Heir to the Shadows

Chapter Nine

He had been in the salt mines of Pruul for five years. Now it was time to die.

In order to reach the fierce, clean death he'd promised himself, he had to get beyond Zuultah's ability to pull him down with the Ring of Obedience. It wouldn't be difficult. Thinking him cowed, the guards didn't pay much attention to him anymore, and Zuultah had gotten lax in her use of the Ring. By the time they remembered what they never should have forgotten about him, it would be far too late.

Lucivar yanked the pick out of the guard's belly and drove it into the man's brain, sending just enough Ebon-gray power through the metal to finish the kill by shattering the guard's mind and Jewels.

Baring his teeth in a feral smile, he snapped the chains that had held him for the past five years. Then he called in his Ebon-gray Jewels and the wide leather belt that held his hunting knife and his Eyrien war blade. A lot of foolish Queens over the centuries had tried to force him to surrender those weapons. He'd endured the punishment and the pain and had never admitted they were always within reach—at least until he used them.

Unsheathing the war blade, he ran toward the mine's entrance.

The first two guards died before they realized he was there.

The next two blew apart when he struck with the Ebon-gray.

The rest were entangled by frantic slaves trying to get out of the way of an enraged Warlord Prince.

Fighting his way clear of the tangled bodies, he reached the mine entrance and ran across the slave compound, mentally preparing himself for a blind leap into the Darkness, hoping that, like an arrow released from a bow, he'd fly straight and true to the closest Wind and freedom.

Nerve-searing agony from the Ring of Obedience shredded his concentration at the same moment a crossbow bolt went through his thigh, breaking his stride. Howling with rage, he unleashed a wide band of power through his Ebon-gray ring, ripping the pursuing guards apart, body and mind. Another blast of pain from the Ring tore through him. He pivoted on his good leg, braced himself, and aimed a surge of power at Zuultah's house.

The house exploded. Stones smashed into surrounding buildings.

The pain from the Ring stopped abruptly. Lucivar probed swiftly and swore. The bitch was alive. Stunned and hurt, but still alive. He hesitated, wanting that kill. A weak strike at his inner barriers pulled his attention back to the surviving guards. They ran toward him, trying to braid their Jewels' strength in order to overwhelm him.

Fools. He could tear them apart piece by piece, and would have for the joy of paying pain back with pain, but by now someone would have sent out a call for help and if Zuultah came to enough to use the Ring of Obedience . . .

Battle lust sang in his veins, numbing physical pain. Maybe it would be better to die fighting, to turn the Arava Desert into a sea of blood. The closest Wind was a long, blind leap away. But, Hell's fire, if Jaenelle could do it when she was seven, then he could do it now.

Blood. So much blood.

Bitterness centered him, decided him.

Unleashing one more blast of power from the Ebon-gray, he gathered himself and leaped into the Darkness.

Bracing himself against the well, Lucivar filled the dipper again with sweet, cool water and drank slowly, savoring every swallow. Filling the dipper a last time, he limped to the nearby remains of a stone wall and settled himself as comfortably as possible.

That blind leap into the Darkness had cost him. Zuultah had roused enough to send another bolt through the Ring of Obedience just as he'd launched himself into the Darkness, and he'd drained half the strength in his Ebon-gray Jewels making the desperate reach for the Winds.

He sipped the water and stubbornly ignored what his body screamed at him. Hunger. Pain. A desperate need to sleep.

A hunting party from Pruul was three, maybe four hours behind him. He could have lost them, but it would have taken time he didn't have. A message relayed from mind to mind would reach Prythian, Askavi's High Priestess, faster than he could travel right now, and he didn't want to be caught by Eyrien warriors before he reached the Khaldharon Run.

And, if at all possible, there was a debt he wanted to call in.

Lucivar secured the dipper to the well and emptied the bucket. Satisfied that everything was as he'd found it, he faced south and sent out a summons on an Ebon-gray thread, pushing for his maximum range.

*Sadi!*

He waited a minute, then turned to face southeast.

*Sadi!*

After another restless minute, he turned east.

*Sadi!*

A flicker. Faint, different somehow, but still familiar.

