Summer.

"I love you Amanzi, kiss me, kiss me." Cresseida is pushing the play dolls together, female and male, her dark hands are gorgeous against the pale replications of some other Courts' High Fae.

She lifts the female one, "we mustn't Nostrus. We are supposed to wait for marriage."

"I cannot wait, I must have you"-

"Okay that is enough," I tell her, pushing the dolls back down to the crisp cool tile floor of the Palace library, ending her little inappropriate play before it got too far, "and whom taught you to play like that?"

A toddling Tarquin giggles into his small hands, done with coloring a rather old tome, and looking from his older sister and back to my upset face. I had almost forgot I was watching him too as he waddles back into my lap.

"No one." Cresseida bits her lip.

"No one?" I knew better.

It was not always a good thing that Nostros' quarters were so close to his little cousins one. It was necessary to tuck them in, perhaps to play father and mother to children that had parents stolen from them before they could properly know them.

They can't hear us. Nostros would whisper in my ear, tugging off the sash around my waist

Yes, they can. I had shoved him off me on more than one occasion.

I had told him time and time again to speak more softly, to not reach out when they were looking, or dare the consequences of our time together come to public's light. They were children for Cauldron's sake. They did not know how to lie. Or the importance of it yet. "You better not be lying to me Princess Cresseida."

"I am not," she reached again for the toy dolls, "I will behave, I promise, I will," was all the incentive I needed to relinquish her amorous toys. Both Tarquin and Cresseida had stolen my heart ages ago, and yet I knew that this conversation was not one I should let pass by.

"Wait." I held the toys bac before she could take them, "pay attention Cresseida, because I can only say this once," little Prince Tarquin came close too, really paying attention now, both of their gorgeous aquamarine eyes wide and wondrous to my worried ones, "the things you hear between me and the High Lord cannot be repeated in front of others. This has to be our secret, alright? The things that go on in this family, stay in the family."

Tarquin nods like a good little Fae boy, and yet his sister thinks otherwise.

"Nostrus told us to not keep secrets from him," Cresseida puts it smartly, "we don't keep secrets in this family."

"Your right." I give her that, "but this is Nostrus' secret too. We have to keep it, to keep him safe, to keep all of you safe," my hand falters before going to my belly, and revealing even more.

Before I can tell her more, the door to the High Lord's library opens, the humid heat and swaying palm trees that litter the white sand beaches are revealed as Prince Varian spots us.

His hand is tight around the doorknob. "Amanzi," I don't like the way his eyes fall, "our High Lord needs you."

"Of course," I rise, "watch our little ones." Varian, the Captain of the Guard, and so close to both Nostrus and I's heart bows his head in some form of respect.

"I will watch them."

"Thank you Varian," I touch his shoulder before leaving.

My sandaled feet slap against the cool shadowed tile floor leads to the open structures of the palace of paradise and tropical birds of fantastical colors disperse as I enter the royal pavilion. I slow to a trot against the hot part of the tiled grounds, the sweat perfectly unbearable as I get back into the shade of Nostros' inner sanctum, and the guards do not blink twice when I enter his study.

"Nostrus." His back is to me, bracing the study's table, "what is the matter?"

He doesn't wait another second, his hands are in my white hair, his lips on my dark cheek, and a shiver on voice so unlike the way I had left him this morning, "what took you so long?"

My answer is a kiss, a long amorous one, nibbling on his lip the way I know he likes it, and he in turn kisses the side of my neck, but I know something is wrong, and I cannot let him distract me from it, even if these distractions are one of the main reasons I put up with the trouble of not only watching our little ones, but when his High Lord responsibilities become too stressful for even the both of us.

I pull back taking his face into my hands, "what is the matter my love?"

Tarquin has his eyes, and someday I know the little boy will resemble the handsome man before me now. Their motherless and fatherless lives were my burden to bear and I be damned if I was not here for him in any and every way I could be.

"I received a letter from Lord Driftmark?"

My nose wrinkled, "is he bothered you again?"

"You could say that," he melted into my touch, "this time he asked for too much, and I might have overstepped my respects with him."

"What did you say Nostros?" She didn't feel like playing the mother, but these months that is exactly what she was, perhaps it was the hormones, perhaps it was because of attending her High Lord she was attending his baby cousins, watching, playing, and falling in love with them just as their older cousins Nostros and Varian had. "Will we have to send any blood diamonds?" She teased him.

He paled, "no." There was no humor in his voice, none of the Nostros she had once known.

"Your scaring me." That was the truth. "What is wrong?"

"I have to marry," he gritted, turning from her, ashamed, "I have to marry Lord Driftmark's daughter. All of the Lords under my rule came and testified that if I did not have a male heir from his daughter by the end five year hence they would revoke my right to rule over the Summer Court. They say it is high time I settled on a bride suitable to my station."

"Marry?" I hated how little my voice sounded. "You must marry."

I had prepared myself to one day have to let Nostros go, but after this season of love had come to pass, I felt completely different. A selfish part of me did not want to let go of mornings filled with his kisses, and late night conversations about the future. Not after our miracle had yet to flourish inside of me, and the promises we had made in the preparation for such a blessing to come into our lives. A heavy feeling came over me, as if I was swept under the deep of the sea, and I had not the gills nor the motivation to rise to the surface.

"Amanzi I will not do it." He put his sea-weathered hands around the small bump on my midsection. "You know I would never let you go."

Kissing my forehead as if I was the most precious thing to him. "I love you and only you." Was his most solemn vow. "I refused the first moment I heard it, called him an urchin of the worst kind. How dare he request this of me? I have devoted my life to my people, to make their lives comfortable, if my father was here, or my Uncles?" His grown tickled my hairline, and I felt ill at the mention of his dead relatives, some part that would always be lost to him, "my father would have killed him for less, for demanding such a thing of a High Lord. I should kill him, send a message to all those that dare to in the future."

"That isn't you." I knew.

He didn't say anything.

So, I had to. "His request is sound Nostros." Even I knew that. "It has merit, you could enrich the lives of your family and the Court by marrying into a wealthy family like theirs."

"I could fall into the sea and stop breathing too, bet he would like that," was Nostros dark reply. It filled me with worry.

Had he been this way with the Lord, spoke with such hatred of the thought? Did he think that this would not reflect badly on the rumors that had already wormed its way into the Court, and even our precious Cressida's mind?

That I was his whore.

I am his mistress.

That I am the anchor tied around his neck, keeping him from setting sail into those shores beyond, to the shore his humbly noble bloodline had procured after years of leading and sacrifice. I was not meant for the greatness that would be his legacy. When I had met Nostros, I thought, finally a High Lord worthy of leading the Summer Court into an era I could not even imagine.

Marriage meant little in the greater scheme of things. That is what I told myself.

"You will not deny him," I heard myself say, surprised with the determination behind it. "There is no too steep a price for a High Lord, and I will not let you lose yourself because of my station Nostros. I forbid you from giving up on this chance."

"You…" that flipped the tables. "You are saying I should do this?"

I met his alarmed eyes, knowing there was no way I would let him do this to his people, to the glory of his family, and more importantly to himself, "you will marry Lord Driftmark's daughter, and put these rumors to rest. You are High Lord." I lifted my chin at him, "so act like it."