Page 126 of The Prince's Fealty

Cavun jogged past, keeping an eye on the children for the inevitable moment when one or both of them fell over. Bumps and bruises, Tor and Pel had learned, were totally standard when it came to small children, and it was nothing to panic over.

(Yes, they’d both panicked more than once. But they were getting the hang of it now.)

Behind Tor and Pel was the constant hum of activity that came with castle construction. Two years ago, their citizens had voted to join the United Realms, and it seemed to be a matter of pride that they have a castle just like all the other realms did. They were quarrying the stone right here in the mountains, and the labor involved was going to keep many of their citizens employed for years.

Tor and Pel had tried to suggest they didn’t need a castle—and they’d been outvoted.

One of Tor’s first suggestions as the holder of the Fealty of the exiles had been to create a citizens’ council. Twenty-five citizens got voted onto the council for four-year terms, and they in turn voted on all the major decisions—including what their realm would be named.

Tor was still ninety percent sure that they were just messing with him, but Torpel the realm was the same age as their daughter.

Yes, those sneaky asses had voted to name the realmTorpel.

Every single one of Tor’s friends and family members had laughed uproariously when they heard and referenced the realm as often as possible.

Tor and Pel had the right to veto suggestions from the council, but this was one of the first things they’d voted on. So goddess help them, Tor and Pel lived in Torpel, and that just never got old, apparently.

(Sometimes, Tor sneaked in a name change motion, just to see if everyone on the council was paying attention. They always were.)

Cala raced by next, strawberry-blond curls already falling out of the tie her mother had tried to put it in.

“Gonna get you!” she cried.

Shara and Nur both screamed in delight and tried to run faster.

Tor was pretty sure there were no actual rules to this game and it lasted until someone ended up in tears, but he couldn’t be certain. Yesterday, Cala had very gravely told him that he “just didn’t understand because he was old.”

Put in his place by a five-year-old.

“I save you!” Chada yelled.

Somila and Gornexi’s four-year-old daughter raced in front of Shara and Nur with a stick that Tor assumed was supposed to be a sword.

Cala snatched up her own stick, a martial light in her eye.

Someone was definitely going to get poked somewhere sensitive, and there would definitely be tears.

On the plus side, they might all exhaust themselves with running around so that some of their parents could sleep the night through.

“Wavilon is around, right?” Pel asked, because he seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Tor.

“I saw him at some point today. Or maybe it was yesterday. I’ve lost track.”

Because Wavilon was amazing, he’d moved to Torpel six months ago to train their two recently Manifested healers.

Today was the naming ceremony for Tama and Bav’s first child, and she’d wanted to have the celebration here in Torpel, where she’d spent most of her life. (The Torpelians mostly found it weird that there was an entire ceremony for a ruler to announce a baby’s name. But really, it was an excuse for a party, and everyone liked that, especially since in Torpel, everyone was invited.)

Tor wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been sure this day would come. It turned out Bav and Pel had inherited the same stubbornness, and they both knew how to hold a grudge. It had taken Tamayearsto win Bav over again, but it had finally happened, and they’d bonded a little over a year ago. She’d moved to Tond, and that had left Torpel without a healer.

It really did feel like the goddess was looking out directly for them, if Tor was being honest. It wasn’t just the two healers Manifesting, though that was amazing. All across the United Realms, there’d been an increase in Illustrious, Extraordinary, and healers—almost like the realm was happier now that they were whole again.

There were a few holdouts, but most people subscribed now to the idea that happy citizens meant good Fealty meant good land. Those who’d lived in Torpel for the last twenty-nine years attested regularly to the fact that these last three had been the best they’d ever had.

(And most conceded that first year had been for recovery. It was why they’d voted to join the United Realms, when they’d seen the results of Tor living here with their Fealty.)

Var had also made changes. He had his own citizens’ council, one for the entirety of the United Realms. It had three citizens from each realm, and a minimum of two of them had to be Unremarkable to better represent the population. They also couldn’t be royal. Each individual realm had followed suit. They didn’t all have identical power yet—Tor’s was the only one that could vote to leave the United Realms or to oust the holder of the Fealty, for example—but it was progress that Tor was proud of.

His was also the only realm that didn’t require anyone pledging Fealty to live there. They tracked the pledges solely in order to ensure that if they ever dipped to a problematic level, they’d know what that level was for the future. It was both exhilarating and a bit terrifying that so much of what Tor did was experimenting.