coven; they had nieces and nephews as examples of “normal” behavior.
“Maybe I expect too much,” he said. “She’s still a child with a slippery concept of time.”
“Yes, she’s a child, but would you care to bet on whether or not the young Lady knows exactly how long it will take her to change into her outfit and get down to the village in order to have time to chatter with her friends before taking their seats for the play?” Holt asked.
Phrased that way, it was a sucker’s bet, and he knew it. “How much?”
“Five gold marks.”
Daemon looked at Beale. “And you?”
“The same.”
Definitely a sucker’s bet. “Fine.”
Holt walked out, whistling.
Beale hesitated, then said quietly, “Under similar circumstances, if your father had already yielded once to accommodate a youngster’s request to reschedule lessons, he would not have given up one minute of lesson time, even if it meant a youngster had to forfeit going to a play and spending time with friends.”
“Thank you, Beale.” Now Daemon hesitated. “I can’t always be here for her.”
“That is true, Prince, but you can’t apologize for what you need to do for everyone’s sake, including hers, by giving in and letting the young Lady have her way.”
Another hard truth, Daemon thought as he drank the tea and read through some of the letters Holt had left on his desk that morning.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“Let’s ride to the pond,” Jaenelle Saetien said.
Mikal gave her a long look. “We could get back in time if we ride to the pond and turn right around.”
“In time?”
“For your lessons. I asked the Prince if you needed to be back at a specific time, and he told me you had lessons this afternoon before you go to the play with your friends.”
She gasped. “Why’d you ask him about that?”
“Because you were acting strange, and I wondered if you were trying to get out of your lessons for some reason. Because you said you wanted to talk, but you’re not talking. And most of all, because I’m old enough now to be held accountable if I’m essentially standing escort.”
“Well, you’re not standing escort. We’re just friends taking a ride.”
“And more than anything else,” Mikal continued, “t
he Prince gives me lessons in Craft and Protocol. He’s your father, so you don’t think anything about it, but it’s a privilege to be trained by him, and I don’t want to lose that privilege. So when he says the time is half gone, we’re turning back.”
“I don’t have to turn back if I don’t want to.”
“Then you’re walking home because the horses and I will turn back.”
She pouted. “You’re being mean, and this is important.”
*Then talk,* he said on a psychic thread.
This flavor of impatience with her was new, and she didn’t like it. And she’d counted on being able to ride away from the Hall and then dismount and talk because she didn’t want the horses to go back to the stables and blab to her father. And she didn’t want to talk on a psychic thread because it didn’t feel the same as saying words out loud. And they weren’t even riding. They were just sitting on horses that were walking around.
But Mikal had stated his intentions, and she knew he wouldn’t budge, so she took a deep breath and told him about going to the river with Daemonar and making a raft and riding it through the rapids and over the waterfall.
*Hell’s fire,* Mikal said when she finished. *You did that and Lucivar saw you? And you can still sit on a horse today?* He whistled. *You’re lucky he didn’t get mad enough to make the river steam.*
*He couldn’t get mad,* she replied with enough bitterness to have Mikal staring at her. *I heard Uncle Lucivar talking to Auntie Marian and Papa before Papa and I got in the Coach to come home. He couldn’t get mad at Daemonar and me because he’d done the same thing with the Queen. I thought this was my idea, that this was a new adventure that nobody had done before, but she did it first! She always does things first!*
*I doubt the Lady and Prince Yaslana were the first people to have gone over a waterfall. Maybe not quite that way, but—*
*Everything I do, she’s done first, but she was the Queen and important, so she did it better. Everyone thinks so.* Even Papa, she added silently, hoping it wasn’t true.
Mikal was quiet for a too-long time. *Lady Angelline did a lot of things better than anyone else—did some things even better than the High Lord, and he was very powerful. She did some things no one else had ever done before or will ever do again. But that was Lady Angelline.*
*I can’t be like her.*
*Nobody can.*
*Witch-child,* Papa said. His sudden presence on a psychic thread startled her so much, she almost fell out of the saddle. *You should be on your way back to the Hall if you want to get cleaned up and change clothes after your lessons and still reach the theater in time to meet your friends.*
Mikal gave her a sharp look. *Should we be turning back now?*
*There’s time.*
They rode for another minute before Mikal turned his horse toward the Hall.
*Mikal! We’re not finished talking!*
*Then talk fast.*
*I just . . . I’m not fanning around, okay?*
*Okay.*
*I want something that is mine, just mine. Something the Queen hadn’t done before I thought of it, something she’d never done. I want to do something and not have people say they remember when she had done that same thing.*
Mikal looked thoughtful. *The High Lord once said everything a child does is a new discovery for the child and a familiar story for the adults. That’s why children survive. There is a precedent for the young being courageous to the point of being stupid. Face it, Jaenelle Saetien. If Lucivar hadn’t gone over that waterfall with Lady Angelline, he would have killed you and Daemonar flatter than dead.*
She thought maybe she would have preferred a fierce scolding for doing something that was just her own than acceptance because the Queen had done it.
