Heir to the Shadows

Chapter Thirteen

Ccopring is the season of romance," Hekatah said, watching her companion. "And she's eighteen now. Old enough to enjoy a husband."

"True." Lord Jorval traced little circles on the scarred table. "But selecting the right husband is important."

"All he needs to be is young, handsome, and virile— and capable of obeying orders," Hekatah snapped. "The husband will merely be the sexual bait that will lure her away from that monster. Or do you want to live under the High Lord's thumb, once his 'daughter' sets up her court and begins her reign?"

Jorval looked stubborn. "A husband could be much more than sexual bait. A mature man could guide his Queen wife, help her to make the right decisions, keep unhealthy influences away from her."

Frustrated to the point of screaming, Hekatah sat back and curled her hands around the wooden arms of the chair so that she wouldn't reach across the table and rip half that fool's face off.

Hell's fire, she missed Greer. He had understood subtlety. He had understood the sensible precaution of using intermediaries whenever possible to avoid being in the direct line of fire. As a member of the Dark Council, Jorval was extremely useful in keeping the Council's dislike and distrust of Saetan quietly simmering. But he lusted for Jaenelle Angelline and entertained fantasies of nightly bouts of masterful sex which made the pale bitch pliant and submissive to his every whim, in and out of the bed. Which was fine, but the fool couldn't seem to see past the sweaty sheets to consider what might be waiting to have a little chat with him.

She was fairly sure that Saetan would grit his teeth and endure an unwelcome male his Queen was besotted with. He was too well trained and too committed to the old ways of the Blood to do otherwise. But the Eyrien half-breed—

He wouldn't think twice about tearing his Lady out of her lover's arms—or tearing off her lover's arms—and keeping her isolated until she was clearheaded again.

And she doubted either of them could be convinced that Jaenelle was panting and moaning for someone who looked like Lord Jorval.

"He must be young," Hekatah insisted. "A pretty boy with enough experience between the sheets to be convincing, and charming enough for her family to believe, however doubtfully, that she's wildly in love."

Jorval sulked.

Tightening her hold on her temper a little more, Hekatah altered her voice to sound hesitant. "There are reasons for caution, Jorval. Perhaps you remember a colleague of mine." She curled her hands until they looked like twisted claws.

Jorval abandoned his sulk. "I remember him. He was most helpful. I'd hoped he would return." When Hekatah said nothing, he took an unsteady breath. "What happened to him?"

"The High Lord happened to him," Hekatah replied. "He made the mistake of drawing attention to himself. No one has seen him since."

"I see."

Yes, finally, he was beginning to see.

Hekatah leaned forward and stroked Jorval’s hand. "Sometimes the duties and responsibilities of power require sacrifices, Lord Jorval." When he didn't protest, she hid a triumphant smile. "Now, if you were to arrange a marriage for Jaenelle Angelline with the son of a man you felt comfortable working with—a handsome, controllable son—"

"How would that help me?" Jorval demanded.

Hekatah stifled her irritation. "The father would advise the son on the policies and changes that should be implemented in Kaeleer—changes that, at Jaenelle's insistence, would be accepted. A great many decisions are made during pillow talk, as I'm sure you know."

"And how would that help me?" Jorval demanded again.

"Just as the son follows the advice of the father, so the father follows the advice of his friend—who just happens to be the only source for the tonic that keeps the Lady so hungry for the son's attentions that she'll agree to anything."

"Ah." Jorval stroked his chin. "Aahhh."

"And if, for some reason, the High Lord or some other member of the family"—the flicker of fear in Jorval's eyes told her he'd already had a close brush with Lucivar Yaslana's temper—"should react badly, well, finding another hot, handsome boy would be easy enough, but finding strong, intelligent men to guide the Realm . . ." Hekatah spread her hands and shrugged.

Jorval considered her words for several minutes. Hekatah waited patiently. As much as he might want the hot sexual fantasy, Jorval wanted power—or the illusion of power— much more.

"Lady Angelline will be coming to Little Terreille in two weeks. And I do have a . . . friend . . . with a suitable offspring. However, getting Lady Angelline to agree to the marriage . . ."

Hekatah called in a small bottle and set it on the table. "Lady Angelline is well-known for her compassion and her healing abilities. If, by some terrible accident, a child were injured, I'm sure she could be prevailed upon to do the healing. If the injuries were life threatening, the power expended for a full healing would leave her physically and mentally exhausted. Then, if someone she trusted were to offer her a relaxing glass of wine, she would probably be too tired to test it. The wedding would, regrettably, have to be a small, quiet affair that would take place shortly afterward. Between the fatigue and this brew mixed with the wine, she would be compliant anything to say what she was told to say and sign what she was told to sign.

"The young couple would stay at the wedding feast for a short time before retreating to their room to consummate the marriage."

Jorval's nostrils flared. "I see."

Hekatah called in a second bottle. "The proper dose of this aphrodisiac, slipped into her wine during the wedding toast, will make her hungry for her new husband." Jorval licked his lips.

"The next morning, the second dose must be given. This is very important because her hunger must be strong enough to override the High Lord's desire for an interview with her husband. By the time she's ready to release the boy from his conjugal duties, the High Lord won't be able to deny or object to the attachment without looking like a tyrant or a jealous fool." Hekatah paused, not pleased with the way Jorval was eyeing those bottles. "And the wise man guiding this affair will never be suspected—unless he calls attention to himself."

With visible effort, Jorval put his fantasies aside. He carefully vanished the bottles. "I'll be in touch."

"There's no need," Hekatah said a little too quickly. "Knowing I could help is enough. I'll let you know where, and when, to pick up the next supply of the aphrodisiac." Jorval bowed and left.

Hekatah sat back, exhausted. Jorval was ignorant of, or chose to ignore, the common courtesies. He'd brought no refreshment and had offered none. Probably thought he was too important. And he was, damn him. Right now he was too important to her plans for her to insist on the amenities. However, once the little bitch was sufficiently cut off from Saetan, she would be able to eliminate Jorval.

Two weeks. That would give her enough time to complete the rest of her plan and set the trap that would, with luck, get rid of a half-breed Eyrien Warlord Prince as well.

Something felt wrong.

Lucivar set the armload of wood into the box by the kitchen hearth.

Very wrong.

Straightening up, he made a sweeping psychic probe of the area, using Luthvian's house as the center point.

Nothing. But the feeling didn't go away.

Preoccupied with the nagging uneasiness, he didn't move when Roxie entered the kitchen, didn't really notice the light in her eyes or the way her walk changed as she came toward him.

He'd spent the past two days doing chores for Luthvian while dodging Roxie's amorous advances. Two days was about all he and Luthvian could manage together, and they only managed that because she was busy with her students most of the day, and he left right after dinner to spend the night in a mountain clearing.

"You're so strong," Roxie said, running her hands over his chest.

Not again. Not again.

Normally he wouldn't have allowed a woman to touch him like that. Normally he would have considered that tone of voice an invitation to an intimate introduction to his fist.

So why was he afraid? Why were his nerves buzzing?

Sever it this time. Break the link for good. No. Can't. Won't be able to reach him if. . .

Roxie's arms wound around Lucivar's neck. She rubbed her breasts against his chest. "I haven't had a Warlord Prince yet."

Where was the fear coming from?

You can't have this body. This body is promised to him.

Roxie pressed against him. She playfully nipped his neck. He set his hands on her hips, holding her still while he concentrated on finding the source of that wasp-angry buzzing.

No. Not again.

It was coming from the Ring of Honor Jaenelle had given him. The buzzing, the fear, the cold rage building under the fear. Those weren't his feelings washing through him, but hers.

Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. Hers.

"I see you've changed your tune," Luthvian said tartly as she entered the kitchen.

Cold, cold rage. If it wasn't banked quickly . . .

"I have to go," Lucivar said absently. He felt the pull of arms around his neck and automatically shoved the body away from him.

Luthvian started swearing.

Ignoring her, he turned toward the door and wondered for a moment why Roxie was lying in a heap on the kitchen floor.

"You have to service me!" Roxie shouted, pushing herself into a sitting position. "You got me aroused. You have to service me."

Spinning around, Lucivar snapped a leg off a kitchen chair and tossed it into Roxie's lap. "Use that." He headed out the door.

I won't allow this. I will not submit to this.

"Lucivar!"

Snarling, he tried to shake off Luthvian's hand. "I have to go. Cat's in trouble."

Luthvian's hand tightened. "You're sure, aren't you? You sense her well enough that you're sure."

"Yes!" He didn't want to hit her. He didn't want to hurt her. But if she didn't let him go . . .

The hand on his arm trembled. "You'll send word to me? You'll let me know if . . . if she needs help?"

Lucivar gave Luthvian a hard, steady look. She might be jealous of the way the men in the family were drawn to Jaenelle, but she cared. He kissed her cheek roughly. "I'll send word."

Luthvian stepped back. "You spent all those years training to be a warrior, so go make yourself useful."

No.

Lucivar sped along the Ebon-gray Web, squeezing out all the speed he could, knowing it was already too late.

I won't let you.

Whatever happened, he'd take care of her afterward. Sweet Darkness, please let there be an afterward. He pushed harder.

No feelings from the Ring. No buzzing. Nothing at all except . . .

Noooooo!

. . .the rage. Mother Night, the rage!

Lucivar thrust his way through the sick-faced crowd, homing in on the spot where Jaenelle's unleashed power was concentrated. A middle-aged Warlord stood on one side of the hallway, babbling at a grim-looking Mephis. The aftertaste of power swirled behind a door on the opposite side.

Lucivar swung toward the door.

"Lucivar, no!"

Ignoring Mephis's command, Lucivar snapped the Gray lock his demon-dead elder brother had placed on the door.

"Lucivar, don't go in there!"

Lucivar threw the door open, stepped inside the room, and froze.

In front of him, a finger lay on the carpet, its gold ring partially melted into the flesh, the Jewel shattered to a fine powder.

It was the largest—and the only identifiable piece—of what must have been a full-grown man. The rest was splattered all over the room.

The buzzing in his head warned him to take a normal breath before he passed out. If he took a normal breath while standing in this room, he'd heave for a week.

But there was something wrong about the room, and he wasn't leaving until he figured it out.

When he did, Lucivar's temper rose to the killing edge.

One male body. One demolished bed. The rest of the furniture, although ruined by bone fragments and blood, was untouched.

Lucivar backed out of the room and turned toward the man who had been babbling at Mephis. "What did you do to her?" he asked too calmly.

"To her!" The Warlord pointed a shaking hand toward the room. "Look what that bitch did to my son. She's mad. Mad! She—"

Roaring an Eyrien war cry, Lucivar slammed the Warlord against the wall. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?"

The Warlord squealed. No one tried to help him.

"Lucivar." Mephis held up a handful of papers. "It appears Jaenelle got married this afternoon to Lord—"

Lucivar snarled. "She wouldn't marry willingly without the family present." He bared his teeth at the Warlord. "Would she?"

"T-they were in Hove," the Warlord stammered. "A whirlwind r-romance. She didn't want you to know until it was done."

"Someone didn't," Lucivar agreed. Smiling, he called in the Eyrien war blade and held it up where the Warlord could see it. "Do you want your face?" he asked mildly.

"Lucivar," Mephis warned.

"Stay out of this, Mephis," Lucivar snapped, his barely restrained fury freezing everyone in the hallway.

Think. She'd been afraid, and very little frightened Jaenelle. She'd been afraid, but also angry enough to consider breaking the link between spirit and body, determined enough to abandon the husk rather than submit. Think. If this was Terreille . . .

"What did you give her?" When the Warlord didn't answer, Lucivar set the edge of the war blade against the man's cheek. The skin sliced cleanly. The blood ran.

"A m-mild brew. To calm her down. She was afraid. Afraid of all of them. Especially y-you."

A stupid thing to say to a man holding a weapon large enough and sharp enough to cut through bone.

They had drugged her. Something strong enough to scramble her wits while still leaving her capable of signing the marriage contract. That still didn't explain that room.

"Afterward," Lucivar crooned. "What did you give her to prepare her for the marriage bed?" When the Warlord just stared at him, he shifted the war blade, cut a little deeper this time. "Where are the bottles?"

Panting, the Warlord waved a hand toward a nearby door.

Mephis went into the room, then returned with two small bottles.

Lucivar vanished the war blade, took one bottle, and nicked the top off. Probed the drops in the bottom. If he'd been given a drink with this in it, he wouldn't have touched it. Under normal circumstances, Jaenelle wouldn't have either.

He vanished that bottle, took the other one that was still half filled with a dark powder, and swore viciously. He knew—how well he knew!—what a large dose of safframate would do to someone of his build and weight. He could imagine the agony it would produce in Jaenelle.

He held up the bottle. "You gave her this? Then you're responsible for what's in that room."

The Warlord shook his head violently. "It's harmless. Harmless! Added to a glass of wine, it's just a variety of the Night of Fire brew. Always use a Night of Fire brew on the wedding night."

Lucivar bared his teeth in a smile. "Since it's harmless, you won't mind drinking the other dose. Mephis, get him a glass of wine."

Sweat popped out on the Warlord's forehead.

Mephis disappeared for a minute, then returned with the wine.

After pouring almost all of the dark powder into the wine, Lucivar handed the bottle to Mephis and took the wineglass. His other hand closed around the Warlord's throat. "Now, you can drink this, or I can tear your throat out. Your choice."

"W-want a hearing before the Dark Council," the Warlord whimpered.

"That's certainly within your rights," Mephis agreed quietly. He looked at Lucivar. "Are you going to tear his throat out or shall I?"

Lucivar laughed maliciously. "Wouldn't do him much good to go to the Council then, would it?" His fingers dug into the Warlord's throat.

"D-drink."

"I knew you'd be reasonable," Lucivar crooned. He loosened his hold enough to let the Warlord swallow the wine.

"Now." He threw the Warlord into the room where Mephis had found the bottles. "In order to give the Dark Council an accurate accounting, I think you should enjoy the same experience you intended for Lady Angelline." After sealing the room with an Ebon-gray shield and adding a timing spell, he turned to a man hovering nearby. "The shield will vanish in twenty-four hours."

This time he didn't have to shove his way through the crowd. They pressed against the walls to let him pass.

Mephis caught up with him before he got out of the manor house. Probing the area, he walked into the nearest empty room—someone's study. He found it grimly appropriate, even if it wasn't Saetan's.

Mephis locked the door. "That was quite a show you put on."

"The show's just started." Lucivar prowled the room. "I didn't see you trying to stop me."

"We can't afford to be publicly divided. Besides, there wasn't any point in trying to stop you. You outrank me, and I doubt you'd let brotherly feelings get in your way."

