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PREPARATIONS

Granny Noon’s hands stilled as she stopped midstitch in her knitting. “Are you expecting a little one?”

Kale sat up straighter on the short footstool by the rocker. “No, I’m not.”

“Are you sure?” The emerlindian’s eyes wandered around the nursery. She sighed. “I do cherish these sprouts.”

A marione toddler chose that moment to spit up his milk. A ropma nursemaid rushed to clean up the tyke and the floor.

Granny Noon giggled. “Although having them around is not always convenient…or clean.”

Kale tried to smile as the emerlindian turned an experienced eye back to her, a confused o’rant sitting at a wise woman’s feet. She hoped Granny Noon would give her comfort as she faced this difficult separation from Bardon.

“Kale, sometimes young women get a bit teary-eyed when they’re carrying a child.”

“I am not! I know for sure. And I’m not crying.”

“Not now, but your eyes are red and puffy.” Granny picked up her stitch, and her needles clicked at a steady beat again. “You cry because you didn’t get your way. Because Paladin didn’t agree with you. And Bardon didn’t stand up for you and change everyone’s mind so you could do what you want.”

“That’s not why I’ve been crying. That’s childish, and I’m not childish.” Her lower lip had somehow managed to stick out in a pout. She pulled it in.

Granny Noon rocked and knitted, her eyes fixed on the stitches gliding from one needle to the other. Kale glanced around the room at crawling babies and small children tottering with ungainly steps.

The swoosh-creak, swoosh-creak of the rocking chair provided a counter beat to the rapid clicking of Granny Noon’s needles. “You know, all aspects of life are like those infants learning to move. They pull themselves up to the starting position, struggle to stay balanced, and fight to toddle in the right direction. We tackle each challenge in life in much the same way.”

Kale looked up at her mentor. “And this applies to me?”

“Yes, in that you are entering a new relationship and a new task. Don’t expect to immediately be able to work side by side with your father. You’ll stumble around a bit before you find a rapport. This new quest is under different circumstances, as is every quest. You have old knowledge to blend with new. You will grow and mature. Kale, although it will seem uncomfortable, in the end, you will be blessed.”

Kale turned her face away and scrunched up her nose. “I really do know all this, Granny Noon. I’ve heard it before.”

The emerlindian’s chuckle eased the tension in Kale’s shoulders. “I know you do, my dear. But I don’t see evidence that you’re applying the knowledge.”

Kale sighed and turned her sour expression to the granny so she could see. Granny Noon laughed out loud.

Kale allowed her face to relax and giggled. “What should I do, Granny Noon?”

“You already know. I think Paladin himself once told you.”

Contentment filled Kale at the memory of Paladin’s tender words and encouragement. “Just what is right ahead of me.”

“That’s correct.” Granny put her knitting in a basket and stood. “Let’s go down to the herb room and replenish your supply. You never know what you might need in your hollows when out seeking lost dragon eggs.”

They went down winding stone steps to the lower level of the palace where the cool rooms stored perishable produce. Herbs in glass and ceramic jars on shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Lightrocks were embedded in the wooden beams above their heads. A preparation table stood in the middle of the light, dry room. In each corner stood a porous rock column that absorbed moisture. Lady Allerion hummed as she mixed a compound at the table.

“Hello.” Kale hugged her mother. “I think we have come to do an identical task.”

After Granny Noon and Lyll exchanged a greeting, they got busy. Kale found herself being the one to fetch different ingredients. She pushed the wooden ladder around the room and scooted up and down the rungs to reach jars on the upper shelves.

She set a ceramic pot on the table in front of her mother, who thanked her.

Wiping the dust from her fingers, Kale waited for another request. She watched her mother dip out a clear, sticky substance. Kale passed her a scraper to transfer the goo from the dipper to a bowl. “When I lived in River Away, I thought magic would be to snap my fingers and things would appear in front of me.”

“Unnatural,” said Granny Noon.

Lyll tapped her scraper on the edge of the bowl. “Defying Wulder’s order.”

“Or sleight of hand,” said Granny Noon.

Lyll pointed at a jar on the table containing thin rods. “Hand me a…” She shook her finger, indicating the rods. “Oh, that thing. No, a shorter one.”

Kale handed her the stirring rod. “I saw a magician once at the tavern in River Away.”

Both Granny Noon and Lyll stopped what they were doing and stared at Kale.

Kale shrugged. “He pulled doves out of a man’s cape and poured water into a lady’s bonnet.”

“Sleight of hand,” said Granny Noon. “Visual deception, meant for entertainment, not for the gaining of power. This is more like a puzzle. Everyone watching knows that it is a trick, and the pleasure is in the amazement of the sight and the wonder of how the magician manages to fool us.”

Lyll’s face still held a frown. “But there’s also dark magic, Kale. People and things that none of us should ever have anything to do with.”

“I know.” Kale shuddered. “Wizard Fenworth took me to a place where women talked to spirits of the deceased. And a man made a dead man walk.” Kale quickly asked Wulder to protect her. Even the memory of the place made her skin crawl. “Fenworth wanted me to see their depravity in the ugliest form so I would know what dabbling in the fringe elements could lure me into.” Shivering again, she avoided bringing to mind the immoral activities she’d seen in the darkest corners of the rooms.

Her mother patted her arm. The touch of a loving hand dispelled the dirtiness the image of the dark room had smeared across her heart.

Sir Kemry entered the room. “Found you! Found you both. I came to kiss my wife good-bye and whisk my daughter off on a grand adventure.”

He went first to Granny Noon and gave her a bear hug and a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll miss you, too, young lady.”

The old emerlindian giggled. “Put me down, you big ox.”

With tears in her eyes, Kale leaned toward her mother. “How do you stand being away from your husband?”

“Away? He’s part of me. I am never truly away as long as he roams through my heart and mind.” She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “And the time together is so much more pleasant for the time spent apart.”

“That’s a principle.”

“Yes, not worded quite as it is in the Tomes, but the meaning is the same.”

“I thought that referred to our future time in Wulder’s presence.”

“It does, and it is also referring to any separation from a loved one.”

“I love Bardon.”

“And he loves you. Quick, find him and tell him so. I’ll keep your father busy for a while.”

The twinkle in her mother’s eye reminded Kale that her parents would probably enjoy a private good-bye as much as she and her husband.

Kale hurried to the door. “I’ve something important to do before we leave, Father. I’ll find you later.”

“How much later?” her father bellowed after her.

Kale didn’t bother to answer. She trusted her mother to make her father comfortable with the wait.