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Raum, Isak, and Fiske enjoyed teaching the two princes how to use whalebone picks on locks, or how to read a man’s eyes to tell if they were lying. The rest of the Kryv took it upon themselves to teach my sons to thieve.
Thieving princes. Perhaps in other lands it might be a thing of disgrace. In the East, most folk had a touch of thief in their blood. It’d be a disgrace if they didn’t make use of their tricky hands. Jonas and Sander only snatched the purses of the Kryv or Falkyns, mostly to prove they could.
They were usually caught and dubbed the failures of the games. Each time they tried harder, grew slier, and attracted more mischief.
While they were raised to be crafty, still we kept Jonas and Sander shielded in a way. Like on days where their father joined his guild to argue over how best to prevent war and death, sights we never wanted our sons to witness.
Sights I wasn’t so certain we could keep from them much longer.
“Maj. Made this for you.” Jonas stood in front of me. Tall for nine, lanky like me, but a face like his father. His tousled brown hair was always on end, and his verdant eyes were always alight with some trouble he planned to make.
Jonas smiled and held out a small wooden trinket.
“Jonas, owls are my favorite.” I took the piece and admired the rough cuts around feathers and a tufted face. “It’s beautiful, my love. Thank you.”
Despite his protests, I clasped his face in my palms and gave him a wet kiss on his cheek.
“Decent, I suppose. Beak’s a little off.” Frigg popped her shoulder across the lawns and held up a handful of wooden beads she’d been carving for a week. “Try making a small shape, Prince Jonas. That’s where knife work gets hard.”
Jonas let his eyes shade over, the same as Kase’s could do, although their mesmer was different. Where Kase worked in the fear of others, our boys worked in creating it. They worked in nightmares.
“Why’d I wanna make stupid beads? Do you see me wearin’ a dress, Friggy?”
“They can be for hair too!”
“Oh.” Jonas snorted and mocked tossing back his short hair. “Like a bleedinggirl.”
I swatted the back of his head as Frigg narrowed her eyes in a way that made her look wholly like her father. Hob and Inge took the stronghold at Felstad after the battle of the Black Palace. Their daughter wasn’t much older than the princes, and like Hob and me, they couldn’t seem to do anything but aggravate each other.
I stood, letting them argue, and strode across the lawns to where Sander read near the creek’s edge, back against the stone tower of one of the many warning flame torches.
With a sigh I sat beside my second son. He shared most of Jonas’s same features, from the green of his eyes to the constant mess of his auburn hair. Sander was a thinker. Most took Jonas for the boisterous troublemaker, but if they knew the truth, they’d know most of the schemes were born in this boy’s brain.
“What book today?”
He lifted his head, noticing me for the first time, and proudly held up the leather book.
“Blood Herbs: Spell Cast Codex.” I arched my brows. “Have you, all at once, become a spell caster?”
Sander grinned softly. “Uncle Nik gave it to me. Teaches you all the herbs and berries and leaves and such. There’s a nutshell that can cause the tongue to tie up in nonsense words. No matter how you try, you can’t say anything right for at least a clock toll.” He snorted and his smile widened. “I’m gonna do it to Jo sometime.”
“You’re not poisoning your brother.” I reclined on my hands.
“Maj,” he whined. “I’m not poisoning him. But you gotta admit it’d be funny to hear him go on about nothing and not be able to help it.”
I wasn’t going to survive my sons.
“That,” Sander went on, voice softer. “Or I’ll use something to kill that sea creature and the shadow man.”
“Kill what?” A groove shaped between my brows. “What sea creature, what shadow?”
Sander eyed the creek warily. “I don’t . . . I don’t know if I should say. You’ll think I’m losing my mind and—”
“Sander.” I gripped his arm. “What are you talking about?”
For the first time, I noticed the shadows buried in his young eyes. Not from mesmer, from true fear. “I saw something in the water and she brought . . . a man with her.”
My blood froze. Instinct took hold, and I dragged Sander behind me as I peered into the creek.