"You got that right."

Mephis swore. "Do you realize the trouble we're going to have with the Dark Council over this? We're not above the Law, Lucivar."

Lucivar stopped in front of Mephis. "You play by your rules, and I'll play be mine."

"She signed a marriage contract."

"Not willingly."

"You don't know that. And twenty witnesses say otherwise."

"I wear her Ring. I can feel her, Mephis." Lucivar's voice shook. "She was ready to break the link rather than submit to being mounted."

Mephis said nothing for a full minute. "Jaenelle has problems with physical intimacy. You know that."

Lucivar slammed his fist into the door. "Damn you! Are you so blind or have your balls dried up so much you'll submit to anything rather than have someone bleat about the SaDiablo family misusing their power? Well, I'm not blind and there's nothing wrong with my balls. She's my Queen—mine!—and rules or not, Laws or not, Dark Council or not, if someone makes her suffer, I will pay them back in kind."

They stared at each other, Lucivar breathing hard, Mephis unmoving.

Finally, Mephis slumped against the door. "We can't go through this again, Lucivar. We can't go through the fear of losing her again."

"Where is she?"

"Father took her to the Keep—with strict orders for the rest of the family to stay away."

Lucivar pushed Mephis aside. "Well, we all know how well I follow orders, don't we?"

Saetan looked like a man who had barely survived a battlefield.

Which wasn't far from the truth, Lucivar thought as he quietly closed the door of Jaenelle's sitting room at the Keep.

"My instructions were explicit, Lucivar."

The voice had no strength. The face looked gray and strained.

Lucivar pointed casually to the Birthright Red Jewels Saetan wore. "You're not going to be able to toss me out wearing those."

Saetan didn't call in the Black.

Lucivar guessed, correctly, that getting Jaenelle to the Keep in her present physical and emotional condition had drained the Black.

Saetan limped to a chair, swearing softly. He tried to lift a decanter of yarbarah from the side table. His hand shook violently.

Crossing the room, Lucivar took the decanter, filled a glass, and warmed the blood wine. "Do you need fresh blood?" he asked quietly.

Saetan stared at him coldly.

Even after all these centuries, Luthvian's accusations were still deep wounds barely scabbed over. Guardians needed fresh blood from time to time to maintain their strength. At first, Lucivar had tried to understand Saetan's anger at being offered blood hot from the vein, tried not to feel insulted that the High Lord would accept that gift from anyone but him. Now he felt annoyed that someone else's words still hung between them. He wasn't a child. If the son willingly offered the gift, why couldn't the father graciously accept it?

Saetan looked away. "Thank you, but no."

Lucivar pressed the wineglass into Saetan's hand. "Drink this."

"I want you away from here, Lucivar."

Lucivar poured a large glass of brandy for himself, booted a footstool over to Saetan's chair, and sat down. "When I walk away from here, I'm taking her with me."

"You can't," Saetan snapped. "She's . . ." He raked his fingers through his hair. "I don't think she's sane."

"Not surprising since they dosed her with safframate."

Saetan glared at him. "Don't be an ass. Safframate doesn't do that to a person."

"How would you know? You've never been dosed with it." Lucivar struggled to keep the bitterness out of his voice. This wasn't the time to worry old hurts.

"I've used safframate."

Lucivar narrowed his eyes and studied his father. "Explain."

Saetan drained his glass. "Safframate is a sexual stimulant that's used to prolong stamina, prolong one's ability to give pleasure. The seeds are the size of a snapdragon seed. You add one or two crushed seeds to a glass of wine."

"One or two seeds." Lucivar snorted. "High Lord, in Terreille they crush it into a powder and use it by the spoonful."

"That's madness! If you gave someone that much—" Saetan stared at the closed door that led into Jaenelle's bedroom.

"Exactly," Lucivar said softly. "Pleasure very quickly becomes pain. The body becomes so stimulated, so sensitive that contact with anything hurts. The sex drive obliterates everything else, but that much safframate also blocks the ability to achieve orgasm so there's no relief, just driving need and sensitivity that's constantly increased by the stimulation."

"Mother Night," Saetan whispered, slumping in his chair.

"But if, for whatever reason, a person doesn't submit to being used until the drug wears off . . . well, the encounter can turn violent."

Saetan blinked back tears. "You were used like that, weren't you?"

"Yes. But not often. Most witches didn't think riding my cock was worth having my temper in the bed with it. And most of the ones who tried didn't walk away intact if they walked away at all. I had my own definition of violent passion."

"And Daemon?"

"He had his own way of dealing with it." Lucivar shuddered. "They didn't call him the Sadist for nothing."

Saetan reached for the yarbarah. His hand still shook, but not as badly as before. "What do you suggest we do for Jaenelle?"

"She doesn't deserve to endure this alone, and she'll never agree to sex for whatever small relief it might give her. So that leaves violence." Lucivar drained his brandy glass. "I'm taking her into Askavi. I'll keep us away from the villages. That way, if anything goes wrong, no one else will get caught in the backlash."

Saetan lowered his glass. "What about you?"

"I promised myself I'd take care of her. That's what I'm going to do."

Not giving himself any more time to think, Lucivar set his glass on the table and crossed the room. He paused at the door, not sure how to approach a witch strong enough to tear his mind apart with a thought. Then he shrugged and opened the door, trusting instinct.

The bedroom felt heavy with the growing psychic storm. He stepped into the room and braced himself.

Jaenelle paced frantically, her hands gripping her upper arms tight enough to bruise. She glanced at him and bared her teeth. Her eyes held revulsion and no recognition. "Get out."

Relief swept through him. Every second she resisted the desire to attack a male increased his chances of surviving the next few days.

"Pack a bag," Lucivar said. "Casual clothes. A warm jacket for evenings. Walking boots."

"I'm not going anywhere," Jaenelle snarled.

"We're going hunting."

"No. Get out."

Lucivar braced his hands on his hips. "You can pack a bag or not, but we're going hunting. Now."

"I don't want to go anywhere with you."

He heard the desperation and fear in her voice. Desperation because she didn't want to leave the safety of this room. Fear because he was pushing her and, cornered, she might strike back and hurt him.

It gave him hope.

"You can leave this room on your own two feet or over my shoulder. Your choice, Cat."

She grabbed a pillow and shredded it, swearing viciously in several languages. When his only response was to step toward her, she scrambled away from him, putting the bed between them.

He wondered if she saw the irony of it.

"You're running out of time, Cat," he said softly.

She grabbed another pillow and threw it at him. "Bastard!"

"Prick," he corrected. He started around the bed.

She ran for the dressing room door.

He got there ahead of her, his spread wings making him look huge.

She backed away from him.

Saetan stepped into the bedroom. "Go with him, witch-child."

Trapped between father and brother, she stood there, shaking.

"We'll get away from everyone," Lucivar coaxed. "Just the two of us. Lots of fresh air and open ground."

The thoughts flashed through her eyes, over her face. Open ground. Room to maneuver. Room to run. Open ground, where she wouldn't be trapped in a room with all this maleness pulling at her, choking her.

"You won't touch me." Not a question or a demand. A plea.

"I won't touch you," Lucivar promised.

Jaenelle's shoulders slumped. "All right. I'll pack."

He folded his wings and stepped aside so that she could slip into the dressing room. The defeat in her voice made him want to weep.

Saetan joined him. "Be careful, Lucivar," he said quietly.

Lucivar nodded. He already felt tired. "It'll be better in the open, out on the land."

"Experience?"

"Yeah. We'll stop at the cabin first to pick up the sleeping bags and other gear. Ask Smoke to join us. I think she'll be able to tolerate him. And if anything goes wrong, he can send word."

Saetan didn't need to ask what could go wrong. They both knew what a Black-Jeweled Black Widow Queen could do to a man.

Saetan ran his hands over Lucivar's shoulders. He kissed his son's cheek. "May the Darkness embrace you," he said hoarsely, turning away. Lucivar pulled Saetan into a hard hug.

"Be careful, Lucivar. I don't want anything to happen to you now that you're finally here. And I don't want you with me in Hell."

Lucivar leaned back and smiled his lazy, arrogant smile. "I promise to stay out of trouble, Father."

Saetan snorted. "You mean it as much now as you did when you were little," he said dryly.

"Maybe even less."

Left alone while Jaenelle finished packing, Lucivar wondered if he was doing the right thing. He already mourned the game they would hunt, the animals who would die so savagely. If the four-legged bloodletting wasn't enough, she would turn on him. He expected her to. When she did, Saetan wouldn't find his son waiting for him in the Dark Realm. There wouldn't be anything left of him to wait.

"The Dark Council is quite distressed over the whole matter." Lord Magstrom shifted uneasily in his chair.

Saetan held his temper through sheer force of will. The man sitting on the other side of his blackwood desk had done nothing to deserve his rage. "The Council isn't alone in its distress."

"Yes, of course. But for Lady Angelline to . . ." Magstrom faltered.

"Among the Blood, rape is punishable by execution. At least it is in the rest of Kaeleer," Saetan said too softly.

"It's punishable by execution in Little Terreille as well," Magstrom replied stiffly.

"Then the little bastard got what he deserved."

"But. . . they were newly married," Magstrom protested.

"Even if that were true, which I doubt despite the damn signatures, a marriage contract doesn't excuse rape. Drugging a woman so that she's incapable of refusing doesn't mean she's agreed to anything. I'd say Jaenelle expressed her refusal quite eloquently, wouldn't you?" Saetan steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair. "I've analyzed the two 'harmless substances' Jaenelle was given. Being a Black Widow, I have the training to reproduce them. If you choose to insist they had nothing to do with Jaenelle's behavior, why don't I make up another batch? We can test them on your granddaughter. She's Jaenelle's age."

Clutching the arms of the chair, Lord Magstrom said nothing.

Saetan rounded the desk and poured two glasses of brandy. Handing one to Lord Magstrom, he rested his hip on the corner of his desk. "Relax. I wouldn't do that to a child. Besides," he added quietly, "I may lose two of my children within the next few days. I wouldn't wish that on another man."

"Two?"

Saetan looked away from the concern and sympathy in Magstrom's eyes. "The first brew they gave Jaenelle inhibits will. She would have said what she'd been told to say, done what she'd been told to do. Unfortunately, that particular brew also has the side effect of magnifying emotional distress. A large dose of safframate and a forced sexual encounter were just the kind of stimulants that would have pushed her to the killing edge. And she'll remain on the killing edge until the drugs totally wear off."

Magstrom sipped his brandy. "Will she recover?"

"I don't know. If the Darkness is merciful, she will." Saetan clenched his teeth. "Lucivar took her to Askavi to spend some time with the land, away from people."

"Does he know about these violent tendencies?"

"He knows."

Magstrom hesitated. "You don't expect him to return, do you?"

"No. Neither does he. And I don't know what that will do to her."

"I like him," Magstrom said. "He has a rough kind of charm."

"Yes, he does." Saetan drained his glass, fighting not to give in to grief before there was a need to. He tightened his control. "No matter what the outcome, Jaenelle will no longer visit Little Terreille without a full escort of my choosing."

Magstrom pushed himself out of the chair and carefully set his glass on the desk. "I think that's for the best. I hope Prince Yaslana will be among them."

Saetan held on until Lord Magstrom left the Hall. Then he threw the brandy glasses against the wall. It didn't make him feel better. The broken glass reminded him too much of a shattered crystal chalice and two sons who had paid dearly because he was their father.

He sank to his knees. He'd already wept for one son. He wouldn't grieve for the other. Not yet. He wouldn't grieve for that foolish, arrogant Eyrien prick, that charming, temperamental pain in the ass.

Ah, Lucivar.

"Damn it, Cat, I told you to wait." Lucivar threw an Ebon-gray shield across the game trail, half-wincing in anticipation of her running into it face first. She stopped inches away from the shield and spun around, her glazed eyes searching for a spot in the thick undergrowth that she could push her way through.

Lucivar leaned against a tree, finding a little comfort in the rhythmic whack whack whack coming from the clearing. At least destroying the abandoned shack with a sledgehammer gave Jaenelle an outlet for sexual rage and burning energy. Even more important, it was an outlet that would keep her in one place for a little while.

"Stay away from me," she panted.

Lucivar held up the waterskin. "You ripped up your arm on the thorns back there. Let me pour some water over I the cuts to clean them."

Looking down at her bare arm, she seemed surprised at the blood flowing freely from half a dozen deep scratches.

Lucivar gritted his teeth and waited. She'd stripped down to a sleeveless undershirt that offered her skin no protection in rough country, but right now sharp pain didn't hurt as much as the constant rub of cloth against oversensitive skin.

"Come on, Cat," he coaxed. "Just stick your arm out so that I can pour some water over it."

She cautiously held out her arm, her body angled away from him. Stepping only as close as necessary, he poured water over the scratches, washing away the blood and, he hoped, most of the dirt.

"Have a sip of water," he said, offering the waterskin. If he could coax her into taking a drink, maybe he could coax her into standing still for five minutes—something she hadn't done since he'd brought them to this part of Ebon Rih.

"Stay away from me." Her voice came out low and harsh. Desperate.

He shifted slightly, still offering the water.

"Stay away from me." She whirled and ran through the Ebon-gray shield as if it weren't there.

He took a long drink and sighed. He would get her through this, somehow. But after the past two days of unrelenting movement, he wasn't sure how much more either of them could take.

Hell's fire, he was tired. The Masters of the Eyrien hunting camps couldn't match Jaenelle's ability to set a grueling pace. Even Smoke, with that tireless, ground-eating trot, was struggling. Of course, unlike one drug-driven witch, wolves liked to do things like eat and sleep, two items now high on Lucivar's list of sensual pleasures.

He called in his sleeping bag, unrolled it, and used Craft to fix it in the air high enough so that his wings wouldn't drag the ground. Pushing the top of the sleeping bag against the tree trunk, he sat down with a groan he didn't try to stifle.

*Lucivar?*

Lucivar looked around until he spotted Smoke peering at him from behind a tree. "It's all right. The Lady's tearing up a shack."

Smoke whined and hid behind the tree.

He puzzled over the wolf's distress, then hastily sent a mental picture of the broken-down structure.

*Cabin made by stupid humans.* Smoke sneezed.

Lucivar smothered a laugh. He couldn't argue with Smoke's conclusion. The wolf's reference points for a "proper human den" included the Hall, the cottages in Halaway, the family's other country houses, and Jaenelle's cabin. So it made sense that Smoke would see the shack as a den made by an inept human.

