“No, not that. I think he wants adventure and considers kingship dull. A boy still. Yet … there’s something endearing about him.”

Kieri grinned at her. “You’re going to make a fine mother, my love.”

“What? Why?”

“Camwyn’s a scamp, and our son may be one, too. Some women cannot love a scamp. I’m glad you can. Tell me, are you tired from your journey, or do you feel like practice this day?”

“Practice always,” Arian said. “And that’s another thing. Our royal salle is much better than their royal salle.”

“Agreed. I’ve practiced there.”

Arian rejoiced in the familiar morning routine, sparring with Carlion and Siger and the Squires. Breakfast with Kieri, catching up on the news: work had begun on the River Road extension and the river port. They walked in the rose garden, now a riot of fragrance and color.

“I cannot tell that the taig is much different without the elvenhome,” Kieri said. “What do you feel?”

“It certainly reacted when the Lady died,” Arian said. She laid her hand gently on the stem of one of the old roses trained on a wall. From there to the trees beyond the wall, and the heart of the taig, the flow of energy felt easy, unrestricted. “You’re right, though—barring the gaps and injuries done by the scathefire, it seems healthy and much the same. Has Amrothlin said anything about the taig in particular?”

“No. He’s been helpful on other points, though it takes at least half a day for him to tell me one thing I need to know. I’m learning patience along with far too much about things that happened a vanryn ago. He insists it’s all connected, and I suppose it is, but I wish there weren’t so much of it.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “And now, my queen, how do you feel about the burdens of queenship?”

Arian laughed. “I am not the same woman who was afraid back in the winter, my king. You said I would not find it as difficult as I feared, and so it has been. Oh—that reminds me—I met Duke Mahieran’s daughters and their formidable aunt.”

“Maris?” Kieri said. He shook his head, his expression rueful. “The first time I met her after being elevated to duke, she looked me up and down and said she didn’t know how someone like me got to be a duke. I think she blamed me that her husband died in a campaign I survived when I was still very young and had no title at all.”

“She seems very…” Arian paused, unable to think how to say it.

“Difficult? Yes. But honest, as well. How were Sonder’s daughters?”

“Scared and rebellious both,” Arian said. “They’d been confined—less closely than Beclan but forbidden most of the things they usually did.”

“Are they living with their mother?”