§ The Velvet Retreat’s carriage and driver spent the night in our carriage house, which has simple quarters attached for our driving staff, so the girls were able to go back right after breakfast. I sent a couple Pendor house knights as a mounted escort, since Serera and Dilorè had not returned. I had no particular duties to pursue, and …

§ Terese had thoughtfully left blankets in my sitting room, in addition to the stack she left in my bedroom. Perhaps she had thought that the healer assisting us would not want to sleep in the same room as the courtesans, or perhaps she simply assumed that nine women would mean overflow, even in a bedroom as large as mine. …

§ I looked around at the nude girls asleep on the couch and the bed, and decided this wouldn’t do, so I sat up. Mireia was next to the bed, still watching over the last girl I fed on. She looked up in surprise. “My Lady?” “I’ve had an awful lot of sleep in the last few days. I’m not …

§ Lady Serera teased Aunt Elianora about staying to watch, infuriating the vampiress. It was a brief reminder that, despite how those two got along, fairies and vampires don’t normally tolerate one another’s presence well. Of course, Elianora, being not only a highly educated, scientific sort of vampire, but also one of the people who raised me, has more tolerance …

§ A party of royal knights departed the camp in Langram headed for Atius along with a Royal Army coach, the sort used for transporting officers and specialist personnel. Its curtains were drawn, and its crew consisted only of a driver and brakeman. If any enemy spies were observing, they would probably assume it was transporting some of the weary …

§ They had a reply for every retort I could make. “If you could have put Tiana’s soul back in her body and resurrected it using the amulet, why didn’t you do the same for Mother?” I demanded. Gaia said, “With Astaroth surrounding her, we couldn’t do anything. She was already mummified and beyond repair by the time he gave …

§ I sat frozen for several seconds, my heart hammering in my chest as I stared at the apparition before me. I had only begun thinking of her as gone… Mother grew a small smile, as if she were able to read my thoughts, then simply held her arms open and waited. Somewhere within me, the thoughts and emotions of …

§ Rod, having the same blood relationship to Tiana as Dilorè, was separated from her by eight degrees of consanguinity. Orestanian law prohibits marriage or sex within four degrees, and counts adoptive relationships, while fairy law considers four degrees the point at which it is becomes legal, and ignores adoptions, except for parent/child relationships. So, regardless of whether I look …

§ Lord Aroya, the retired Brosnian admiral whom Ged chose to command the Central Region and the defense of Atius, would soon arrive to join Rod from Thuriben. He had been originally summoned out of retirement to serve as a royal advisor, but the winds of war would now blow him back into active duty. Ged had already planned to …

§ A short while after my confession, Rod summoned the royal knight mage in charge of the crystal ball that was his hotline to Ged. I moved from my cot to a chair while Aunt Elianora re-cast [Silent Shadows] and the mage set up the connection. Once the new king’s image appeared before us, I tried to rise in order …