Post by devilinthedetails on Feb 21, 2023 2:01:21 GMT 10
Title: A New Hope Family
Summary: The tangled tale of how Dom, Kel, and Tobe become a New Hope family. Set after Lady Knight.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: This story is part of my broader head canon that Kel adopted Tobe after Lady Knight.
It also is a Kel/Dom fic. While it is a Kel/Dom fic, it is not meant to be a refutation of an asexual Kel (which I also hugely support being asexual myself) but just a chance for to celebrate and explore a Kel/Dom pairing, which I have always had a soft spot for ever since I first read the Protector of the Small quartet.
Please be aware that the abuse Tobe experienced from Alvik the innkeeper is discussed throughout the fic so as always exercise caution in reading and be mindful of the tags. Thank you!
Announcement and Denial
“Dom proposed.” Mama lifted a finger bearing an emerald ring that brought out the shining shades of green in her hazel eyes. Showing it to Neal and Tobe. Radiant with a joy Tobe couldn’t understand when Mama had always seemed so happy that it was just her and Tobe. Her adopted son.
Maybe it was the fact that he was adopted that made him not good enough, Tobe ruminated as Dom, even more jovial than Mama, exclaimed, “And she accepted!”
“I assumed as much.” Neal’s tone was tart but Tobe sensed that even if the cynical Sir Nealan of Queensove was excited at the prospect of imminent marital bliss awaiting his cousin and best friend. Probably all of New Hope would be jubilant with the news when it broke. Most likely, Tobe would be the only one wearing a long face. The only one unable to muster even an approximation of glee. “Hence why she was wearing your ring.”
“I’m a gentleman.” Dom always had a ready response–a witty parry–to any of Neal’s sallies. “I would have graciously allowed the lady to retain the ring as evidence of my esteem and devotion even if she had refused me.”
“The lady is here,” Mama pointed out. Lightly. Still smiling. “Able to speak and hear every word.”
“Of course she is.” Dom brought the ring on Mama’s finger to his lips. Kissed it. “May she forever be here. Beside me.”
The words struck Tobe as empty flattery. Hollow compliments devoid of any substance. Mama deserved better.
“You can’t get married!” He couldn’t believe that Mama had accepted the proposal of a notorious flirt. It felt like a betrayal. An abandonment just when Tobe was starting to have confidence that she would never forsake him while breath remained in her body. A statement that their adoptive family of two wasn’t enough for Mama after all. That she needed Dom bending on one knee and presenting her with an emerald ring that had probably been in the Masbolle line for generations to feel truly whole. An idea that caused a frothing white tide of fury to surge through Tobe. Reducing him to an incoherent exclamation of defiant rage rendered all the more hopeless by the knowledge that he was powerless to prevent Mama from doing whatever she wanted. “It will ruin everything!”
“Hush.” Mama’s voice hovered between the soothing and the scolding. A balance only she could manage. A reason he loved her so much. Was as devoted to her as any true born son could be. “It’ll ruin nothing.”
“I don’t trust him!” Tobe felt hysteria cresting within him. Dom was too charming to be entirely trustworthy. “He’ll hurt you! Me!”
“He won’t hurt you.” Mama was worried about Tobe. Not about herself. Never about herself. She had no sense of self-preservation. No instinct to protect herself. So Tobe had to do it for her. Be wary for both of them. He knew how to be wary. Old Alvik’s strap had taught him to be wary if nothing else. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“You can’t marry him!” Tobe stamped his foot. Intending the gesture to sound firm. Realizing only afterward that it probably only made him seem more childish. “I won’t allow it!”
“It’s not up to you to decide whom I marry or if I marry at all.” Mama had finally been pushed too far. Placed fists on her hips. “Those choices are up to me. Now, I’ve given you more than enough chances to discuss this calmly. Since you’ve shown yourself unable to do so, you can go to bed.”
“It’s too early for bed.” Tobe wrinkled his nose. It was barely after supper. The sky was not even fully dark. He wouldn’t be able to sleep. Especially with so much anger pounding and pulsing through his veins. Mama truly was crazy.
“Do as you’re told.” Mama pointed toward his room. “Or else you won’t tend or ride any horses for a week.”
Horses were the comfort and delight of his life. The reason he had risked a hundred thrashings sneaking away from his chores at Alvik’s inn to visit the stables when he was indentured there. The threat of losing access to his precious horses for a whole week spurred Tobe to obedience. Though he did protest the unfairness of the situation by stamping the entire way to his bedroom and slamming the door in his wake. The strong northern woodwork would survive his wrath. It was hardy stock. Just like the northerners who had created it. Just like him.
