Chapter 269: Meet the Family

The wagon crested the last hill and Sparker Village spread out below them.

The first visit had been a pit stop, a quick check-in between crises. Now there were no crises. No assassins, no convergence bombs, no duchesses trying to marry her wife off to some guy. Just a farm, a village, and a family dinner that was about to go horribly sideways the second her parents saw how many people she’d brought home.

The wagon rolled to a stop in front of the Starcaller farmhouse and Aegis hopped off.

Lisannia and Aaron were already outside, standing by the front door with the kind of big, genuine smiles that made Aegis’s chest tight. Her mom waved. Her dad raised a hand.

Sophie launched herself off the wagon and hit the ground running, slamming into Lisannia with a hug that almost knocked the woman over.

"Mom!"

"Sophie, careful, you’ll break my—"

Then Talia stepped off the wagon.

Lisannia’s smile froze. Aaron’s hand stayed up, mid-wave, like someone had paused him.

Then Scarlett climbed out, then Kanna, then Liora, then Serilla, then Lune.

Seven people, not including Aegis and Sophie, unloading from a single wagon like it was a clown car from Earth. Scarlett’s shoulders alone took up half the available space.

Aaron’s hand was still up.

Lisannia looked at Aegis.

Aegis smiled her best smile. The one that had talked down a duchess, seduced a princess, and convinced an inquisitor she wasn’t a shadow mage. On her own mother, it bounced off like a rock off a castle wall.

"Mom, Dad. This is Talia." She gestured. "My wife."

Talia, princess of Valdria, heir to House Stone, the single most powerful mage of her generation, performed a curtsy in front of a farmhouse.

"It’s a pleasure to meet you both," Talia said, her voice perfectly composed. "Aegis has told me so much about you."

[She hasn’t. I’ve told her almost nothing. But she’s selling it.]

"..."

"Your... wife," Lisannia repeated.

"Yep."

"You got married."

"Yep."

"To a princess."

"That’s the one."

Aaron finally lowered his hand. He looked at Talia, then at the six other people behind her, then back at Aegis. His mouth opened, closed, and opened again.

"That’s... nice," he said.

[Good man, Dad.]

Lisannia’s hand closed around Aegis’s wrist and pulled her through the kitchen doorway before Aegis could introduce anyone else. She shut the door behind them and turned around.

"How many of those people are you sleeping with?"

Aegis considered deflection, charm, a very smooth redirect to the topic of dinner. Every option died at the look on Lisannia’s face.

She grinned instead.

Lisannia stared at the grin for about three seconds, then walked to the cabinet, pulled out a bottle of whiskey, and poured herself a glass that was less "drink" and more "cry for help."

"All of them?" Lisannia asked.

"Not Lune." Aegis paused. "Sophie’s handling that one."

Lisannia took a very long sip.

"The redhead?"

"Scarlett. She’s my retainer. Also yes."

"The tall one with the grey hair?"

"Kanna. Also my retainer. Not yet, but probably eventually."

"The pink-haired one who looks like she wants to eat you alive?"

"Serilla. And yeah, that’s accurate."

"The sweet-looking girl with the braids?"

"Liora. She’s also dating Talia."

Lisannia set the glass down, refilled it, and picked it back up.

"And you married the princess."

"I did."

"And the princess is fine with... all of this?"

"She’s in it. Actively."

Her mother looked at the ceiling for a long time. Aegis could practically see the woman running through every decision she’d ever made as a parent, trying to figure out where things had gone so spectacularly off the rails.

"Your father is going to have a heart attack."

"Dad said ’that’s nice’ and went back to standing there. I think he’s handling it great."

"Your father says ’that’s nice’ when the crops fail, Aegis. That’s not handling it."

Fair point.

Lisannia took another drink, smaller this time, and set the glass down. The interrogation left her face and she just looked tired.

"Is she good to you? The princess."

"Yeah, Mom. She is."

"And you’re happy?"

The word "stupidly" was right there, easy and deflective, and Aegis almost said it. But Lisannia wasn’t asking for a punchline. She was asking because she was a mom and her daughter had shown up married to a stranger.

"Really happy," Aegis said. "All of them make me happy. I know it looks insane from the outside."

"It looks insane from any angle."

"Yeah. But it works."