Maybe she would have preferred that. Maybe.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Daemon knew Jaenelle Saetien had returned to the Hall with a few minutes to spare, not only because he had sensed the presence of Twilight’s Dawn but because Mikal had poked his head into the study to confirm the time for his own lessons the following day and to ask permission to spend a day in Amdarh the following week in order to visit Beron, who had promised to take him around to a few places in the city.
Without asking what places the brothers would be visiting—Helton would be given an itinerary before the boys left the town house—Daemon confirmed the date. The family already had plans to be in Amdarh this week, so if he couldn’t make another trip to the city that soon, he’d send Holt as an escort for Mikal.
That much decided, Daemon reviewed the next report—and waited. The clock ticked, ticked, ticked.
Jaenelle Saetien finally showed up, washed and dressed in the clothes she’d chosen for attending an afternoon play at the theater—and forty minutes late for her first lesson.
Offering no comment or criticism, Daemon came around the desk and indicated she should join him on the side of the study that was furnished for informal meetings, with its long sofa, comfortable chairs, and tables. He called in an hourglass that measured an hour and turned it to start the sand running in the glass. Setting it on the table in front of the sofa, he said pleasantly, “Shall we begin?”
She eyed the hourglass. “Maybe we should do the lessons this evening. There isn’t time to do them now.”
“There is plenty of time. One hour of basic Craft and one hour of Protocol.”
“But . . .”
“I rearranged a meeting with a Province Queen to make this time available for your lessons. I’ll be heading out for that meeting as soon as your mother gets home, so it isn’t possible to do lessons this evening. Therefore, we will do them now, at the time you had requested.” He waited a beat. “Shall we begin?”
The Craft lesson was more of a disaster than he’d anticipated. She pouted; she sulked; she became weepy and claimed she couldn’t do what he wanted her to do. Since they were reviewing making a ball of witchlight—something he knew she could do—he persisted until the last grain of sand fell.
Before she could jump up and head for the door, he turned the hourglass and said pleasantly, “Now for the lesson in Protocol.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Surreal dropped from the Green Wind to the landing web in front of the Hall, then hesitated when she saw Beale standing in the open doorway.
“Should I assume you’re just taking the air?” she asked as she crossed the gravel drive to stand with him.
“That assumption will do,” he replied.
A shriek came from the direction of Daemon’s study. Since it came from behind a closed door and she had the full length of the great hall between her and that closed door, the sound had to be uncomfortable for anyone inside the room.
“I thought Jaenelle Saetien was seeing a play with some of her friends in the village.”
“After ignoring some agreed-upon rescheduling that she herself requested, the young Lady still thought her father would shorten the Craft and Protocol lessons in order for her to reach the village in time to see the play. I believe she has just realized that she will not reach the theater in time to see anything.”
“Oh, Hell’s fire.” Surreal raked her fingers through her hair, then caught the decorative comb before it fell to the ground. “How long can we stand out here taking the air?”
The study door opened. Jaenelle Saetien stormed out, spun around, and screamed, “You’re the meanest papa in the whole Realm! You ruined everything by making me do those stupid lessons! I never get to have fun!”
“This from the child who wasn’t killed flatter than dead for going over a waterfall on a raft,” Surreal murmured. She eyed the Hall’s butler. “I guess you heard about that.”
“We heard enough.”
Using a light psychic probe, Surreal followed her daughter’s vigorous journey to the family wing. The distan
ce between the great hall and the family wing was such that she shouldn’t have been able to hear a door slam. But she did.
“I guess that’s one Craft lesson that took hold,” she said cheerfully as she stepped inside. “I’d better check on the other participant of this to-do.”
It unnerved her to walk into the study and see Daemon standing near his desk, a half-filled glass of brandy held in a hand that trembled.
“Sadi?” She kept her voice quiet—and she kept the study door open.
“I’m the meanest papa in the whole Realm.”
He sounded hurt. She wanted to smack him for that, so she walked up to him, took the brandy, and swallowed down half of it. “That’s today. Tomorrow it will be someone else’s turn.” She handed back the glass. “I take it the lessons went badly?”
“Oh, I think the lesson about being on time for lessons if one wants to go to a social activity made an impression,” he replied. “I’m sorry to leave you with this, but I have an appointment with a Province Queen that I need to keep, and I won’t be back in time for dinner.”
Odd time for Daemon to make an appointment, unless . . .
Ah. If he’d inconvenienced someone besides himself in order to accommodate Jaenelle Saetien, that explained some of his hurt over being called mean because she hadn’t lived up to her side of the agreement. “So what else have we learned from this?”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve learned that there are days when I’m going to be wrong no matter what I do.”
“Hmm. In that case, I’ll postpone Jaenelle Saetien’s crossbow lessons a while longer.”
A huff of laughter before he said dryly, “Yes. Thank you for that.” He hesitated, then gave her a light kiss. “I’ll be back this evening.”
But you won’t ask to spend the night with me, she thought as he walked out of the study. After the fracas with Jaenelle Saetien, he wouldn’t feel easy about sleeping with her in case his temper took on too much of an edge.