Summoner 16, page 20
“Then we will call their bluff,” I reassured her, and I tucked my fingers beneath her chin to pull her face up. “No threats or bullying will keep me from marrying you, Nia Kenefick.”
“I hope you still feel that way after meeting the Aunts,” the elementalist countered with a wry smile.
“It sounds like you guys have a busy evening planned,” Arwyn observed with an amused chuckle.
“My lessons are done for today?” Freya looked between me and the red-haired professor, and a disappointed look crossed her face.
“You could stay with Arwyn if you wanted to,” I informed my wife with a wink.
“Yes.” The warrior princess nodded, but then she shot the professor a quizzical look. “If Arwyn is okay with me?”
“Sure!” The healer grinned. “I’d love the company. We can take a break to have dinner together in a little while. I’d love to have some alone time with you, Freya.”
“Yes,” Freya agreed with a single nod. “We can talk about our babies and their warrior training. You are an expert on such topics.”
“It’s settled, then.” I gave my wife and my teacher a quick goodbye kiss, and then I followed Nia out of Arwyn’s personal chambers, through her classroom, and toward the entrance of the Academy. The elementalist walked at a quick pace that was almost a run, and I had to jog to keep up with her.
“Should I just go looking like this?” I asked as I gasped for breath to stay in step with Nia’s long strides.
She shot me a sideways glance, and her nose wrinkled. “You haven’t even changed out of your training garb.”
“Exactly.” I gave her a sheepish grin. “I’d like to shower and change, if possible. I mean, the goal is to make a good impression, right?”
“Fine.” Nia came to a sudden halt. “I suppose I could take the time to change as well. I know Aunt Nona would like to see me wear one of the dresses she keeps giving me. I’ll meet you at the tavern with a carriage in exactly an hour, but my father can only stall them for so long.”
“All we have to do is tell them the truth.” I shrugged. “I was occupied with a private tutoring session, and you couldn’t just barge in.”
“But I did.” Nia looked confused.
Maybe the pressure of pleasing the Aunts was getting to her.
“They don’t have to know that, though,” I supplied with a wink.
“Ohh,” she said, and realization dawned on her. “I get it. Okay, we’re on the same page. Now, go look less like a yokel and more like my future husband.”
“So, I shouldn’t change?” I gave her a mock look of confusion.
The ashen-haired mage growled and shoved me toward the Academy entrance. “Just go!”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a teasing salute, and then we parted ways to hurriedly prepare for what I assumed would be a lavish dinner with some of the most influential people in all of Mistral.
It didn’t take me long to reach the tavern, and I was lucky enough to find the bathroom unoccupied, so I showered quickly and pulled on one of my nicest outfits. I didn’t want to wear the same thing I’d worn to dinner with Nia’s father, but I didn’t have a lot of fancy options. Unlike Gawain, I didn’t have closets full of silks and hand-tailored trousers with matching jackets.
Although, the fire mage’s father, Goredin, would probably make me my own nice clothes if I asked him.
By the time I was as presentable as I could make myself in a hurry, I heard the sound of feet running up the stairs. I pulled open the door just as Nia was raising her hand to knock, and the beautiful elementalist blinked her blue eyes at me for a moment before she registered my presence in front of her.
Nia wore a purple dress made from a lace type of fabric that hung against her torso and swished across her legs. The arms were long and draped from her slender wrists, and the garment had a vintage feel to it. The ashen-haired beauty had woven her hair into a crown around the top of her head, and she’d decorated the locks with small jewels that sparkled with her every movement.
She looked like royalty, and she was all mine.
Wow! What a woman! Dio meowed his approval as he pushed himself up over the edge of my hip pouch to give my fiancée an appreciative glance. I would bathe her from head to toe.
“You look beautiful,” I breathed, and I ignored my familiar’s comments.
“Thanks,” Nia replied, and a soft blush highlighted the rounded shape of her cheeks. “You look pretty good, too. Better than I was expecting since I didn’t have time to send you over any new clothes.”
“Hey, I’m capable of dressing myself,” I pointed out, and I gestured to my clean black trousers and the stain free status of my blue button up shirt.