Lucivar sighed like a satisfied lover. It was a fitting place for the Sadist to go to ground—in more ways than one. Plenty of broken, tumbled rock among those ruins. Some of them should be large enough to use as a makeshift altar. Oh, yes, a very fitting place.

Smiling, he caught the Red Wind and headed east.

Except for stories about Andulvar Yaslana, Lucivar had never had much interest in history. But Daemon had once insisted that SaDiablo Hall in Terreille had been intact until about 1,600 years ago, that something had happened—not an attack, but something—that had broken the preservation spells that had held for more than 50,000 years and had begun the building's decay.

Treading carefully through the broken ruins, Lucivar thought Daemon might have been right. There was a deep emptiness about the place, as if its energy had been deliberately bled out. The stones felt dead. No, not dead. Starved. Every time he touched one as he made his way toward an inner courtyard, it felt as if the stone was trying to suck his strength into itself.

He followed the smell of wood smoke, shaking off his uneasiness. He hadn't come here to ponder phantoms. He'd be one soon enough.

Baring his teeth in a feral smile, he unsheathed the war blade and stepped into the courtyard, staying back from the circle of firelight.

"Hello, Bastard."

Daemon slowly looked up from the fire and just as slowly pinpointed the sound. When he finally did, his smile was gentle and weary.

"Hello, Prick. Have you come to kill me?" Daemon's voice sounded rusty, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time.

Concern warred with anger until it became another flavor of anger. And the difference in Daemon's psychic scent bothered him. "Yes."

Nodding, Daemon stood up and removed his torn jacket.

Lucivar's eyes narrowed as Daemon unbuttoned the remaining buttons on his shirt, pulled the shirt aside to expose his chest, and stepped around the fire to stand where the light best favored the attacker. It felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. Daemon knew enough about basic survival and living off the land—Hell's fire, he had seen to that—to have kept himself in better condition than this. Lucivar studied the dirty, ragged clothes, Daemon's half-starved body shivering in the firelight, the calm, almost hopeful look in those bruised, exhausted eyes, and ground his teeth. The only other person he'd ever met who was that indifferent to her physical well-being was Tersa.

Maybe Daemon's voice wasn't rusty from disuse but hoarse from screaming himself awake at night.

"You're caught in it, aren't you?" Lucivar asked quietly. "You're tangled up in the Twisted Kingdom."

Daemon trembled. "Lucivar, please. You promised you'd kill me."

Lucivar's eyes glittered. "Do you feel her under you, Daemon? Do you feel that young flesh bruising under your hands? Do you feel her blood on your thighs while you drive into her, tearing her apart?" He stepped forward. "Do you?"

Daemon cringed. "I didn't . . ." He raised a shaking hand, twisting his fingers in the thick tangle of hair. "There's so much blood. It never goes away. The words never go away. Lucivar, please."

Making sure he had Daemon's attention, Lucivar stepped back and sheathed the war blade. "Killing you would be a kindness you don't deserve. You owe her every drop of pain that can be wrung out of you for the rest of your life and, Daemon, I wish you a very long life."

Daemon wiped his face with his sleeve, leaving a dirt smear across his cheek. "Maybe the next time we meet you can—"

"I'm dying," Lucivar snapped. "There won't be a next time."

There was a flicker of understanding in Daemon's eyes.

Something clogged Lucivar's throat. Tears pricked his eyes. There would be no reconciliation, no understanding, no forgiveness. Just a bitterness that would last beyond the flesh.

Lucivar limped out of the courtyard as fast as he could, using Craft to support his wounded leg. As he picked his way through the broken stones toward the remains of the landing web, he heard a cry so full of anguish the stones seemed to shudder. He stumbled to the web, gasping and tear-blind, unwilling to turn back, unwilling to leave.

But just before he caught the Gray Wind that would take him to Askavi and the final run, he looked at the ruins of the Hall and whispered, "Good-bye, Daemon."

Lucivar stood on the canyon rim at the halfway point in the Khaldharon Run, waiting for the sun to rise enough to light the canyon far below him.

Craft was the only thing keeping him on his feet now, the only thing that would let him use the greasy, tattered mess his wings had become after the slime mold had devoured them.