Though he sniffled and sobbed into his pillow, he wouldn’t snap like a twig. He would bend and not break. Like the bamboo in the Yamani Islands Mama told him about when he asked her what that distant, mist-shrouded country had been like when she lived there as a girl. A daughter of diplomats.
Tobe was no diplomat. He was plain spoken. Sharing whatever was in his mind and heart even when it upset his mother.
Curiosity and Concern
“Why would he believe I would hurt him?” Dom frowned. Baffled blue gaze following Tobe’s small figure as the lad stormed toward his bedroom. Ordered away by his adoptive mother. The woman to whom Dom was now engaged after weeks of dreaming and planning his proposal. “I’ve never laid a finger on him.”
Despite being a soldier–a sergeant in the King’s Own, Dom didn’t think of himself as a violent man. Especially not toward children.
He rather liked children. Their endlessly creative capacity for mischief. Their burning curiosity and incessant questions. Their games, jokes, and pranks. Probably because he was an overgrown boy himself. At least that was what his mother would speculate if he shared the notion with her.
“It’s the rotten memory of Alvik rising within him,” Neal answered. Making as little sense as ever.
“Alvik?” Dom arched an eyebrow. Confusion continuing to mount.
“The innkeeper Tobe was indentured to before me,” Kel explained quietly. A stoniness settling over her features. “I bought Tobe’s contract from him when I caught him beating Tobe in the stables. The lad had Wild Magic in his veins and a gift for horses but that brute treated him like a whipping boy in a fairy tale.”
“I was the one who healed him after Kel bought his indenture.” Neal’s jaw clenched. “What Alvik did to him was criminal. The body does not forget its traumas. Nor does the mind or the heart. That brave boy will be scarred forever because of what that idiot innkeeper did to him.”
“You’ll have to be gentle and patient with him,” Kel murmured like a breeze rippling through trees. “You can’t rush him, Dom.”
“I’d never be anything other than patient and gentle with him.” Dom slipped an arm around her waist. Cradled her against his chest. Inhaling the scent of her. “Especially now that I know his history. What happened to him before you entered his life.”
Burning Ears
Tobe could hear the voices of Mama, Neal, and Dom. Speaking too softly for him to discern their individual words, but he suspected they were talking about him. There was a scorching in his ears. Eulama had always claimed that people’s ears burned when others were discussing them in their absence.
She might have been deep in her tankard of ale with her breath smelling like a distillery when she passed along this kernel of folk wisdom, but still Tobe believed in his bones that she had known what she was talking about since she was the Queensgrace midwife and had survived many a long, cold winter.
Tobe’s ears had often burned back in Queensgrace as villagers speculated amongst themselves about the Scanran slut who must have whelped him and abandoned him as worthless at the midwife’s door. He didn’t like to think about what Mama, Neal, and Dom were saying about him now.
Eventually there came a knock on his door. Mama’s knock. He could recognize the sound of her rapping knuckles. Distinct and different from anyone else’s. He had ears attuned as a spring rabbit’s.
He didn’t answer. Hoping she would suppose he was asleep. That the sound of his sniffling and sobbing into his pillow would be too muffled to be heard through the door.
She entered anyway. Lighting a candle and closing the door behind her. Setting the candle on his nightstand and then stroking at his heaving back. Murmuring as if it were a lullaby, “It’s all right, Tobe.”
“It’s not all right.” Tobe frantically shook his head into his pillow. Smearing his tears on his cheeks. “You sent me away, and you’re going to abandon me now that you’re going to marry Dom. You’ll have children of your own with him, and you won’t need me any more.”
“Sit up.” Mama patted his shoulder. “So we can talk properly. Face to face.”
Mama seeing his tear-stained face was low on the list of things Tobe wanted at the moment, but he had defied her enough for one evening, so he obeyed. Sitting up. Lifting his face toward hers. Swiping the tears from his cheeks with the heels of his hands as he did so. Attempting to erase some of the evidence of his disgrace.
“You’ll always be my son, and I’ll love you until the day that I die. Nothing could ever change that.” Mama’s hand was squeezing his shoulder now. Tender and firm. Just like she was. “I sent you to your room because you were being disrespectful to me and because you needed to calm down.”
“I’m sorry I was rude.” Tobe ducked his head. Awkward. Ashamed. “You just announcing all of the sudden that you were going to marry Dom upset and scared me.”
