Lyara closed the door as the last of their guests bid their goodbyes and stepped out in the night. Behind her, on the other side of the dining table, Dradge breathed a sigh and slumped in his chair. She had him dressed for the part—an embroidered green tunic with silver in the hem, a darker, regal shade that complimented his eyes—but with a moment’s bad posture he could make the outfit look as out of place as it really was.
Some part of her loved him for it.
She strolled back to the table and started collecting the used dishes—Adela would be by later to clean, her self-started business served houses throughout Edras—but Lyara still felt some obligation to tidy up her own home. Even if that home were a castle.
Even if she’d spent the last seven years as Queen.
Seren sat against the far wall with his notes scattered before him across the floor. He typically preferred to usurp one of her tables, but tonight it was filled with those dishes, and so he made due with what was available.
Her son, Triston, crouched beside him, studying those papers with a deliberation she never expected to find in a five-year-old. She’d had a tunic made for him to match his father’s; with his head of curling black hair he was a little mirror reflection. He really ought to be in bed at this hour, but he hated being left out and she didn’t have the heart to send him away.
“Well,” Dradge said, watching her. “How did I do?”
Seren piped up first. “I—”
Dradge pointed at him, gaze still fixed on her. “Wait your turn.”
Lyara smiled, piling the dishes in the center of the table. “I thought you were wonderful.”
“You always say that,” Seren grumbled, not looking up from his notes, loud enough for them both to hear.
She ignored him. “You chuckled at one of Erryl’s jokes.”
“Even though they weren’t funny,” Dradge muttered.
“Especially since they weren’t funny. And when Cynwrig tried to tell you where he wanted troops moved you frowned at your soup, like maybe it was the meal making you cross instead of him.”
“Hmm. I don’t think that was on purpose.”
She grinned, then pulled a chair over to sit beside him. “Well, you didn’t threaten to punch anyone.”
He grinned back. “True. I have gotten better at that.”
Seren heaved a sigh and looked up, shaking his head. “You do realize that is the absolute bare minimum of what it takes to make a civilized society?”
Dradge glanced at him. “I still haven’t asked you.”
Seren smiled to himself and returned to his parchments, marking something down on one page. He had a system, but to her eyes it looked like he was making a mess of her marble floors. “The Fidelis expected some kind of kick-back when they helped us get rid of Hilderic, you need to figure out what they want and what you’re willing to give them.”
Dradge chuckled. “That’s what you’re here for.”
Seren nodded, absently, chewing the end of his fountain pen as he re-read some of his own notes. Beside him, Triston leaned forward to place his hand on one of the pages with pictures. He tried to slide it closer.
“He—”
“No,” Seren said gently, pressing his own hand down on the paper to keep Triston from moving it. “They’re alphabetical, see? Cordella, Crinan, Cynwrig…” He pointed to each paper as he spoke.
Triston leaned back, still crouching, and placed his little hands on his knees. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the paper he wanted. “He was here tonight.”
Seren nodded. “That’s Cynwrig, Abbot Elect of the Fidelis order. A greedy man.”
Triston pointed at the collection of notes beneath the portrait. “He ate two bowls of soup when everyone else had one. I saw.”
Seren looked at the boy, a grin slowly spreading across his face. To her wonder, he actually leaned over and scratched a note on Cynwrig’s paper. “Good work.”
That was perhaps the singular greatest surprise she’d encountered in all her years as Queen. The rigid scholar from Edras had a soft spot in his heart for one bright-eyed child.
She saw so much of his father in Triston, although strangers said he had her face when she held him on her hip. All she’d agree to was their eyes matched—both light blue. He surveyed the world with her same, quiet intensity, but she didn’t know if he saw beauty. He saw details, picked them apart, constantly seeking not art but understanding.
She loved to make him smile. There was a certain challenge to it, as he seemed to withhold the expression for only the most worthy occasions. But—with a little prodding—she could usually drag one out of him. She saw his father in that look, too, but that might be because both their smiles warmed her heart the same.
“I swear he’s already smarter than me,” Dradge said. He was watching Triston, too, with a proud little smile of his own.
She grinned at him again and leaned against his shoulder. “Takes after his mother.”
Dradge laughed, but seemed to take her joke too seriously. “He does.”
Lyara watched Seren instruct Triston on how to properly clean up his notes for him and she shook her head. “Surely we could find a better babysitter somewhere in Edras?”
“Come on, Triston’s learning something. He’ll be King one day himself, right? Let’s start him off right.”
Lyara frowned, not sure she entirely agreed or disagreed with that logic. Would it help or hinder a boy to grow up influenced by these two starkly differing worldviews? “How did you two meet, anyway, you and Seren? It couldn’t have been the army.”