Intent on watching the sun rise, he also watched the small, dark shapes flying toward him—Eyrien warriors coming for the kill.

He looked down the Khaldharon Run, judging shadows and visibility. Not good. Foolish to throw himself into that dangerous intermingling of wind and the darker Winds when he couldn't distinguish the jagged canyon walls from the shadows, couldn't judge the curves that would create sudden wind shifts, when his wings barely functioned. At best it would be a suicide run.

Which was exactly why he was there.

The small, dark shapes flying toward him got larger, closer.

To the south of him, the sunlight touched the rock formation called the Sleeping Dragons. One faced north, the other south. The Khaldharon Run ended there and the mystery began, because no one who had entered one of those yawning, cavernous mouths had ever returned.

Several miles south of the Sleeping Dragons, the sun kissed the Black Mountain, Ebon Askavi, where Witch, his young, dreamed-of Queen would have lived if she'd never met Daemon Sadi.

The Eyrien warriors were close enough now for him to hear their threats and curses.

Smiling, he unfurled his wings, raised his fist, and let out an Eyrien war cry that silenced everything.

Then he dove into the Khaldharon Run.

It was as exhilarating, and as bad, as he'd thought it would be.

Even with Craft, his tattered wings didn't provide the balance he needed. Before he could compensate, the wind that howled through the canyon smashed him into the side wall, breaking his ribs and his right shoulder. Screaming defiance, he twisted away from the rock, pouring the strength of the Ebon-gray into his body as he plunged back into the center of the wild mingling of forces.

Just as the other Eyriens dove into the Run, he caught the Red thread and began the headlong race toward the Sleeping Dragons.

Instead of cutting in and out of the looping, twisting Winds within his range of strength to make a run as close to the canyon center as possible, he held to the Red, following it through narrow cuts of rock, pulling his wings tight to arrow through weatherworn holes that scraped his skin off as he passed through them.

His right foot hung awkwardly from the ripped ankle. The outer half of his left wing hung useless; the frame snapped when a gust of wind shoved him against a rock. The muscles in his back were torn from forcing his wings to do what they could no longer do. A deep, slicing belly wound pushed his guts out below the wide leather belt.

He shook his head, trying to clear blood out of his eyes, and let out a triumphant roar as he gauged his entry between the sharp stones that looked like petrified teeth.

A final gust of wind pushed him down as he shot through the Dragon's mouth. A "tooth" opened his left leg from hip to knee.

He drove into swirling mist, determined to reach the other side before he emptied the Jewels and his strength gave out.

Movement caught his eye. A startled face. Wings.

"Lucivar!"

He pushed to his limit, aware of the pursuers gaining on him.

"LUCIVAR!"

The other mouth had to be. . . . There! But . . .

Two tunnels. The left one held lightened twilight. .The right one was filled with a soft dawn.

Darkness would hide him better. He swung toward the twilight.

A rush of wings on his left. A hand grabbing at him.

He kicked, twisted away, and drove for the right-hand tunnel.

"LUU-CI-VAARRR!"

Past the teeth and out, driving upward past the canyon rim toward the morning sky, pumping useless wings out of stubborn pride.

And there was Askavi, looking as he imagined it might have looked a long time ago. The muddy trickle he'd flown over was now a deep, clear river. Barren rock was softened by spring wildflowers. Beyond the Run, sunlight glinted off small lakes and twisting streams.

Pain flooded his senses. Blood mixed with tears.

Askavi. Home. Finally home.

He pumped his wings a last time, arched his body in a slow, painfully graceful backward curve, folded his wings, and plummeted toward the deep, clear water below.

The wind tried to rip him off the tiny island that was his only resting place in this endless, unforgiving sea. Waves smashed down on him, soaking him in blood. So much blood.

You are my instrument.

Words lie. Blood doesn't.

The words circled him, mental sharks closing in to tear out another piece of his soul.

Gasping, he choked on a mouthful of bloody foam as he dug his fingers into rock that suddenly softened. He screamed as the rock beneath his hands turned into pulpy, violet-black bruises.

Butchering whore.

Nooooo!

*I loved her!* he screamed. *I love her! I never meant her harm.*

You are my instrument.