“I’m sorry you’re upset and scared.” Mama sighed. “But I am going to marry Dom regardless. And I wish you would find it in your heart to be happy for me. As I will be happy for you when you discover the one you love.”
Tobe resisted the temptation to offer retching noises at the mention of discovering the one he loved. Mumbled instead, “When will the wedding be?”
“A year from now.” Mama was smiling again. As if the mere thought of her wedding brought her joy. “In Masbolle. It’ll be a small, quiet affair. Just our two families and some of our friends. And you as ring-bearer too, of course, if you promise not to drop the rings.”
“I’m not that clumsy or committed to deliberate sabotage,” grumbled Tobe. “And it won’t be that small or quiet if your whole family attends.”
He had been to Mindelan during Mama’s leave a few months ago. Met Mama’s veritable army of nieces and nephews who should never be allowed out of the nursery in Tobe’s studied opinion.
“My family isn’t that loud.” Mama rumpled Tobe’s hair. Possibly the first time she had ever lied to him.
Tobe snorted eloquently in response.
A Second Proposal
“Kel.” Dom spoke after a night of thinking about her and Tobe as he and Kel completed a dawn circuit of New Hope’s ramparts. The commander inspecting her awakening refugee camp. Saluted by the sentries they passed. All alert for an enemy attack. “When we marry, I’d like to adopt Tobe. Become his father. Help him heal from the damage Alvik did to him.”
Kel didn’t wish to have any children of her own body. They had discussed that. Tobe was offspring enough for her.
Dom was a later son. He didn’t need to produce an heir to inherit Masbolle. Still, part of him longed to be a father. Tobe’s father in particular. To parent that precocious child alongside Kel. He would be resigning from the King’s Own now and had time to be a father.
“Being a Masbolle as well as a Mindelan would give him certain advantages.” Kel pursed her lips. Masbolle being a Book of Gold family did have its perks to offset its burdens. “And it would be good for him to have a father. But that’s not a choice I can make for him. It’s a decision he has to make for himself.”
“I’ll speak with him.” Dom itched to kiss her but didn’t want to undermine her authority in front of the soldiers she led. They might be engaged now, but they still had to be mindful of her reputation. Would always have to be mindful of her reputation. One of the ways the world would never be fair to her or other women in positions of power. Both inside and outside of the military. “Propose to him.”
“Woo him as you did me.” Kel’s mouth slid into a grin that made his heart sing like the morning birds in the forest around New Hope.
“I don’t have another emerald ring.” Dom smirked. Savoring every line of banter they exchanged on this daybreak walk so that he could remember it when her duty kept them apart.
“Just take him on a horse ride.” Kel’s grin blossomed into a chuckle. A chuckle that would always be music in his ears. “That should be enough to charm him.”
Horse Talk
“Do you want to go for a ride?” Dom asked Tobe after a bland military breakfast of gloopy oatmeal.
Tobe never turned down an opportunity for a ride. Even if it was with the man who had just proposed to his mama.
“I’ll saddle up our horses.” Tobe was ready to dash off to the stables to prepare their mounts.
“You don’t have to ready mine.” Dom’s eyes twinkled at Tobe like blue stars. “If there’s one thing being in the Own taught me, it was how to saddle a horse at a moment’s notice.”
“I like to saddle horses.” Tobe paused. Recalling a tale of Dom ingloriously toppling from a saddle that had been buckled too loosely by another recruit as a prank during basic training for the Own that Neal had regaled everyone in earshot with after Dom had called Neal Sir Meathead one too many times. Added with a slight snigger, “Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to buckle it tightly enough for you not to take a tumble.”
“I’m careful to check the saddle is secure before I mount.” Dom cracked a rueful grin. Apparently recognizing what Tobe was alluding to. “Ever since an inglorious and unfortunate episode occurred in my training.”
In the course of this conversation, they had reached the stables. Dom waited outside while Tobe darted inside. Booted feet flying over the hay-strewn floor until he arrived at the stall of Dom’s placid dapple gray mare Fidela.
As he saddled Fidela, Tobe spoke to her. Prying and probing for information on the nature of her master. How he treated her. Day by day, and when nobody else was around to see.
She flooded his mind with memories. Vivid images and scents. Horse talk and horse thought. Dom gently brushing dirt from her mane and tail. Lightly scrubbing the mud from her coat and hooves. Whispering soothing words in her ears before the blood and chaos of battle. Patting her sides in praise when she rode well and bravely. Slipping her sweet sugar cubes, crisp apples, and crunchy carrots as treats when he could. Sharing half his rations with her when food got scarce.
