“Ah, that’s the question, isn’t it? You know, there are factions in the family that want to see me married off and bearing children, before I get too old. Of course, some of them mutter that I’m too old already. But this little one … Well, it sounds like all her people are dead or, at least, lost. We have some obligation to care for her. Assuming she’s healthy and otherwise sound, I thought I might adopt her.”

Krailash nodded slowly. That wasn’t unheard of in Alaia’s family, and usually happened a few times every generation. The family was the business, and among the Serrats of Delzimmer, marriages were made carefully, for maximum tactical and financial advantage, but over the generations they had occasionally adopted orphans and foundlings, on the theory that such outside additions kept the bloodline fresh. There was no particular risk in the practice. If the adoptees proved profligate or unreliable or otherwise unsuitable to business, it was no matter-they were shunted into some irrelevant side-channel of the family’s sprawling enterprises and given an allowance sufficient to keep them occupied. No one became fully vested in the family, given voting power or a percentage of the family profits, until they’d reached at least their late teens and proven themselves responsible and worthy, or proven themselves suitable only for irrelevant work or, in extreme cases, exile from the family. “I see. Would you want to train her in the business side of things, or the more, ah, practical aspects?”

“Will you be forced to teach her to swing a sword, you mean?” Alaia smiled. “She’s not dragonborn, Krailash, we humans don’t develop that quickly-we’ve got years to see where her aptitudes lie, if anywhere at all. That’s all assuming she survives. I worry about this. I think it’s a rash? What do you think?” She unwrapped the blanket carefully, and beckoned Krailash. He had no particular desire to closely examine the skin diseases of a human child, but he did as she bid him, squinting at the tiny creature, who sighed as Alaia turned her over.