Page 37 of Sky’s Edge

“…with three children, he became obsessed with her. This obsession turned to paranoia. He was certain someone would steal her from him. Or she’d fall in love with one of her guards and they’d make an escape. In order to keep her only to himself, he devised a plan. He put her on a boat with a contingent of female guards. He shipped her to Sigil. He settled her here in this citadel with her guard. He then left to go back to ruling his kingdom, with promises he’d return frequently, and obviously send supplies in the meantime. This he did. Until being away from her dulled his obsession to the point he nearly forgot about her.”

Oh boy.

Tanyn kept going.

“But he remembered. And sent another supply ship, with him on it. However, when they arrived at Sigil, they found she, and all her guard, had perished from either cold or starvation. They noted they’d tried to build a boat, but it’s likely they were so weak from lack of sustenance at that time, they couldn’t. It’s also hard to hunt and chop wood when you have no fuel to sustain your bodies. However their tragic last days came about, all that led up to it had to be a very prolonged form of torture.”

I sat still and said nothing after he finished his sad tale.

Tanyn wasn’t still.

He downed the rest of his drink, got up and moved to the cabinet.

On a little whine (also feeling his daddy’s mood?), Hurley left me and went to him.

I found my voice.

“Did anyone use this place after she and the rest died?”

“Yes. But it went into disuse in the early eighteen hundreds,” he answered, returning to his chair, also returning his attention to the fire.

“It seems like a…well, a mighty big place for just a female and her son,” I noted carefully.

At that, he looked at me. “The majority of it is still closed off. When I said my father restored it so we could live here, he restored it only to what we might need. Electricity. Plumbing. Bedrooms. Bathrooms. Kitchen. Manually supplied Cook-Companions and Chill-Cupboards. And a few extra rooms for us to live in. The rest, in order to assist in keeping it warm, has been closed off. Once I have the time and attention, though, I’ll be refurbishing them.”

After I took another sip from my drink, I remarked, “If you do, it’s a lot for a lone male. And the citadel caretakers, of course.”

“I’m no longer a lone male, am I?” he asked.

I walked right into that one.

“And we will have children,” he stated.

My heart squeezed with anxiety, and my stomach with something else.

Ummmm…

He cocked his head to the side. “Do you want children?”

“Yes,” I said like it was pulled out of me.

“How many?”

“I had to wait to meet Laura, then Gayle, to get siblings, so at least two. Maybe three.” Or four, just to round it out, but I wasn’t going to say that.

“Acceptable,” he muttered before returning his attention to the fire.

A change in subject was heartily in order.

“I looked into Sigil, you know, so I’d know what to pack and what I was in for,” I told him. “There was no mention of that fae female in its history.”

“A king obsessing over a female, not his wife, then essentially murdering her and a number of his own guard very slowly through criminal neglect is not something the Hellsfire Dynasty wanted splashed all over the history books.”

“I can see that,” I mumbled into my glass, watching him over the rim. I took another sip and spoke again. “So, you expect us to spend time here.”

“Yes.”

“Frequently?”