Relieved that she had poured no memories of cruelty into his brain because those who were kind to animals were often the same to boys in his experience, Tobe saddled his own horse. A stallion named Survivor. A recent gift from Lord Wyldon. An atonement, according to Lord Wyldon, for the way he had treated Mama when she was a page.
With Survivor and Fidela saddled, he stepped out of the stables into the sunlight. As he and Dom mounted, Dom remarked, “I owe you an apology, Tobe.”
His tone was casual. Heartstoppingly so. As if it were a matter of routine for a man to apologize to an impish lad.
“Whatever for, sir?” Tobe couldn’t prevent the bewilderment from shadowing his question.
“I should’ve spoken with you before I proposed to your mama,” Dom replied as they rode through the camp gates. Heading toward the shade of the woods. “I spoke to her father and mother first. Lord Raoul and Neal.”
Lord Raoul, Tobe knew, was like a second father to Mama, and Neal wasn’t just Dom’s cousin and verbal sparring partner. He was Mama’s best friend. Her most trusted companion and confidant.
“You spoke to Neal before you proposed to Mama?” Tobe couldn’t resist asking since Dom had raised the subject. “How did he react?”
“With an impressive array of squawks and squeals.” Dom winked. Roguish flirt that he was. “I interpreted that as enthusiastic consent.”
“Peachblossom does say that he offers the most entertaining squawks and squeals of any living thing ever bitten.” Tobe couldn’t stifle a wry smile no matter how hard he tried.
“Peachblossom is a very wise horse,” Dom commented sagely.
Bad Father Jokes
Not long into their ride, they came to a brook alongside which stood blackberry bushes laden with ripe fruit. They dismounted, tying their horses to nearby trees, and began picking berries. Rinsing them in the cool mountain stream before plopping them in their mouths.
As they enjoyed the blackberries–which were a much tastier meal than the slop masquerading as oatmeal Dom had been served at New Hope–Dom raised the reason why he had invited Tobe on this morning ride with him. “You’re a clever and courageous lad who’s a fine hand with horses. I’d be honored to adopt you when I marry your mother.”
“Why would you want to adopt me?” Tobe’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Dom recalled with a tightening of his heart and throat how Tobe had been worried Dom would hurt him. Hurt Kel. “So you have a right to beat me whenever you’re angry, and I have no protection from you?”
“I don’t get angry often.” Dom kept his voice low. Level. Projecting calm when he wanted to march down to Queensgrace and hang an innkeeper named Alvik. “And I’ll never beat you. Never hurt you. Even if I am angry. I want to protect you and provide for you as best I can. It’s easier, legally speaking, for me to do that if you are a Masbolle as well as a Mindelan.”
“Oh.” Tobe was chewing on his lip instead of a berry now.
“I know it’s a lot for you to consider,” Dom went on. Choosing his words with care. Treading delicately on sensitive ground. “You can take as long as you need to think. Ask any questions you want.”
“You’ll never take a strap to me?” Tobe seemed to feel the need to clarify this point. Remembering what Kel had said about Alvik treating him like a whipping boy and Neal’s fury at the criminal marks left on the lad, Dom understood why. “Even if it’s for my own good? To teach me to behave?”
Dom wondered if that was the justification Alvik had given to excuse his brutality when he thrashed Tobe. Breaking skin and bone. Drawing bloody welts. Leaving bruises and scars.
“Never,” Dom confirmed gravely. “Mithros strike me down if I lie.”
“I believe you.” The injunction of Mithros and his wrath was apparently sufficient to convince Tobe of Dom’s sincerity.
“Good.” Dom dropped a handful of plucked berries into Tobe’s fruit-sticky palm. “I don’t promise to spare you all my bad father jokes should you agree to be my son, however. You’ll have to suffer through those. It’s part of the Masbolle legacy, I’m afraid.”
“Your jokes aren’t that bad.” Tobe chomped on a blackberry. “What would you want me to call you? If I agreed to be your son.”
“Well.” Dom cocked his head. Mulling the matter over. “I called my own father ‘Father,’ but I always thought that sounded stuffy. Borderline pretentious. Not to mention highly uncreative. So, I’d be honored if you called me ‘Papa.’”
“Papa,” Tobe repeated. Clutching at the word as if it were a talisman. A protection against evil.
