Book Two: "Son in Sorrow"

Harsin sat at breakfast the next day, alone but for his eldest daughter. Ansella's robin's egg blue morning room, cheerful even in the weak winter sun, served as consolation and goad to them both; they sat silent, picking at their eggs and coffee. The butler appeared, arms full of newsprint, but set the stack before the King alone. "Affton, where are my morning papers?" asked Sedra.

"There'll be no more of that," growled her father. "I'm done with you ruining your mind. All this reading will stunt your ability to bear children."

"Papa, you know that isn't true! Many educated women--"

Temmin shook his head to clear it of Gwynna's terror and rage. "I don't like to hear my name used by someone like Tennoc."

"How so?" said Teacher.

"To kill a child--an infant?"

Teacher leaned back against the mantel. "Politics is an ugly business. There is a very real fear in any regime change that someone with perhaps a better claim--someone like Ardunn--would become a rallying point against a ruler and must be eliminated early. Your uncles have no clear claim to the throne, but they have become such rallying points. Is it so strange that Tennoc would wish to secure his position? Especially as a bastard?"

Tennoc was gone when Gwynna awoke, tending to what must be an endless number of details now that he'd taken Gwyrfal. Now she sat in her bower amusing her babe. Ardunn had just begun to smile, and making him do so was her chief delight.

This section is NSFW.

Gwynna kept Hanni's words in mind as she waited for Tennoc that night in her bower. When he came to her, he'd taken his armor off, as well as Dunnoc's crown. He wore simple clothes and looked like her own Tennoc instead of the frightening Tremontine stranger in the Great Hall. They exchanged formal pleasantries until Gwynna excused her attendants and they were alone. "Oh, Tennoc, I am so very happy to see you well," she began, but before she'd taken more than a step toward him he'd crossed the space between them and seized her.

He had never touched her like this, never touched her at all apart from a surreptitious clasp of her hand as he helped her dismount and the like. His grip hurt her arms. She had time for one gasp before he pressed his mouth to hers as if he needed her breath as well as his own. She thought of drowning men who took their rescuers down with them, but she opened her mouth to him; he whimpered into it. "Gwynna," he choked as he kissed her neck, her cheeks, her eyes. "Oh, my Gwynna." Tennoc lifted her up in his arms and hurried into her bedchamber, where he set her on her feet and began forcing open the fastenings of her dress.