Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,29

under the trees of the courtyard for feasting in the open - in the air and sun. A great pit had been dug, a side of beef and another of mutton roasted over a fire. There were platters of roasted vegetables and all manner of delicacies.

Delae looked over it all with satisfaction.

Out in the fields horses and cattle roamed with the sheep, cropping the rich green grass. The homestead had become much more prosperous, more settled as the years passed.

She shook then smoothed out her skirts.

“They’re coming,” Morlis’s son Alen called, racing in through the gates.

Selah stepped to her side and Delae threaded her fingers through those of her daughter’s, feeling Selah’s other hand close over hers.

It always astonished Delae that now she had to look up into Selah’s eyes.

More, how truly lovely she was.

There was only a trace of red in Selah’s rich brown hair and hers waved more than it curled, but it was lovely. Slender and less curved than Delae, she was graceful and beautiful in her serene and quiet way. Delae well knew she was a doting mother but she didn’t think she was deceived in this.

She raised her daughter’s hand to her lips and kissed it as Selah’s shoulder brushed hers in return.

Pride washed through her as her people took up their places, Dan at his forge, Morlis and Alen waiting to hold the horses. Lucie and Keran were there, with Bara, Morlis’s wife, at their back. Some of the smallholders were scattered around the courtyard. It made a pretty and welcoming picture.

The King and Queen rode in with their son Geric at their side and they made a pretty picture as well.

Hastan had always been a big and comely man, nearly as broad as a Dwarf, but he’d also been a very fair man, if occasionally too strong-willed and independent for the prospective High King, Daran. That was to be expected from Riverford, though. It had always been an independent-minded Kingdom, if not so much so as Marakis.

His close-cropped hair curled just slightly around his head and his strongly-boned face. It was easy to see why Telerach had fallen in love with him but more so for the look in his eyes when he reached a hand to his Lady-wife as they rode between the gates.

As it was easy to see why he’d fallen in love with her.

There was a merry warmth to Telerach that reached out to touch everyone around her. While not quite as curly as Delae’s, Telerach’s honey-colored hair tumbled nearly to her waist, framing an apple-cheeked face that was more pretty than beautiful but the kindness in it shone.

The love between King and Queen was clear and deep.

No other hand but the King’s would lift his Queen down from her saddle and Delae felt a small gush of sorrow for what she would never truly know. Then she put it aside as Hastan gestured for his son to join them.

Geric was a pleasant mix of both his parents, his father’s strong features softened a little by his mother’s gentler ones, with his mother’s slate-colored eyes and her hair. He was as tall as his father, and as broad through the shoulders and chest. He was a handsome young man.

Both Delae and Selah sank into small curtseys before the King and Queen.

“Your Highnesses,” Delae said, “I am Delae, widow of Kort, and landowner here.”

“Mistress Delae,” Hastan said, for he couldn’t name her Lady because of her common birth, “we would present our son, Geric, who would be our Heir.”

Delae gestured Selah up.

“And my daughter Selah…”

Turning her head, she caught Geric’s expression as Selah rose, his slate-blue eyes startled as Selah looked up at him, her own eyes widening.

Wisely, Delae made no mention of it, merely smiling graciously. “Your rooms await, your Highnesses. Baths too so you may refresh yourselves.”

There was food aplenty, Hastan noticed as they sat at table in the courtyard, cloth wound through the arbor to provide shade and cover.

Once this had been one of his poorest landholds, ever and always on the edge of poverty. They’d never failed to pay their rightful taxes and tithes although it stretched them as some years they’d paid in kind rather than coin. That had clearly changed.

There had been rumors, of course, and tales, but Delae had never complained of them herself, always gracious far beyond her station.

Now, though, now it was one of his most prosperous, a jewel in the crown of his landholdings.

He looked out at the verdant fields, at