Blood Reunion

Morwin grinned, wiggling his bushy red eyebrows. "Yes, young one. You see this isn’t the first time the Fae have made a mistake."

"I know that now," Toff sighed.

* * *

"I have information." Ry said the words in a singsong voice as he waved his comp-vid at Toff and Tory. Toff was slipping into clean clothing after working at the winery all afternoon. Dinner was fast approaching and he had to get ready.

"What’s that?" Tory swiped at Ry’s comp-vid, almost taking it from his brother’s hand.

"I have information on the woman Shadow was supposed to marry and have children with." Ry’s smile was wide. He was proud of himself for tracking this down.

"Who was she? Is she still around?" Tory flopped onto Toff’s bed—his space was in the center of their shared suite so it was easier just to meet there.

"Melida of Belancour," Ry said.

"Get out," Tory laughed. "The Belancour Clan? Ry, sometimes your looks make me forget you have brain cells."

"Dad says that’s the objective," Ry laughed.

"What? Belancour? Who are they?" Toff asked, confused. He’d never heard that name, but being sheltered inside the Fae village had kept him from many things.

"They turn out midlevel wizardry," Ry replied, making himself comfortable against Toff’s thick pillows. "Nothing near what Grey House can do or a couple of other houses. Their big thing is spelled jewelry. It protects against minor attacks, but if you want the good stuff, you go to Grey House."

"And it’s ugly," Tory added. "Everybody knows you went to Belancour if you get a look at the jewelry."

"Sissy says it’s overpriced, too. For what it does." Ry agreed. "They charge about three-quarters the price of a Grey House piece, for half the protection." Toff drew his blackened jewel from beneath his tunic—he refused to take it off. It had turned an even darker black, resembling obsidian.

"Toff, have we ever told you how lucky you were that Sissy made that and was able to rekey it to you?" Tory grinned at Toff.

"I’d be dead now," Toff nodded solemnly, tucking the jewel back inside his shirt.

"Worth the price," Ry sighed.

"So, Melida of Belancour," Tory whispered as they walked down the lengthy, marble-floored corridors to reach the dining hall.

"The records don’t give much," Ry hissed while Toff and Tory listened. "Grey House forced a writ of detachment, when they found out Melida was pregnant with somebody else’s whelp when she got to Grey House. Melida’s lying about the Cloudsong stuff didn’t do her any good, either."

"Don’t say any of this around Mom," Tory whispered to Toff as they made a turn into the dining hall. Toff nodded. He knew how the information might be hurtful.

* * *

"Ry?" Toff, already dressed in pajamas, slipped inside Ry’s bedroom.

"What, bro?" Ry looked up from a game he was playing on his handheld.

"While ago, you said that Grey House got a writ of detachment for that woman. I didn’t know what that meant, so I looked it up on my comp-vid."

"Yeah? Did you find what you wanted?"

"Yes." Toff sat on the edge of Ry’s bed. "But I’m confused. You only need a writ of detachment if you are already married." Ry’s fingers stilled on his game keys.

"Holy crap," Ry muttered and sent a shouted mental message to his brother.

* * *

"I have no use for him." Marid of Belancour paced in front of the magistrate. "He’s, well, he’s not right. We’ve not even bothered to teach him, because of this. Now that he’s orphaned after his mother’s accident. I want to turn him over to the state."

"I don’t like this—the state can’t arbitrarily accept children just because a family doesn’t want them. What about his father?"

"Melida wouldn’t say who the father was. Never gave that information."

"She was never married?"

"Twice. Her first mate was killed; the second one forced a writ of detachment."

"Who was the second one? Was she pregnant while married to either of her mates?"

"She was pregnant while married to both, although her second mate wasn’t the child’s father."

The magistrate stared at Marid of Belancour. He remembered all too well the legal debacle on Cloudsong. He huffed out a sigh and pulled up the legal records for their home planet of Shaaliveer.

* * *

Lissa’s Journal

"A letter from the judicial system on Shaaliveer," My assistant, Grant, dropped the envelope on my desk. "How are you feeling?" he added. With a worried frown and an eyebrow lifted, he asked the logical question. Likely it was because my face was turning a pale shade of green.

"Queasy," I muttered, holding a hand against my belly.

"Do I need to get someone?" Grant was backing up. He was vampire, just as Heathe, my other assistant was. His nose, like any vampire’s, was quite sensitive. "Lissa, are you going to hurl?" he asked in alarm.

I didn’t answer; I was too busy losing my breakfast in the wastebasket. Grant was out the door and shouting for a healer in less time than it took to blink.

* * *

"Nissa?" Shadow stood in the doorway of Nissa’s tiny workshop—Calebert had given it to her to learn alongside Frimus, a Second-Tier Wizard who taught some of Calebert’s more promising students.

"Daddy?" Nissa looked up from her work—she’d been imprinting a spelled design into a gold-washed sword pommel.

"Nissa, come with me, baby, your Great-Grampa wants to see us." Shadow held out his hand. Nissa finished off the spell she’d just done on a whorl design before setting the heavy sword aside. Nissa felt her stomach tighten. Was Great-Grampa going to send her down to her former level? She was working as quickly as she could.

"Baby, this doesn’t have anything to do with your work. Calebert says you’re doing fine—he just has to make sure you understand exactly what he wants from you, otherwise you tend to do too much. He has to reel in your talent so it’s suitable for the job at hand." Shadow actually smiled at Nissa.

"Good," Nissa sighed with relief. "Do you know what Great-Grampa wants?"

"Not much of it. We need to hear it from him, I think."

Nissa walked beside her father as they traversed the endless halls and corridors of Grey House. Protected by wizardry and enlarged too many times to count, Grey House filled nearly the whole side of a huge mountain. Grey Planet was small—as small as a planet might be and still be considered a planet. Surrounded by spells and wizardry of Greys uncounted, it appeared to anyone without talent as a burned-out asteroid circling its sun. Nissa had seen the beauty of the mountain range surrounding them since she’d first been taken outside Grey House as a small child. Nissa reached over and slipped her hand inside her father’s much larger one as they walked along. Shadow Grey squeezed her fingers lightly and held on.