Without a word Lara stood, up taking Taj’s small hand in hers as together they walked from the ship, returning to the castle to prepare for a funeral, and for the transition that was to follow. Kaliq shook his head. His fears were needless. Lara knew her duty, and the Shadow Princes had taught her well. He would be there for her, but he would not intrude. For all the faerie blood in his veins, her son had no magic about him. He was mortal, but Lara would teach him well.
1
LARA HAD BROUGHT THE convenience of faerie post to Terah many years before. Now she marshaled the tiny messengers, sending them throughout Terah announcing the unexpected death of the Dominus Magnus Hauk. The leaders of all the villages were instructed to gather at a central meeting place assigned to each of the seven fjords, at a specific time on the day of Magnus Hauk’s funeral. The headmen and-women of the New Outland families were also sent similar instructions. The mountain gnomes were also invited to participate. Her husband’s funeral would be a grand one.
Lara thought back to the time she had managed the funeral of her first husband, Vartan, Lord of the Fiacre. She had been a young girl with two small children then, one a baby. Now her eldest son, Dillon, was a man grown with his own wife. Her eldest daughter, Anoush, was also grown. The three children she had borne Magnus Hauk were still fledglings. Well, perhaps not the eldest, Zagiri. At seventeen Zagiri was fully grown, wasn’t she? Lara sighed sadly. She was finally beginning to understand the curse of being faerie with mortal offspring. Her children were aging. But she was not.
“Mother?” Anoush had come to stand by her side.