Lara nodded. “That is unlikely to change even if I forbid them contact,” she said. “I have left you and your sister with the Fiacre because you are Vartan’s children, as well as mine. Perhaps it is now time for you both to come and live with me. You could come this year after the Gathering, and then return each summer staying until after the Gathering. This would allow you to remain close to the Fiacre, too. Once, I thought you would follow in your father’s footsteps, Dillon, and lead the clan one day. But I see now that your fate will not be among your father’s people. You have a different path to follow.”

“I am glad that you finally see that, Mother,” he said.

“You are so old for one so young,” Lara remarked as her attention was drawn to her little daughter. “No, Zagiri, do not eat that.” She pulled the flower from her daughter’s mouth and picked her up. “Noss will have a treat for you, I am certain.”

And Noss, Lara’s old friend, did indeed have a nibble for little Zagiri. She sat the child at a wooden table outside of her kitchen, beneath a pergola thick with grape vines, and gave her a cup of fresh-squeezed juice and a slice of newly baked bread with butter and honey. Then she hugged Lara, and brought them two cups of frine. They sat beneath the pergola sipping the fruit and wine mixture while Noss told Lara what had transpired with the Fiacre over the last months since they had seen each other.

Lara listened and then she asked after her elder daughter.

“She has probably gone to Bera’s house,” Noss said. “Of late she has been spending too much time there. With three rambunctious boys and another child in my belly, I sometimes lose track of her these days. She has become most disobedient, Lara, and I do not know what to do about it. Of late she does not call me Mama.”

“What does she call you?” Lara asked, curious.

“She calls me lady,” Noss said sadly. “I do not understand it or even who might tell her such a thing.”