O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,4

this to you, so I will do this only once and you will listen,” he said. “Are you listening to me?”

“I always listen to you, my lord,” Maxton said, becoming the student once again as his old master addressed him. “But why are you unhappy?”

Boone sighed sharply. “Because I rather like where I have been,” he said. “My wife and older son are there with me and we live quite happily, together, but some of those higher placed than I felt this was important.”

“What is important?” Maxton’s sense of disquiet was growing. “I do not understand any of this.”

“You will,” Boone said. “Look around you. What do you see?”

Maxton took a step back from the man, looking around, seeing things that were almost familiar, but not quite. He was struggling against the fingers of fear that were starting to clutch at him, and at his age, there wasn’t much left for him to be fearful of. He hadn’t felt apprehension in a very long time.

But he did now.

“A stable,” he finally said. “I do not even really know where I am. This looks like my stable, but…”

“But not quite,” Boone finished for him. “It is, in a dismal future, something you’ve not yet seen and something I’ve come to help you avoid. It is a shadow of what may be, a hint of what is in store for you just over the horizon. In short, this is your future if you do not amend your ways, Max.”

His brow furrowed. “Amend my ways?” he repeated. Then, he shook his head. “My path is set, Boone. I’ve done things I am not proud of, but they were necessary. I do not regret anything I have done, no matter how unsavory. I resigned myself to a prime spot in hell long ago.”

But Boone shook his head. “You’ve done enough penitence in your life to atone for much of your sins, but this isn’t about you,” he said. “It is for your three bright, lovely daughters.”

Maxton eyed him. “What about them?”

“They need protecting from their loving but foolish father.”

Maxton sighed heavily. “You sound like my wife.”

Boone pointed a finger at him. “She is correct,” he said. “Maxton, when you are a young lad training, we fill your head with stories of bold knights and covert operations. That is to give you something to dream of, to aspire to. Now, you are doing the same thing to your three young daughters. You are telling them stories of death and blood and slicing up babies. Do you really want them to aspire to be that which you tell them?”

Now, Maxton could see what he was getting at. He was feeling defensive. “They are harmless tales,” he said. “Frankly, I do not know any stories that are gentler. I tell them what I know. They are only children, after all.”

“Children who look up to you and love you,” Boone reminded him softly. “These are your precious daughters, Max. If you want them to grow up based on the stories you tell them, then follow them as they go forth on a mission not dissimilar to missions you and your fellow Executioner Knights have gone on. Do you really want your girls involved in death and destruction as you have been?”

Maxton was trying not to feel foolish. “Of course not,” he said. “But they are just stories.”

“Are they?”

“Aye,” Maxton insisted. “They entertain my girls. And it is the way of our world. I suppose that I am preparing them in a sense.”

Boone simply shook his head. “Preparing them for what?” he asked. “To become knights and killers? You do not realize the influence you have over them, Max. I understand you have never been around girl children before but raising them on tales of death and battle is not exactly how I would raise my daughters. These are young ladies who will be expected to take their places in society. But if they have been raised to be assassins, they will become assassins. Is that your intention?”

Maxton was frowning deeply by now. “Nay, but I do not want them growing up weak, either. Women are strong, for I have seen that very thing in their mother. She is the strongest person I know.”

“And they will be strong,” Boone assured him. “They already are. But they need your guidance and that does not include filling their heads with things that would give even the hardest man pause.”

Before Maxton could answer, his daughters began to move. They dashed out into