As knowledge of the kindred's reemergence spread, the human Blood had divided into two camps arguing over the intelligence and Craft abilities of the nonhuman Blood. It had amused and dismayed the few humans who had the opportunity to work with the wild kindred to discover that they had similar prejudices about humans. Humans were divided into two groups: their humans and other humans. Their humans were the Lady's humans—intelligent, well trained, and willing to learn the ways of others without insisting their way was best. The other humans were dangerous, stupid, cruel, and—as far as the feline Blood were concerned—prey. Both the Arcerian cats and the kindred tigers had a "word" for humans that roughly translated as "stupid meat."

Lucivar had argued once that since humans were dangerous and could hunt with weapons as well as Craft, they shouldn't be considered stupid. Smoke had pointed out that the tusked wild pigs were dangerous, too. They were still stupid.

Reassured that the Lady wasn't attacking anything with four feet, Smoke disappeared for a moment, returning with a dead rabbit. *Eat.*

"Have you eaten?" When Smoke didn't answer, Lucivar called in the food pack and large flask Draca had given him before he and Jaenelle left the Keep. He'd almost refused the food, thinking there would be plenty of fresh meat, thinking there would be time to build a fire and cook it. "You keep the rabbit," he said, digging into the pack. "I don't like raw meat."

Smoke cocked his head. *Fire?*

Lucivar shook his head, refusing to think about fires and sleep. He pulled a beef sandwich out of the pack and held it up.

*Lucivar eat.* Smoke settled down to his rabbit dinner.

Lucivar sipped from the flask of whiskey and slowly ate his sandwich, his attention partly focused on the sound of breaking wood.

This trip hadn't gone as he'd expected. He'd brought Jaenelle out here so that she could release the savage, drug-induced needs on nonhuman prey. He'd come with her to give her the target that would enrage, and satisfy, the bloodlust the most—a human male.

She'd refused to hunt, refused to buy herself a little relief at the cost of another living creature. Including him.

But she'd had no mercy for her own body. She had treated it like an enemy worthy of nothing but her contempt, an enemy that had betrayed her by leaving her vulnerable to someone's sadistic game.

*Lucivar?*

Lucivar shook his head, automatically probing for the source of Smoke's anxiety. A few birds chattering. A squirrel scrambling through the branches overhead. The usual wood sounds. Only the usual sounds.

His heart pounded as he and Smoke ran to the little clearing.

The shack was now a pile of broken timbers. A few feet away, Jaenelle sat on the ground, spraddle-legged, her hands still gripping the sledgehammer's handle while the head rested between her feet.

Approaching cautiously, Lucivar squatted beside her. "Cat?"

Tears flowed down her face. Blood dribbled down her chin from the bite in her lower lip. She gulped air and shuddered. "I'm so tired, Lucivar. But it grabs me and . . ."

Her muscles tightened until her body shook from the tension. Her back arched. The cords in her neck stood out. She sucked air through clenched teeth. The sledgehammer's handle snapped in her hands.

Lucivar waited, not daring to touch her while her muscles were tight enough to snap. It didn't last more than a couple of minutes. It felt like hours. When it finally passed, her body sagged and she began crying so hard he thought it would tear him apart.

She didn't fight him when he put his arms around her, so he held her, rocked her, and let her cry herself out.

He felt the sexual tension rising as soon as she stopped crying, but he held on. If he was reading the intensity correctly, she was over the worst of it now.

After several minutes, she relaxed enough to rest her head on his shoulder. "Lucivar?"

"Mmm?"

"I'm hungry."

His heart sang. "Then I'll feed you."

*Fire?*

Jaenelle's head snapped up. She stared at the wolf standing at the edge of the clearing. "Why does he want to build a fire?"

"Damned if I know why he wants one. But if we did build one, I could make some laced coffee."

Jaenelle pondered this for a while. "You make good laced coffee."

Taking that for a "yes," Lucivar led Jaenelle to the other side of the clearing while Smoke started searching the debris for pieces of wood big enough to use for fuel.

Lucivar called in the food pack, flask, and sleeping bag he'd left by the creek. Jaenelle wandered from one side of the clearing to the other, nibbling the sandwich he'd given her. He kept an eye on her as he built the fire, called in the rest of their gear, and made camp. She seemed restless but not uncontrollably driven, which was good since they were losing the light and the day's warmth.

By the time he had the whisky-laced coffee ready, Jaenelle was tucked in her sleeping bag, shivering, eagerly reaching for the cup he handed her. He didn't suggest that she put on another layer of clothes. As long as she focused on the fire being the source of warmth, she'd be reluctant to wander away from it until morning.

He was rummaging through the food pack, looking for something else he could offer her to eat, when he heard a delicate snore.

After more than two days of unrelenting movement, Jaenelle slept.

Lucivar closed her sleeping bag and added a warming spell to keep her comfortable as the temperature dropped throughout the night. He pulled the coffeepot away from the heat and added more wood to the fire. Then he pulled off his boots and settled into his sleeping bag.

He should put a protective shield around the camp. He doubted a four-footed predator would want what was left in the food pack enough to challenge the combined scents of human and wolf, but they were on the northern border of Ebon Rih and uncomfortably close to Jhinka territory. The last thing Jaenelle needed right now was being jolted awake by a Jhinka hunting party's surprise attack.

Lucivar was sound asleep before he finished the thought.

Resigned to the intrusion, Saetan settled back in one of the chairs by the fire and poured two glasses of yarbarah. He'd decided to spend some time in his private study beneath the Hall because he hadn't wanted to deal with any more frightened, clamoring minds—not after the past twenty-four hours. But Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince or not, High Lord or not, a man didn't refuse a Dea al Mon Queen when she asked for an audience—especially when she was also a demon-dead Harpy.

"What can I do for you, Titian?" he asked politely, handing her a glass of the warmed blood wine.

Titian accepted the glass and sipped delicately, her large blue eyes never looking away from his gold ones. "You've made the citizens of Hell very nervous. This is the first time, in all the centuries you've been the High Lord, that you've purged the Dark Realm."

"I rule Hell. I can do as I please here," Saetan said mildly. Even a fool could have heard the warning under the mild tone.

Titian hooked her long, fine, silver hair behind her pointed ear and chose to ignore the warning. "Do as you please or do what you must? It didn't escape the notice of the observant that the Dark Priestess's followers were the only ones consumed in this purge."

"Really?" He sounded politely interested. In truth, he felt relieved the connection had been made. Not only would the rest of the demon-dead relax once they realized his choice of who had been hurried to the final death was based on a specific allegiance, anyone Hekatah approached in the future would think long and hard about the cost of such allegiance. "Since you've no personal concern, why are you here?"

"You missed a few. I thought you should know."

Saetan quickly masked his distaste and dismay. Titian always saw too much. "You'll give me the names." It wasn't a question.

Titian smiled. "There's no need. The Harpies took care of them for you." She hesitated for a moment. "What about the Dark Priestess?"

Clenching his teeth, Saetan stared at the fire. "I couldn't find her. Hekatah's very good at playing least-in-sight."

"If you had, would you have hurried her return to the Darkness? Would you have sent her to the final death?"

Saetan flung his glass into the fireplace and instantly regretted it as the fire sizzled and the smell of hot blood filled the room.

He'd been asking himself that question since he'd made the decision to eliminate all the support Hekatah had among the demon-dead. If he had found her, could he have coldly drained her strength until she faded into the Darkness? Or would he have hesitated, as he'd done so many times before, because centuries of dislike and distrust couldn't erase the simple fact that she'd given him two of his sons. Three if he counted . . . but he didn't, couldn't count that child, just as he'd never allowed himself to consider who had held the knife.

He jerked when Titian brushed her hand over his.

"Here." She handed him another glass of warmed yarbarah. Sitting back, she traced the rim of her own glass with one finger. "You don't like killing women, do you?"

Saetan gulped the blood wine. "No, I don't."

"I thought so. You were much cleaner, much kinder with them than you were with the males."

"Perhaps by your standards." By his own standards, he'd been more than sufficiently brutal. He shrugged. "We are our mothers' sons."

"A reasonable assumption." She sounded solemn. She looked amused.

Saetan twitched his shoulders, unable to shake the feeling that she'd just dropped a noose over his head. "It's a pet theory of mine about why there's no male rank equal to a Queen."

"Because males are their mothers' sons?"

"Because, long ago, only females were Blood." Titian curled up in her chair.

"How intriguing." Saetan studied her warily. Titian had the same look Jaenelle always had when she'd successfully cornered him and was quite willing to wait until he finished squirming and told her what she wanted to know.

"It's just something Andulvar and I used to argue about on long winter nights," he grumbled, refilling their glasses. "It may not be winter but, in Hell, the nights are always long."

"You know the story about the dragons who first ruled the Realms?"

Titian shrugged, indicating that it didn't matter if she knew or not. She'd settled in to hear a story.

Saetan raised his glass in a salute and smiled grudgingly. Jeweled males might be trained as defenders of their territories, but no male could beat a Queen when it came to tactical strategy.

"Long ago," he began, "when the Realms were young, there lived a race of dragons. Powerful, brilliant, and magical, they ruled all the lands and all the creatures in them. But after hundreds of generations, there came a day when they realized their race would be no more, and rather than have their knowledge and their gifts die with them, they chose to give them to the other creatures so that they could continue the Craft and care for the Realms.

"One by one, the dragons sought their lairs and embraced the forever night, becoming part of the Darkness. When only the Queen and her Prince, Lorn, were left, the Queen bid her Consort farewell. As she flew through the Realms, her scales sprinkled down, and whatever creature her scales touched, whether it walked on two legs or four or danced in the air on wings, whatever creature a scale touched became blood of her blood—still part of the race it came from, but also Other, remade to become caretaker and ruler. When the last scale fell from her, she vanished. Some stories say her body was transformed into some other shape, though it still contained a dragon's soul. Others say her body faded and she returned to the Darkness."

Saetan swirled the yarbarah in his glass. "I've read all the old stories—some from the original text. What's always intrigued me is that, no matter what race the story came from, the Queen is never named. In all the stories, Lorn is mentioned by name, repeatedly, but not her. The omission seems deliberate. I've always wondered why."

"And the Prince of Dragons?" Titian asked. "What happened to him?"

"According to the legends, Lorn still exists, and he contains all the knowledge of the Blood."

Titian looked thoughtful. "When Jaenelle turned fifteen and Draca said that Lorn had decided Jaenelle would live with you at the Hall, I had thought she was just saying that to block Cassandra's objections."

"No, she meant it. He and Jaenelle have been friends for years. He gifted her with her Jewels."

Titian opened and closed her mouth without making a sound.

Her stunned expression pleased him.

"Have you seen him?"

"No," Saetan replied sourly. "I've not been granted an audience."

"Oh, dear," Titian said with no sympathy whatsoever. "What does the legend have to do with the Blood once being all female, and why didn't we keep it that way?"

"You would have liked that, wouldn't you?"

She smiled.

"All right, my theory is this. Since the Queen's scales gifted the Craft to other races, and since like calls to like, it seems reasonable that only the females were able to absorb the magic. They became bonded to the land, drawn by their own body rhythms to the ebb and flow of the natural world. They became the Blood."

"Which would have lasted one generation," Titian pointed out.

"Not all men are stupid." When she looked doubtful, Saetan let out an exasperated sigh. The only thing more pointless than arguing with a Harpy about the value of males was trying to teach a rock to sing. He would have better luck with the rock. "For theory's sake, let's say we're talking about the Dea al Mon."

"Ah." Titian settled back, content. "Our males are intelligent."

"I'm sure they're relieved you think so," Saetan said dryly. "So, upon discovering that some of the women in their Territory suddenly had magical powers and skills . .."

"The best young warriors would offer themselves as mates and protectors," Titian said promptly.

Saetan raised an eyebrow. Since landens, the non-Blood of each race, tended to be so wary of the Blood and their Craft, that wasn't quite the way he'd always pictured it, but he found it interesting that a Dea al Mon witch would make that assumption. He'd have to ask Chaosti and Gabrielle at some point. "And from those unions, children were born. The girls, because of gender, received the full gift."

"But the boys were half-Blood with little or no Craft." Titian held out her glass. Saetan refilled it.

"Witches don't bear many children," Saetan continued after refilling his own glass. "Depending on the ratio of sons to daughters, it could have taken several more generations before males bred true. Through all that time, the power would have been in the distaff gender, each generation learning from the one before and becoming stronger. The first Queens probably appeared long before the first Warlord, let alone a male stronger than that. By then, the idea that males served and protected females would have been ingrained. In the end, what you have is the Blood society where Warlords are equal in status to witches, Princes are equal to Priestesses and Healers, and Black Widows only have to defer to Warlord Princes and Queens. And Warlord Princes, who are considered a law unto themselves, are a step above the other castes and a step—a long step—beneath the Queens."

"When caste is added to each individual's social rank and Jewel rank, it makes an intriguing dance." Titian set her glass on the table. "An interesting theory, High Lord."

"An interesting diversion, Lady Titian. Why did you do it? Why did you offer me your company tonight?"

Titian smoothed her forest-green tunic. "You are kin of my kin. It seemed . . . fitting . . . to offer you comfort tonight since Jaenelle could not. Good night, High Lord."

Long after she'd gone, Saetan sat quietly, watching the logs in the fireplace break and settle. He roused himself enough to pour and warm one last glass of yarbarah, content now with the solitude and silence.

He didn't dispute her theory of why males came to serve, but it wasn't his. It wasn't just the magic that had drawn the males. It was the inner radiance housed within those female bodies, a luminescence that some men had craved as much as they might have craved a light they could see glowing in a window when they were standing out in the cold. They had craved that light as much as they had craved being sheathed in the sweet darkness of a woman's body, if not more.

Males had become Blood because they'd been drawn to both.

And, as he knew all too well, they still were.

Lucivar lay on his back in the young grass, his hands behind his head, his wings spread to dry after the quick dip in the spring-fed pool. Jaenelle was still splashing around in the cold water, washing the sweat and dirt out of her long hair.

He closed his eyes and groaned contentedly as the sun slowly warmed and loosened tight muscles.

Yesterday, he'd awakened just before dawn to find Jaenelle busily rummaging through the food pack. They'd managed a hasty meal before the physical tension produced by the drugs forced her to move.

It wasn't the unrelenting drive of the previous days, and as the day wore on, physical tension gave way to emotional storms. Anger would flood her suddenly, then turn to tears. He gave her space while she raged and swore. He held her while she cried. When the storm passed, she'd be fine for a little while. They would walk at an easy pace, stopping to pick wild berries or rest near a stream. Then the cycle would start over, each time with a little less intensity.

