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i_read_whatSo last time, Niall had his ceremony and may have fixed his sister's relationship. Maybe. Jury's still out on whether or not Ceinn's pulled his head out of his ass.
Now, one of the many things that happened while Niall was off on his wolf-finding sojourn is that his sons were born! Niall is officially no longer the last link in the chain! And this chapter starts with him finally meeting them.
Niall is pretty taken with them right away, calling them magnificent. Serri is less taken with them, noting that the only thing magnificent about the babies at this age is their odor. Though it's interesting, he can sense which twin is which when Niall touches them:
That one, Serri told me, even from the rug. I can feel it in him as you touch him…he is firstborn—he will be Mujhar.
“And the other?”
Prince of Solinde?
I grunted. “Solinde prepares for war yet again… I begin to think no Mujhar of Homana will ever hold that realm in peace. At least—not a long-lasting peace.”
Prince of Atvia?
I nodded thoughtfully. “Possibly. With no male heirs, Alaric has only Gisella’s son to look to for a man to succeed him as Lord of Atvia.”
Then again, there is Erinn.
I felt the old pain flare up in my belly. The grief renewed itself. “No, lir…not Erinn. I think the Erinn I knew is gone forever.”
This part is pretty interesting. For one thing, these are babies, and in the way of powerful men, Niall is getting the opportunity to decide their fates before even knowing who they'll be. Brennan will be Mujhar. Hart...well, there are a few possibilities for him.
Those possibilities hint at a rather notable problem with the second half of the series. Which is that, for all intents and purpose, the prophecy is accomplished by the end of this book. Oh, not the revival of the Firstborn. It'll take a few more generations of incest for that to line up properly, but the idea of bringing peace to four warring kingdoms?
So Niall's got an heir for Homana. If he sets his other son up as the king of Solinde...well, there you go. Assuming that son can control his land, the war is over. And Alaric has no sons. I could buy that he's clever enough that, if Gisella were competent, he could manage to name her his heir. But she's not. IF Alaric wants an heir, he'll have to go to one of Niall's sons.
Of course, we're assuming that Alaric isn't gifted with the same eternal youth that Electra was. But then, we don't know of that youth also conveyed a longer lifespan. Electra was forty in Song of Homana, which made her fifty-six-ish when she died. That's well within a normal human lifespan.
Either way, though, unless there's a serious falling out between Niall's children, the "peace between four warring realms" could well be achieved by the next book.
So why do we need to bring back a race of demigods when peace is achievable without them? The book series never quite answers that.
Anyway, Niall angsts a bit about his role in lighting the beacon, which signaled Alaric's assassins to act. And I still wonder...shouldn't the deaths of the Erinnish royal family be news?
But anyway, Niall's "half-Cheysuli" sons are both dark haired and dark complected, which makes him happy. And, being the semantic-obsessed person I am, I'm now curious about what percentage of Cheysuli they actually are.
Pardon me while I do the math here. I'll probably do the math a lot later, as we get more and more interbreeding going for the massive eugenics project that is bringing back the Firstborn.
So, let's figure this out. On one side of the family tree...actually multiple sides of the family tree really, we have Alix (1/2 Cheysuli, 1/4 Homanan, 1/4 Erinnish*) and Duncan (full Cheysuli)
(* Roberson has clearly forgotten about this, which will bring us to something I'll bitch about much later.)
This leads us to Donal and Bronwyn who would be 3/4 Cheysuli, 1/8 Homanan, 1/8 Erinnish.
Aislinn is 1/2 Solindish and 1/2 Homanan. Alaric is full Atvian, at least as far as we know.
This leads us to Niall (3/8 Cheysuli, 1/4 Solindish, 5/16 Homanan, 1/16 Erinnish) and Gisella (1/2 Atvian, 3/8 Cheysuli, 1/16 Homanan, 1/16 Erinnish).
The boys therefore would be: 3/8 Cheysuli, 1/4 Atvian, 1/8 Solindish, 3/16 Homanan, and 1/16 Erinnish.
So, I mean, technically speaking, the boys are the same amount of Cheysuli that Niall is. They've even got exactly the same percentage of "Old Blood" (which, if you recall, comes from that tiny sliver of Erinnish. Which is still offensive, but there you go.)
