“I don’t think it’s me she wants,” he said softly.
Izzy rubbed the palms of her hands against her thighs and took a step back. As stubborn as always—Talaith had no idea where her daughter got that from—Izzy silently refused to touch her own sister. And if the surprise and hurt on her father’s face didn’t knock some sense into her, Talaith was at a loss as to what would.
“Tell her the name,” Keita suddenly piped in.
Briec scowled at his sister. “Are you still on that?”
“I’ll be on that until the end of time. You might as well have cursed the poor child. Rhianwen he named her. Can you believe it, Izzy? Trying to get in your grandmum’s good graces by selling the babe’s soul.”
“The names aren’t even that close,” he argued. “And leave off, already.”
“Leave off?” Keita came forward, yanking Rhianwen out of her brother’s arms and shoving her at Izzy, giving the stubborn girl no choice but to grab hold of her sister or let her drop to the floor. “I’ll not ‘leave off,’
as you so eloquently put it. But what I will do is call you the suck-up that you truly are. It’s like you have no shame.”
“Me? You’re calling me a suck-up?”
While the siblings argued, Izzy held her sister away from her. But Rhianwen wasn’t having it. She continued to reach for Izzy, little hands grasping desperately.
Holding her breath, Talaith watched her two daughters. She could live with Izzy being mad at her, but not at her sister. Rhianwen had done nothing wrong except be born into a very strange situation.
“My daddy adores me!” Keita was yelling at her brother. “And your jealousy over that bores me!”
“You bore me, and yet I tolerate you well enough!”
“The world bores you, Briec, because you think you’re better than everyone else!”
“I know I’m better than everyone else. If you’d only admit it, you’d be so much happier with your inferiority!”
Frustrated she couldn’t reach her sister, Rhianwen began to cry, and Talaith was a moment away from taking her daughter back.
“Shh-shh-shh,” Izzy soothed, pulling the babe to her. “It’s all right.
Don’t cry.” Izzy began to walk in small circles, bouncing her sister in her arms. “And you two,” Izzy said to her father and aunt, “pack it in. You’re upsetting the baby.”
The arguing stopped instantly, and the siblings glanced at Izzy, then at each other. Keita winked at her brother and smiled at Talaith.
Thank you, Talaith mouthed at the dragoness.
The crying subsided, and Rhianwen leaned her head back so she could do to Izzy what she did to everyone: study her with that almost painfully intense gaze. What did her little one see, Talaith always wondered—and worried—when she looked so closely at others?
Whatever Rhianwen saw this time, however, it was more than enough.
In fact, it was as powerful as Izzy’s shoulders. Because, for the first time since her birth, Rhianwen did something she’d never done before.She smiled.
A smile so bright and happy that Talaith felt it like a punch to her chest. Even Briec had to take a step back, his gaze searching out Talaith’s.
Izzy grinned in return, completely unaware of what she’d managed to do in thirty seconds that no one else had been able to do since Rhianwen’s first breath in this world.
“She’s gorgeous,” Branwen offered, moving up behind Izzy to get a closer look.
“Of course she is,” Izzy snapped back, sounding more like her adoptive father every day. The horror. “She’s my sister.”
“Och! I love the little human ones.” Branwen reached around Izzy.
“Let me hold her now.”
“Back off.” Izzy turned so her cousin couldn’t touch her sister. “Your hands are dirty.”
“No dirtier than yours.”
“I had gloves on for the trip.”
“Just let me hold her for a second,” Branwen begged, and Talaith felt bad for the young dragoness.
Especially when Izzy bellowed back, “Unclean!”
“Fine! I’ll wash me hands then.”
“You need a bath. You’re filthy.”
“You ungrateful little—”
“Why don’t I make this easy for all?” Dagmar cut in. She gestured with a crook of her forefinger and Fanny, who was still in charge of the servants but had somehow become Dagmar’s personal assistant, suddenly appeared.
“Yes, Lady Dagmar?”
“Fanny, could you get these two settled? A hot bath for both, and food.”
“Of course, my lady.” Fanny smiled at the pair. “Welcome home, Lady Iseabail and Lady Branwen. Please follow me.”
“Come on, Rhi,” Izzy said to her sister, “you’ll come with us.” She started off behind Fanny and Branwen, but stopped and glared at her parents.
“And don’t think you two are off the hook.”
Talaith opened her mouth to tell her spoiled brat of a daughter what she could do with her “hook,” but Keita, Dagmar, Briec, and Morfyd all covered her mouth with their hands. She stamped her foot, but they refused to take their hands away until Izzy and her cousin disappeared up the stairs and down the hallway.
“Brat!” she yelled once they released her.
“She was hurt,” Briec said. “I warned you—”