This morning, he and Smoke had brought down a small deer. He'd kept enough meat to fill the small, cold-spelled food box he'd brought with him and had sent Smoke back to the Keep with the rest. If Saetan wasn't at the Keep, Smoke would go on to the Hall to let the High Lord know that the worst had passed and they would spend a few more days in Askavi before coming home.

Home. He'd lived in Kaeleer for a year now, and the way witches treated males in the Shadow Realm still bewildered him sometimes.

One day he'd walked in on a discussion Chaosti, Aaron, and Khardeen were having about how the Ring of Honor worn by males in a Queen's First Circle differed from the Restraining Ring Terreillean males were required to wear until they proved themselves trustworthy. He told them about the Ring of Obedience that was used in Terreille.

They didn't believe him. Oh, intellectually they understood what he said, but they had never known the saturating, day-to-day fear Terreillean males lived with, so they didn't, couldn't, believe him.

Wondering if the boys simply weren't old enough to have firsthand experience in the ways a witch kept her males leashed, he had asked Sylvia, Halaway's Queen, how a Queen controlled a male who didn't want to serve in her court.

She'd gaped at him a moment before blurting out, "Who'd want one?"

A few months ago, while in Nharkhava running an errand for the High Lord, he'd been invited to tea by three elderly Ladies who had praised his physique with such good-natured delight that he couldn't feel insulted. Feeling comfortable with them, he had asked if they'd heard anything about the Warlord Prince who had recently killed a Queen.

They reluctantly admitted that the story was true. A Queen who had acquired a taste for cruelty had been unable to form a court because she couldn't convince twelve males to serve her willingly. So she decided to force males into service by using that Ring of Obedience device. She had collected eleven lighter-Jeweled Warlords and was looking for the twelfth male when the Warlord Prince confronted her. He was looking for a younger cousin who had disappeared the month before. When she tried to force him to submit, he killed her.

What happened to the Warlord Prince?

It took them a moment to understand the question.

Nothing happened to the Warlord Prince. After all, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. Granted, they all wished he had simply restrained that horrible woman and handed her over to Nharkhava's Queen for punishment, but one has to expect this sort of thing when a Warlord Prince is provoked enough to rise to the killing edge.

Lucivar had spent the rest of that day in a tavern, unsure if he felt amused or terrified by the Ladies' attitude. He thought about the beatings, the whippings, the times he'd screamed in agony when pain was sent through the Ring of Obedience. He thought of what he'd done to earn that pain. He sat in that tavern and laughed until he cried when he finally realized he would never be able to reconcile the differences between Terreille and Kaeleer.

In Kaeleer, service was an intricate dance, the lead constantly changing between the genders. Witches nurtured and protected male strength and pride. Males, in turn, protected and respected the gentler, but somehow deeper, feminine strength.

Males weren't slaves or pets or tools to be used without regard to feelings. They were valuable, and valued, partners.

That, Lucivar had decided that day, was the leash the Queens used in Kaeleer—control so gentle and sweet a man had no reason to fight against it and every reason to fiercely protect it.

Loyalty, on both sides. Respect, on both sides. Honor, on both sides. Pride, on both sides.

This was the place he now proudly called home.

"Lucivar."

Lucivar shot to his feet, cursing silently. Considering the tension he felt in her, he was lucky she hadn't taken off without him.

"Something's wrong," she said in her midnight voice.

He immediately probed the area. "Where? I don't sense anything."

"Not right here. To the east."

The only thing east of them was a landen village under the protection of Agio, the Blood village at the northern end of Ebon Rih.

"There's something wrong there, but it's elusive," Jaenelle said, her eyes narrowed as she stared eastward. "And it feels twisted somehow, like a snare filled with poison bait. But it slips away from me every time I try to focus on it." She snarled, frustrated. "Maybe the drugs are messing up my ability to sense things."

He thought about the Queen who had ensnared eleven young men before being killed. "Or maybe you're just the wrong gender for the bait." Keeping his inner barriers tightly shielded, he sent a delicate psychic probe eastward. A minute later, swearing viciously, he snapped the link and clung to Jaenelle, letting her clean, dark strength wash away the foulness he'd brushed against.

He pressed his forehead against hers. "It's bad, Cat. A lot of desperation and pain surrounded by . . ." He searched for some way to describe what he'd felt.

Carrion.

Shuddering, he wondered why the word came to mind.

He could fly over the village and take a quick look. If the landens were fighting off a Jhinka raiding party, he was strong enough to give them whatever help they needed. If it was one of those spring fevers that sometimes ran through a village, it would be better to know that before sending a message to Agio since the Healers would be needed.

His main concern was finding a safe—

"Don't even think it, Lucivar," Jaenelle warned softly. "I'm going with you."

Lucivar eyed her, trying to judge just how far he could push her this time. "You know, the Ring of Honor you had made for me won't stop me the way the Restraining Ring would have."

She muttered an Eyrien curse that was quite explicit.

He smiled grimly. That pretty much answered the question of how far he could push. He looked toward the east. "All right, you're going with me. But we'll do this my way, Cat."

Jaenelle nodded. "You're the one with fighting experience. But . . ." She pressed her right palm against the Ebon-gray Jewel resting on his chest. "Spread your wings."

As he opened his wings to their full span, he felt a hot-cold tingle from the Ring of Honor.

She stepped back, satisfied. "This shield is braided into the protective shield already contained in the Ring. You could drain your Jewels to the breaking point, and it will still hold around you. It's fixed about a foot out from your body and will mesh with mine so we can stay tight without endangering each other. But make sure you keep clear of anything else you don't want to damage."

Having made regular circuits to all the villages in Ebon Rih, Lucivar knew the landen village and surrounding land fairly well. Plenty of low hills and woodland within striking distance of the village—perfect hiding places for a Jhinka raiding party.

The Jhinka were a fierce, winged people made up of patriarchal clans loosely joined together by a dozen tribal chiefs. Like the Eyriens, they were native to Askavi, but they were smaller and had a fraction of the life span of the long-lived Eyriens. The two races had hated each other for as long as either of them could remember.

While Eyriens had the advantage of Craft, the Jhinka had the advantage of numbers. Once drained of his psychic power and the reserves in the Jewels, an Eyrien warrior was as vulnerable as any other man when fighting against overwhelming odds. So, accepting the slaughter required to bring down an enemy, the Jhinka had always been willing to meet an Eyrien in battle.

With two exceptions. One walked among the dead, the other among the living. Both wore Ebon-gray Jewels.

"All right," Lucivar said. "We'll run on this White radial thread until we're past the village, then drop from the Winds and come in fast from the other side. If this is a Jhinka raid, I'll handle it. If it's something else . . ."

She just looked at him.

He cleared his throat. "Come on, Cat. Let's give whoever is messing with our valley a reason to regret it."

Dropping from the White Wind, Lucivar and Jaenelle glided toward the peaceful-looking village still a mile away.

*You said we'd go in fast,* Jaenelle said on a psychic thread.

*I also said we'd do this my way,* Lucivar replied sharply.

*There's pain and need down there, Lucivar.*

There was also the foulness that now eluded him. It was still there. Had to be. That he could no longer sense it, would never have sensed it if he'd simply come to check on the village, made him uneasy. He would have stumbled into whatever trap was waiting down there.

He felt the predator wake in her at the same moment she began a hawk-dive, dropping toward the village at full speed. Swearing, he folded his wings and dove after her just as hundreds of Jhinka appeared out of nowhere, screeching their battle cries as they tried to surround him and pull him down.

Using Craft to enhance his speed, Lucivar drove through the Jhinka swarm, relishing the screams when they hit his protective shield. Roaring an Eyrien war cry, he unleashed the power in his Ebon-gray Jewels in short, controlled bursts.

Jhinka bodies exploded into a bloody mist full of severed limbs.

He burst through the bottom of the swarm, coming out of his dive a wing-length from the ground. *Cat!*

*Come down the main street, but hurry. The tunnel won't hold for long. Avoid the side streets. They're . . . fouled. There's a shielded building at the other end of the village.*

Flying low, Lucivar swung toward the main street, hit the village boundary at top speed, and swore every curse he knew as his shield brushed against the psychic witch storm engulfing the deceptively peaceful-looking village. The shield sizzled like drops of cold water flicked into a hot pan. All the ensnaring psychic threads flared as if they were physical threads made out of lightning.

Pushing hard, he flew through the already contracting tunnel Jaenelle had created as she passed through the witch storm and finally caught up with her a block away from the shielded building. A fast psychic probe showed him the parameters of the domed, oval-shaped shield that protected a two-story stone building and ten yards of ground all around it.

Four men ran toward the edge of the shield, waving their arms and shouting, "Go back! Get away from here!"

Behind the men, thousands of Jhinka rose from the low hills beyond the village, filling the sky until they blotted out the sun.

Jaenelle passed through the building's shield as easily as if it were a thin layer of water. Distracted by the men and the approaching Jhinka, Lucivar felt like he was passing through a wall of warm taffy.

As soon as they were inside the building's shield, Lucivar landed next to the four men. The protective shield Jaenelle had created for him contracted to a skintight sheath, produced a mild tingle in the Ring of Honor, then vanished completely.

"How many wounded?" Jaenelle snapped. Lord Randahl, the Agio Warlord who was Lady Erika's Master of the Guard, replied reluctantly, "Last count, about three hundred, Lady."

"How many Healers?"

"The village had two physicians and a wise woman who could do a bit of herb healing. All dead."

Knowing better than to interrupt when Jaenelle focused on healing, Lucivar waited until she ran into the building before snapping out his own demands. "Who's holding the shield?"

"Adler is," Randahl said, jerking a thumb toward a young, haggard-faced Warlord.

Lucivar glanced toward the low hills. The Jhinka would descend on them at any moment. "Can you push your shield out another inch or two all around?" he asked Adler. "I'll put an Ebon-gray shield behind it. Then you can drop your shield and rest."

The young Warlord nodded wearily and closed his eyes. Seconds after Lucivar put up his shield, the Jhinka attacked. They slammed against the invisible barrier, their bodies piling up five and six deep as they clawed at the shield. Some of the Jhinka, pressed between the shield and the rest of the swarm, were smothered or crushed by the mass of writhing bodies. Dead, hate-filled eyes stared at the five men below.

"Hell's fire," Randahl muttered. "Even during the worst attacks, they didn't come in like this."

Lucivar studied the middle-aged Warlord for a moment before returning his attention to the Jhinka. Maybe they hadn't trapped what they'd wanted until now.

He could feel the pressure of all those bodies piling up on the shield, could feel the Ebon-gray Jewels release drop after drop of his reserve strength. While all the Jewels provided a reservoir for the psychic power, the darker the Jewel, the deeper the reservoir. As the second darkest Jewel, the Ebon-gray provided a cache of power deep enough that, if he didn't need to use them for anything beyond maintaining the shield against physical attacks, he could hold the Jhinka off for a week before he felt the strain. Someone would come looking for them before that. All he needed to do was wait.

But there was that witch storm to consider. He felt certain someone had created this trap especially for him. He'd have to check with Randahl, but he suspected the first Jhinka attack hadn't given them time to get in supplies. And Jaenelle needed other Healers to assist with the wounded. The Darkness knew she had the psychic reserves to do all the healing, but her body wouldn't hold up under that kind of demand, especially after the drugs and the physical strain of the past few days.

Besides, no one had ever accused him of having a passive temper.

Lucivar vanished his Ebon-gray ring and called in his Birthright Red. The Ebon-gray around his neck would feed the shield. The Red . . .

"Tell your men to stay tight to the building," Lucivar said quietly to Randahl. "It's time to even up the odds a bit."

Smiling his lazy, arrogant smile, he raised his right hand and triggered the spell he'd spent years perfecting. Seven thin psychic "wires" shot out of the Red Jewel in his ring. Keeping his arm straight, he made leisurely sweeps back and forth, always careful that he didn't stray too close to the building. Back and forth. Up and down.

Jhinka blood ran down the shield. Jhinka bodies slithered and slid as the ones who could see the danger tried to push themselves out of the pile before that sweeping arm returned.

Satisfied with the panicked scramble on that side of the shield, he walked around the building, his hand always aimed at the shield. And the Jhinka died.

He was starting a third circuit when the Jhinka who were still trying to pile onto the shield finally caught the panic of the ones trying to get away from it. Chattering and screeching, they rose off the shield and headed for the low hills.

Lucivar drew the psychic "wires" back into his ring, ended the spell, and slowly lowered his arm.

Randahl, Adler, and the two Warlords Lucivar hadn't been introduced to yet stared, sick-faced, at the blood running down the shield, at the pieces of bodies sliding to the ground.

"Mother Night," Randahl whispered. "Mother Night." They wouldn't look at him. Or rather, whenever their glances brushed in his direction, he saw the worried speculation that they might have something locked inside with them that was far more dangerous and deadly than the enemy waiting outside. Which was true.

"I'm going to check on the Lady," Lucivar said abruptly. Being a Master of the Guard, Randahl would try to act normally once he had a few minutes to steady himself. If nothing else, the man would fall back on the Protocol for dealing with a Warlord Prince. But the others . . . Everything has a price.

Lucivar approached the front of the building and gave himself a moment to steady his own feelings. If other Blood couldn't deal with a Warlord Prince on the killing edge, wounded landens most certainly couldn't. And right now, hysteria could trigger a vicious desire for bloodletting. A male coming away from the killing edge needed someone, preferably female, to help him stabilize. That was one of the many slender threads that bound the Blood. The witches, during their vulnerable times, needed that aggressive male strength, and the males needed, sometimes desperately, the shelter and comfort they found in a woman's gentle strength.

He needed Jaenelle.

Lucivar smiled bitterly as he entered the building. Right now, everyone needed Jaenelle. He hoped—sweet Darkness, how he hoped!—being near her would be enough.

The community hall held various-sized rooms where the villagers could gather for dances or meetings. At least, he assumed that's what it was for. He'd never had much contact with landens. As he scanned the largest room, aching for Jaenelle's familiar presence, he felt the pain and fear of the wounded landens sitting against the walls or lying on the floor. The pain he could handle. The fear, which spiked in the ones who noticed him, undermined his shaky self-control.

Lucivar started to turn away when he noticed the young man lying on a narrow mattress near the door. Under normal circumstances, he might have assumed the man was another landen, but he'd seen too many men in similar circumstances not to recognize a weak psychic scent.

Dropping to one knee, Lucivar carefully lifted the side of the doubled-over sheet that covered the body from neck to feet. His eyes shifted from the wounds to the still, pain-tight face and back again. He swore silently. The gut wounds were bad. Men had died from less. They weren't beyond Jaenelle's healing skill, but he wondered if she could rebuild the parts that were no longer there.