If you're curious, Ian and Isolde would be 5/8 Cheysuli, 5/16 Homanan, and 1/16 Erinnish. Which means that Niall's angst about being so much less Cheysuli than his siblings comes down to a lousy 1/4. (Since Sorcha was half Cheysuli and half Homanan.)
I hope you'll forgive me this little foray into fractions. But later generations are going to make this even fucking stupider.
ANYWAY. We have more cute moments with the babies:
One of them stirred beneath my hand. And almost instantly, the other one did as well. Some form of communication? They were children of the same birth…who could say what the strength of their link would be?
“Mujhar,” I whispered to the one Serri had named the firstborn. “Such a heavy title for such a little boy.”
Face down, he turned his head even as his brother did. They opened their eyes and peered at one another uncertainly, as if to make sure the other one was present. And I saw, looking at their eyes, why my father had said one could tell them apart already. The older, Brennan, had the brass-brown eyes that would turn Cheysuli yellow. Hart, the younger, had eyes the color of the sky on a summer day. Very like my own.
It will be interesting to read Pride of Princes again, because I don't remember a twin bond really coming up. Brennan and Hart get along reasonably well, but I don't remember any sort of empathic womb-shared communication. We'll see though. I do forget details.
Anyway, this nice moment is interrupted by Gisella:
She stood in the open doorway and stared at me sorrowfully. “You went away from me,” she accused. “On our wedding night.”
I felt a vague sense of guilt; aye, I had left her on our wedding night, when a man and woman should spend the time together. Even heavy with the babies, she was due common courtesy from her husband.
And then the guilt evaporated; what I felt was anger. Anger and helplessness, because she was no more responsible for her actions than were our two small sons, soiling nightwrappings in their sleep.
“I went away,” I told her, “because I had to go.”
Gisella, of course, doesn't understand this. She just repeats that he went away from her, like a "heartbroken child". Then she immediately brightens.
But her face brightened abruptly. “Have you seen my babies? Have you seen my sons?”
“Our sons, Gisella,” I said gently, even as she hastened across the floor to bend over the cradle. “They are mine as well as yours.”
“Babies,” she whispered, and reached down to tuck the coverlet more closely around their bodies.
Poor Gisella. That said, and this might be an incredibly ableist question but...are you guys sure you should be leaving the children alone with her?
Niall tries to ask her about when Alaric had him light the beacon fire. Gisella is first uncomprehending, of course, then she gets upset. She accuses him of thinking of "her" instead of Gisella. She's teary-eyed, grabbing at her hair.
“Did you know?” I asked her. “Did you know what lighting the fire would begin?”
“I wanted you for me!”
“By the gods, Gisella, did you know what it would begin?”
She pressed the braid against her mouth and I saw the white teeth bite in. Gods, how she trembled. “It was so pretty,” she whispered over the shining hair. “The fire was so bright…it lit up the dragon’s smile, and I could see all his teeth.”
“Do you know what you have done?”
“But it was pretty, Niall!” Suddenly she was angry. She jerked the braid from her mouth. “I like to see pretty things. I want to see pretty things.”
I caught her arms before she could finish. “Do you know what you have done?”
“Aye!” she shouted back. “I have borne you boys—the Lion is secure!”
I think the answer is yes, actually. I think she did know that Deirdre would die from these actions. "I wanted you for me!" is pretty clear. That said, does she understand the broader implications? Does she care?
But she's right. She gave birth to two healthy sons at one time. And in this fucked up feudal, misogynistic society, that's her worth right there. Aislinn, dignified and sane, only managed one.
In that moment, looking at her, I knew a futile anger of the sort that might drive me to murder. What would it take to place my hands around her throat and squeeze, shutting off her breath forever? She was responsible for altering my consciousness, for making me a man with no wits or will…a man capable of giving the woman he loves over to the hands of an assassin. And yet I knew Gisella could not be held accountable. Not—entirely.
All the anger spilled out of my body. Deep despair was left in its place. “Oh—gods—Gisella…will you never understand?” I turned from her and locked my hands onto the side of the cradle, staring blindly at my sons. “You will never understand.”
Niall's a victim whose primary tormentor is a victim herself. It's a mess of a situation. Gisella, on the other hand, ignores him entirely. The babies are crying. She tends to them, and per Niall, she's careful and solicitous. Very concerned for their welfare.
