"I'm not marrying a seventeen year old," Ander said. "I can't believe anyone suggested it."

Edain nudged his horse out of the way of Ander's, who tended to start putting her ears back and nipping when her rider was upset. "Well, it's more of those kind of proposals you have to look forward to when we get back. I told them the whole thing was a bad idea. Nobody listens to me."

Ander grimaced and reined in Halla. "Thanks for trying, anyway. Nobody wants to listen to me either, and I'm the king."

"You could always marry Imogen," Edain said, lightly enough that Ander was almost sure it was a joke. "She's still single."

"Right," Ander said. "That wouldn't be a disaster. It's not like your sister hates me."

"Hey, at least she's not a teenager."

"Can we joke about this later?" Ander asked. "Maybe when I don't have people to feed and house with nothing at all in the treasury."

"So marry the richest girl and keep the family close," Edain said. "It's a time-honored tradition."

"That would be the seventeen year old."

"The second richest girl."

"Your sister, who hates me."

Edain shrugged. "She'd come around. You're charming."

"Thanks," Ander said dryly, and nudged Halla into a trot.

The village, when they arrived, already had food being passed around. It was bland fare - mostly bread and some watery soup - but it was there. Some houses were even in the process of repair.

"We're beholden to Trissan Pindanon," the headwoman told Ander when he asked, arms crossed and eyeing him critically. "The Pindanons take care of their own. His cousin that's in the west sent supplies soonest."

The west hadn't been untouched by demons either, though. The demon attacks had started there. When Ander pointed that out, the headwoman sniffed and repeated that the Pindanons took care of their own.

"Their own and no one else," Ander muttered as he left. He had managed not to stomp back to Halla - it wouldn't have been very kingly, and he didn't want people to think he was angry these people were fed - but it was close.

"Pindanons," he told Edain. "They'll be a thorn in my side for forever, but if they'd feed the rest of the Elflands I'd at least respect them."

"I respect Kael heaps," Edain said. "I will swear to it in a court of law, and it has absolutely nothing to do with how much I fear her."

Ander snorted.

"Be nice to the Pindanons, Ander," Edain said more seriously. "Kael already managed one successful coup."

"Yeah," Ander said, and, after making sure no one else was close enough to hear, "Remind me to throw her in prison when we get back."

"Back in prison," Edain muttered, but Ander ignored that. Kael Pindanon's political indestructibility was too frustrating to think about at the moment.

That village had been the last planned visit on this particular tour of the Elflands, and Ander was not looking forward to returning to Arborlon. At least when he was out riding he was doing something: in Arborlon he had mountains of paperwork, council meetings with councillors that hated him, and people throwing their questionably eligible daughters in his direction. Also wine. Lots of wine. Ander used the thought of someone wanting him to marry a seventeen year old to keep himself on track.

A seventeen year old was not eligible in Ander's book, and Ofelia Jeptanah had looked like she thought he was going to eat her alive. The look did not subside even when he assured her he wasn't going to marry her. In retrospect was not the most diplomatic of assurances; her uncle had sent a hard glare at Councillor Hardin before sweeping Ofelia out of the room.

Ander had sent his own glare at Hardin, who had only shrugged. Kael's smugness could probably be felt from the Ellcrys, but she hadn't suggested any of her Pindanon relations to him yet, though the aide behind her (one of her granddaughters, he thought: this one looked a bit like Kael, if Kael's hair had still been blonde) watched him as if she might eat him alive.

He spared a brief moment to wonder if maybe Kael's plan was to have everyone else present him with women he found uninteresting so she could appear to be making some sort of gesture, but Kael knew he didn't trust her. Maybe she was staying out of it entirely. Maybe the granddaughter she had trailing her was here to murder him. He might let her if it meant he could get some real sleep.

There was another village they could stop by on the way back. It was small, but it had originally been a field hospital out this way during the demon war, and it was where Catania had gone. She said it was to be useful, but Ander thought it was to escape the awkwardness of having a king for an ex.

"One more stop," he said.

"It's my head on a platter if I don't get you back to the council in time for that meeting," Edain warned.

"Who'd dare to take it?" Ander retorted. "I just want to check on Catania."

"Well," Edain said, smirking. "If Catania is there."

"Shut up," Ander said with more venom than was necessary. "She's Amberle's friend."

"You don't sleep with all your niece's friends, right?"

Ander ignored him.

Catania was bandaging someone's head wound when Ander, Edain, and the rest of Edain's Home Guards rode up.

"Trouble?" Ander demanded of the nearest local.

"Just a brawl, sir. Highness. Majesty," the man said, stumbling over the titles.

"Catania?"

"Don't distract me," she said, tacking on a belated, "Your Majesty."

He waited until Catania finished and sent her patient off with strict instructions about staying off her feet to say, "You can still call me Ander. You always have."

Edain raised a mocking eyebrow at him as Catania said unconvincingly, "Of course."

Ander resigned himself to being majestied by his ex. She only used to be formal when Amberle was especially annoyed with him. He supposed Catania herself could be annoyed with him now, but he didn't know why: she was the one who had broken up with him.