Lowering the sheet, Lucivar left the room, his curses becoming louder and more vicious as he searched for some empty room where he could try to leash a temper spiraling out of control.

Randahl hadn't said any of his men had been wounded. And why was the boy—no, man; anyone with those kinds of battle wounds didn't deserve to be called a boy—kept apart from the others, tucked against a shadowed wall where he might easily go unnoticed?

Catching the warmth of a feminine psychic scent, Lucivar threw open a door and stepped inside the kitchen before he realized, too late, the woman trying to pump water one-handed wasn't Jaenelle.

She spun around when the door crashed against the wall, throwing her left arm up as if to stop an attacker.

Lucivar hated her. Hated her for not being Jaenelle. Hated her for the fear in her eyes that was pushing him toward blind rage. Hated her for being young and pretty. And most of all, hated her because he knew that, at any second now, she would bolt and he would be on her, hurting her, even killing her before he could stop himself.

Then she swallowed hard, and said in a quiet, quivering voice, "I'm trying to boil some water to make teas for the wounded, but the pump's stiff and I can't work it with one hand. Would you help me?"

A knot of tension eased inside him. Here, at least, was a landen female who knew how to deal with Blood males. Asking for help was always the easiest way to redirect one of them toward service.

As Lucivar came forward, she stepped aside, trembling. His temper started to climb again until he noticed the bandaged right arm she held over her stomach, her hand tucked between her dress and apron.

Not fear then, but fatigue and blood loss.

He placed a chair close enough for her to supervise, but far enough away so that he wouldn't keep brushing against her. "Sit down."

Once she was seated, he pumped water and set the filled pots on the wood-burning stove. He noticed the bags of herbs laid out on the wooden table next to the double sink and looked at her curiously. "Lord Randahl said the wise-woman died along with your two physicians."

Her eyes filled with tears as she nodded. "My grandmother. She said I had the gift and was teaching me."

Lucivar leaned against the table, puzzled. Landen minds were too weak to give off a psychic scent, but hers did. "Where did you learn how to handle Blood males?"

Her eyes widened with anxiety. "I wasn't trying to control you!"

"I said handle, not control. There's a difference."

"I—I just did what the Lady said to do."

The tension inside him loosened another notch. "What's your name?"

"Mari." She hesitated. "You're Prince Yaslana, aren't you?"

"Does that bother you?" Lucivar asked in a colorless voice. To his surprise, Mari smiled shyly.

"Oh, no. The Lady said we could trust you."

The words warmed him like a lover's caress. But, having caught the slight emphasis in her tone, he wondered whom the landens in the village couldn't trust. His gold eyes narrowed as he studied her. "You have some Blood in your background, don't you?"

Mari paled a little and wouldn't look at him. "My great-grandmother was half-Blood. S-some people say I'm a throwback to her."

"From my point of view, that's no bad thing." Her naked relief was too much for him, so he began inspecting the bags of herbs. She'd be too quick to think she was the cause of his anger, so he fiddled with the bags until he had his feelings leashed again.

In his experience, half-Blood children were seldom welcomed or accepted by either society. The Blood didn't want them because they didn't have enough power to expend on all the basic things the Blood used Craft for and, therefore, could never be more than base servants. The landens didn't want them because they had too much power, and that kind of ability, untrained and free of any moral code, had produced more than its share of petty tyrants who had used magic and fear to rule a village that wouldn't accept them otherwise.

The water reached a boil.

"Sit down," Lucivar snapped when Mari started to rise. "You can tell me from there what you want blended. Besides," he added with a smile to take the sting out of the snap, "I've blended simple healing brews for a harder task-mistress than you."

Looking properly sympathetic and murmuring agreement that the Lady could be a bit snarly about mixing up healing brews, Mari pointed out the herbs she intended to use and told him the blends she wanted.

"Do you see much of the Lady?" Lucivar asked as he pulled the pots off the stove and set them on stone trivets arranged at one end of the table. Despite Jaenelle's continued refusal to set up a formal court, her opinions were heeded throughout most of Kaeleer.

"She comes by for an afternoon every couple of weeks. She and Gran and I talk about healing Craft while her friends teach Khevin."

"Who's—" He, bit off the question. He'd thought the young man's psychic scent was so weak because of the seriousness of the wounds. But it was strong for a half-blood. "Which friends are teaching him?"

"Lord Khardeen and Prince Aaron." Khary and Aaron were good choices if you were going to teach basic Craft to a half-Blood youth. Which didn't excuse Jaenelle from not asking him to participate. Lucivar carefully lowered the herb-filled gauze pouches into the pots of water. "They're both strongly grounded in basic Craft." Then, feeling spiteful, he added, "Unlike the Lady, who still can't manage to call in her own shoes."

Mari's prim sniff caught him by surprise. "I don't see why you all make such a fuss about it. If I had a friend who could do all those wonderful bits of magic, I wouldn't begrudge fetching her shoes."

Annoyed, Lucivar grumbled under his breath as he rattled through the cupboards searching for the cups. Damn woman certainly was a throwback. If nothing else, she had a witch's disposition.

He shut up when he saw how pale Mari had become. A little ashamed, he ladled out a cup of one of the healing brews and stood over her while she drank it.

"I saw Khevin when I came in," Lucivar said quietly. "I saw the wounds. Why didn't Khary and Aaron teach him how to shield?"

Mari looked up, surprised. "They did. Khevin's the one who shielded the community hall when the Jhinka started to attack."

"I think you'd better explain that," Lucivar said slowly, feeling as if she'd just punched the air out of him. A strong half-Blood might have enough power to create a personal shield for a few minutes, but he shouldn't have been able to create and hold a shield large enough to protect a building. Of course, Jaenelle had uncanny instincts when it came to recognizing strength that had been blocked in some way.

Mari, looking puzzled, confirmed that. "Khevin met the Lady one day when she came to visit Gran and me. She just looked at him for a long minute and then said he was too strong not to be properly trained in the Craft. When she came the next time, she brought Lord Khardeen and Prince Aaron. Creating a shield was the first thing they taught him."

Mari's hand started to tremble. The cup tipped.

Lucivar used Craft to steady the cup so that the hot liquid wouldn't spill on her.

"They were the first friends Khevin's ever had." Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. Then she blushed and looked down. "Male friends, I mean. They didn't laugh at him or call him names like some of the young Warlords from Agio do."

"What about the older Warlords?" Lucivar asked, careful to keep the anger out of his voice.

Mari shrugged. "They seemed embarrassed if they saw him when they came to check on the village. They didn't want to know he existed. They didn't want to see me around either," she added bitterly. "But with Lord Khardeen and Prince Aaron. . . . When the lesson was over, they would stay a little while to have a glass of ale and just talk. They told him about the Blood's code of honor and the rules Blood males are supposed to live by. Sometimes it made me wonder if the Blood in Agio had ever heard of those rules."

If they hadn't, they were going to. "The shield," he prompted.

"All of a sudden, the sky was filled with Jhinka screaming like they do. Khevin told me to come to the community hall. We . . . the Lady says that sometimes a link is formed when people like us are . . . close."

Lucivar glanced at her left hand. No marriage ring. Lovers then. At least Khevin had known, and given, that pleasure.

"I was at this end of the village, delivering some of Gran's herb medicines. The adults wouldn't listen to me, so I just grabbed a little girl who was playing outside and yelled at the other children to come with me. I—I think I made some of them come with me.

"When we got to the community building, Khevin had a shield around it. He was sweating. It looked like it was hurting him."

Lucivar was sure that it had.

"He said he'd tried to send a message to Agio on a psychic thread, but he wasn't sure anyone would hear it. Then he told me someone had to stay inside the shield in order to reach through it to bring another person in. He brought me through just as one of the Jhinka flew at us. The Jhinka hit the shield so hard it knocked him out. Khevin got his ax—he'd been chopping wood when the attack started. He went through the shield and k-killed the Jhinka. By then all the men in the village were in the streets, fighting. Khevin stayed outside to protect the children while I pulled them through the shield.

"By then the Jhinka were all around us. A lot of the women who tried to reach the building didn't make it, or were badly wounded by the time I pulled them through the shield. Gran . . . Gran was almost within reach when one of the Jhinka swooped down and. . . . He laughed. He looked at me and he laughed while he killed her."

Lucivar refilled the cup and put a warming spell on the pots while Mari groped in her apron pocket for a handkerchief.

She sipped the herbal tea, saying nothing for a minute. "Khevin couldn't keep fighting and hold the shield, too. Even I could see that. He had a-arrows in his legs. He couldn't move very fast. They caught him before he could go through the shield and did that to him. Then Lord Randahl and the others came and started fighting.

"Two of the Warlords were shielding the wounded, leading them here, while the other two kept killing and killing.

"Khevin's shield started to fail. I was afraid the Warlords would put up another one that I couldn't get through, and Khevin would be left outside. As I reached out and grabbed him, a Jhinka saw me and slashed my arm. I pulled Khevin through just before the Warlords slipped inside and put up another shield."

Mari sipped her tea. "Lord Adler started swearing because they couldn't break through the witch storm around the village to send a message to Agio. But Lord Randahl just kept looking at Khevin.

"Then he and Lord Adler picked Khevin up like he was finally worth something. They took the mattress and sheets from the caretaker's bed and did what they could to make him comfortable." Mari stared at the cup, tears running down her face. "That's it."

Lucivar took the empty cup, wanting to offer her some comfort but not sure if she could accept it from a Warlord Prince. Maybe from someone like Aaron, who was the same age, but from him?

"Mari?"

Relief washed through him when Jaenelle walked into the kitchen.

"Let's see your arm," Jaenelle said, gently loosening the bandage and ignoring Mari's stammered pleas to take care of Khevin. "First your arm. I need you whole so you can help me with the others. We're going to need some mild— ah, you've already prepared some."

While Jaenelle healed the deep knife wound that had opened Mari's arm from elbow to wrist, Lucivar ladled out cups of the healing teas and put a warming spell on each cup. After a bit of cupboard hunting, he found two large metal serving trays. Full, they'd be too heavy for Mari— especially since Jaenelle had just warned her that the kind of fast healing she was going to have to do wasn't going to hold up under strain—but the young Warlords out there could do the heavy hauling and lifting now that he was maintaining the shield.

Jaenelle solved the problem by putting a float spell on both trays so that they hovered waist high. Mari didn't need to lift, just steer.

With Lucivar and Mari guiding the trays, the three of them went to the large room. Jaenelle ignored the clamor that began as soon as the villagers saw her and went to the shadowed wall where Khevin lay.

Mari hesitated, biting her lip, obviously torn between her desire to go to her lover and her duties as assistant Healer. Lucivar gave her shoulder a quick, encouraging squeeze before he joined Jaenelle. He didn't know what help he could give her, but he'd do whatever he could.

As Jaenelle started to lift the sheet, Khevin's eyes opened. With effort, he grabbed her hand.

She stared at the young man, her eyes blank. It was as if she had gone so deep within herself that the windows of ! the soul could no longer reveal the person who lived within

"Do you fear me?" she asked in a midnight whisper.

"No, Lady." Khevin licked his dry lips. "But it's a Warlord's privilege to protect his people. Take care of them first."

Lucivar tried to reach her with a psychic thread, but Jaenelle had shut him out. Please, Cat. Let him have his pride.

She reached under the sheet. Khevin moaned a wordless protest.

"I'll do as you ask because you asked," she said, "but I'm going to tie in some of the threads from the healing web I've built now so that you'll stay with me." She smoothed the sheet and rested one long-nailed finger at the base of his throat. "And I warn you, Khevin, you had better stay with me."

Khevin smiled at her and closed his eyes.

Cupping her elbow, Lucivar led Jaenelle into the hallway. "Since they won't be needed for the shield, I'll send the younger Warlords in to help with the fetching and carrying."

"Adler, yes. Not the other two."

The ice in her voice chilled him. He'd never heard any Queen condemn a man so thoroughly.

"Very well," he said respectfully. "I can—"

"Keep this place safe, Yaslana."

He felt the quiver, swiftly leashed, and locked his emotions up tight. Hell's fire, even if the drugs were out of her system enough for her to do the healings, her emotions weren't stable. And she knew it.

"Cat . . ."

"I'll hold. You don't have to watch your back because of that."

He grinned. "Actually, it's when you're hissing and spitting that you're the most useful when it comes to guarding my back."

Her sapphire eyes warmed a little. "I'll remind you of that."

Lucivar headed for the outside door. He'd have to keep an eye on her to make sure she drank some water and had a bite to eat every couple of hours. He'd slip a word to Mari. It was always easier to get Jaenelle to eat if someone else was eating, too.

As he turned back, he felt the impact of bodies against the shield and heard the warning shouts from the Warlords outside.

He'd talk to Mari later. The Jhinka had returned.

Lucivar leaned against the covered well and gratefully took the mug of coffee Randahl handed to him. It tasted rough and muddy. He didn't care. At that moment, he would have drunk piss as long as it was hot.

The Jhinka had attacked throughout the night—sometimes small parties striking the shield and then fleeing, sometimes a couple hundred battering at the shield while he sliced them apart. There had been no sleep, no rest. Just the steadily increasing fatigue and physical drain of channeling the power stored in the Jewels as well as the steady drain of that power—a more rapid drain than he had anticipated. Randahl and the other Warlords had exhausted their reserves by the time he and Jaenelle had arrived yesterday, so he was now their only protection and most of their fighting ability.

Because the shield hadn't extended more than a couple of inches below the ground, he'd discovered, almost too late, that the Jhinka had been using the piles of bodies for cover while they dug under the shield. So now the shield went down five feet before turning inward and running underground until it reached the building's foundation.

While they were fighting the Jhinka who'd gotten under the south side of the shield, Lucivar had responded to instinct and raced to the north side of the building, reaching the corner just as one of the Jhinka ran toward the well. The earthenware jar the Jhinka carried had contained enough concentrated poison to destroy their only water supply. So the well now had a separate shield around it.

As soon as the attack on the well had been thwarted and the shield extended, the witch storm had re-formed over the building. No longer spread out to cover the whole village and hide the destruction, it had become a tight mass of tangled psychic threads, an invisible cloud full of psychic lightning that sizzled every time it brushed the shield.

The extra shielding and the constant reinforcement against another's Craft were doing what the Jhinka alone couldn't do—draining him to the breaking point. It would take another day. Maybe two. After that, weak spots would appear in the shield—spots the witch storm could penetrate to entangle already exhausted minds, spots the Jhinka could break through to attack already exhausted bodies.