Dom took that as a sign that they had become a family. A New Hope family.
Summary: The tangled tale of how Dom, Kel, and Tobe become a New Hope family. Set after Lady Knight.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: This story is part of my broader head canon that Kel adopted Tobe after Lady Knight.
It also is a Kel/Dom fic. While it is a Kel/Dom fic, it is not meant to be a refutation of an asexual Kel (which I also hugely support being asexual myself) but just a chance for to celebrate and explore a Kel/Dom pairing, which I have always had a soft spot for ever since I first read the Protector of the Small quartet.
Please be aware that the abuse Tobe experienced from Alvik the innkeeper is discussed throughout the fic so as always exercise caution in reading and be mindful of the tags. Thank you!
Announcement and Denial
“Dom proposed.” Mama lifted a finger bearing an emerald ring that brought out the shining shades of green in her hazel eyes. Showing it to Neal and Tobe. Radiant with a joy Tobe couldn’t understand when Mama had always seemed so happy that it was just her and Tobe. Her adopted son.
Maybe it was the fact that he was adopted that made him not good enough, Tobe ruminated as Dom, even more jovial than Mama, exclaimed, “And she accepted!”
“I assumed as much.” Neal’s tone was tart but Tobe sensed that even if the cynical Sir Nealan of Queensove was excited at the prospect of imminent marital bliss awaiting his cousin and best friend. Probably all of New Hope would be jubilant with the news when it broke. Most likely, Tobe would be the only one wearing a long face. The only one unable to muster even an approximation of glee. “Hence why she was wearing your ring.”
“I’m a gentleman.” Dom always had a ready response–a witty parry–to any of Neal’s sallies. “I would have graciously allowed the lady to retain the ring as evidence of my esteem and devotion even if she had refused me.”
“The lady is here,” Mama pointed out. Lightly. Still smiling. “Able to speak and hear every word.”
“Of course she is.” Dom brought the ring on Mama’s finger to his lips. Kissed it. “May she forever be here. Beside me.”
The words struck Tobe as empty flattery. Hollow compliments devoid of any substance. Mama deserved better.
“You can’t get married!” He couldn’t believe that Mama had accepted the proposal of a notorious flirt. It felt like a betrayal. An abandonment just when Tobe was starting to have confidence that she would never forsake him while breath remained in her body. A statement that their adoptive family of two wasn’t enough for Mama after all. That she needed Dom bending on one knee and presenting her with an emerald ring that had probably been in the Masbolle line for generations to feel truly whole. An idea that caused a frothing white tide of fury to surge through Tobe. Reducing him to an incoherent exclamation of defiant rage rendered all the more hopeless by the knowledge that he was powerless to prevent Mama from doing whatever she wanted. “It will ruin everything!”
“Hush.” Mama’s voice hovered between the soothing and the scolding. A balance only she could manage. A reason he loved her so much. Was as devoted to her as any true born son could be. “It’ll ruin nothing.”
“I don’t trust him!” Tobe felt hysteria cresting within him. Dom was too charming to be entirely trustworthy. “He’ll hurt you! Me!”
“He won’t hurt you.” Mama was worried about Tobe. Not about herself. Never about herself. She had no sense of self-preservation. No instinct to protect herself. So Tobe had to do it for her. Be wary for both of them. He knew how to be wary. Old Alvik’s strap had taught him to be wary if nothing else. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“You can’t marry him!” Tobe stamped his foot. Intending the gesture to sound firm. Realizing only afterward that it probably only made him seem more childish. “I won’t allow it!”
“It’s not up to you to decide whom I marry or if I marry at all.” Mama had finally been pushed too far. Placed fists on her hips. “Those choices are up to me. Now, I’ve given you more than enough chances to discuss this calmly. Since you’ve shown yourself unable to do so, you can go to bed.”
“It’s too early for bed.” Tobe wrinkled his nose. It was barely after supper. The sky was not even fully dark. He wouldn’t be able to sleep. Especially with so much anger pounding and pulsing through his veins. Mama truly was crazy.
“Do as you’re told.” Mama pointed toward his room. “Or else you won’t tend or ride any horses for a week.”
Horses were the comfort and delight of his life. The reason he had risked a hundred thrashings sneaking away from his chores at Alvik’s inn to visit the stables when he was indentured there. The threat of losing access to his precious horses for a whole week spurred Tobe to obedience. Though he did protest the unfairness of the situation by stamping the entire way to his bedroom and slamming the door in his wake. The strong northern woodwork would survive his wrath. It was hardy stock. Just like the northerners who had created it. Just like him.
