Lara waved her hand. “So you are there,” she said as her son disappeared.

He reappeared in Lord Tostig’s hall, and the sight of the young boy stepping from a haze of green smoke caused his aunt Narda, the eldest of Lady Persis’s children, to shriek with surprise and drop the needle she had been plying.

“Nephew!” she scolded him. “Could you not come to visit in a more conventional manner? This magical transport you have effected is most disconcerting.”

“I come to bring you tragic news, Aunt,” Taj began.

Lady Narda shrieked again, but this time it was a sound of distress. “Mother,” she cried, a hand going to her heart.

“Nay, my grandmother is in good health,” Taj reassured her. “It is my father who was today killed on Captain Corrado’s new ship when the main mast they were raising snapped, and crushed both my uncle and my father. Corrado will live. My father did not. The Farewell Ceremony is in three days as custom demands. I have claimed the right of inheritance. I am now your new Dominus.”

His aunt stared at him both shocked and surprised. Then she burst into fulsome tears. “My poor, dear brother,” she sobbed, but her tears were only partly sorrowful. She had not been close with her younger, only brother. Then as suddenly as they had begun her tears ceased, and she said, “You are very young to rule Terah, nephew. You will need the guidance of men like my husband.”

“My father’s Farewell Ceremony will be held at the castle in three days as custom requires,” Taj said, ignoring his aunt’s remark. “Now I must go and inform my aunt Aselma of this news. Mother!” And he was gone from Tostig and Narda’s hall in another burst of pale green smoke.

“He is too young to rule,” Narda said to her husband, who had heard all, but said nothing while Taj was with them. “You must make certain you are chosen to be the boy’s regent. My sister, Aselma, will certainly be encouraging her husband, Armen, to the position. And he dotes upon her. He will do anything to see she is happy. If worst comes to worst we can share the regency, but you must be first as I am the elder. I will not have Aselma and Armen lording it over us. You know how she is.” Narda’s deep blue eyes were concerned. She was an attractive woman who had been some years her brother’s elder. Her dark blond hair was beginning to show streaks of silver.