He'd briefly toyed with the idea of insisting that Jaenelle return to the Keep for help. He'd dismissed the idea just as quickly. Until the healings were done, nothing and no one would convince her to leave. If he admitted the shield might fail, more than likely she would throw a Black shield around the building, straining a body already overtaxed by the large healing web she'd created to strengthen all the wounded until she could get to them. Totally focused on the healing, she wouldn't give a second thought to driving her body beyond its limits. And he already knew what she would say if he argued with her about the damage she was doing to herself: everything has a price.

So he'd held his tongue and his temper, determined to hold out until someone from Agio or the Keep came looking for them. Now, in the chill, early dawn, he couldn't find enough energy to produce any body heat, so he wrapped his cold hands around the warm mug.

Randahl sipped his coffee in silence, his back turned toward the village. He was a fair-skinned Rihlander with faded blue eyes and thinning, cinnamon hair. His body had a middle-years thickness but the muscles were still solid, and he had more stamina than the three younger Warlords put together.

"The women who can are helping out in the kitchen," Randahl said after a few minutes. "They were pleased to get the venison and other supplies you brought with you. They're using most of the meat to make broth for the seriously wounded, but they said they'd make a stew with the rest. You should have seen the sour looks they gave Mari when she insisted that we get the first bowls. Hell's fire, they even whined about giving us this sludge to drink, and me standing right there." He shook his head in disgust. "Damn landens. It's gotten to the point where the little ones run, screaming, whenever we walk into a village. They go around making signs against evil behind our backs, but they squeal loud enough when they need help."

Lucivar sipped his quickly cooling coffee. "If you feel that way about landens, why did you come to help when the Jhinka attacked?"

"Not for them. To protect the land. Won't have that Jhinka filth in Ebon Rih. We came to protect the land— and to get those two out." Randahl's shoulders sagged. "Hell's fire, Yaslana. Who would have thought the boy could build a shield like that?"

"No one in Agio, obviously." Before Randahl could snap a reply, Lucivar continued harshly, "If Mari and Khevin matter to you, why didn't you let them live in Agio instead of leaving them here to be sneered at and slighted?"

Randahl's face flushed a dull red. "And what would an Ebon-gray Warlord Prince know about being sneered at or slighted?"

Lucivar didn't know whether he made the decision because he no longer cared what people knew about him or because he wasn't sure he and Randahl would survive. "I grew up in Terreille, not Kaeleer. I was too young to remember my father when I was taken from him, so I grew up being told, and believing, that I was a half-breed bastard, unwanted and unclaimed. You don't know what it's like to be a bastard in an Eyrien hunting camp. Sneered at?" Lucivar laughed bitterly. "The favorite taunt was 'your father was a Jhinka.' Do you have any idea what that means to an Eyrien? That you were sired by a male from a hated race and that your mother must have accepted the mount willingly since she carried you full term and birthed I you? Oh, I think I know how someone like Khevin feels."

Randahl cleared his throat. "It shames me to say it, but it wasn't any easier for him in Agio. Lady Erika tried to make a place for him in her court. Felt she owed it to him because her ex-Consort had sired the boy. But he wasn't happy, and Mari and her grandmother were here. So he came back."

And had endured ostracism from the landens and taunts from the young Blood males—which explained why the two Warlords now using Craft to move the Jhinka bodies away from the shield were being kept as far away from Jaenelle as possible.

Lucivar finally answered the question he saw in Randahl's eyes. "Two of Lady Angelline's friends were training Khevin."

Randahl rubbed the back of his neck. "Should have thought to ask her ourselves. She has a way about her."

Lucivar smiled wearily. "That she does." And she might! also have some idea of where the young couple might relocate. If they survived.

For a moment, he allowed himself to believe they would survive.

Then the Jhinka returned.

Randahl shaded his eyes against the late afternoon sun and studied the low hills that were black with waiting Jhinka. "They must have called up all the clans from all the tribes," he said hoarsely. Then he sagged against the back of the community hall. "Mother Night, Yaslana, there must be five thousand of them out there."

"More like six." Lucivar widened his stance. It was the only way his tired, trembling legs would keep him upright.

Six thousand more than the hundreds he'd already killed during the past few days and that witch storm still raging around them, feeding on the shield to maintain its strength and draining him in the process. Six thousand more and no way to catch the Winds because that storm made it impossible to detect those psychic roadways.

They could shield and they could fight, but they couldn't send out a call for help and they couldn't escape. The food had run out yesterday. The well dried up that morning. And there were still six thousand Jhinka waiting for the sun to sink a little farther behind the low western hills before they attacked.

"We're not going to make it, are we?" Randahl said.

"No," Lucivar replied softly. "We're not going to make it."

In the past three days, he'd drained both Ebon-gray Jewels as well as his Red ring. The Red Jewel around his neck was now the only power reserve they had, and that wasn't going to hold much beyond the first attack. Randahl and the other three had exhausted their Jewels before he and Jaenelle had arrived. There hadn't been enough food or rest to bring any of them back up to strength.

No, the males weren't going to make it. But Jaenelle had to. She was too valuable a Queen to lose in a trap that, he was convinced, had been set to destroy him.

Satisfied that he'd lined up every argument that Protocol gave him to make this demand, Lucivar said, "Ask the Lady to join me here."

No fool, Randahl understood why the request was being made now.

Alone for a moment, Lucivar rolled his neck and stretched his shoulders, trying to ease the tense, tired muscles.

It is easier to kill than to heal. It is easier to destroy than to preserve. It is easier to tear down than to build. Those who feed on destructive emotions and ambitions and deny the responsibilities that are the price of wielding power can bring down everything you care for and would protect. Be on guard, always.

Saetan's words. Saetan's warning to the young Warlords and Warlord Princes who gathered at the Hall.

But Saetan had never mentioned the last part of that warning: sometimes it was kinder to destroy.

He wasn't strong enough to give Jaenelle a swift, clean death. But even at full strength, Randahl and the other Warlords wore lighter-rank Jewels, and landens had no inner defense against the Blood. Once Jaenelle and Mari were away from here, once the Jhinka started their final attack, he would make a fast descent, pull up every drop of power he had left, and unleash that force. The landens would die instantly, their minds burned away. Randahl and the others might survive for a few seconds longer, but not long enough for the Jhinka to reach them.

And the Jhinka . . . they, too, would die. Some of them. A lot of them. But not all of them. He would be left, alone, when the survivors tore him apart. He would make sure of it. He'd fought Jhinka in Terreille. He'd seen what they did to captives. When it came to cruelty, they were an ingenious people. But then, so were many of the Blood.

Lucivar turned as movement caught his eye.

Jaenelle stood a few feet away, her eyes fixed on the Jhinka.

She wore nothing but the Black Jewel around her neck.

He could understand why. Even her underclothes wouldn't have fit. All the muscle, all the feminine curves she'd gained over the past year were gone. Having no other source of fuel, her body had consumed itself in its struggle to be the receptacle for the power within. Bones pressed against pale, damp, blood-streaked skin. He could count her ribs, could see her hipbones move as she shifted her feet. Her golden hair was dark and stiff with the blood that must have been on her hands when she ran her fingers through it.

Despite that, or perhaps because of it, her face was strangely compelling. Her youth had been consumed in the healing fire, leaving her with a timeless, ageless beauty that suited her ancient, haunted sapphire eyes. It looked like an exquisite mask that would never again be touched by living concerns.

Then the mask shattered. Her grief and rage flooded through him, sending him careening against the building.

Lucivar grabbed the corner and hung on with a desperation rapidly being consumed by overwhelming fear.

The world spun with sick speed, spun in tighter and tighter spirals, dragging at his mind, threatening to tear him away from any sane anchor. Faster and faster. Deeper and deeper.

Spirals. Saetan had told him something about spirals, but he couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

His shield broke, its energy sucked down into the spiral. The witch storm got pulled in, too, its psychic threads snapping as it tried to remain anchored around the building.

Faster and faster, deeper and deeper, and then the dark power rose out of the abyss, roaring past him with a speed that froze his mind.

Lucivar jerked away from the building and staggered toward Jaenelle. Down. He had to get her down on the ground, had to—

Pop.

Pop pop.

Pop pop pop pop pop.

"MOTHER NIGHT!" Adler screamed, pointing toward the hills.

Lucivar wrenched a muscle in his neck as he snapped his head toward the sound of Jhinka bodies exploding.

Another surge of dark power flashed through what was left of the witch storm's psychic threads. They flared, blackened, disappeared.

He thought he heard a faint scream.

Pop pop pop.

Pop pop.

Pop.

It took her thirty seconds to destroy six thousand Jhinka.

She didn't look at anyone. She just turned around and started walking slowly, stiffly toward the other end of the village.

Lucivar tried to tell her to wait for him, but his voice wouldn't work. He tried to get to his feet, not sure how he'd ended up on his knees, but his legs felt like jelly.

He finally remembered what Saetan had told him about spirals.

He didn't fear her but, Hell's fire, he wanted to know what had set her off so that he had some idea of how to deal with her.

Hands pulled at his arm.

Randahl, looking gray-skinned and sick, helped him get to his feet.

They were both panting from the effort it took to reach the building and brace themselves against the stone wall.

Randahl rubbed his eyes. His mouth trembled. "The boy died," he said hoarsely. "She'd just finished healing the last landen. Hell's fire, Yaslana, she healed all three hundred of them. Three hundred in three days. She was swaying on her feet. Mari was telling her she had to sit down, had to rest. She shook her head and stumbled over to where Khevin was lying, and . . . and he just smiled at her and died. Gone. Completely gone. Not even a whisper of him left."

Lucivar closed his eyes. He'd think about the dead later. There were still things that needed to be done for the living. "Are you strong enough to send a message to Agio?"

Randahl shook his head. "None of us are strong enough to ride the Winds right now, but we're overdue by a day, so someone ought to be out on the roads searching for us."

"When your people arrive, I want Mari escorted to the Hall."

"We can look after her," Randahl replied sharply.

But would Mari want to be looked after by the Blood in Agio?

"Escort her to the Hall," Lucivar said. "She needs time to grieve, and she needs a place where her heart can start to heal. There are some at the Hall who can help her with that."

Randahl looked unhappy. "You think the Dhemlan Blood will be kinder to her than we were?"

Lucivar shrugged. "I wasn't thinking of the Dhemlan Blood. I was thinking of the kindred."

Having gotten Randahl's agreement, Lucivar stopped inside the community hall long enough to see Mari and tell her she would be going to the Hall. She clung to him for a few minutes, crying fiercely.

He held her, giving what comfort he could.

When two of the landen women, casting defiant looks at the rest, offered to look after Mari, he let her go, sincerely hoping he'd never have to deal with landens again.

He found Jaenelle a few steps outside the village boundary, curled up into a tight ball, making desperate little sounds.

He dropped to his knees and cradled her in his arms.

"I didn't want to kill," she wailed. "That's not what the Craft is for. That's not what my Craft is for."

"I know, Cat," Lucivar murmured. "I know."

"I could have put a shield around them, holding them in until we got help from Agio. That's what I meant to do, but the rage just boiled out of me when Khevin . . . I could feel their minds, could feel them wanting to hurt. I couldn't stop the anger. I couldn't stop it."

"It's the drugs, Cat. The damn things can scramble your emotions for a long time, especially in a situation like this."

"I don't like killing. I'd rather be hurt than hurt someone else."

He didn't argue with her. He was too exhausted and her emotions were too raw. Nor did he point out that she'd reacted to a friend's pain and death. What she couldn't, or wouldn't, do for her own sake she would do for someone she cared for.

"Lucivar?" Jaenelle said plaintively. "I want a bath."

That was just one of the things he wanted. "Let's go home, Cat."

Dorothea SaDiablo sank into a chair and stared at her unexpected guest. "Here? You want to stay here?" Had the bitch looked into a mirror lately? How was she supposed to explain a desiccated walking corpse that looked like it had just crawled out of an old grave?

"Not here in your precious court," Hekatah replied, her fleshless lips curling in a snarl. "And I'm not asking for your permission. I'm telling you that I'm staying in Hayll and require accommodations."

Telling. Always telling. Always reminding her that she never would have become the High Priestess of Hayll without Hekatah's guidance and subtle backing, without Hekatah pointing out the rivals who had too much potential and would thwart her dream of being a High Priestess who was so strong even the Queens yielded to her.

Well, she was the High Priestess of Hayll, and after centuries of twisting and savaging males who, in turn, did their own share of savaging, there were no dark-Jeweled Queens left in Terreille. There were no Queens, no Black Widows, no other Priestesses equal to her Red Jewel. In some of the smaller, more stubborn Territories, there were no Jeweled Blood at all. Within another five years, she would succeed where Hekatah had failed—she would be the High Priestess of Terreille, feared and revered by the entire Realm.

And when that day came, she would have something very special planned for her mentor and adviser.

Dorothea settled back in her chair and suppressed a smile. Still, the bag of bones might have a use. Sadi was still out there somewhere, playing his elusive, teasing game. Although she hadn't felt his presence in quite some time, every time she opened a door, she expected to find him on the other side waiting for her. But if a Red-Jeweled Black Widow High Priestess was staying at the country lodge she kept for more vigorous and imaginative evenings, and if he happened to become aware of a witch living there quietly . . . well, her psychic scent permeated the place and he might not take the time to distinguish between the scent of the place and the occupant's psychic scent. It would be a shame to lose the building, but she really didn't think there would be anything left of it by the time he was done.

Of course, there wouldn't be anything left of Hekatah, either.

Dorothea tucked a loose strand of black hair back into the simple coil around her head. "I realize you weren't asking my permission, Sister," she purred. "When have you ever asked me for anything?"

"Remember who you speak to," Hekatah hissed.

"I never forget," Dorothea replied sweetly. "I have a lodge in the country, about an hour's carriage ride from Draega. I use it for discreet entertaining. You're welcome to stay there as long as you please. The staff is very well-trained, so I do ask that you not make a meal out of them. I'll supply you with plenty of young feasts." Frowning at a fingernail, she called in a nail file and smoothed an edge, studied the result, and smoothed again. Finally satisfied, she vanished the nail file and smiled at Hekatah. "Of course, if my accommodations aren't to your liking, you can always return to Hell."

Greedy, ungrateful bitch.

Hekatah opaqued another mirror. Even that little bit of Craft was almost too much.

This wasn't the way she'd planned to return to Hayll, hidden away like some doddering, drooling relative dispatched to some out-of-the-way property with no one but hard-faced servants for company.

Of course, once some of her strength returned . . .

Hekatah shook her head. The amusements would have to come later.

She considered ringing for a servant to come and put another log on the fire, then dismissed the idea and added the wood herself. Curling up into an old, stuffed chair, she stared at the wood being embraced and consumed by the flames.

Consumed just like all her pretty plans.