Though he sniffled and sobbed into his pillow, he wouldn’t snap like a twig. He would bend and not break. Like the bamboo in the Yamani Islands Mama told him about when he asked her what that distant, mist-shrouded country had been like when she lived there as a girl. A daughter of diplomats.
Tobe was no diplomat. He was plain spoken. Sharing whatever was in his mind and heart even when it upset his mother.
Curiosity and Concern
“Why would he believe I would hurt him?” Dom frowned. Baffled blue gaze following Tobe’s small figure as the lad stormed toward his bedroom. Ordered away by his adoptive mother. The woman to whom Dom was now engaged after weeks of dreaming and planning his proposal. “I’ve never laid a finger on him.”
Despite being a soldier–a sergeant in the King’s Own, Dom didn’t think of himself as a violent man. Especially not toward children.
He rather liked children. Their endlessly creative capacity for mischief. Their burning curiosity and incessant questions. Their games, jokes, and pranks. Probably because he was an overgrown boy himself. At least that was what his mother would speculate if he shared the notion with her.
“It’s the rotten memory of Alvik rising within him,” Neal answered. Making as little sense as ever.
“Alvik?” Dom arched an eyebrow. Confusion continuing to mount.
“The innkeeper Tobe was indentured to before me,” Kel explained quietly. A stoniness settling over her features. “I bought Tobe’s contract from him when I caught him beating Tobe in the stables. The lad had Wild Magic in his veins and a gift for horses but that brute treated him like a whipping boy in a fairy tale.”
“I was the one who healed him after Kel bought his indenture.” Neal’s jaw clenched. “What Alvik did to him was criminal. The body does not forget its traumas. Nor does the mind or the heart. That brave boy will be scarred forever because of what that idiot innkeeper did to him.”
“You’ll have to be gentle and patient with him,” Kel murmured like a breeze rippling through trees. “You can’t rush him, Dom.”
“I’d never be anything other than patient and gentle with him.” Dom slipped an arm around her waist. Cradled her against his chest. Inhaling the scent of her. “Especially now that I know his history. What happened to him before you entered his life.”
Burning Ears
Tobe could hear the voices of Mama, Neal, and Dom. Speaking too softly for him to discern their individual words, but he suspected they were talking about him. There was a scorching in his ears. Eulama had always claimed that people’s ears burned when others were discussing them in their absence.
She might have been deep in her tankard of ale with her breath smelling like a distillery when she passed along this kernel of folk wisdom, but still Tobe believed in his bones that she had known what she was talking about since she was the Queensgrace midwife and had survived many a long, cold winter.
Tobe’s ears had often burned back in Queensgrace as villagers speculated amongst themselves about the Scanran slut who must have whelped him and abandoned him as worthless at the midwife’s door. He didn’t like to think about what Mama, Neal, and Dom were saying about him now.
Eventually there came a knock on his door. Mama’s knock. He could recognize the sound of her rapping knuckles. Distinct and different from anyone else’s. He had ears attuned as a spring rabbit’s.
He didn’t answer. Hoping she would suppose he was asleep. That the sound of his sniffling and sobbing into his pillow would be too muffled to be heard through the door.
She entered anyway. Lighting a candle and closing the door behind her. Setting the candle on his nightstand and then stroking at his heaving back. Murmuring as if it were a lullaby, “It’s all right, Tobe.”
“It’s not all right.” Tobe frantically shook his head into his pillow. Smearing his tears on his cheeks. “You sent me away, and you’re going to abandon me now that you’re going to marry Dom. You’ll have children of your own with him, and you won’t need me any more.”
“Sit up.” Mama patted his shoulder. “So we can talk properly. Face to face.”
Mama seeing his tear-stained face was low on the list of things Tobe wanted at the moment, but he had defied her enough for one evening, so he obeyed. Sitting up. Lifting his face toward hers. Swiping the tears from his cheeks with the heels of his hands as he did so. Attempting to erase some of the evidence of his disgrace.
“You’ll always be my son, and I’ll love you until the day that I die. Nothing could ever change that.” Mama’s hand was squeezing his shoulder now. Tender and firm. Just like she was. “I sent you to your room because you were being disrespectful to me and because you needed to calm down.”
“I’m sorry I was rude.” Tobe ducked his head. Awkward. Ashamed. “You just announcing all of the sudden that you were going to marry Dom upset and scared me.”
