Page 74 of Battle Scarred

About Daxon, who is bringing Darcy and Rayzon for a visit as soon as the ban lifts, which Grytel says is a matter of paperwork now and not permission.

About Grytel himself, who told me two diurnals ago that he’s resigning as Chief Executive of Timbur Minecorp. He’s going to Chronos. House Vaszneth is leaderless and rotten from the elder down, and the succession has fallen — because there is nobody else left with clean hands and the right blood — to a minor cousin of a distant line whom nobody ever took seriously.

“I destroyed it,”he said.“It seems only fair that I be the one who has to live in it.”

I think he’ll be eaten alive over there. I’ve told him so. He said he’d take the risk, and then asked whether he could hold Lucas, which I allowed.

“There’sa thing I want to do,” I tell Mara, while we’re snacking on a human delicacy called popcorn.

“Mm.”

“About Lucas.”

“Yes?”

“I want to enter him into my line. Formally. On the Xylan registry. He’d carry my line and my name on every record in the Four Sectors, and he’d have standing according to the Scales of Xylan Law, and there isn’t a being anywhere who could ever say he doesn’t belong to this family.”

She gazes at me with wide eyes.

“There’s no impediment to it now. I couldn’t before. A male can only enter a child into his line if he’s the sire or the mate of the mother. I wasn’t either. Yesterday I became one.”

“He’d be your son.”

“He’s always been my son.”

“Oh my gosh.”

“He could be Lucas of One, because he’s the first Lucas, or he could be Lucas of Eighteen so he’s connected to my line. Which would you prefer?”

“Lucas of Eighteen.” She tries it out. “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard and I love it enormously.”

“He’ll be the only full human in the Four Sectors with a Xylan line number.”

She leans forward and kisses my lips. “And he’ll be the luckiest human to haveyouas his father.”