Maybe I'm wrong to be concerned. But I remember her line about the dead pets.
Niall flees the room to angst. He thinks about his captivity in Erinn, when all the "eagles" were alive. He's interrupted by Aislinn. She asks why he's in pain.
He tells her and says that he wishes he'd listened to her when she'd given him the chance to stop the wedding. Aislinn understands though, Donal had filled her in on his lir and the fact that Gisella had him ensorceled. Well, I'm glad that he understands that, but I could have done with less victim blaming in their last scene together.
But, hey, Niall's an adult now. Lir and all. So he decides to take the opportunity to clear the air with her. And hey, the castle is populated now!
I escorted her to her favorite private solar, a round room in one of the corner towers of the palace, with wide, glassy casements and whitewashed walls. She had six women to attend her whenever she desired it; three were in the solar now, but before I could request privacy my mother asked them to leave. And so we were left alone, save for Serri, and I found myself suddenly reticent to speak of the thing at all.
If you recall, one of my many many complaints in Legacy of the Sword was that there were no servants, nurses, or otherwise for Aislinn. I'm glad Roberson finally remembered that castles have a fucking staff.
But Niall has something to say. And he does.
“I am not Carillon.”
I saw a mixture of emotions in her face: astonishment, perplexity, a trace of apprehension. As if she began to understand precisely what I meant to say. “Niall—”
“And if you mean to tell me so emphatically that of course I am not, I wish you would gainsay it. Mother—” I stopped. “Jehana, too many times in the past you have made me to feel inferior. You did not mean it, I know. If anything, you meant to bolster what manhood I claim by comparing me to him, but it has always made me feel the reverse. Incapable. Incompetent. A shadow of the man your father was.” I spread my hands. “I have his height, his weight, his color—certainly a legacy I might respect…were I allowed to respect myself.”
This is a painful conversation, of course. But it's a necessary one.
Niall tells her that Carillon was flawed, as any man is, and that he needs to be himself, rather than buried under the weight of his grandfather's legend.
Aislinn asks if she's done that to him. He says she didn't mean to, but yes. Aislinn, not being Donal, actually gets to acknowledge her mistakes. She explains how important Carillon was to her, how he was basically her world for her whole life and then he was gone. She admits that she can't, and shouldn't expect Niall to mimic Carillon.
“It is difficult for a woman with only one child not to try to shape the clay precisely as she wishes. And more difficult yet to realize the clay may prefer to shape itself.”
“Well, I think the clay is unfired.” I smiled, shrugging. “Who can say what I will become?”
“All of them,” she said seriously. “All of them will say. The councils, the races—the loyalists and the rebels. And certainly the enemy.” Pensively, she smoothed the silk of her shining hair. “Be wary, Niall…be wary of everyone. Friend and foe alike.”
This is an interesting bit of advice. Neither Carillon or Donal much seemed to care about the council. Hell, we only learned the fucking thing existed in the last chapter of the last book, so that Donal had a reason to send his baby sister off to her death. But Aislinn may well have a clearer and deeper knowledge of them.
She certainly has experience with being manipulated, used, and pulled in different directions by people who should have had her best interest at heart.
And Aislinn's words remind Niall that Strahan had said something similar:
"“Look to your friends…your enemies…your kin—lest they form an alliance against you.”
Strahan, I think we forget, is Niall's maternal half-uncle. Aislinn's half-brother. I wonder what she thinks about that.
Anyway, with that ominous reminder, the chapter ends.
Now, one of the many things that happened while Niall was off on his wolf-finding sojourn is that his sons were born! Niall is officially no longer the last link in the chain! And this chapter starts with him finally meeting them.
Niall is pretty taken with them right away, calling them magnificent. Serri is less taken with them, noting that the only thing magnificent about the babies at this age is their odor. Though it's interesting, he can sense which twin is which when Niall touches them:
That one, Serri told me, even from the rug. I can feel it in him as you touch him…he is firstborn—he will be Mujhar.
“And the other?”
Prince of Solinde?
I grunted. “Solinde prepares for war yet again… I begin to think no Mujhar of Homana will ever hold that realm in peace. At least—not a long-lasting peace.”
Prince of Atvia?