Nia placed her hands on her hips and gave me a thorough inspection, but then her eyes lit up, and she snapped her fingers. “The vest. Add the vest.”
“What?” I shook my head. “Why does it even matter?”
“Trust me, Gryff,” Nia replied in a voice that held no room for argument. “We want to put our best foot forward, do we not?”
“Fine, fine,” I mumbled, and I turned to rifle through my belongings in search of the garment requested. Once I’d dressed myself to the elementalist’s standards, we left my room and headed down the stairs to the carriage.
The drive seemed to take longer than I remembered during our previous trip, but it could have been the extra nerves of meeting the Aunts who had made such an impression on the Grand Mage. If Gallahar Kenefick was nervous about getting the old women’s approval, I had every reason to be anxious.
Suddenly, the handler called out to the horses to stop, and the carriage screeched to a halt. Nia stepped gracefully from the coach, and she held the hem of her dress up to reveal the matching purple slippers on her feet as she hopped down to the pavement.
I could hear the sound of string instruments coming from inside the intimidating mansion where the Grand Mage resided. The lights were all on, and candles burned in each windowsill. I swallowed hard as my eyes trailed over the exterior of the ostentatious structure until my gaze landed on the green door.
“Here we go,” Nia breathed, and she gave me an encouraging smile.
So, the ashen-haired beauty stepped up to the door and pounded the gilded knocker, and barely a minute passed before Susi opened the portal and beckoned us inside with a flourish of a pudgy hand.
“Oh, Miss Nia,” Susi exclaimed. “Don’t you look ravishing?”
“Thank you,” my fiancée replied in a sweet voice, and Nia craned her neck to peer down the hallway behind the stairs. “Where is Father?”
“He is enjoying tea in the sitting room with the Aunts,” Susi informed us, and she gave me a look of warning. “The old bags are in a mood tonight. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Thanks,” I chuckled.
Nia grabbed my hand and tugged me down the hallway, so I waved to the housemaid, and then followed along while my heart rate steadily increased.
This is your woman’s cave? Dio asked as he peered around at the stately manor. He stared straight up at the candelabra hanging above the stairs, and his kitten-sized head tilted in confusion. Why do they keep the fire up there?
Before I could answer, Nia’s dad popped his head out of a doorway further down the hallway, and the Grand Mage gave us a brilliant smile.
“Ah, at last!” He crossed the distance to his daughter and wrapped her in a warm hug. “We’ve been waiting for over an hour, Nia.”
“My apologies, Father,” my fiancée murmured with a slight bow.
“Is that the kids, Gally?” a woman’s voice called from the room where Gallahar had emerged from. “Stop hogging them, bring them in!”
“Yes, yes,” another woman’s voice echoed. “Bring them in, Gally, don’t dawdle.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gallahar called back in a chirpy tone, but he exchanged a look of annoyance with his daughter.
The three of us obediently entered the sitting room, and I blinked to adjust my eyes to the dimmer lighting. Candles burned along bookshelves encircling the room, and a couple gas lamps hung from alcoves on either side of the entryway, but shadows still tugged at the corners.
In the middle of the room, a low sofa and three chairs were set up in a circle around a short table cluttered with a teapot and several delicate, painted cups. The Aunts sat together, leaving us to take the individual seats, but the chairs were comfortable enough. I eyed them curiously as I sat down, but the first thing I noticed about them was the high quality of their clothes, which were made of some of the finest materials I’d ever seen.
From the Grand Mage’s words, I assumed the three of them were sisters, but they didn’t look very much alike except for the piercing blue Kenefick eyes. The woman closest to me was about as round as a person could get, and her fat chins bulged from the top of her collar, but she gave me a kind smile. The woman beside her was tall and thin, and her skin seemed to sag from the bones of her face, which added a hollow appearance to her cheeks. Her eyes were cold, and her nose long and upturned.