"I'm glad you're here," she said, standing only when he dismounted and bobbing a quick curtsey. He didn't think she'd listen to him about not having to curtsey, either. "There's something you need to see - I asked the headman to keep everyone else away, but I don't know if he did."

The Home Guard formed up around them both. Edain remained mounted, but two more guards got down to walk behind Ander, staying just out of range of Halla's more casual kicks. Catania led them a mile in the direction opposite the capital and stopped, pointing.

There were dead people in the trees. Ander swore and started forward, but the guards moved in front of him and Edain rode to the bodies instead.

"Magic sympathizers," Catania said, as if she were quoting. She sounded calm enough, but she had clasped her hands in front of herself and they shook.

"The Crimson," one of the Home Guard said unnecessarily. "They're getting braver."

"Riga's never been brave in his life," Ander retorted, not quite truthfully. "He's killing my citizens for stupid reasons, and I want him found."

"We are trying, Ander," Edain said, riding back. "He's got half the countryside covering for him and the other half too scared to help."

Catania said, "I've never met a supporter of his."

"That you know of," Edain pointed out. "They're not going to tell the king's lover they know anything about Riga."

"Ex-lover," Catania muttered.

"Even more reason to get Ander back to Arborlon right away," Edain continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Scared people do things they wouldn't otherwise. We don't have any more Elessedils laying around."

Ander wanted to say something sarcastic, but his friend was worried. Even Catania kept darting little wary glances his way and watching the trees as if she expected Riga to leap out of them here and now. He acquiesced to the inevitable.

"Is Aroborlon exactly how you remembered?" Trissan asked. Esselt's cousin had more than a little bite to his words: he had been in Arborlon when the demons came.

"No," Esselt replied. Beside her, Lorelon shifted in his saddle, looking at everything. She had never taken him outside of their estates before, aside from their brief sojourn at Faranath during the war. She didn't want to think about Faranath.

"Is that the Ellcrys?" Lore asked, pointing.

"Pointing at people is rude," Esselt reminded him, and the thirteen year-old lowered his hand immediately.

"It's a tree, Ez," Trissan pointed out, amusement returning to his voice. "It couldn't see him even if he was standing next to it."

"Forgive me for wanting to respect her for keeping us all alive," Esselt retorted, and Trissan laughed.

"Don't talk about it in front of Grandmother," he advised. "She seems to think it was all a political maneuver to swing public opinion back towards the Elessedils."

"Public opinion has been with the Elessedils as long as you and I have been alive," Esselt said. "We Pindanons continue despite it."

"Not that anyone's opinion has ever mattered to you."

Your opinion used to, Esselt thought. Then you caved to the family and cut off all contact until Marc was dead.

Mentioning her dead husband might get her the cooperation of her in-laws and their tenants, but it had never helped with her own relations. She said none of it.

"Grandmother will be glad to see you," Trissan said into the silence. "You're her favorite."

As a joke it fell short: Esselt always had been Kael's favorite. She might even still be Kael's favorite, but Kael knew Esselt wasn't Kael's unequivocal supporter.

Which could be why Esselt was Kael's favorite, despite the three-year-long shunning mandate. Her grandmother hadn't been angry, her uncle assured her before he rode back and never wrote. Kael was just disappointed. Esselt needed to consider what was best for the family.

He had lied, of course. If Esselt had unknowingly upset Kael's plans there would have been disappointment that Esselt hadn't figured out the plans. Knowingly undermining her was something else.

So Esselt had retired to the country and her husband's lands and put into practice all the training in stewardship and defense and investment she'd had drilled into her since before she was even a year old, when her parents died and Kael had taken over the raising of her. Esselt had done well, which had only made Kael more furious, she assumed. All that training, all those brains, and all those good looks wasted on a country baron, Kael had said with what might have been real sorrow when Esselt had come back into the fold nine years ago.

Well, now Kael's great-grandson was the nominal lord of the richest country barony in the west, and Esselt had been the one to make it that way. Lorelon's lands under her stewardship had been feeding half the Elflands since the demon war. She didn't need to prove herself to anybody, and she wasn't afraid of her grandmother.

She reminded herself of this as they rode into the stableyard at the Pindanons' capital residence, and continued to remind herself as she took Lorelon's hand for comfort and walked into the dining room, leaving Trissan outside.

Kael had always used the dining room as her informal receiving area. Esselt knew it was because she could sit at the head of the table, which was positioned so Kael could look over everyone and have an easy view of the door while still seeming approachable. The effect of well-meaning-but-stern matriarch was heightened by the portrait of Kael's deceased husband hung over her chair, smiling benevolently down on whatever assembly had gathered.

None of the Pindanons but the very stupid or very young were fooled by the setup, since Kael used it as an example when discussing how to control roomfulls of people. That didn't mean it wasn't still effective.

Esselt ducked her head, giving the barest of curtseys to her grandmother. Lorelon took note and copied the depth in his bow, which made Kael chuckle.

"No need to bow to me," Kael said easily, sitting straight-backed in the only chair with arms in the room. "I'm not a queen, to need curtseys."

