The dragon nodded. “It is uncanny. She does look like my beloved child, and yet there is something dark about her. I sense it.”
“Aye, Ethne has already warned me,” Lara said, surprising her brother. She explained to Nidhug that Ethne was the faerie spirit who lived in Lara’s star pendant, and advised her when necessary.
“Tomorrow when you take Dillon out searching again, I shall send Dukes Tullio and Dreng with their families back home. When you return the hall will be quiet once again. Now good night to you both,” Lara said and left them. But upstairs in the dimly lit corridor she saw a slender figure slipping into her son’s apartments. Quickly Lara ran down the hall, entering the king’s chamber to find Sapphira, naked and climbing into the sleeping Dillon’s bed.
“He wants me,” Sapphira said as Dillon cupped her breast in his hand.
“He wants his wife. He wants Cinnia,” Lara told the girl.
“I can be his wife, and while I look like my cousin I will soon make him forget her,” Sapphira boasted softly turning to kiss Dillon’s lips.
Lara argued no longer.
11
WALKING TO HER SON’S bedside Lara smoothed his dark hair. There was a tearstain upon his cheek. She shook her head sadly. Dillon was doing his best to be brave, but Lara could see that her son’s heart was slowly breaking as the days passed with no sign of his wife, Cinnia. They had to find the girl, and then they had to convince the Belmairans that she was not profaned, and more than fit to be Dillon’s queen.
When the morning came, she took Duke Tullio aside, and told him what had happened. “You will find your niece at home when you return. I found it necessary to send her there. I am sorry.”
“Nay, my lady Domina,” the duke said. “I am ashamed that my niece would behave in such a fashion. I have never understood her. She is like her late father, and I did not like my sister’s husband.”
“Does he not influence his daughter to good behavior?” Lara asked.
“He deserted my sister when Sapphira was less than a year old,” the duke said. “He said he was going to visit his aged mother, and we never saw him again. Inquiries were made, of course, but his mother never received him, and no trace of him was found. My sister likes to believe he was attacked by a wild beast, and killed. She will tell you that is what happened if you ask her. But it is my belief he simply ran off. He was a sly and secretive fellow, and my niece is a secretive girl. One never knows just what Sapphira is thinking. I am not an ambitious man, my lady Domina, but I will admit that my sister is an ambitious woman where her daughter is concerned.”
“And had your niece been discovered in my son’s bed this morning, he would have been forced to marry her for honor’s sake, wouldn’t he?” Lara said.
“The young queen is considered unclean now that she has been held captive by the Yafir, and so the king is free to put her aside and remarry,” Duke Tullio replied. “And if Sapphira had been found naked in his bed, aye, your son would have been honor bound to make her his wife, my lady Domina.”
“How fortunate, then, that that did not happen,” Lara answered him with a small smile. “You and your sister will be leaving us today, of course, as will Duke Dreng and his family. I am so glad that we met, my lord.”
Duke Tullio bowed gallantly to Lara. “I am glad, too, my lady Domina. Terah must be a fine land to have so great and gracious a queen.”
“And Beldane is fortunate in its duke,” Lara responded.
Within the hour Duke Tullio and his sister, Margisia, were riding back down the castle hill toward the coast where their vessel awaited them. Duke Dreng was not quite so easy to be rid of, however. He protested that he had not had the opportunity to speak privately with the king regarding his granddaughters.
“He is going to have to take another wife whether he wants to or not, my lady Domina,” Dreng said. “Queen Cinnia is gone, and even if he did manage to recover her she is impure. Either Lina or Panya would make your son a fine wife. Unless the king has made a match with Tullio’s niece, who so resembles the queen. Has he?”
“My son wishes no wife but the one he has, Duke Dreng. I believe he would remain a celibate rather than remarry,” Lara told him, hoping to discourage the man.
“Celibate? The son of a faerie woman and a Shadow Prince?” Dreng said scornfully. “Such a thing is not possible, my lady Domina. But perhaps you are right, and now is not the right time for me to offer one of my granddaughters to the king. He has seen them. He will remember them when the time comes, for I will remind him. I will go and tell Amata now that we are leaving.”
Dillon came late into his little family hall. He looked exhausted, as if he had not slept at all. A look of relief crossed his face when he saw only his mother. “I suppose they were served in the Great Hall,” he said.
“Aye, and now they are gone,” Lara told him.
“How?” he asked astounded.
“I sent them home,” she told him. “I am, after all, the Domina of Terah.”
He laughed, and it was a good sound. “Thank you, Mother.” He sat down at the board, and immediately a servant was placing a dish of fresh fruit before him along with a goblet of sweet cider, a small round loaf of fresh bread, which was warm, a bowl containing hard-cooked eggs, butter, salt and jam. Dillon began to eat, and when he had consumed much of what he had been given, he said, “I dreamed of Cinnia last night. I felt her weight in the bed next to me, and I thought I heard her call my name.”
“It was not Cinnia,” Lara said. “As I came up to bed I saw Duke Tullio’s niece stealing into your room. When I got to your chamber she was climbing into your bed. She was naked, and she meant to seduce you. Had she succeeded, and she would have if not for me, you should have been forced to wed her. You were half-drunk, Dillon. And her startling resemblance to your wife would have but added to your confusion. I know you will not repudiate Cinnia when we find her. But you must convince the dukes and the people of Belmair to accept your queen again. Their prejudice against the Yafir are very strong. You will have to stand firm against many to gain your way in this matter, Dillon. Had Sapphira of Beldane tricked you into taking her virginity you would have had no chance at all of taking your wife back. You would have had to wed with this girl and make her your queen,” Lara said to her son.
“I would have killed her first,” Dillon said grimly.
“I told Duke Tullio. He was honestly shocked, and I believe him innocent in this plot. I suspect it is his sister and her daughter who are ambitious. Sapphira was quite bold. When I ordered her from your bed she refused, saying she meant to be your wife. I used magic to send her back to Beldane. And the first liquid to touch her lips this morning will cause a rather unpleasant rash that will affect the skin upon her face for several days with small blue bumps. It won’t kill her,” Lara said, “but the itching will be very discomfiting. I hope she doesn’t scratch those little blue bumps for if she does they will open, and another bump will form immediately atop the first. I trust Sapphira of Beldane has learned a lesson.”
“And what lesson would that be, Mother?” Dillon asked mischievously.
“Not to defy a faerie woman, my darling,” Lara told him with a grin. “Now, if you are quite finished with your breakfast you must go out to once again seek your queen. I know that Cinnia has not given up hope that you will find her.”
AND CINNIA HAD NOT. But as each day passed it grew harder and harder to believe that she would be found and rescued. She lived in a world of almost total silence. The other wives had taken her into the garden of the castle. It was an odd place with plantings such as she had never seen. Great leaves both broad and narrow in all shades of green, purple and red grew. They were neither trees nor bushes. She saw no beds of flowers or herbs. And the air was moist and warm. Strangest of all there were no birds or butterflies or insects of any kind. Above her the sky appeared to ripple with shades of blues, greens and grays. There was light, but she could see no sun or stars, nor could she see Belmair’s two moons except in reflection upon the sky. Finally she grew curious.
“Where are we?” she asked Arlais as they strolled the gardens one afternoon. “And do not, I beg you say, Yafirdom. Just where is Yafirdom?”