“I’m sorry you’re upset and scared.” Mama sighed. “But I am going to marry Dom regardless. And I wish you would find it in your heart to be happy for me. As I will be happy for you when you discover the one you love.”
Tobe resisted the temptation to offer retching noises at the mention of discovering the one he loved. Mumbled instead, “When will the wedding be?”
“A year from now.” Mama was smiling again. As if the mere thought of her wedding brought her joy. “In Masbolle. It’ll be a small, quiet affair. Just our two families and some of our friends. And you as ring-bearer too, of course, if you promise not to drop the rings.”
“I’m not that clumsy or committed to deliberate sabotage,” grumbled Tobe. “And it won’t be that small or quiet if your whole family attends.”
He had been to Mindelan during Mama’s leave a few months ago. Met Mama’s veritable army of nieces and nephews who should never be allowed out of the nursery in Tobe’s studied opinion.
“My family isn’t that loud.” Mama rumpled Tobe’s hair. Possibly the first time she had ever lied to him.
Tobe snorted eloquently in response.
A Second Proposal
“Kel.” Dom spoke after a night of thinking about her and Tobe as he and Kel completed a dawn circuit of New Hope’s ramparts. The commander inspecting her awakening refugee camp. Saluted by the sentries they passed. All alert for an enemy attack. “When we marry, I’d like to adopt Tobe. Become his father. Help him heal from the damage Alvik did to him.”
Kel didn’t wish to have any children of her own body. They had discussed that. Tobe was offspring enough for her.
Dom was a later son. He didn’t need to produce an heir to inherit Masbolle. Still, part of him longed to be a father. Tobe’s father in particular. To parent that precocious child alongside Kel. He would be resigning from the King’s Own now and had time to be a father.
“Being a Masbolle as well as a Mindelan would give him certain advantages.” Kel pursed her lips. Masbolle being a Book of Gold family did have its perks to offset its burdens. “And it would be good for him to have a father. But that’s not a choice I can make for him. It’s a decision he has to make for himself.”
“I’ll speak with him.” Dom itched to kiss her but didn’t want to undermine her authority in front of the soldiers she led. They might be engaged now, but they still had to be mindful of her reputation. Would always have to be mindful of her reputation. One of the ways the world would never be fair to her or other women in positions of power. Both inside and outside of the military. “Propose to him.”
“Woo him as you did me.” Kel’s mouth slid into a grin that made his heart sing like the morning birds in the forest around New Hope.
“I don’t have another emerald ring.” Dom smirked. Savoring every line of banter they exchanged on this daybreak walk so that he could remember it when her duty kept them apart.
“Just take him on a horse ride.” Kel’s grin blossomed into a chuckle. A chuckle that would always be music in his ears. “That should be enough to charm him.”
Horse Talk
“Do you want to go for a ride?” Dom asked Tobe after a bland military breakfast of gloopy oatmeal.
Tobe never turned down an opportunity for a ride. Even if it was with the man who had just proposed to his mama.
“I’ll saddle up our horses.” Tobe was ready to dash off to the stables to prepare their mounts.
“You don’t have to ready mine.” Dom’s eyes twinkled at Tobe like blue stars. “If there’s one thing being in the Own taught me, it was how to saddle a horse at a moment’s notice.”
“I like to saddle horses.” Tobe paused. Recalling a tale of Dom ingloriously toppling from a saddle that had been buckled too loosely by another recruit as a prank during basic training for the Own that Neal had regaled everyone in earshot with after Dom had called Neal Sir Meathead one too many times. Added with a slight snigger, “Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to buckle it tightly enough for you not to take a tumble.”
“I’m careful to check the saddle is secure before I mount.” Dom cracked a rueful grin. Apparently recognizing what Tobe was alluding to. “Ever since an inglorious and unfortunate episode occurred in my training.”
In the course of this conversation, they had reached the stables. Dom waited outside while Tobe darted inside. Booted feet flying over the hay-strewn floor until he arrived at the stall of Dom’s placid dapple gray mare Fidela.
As he saddled Fidela, Tobe spoke to her. Prying and probing for information on the nature of her master. How he treated her. Day by day, and when nobody else was around to see.
She flooded his mind with memories. Vivid images and scents. Horse talk and horse thought. Dom gently brushing dirt from her mane and tail. Lightly scrubbing the mud from her coat and hooves. Whispering soothing words in her ears before the blood and chaos of battle. Patting her sides in praise when she rode well and bravely. Slipping her sweet sugar cubes, crisp apples, and crunchy carrots as treats when he could. Sharing half his rations with her when food got scarce.
