The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of Renthia #2)(37)

"Mama, he's doing it again," the older one-the girl, Erian-said.

"Am not." The younger one was . . . oh, what was his name? F-something? B? Ven watched the boy deliberately slide a stick behind him and poke his sister, lightly, in the side. She swatted at him, but he was quicker, dropping the stick and spreading his hands to show his innocence. "I'm all the way over here, Mama. I can't even reach her. Must have been a spirit."

Their mother, Naelin, was sewing a fresh charm onto the boy's jacket. She didn't look up from her neat, even stitches. "Llor, we don't joke about spirits."

Llor. He'd been that close to remembering.

Well . . . not really.

"You may joke about rabid squirrels," Naelin added, "like the one behind you."

Both children whipped around so fast they nearly toppled off the branch. There were no squirrels behind them, rabid or otherwise. Just a blackbird, who cocked its head at them, then cawed before flying off its branch. "Mama," Erian said, with a note of profound disapproval in her voice.

Ven saw the corner of Naelin's mouth twitch into an almost smile. He liked that she had a sense of humor. Boded well for her ability to survive what was to come. "Say good night to Champion Ven and Captain Alet," she told them.

In unison, the children said, "Good night, Champion Ven. Good night, Captain Alet."

Putting down her sewing, Naelin helped secure both her children into the netting that Ven had strung up between the branches. She wrapped blankets around them and kissed them both on the cheek. "Sweet dreams, my loves."

It was a simple act, but so full of absolute love that it made something ache inside Ven's rib cage. He rubbed his chest as if it were indigestion.



       
         
       
        

"I don't want to dream," Llor told her.

"Why not?" Naelin asked. "Dreams can be nice. You might have one about a friendly bear who carries you for a ride through the wood. Or a dancing bear, who performs on high wires."

Llor giggled. "In a dance dress?"

"With ribbons in his fur."

He stopped giggling. "What if I have a nightmare?"

His sister answered, "Then I'll hug you until you fall back asleep."

"What if you have a nightmare?" he asked her.

"Then I'll tell Mama, and she'll tell me silly stories until it goes away," Erian said.

"Tell me a silly story now," Llor demanded.

Naelin kissed them both again, on the foreheads this time. "Now it's time for sleep. You've had a very full day." Ven flinched as she said that, though she hadn't looked at him. He'd kept forgetting the children didn't have long legs. They'd needed to rest frequently, drink water, and poke at each other. He hadn't crossed half the miles he normally would have. Still, she managed to make him feel guilty with that one statement, as if it had been his idea to bring children on a training journey.

Speaking of which . . . I have to start training her, he thought. Tonight. He'd neglected it in the interest of traveling as far from her home village as possible, to minimize the risk of her changing her mind, but now they were sufficiently far away and also not near anyone else, so he wouldn't have to worry about endangering any innocents.

He waited while she told the children a story-apparently they had finagled one out of their mother-about a snail who wanted to climb a tree to see the sunrise. The snail was swallowed whole by a bird, excreted over the ocean ("Poop!" Llor shouted with glee), and then washed ashore on an island known for its beautiful sunrises on the beach-but the snail never saw a single sunrise because he was so tired from his three-year adventure that he slept late every morning thereafter. Ven supposed the story had some sort of moral, possibly linked to a go to sleep right now message, but he couldn't get past the idea of the snail surviving all that.

"You're staring at her again," Alet said in a low voice as she dropped onto the branch beside him.

"I was not-"

"I get it. She's a mama bear. Even I admire that. I never had that. It was just my sister and me growing up-our mother left shortly after I was born, and our father worked all the time, until he got too sick to take care of himself, much less anyone else. We'd have loved someone to kiss our boo-boos and tell us bedtime stories. I'm guessing you had a less-than-ideal childhood as well? Not that I want to discuss it, because I don't." 

Watching Naelin did not make him think about his childhood. In fact, it woke very different thoughts, but that was not a matter he even wanted to consider. He had a job to do. "We aren't discussing anything; we're training a candidate. Starting now." He unwrapped the charms from the hilt of his knife and then buried the blade in the flesh of the tree. Wriggling it back and forth and twisting it, he felt the blade cut into the soft pulp and watched Naelin. She'd left Erian and Llor in their hammocks and returned to the fireside, resuming her needlework with the new charm.