The Chaos Crystal by Jennifer Fallon

Maiden granting foster care of her youngling Crasii to Stellan, in order to protect them.
    Even so, it was a very fragile protection Warlock had arranged for Boots and the pups. If another immortal took it into his head to be rid of them, neither Stellan Desean nor anybody else on Amyrantha could stop them. Protecting his family from the immortals wasn't the point, however. As soon as Warlock and Elyssa were gone from Cycrane — with the work parties they were sending out to the tar seeps — Stellan had promised to find a way to get Boots and the pups out of the palace and back home to Glaeba.
    Warlock had no idea how Desean would manage such a feat, given the lake was frozen and they were on the brink of war. He couldn't afford to dwell on the problem, either. Desean had promised he'd get the pups and Warlock's mate away from here and that was all that really mattered.
    'You may go now.' Elyssa climbed to her feet, dismissing Boots with a wave of her hand. She turned to Warlock. 'You have a few moments to say goodbye to your mate, Cecil. Take my babies back to the kennels and meet me in the courtyard. I want to get away within the hour.'
    'To serve you is the reason I breathe,' he said, bowing low, before bending down to scoop up the two male pups into his arms. Holding their daughter Missy, Boots stood up, bowed to their mistress too, and then opened the door, anxious to leave Elyssa's chambers before the immortal changed her mind.
    As soon as the door closed behind them, they hurried down the hall toward the servants' stairs,
    saying nothing until they reached the safety of the landing on the floor below.
    'How long do you think you'll be gone?' Boots asked in a low urgent voice, stopping to face him.
    'Long enough for you to get away from here,' he assured her. 'Lord Desean knows of a ruin on the lakeshore north of the city. Nobody has been there in years. You'll be safe there until he can find a boat to take you across the lake.'
    'The lake is frozen solid, Farm Dog,' she reminded him, rocking Missy gently to stop her from fretting.
    'Then you'll have to wait until I return, and I'll —'
    'You mustn't!' she cut in. 'Tides, Warlock, if you come looking for us, Elyssa will know something is amiss. You must do as we agreed. Once we're away from here, Lord Desean will tell the suzerain I perished with my pups in the snow. You need to act as if we really are dead when you get the news, not come looking for us and give the game away.'
    Warlock looked down at his sleeping sons in his arms, wishing there was something better he could do to protect them than effectively abandon them in a foreign country. But Boots was right. Stellan Desean could spin a tale about the regrettable death of a few Crasii slaves and nobody would think to doubt his word. This was a one-off chance and he couldn't afford to do anything that might jeopardise his family's safety. He'd done enough of that just by bringing them to Caelum.
    'You will be careful, won't you, Boots? I think Desean can be trusted, but there are others —'
    She put a finger to his lips, shaking her head. 'We'll be fine, Warlock. With the pups away from the suzerain, we have nothing to fear.'
    'As long as we can keep them away from the suzerain.'
    'Well, that's your job now. If this talisman Elyssa seeks is of any use to the Cabal, maybe we'll live to see an end to the immortals.'
    Warlock was almost afraid to hope for that, but Boots was right. The Cabal had been very interested to learn that Elyssa was seeking some long-lost Tide Lord talisman. His orders were to stay as close to her as possible, to discover what it was. The upside of his new orders was that everyone seemed to have forgotten about assassinating Stellan Desean. He had no further orders from Jaxyn, either. Perhaps he figured Warlock's value as a spy had been undermined by Elyssa, and had found other ways to make mischief.
    Or maybe he had other reasons to keep Stellan alive.
    Either way, in less than an hour it