"I want to sleep after," I mumbled, lifting the spoon.
"We'll make sure you sleep," Teeg murmured against my ear. Radolf fed me as much as he could, but that wasn't much. Teeg rubbed my belly carefully while I ate, sending me mindspeech. Telling me he'd make sure the twins wouldn't lack for fathers. I brushed away tears when he said that.
"Our Reah upset," Farzi and Nenzi came, ferried by Stellan. I wrapped my arms around Farzi while Nenzi stroked my hair.
"Lion snake shapeshifters? Father, this is a very good day," Valegar said, smiling widely.
"We take Reah to bed," Nenzi announced. Lok, Lendill, Gavril and the Larentii followed while Farzi carried me to my suite.
"Here is the information—her father is Dantel Schuul, a minor politician on Quezlos," Norian handed the comp-vid to Lissa. "And he's ambitious, he just doesn't have the clout or charisma to rise above his current position. He must think he's hit the jackpot, marrying off his daughter to your son." Garde stood behind Lissa, blowing smoke. "He's gotten his wealth from manufacturing chips that control assembly robots—every Alliance world does business with his firm. That doesn't help him in his political aspirations—he needs extra support for that, since the population sees him as too wealthy. They don't trust that, so he needs someone behind him who is already respected in the political realm. He looks to you to provide that, through your son."
If Tory had bothered to talk with either parent, they might have gotten to the root of this. As it was, he hadn't and in an act of mindless pettiness, he'd married. If Tory filed for a writ of detachment, Darletta would own half his holdings, and he half of hers. But, as Norian had pointed out, Darletta, having reached her majority, had nothing unless it was through her father. Tory, on the other hand, had holdings granted on Le-Ath Veronis and Kifirin, in addition to his and his parents' reputations. Darletta could damage all of it if she didn't get her way.
"Even if she asks for the writ, it's still split evenly down the middle, so this is a no-win scenario," Garde grumbled.
"Why doesn't the Alliance have an annulment option?" Lissa sighed.
"It's supposed to force them to think before they marry, but you see where we are," Norian said.
"It's neither here nor there," Lendill folded in. "Reah says she's done with Wylend and Tory. And she means it."
"I pray that Kifirin does not remove Torevik's claiming marks," Garde said. "I also hope she doesn't forget that I will be a grandfather to those children."
"I don't think her argument is with you," Lendill nodded toward Garde.
"Great-Grandfather, I brought Reah to heal the core yesterday." Rylend spoke softly; his grandfather had a terrible hangover and neither Wyatt nor Amara would ever be available again to heal his aches and pains. Griffin had disappeared after Wylend passed out the night before.
"Can you find a healer on this gods-forsaken planet to heal a headache?" Wylend moaned.
"Here," Ry touched Wylend's head with careful hands, removing the headache. "I can get tea or coffee if you want it."
"Of course I want it. Do I have anybody left in the palace willing to make it?"
"I just sent mindspeech; it'll be here shortly," Ry said.
"Where's your father?"
"In Didge, with Corolan and Garek, trying to convince sixteen warlocks and seven witches that it's all right to come back."
"Is that all that's left there?" Wylend wanted to moan again.
"Yes—the Ra'Ak and Zellar either killed or ate the others."
"Including Wyatt."
"Including Wyatt. I'll miss him, Great-Grandfather. He was a good friend, as well as my uncle. Your tea's here." Ry took the cup from the kitchen helper and passed it to his grandfather. "Dad should be back soon. Send mindspeech to him if you need anything else."
"Reah healed the core?"
"Yes. I watched, as did three Larentii. I think they would have said something if she didn't get the job done right."
"That wasn't what I meant."
"Then what did you mean, Great-Grandfather? I asked her to come and she came. She's pregnant with Tory's twins, and that might be wonderful, except Tory became angry for some reason and married the first woman who came along. He doesn't care anything about Darletta, but he's stuck with her now. Reah says she's done with Tory. She's walking away and Kifirin threatened to remove his claiming marks. Now, who would take an already tenuous situation and push it past the breaking point? Tory's my brother, and Reah is my sister. She belonged to both my brothers, until a few days ago. I'm renouncing my Karathian citizenship, Great-Grandfather, in front of the ultimate witness." Rylend folded away.
"Erland, I'm not about to tell our son that he made the wrong decision." Lissa accepted a fruit drink from Ilvan, who loved working in the palace kitchen with Radolf."Wylend is about to have a breakdown," Erland snapped. "He loses Wyatt and then our son renounces his citizenship? What would you do?"