He tilted his head. “Seren!” When the man didn’t answer, Dradge picked up a leftover dinner roll from the table and chucked it at him.
It bounced off Seren’s face—he flailed his arms, attempting to block it entirely too late. Triston looked up from the bundle of notes, smiling.
“How did we meet?” Dradge asked.
Seren scowled, muttering to himself, as he climbed to his feet. “You don’t remember?”
“We were kids, it was some time after my father moved into the new house.”
Seren nodded, taking a seat in the chair across from them. “You and those two other boys from down the street were fighting with sticks. I’d just read Jonwarch for the first time and tried to critique your stances. The other boys already knew me and refused to acknowledge my assertions, but you argued back. I routed each of your propositions until you got so fed up you threw me in the drainage ditch.”
Dradge burst out laughing. “That is how it went, isn’t it?”
Lyara laid a hand on her husband’s knee. “And yet, that’s the start of the story, not the end?”
Seren quirked a smile. “I don’t like being bested.”
“It’s not that,” Dradge said. “You simply appreciate a contender, someone you can’t get to roll over on your first try.” He placed his hand on the back of Lyara’s head and pulled her close, to plant a kiss on her temple. “That’s why he respects you.”
“Oh?” She met Seren’s gaze with a taunting smile. “Is that so?”
The man shrugged and looked away, not denying a thing. From him that might as well have been a confession.
Triston carried the pile of notes to the table and slid them into the open space between Seren and Dradge, beside the dirty dishes. The parchments certainly didn’t appear to be organized to Seren’s liking, but they were probably tidy enough for a five-year-old and Seren didn’t complain. Silently, he rummaged through them, straightening pages so the ends would align.
Triston squeezed past his father’s knees, then climbed into her lap. Lyara held him close as he yawned and rested his head on her shoulder.
It was very much past his bedtime.
She rose to her feet, shifting his weight so he stayed safely against her, and even then she barely managed. There would soon come a day she wouldn’t be able to lift him at all, and she dreaded it. “You two keep working, we’re heading to bed.”
“No!” Triston tried to lean out of her grip.
She smiled and kissed his forehead. “Sweetheart, I’m tired, even if you’re not.”
Triston squirmed and she had to put him down, to keep from dropping him. He was, as a whole, an obedient child—more than she ever was at his age—but faced with the choice between going to bed or helping his father scheme? She couldn’t fault him for making a fuss over that.
“Triston,” Dradge said, very serious. He rose from his chair, then sunk to one knee before their son. “You remember the job I gave you, right?”
Of course, his ‘job.’ It felt a little like a lie, but she couldn’t deny it motivated the boy in a way her gentle pleading and even strict consequences didn’t.
Triston stared up at him. “Protect Mother from the shadows in the hall.”
Dradge nodded. “That’s right. You might not want to go to bed, but she does, and those hallways can be very dark.”
Triston kept staring at him. “To protect, I need a sword.”
Dradge grinned, big and stupid, then glanced—guiltily—in her direction. She laughed under her breath, shaking her head. Her husband had their son swinging swords before he could even crawl, and maybe she couldn’t fault him for that, either. She knew she’d married a soldier.
“You have fists, too.” Dradge socked him gently on the shoulder. “Use those.”
Triston nodded, then tried to stifle another yawn.
“Come on,” Lyara said, taking his hand. He followed her willingly this time as she crossed the room, making her way to the back stairs.
Triston pointed to the far wall. “What about that sword?”
She stopped, then had to chuckle to herself. After taking the crown, Dradge had wanted to destroy her fake Ìsendorál. Some part of her welcomed that idea, but her heart screamed at the thought. That thing was as much a work of art as it was an instrument of heresy. The former of the two, at least, deserved commemoration. So, she’d had a placard made and hung it on display. For now it was in the dining room, but she might end up moving it again.
Seren tapped the bottom edges of his notes on the table, finally having settled them in a proper pile, and glanced at her. “I’m surprised you kept that.”
Lyara lifted her chin. She had no need to explain her decorative tastes in her own home.
“Could at least melt it down for scrap,” Dradge muttered, sinking back into his chair. “Those jewels look expensive.”
“They were.” Seren grinned. “Although, perhaps not quite as expensive as the fonfyr who came with it? I believe he cost me a kingdom.”
Dradge laughed, but Lyara frowned at both of them. She grabbed her son by the armpits and, with some effort, hoisted him into her arms. “The fonfyr is real,” she whispered to him as he laid his head on her shoulder again. “Your father fought in the memory of such things, and someday so will you.”