Words lie. Blood doesn't.

Butchering whore.

The words leaped playfully over the island, slicing him deeper and deeper with each pass.

Pain deepening anguish deepening agony deepening pain until there was no pain at all.

Or, perhaps, no one left to feel it.

Surreal stared at the dirty, trembling wreck that had once been the most dangerous, beautiful man in the Realm. Before he could shy away, she pulled him into the flat, threw every physical bolt on the door, and then Gray-locked it for good measure. After a moment's thought, she put a Gray shield on all the windows to lessen the chance of a severed artery or a five-story uncontrolled dive.

Then she took a good look at him and wondered if a severed artery would be such a bad thing. He'd been mad the last time she'd seen him. Now he looked as if he'd been sliced open and scooped out as well.

"Daemon?" She walked toward him, slowly.

He shook, unable to control it. His bruised-looking eyes, empty of everything but pain, filled with tears. "He's dead."

Surreal sat on the couch and tugged on his arm until he sat beside her. "Who's dead?" Who would matter enough to produce this reaction?

"Lucivar. Lucivar's dead!" He buried his head in her lap and wept like a heartsick child.

Surreal patted Daemon's greasy, tangled hair, unable to think of one consoling thing to say. Lucivar had been important to Daemon. His death mattered to Daemon. But even thinking of expressing sympathy made her want to gag. As far as she was concerned, Lucivar was also responsible for some of the soul wounds that had pushed Daemon over the edge, and now the bastard's death might be the fatal slice.

When the sobs diminished to quiet sniffles, she called in a handkerchief and stuffed it into his hand. She'd do a lot of things for Sadi, but she'd be damned if she'd blow his nose for him.

Finally cried out, he sat next to her, saying nothing. She sat quietly and stared at the windows.

This backwater street was safe enough. She'd returned several times since Daemon's last visit, staying longer and longer each time. It felt comfortable here. She and Wyman, the Warlord Daemon had healed, had developed a casual friendship that kept loneliness at bay. Here, with someone looking after him, maybe Daemon could heal a little.

"Daemon? Would you stay here with me for a while?" Watching him, she couldn't tell what he was thinking, even if he was thinking.

Eventually, he said, "If you want."

She thought she saw a faint flicker of understanding. "You promise to stay?" she pressed. "You promise not to leave without telling me?"

The nicker died. "There's nowhere else to go."

A light breeze. Sunlight warming his hand. Birdsong. Firm comfort under him. Soft cotton over him.

Lucivar slowly opened his eyes and stared at the white ceiling and the smooth, exposed beams. Where . . . ?

Out of habit, he immediately looked for ways out of the room. Two windows covered by white curtains embroidered with morning glories. A door on the wall opposite the bed he was lying on.

Then he noticed the rest of the room. The pine bedside table and dresser. The piece of driftwood turned into a lamp. A cabinet, its top bare except for a simple brass stand for holding music crystals. An open workbasket stuffed with skeins of yarn and floss. A large, worn, forest-green chair and matching hassock. A needlework frame covered with white material. An overstuffed bookcase. Braided, earth-tone rugs. Two framed charcoal sketches—head views of a unicorn and a wolf.

Lucivar's lip curled automatically when he caught the feminine psychic scent that saturated the walls and wood.

Then he frowned. For some reason, that psychic scent didn't repulse him.

He looked around the room again, confused. This was Hell?

A door opened in the room beyond. He heard a woman's voice say, "All right, go look, but don't wake him."

He closed his eyes. The door opened. Nails clicked on the wood floor. Something snuffled his shoulder. He kept his muscles relaxed, feigning sleep while his senses strained to identify the thing.

Fur against his bare skin. A cold, wet nose sniffing his ear.

Then a snort that made him twitch, followed by satisfied silence.

Giving in to curiosity and the warrior's need to identify an enemy, Lucivar opened his eyes and returned the wolf's intent gaze for a moment before it let out a pleased whuff and trotted out the door.

He barely had time to gather his wits when the woman pushed the door fully open and leaned against the doorway. "So you've finally decided to rejoin the living."

