04.10.08
Her.
She isn’t the kind of woman I’m attracted to at all.
For one thing, she’s about a foot taller than me. I’m fairly tall, as my people go; it’s disconcerting to be the one looked down on. She’s also skinny as hell. She looks as if a stiff breeze would snap her in half. She’s all bones; all hard angles and sharp lines. There’s nothing soft about her.
Her skin is landwight-dark, and her hair is a rich blond, both of which would be fine on any other woman. Her eyes, though… They’re gold, which is always an uncanny color for eyes. Perhaps even that wouldn’t be so bad, except that she doesn’t blink, and she sees everything. I swear, assassins’ knives are duller than her gaze.
Then there’s that damnable grin. She’s always grinning – in a toothy, I’m-going-to-rake-you-over-hot-coals-and-laugh-about-it manner. Okay, she’s not always grinning, but when she isn’t, she’s wearing that insufferably smug I-still-know-more-than-you-do expression that makes me want to slap her, except if I did I wouldn’t live long.
More than anything else though, she’s creepy. She’s the stereotypical creep in the dark alley, made even more unnerving by her preference for broad daylight. She sees everything, and forgets none of it, which triggers a constant caught-with-the-hand-in-the-cookie-jar reaction in everyone around her. Her whole attitude is dismissive; the world is a dark joke to her – and yet you know just by looking at her that to mess with her is to risk life and limb.
No, I’m not attracted to her at all.
Not even if she is intelligent, with a wry sense of humor and scathing wit, an admirable inability to abide fools, and an odd magnetism that draws everyone to her like moths to a flame…
Oh, damn.
—
Mother Lia.
No one ever really thought the words Liamariye Thaziazhsta and maternal instinct in the same sentence, unless it was with faint bewilderment. If there was one woman who seemed to be the embodiment of everything but motherhood, it was the ruthless, distant, and haughtily irreverent General.
Of course, most people couldn’t imagine her married, either, and the atmosphere at her wedding was one of confusion in general, and pity for her husband. Dag, being Dag, found it all amusing. Lia, typically, ignored the whole thing, though she did find a malicious joy at flashing her wedding ring at people.
I don’t know why everyone was so surprised when news of Lia’s pregnancy spread. What, precisely, did they think she did with her husband? Lia, typically, took the whole thing with her typical equanimity, although it was during this time that her craving for spicy foods led her to create her infamous hot sauce.
Of course, she was far more likely to rip off people’s heads while pregnant, as the ambassador from the Shadowlands came close to finding out personally. It just gave me more of an excuse to keep Lia from doing any diplomatic work. Still, I think everyone was relieved when the baby was finally born.
The first thing I remember about Nathan was that he was so small, especially when cradled in the arms of his seven-foot-tall mother. The second thing I remember was the vicious glare Lia directed my way; it was clear that she was ready to rip the arms off anyone who breathed wrong in her son’s presence. I smirked; all those who thought Lia had no maternal instinct were about to be proven very wrong.
***
Two weeks after Nathan was born, I ran into a haggard Dag in the kitchens. He shot me a tired smile, sat down at a corner counter, and promptly dozed off … or so I thought.
“Every night.”
“What?” I asked, rubbing my sore head. I’d slammed it into the top of the cooler door when he’d spoken.
“Every night, sometime around early morning, Nathan wakes up. Which wakes Lia up. He won’t go back to sleep until she reads to him – so she reads to him. The Encyclopedia of Naval Strategies. Diplomatic Negotiations for Dummies. A Beginner’s Guide to Conquering the World.“
I stared at him. “Are you serious?”
Dag looked at me, his green-brown eyes unusually solemn. “Yes. I don’t know where she gets the books – from her colleagues in the Bard Schools, I suppose. I’ve never heard of most of them.” He rose with a sigh. “She’s starting on The Philosophy of War tonight. I’m off to catch some sleep – I have battle strategies leaking out of my ears.”
“Nathan’s opinion of all this is…?” I asked Dag as he headed for the door.
Dag heaved another sigh. “That’s the galling thing – he’s completely enthralled.”
***
Nathan was the kind of sweet child everyone fell in love with – and he was the kind of child intelligent enough to take advantage of that. By age two, he had the whole castle wrapped around his finger – and everyone knew it, and no one minded. He was also surprisingly good at getting into mischief.
No one was entirely surprised when Lia proved to have a strange intuition concerning her son. Wherever he hid himself, she would find him – easily, without even looking around. Whatever trouble he was involved in, she’d worm him out of – always with a lecture on how to better get away with things. On one memorable occasion, Lia stood on her chair in the middle of a diplomatic conference and dragged Nathan out of the overhead air shaft – all without interrupting her statement. A curious and slightly chagrined Nathan sat on her lap for the rest of the meeting.
People were a bit surprised when Nathan grew up and joined the Healers; he’d never shown much interest in that field. Then again, he has always been a quiet boy. But deep down – or not so deep down, really, but from his core to his surface – he’s always been a kind person. It takes kindness, more than anything else, to be a healer.
Lia stands next to me, watching him leave on his apprenticeship. I look up at her. “He’ll be fine, Lia.”
“Oh, he’ll complete his apprenticeship easily; I have no doubts about him.” Lia pauses, glances at me, then glances back at her departing son. “But my intuition is screaming at me nonetheless.”
I tap her arm. “Let’s go in.”
She gives me a mocking bow. “Yes, your Majesty.”
I whack her harder, unable to avoid noticing the worry that still laces her eyes…