I nodded thoughtfully. “Possibly. With no male heirs, Alaric has only Gisella’s son to look to for a man to succeed him as Lord of Atvia.”
Then again, there is Erinn.
I felt the old pain flare up in my belly. The grief renewed itself. “No, lir…not Erinn. I think the Erinn I knew is gone forever.”
This part is pretty interesting. For one thing, these are babies, and in the way of powerful men, Niall is getting the opportunity to decide their fates before even knowing who they'll be. Brennan will be Mujhar. Hart...well, there are a few possibilities for him.
Those possibilities hint at a rather notable problem with the second half of the series. Which is that, for all intents and purpose, the prophecy is accomplished by the end of this book. Oh, not the revival of the Firstborn. It'll take a few more generations of incest for that to line up properly, but the idea of bringing peace to four warring kingdoms?
So Niall's got an heir for Homana. If he sets his other son up as the king of Solinde...well, there you go. Assuming that son can control his land, the war is over. And Alaric has no sons. I could buy that he's clever enough that, if Gisella were competent, he could manage to name her his heir. But she's not. IF Alaric wants an heir, he'll have to go to one of Niall's sons.
Of course, we're assuming that Alaric isn't gifted with the same eternal youth that Electra was. But then, we don't know of that youth also conveyed a longer lifespan. Electra was forty in Song of Homana, which made her fifty-six-ish when she died. That's well within a normal human lifespan.
Either way, though, unless there's a serious falling out between Niall's children, the "peace between four warring realms" could well be achieved by the next book.
So why do we need to bring back a race of demigods when peace is achievable without them? The book series never quite answers that.
Anyway, Niall angsts a bit about his role in lighting the beacon, which signaled Alaric's assassins to act. And I still wonder...shouldn't the deaths of the Erinnish royal family be news?
But anyway, Niall's "half-Cheysuli" sons are both dark haired and dark complected, which makes him happy. And, being the semantic-obsessed person I am, I'm now curious about what percentage of Cheysuli they actually are.
Pardon me while I do the math here. I'll probably do the math a lot later, as we get more and more interbreeding going for the massive eugenics project that is bringing back the Firstborn.
So, let's figure this out. On one side of the family tree...actually multiple sides of the family tree really, we have Alix (1/2 Cheysuli, 1/4 Homanan, 1/4 Erinnish*) and Duncan (full Cheysuli)
(* Roberson has clearly forgotten about this, which will bring us to something I'll bitch about much later.)
This leads us to Donal and Bronwyn who would be 3/4 Cheysuli, 1/8 Homanan, 1/8 Erinnish.
Aislinn is 1/2 Solindish and 1/2 Homanan. Alaric is full Atvian, at least as far as we know.
This leads us to Niall (3/8 Cheysuli, 1/4 Solindish, 5/16 Homanan, 1/16 Erinnish) and Gisella (1/2 Atvian, 3/8 Cheysuli, 1/16 Homanan, 1/16 Erinnish).
The boys therefore would be: 3/8 Cheysuli, 1/4 Atvian, 1/8 Solindish, 3/16 Homanan, and 1/16 Erinnish.
So, I mean, technically speaking, the boys are the same amount of Cheysuli that Niall is. They've even got exactly the same percentage of "Old Blood" (which, if you recall, comes from that tiny sliver of Erinnish. Which is still offensive, but there you go.)
If you're curious, Ian and Isolde would be 5/8 Cheysuli, 5/16 Homanan, and 1/16 Erinnish. Which means that Niall's angst about being so much less Cheysuli than his siblings comes down to a lousy 1/4. (Since Sorcha was half Cheysuli and half Homanan.)
I hope you'll forgive me this little foray into fractions. But later generations are going to make this even fucking stupider.
ANYWAY. We have more cute moments with the babies:
One of them stirred beneath my hand. And almost instantly, the other one did as well. Some form of communication? They were children of the same birth…who could say what the strength of their link would be?
“Mujhar,” I whispered to the one Serri had named the firstborn. “Such a heavy title for such a little boy.”
Face down, he turned his head even as his brother did. They opened their eyes and peered at one another uncertainly, as if to make sure the other one was present. And I saw, looking at their eyes, why my father had said one could tell them apart already. The older, Brennan, had the brass-brown eyes that would turn Cheysuli yellow. Hart, the younger, had eyes the color of the sky on a summer day. Very like my own.