The last Aunt on the couch was smaller, almost child-sized, and her feet hung over the edge of the cushion without reaching the floor, but her ancient appearance made her age obvious. She peered up at me from beneath layers of wrinkles, but her eyes were cloudy and sightless, so I couldn’t tell if she could see at all. Her silver hair hung loose down her back, and she wore the simplest dress of the three, a black high-necked buttoned dress with the white lace peeking out from beneath the hem as the only decoration.
The smell of perfume clung to the air around the women like a suffocating blanket, and tobacco smoke from the cigarette clutched between one of the Aunts’ long fingers burned my eyes. It was hard to judge just how old they were, but I supposed that happened after people crossed a certain age.
“Ladies,” Gallahar said, “this is Gryff of Njordenfalls, Nia’s betrothed.”
I hurried to stand at attention and give them a bow, but I couldn’t help notice the way they looked down their noses at me. I pushed back my irritation and forced myself through the polite motions, though, and then I resituated myself in one of the arm chairs.
“Wonderful to meet you, Mister Gryff,” the fat aunt declared in an overly jolly tone. “I am Aunt Nona.”
“Nice to meet you, Aunt Nona,” I replied with a small bow of my head.
“And I,” the second, thin woman said in a nasally, snide voice, “I am Aunt Decima.”
“Pleased to meet you, as well, Aunt Decima,” I said to the second aunt, and I repeated my respectful gesture.
Decima leaned to the third aunt sitting to her left, and she spoke loudly into the incredibly ancient woman’s ear. “Morta, it’s Gryff! Do you want to say hi?”
“Hello,” the eldest woman croaked. “I am Aunt Morta. Nice to meet you, Gryff.”
“It’s nice to mee--”
“Is little Nia here?” Morta asked over me, as though she hadn’t even heard me start to speak.
“I’m here, Aunty Morta,” Nia assured her, and she rushed forward to kneel in front of the ancient woman and held Morta’s hand softly.
“You always did like attention, didn’t you,” Decima noted as she gave Nia a displeased look. “Get up off the floor, girl, and act like a lady.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Nia’s face was crimson as she stood up and returned to her seat.
I swallowed down a lump of anger that rose in my throat. I didn’t want anyone to talk to my fiancée that way, but I knew Nia would be furious with me if I made a scene over it, so I tried to let it go.
What did that bitch do to my woman? Dio asked as he glared over the edge of my hip pouch at the Aunts.
“Now,” Decima said in a commanding voice as she addressed the Grand Mage, “we must discuss the matter at hand thoroughly before we make our decision, but making us do so on an empty stomach is just cruel. Gally, do you have dinner prepared yet? Or do you plan to keep us waiting another hour?”
Gally? I resisted the urge to laugh at the ridiculous nickname for one of the most powerful men in the world, and I shot Nia’s father a sympathetic smile as subtly as I could.
“Let me go check with Susi,” Gallahar said in an amused voice, and he bowed his head to the three women before he darted out of the sitting room. “Can’t have you starving on my watch.”
Lucky bastard.
I watched him go with a twinge of jealousy, but then Aunt Nona cleared her throat and pulled my attention back to them.
“Do you know who your father is, Gryff?” Nona asked with narrowed blue eyes. “Why do you not have a surname?”
“I was separated from my parents when I was really young,” I explained. “I don’t remember what our last name was.”
“Oh, dear!” Nona exclaimed, and her fat chins wobbled as she sat back as though she was struck.
“Gryff was raised by a man named Maelor,” Nia offered in a diplomatic tone. “He is currently employed as the Headmaster’s personal assistant.”
“Ah, yes,” Aunt Decima sighed unhappily. “I heard about Sleet’s new employee. I do miss Petyr, though. He was a good man.”
I resisted my urge to scoff. While Petyr and I had come to an agreement of sorts, the Headmaster’s previous assistant had made no attempts to hide his dislike of me. The scowling messenger man had a prejudice against anyone who lived outside the Enclaves, and he couldn’t understand why a kid from the Wilds was constantly being brought to Sleet’s office. The man had died during an attack on the Academy, and while there had been no love lost between us, I did mourn the loss of a man loyal to the famous storm wizard, Marangur Sleet.