First the fiasco with the girl. If that was the best Jorval could do, she was going to have to rethink his usefulness.

Then the Eyrien managed to escape her trap and destroy all those lovely Jhinka that she'd cultivated so carefully. And the backlash of power that had come through her witch storm had done this to her.

And last, but far from least, was that gutter son of a whore's purge of the Dark Realm. There was no safe haven in Hell now, and no one, no one to serve her.

So, for now, she had to accept Dorothea's sneering hospitality, had to accept handouts instead of the tribute that was her due.

No matter. Unlike Dorothea, who was too busy trying to grab power and gobble up Territories, she had taken a good long look at the two living Realms.

Let Dorothea have the crumbling ruins of Terreille.

She was going to have Kaeleer.

Chapter Fourteen

Saetan braced his hand against the stonewall, momentarily unbalanced by the double blast of anger that shook the Keep.

"Mother Night," he muttered. "Now what are they squabbling about?" Mentally reaching out to Lucivar, he met a psychic wall of fury.

He ran.

As he neared the corridor that led to Jaenelle's suite of rooms, he slowed to a walk, pressing one hand against his side and swearing silently because he didn't have enough breath to roar. Wouldn't have mattered anyway, he thought sourly. Whatever was provoking his children's tempers certainly wasn't affecting their lungs.

"Get out of my way, Lucivar!"

"When the sun shines in Hell!"

"Damn your wings, you've no right to interfere."

"I serve you. That gives me the right to challenge anything and anyone that threatens your well being. And that includes you!"

"If you serve me, then obey me. GET OUT OF MY WAY!"

"The First Law is not obedience—"

"Don't you dare start quoting Blood Laws to me."

"—and even if it was, I still wouldn't stand here and let you do this. It's suicidal!"

Saetan rounded the corner, shot up the short flight of stairs, and stumbled on the top step.

In the dimly lit corridor, Lucivar looked like something out of the night-tales landens told their children: dark, spread wings blending into the darkness beyond, teeth bared, gold eyes blazing with battle-fire. Even the blood dripping from the shallow knife slash in his left upper arm made him look more like something other than a living man.

In contrast, Jaenelle looked painfully real. The short black nightgown revealed too much of the body sacrificed to the power that had burned within her while she'd done the healing in the landen village a week ago. If cared for, the flesh wouldn't suffer that way, not even when it was the instrument of the Black Jewels.

Seeing the results of her careless attitude toward her body, seeing the hand that held the Eyrien hunting knife shake because she was too weak to hold a blade that, a month ago, she had handled easily, he gave in to the anger rising within him. "Lady," he said sharply.

Jaenelle spun to face him, weaving a little as she struggled to stay on her feet. Her eyes blazed with battle-fire, too.

"Daemon's been found."

Saetan crossed his arms, leaned against the wall, and ignored the challenge in her voice. "So you intend to channel your strength through an already weakened body, create the shadow you've been using to search Terreille, send it to wherever his body is, travel through the Twisted Kingdom until you find him, and then lead him back."

"Yes," she said too softly. "That's exactly what I'm going to do."

Lucivar slammed the side of his fist against the wall. "It's too much. You haven't even begun to recover from the healings you did. Let this friend of yours keep him for a couple of weeks."

"You can't 'keep' someone who's lost in the Twisted Kingdom," Jaenelle snapped. "They don't see or live in the tangible world the way everyone else does. If something spooks him and he slips away from her, it could be weeks, even months before she finds him again. By then it may be too late. He's running out of time."

"So have her bring him to the Keep in Terreille," Lucivar argued. "We can hold him there until you're strong enough to do the healing."

'"He's insane, not broken. He still wears the Black. If someone tried to 'hold' you, what sort of memories would that stir up?"

"She's right, Lucivar," Saetan said calmly. "If he thinks this friend is leading him into a trap, no matter what her real intentions, what little trust he has in her will shatter, and that will be the last time she finds him. At least, while there's anything worth finding."

Lucivar thumped the wall with his fist. He kept thumping the wall while he swore, long and low. Finally, he rubbed the side of his hand against the other palm. "Then I'll go back to Terreille and get him."

"Why should he trust you?" Jaenelle said bitterly.

Pain flared in Lucivar's eyes.

Saetan felt Jaenelle's inner barriers open just a crack. He didn't stop to think. At the moment when she was torn between anger at and distress for Lucivar, he swept in and out of that crack, tasting the emotional undercurrents.

So their little witch thought she could force them to yield. Thought she had an emotional weapon they wouldn't challenge.

She was right. She did.

But now, so did he.

"Let her go, Lucivar," Saetan crooned, his voice a purring, soft thunder. Still leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, he tilted his upper body in a mocking bow. "The Lady has us by the balls, and she knows it."

He felt bitterly pleased to see the wariness in Jaenelle's eyes.

She looked quickly at both of them. "You're not going to stop me?"

"No, we're not going to stop you." Saetan smiled malevolently. "Unless, of course, you don't agree to pay the price for our submission. If you refuse, the only way you'll walk out of here is by destroying both of us."

Such a neat trap. Such sweet bait.

He confused her, had finally managed to unnerve her.

She was about to find out how neatly he could spin her into a web.

"What's your price?" Jaenelle asked reluctantly.

One casual, flicking glance took in everything from her head to her feet. "Your body."

She dropped the knife.

It probably would have cut off a couple of toes if Lucivar hadn't vanished it in midair.

"Your body, my Lady," Saetan crooned. "The body you treat with such contempt. Since you obviously don't want it, I'll take it in trust for the one who already has a claim to it."

Jaenelle stared at him, her eyes wide and blank. "You want me to leave this body? Like I did before?"

"Leave?" His voice sounded silky and dangerous. "No, you don't have to leave. I'm sure the claimant would be perfectly willing to give you a permanent loan. But it would be a loan, you understand, and you would be expected to give the body the same kind of care you'd give any object lent to you by a friend."

She studied him for a long time. "And if I don't take care of it? What will you do?"

Saetan pushed away from the wall.

Jaenelle flinched, but her eyes never left his.

"Nothing," he said too softly. "I won't fight with you. I won't use physical strength or Craft to force you. I'll do nothing except keep a record of the transgressions. I'll never ask you for an explanation, and I'll never explain for you. You can try to justify abusing part of what Daemon paid for with dear coin."

Jaenelle's face turned dead white. Saetan caught her as she swayed and held her against his chest.

"Heartless bastard," she whispered.

"Perhaps," he replied. "So what is your answer, Lady?"

*Jaenelle! You promised!*

Jaenelle jumped out of his arms, back-pedaled to try to keep her balance, and ended up with her back smacking against the wall.

Saetan studied Jaenelle's guilty expression and began to feel maliciously cheerful. Noting that Lucivar had come up on her blind side, he turned his attention toward the annoyed, half-grown Sceltie and the silent, but equally annoyed, Arcerian kitten who now weighed as much as Lucivar and still had five more years to grow. "What did the Lady promise?" he asked Ladvarian.

*You promised to eat and sleep and read books and take easy walkies until you healed,* Ladvarian said accusingly, staring at Jaenelle.

"I am," Jaenelle stammered. "I did."

* You've been playing with Lucivar.*

Lucivar stepped away from the wall so that they could see his left arm. "She was playing rough, too."

Ladvarian and Kaelas snarled at Jaenelle.

"This is different," Jaenelle snapped. "This is important. And I wasn't playing with Lucivar. I was fighting with him."

"Yes," Lucivar agreed mournfully. "And all because I thought she should be resting instead of pushing herself until she collapsed." Ladvarian and Kaelas snarled louder. *For shame, Lady,* Saetan said, using a Black thread to keep the conversation private. *Breaking a promise to your little Brothers. Care to agree to my terms now, or shall we all snarl a bit longer?*

Her venomous look was not only an answer but a good indication of how often she lost these kinds of "discussions" once Ladvarian and, therefore, Kaelas made up their furry little minds about something.

"My Brothers." Saetan tipped his head courteously toward Ladvarian and Kaelas. "The Lady would never break a promise without good reason. Despite the risks to her own well-being, she has pledged herself to a delicate task, one that cannot be delayed. Since this promise was made before the one she made to you, we must yield to the Lady's wishes. As she said, this is important."

*What's more important than the Lady?* Ladvarian demanded.

Saetan didn't answer. Jaenelle squirmed. "My . . . mate . . . is trapped in the Twisted Kingdom. If I don't show him the way out, he'll be destroyed."

*Mate?* Ladvarian's ears perked up. His white-tipped tail waved once, twice. He looked at Saetan. *Jaenelle has a mate?*

Interesting that the Sceltie looked to him for confirmation. Something to keep in mind in the future.

"Yes," Saetan said. "Jaenelle has a mate."

"She won't have if she's delayed much longer," Jaenelle warned.

They all politely stepped aside and watched her painfully slow journey down the corridor.

Saetan had no doubt that she would use Craft to float her body as soon as she was out of their sight, which would put more strain on her physically but would also speed her journey to the Dark Altar that stood within Ebon Askavi. And except for being carried, that was the only way she was going to reach the Gate that would take her to the Keep in Terreille.

After Ladvarian and Kaelas had trotted off to tell Draca about the Lady's mate, Saetan turned to Lucivar. "Come into the healing workroom. I'll take care of that arm."

Lucivar shrugged. "It's not bleeding anymore."

"Boyo, I know the Eyrien drill as well as you do. Wounds are cleansed and healed."

*And I want to talk to you in a shielded room away from furry ears.*

"Do you think she'll make it?" Lucivar asked a few minutes later as he watched Saetan clean the shallow knife wound.

"She has the strength, the knowledge, and the desire. She'll bring him out of the Twisted Kingdom."

It wasn't what Lucivar meant, and they both knew it.

"Why didn't you stop her? Why are you letting her risk herself?"

Saetan bent his head, avoiding Lucivar's eyes. "Because she loves him. Because he really is her mate."

Lucivar was silent for a minute. Then he sighed. "He always said he'd been born to be Witch's lover. Looks like he was right."

Surreal watched Daemon prowl the center of the overgrown maze and wondered how much longer she would be able to keep him here. He didn't trust her. She couldn't trust him. She'd found him about a mile from the ruins of SaDiablo Hall, weeping silently as he watched a house burn to the ground. She didn't ask about the burning house, or about the twenty freshly butchered Hayllian guards, or why he kept whispering Tersa's name over and over.

She'd taken his hand, caught the Winds, and brought him here. Whoever had owned this estate had either abandoned it by choice or had been forced out or killed when Dhemlan Terreille had finally caved in to Hayll's domination. Now Hayllian guards used the manor house as a barracks for the troops who were teaching the Dhemlan people about the penalties of disobedience.

Daemon had watched passively while she'd used illusion spells to fill in the gaps in the hedges that would lead to the center of the maze. He'd said nothing when she created a double Gray shield around their hiding place.

His passive obedience had melted away when she called in the small web Jaenelle had given her and placed four drops of blood in its center to awaken it, turning it into a signal and a beacon.

He'd started prowling after that, started smiling that cold, familiar, brutal smile while she waited. And waited. And waited.

"Why don't you call your friends, Little Assassin?" Daemon said as he glided past the place where she sat with her knees up and her back against the hedge. "Don't you want to earn your pay?"

"There's no pay, Daemon. We're waiting for a friend."

"Of course we are," he said too softly as he made another circuit around the center of the maze. Then he stopped and looked at her, his gold eyes filled with a glazed, cold fire. "She liked you. She asked me to help you. Do you remember that?"

"Who, Daemon?" Surreal asked quietly.

"Tersa." His voice broke. "They burned the house Tersa had lived in with her little boy. She had a son, did you know that?"

Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. "No, I didn't know that."

Daemon nodded. "But that bitch Dorothea took him from her, and she went far, far away. And then that bitch put a Ring of Obedience on the little boy and trained him to be a pleasure slave. Took him into her bed and,. . ." Daemon shuddered. "You're blood of her blood."

Surreal scrambled to her feet. "Daemon. I'm not like Dorothea. I don't acknowledge her as kin."

Daemon bared his teeth. "Liar," he snarled. He took a step toward her, his right thumb flicking the ragged ring-finger nail. "Silky, court-trained liar." Another step. "Butchering whore."

As he raised his right hand, Surreal saw a tiny, glistening drop fall from the needlelike nail under the regular nail. She dove to his left, calling in her stiletto as she fell. He was on her before she hit the ground. She screamed when he broke her right wrist. She screamed again when he clamped his left hand over both of her wrists, grinding bones.

"Daemon,"she said, breathless and panicked as his right hand closed around her throat. "Daemon."

Surreal gulped back a sob of relief at the sound of that familiar midnight voice.

Hope and horror filled Daemon's eyes as he slowly raised his head. "Please," he whispered. "I never meant. . . . Please.'" He threw his head back, let out a heart-shattering cry, and collapsed.

Using Craft, Surreal rolled him off her and sat up, cradling her broken wrist. Dizzy and nauseous, she closed her eyes as she felt Jaenelle approach. "I realize arriving a few seconds sooner would have made a less dramatic entrance, but I would've appreciated it more."

"Let me see your wrist."

Surreal looked up and gasped. "Hell's fire, what happened to you?"

During the other times when Jaenelle's "shadow" had joined Surreal to search for Daemon, it had been impossible to guess she wasn't a living woman unless you tried to touch her. No one would mistake this transparent, wasted creature for something that walked the living Realms. But the sapphire eyes were still filled with their ancient fire, and the Black Jewels still glowed with untapped strength. Jaenelle shook her head and wrapped her hands around Surreal's wrist. A flash of numbing cold was followed by a steadily growing warmth. Surreal felt the bones shift and set.

Jaenelle's transparent hands pulsed, fading and returning again and again! For a moment, she faded completely, her Black Jewels suspended as if waiting for her return.

When she reappeared, her eyes were filled with pain and she panted as if she couldn't draw a full breath.

"Collapsing," Jaenelle gasped. "Not now. Not yet." Her transparent body convulsed. "Surreal, I can't finish the healing. The bones are set, but . . ." A tooled, leather wristband hovered in the air. Jaenelle slipped it over Surreal's wrist and snapped it shut. "That will help support it until it heals."

Surreal's left forefinger traced the stag head set in a circle of flowering vines—the same stag that was a symbol for Titian's kin, the Dea al Mon.

Before she could ask Jaenelle about the wristband, something heavy hit the ground nearby. A man cursed softly.

"Mother Night, the guards heard us." Using her left arm for leverage, Surreal got to her feet. "Let's get him out of here and—"

"I can't leave here, Surreal," Jaenelle said quietly. "I have to do what I came here to do . . . while I still can." The Black Jewels flared, and Surreal felt a shivering, liquid darkness flow into the maze.