Lisannia looked at her for a moment longer, and Aegis let her look. Whatever she saw must have been enough, because her shoulders dropped and she shook her head with a tired smile.

"Fine. But you’re helping me cook. I didn’t plan dinner for nine."

---

Dinner was chaos.

The farmhouse table sat six if everyone squeezed, so Aaron had dragged in a second table from the barn and shoved them together. It still wasn’t enough. Scarlett had given up trying to eat without elbowing someone.

"Sorry," Scarlett said for the fourth time, reaching for the bread and clipping Kanna’s arm.

"You said that three times already." Kanna didn’t look up from her plate. "Pick a smaller bread."

"It’s the only bread."

"Then pick a smaller arm."

Sophie was recounting some story about a practical exam at triple speed, gesturing with a fork that had a piece of potato on it. The potato flew off on a wide arc and landed in Aaron’s water cup with a small splash. Aaron looked at it, looked at Sophie, and took a drink from the cup anyway.

[That man is unshakeable.]

Serilla had somehow ended up next to Aaron and was making polite conversation that Aegis knew for a fact was a performance, because Serilla didn’t do polite. She was asking him about crop rotations.

[She’s going to snap in about ten minutes and say something filthy. I’m giving it ten minutes.]

Talia was sitting next to Lisannia, and Talia was actually leaning in when Lisannia talked. Aegis felt warmth in her chest that she absolutely refused to acknowledge as "feelings."

Then Lisannia said something Aegis couldn’t hear and Talia laughed. Actually laughed, short and surprised with her hand over her mouth, not the version she used at court functions.

[Oh my god, they’re bonding!]

"Alright," Lisannia said, hands on her hips. "Rooms. This house was built for four people," Lisannia said. "There are nine of you."

"Seven," Aegis corrected. "You and Dad already have a room. And me and Talia are sharing."

"Seven people. Two bedrooms." Lisannia looked at the ceiling again. She’d been doing that a lot today. "Fine. Sophie’s room is the biggest after ours, so that gets three. Sophie, Lune, and..." She looked at Serilla. "You."

Serilla raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue.

"Aegis’s old room goes to you three." Lisannia looked at Scarlett, Kanna, and Liora. "There should be enough floor space for a bedroll or two. That leaves Aegis and Talia in the guest nook at the end of the hall," Lisannia finished. "It’s small. There’s a cot."

"We’ll manage," Aegis said.

Talia glanced at her. Aegis kept her face neutral.

---

The guest nook was, generously, a closet with a mattress in it.

The cot took up most of the floor, with about two feet of standing room left over. Talia stood at the edge with her arms crossed.

"Charming," Talia said.

"I prefer ’intimate.’"

"There’s a draft."

"That’s ventilation. Very modern."

Talia turned to say something and whatever it was didn’t make it past the first syllable, because Aegis was already close, sliding her arms around Talia’s waist from behind, pressing her lips to the side of her neck. Talia’s breath caught, just a tiny hitch, and Aegis filed it away because she filed away every sound this woman made.

"Your parents are twenty feet away," Talia said. Her voice was even. Her pulse, against Aegis’s lips, was not.

"Then I guess you’ll have to be quiet."

"... I can be quiet."

"You don’t sound too sure about that, hehe."

Talia turned in her arms. Her yellow eyes dared Aegis to do something about it, and it made heat pool low in Aegis’s stomach every single time. Talia’s hands came up to her jaw, thumbs brushing her cheeks, and she kissed her slowly and deliberately, the kind of kiss that said try me.

When they pulled apart, Aegis’s brain was doing approximately nothing useful.

"These walls are thin," Talia said. "I can hear Scarlett arguing about bedrolls from here."

Aegis leaned in, her lips brushing Talia’s ear.

"Bet I can make you not care about that."

Talia looked at her for a beat. Then she put one hand flat on Aegis’s chest and pushed.

Aegis went down onto the cot on her back and Talia followed, straddling her lap, and the cot creaked so loud that someone in the next room definitely heard it.

Neither of them stopped.

Talia kissed her again, harder this time, and Aegis’s hands found her hips and pulled her down, grinding up into her. Talia’s breath broke and she went still, eyes flicking to the wall.

"Thin walls," Aegis whispered.

"Shut up."

"Make me."

Talia did.