"I don't know," Lissa shrugged. "Maybe think I fucked up somewhere? At least I did talk our child out of jumping into a six-year, full-time sign-up with the ASD."
"He what?" Erland was about to get furious.
"I said I talked him out of it. I told him that wouldn't be any different from Tory running out and marrying Darletta. He said that he saw my point and went off to visit Gavril on Campiaa. Erland, we have family dinners and gatherings to look forward to with Darletta. Are you happy about that?"
"Of course I'm not happy about that," Erland huffed angrily. "But Ry could have waited until Wylend was past the mourning period."
"I'm not disagreeing with the action, but he could have waited a few days," Lissa agreed reluctantly. "Wylend should have waited, too, don't you think? Before going straight to Tory with only a half-truth, knowing it would likely set him off."
"Lissa, he's under a lot of pressure," Erland took Lissa's arm and led her out of the kitchen. "He was faced with joining either the Reth or Campiaan Alliance or doing business with the pirates and cutthroats of Giffel, Deandrus or their newly-acquired world of Lidrith. You know what would happen if we didn't join one or the other—warlocks and witches hired out to pirates and assassins, just to keep the trade flowing. Wylend has held strong through thousands of years, and now he's being forced to change. He imagined a slight, that's true, but he's worried that Karathia will be viewed as only one among many, and not nearly as important as it once was."
"Then why hasn't he spoken to Gavril about this? Gavril sees Karathia as the cornerstone of the Campiaan Alliance," Lissa said.
"Wylend sees Gavril as a young great-grandchild, who doesn't have near the experience that he does at ruling," Erland sighed.
"Do you think Gavril doesn't have enough sense to ask if he finds himself in a difficult situation?"
"Gavril may be one of the most intelligent people I've ever met," Erland admitted.
"And Wylend doesn't see that?"
"Wylend is afraid to admit it," Erland said.
"Erland, there's something else Wylend doesn't see." Lissa said.
"And that is?"
"That Reah was correct—Rylend would have been the King Karathia deserved."
"Reah, we got another hit on our warlock and his Ra'Ak." Lendill slid his comp-vid over so I could take a look. Lok was there with Farzi and Nenzi—Teeg had gone home with Astralan and Stellan. He had work to do.
"Hon, I think it's the crazy Ra'Ak and their slave warlock now. I don't think Zellar ever thought he'd find himself in this position." I set plates of food on the island. Lok watched me, his eyes never missing anything, although he didn't speak.
"Norian and I think you're right—I can't imagine that he ever thought he might be in charge of those monsters." Lendill bit into his breakfast roll. I scrolled through Lendill's information—three young men had disappeared on Horxx. What was a bit unusual was the oldest one had been twenty.
"Do you think he's going for older bodies, attempting to get himself out of this mess?" I asked.
"It's a possibility," Lendill nodded. "If he caught the Ra'Ak not looking, did a quick shift and then released or folded the prisoners away, they'd be scrambling after all of them, not realizing that the one left behind at the hideout wasn't him."
"And he could slip away if there were enough to go after," I saw where Lendill was going with this. "Do you think we ought to watch for a greater number of disappearances?"
"Yes." Lendill turned to his food before it got cold.
I didn't say what else I was thinking—that even if we did find more missing young men than normal, we still wouldn't have the warlock's location, and if his plan succeeded, then we'd have two targets to hunt instead of one. "Has your father ever gone hunting Ra'Ak—or a warlock before?" I asked Lendill, tearing a chunk off my roll and stuffing it in my mouth.
"He might be able to track a warlock if he had something that belonged to him; something that he wore or something—That's how my father found you," Lendill ducked his head, smiling guiltily.
"But we've never found anything of his." Lok pointed out. He'd been doing his research. He was right, up to a point.
"Lendill, does your father freak or gag easily?" I asked.
"My father could be a Larentii if he were taller and blue," Lendill snorted.
"I'll take that as a no," I said. "Do we know what they did with those bodies on Bardelus?" I asked. "I mean, Zellar lived in those bodies—at least for a few days. Can your father work with that?"
Kaldill Schaff walked around the body lying on the frigid, steel table. At least the corpse was cold and didn't smell so terribly bad at the moment. Lendill watched his father carefully—Norian stood beside Lendill, staring in a fascinated manner—Norian had never seen an Elf work. Kaldill murmured words that Norian failed to understand; he assumed that they were in the Elvish tongue that Lendill used occasionally, mostly to curse.