Speaking of the incredibly annoying love of his life … Deyvid bit his tongue and let the children greet their uncle first. They were enthusiastic, naturally. An opportunity to get a break from their studies was a welcome one as far as they were concerned.
“Uncle Petur!” Givencie ran over to him, arms up, and was quickly thrown into the air. She flew up with a shriek and landed with a laugh, never mind that at ten, most of her peers thought themselves too old for this sort of thing. It wasn’t a question ofstrength on Petur’s part, and so Givencie would take advantage of her youth for as long as she could. “Uncle Petur,” she went on as soon as he put her down. “This is so boring.”
Deyvid put his hand over his heart in mock affront, making Delainie laugh. “Boring?” he said. “My language, boring?”
“Yeah,” Arven said. “Kind of. I mean, it’s just so stern.”
“It’s logical,” Deyvid said. “Trust me. Once you get the tones down, you’ll have it. It won’t take long for the rest of it to just fall into place.”
“Ugh, I thought you were doing something fun with your Uncle Deyvid today,” Petur said with a moan of understanding. “Not languages. I have never tried to learn a tougher language, and I speak Perithounian. Notwell, but I speak it.”
Deyvid switched to his native tongue. “You weren’t complaining when I whispered sweet nothings into your ear last night with this language.”
Petur grinned and responded in kind. “That was entirely due to the speaker, not the words being spoken. And anything sounds good coming from your lips, darling.” He added the last part cheekily, in a language they could all understand. The girls giggled and blushed, and Arven rolled his eyes.
“Is Mom finally gone?” he asked. “I want to work on swordplay.”
“Your father is going to be checking on you in fifteen minutes,” Petur said, and the three of them groaned. “Yes, I know, I know. So I’m afraid weapons work is out. In fact, you’re going to have to do without the company of your darling uncles for a time. We’re being pulled away on a top-secret assignment.”
“An assignment?” Arven frowned. “Is something wrong? Did you hear something from Mersaighe?”
“Nothing like that,” Petur said airily, dismissing his nephew’s entirely reasonable concerns. “Just something I’ve beenconcocting for a while; it really can’t be put off any longer. We’ll only be gone for a few days, I promise.”
“And when we get back,” Deyvid added, “we’ll pick up where we left off. In the meantime”—he pointed at another stack of books—“focus on mathematics.”
“Angles are hard,” Givencie whined, putting her head down on her desk. She slumped her head down onto the table and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Why do I need to know angles?”
“For so many reasons,” Petur assured her. “Just ask your brother.”
“Notthatmany reasons,” Arven grumbled. Math wasn’t his strongest suit. He was good at it, but none of them had Petur’s brilliance when it came to working through numbers in their head. It was the despair of their father, who was even better than Petur at keeping track of the books for an entire kingdom.
“Itischallenging,” Petur agreed. “All the more reason for you to get to work now, so that your father has reason to think well of you when he comes and checks on you in, oh, thirteen or so minutes now. We’ll be back in a few days,” he added in a softer voice. “Before your mother gets home.”
“Good,” Delainie said firmly. “Then go, but be safe, all right?”
Deyvid smiled at her. “We will be, sweetheart.” He leaned forward and kissed her and Givencie on the foreheads. Arven politely declined a similar treatment, and then Petur was pulling him out of the royal classroom and down the hall.
“What’s the assignment?” Deyvid asked.
“Not here,” Petur said as he marched briskly down the corridor. “We have to get to the dock first.”
Deyvid frowned. “The dock? Why?”
“Because that’s where the assignment is. I’ll tell you more about it when we get there.”
“You’re being very cryptic,” Deyvid said, with more than a hint of suspicion. “Why can’t you just tell me what this is all about?”
“Because if I did that, I’d have to kill you,” Petur said easily.
“Haha, very funny. Where are you taking us?”
“Deyvid.” Petur stopped moving and turned toward him, clasping his hands in a motion that startled Deyvid with its earnestness. “Darling, love of my life and pain in my neck. Do me a favor and just shut up until we get to the dock, all right?”
The glimmer in his eyes spoke of good humor, so for once instead of fighting it, Deyvid let it be. “All right,” he said. “Lead on.”
The royal family had their own dock, of course, a private stretch of stone boardwalk where no fewer than three ships were housed at any one time. The largest of them, Tania’s flagship, was rarely taken out, reserved only for the most formal or ceremonial occasions. There was a large sloop as well, the one that all the children learned to sail on and that needed a crew of between five and seven people to really get it going out at sea.
The last of their personal ships was small, just twenty feet long, with a single broad sail the same color as the azure sky that stretched above them like a vast canopy. It could be handled by two people, one in a pinch, Petur had explained when he was acquainting Deyvid with the dock for the first time, but it was easier with two. “That’s the one you’ll learn to sail on,” he’d promised.