Relieved that she had poured no memories of cruelty into his brain because those who were kind to animals were often the same to boys in his experience, Tobe saddled his own horse. A stallion named Survivor. A recent gift from Lord Wyldon. An atonement, according to Lord Wyldon, for the way he had treated Mama when she was a page.
With Survivor and Fidela saddled, he stepped out of the stables into the sunlight. As he and Dom mounted, Dom remarked, “I owe you an apology, Tobe.”
His tone was casual. Heartstoppingly so. As if it were a matter of routine for a man to apologize to an impish lad.
“Whatever for, sir?” Tobe couldn’t prevent the bewilderment from shadowing his question.
“I should’ve spoken with you before I proposed to your mama,” Dom replied as they rode through the camp gates. Heading toward the shade of the woods. “I spoke to her father and mother first. Lord Raoul and Neal.”
Lord Raoul, Tobe knew, was like a second father to Mama, and Neal wasn’t just Dom’s cousin and verbal sparring partner. He was Mama’s best friend. Her most trusted companion and confidant.
“You spoke to Neal before you proposed to Mama?” Tobe couldn’t resist asking since Dom had raised the subject. “How did he react?”
“With an impressive array of squawks and squeals.” Dom winked. Roguish flirt that he was. “I interpreted that as enthusiastic consent.”
“Peachblossom does say that he offers the most entertaining squawks and squeals of any living thing ever bitten.” Tobe couldn’t stifle a wry smile no matter how hard he tried.
“Peachblossom is a very wise horse,” Dom commented sagely.
Bad Father Jokes
Not long into their ride, they came to a brook alongside which stood blackberry bushes laden with ripe fruit. They dismounted, tying their horses to nearby trees, and began picking berries. Rinsing them in the cool mountain stream before plopping them in their mouths.
As they enjoyed the blackberries–which were a much tastier meal than the slop masquerading as oatmeal Dom had been served at New Hope–Dom raised the reason why he had invited Tobe on this morning ride with him. “You’re a clever and courageous lad who’s a fine hand with horses. I’d be honored to adopt you when I marry your mother.”
“Why would you want to adopt me?” Tobe’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Dom recalled with a tightening of his heart and throat how Tobe had been worried Dom would hurt him. Hurt Kel. “So you have a right to beat me whenever you’re angry, and I have no protection from you?”
“I don’t get angry often.” Dom kept his voice low. Level. Projecting calm when he wanted to march down to Queensgrace and hang an innkeeper named Alvik. “And I’ll never beat you. Never hurt you. Even if I am angry. I want to protect you and provide for you as best I can. It’s easier, legally speaking, for me to do that if you are a Masbolle as well as a Mindelan.”
“Oh.” Tobe was chewing on his lip instead of a berry now.
“I know it’s a lot for you to consider,” Dom went on. Choosing his words with care. Treading delicately on sensitive ground. “You can take as long as you need to think. Ask any questions you want.”
“You’ll never take a strap to me?” Tobe seemed to feel the need to clarify this point. Remembering what Kel had said about Alvik treating him like a whipping boy and Neal’s fury at the criminal marks left on the lad, Dom understood why. “Even if it’s for my own good? To teach me to behave?”
Dom wondered if that was the justification Alvik had given to excuse his brutality when he thrashed Tobe. Breaking skin and bone. Drawing bloody welts. Leaving bruises and scars.
“Never,” Dom confirmed gravely. “Mithros strike me down if I lie.”
“I believe you.” The injunction of Mithros and his wrath was apparently sufficient to convince Tobe of Dom’s sincerity.
“Good.” Dom dropped a handful of plucked berries into Tobe’s fruit-sticky palm. “I don’t promise to spare you all my bad father jokes should you agree to be my son, however. You’ll have to suffer through those. It’s part of the Masbolle legacy, I’m afraid.”
“Your jokes aren’t that bad.” Tobe chomped on a blackberry. “What would you want me to call you? If I agreed to be your son.”
“Well.” Dom cocked his head. Mulling the matter over. “I called my own father ‘Father,’ but I always thought that sounded stuffy. Borderline pretentious. Not to mention highly uncreative. So, I’d be honored if you called me ‘Papa.’”
“Papa,” Tobe repeated. Clutching at the word as if it were a talisman. A protection against evil.
Dom took that as a sign that they had become a family. A New Hope family.