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Jepp grinned in good-natured unrepentance. “Spend a few decades managing an obstinate boor of a Dasnarian man and you, too, will learn wisdom and insight.”
“Funny, I thought I had,” Ursula replied mildly.
“Harlan isn’t an obstinate boor,” Helva pointed out. “Of all our brothers, he’s always been the best and kindest.”
“It’s a relative thing,” Ursula replied in a sour tone, but with a soft, secret smile that transformed her hard, warrior’s face, lined from years on the highest throne in the land, into something youthful and radiant.
“Youareplanning to dress appropriately, I hope,” Ami said to Jepp, not pitching it as a question at all.
Jepp grimaced. “Hey, I’m the mother of the groom here.”
“Exactly,” Ami replied archly. “Which means eyes will be on you tonight.”
“With you and Nilly standing there looking all magically radiant?” Jepp retorted. “No one will even notice me.”
“Especially with Kral being so tall,” Helva said, nodding sympathetically, “and you so very tiny.”
Jepp leveled a dark-eyed, narrow glare at Helva. “I didn’t miss you at all.”
Helva stuck out her tongue at Jepp, the impudent gesture from the gracefully lovely and regal woman in her early sixties amusing enough that everyone laughed.
“I hope,” Karyn said, leaning over the back of Stella’s chair, “that you will not regret attaching yourself to the Konyngrr family. They can be quite… difficult.”
“Karyn Hardie,” Empress Inga gasped in mock outrage, “I seem to recall you married into our family eagerly enough.”
“And I risked my life to annul that marriage, Your Imperial Majesty,” Karyn replied with a deep and respectful formal curtsy, her eyes sparkling with mischief, “as you well recall. Besides Kral is much happier with his tiny, commoner wife,” she added, with a dimpled smile at Jepp.
“I am clearly outnumbered in this royal crowd,” Jepp declared, getting to her feet, then swooping in to plant a quick kiss on Stella’s cheek, nothing but swift affection in it. “I am out of here, now that I can report to Jak that you’re well and have eaten sufficiently. Let me know if you need to be rescued,” she added in a whisper, with perfect sincerity in Stella’s ear. “I have a ship at the ready.”
Stella laughed softly. “Jak offered the same, heart-mother. Tell him I can scale this invisible tower if he can.”
Jepp’s dark eyes, so like Jak’s, glimmered with sentiment. “I never thought I’d be so happy to be called ‘heart-mother.’ Thank you, Nilly.”
“Just wait until you’re called ‘grandmother,’” Inga advised sagely, lifting her pale brows. “It’s quite a shock the first few times.” Jepp gave her a wink and another bow as she slipped out of the room.
“Nobody told you that you needed to have seven children like our father,” Helva pointed out sweetly.
“Yes, well, fortunately they haven’tallreproduced,” Inga replied with a heartfelt sigh.
Ami had popped upright in shock. “Grandmother!I’m too young to be a grandmother. Nilly, I forbid you from having children. Maybe ever.”
“Maybe at least until Mom stops having babies,” Ilkay put in with a bright smile, “so they don’t get confused about having aunts and uncles younger than they are.”
“That’s right,” Ami agreed, ignoring the sarcasm. “I’m only in my mid-forties. I’m not done being Glorianna as Mother.”
“The croneisone of Glorianna’s faces,” Ursula pointed out drolly. “With ten children, maybe you’ve worked the mother-aspect enough and now it’s time to embrace the crone.”
“Thank you, Essla,” Ami snapped. “Speaking of crones, let’s not forget you’re ten years older than I am.”
“And ten times wiser,” Andi quipped, earning a screech of outrage from their baby sister.
Helva sidled closer to Stella. “Are they always like this?”
“Oh, no,” Zynda answered for her. “They’re usually much worse. This is why we try not to put them in the same room very often.”
“Sisters can be like that,” Inga put in, giving Helva a rueful look, “and we love them despite it.”
“Or because of it,” Helva replied. “I wish Ivariel could be here, too.”