It will be interesting to read Pride of Princes again, because I don't remember a twin bond really coming up. Brennan and Hart get along reasonably well, but I don't remember any sort of empathic womb-shared communication. We'll see though. I do forget details.
Anyway, this nice moment is interrupted by Gisella:
She stood in the open doorway and stared at me sorrowfully. “You went away from me,” she accused. “On our wedding night.”
I felt a vague sense of guilt; aye, I had left her on our wedding night, when a man and woman should spend the time together. Even heavy with the babies, she was due common courtesy from her husband.
And then the guilt evaporated; what I felt was anger. Anger and helplessness, because she was no more responsible for her actions than were our two small sons, soiling nightwrappings in their sleep.
“I went away,” I told her, “because I had to go.”
Gisella, of course, doesn't understand this. She just repeats that he went away from her, like a "heartbroken child". Then she immediately brightens.
But her face brightened abruptly. “Have you seen my babies? Have you seen my sons?”
“Our sons, Gisella,” I said gently, even as she hastened across the floor to bend over the cradle. “They are mine as well as yours.”
“Babies,” she whispered, and reached down to tuck the coverlet more closely around their bodies.
Poor Gisella. That said, and this might be an incredibly ableist question but...are you guys sure you should be leaving the children alone with her?
Niall tries to ask her about when Alaric had him light the beacon fire. Gisella is first uncomprehending, of course, then she gets upset. She accuses him of thinking of "her" instead of Gisella. She's teary-eyed, grabbing at her hair.
“Did you know?” I asked her. “Did you know what lighting the fire would begin?”
“I wanted you for me!”
“By the gods, Gisella, did you know what it would begin?”
She pressed the braid against her mouth and I saw the white teeth bite in. Gods, how she trembled. “It was so pretty,” she whispered over the shining hair. “The fire was so bright…it lit up the dragon’s smile, and I could see all his teeth.”
“Do you know what you have done?”
“But it was pretty, Niall!” Suddenly she was angry. She jerked the braid from her mouth. “I like to see pretty things. I want to see pretty things.”
I caught her arms before she could finish. “Do you know what you have done?”
“Aye!” she shouted back. “I have borne you boys—the Lion is secure!”
I think the answer is yes, actually. I think she did know that Deirdre would die from these actions. "I wanted you for me!" is pretty clear. That said, does she understand the broader implications? Does she care?
But she's right. She gave birth to two healthy sons at one time. And in this fucked up feudal, misogynistic society, that's her worth right there. Aislinn, dignified and sane, only managed one.
In that moment, looking at her, I knew a futile anger of the sort that might drive me to murder. What would it take to place my hands around her throat and squeeze, shutting off her breath forever? She was responsible for altering my consciousness, for making me a man with no wits or will…a man capable of giving the woman he loves over to the hands of an assassin. And yet I knew Gisella could not be held accountable. Not—entirely.
All the anger spilled out of my body. Deep despair was left in its place. “Oh—gods—Gisella…will you never understand?” I turned from her and locked my hands onto the side of the cradle, staring blindly at my sons. “You will never understand.”
Niall's a victim whose primary tormentor is a victim herself. It's a mess of a situation. Gisella, on the other hand, ignores him entirely. The babies are crying. She tends to them, and per Niall, she's careful and solicitous. Very concerned for their welfare.
Maybe I'm wrong to be concerned. But I remember her line about the dead pets.
Niall flees the room to angst. He thinks about his captivity in Erinn, when all the "eagles" were alive. He's interrupted by Aislinn. She asks why he's in pain.
He tells her and says that he wishes he'd listened to her when she'd given him the chance to stop the wedding. Aislinn understands though, Donal had filled her in on his lir and the fact that Gisella had him ensorceled. Well, I'm glad that he understands that, but I could have done with less victim blaming in their last scene together.
But, hey, Niall's an adult now. Lir and all. So he decides to take the opportunity to clear the air with her. And hey, the castle is populated now!
I escorted her to her favorite private solar, a round room in one of the corner towers of the palace, with wide, glassy casements and whitewashed walls. She had six women to attend her whenever she desired it; three were in the solar now, but before I could request privacy my mother asked them to leave. And so we were left alone, save for Serri, and I found myself suddenly reticent to speak of the thing at all.
