Page 98 of Kept

“Chieftain,” Laurent said, inclining his head to Igrith. “Looks like you have your hands full.”

She gave him a sardonic look. “You’re the one with three children.” She looked at me. “Or are there more coming?”

Laurent stiffened. “Igrith,” he said carefully, “I have two six-month-olds. Are you saying this as a Seer, or are you making a jest? Before you answer, recall that I do possess a dungeon.”

Lidia burst out laughing. Igrith bounced Viktor on her shoulder and winked at me.

As the feast wound down, Varick returned to the table.

“Did I miss anything?” he asked as he sat next to me with a sleeping Violeta in his arms.

Laurent smiled lazily at him. “Yes, we have plans to eat Given’s pussy later.”

Varick’s eyes lit up. “Is that right, halfling?” Violeta began to fuss. “Aww, little love,” he murmured, stroking the pale blond curls that peeked from her cap. He handed her to me. “I think she wants mama.”

I took my daughter, my heart swelling with so much love I wasn’t sure I could hold it all. I pushed her cap back, exposing the curved tip of her ear. “Hello, there, little elven queen,” I murmured.

Cheers went up on the other side of the Hall, and I looked up to see a red-faced Sergiu of Lar Bassa being toasted by a rowdy group of knights.

“What’s that about?” I asked Varick under my breath.

He grinned. “Sergiu’s husband just returned from a trip to Vollefort. He was gone for six months, so Radu’s knights got them a few evenings at an inn in the city.”

I cuddled the baby to my breast. “Like a second honeymoon? That was sweet of them.”

The knights hoisted Sergiu onto their shoulders and launched into a song with lyrics that made my ears burn.

Laurent laughed. “I don’t think sweet is what they had in mind.”

The evening grew late, and the three of us made our way to our bedchamber. I’d long since knocked down the wall Laurent’s mother had built, and now my old bedchamber served as a nursery for the children.

“I’ll take her, Your Grace,” Mira said, bustling from the room. She gazed lovingly at Violeta as I handed her over. She and Henrik had married shortly after I sealed the Rift. They’d chosen to stay in Nor Doru, and Mira had sobbed when I told her I’d given Violeta the middle name “Mira” in her honor.

Nor Doru no longer had thralls. According to King Edwin, Sithistra had a waiting list for people—lowborn and highborn alike—anxious to spend time in Lar Katerin.

“They want to speak to you, Your Grace,” he’d said. “To thank you for saving the realm.”

I accepted those kinds of compliments with as much grace as I could muster. But I never failed to feel like a fraud. Because I hadn’t saved anything on my own. I’d banished Midian. And I’d lived.

Jordan had not.

But as Varick often reminded me, Jordan had carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d seen all the thousands of rivers flowing. Had lived his whole life knowing he walked toward death.

I was forever grateful he’d walked with me to mine.

Every summer, Eldenvalla was carpeted in the flowers that bore his name. And when I handed Varick his son for the first time, my warrior husband had looked up with tears in his eyes and said, “I’d like his middle name to be Jordan.”

I’d nodded, my own eyes burning. “I’d like that too.”

“What are you thinking about?” Laurent asked, coming up behind me on my balcony. Varick moved to my other side and placed his hand over mine on the railing.

“How lucky we are,” I said. “I don’t know if life can get any better.”

Laurent smiled against my neck, his fangs gently scraping my skin. “Are you thinking of becoming boring, princess?”

“Not just yet.”

“Good, because I have plans for you.”

Varick was quiet for a long time, his gaze thoughtful as he looked out over the city. Then he turned to me, his golden eyes soft and earnest. “I never asked you… When you died for that moment in the Shade, what did you see?”

I turned in Laurent’s arms and looked toward the nursery where our children slept. When I turned back, I let my head rest against Laurent’s shoulder and reached a hand up and cupped Varick’s cheek.

“Everything.”

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