“Ah.” Deyvid’s voice was neutral; he knew the responsibilities of a prince as well as Petur did.
“She wished to discuss a potential candidate.”
“Not suitable, I take it?”
“Not at all. I think I managed to convince her of that, but …” Petur sighed. “I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time.”
Deyvid nodded slowly. “We knew it would happen someday.”
Petur bit back a curse. “I loathe that you’re so sanguine about this.”
“I don’t mean to hurt you.”
I know you don’t.“I hate it,” he whispered. “I don’t want anyone else.”
“I know,” Deyvid said, then kissed the top of Petur’s head. “No matter what happens, you’ll always have me. All right? Nothing and no one will ever keep you from me. You’re the best thing in my life, and I will never give you up. Do you understand?”
It was terribly comforting to have confirmation that Deyvid was just as committed to Petur as Petur was to him. Not that he hadn’t known, but … “I understand.” He looked up at Deyvid. “I love you.”
“I love you as well. Always.”
Chapter ten
Deyvid
“Very close,” Deyvid said encouragingly as he turned to Givencie. He added, “The emphasis goes on the second syllable, though. Velesara, that’s the tone you use when you’re speaking to someone of a higher rank than yourself.”
“I don’t understand tones,” she whined, a pout crossing her still-childish face.
Years in, and Deyvid still marveled at the fact that he got to watch these children grow. It would never be like watching his own daughter grow up; he had given up on that dream a long time ago, but there was something intensely satisfying about watching Petur’s nieces and nephew grow from wide-eyed children, barely more than toddlers in Givencie’s case, into gangle-limbed adolescence.
Arven, eight years older than his youngest sister and already fairly well-versed in Deyvid’s language, looked down his nose at her. “You’ve barely even started,” he said. “The Harrier language isn’t the only tonal language out there either. You need to know them all if you’re going to be a real princess.”
“Exactly,” Givencie said after sticking her tongue out. “I’m going to be aprincess. Delainie is the one who has to worry about being queen. She should know how to use all these languages, not me.” Then she stuck her tongue out at her brother, who, apparently forgetting he was eighteen now, stuck his out right back.
Delainie reached toward Deyvid’s hand and touched it briefly, distracting him from her siblings’ bickering. “I don’t understand all the tones either,” she whispered, a slightly panicked look in her eyes.
“Ah, well,” Deyvid said, smiling at her. “The second tone isn’t one you’ll have to use very often since you’re going to outrank almost everybody you meet. Let’s focus on the third tone. That’s the one you use toward a respectful subordinate.”
Delainie suddenly grinned at him. “So, no one in this room, then?”
Deyvid chuckled. “No. Subordinate, perhaps. Respectful? They take too much after your uncle.”
“I wishItook more after my uncle,” she confessed quietly. Delainie was the only one of the royal children who hadn’t yet achieved a shifted state. Deyvid could tell it bothered her, even without her saying it. She was warier these days, stiffer and more formal with everyone, including her own parents.
Not that they were helping matters all that much by harping over and over and over on how she needed to increase her accomplishments. “Do this. Do that. Learn this.” Her little sister was a natural when it came to shifting, with a long-legged hare already under her belt by the age of ten, and her older brother was not only a gifted shifter, but he was also the best of them when it came to things like diplomacy and weapons work.
It was a shame, Deyvid thought in the quiet of his mind, that Arven had been given away in marriage so young. He had thepotential to become a great king, but he would make a great consort as well.
Of all the children, Deyvid felt the most commonality with Delainie. Stuck in a high position that she wasn’t certain she belonged in, pulled between the desires and expectations of her parents, that she would never be able to fully meet, and those of her own heart, which spoke to her of art and music, of reading and poetry. That was where Delainie shined the brightest, and they were precisely the things that she was least likely to get praised for.
“You’ll get it,” Deyvid promised her. “Certainly enough to get by. I don’t see there coming any call for peace talks with a Harrier nation any time soon, so this is more of a way to cover yourself than a necessity for diplomacy. And if you need help”—he smiled at her—“I’m here for you.”
She smiled back. “I know you are, Uncle Deyvid.”
None of the children used that title frequently, but whenever it came out, a subtle, special curl of warmth filled Deyvid’s heart. He didn’t have the family he’d grown up with, but hedidhave a family, and that was entirely down to Petur. The man was the love of his life, and Deyvid would never be able to thank him enough for taking it from something bleak and barren into the rich, loving manifestation that it was today.
“Hard at work warping impressionable young minds, I see,” a telltale voice called from the door.