“Petyr is dead!” Aunt Morta exclaimed loudly, and she kicked her feet against the sofa.
“Yes, yes, Morta,” Aunt Nona chuckled. “We know.”
How was I supposed to respond to them?
“I, um, I’m sorry for your loss,” I said in a solemn voice. “Petyr was a good man, I was sad when I heard of his death myself.”
“You know nothing about him,” Decima scoffed.
I shot a helpless glance at Nia, but she just gave me a tiny shrug.
These women need the love, Dio declared in a decisive tone, and my familiar hopped out from my hip pouch to trot across the carpet toward the low sofa. Have no fear, I will make them smile.
“Dio, no!” I inhaled sharply, and I moved to grab the kitten-sized monster from the floor, but he slid past my fingertips without stopping.
“What is that thing?” Aunt Decima demanded as she pulled away from the approaching monster.
“A wild animal!” Aunt Nona shrieked, and the windows shook as she leapt to her feet and waddled behind the sofa with surprisingly quick movements for someone so round.
“Kill it!” Aunt Morta yelled, and she pointed a wrinkled finger accusingly at my familiar.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, and I rushed forward to scoop Dio into my arms. “He’s still learning his manners. It won’t happen again.”
“What is that thing?” Decima repeated with a horrified expression locked on her face as she stared at the beast snuggled into my arms.
“Dio is Gryff’s familiar,” Nia explained in a calm, patient voice. “He is as harmless as a house cat, I promise you.”
“A familiar? How dare you bring a monster into this house!” Aunt Nona said in an offended tone as she hid behind the couch. “Take it away immediately!”
“Stay away, evil beast,” Aunt Decima commanded as she tried to merge with the cushions of the sofa.
These women were some of the most powerful and influential figures in all of Mistral? They seemed like cowards and hags. I didn’t want to be disrespectful to my fiancée’s family, but this was ridiculous.
Had they never seen a monster in person before?
“What is going on?” Gallahar asked as he returned to the sitting room and looked around at the chaotic scene with a bewildered expression.
“I’ve heard the rumors about this boy,” Aunt Decima exclaimed in a shrill voice without acknowledging Nia’s dad. “Dark tidings, evil dealings. Now, he brings monsters into the home of the Grand Mage! The disrespect is blatant.”
“Blatant!” Aunt Morta added loudly, and she waggled the finger she still held pointed toward my familiar.
I take it she is not a cat person, Dio observed in a dry tone. My apologies.
“The rumors cannot be ignored,” Aunt Nona echoed, and her voice shook with emotion. “I’ve even heard he’s already married! To a barbarian woman from the Southern continent no less! I heard she doesn’t even know how to speak.”
“Barbarian!” Aunt Morta repeated, but she kept her finger and eyes locked on my familiar, so I wasn’t sure if she fully understood the conversation.
“Hey,” I snapped as my blood began to boil, “you can say whatever you want about me, but leave Freya out of your petty insults.”
“Freya is the barbarian woman? Your wife?” Aunt Nona asked with her nose wrinkled in disgust. “What will become of the Kenefick name?”
“Yeah,” I spat. “Freya is my wife, but you know nothing about her.”
“Freya is a good, honorable, strong woman,” Nia interjected in a voice full of fire. “I would be proud to call her my sister-wife.”
“Nia,” Aunt Decima gasped. “How could you even think to associate yourself with some tribal whore?”
Did she just say what I thought she said?
If my shapeshifting wife was here listening to the vile words spewing from the Aunts, she would verbally lash them without mercy, but she wasn’t. I couldn’t just sit back and let some old hags insult my wife, though, and my heartbeat thudded in my ears as I tried to get a grip on my anger.
“She’s not a tribal whore,” I growled through gritted teeth.
“A Kenefick marrying into a polygamist cult? Nia forever tied to a savage monster tamer and his barbarian wife?” Aunt Decima shot me a look full of disgust before she turned back to the Grand Mage. “It would be social suicide, Gally. The things I’ve heard about this boy should make you think twice about even letting him inside your home! Let alone letting him into your family!”
