The Shadow Queen. Bertrice Small

cried aloud, and he was immediately there by her side.

      For a moment the others stood confused. Then Sirvat knelt by her husband’s side casting an anxious glance at Lara. Lady Persis cried out in despair recognizing death was about to claim her only son. Taj, the shock evident upon his young face, put a comforting arm about his grandmother, who was frail and elderly now.

      “Hear me!” Magnus Hauk said. “Lara will rule for our son until she deems him ready to be Dominus of Terah. Only Lara! Her word is to be law in Terah.”

      “She is female,” Lady Persis quavered. “Never has Terah been ruled by a female, Magnus, my son.”

      “Only Lara!” he repeated. “My dying words must be honored. Corrado, Kaliq, you are my witnesses. Swear you will uphold my last wishes.”

      They swore.

      “Taj, my son, come to me,” Magnus Hauk called, his voice discernibly weaker.

      “I am here, my lord father,” the boy said as he came to kneel by his sire’s side.

      “Swear to me you will obey and sustain my dying wishes. Your mother is to rule until she believes you are ready. Swear!” The Dominus grew even paler as he spoke.

      Taj began to cry. “I am too young to be Dominus,” he wept. “I swear, my lord father. My mother will rule until I am able to take up my inheritance. I will not question your wishes. I will not!”

      “Mother, Sirvat, swear!” he demanded weakly.

      “I swear, brother!” Sirvat said.

      “Mother!”

      “I…swear,” Lady Persis said reluctantly. “But it goes against tradition,” she could not refrain from adding.

      “Kaliq, protect them!” the Dominus said, his voice beginning to fade away.

      “With my own life, Magnus,” the great Shadow Prince swore.

      “You are immortal,” Magnus Hauk said with a feeble smile.

      “Not entirely,” Kaliq responded. Then he, too, knelt by the Dominus’s side. “Are you ready, my lord?” he asked him softly.

      Magnus Hauk looked to Lara, his turquoise gaze locking on to her faerie green eyes. With the last of his strength he said, “I have loved none but you. I have never been happier than when I was with you. Mourn me briefly. Then find your destiny, Lara, my love, my life. You are surely meant for greatness. Now I must leave you.”

      Lara pressed her lips together to keep from crying out. She caressed his ashen cheek. Then, bending, she kissed him a final time letting loose her hold on him as she did. Magnus Hauk, Dominus of Terah, died softly, his last breath slipping from between his lips to be caught up by the south wind which bore it away.

      Prince Kaliq, the great Shadow Prince, could see the Dominus’s spirit as it hovered above them all, reluctant to depart. Go, my friend, he told Magnus Hauk in the silent language of the magical folk. You know I will keep my word to you. Then he watched sadly as the spirit rose up and disappeared. He looked to Lara, for his greatest concern now was for her. Magnus Hauk had left her with a terrible responsibility. He wondered how the Terahns, a people of ancient tradition, would react to their Domina assuming power for her son.

      Without a word Lara stood up, taking Taj’s small hand in hers as together they walked from the ship, returning to the castle to prepare for a funeral, and for the transition that was to follow. Kaliq shook his head. His fears were needless. Lara knew her duty, and the Shadow Princes had taught her well. He would be there for her, but he would not intrude. For all the faerie blood in his veins, her son had no magic about him. He was mortal, but Lara would teach him well.

      CHAPTER ONE

      LARA HAD BROUGHT the convenience of faerie post to Terah many years before. Now she marshaled the tiny messengers, sending them throughout Terah announcing the unexpected death of the Dominus Magnus Hauk. The leaders of all the villages were instructed to gather at a central meeting place assigned to each of the seven fjords, at a specific time on the day of Magnus Hauk’s funeral. The headmen and -women of the New Outland families were also sent similar instructions. The mountain gnomes were also invited to participate. Her husband’s funeral would be a grand one.

      Lara thought back to the time she had managed the funeral of her first husband, Vartan, Lord of the Fiacre. She had been a young girl with two small children then, one a baby. Now her eldest son, Dillon, was a man grown with his own wife. Her eldest daughter, Anoush, was also grown. The three children she had borne Magnus Hauk were still fledglings. Well, perhaps not the eldest, Zagiri. At seventeen Zagiri was fully grown, wasn’t she? Lara sighed sadly. She was finally beginning to understand the curse of being faerie with mortal offspring. Her children were aging. But she was not.

      “Mother?” Anoush had come to stand by her side.

      “Yes, my darling,” Lara answered the daughter she had borne Vartan of the Fiacre twenty-one years ago.

      “I have a crystal that will ease the pain,” Anoush volunteered.

      “Nay,” Lara said softly. “Magnus Hauk’s memory is more than worthy of my pain, but thank you.” Reaching out, she patted Anoush’s small, pale, blue-veined hand. This first daughter of hers was so fragile while the other two were healthy. Zagiri might even be called sturdy. How different they all were. There wasn’t a magical bone in Zagiri’s body despite her bloodline while Anoush had the Sight and was an instinctive healer of mind, body and soul. Her gift was both a joy and a sorrow to her, for she was so intuitive and sensitive herself she suffered along with those who sought her help.

      As for her youngest daughter, Marzina, she was, like Dillon, extremely magical and had proven so at an early age. Born a twin to her brother, Taj, Marzina had not been sired by Magnus Hauk although it was generally believed she had been. The seed from which Marzina had blossomed was that of Kol, the Twilight Lord, who had forced himself upon Lara on the Dream Plain. For this crime Kol was now imprisoned, his kingdom in chaos. No one had ever questioned Marzina’s paternity but for Lara’s mother, who had been present at the twins’ birth and declared she looked like a Nix relation.

      Lara felt a tear slip down her cheek. She rarely wept, but now suddenly the tears flowed for Magnus Hauk, who had been so good to all of her children. Anoush wrapped her mother in her embrace, and, sobbing, Lara accepted her daughter’s comfort as the girl’s hand stroked her mother’s pale golden head. “It isn’t fair!” She voiced aloud her frustration and her despair over her husband’s sudden demise.

      “I know,” Anoush agreed, “but when has life ever been fair, Mother? Was it fair when my uncle killed my father, Vartan?”

      Lara drew away from her eldest daughter. “Nay, it was not fair then, nor is it fair now, Anoush. I shall not wed again. The men I marry seem to meet with untimely ends.”

      “You do not need to marry,” Anoush replied, and suddenly her blue eyes glazed over. “You are loved without the bonds of marriage. And you have your destiny to consider. It draws closer, but you are still not ready to receive it. There is time yet.” Then Anoush slumped against Lara. “Mother?” she whispered a moment later.

      “It’s all right, my darling,” Lara comforted her. “It was one of your visions.”

      “Was it important?” Anoush wanted to know, for she never recalled these moments when she saw into the future.

      Before Lara might answer Anoush her two younger daughters burst into her dayroom shrieking with terrible distress.

      Zagiri threw herself into her mother’s arms. “Is it true?” she sobbed. “No! No! It cannot be true! Tell me our father isn’t dead?”

      Lara’s sorrow evaporated as her anger arose. “It is true, Zagiri,” she said. “Now who has usurped my right to bring you this awful news?”

      “Grandmother Persis,” Marzina quickly replied, for Zagiri was incapable