If you recall, one of my many many complaints in Legacy of the Sword was that there were no servants, nurses, or otherwise for Aislinn. I'm glad Roberson finally remembered that castles have a fucking staff.
But Niall has something to say. And he does.
“I am not Carillon.”
I saw a mixture of emotions in her face: astonishment, perplexity, a trace of apprehension. As if she began to understand precisely what I meant to say. “Niall—”
“And if you mean to tell me so emphatically that of course I am not, I wish you would gainsay it. Mother—” I stopped. “Jehana, too many times in the past you have made me to feel inferior. You did not mean it, I know. If anything, you meant to bolster what manhood I claim by comparing me to him, but it has always made me feel the reverse. Incapable. Incompetent. A shadow of the man your father was.” I spread my hands. “I have his height, his weight, his color—certainly a legacy I might respect…were I allowed to respect myself.”
This is a painful conversation, of course. But it's a necessary one.
Niall tells her that Carillon was flawed, as any man is, and that he needs to be himself, rather than buried under the weight of his grandfather's legend.
Aislinn asks if she's done that to him. He says she didn't mean to, but yes. Aislinn, not being Donal, actually gets to acknowledge her mistakes. She explains how important Carillon was to her, how he was basically her world for her whole life and then he was gone. She admits that she can't, and shouldn't expect Niall to mimic Carillon.
“It is difficult for a woman with only one child not to try to shape the clay precisely as she wishes. And more difficult yet to realize the clay may prefer to shape itself.”
“Well, I think the clay is unfired.” I smiled, shrugging. “Who can say what I will become?”
“All of them,” she said seriously. “All of them will say. The councils, the races—the loyalists and the rebels. And certainly the enemy.” Pensively, she smoothed the silk of her shining hair. “Be wary, Niall…be wary of everyone. Friend and foe alike.”
This is an interesting bit of advice. Neither Carillon or Donal much seemed to care about the council. Hell, we only learned the fucking thing existed in the last chapter of the last book, so that Donal had a reason to send his baby sister off to her death. But Aislinn may well have a clearer and deeper knowledge of them.
She certainly has experience with being manipulated, used, and pulled in different directions by people who should have had her best interest at heart.
And Aislinn's words remind Niall that Strahan had said something similar:
"“Look to your friends…your enemies…your kin—lest they form an alliance against you.”
Strahan, I think we forget, is Niall's maternal half-uncle. Aislinn's half-brother. I wonder what she thinks about that.
Anyway, with that ominous reminder, the chapter ends.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-23 04:32 pm (UTC)Exactly. That's what I kept asking, if she can stay in reality long enough to be a competent parent. It looks like Gisella does love her kids, but will she need help from nursemaids and such? Or will she get it anyway, since lords and royalty never really raised their own kids through history?
Anyway, it's nice to see Aislinn act like a mature adult. Someone's gotta around here; Ian and Isolde can't do it alone. Maybe the apology will start mending some familial bonds. And Niall realizing in full how much Gisella is a victim as much as she's a perpetrator was painful. If Roberson had focused more on emotional gut-punches and less on inbreeding, she could've been brilliant.
= Multi-Facets.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-23 05:44 pm (UTC)And then the plots are held together through batshittery, inconsistency, and incest.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-20 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-10 12:15 pm (UTC)So why do we need to bring back a race of demigods when peace is achievable without them? The book series never quite answers that.
Well, there's still the Ihlini-Cheysuli conflict to resolve. And with both races having magic that can influence others, their fighting could restart the wars between the nations.
Poor Gisella. That said, and this might be an incredibly ableist question but...are you guys sure you should be leaving the children alone with her?
I don't think it's ableist. Post-partum psychosis is a thing, and she's already prone to psychosis even without children involved. (Though to be fair to Roberson, was post-partum psychosis well-known when she wrote this? The Andrea Yates trials hadn't happened yet.)
no subject
Date: 2024-09-10 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-10 01:53 pm (UTC)It's theoretically possible that the Cheysuli choosing to forgo the last part of the prophecy would give the Ihlini no reason to fight them. But well, they do seem to really enjoy kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering the heroes, so maybe not.