“Why?” Dillon asked her, and he drew her down onto the dais’s steps where they might sit comfortably while they spoke.

“Aeons ago, those we now call Hetarians were citizens of Belmair,” Cinnia began.

“But certain of them grew overly proud. They began to question our traditions and the authority of the king. They wanted to make changes that went against our ways. The king then, his name was Flann, gathered up the troublemakers one spring night. They were placed in an enormous bubble and sent to your world, which is the star we call Hetar. This history is taught to every child born here. Bad children are threatened by their mothers who tell them that they will end up on Hetar if they do not behave.”

Dillon laughed. “You cannot know how terrible a threat that is,” he told her.

“You are not of Hetarian blood?” Cinnia asked.

“I have some of their blood through my mother’s father, but then he also had faerie blood,” Dillon answered her. “I was raised in the Outlands and in Terah until I was twelve. Then I was sent to Kaliq for my training. I did not know until a little while ago that he was my father. I was raised to believe that Vartan, lord of the Fiacre, was my father. Even my own mother does not know the truth. I barely remember Vartan, but I have had a good stepfather in the Dominus of Terah, Magnus Hauk. And my mother is an incredible woman. She has great powers.”

“What will she think when your father tells her where you are, what you are to be and that you have a wife who is a sorceress?” Cinnia wanted to know.

“At first she will be angry that Kaliq planned this without consulting her. But she will be far angrier when she learns the truth of my paternity,” Dillon said with a smile. “My mother has been cursed, or blessed if you will, with a destiny that is not yet fulfilled. It has taken her many places. She has had great adventures, and done marvelous things. But she does not like being at the mercy of a greater power. Did you?”