She sounded amused, but if the rest of her was anything to go by, the hoarseness in her voice was caused by strain, fatigue, and overuse. Painfully thin. The way the trousers and shirt hung on her, she'd probably dropped the weight far too fast to be healthy. The long, loose braid of gold hair looked as dull as her skin, and there were dark smudges under those beautiful, ancient sapphire eyes.

Lucivar blinked. Swallowed hard. Finally remembered to breathe. "Cat?" he whispered. He raised his hand in a mute plea.

She raised one eyebrow and walked toward him. "I know you said you would find me when I was seventeen, but I had no idea you would do it in such a dramatic fashion."

The moment she touched his hand, he pulled her down on top of him and wrapped his arms around her squirming body, laughing and crying, ignoring her muffled protests as he said, "Cat, Cat, Cat, oowww!"

Jaenelle scrambled off the bed and out of reach, breathing hard.

Lucivar rubbed his shoulder. "You bit me." He didn't mind the bite—well, yes, he did—but he didn't like her pulling away from him.

"I told you I couldn't breathe."

"Do we need to?" he asked, still rubbing his shoulder.

Judging by the look in her eyes, if she were actually feline, she'd be puffed to twice her size.

"I don't know, Lucivar," she said in a voice that could scorch a desert. "I could always remove your lungs and we'd find out firsthand if breathing is optional."

The tiny doubt that she might not be kidding was sufficient to make him swallow the flippant remark he was about to make. Besides, he had enough confusing things to think about, not to mention doing something about the urgent, basic message his body was now sending. Hell's fire, he'd never imagined being dead would feel so much like being alive.

He rolled onto his side, wondering if his muscles were always going to feel so limp—weren't there any advantages to being a demon?—and thrust his legs out from under the covers.

"Lucivar," Jaenelle said in a midnight voice.

He gave her a measuring look and decided to ignore the dangerous glitter in her eyes. He levered himself upright, pulled the sheet across his lap, and grinned weakly. "I've always been proud of my accuracy and aim, Cat, but even I can't water the flowers from here."

Thankfully, he didn't understand anything she said after the first Eyrien curse she flung at him.

She slung his arm over her shoulders, wrapped her arm around his waist, and pulled him to his feet. "Just take it slow. I've got most of your weight."

"The males who serve here should be doing this, not you," Lucivar snarled as they shuffled to the door, not sure if he was more embarrassed about being naked or needing her support.

"There aren't any. Hey!"

He almost overbalanced both of them reaching for the door, but he needed to tighten his hand around something. His darling Cat was here alone, unprotected, with no one but a wolf for company? Taking care of his . . . "You're a young woman," he said through clenched teeth.

"I'm a fully qualified Healer." She tugged at his waist. It didn't do any good. "You were easier to take care of before you woke up."

He snarled at her.

"Lucivar," Jaenelle said in that voice Healers used on irascible patients and idiots, "you've been in a healing sleep for the past three weeks. Taking that into consideration as well as what it took to put you back together, I think I've seen every inch of you more than once. Now, are you going to dribble on the floor like an untrained puppy or are we going to get to where you wanted to go?"

A fierce desire to get well enough to stand on his own two feet so that he could strangle her got him to the bathroom. Pride made him snarl her out the door. Stubbornness kept him upright long enough to do what was necessary, tie a bath towel around his waist, and reach the bathroom door.

By then his energy and useful emotions were tapped out, so he didn't protest when Jaenelle helped him walk to a stool near a large pine table in the cabin's main room. She moved behind him, her hands firm and gentle as they explored his back. He kept his eyes fixed on the outside door, not ready yet to ask about the healing. Then he felt one of his wings slowly unfurl, guided by those same gentle hands.

The wing closed. The other stretched out. As she came around to the front, he turned his head and stared at a wing that was healthy and whole. Stunned, he bit his lip and blinked back tears.

Jaenelle glanced at his face, then returned her attention to the wing. "You were lucky," she said quietly. "In another week there wouldn't have been enough healthy tissue left to rebuild them."

Rebuild them? Considering the damage the slime mold and the salt mines had done, even the best Eyrien Healers would have cut off the wings. How could she rebuild them?

Mother Night, he was tired, but there were too many things here that didn't fit his expectations. He desperately needed to understand and didn't know where to begin.