Esselt did not miss the quick sidelong glance out the long window along one wall that faced the direction of the palace.

"No," Esselt agreed blandly, and Kael suppressed a smile.

"And who is this?" Kael asked as she held a hand out to Lorelon, who waited until Esselt released his hand to walk towards Kael.

"I am Lorelon Pindanon Gorlois," he said, sounding dignified even when his voice cracked in the middle of Gorlois.

Kael smiled at him as he took her hand and bowed over it as minutely as before. "No hug for your grandmother?"

"Great-grandmother," Esselt said as Lorelon returned Kael's embrace.

"It isn't kind to remind me of my age, Esselt," Kael replied, but she sounded amused as she released Lorelon and sat back. Lorelon shifted a little on his feet, and Kael waved him back to Esselt, still smiling. "He's charming."

"He's right here," Esselt retorted, and Kael raised an eyebrow at her and turned to look at Lorelon again.

"You're charming," Kael told him. "And you'll grow into the ears - your great-grandfather did. We'll see about appropriate marriages in a few years, but until then we'll put you in with some cousins to learn all about your family. They're younger, and not all of them are as clever as you, but blood covers all manner of sins."

"You don't know me, great-grandmother," Lorelon said quietly. His ears turned a touch red at the tips, but he continued, "You don't know how clever I am."

"I hope very," Kael replied, eyes on Esselt. "I'd hate to think your mother's marriage tomfoolery was all for nothing."

Lorelon said nothing. Esselt didn't blame him: he could hardly be expected to be indignant on behalf of a father he didn't remember. She stepped in.

"We were young, but that doesn't make it tomfoolery. Marc had excellent qualities."

"Marc was pretty," Kael said, waving a hand. "I'll grant he helped make a pretty child, but you could have made a pretty child all on your own and been queen to boot."

Esselt wanted to argue that no one had yet mastered the technique for making a child on their own, let alone a pretty one, and that all efforts towards a royal engagement with Arion had been fruitless both before and after she'd married Marc, but she knew when to cut her losses.

"You could have been a king now," Kael told Lorelon absently, still looking at her granddaughter. "Though I suppose you might all have been murdered by demons and us stuck with Ander anyway."

"We managed not to be murdered by demons," Esselt said to try and cut the topic short.

"Demonstrably," Kael agreed instead of cooperating with her. "You did well at Faranath."

Esselt tried to ignore the warmth in her chest at the compliment, but even mixed with the memories of the demon war it stayed.

"Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?" Kael asked. "Ander doesn't like me much at the moment, but I still have enough support on the council to get you an army commision if I pressed. It might be helpful, to have a Pindanon general - or even just a captain, if they prove particularly recalcitrant - somewhere close at hand."

"No," Esselt said more forcefully than she meant to. She took a breath as Kael watched her through narrowed eyes. "No, I wasn't looking for a military commision."

Kael nodded slowly. "Lorelon, I would like to speak to your mother alone. Your cousin Trissan will take you to meet your younger cousins if you like, or to your room, which is attached to your mother's lest she think I am trying to separate the two of you forever."

Esselt hadn't considered that because it would have been stupid, and Kael wasn't stupid. Kael didn't want Esselt to work against her at every opportunity, she wanted her working in common cause with the rest of the Pindanons.

Maybe Esselt should have felt worse about not wanting to work in common cause with the rest of the Pindanons.

"Tris will take care of you," she told Lorelon, who nodded, hugged her quickly, and left with one wary look at Kael.

"He is smarter than the rest," Kael said when he'd gone. "They still think I'm a harmless old lady."

"Nobody thinks you're harmless," Esselt retorted, and took her grandfather's old place at Kael's left. When Ethyr had been alive, the seat had arms. Now Esselt folded her hands in her lap and made sure her back was straight.

Kael shrugged and sat forward, leaning her arms on the table. "A less conniving old lady, then."

"He has a kind grandmother on Marc's side. He's old enough to compare and contrast."

Kael barked a short, surprised laugh. "I have missed you, Esselt."

Esselt ducked her head, unable to otherwise hide her smile. It might be manipulation, but that didn't mean Kael wasn't sincere in her own way.

"How long were you unconscious after Faranath?" her grandmother asked, quietly now.

Of course Kael knew. It was an effort for Esselt not to rub at the scar on her forearm. "A week. I'm told they spooned broth down my throat and cleaned me up. Undignified, really. It took this long to be mostly presentable."

"You still tire easily?"

Esselt shrugged. "I'm back in fighting form, Grandmother. Never fear."

Kael nodded slowly and left the subject alone. "You wanted to ask me something, or you wouldn't have come."

It wasn't entirely true, but it wasn't entirely untrue either, so instead of arguing Esselt said, "I've been thinking of marrying again."

"Ah," Kael murmured, drawing it out so it was multiple syllables. She sat back, elbows on the chair arms, steepling her fingers. "Did you have someone in mind, or were you looking for suggestions?"

Esselt looked coyly up through her eyelashes. "Who but the king, Grandmother?"

It took some time for Kael to stop laughing.