Jaenelle tried to smile. "They won't find their way through the maze. Not this maze, anyway." Then she looked sadly at Daemon's gaunt, bruised body and gently brushed the long, dirty, tangled black hair off his forehead. "Ah, Daemon. I had gotten used to thinking of my body as a weapon that was used against me. I'd forgotten that it's also a gift. If it's not too late, I'll do better. I promise."

Jaenelle placed her transparent hands on either side of Daemon's head. She closed her eyes. The Black Jewel glowed.

Listening to the Hayllian guards thrashing around somewhere in the maze, Surreal sank to the ground and settled down to wait.

*Daemon.*

The island slowly sank into the sea of blood. He curled up in the center of the pulpy ground while the word sharks circled, waiting for him.

*Daemon.*

Hadn't they all been waiting for the end of this torment? Hadn't they all been waiting for the debt to be paid in full? Now she was calling him, calling for his complete surrender.

*Move your ass, Sadi!*

He rolled to his hands and knees and stared at the golden-manned, sapphire-eyed woman who stood on a blood-drenched shore that hadn't existed a minute ago. A tiny spiral horn rose from the center of her forehead. Her long gown looked as if it were made from black cobwebs and didn't quite hide her delicate hooves.

The pleasure of seeing her made him giddy. Her mood made him cautious. He carefully sat back on his heels. *You're annoyed with me.*

*Let me put it this way,* Jaenelle replied sweetly. *If you go under and I have to pull you out, I'm going to be pissed.*

Daemon shook his head slowly and tsked. *Such language.*

With precise enunciation, she spoke a phrase in the Old Tongue.

His jaw dropped. He choked on a laugh.

*That, Prince Sadi, is language.*

You are my instrument.

Words lie. Blood doesn't.

Butchering whore.

He swayed, steadied himself, rose carefully to his feet. *Have you come to call in the debt, Lady?*

He didn't understand the sorrow in her eyes.

*I'm here because of a debt,* she said, her voice filled with pain. She slowly raised her hands.

Between the shore and the sinking island, the sea churned, churned, churned. Waves lifted and froze into waist-high walls. Between them, the sea solidified, becoming a bridge made of blood.

*Come, Daemon.*

His hands lightly brushed the crests of the red, frozen waves. He stepped onto the bridge.

The word sharks circled, tore off chunks of the island, tried to slice away the bridge beneath his feet.

You are my instrument.

Jaenelle called in a bow, nocked an arrow, and took aim. The arrow sang through the air. The word shark thrashed as it withered and sank.

Words lie. Blood doesn't.

Another arrow sang a death song.

Butchering who—

The island and the last word shark sank together.

Jaenelle vanished the bow, turned away from the sea, and walked into the twisted, shattered-crystal landscape.

Her voice reached him, faint and fading. *Come, Daemon.*

Daemon rushed across the bridge, hit the shore running, and then swore in frustration as he searched for some sign of where she'd gone.

He caught her psychic scent before he noticed the glittering trail. It was like a ribbon of star-sprinkled night sky that led him through the twisted landscape to where she perched on a rock far above him.

She looked down, at him, smiling with exasperated amusement. *Stubborn, snarly male.*

*Stubbornness is a much-maligned quality,* he panted as he climbed toward her.

Her silvery, velvet-coated laugh filled the land.

Then he finally got a good look at her. He sank to his knees. *I owe you a debt, Lady.*

She shook her head. *The debt is mine, not yours.*

*I failed you,* he said bitterly, looking at her wasted body.

*No, Daemon,* Jaenelle replied softly. *I failed you. You asked me to heal the crystal chalice and return to the living world. And I did. But I don't think I ever forgave my body for being the instrument that was used to try to destroy me, and I became its cruelest torturer. For that I'm sorry because you treasured that part of me.*

*No, I treasured all of you. I love you, Witch. I always will. You're everything I'd dreamed you would be.*

She smiled at him. *And I—* She shuddered, pressed her hand against her chest. *Come. There's little time left.*

She fled through the rocks, out of sight before he could move.

He hurried after her, following the glittering trail, gasping as he felt a crushing weight descend on him.

*Daemon.* Her voice came back to him, faint and pain-filled. *If the body is going to survive, I can't stay any longer.*

He fought against the weight. *Jaenelle!*

*You have to take this in slow stages. Rest there now. Rest, Daemon. I'll mark the trail for you. Please follow it. I'll be waiting for you at the end.*

*JAENELLE!*

A wordless whisper. His name spoken like a caress. Then silence.

Time meant nothing as he lay there, curled in a ball, fighting to hang on to the glittering trail that led upward while everything beneath him pulled at him, trying to drag him back down.

He held on fiercely to the memory of her voice, to her promise that she would be waiting.

Later—much later—the pulling eased, the crushing weight lessened.

The glittering trail, the star-sprinkled ribbon still led upward.

Daemon climbed.

Surreal watched the sky lighten and listened to the guards shouting and cursing as the maze sizzled from the explosions of power against power. Throughout the long night, the guards had pounded their way toward the center of the maze as Jaenelle's shields broke piece by piece. If the screams were any indication, it had cost the guards dearly to break as much of her shields as they had.

There was some satisfaction in that, but Surreal also knew what the surviving guards would do to whomever they found in the maze.

"Surreal? What's happening?"

For a moment, Surreal couldn't say anything. Jaenelle's eyes looked dead-dull, the inner fire burned to ash. Her Black Jewels looked as if she'd drained most of the reserve power in them.

Surreal knelt beside Daemon. Except for the rise and fall of his chest, he hadn't stirred since he collapsed. "The guards are breaking through the shield," she said, trying to sound calm. "I don't think we have much time left."

Jaenelle nodded. "Then you and Daemon have to leave. The Green Wind runs over the edge of the garden. Can you reach it?"

Surreal hesitated. "With all the power that's been unleashed in this area, I'm not sure."

"Let me see your Gray ring."

She held out her right hand.

Jaenelle brushed her Black ring against Surreal's Gray.

Surreal felt a psychic thread shoot out of the rings as they made contact, felt the Green Web pull at her.

"There," Jaenelle gasped. "As soon as you launch yourself, the thread will reel you into the Green Web. Take the beacon web with you. Destroy it completely as soon as you can."

Daemon stirred, moaned softly.

"What about you?" Surreal asked.

Jaenelle shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I won't be coming back. I'll hold the guards long enough to give you a head start."

Jaenelle opened Daemon's tattered shirt. Taking Surreal's right hand, she pricked the middle finger and pressed it against Daemon's chest while she murmured words in a language Surreal didn't know.

"This binding spell will keep him with you until he's out of the Twisted Kingdom." Jaenelle faded, came back. "One last thing."

Surreal took the gold coin that hovered in the air. On one side was an elaborate S. On the other side were the words "Dhemlan Kaeleer."

"That's a mark of safe passage," Jaenelle said, straining to get the words out. "If you ever come to Kaeleer, show it to whomever you first meet and tell them you're expected at the Hall in Dhemlan. It guarantees you a safe escort."

Surreal vanished the coin and the small beacon web.

Daemon rolled onto his side and opened his eyes.

Jaenelle floated backward until she faded into the hedge. *Go quickly, Surreal. May the Darkness embrace you.*

Swearing quietly, Surreal tugged Daemon to his feet. He stared at her with simpleminded bewilderment. She pulled his left arm over her shoulders and winced as she tightened her right arm around his waist.

Taking a deep breath, she let the psychic thread reel them through the Darkness until she caught the Green Wind and headed north.

The hiding place was ready and waiting.

Before the night when she'd drunkenly broken the warm friendship that had existed between them, Daemon had told her about two people: Lord Marcus, the man of business who took care of Daemon's very discreet investments, and Manny.

Shortly after Jaenelle had contacted her, she'd gone to see Lord Marcus about finding a hiding place and had discovered that one already existed—a small island that was owned by "a reclusive invalid Warlord" who lived with a handful of servants.

Daemon owned the island. Everyone who lived there had been physically or emotionally maimed by Dorothea SaDiablo. It was a sheltered place where they could rebuild some semblance of a life.

She hadn't dared go to the island while she was still hunting for Daemon because she'd been afraid of leading Kartane SaDiablo there. Now she and Daemon could both drop out of sight, and the fictitious invalid Warlord and his newly acquired companion would become a reality.

But first there was one fast stop to make, one question to ask. She hoped beyond words that Manny would say "yes."

*Surreal . . .*

Surreal tried to strengthen the distaff thread. *Jaenelle?*

*Surreal . . . g . . . Keep . . . o . . .*

Surreal tightened the leash on her emotions as the distaff thread snapped. She'd do her best to keep Daemon safe.

Because she owed him. Because what was left of Jaenelle cared.

Not allowing herself to think about what was happening in the center of the maze, Surreal flew on.

Ladvarian's frantic barking and Lucivar's shouted "Father!" snapped Saetan out of his worried brooding. Propelling himself out of a chair in Jaenelle's sitting room at the Keep, he rushed to the door leading into her bedroom, then clung to the frame, paralyzed for a moment by the sight of the ravaged body Lucivar held in his arms.

"Mother Night," he muttered as he grabbed Kaelas by the scruff of the neck and pulled the snarling young cat off the bed. Throwing back the bedcovers, he placed a warming spell on the sheets. "Put her down."

Lucivar hesitated.

"Put her down," he snapped, unnerved by the tears in Lucivar's eyes. As soon as Lucivar gently laid Jaenelle on the bed, Saetan knelt beside her. Laying one hand lightly against her chest, he used a delicate psychic tendril to sense and catalog the injuries.

Lungs collapsing, arteries and veins collapsing, heart erratic and weak. The rest of the inner organs on the verge of failing. Bones as fragile as eggshells.

*Jaenelle,* Saetan called. Sweet Darkness, had she severed the link between body and spirit? *Witch-child!*

*Saetan?* Jaenelle's voice sounded faint and far away. *I made a mess of it, didn't I?*

He fought to remain calm. She had the knowledge and the Craft to perform the healing. If he could keep her connected with her body, they might have a chance to save her. *You could say that.*

*Did Ladvarian bring the healing web from the Keep in Terreille?*

"Ladvarian!" He instantly regretted shouting because the Sceltie just cowered and whined, too upset to remember how to speak to him. Stay calm, SaDiablo. Temper is destructive in any healing room, but it could be fatal in this one. "The Lady is asking about the healing web," he said quietly. "Did you bring it?"

Kaelas planted his front paws on either side of the small dog's body and gave his friend an encouraging lick.

After another nudge from Kaelas, Ladvarian said, *Web?* He stood up, still safely sheltered by the cat's body. *Web. I brought the web.*

A small wooden frame appeared between Ladvarian and the bed.

To Saetan's eye, the healing web attached to the frame looked too simple to help a body as damaged as Jaenelle's. Then he noticed the single thread of spidersilk that went from the web to the Black-Jeweled ring attached to the frame's base.

*Three drops of blood on the ring will waken the healing web,* Jaenelle said.

Saetan looked at Lucivar, who stood near the bed as if waiting for a fatal blow. He hesitated—and swore silently because he still felt the sting of old accusations even though he wasn't asking for himself. "She needs three drops of blood on the ring. I don't dare give her mine. I'm not sure what a Guardian's blood will do to her."

Rage flashed in Lucivar's eyes, and Saetan knew his son had understood why he'd hesitated to ask.

"Damn you to the bowels of Hell," Lucivar said as he pulled a small knife out of the sheath in his boot. "You didn't take my blood when I was a child, so stop apologizing for something you didn't do." He jabbed a finger and let three drops of blood fall on the Black-Jeweled ring. Saetan held his breath until the web started glowing.

Lucivar sheathed the knife. "I'm going to fetch Luthvian."

Saetan nodded. Not that Lucivar had waited for his agreement before stepping through the glass door that led to Jaenelle's private garden and launching himself skyward.

Jaenelle's body twitched. Through the psychic tendril, Saetan could feel the Craft in the web washing through her, stabilizing her. He glanced at the web and tried to block out any feelings of despair. One-third of the threads were already darkened, used up.

*I didn't expect it to be this bad,* Jaenelle said apologetically.

*Luthvian will be here soon.*

*Good. With her help, I can transfer the power my body can't hold now into the web to use for the healing.*

He felt her fade. *Jaenelle!*

*I found him, Saetan. I marked a trail for him to follow. And I . . . I told Surreal to take him to the Keep, but I'm not sure she heard me.*

*Don't think about it now, witch-child. Concentrate on healing.*

She drifted into a light sleep.

By the time Luthvian arrived at the Keep, two-thirds of Jaenelle's simple healing web was used up, and he wondered if there would be enough time to create another one before the last thread darkened.

He couldn't stay and watch. As soon as Luthvian regained enough of her composure to begin, he retreated to the sitting room, taking Ladvarian and Kaelas with him. He didn't ask where Lucivar was. He simply felt grateful that they wouldn't rub against each other's fraying tempers for a little while.

He paced until his leg ached. He embraced the physical discomfort like a sweet lover. Far better to focus on that than the heart-bruises that might be waiting for him.

Because he wasn't sure if he could stand another bedside vigil.

Because he didn't know if she'd succeeded enough to make her suffering worth it.

He learned as he climbed.

She had left small resting places next to the glittering trail: violets nestled against a boulder; sweet, clean water trickling down stone to a quiet pool that soothed the spirit; a patch of thick, green grass large enough to stretch out on; a plump, brown bunny watching him while it stuffed its face with clover; a cheerful fire that melted the first layer of ice around his heart.

At first, he'd tried to ignore the resting places. He learned he could pass one, maybe two, while he fought against the weight that made each step more difficult. If he tried to pass a third, he found the trail blocked. Instinct always warned him that if he stepped off the glittering trail to go around the obstruction, he might never find his way back. So he'd backtrack and rest until he absorbed the weight and found it comfortable to go on.

He slowly realized the weight had a name: body. This confused him for a while. Didn't he already have a body? He walked, he breathed, he heard, he saw. He felt tired. He felt pain. This other body felt different, heavy, solid. He wasn't sure he liked absorbing its essence into himself— or, perhaps, having it absorb him.

But the body was part of the same delicate web as the violets, the water, the sky, and the fire—reminders of a place beyond the shattered landscape—so he resigned himself to becoming reacquainted with it.

After a while, each resting place held an intangible gift, too: a Craft puzzle piece, one small aspect of a spell. Gradually the pieces began to make a whole and he learned the basics of the Black Widows' Craft, learned how to build simple webs, learned how to be what he was.

So he rested and treasured her little gifts and puzzles.

And he climbed to where she had promised to be waiting.