Then Jaenelle bent over to look at the lower part of the wing and the jewelry around her neck swung out of her shirt. Later he'd ask why Witch was wearing a Sapphire Jewel. Right now, all his attention was caught by the hourglass pendant that hung above the Jewel.

The hourglass was the Black Widows' symbol, both a declaration and a warning about the witch who wore it. An apprentice wore a pendant with the gold dust sealed in the top half of the glass. A journey maid’s pendant had the gold dust evenly divided between top and bottom. A fully trained Black Widow wore an hourglass with all the gold dust in the bottom chamber.

"When did you become a fully trained Black Widow?"

The air around him cooled. "Does it bother you that I am?"

Obviously it bothered some people. "No, just curious."

She gave him a quick smile of apology and continued her inspection. The air returned to normal. "Last year."

"And you became a qualified Healer?"

She carefully folded the wing and started checking his right shoulder. "Last year."

Lucivar whistled. "Busy year."

Jaenelle laughed. "Papa says he's thrilled he survived it."

He could almost hear the blade against the whetstone as his temper rose to the killing edge. She had a father, a family, and yet lived without human companionship, not even a servant. Exiled here because of the Hourglass? Or because she was Witch? Once he was fit again, this father of hers would have a few things to adjust to—like the Warlord Prince who now served her.

"Lucivar." Jaenelle's voice seemed as far away as the hand squeezing his taut shoulder. "Lucivar, what's wrong?"

Time moved slowly at the killing edge, measured by the beat of a war drum heart. The world became filled with individual, razor-sharp details. A blade would flow through muscle, humble bone. And the mouth would fill with the living wine as teeth sank into a throat.

"Lucivar."

Lucivar blinked. Felt the tension in Jaenelle's fingers as she gripped his shoulders. He backed from the edge, step by mental step, while the wildness in him howled to run free. Senses dulled by the salt mines of Pruul were reborn. The land called him, seducing him with scents and sounds. She seduced him, too. Not for sex, but for another kind of bond, in its own way just as powerful. He wanted to rub against her so that her physical scent was on his skin. He wanted to rub against her so that his physical scent on her warned others that a powerful male had some claim to her, was claimed by her. He wanted . . .

He turned his head, catching her finger between his teeth, exerting enough force to display dominance without actually hurting her. Her hand relaxed in submission, embracing the wild darkness within him. And because she could embrace it, he surrendered everything.

A minute later, completely returned to the mundane world, he noticed the open outer door and the three wolves standing on the covered porch, studying him with sharp interest.

Jaenelle, now inspecting his collarbone and chest muscles, glanced at the wolves and shook her head. "No, he can't come out and play."

Making disappointed-sounding whuffs, the wolves went back outside.

He studied the land framed by the open door. "I never thought Hell would look like this," he said softly.

"Hell doesn't." She slapped his hand when he tried to stop her from probing his hip and thigh.

Forcefully reminding himself that he shouldn't smack a Healer, he gritted his teeth and tried again to find some answers. "I didn't know that demon-dead children grew up or that demons could be healed."

She gave him a penetrating look before examining his other leg. Heat and power flowed from her hands. "Cildru dyathe don't and demons can't. But I'm not cildru dyathe and you're not a demon—although you did your damnedest to become one," she added tartly. She pulled up a straight-backed chair, sat down facing him, and took his hands in hers. "Lucivar, you're not dead. This isn't the Dark Realm."

He'd been so sure. "Then . . . where are we?"

"We're in Askavi. In Kaeleer." She watched him anxiously.

"The Shadow Realm?" Lucivar whistled softly. Two tunnels. One a lightening twilight, the other a soft dawn. The Dark Realm and the Shadow. He grinned at her. "Since we're not dead, can we go exploring?"

He watched, intrigued, as she tried to force her answering grin into a sober, professional expression.

"When you're fully healed," she said sternly, then spoiled it with a silvery, velvet-coated laugh. "Oh, Lucivar, the dragons who live on the Fyreborn Islands are going to love you. You not only have wings, you're big enough to wave whomp."

"Wave what?"

Her eyes widened and her teeth caught her lower lip. "Umm. Never mind," she said too brightly, bouncing off her chair.

He caught the back of her shirt. After a brief tussle that left him breathing hard and left her looking more than a little rumpled, she was once again slumped in the chair.

"Why are you living here, Cat?"

"What's wrong with it?" she said defensively. "It's a good place."

Lucivar narrowed his eyes. "I didn't say it wasn't."

She leaned forward, studying his face. "You're not one of those males who gets hysterical about every little thing, are you?"

He leaned forward, forearms braced on thighs, and smiled his lazy, arrogant smile. "I never get hysterical."

"Uh-huh."

The smile showed a hint of teeth. "Why, Cat?"

"Wolves can be real tattletales, did you know that?" She looked at him hopefully. When he didn't say anything, she fluffed her hair and sighed. "You see, there are times when I need to get away from everyone and just be with the land, and I used to come and camp out here for a few days, but during one of those trips it rained and I was sleeping on the wet ground and got chilled and the wolves went running off to tell Papa and he said he appreciated my need to spend some time with the land but he saw no reason why I couldn't have the option of some shelter and I said that a lean-to would probably be a reasonable idea so he had this cabin built." She paused and gave him an apprehensive smile. "Papa and I have rather different definitions of 'lean-to.''

Looking at the large stone hearth and the solid walls and ceiling, and then at the woman-child sitting in front of him with her hands pressed between her knees, Lucivar reluctantly let go of the knot of anger he'd felt for this unknown father of hers. "Frankly, Cat, I like your papa's definition better."

She scowled at him.

Black Widow and Healer she might be, but she was also almost grown, with enough of the endearing awkwardness of the young to still remind him of a kitten trying to pounce on a large, hoppy bug.

"So you don't live here all the time?" he asked carefully.

Jaenelle shook her head. "The family has several residences in Dhemlan. Most of the time I live at the family seat." She gave him a look he couldn't read. "My father is the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan—among other things."

A man of wealth and position then. Probably not the sort who'd want a half-breed bastard as a companion for his daughter. Well, he'd deal with that when the time came.

"Lucivar." She fixed her eyes on the open door and chewed her lip.

He sympathized with her. This was sometimes the hardest part of the healing, telling the patient honestly what could—and could not—be mended. "The wings are just decorative, aren't they?"

"No!" She took a deep breath. "The injuries were severe. All of them, not just the wings. I've done the healing, but what happens now depends, in large part, on you. I estimate it will take another three months for your back and wings to heal completely." She chewed her lip. "But, Lucivar, there's no margin for error in this. I had to pull everything you had to give for this healing. If you reinjure anything, the damage may be permanent."

He reached for her hand, caressed her fingers with his thumb. "And if I do it your way?" He watched her carefully. There were no false promises in those sapphire eyes.

"If you do it my way, three months from now we'll make the Run."

He lowered his head. Not because he didn't want her to see the tears, but because he needed a private moment to savor the hope.

When he had himself under control again, he smiled at her.

She smiled back, understanding. "Would you like a cup of tea?" When he nodded, she bounced out of the chair and went through the door to the right of the stone hearth.

"Any chance of persuading my Healer to add a bit of food to that?"

Jaenelle's head popped out of the kitchen doorway. "How does a large slice of fresh bread soaked in beef broth sound?"

About as edible as the table leg. "Do I have any choices?"

"No."

"Sounds wonderful."

She returned a few minutes later, helped him shift from the stool to a straight-backed chair that supported his back, then placed a large mug on the pine table. "It's a healing brew."

His lip curled in a silent snarl. Every healing brew he'd ever had forced down his throat had always tasted like brambles and piss, and he'd reached the opinion that Healers made them that way as a penalty for being hurt or ill.

"You don't get anything else until you drink it," Jaenelle added with a distasteful lack of sympathy.

Lucivar lifted the cup and sniffed cautiously. It smelled . . . different. He took a sip, held it in his mouth for a moment, then closed his eyes and swallowed. And wondered how she'd distilled into a healing brew the solid strength of the Askavi mountains, the trees and grasses and flowers that fleshed out the earth beneath, the rivers that flowed through the land.

"This is wonderful," he murmured.

"I'm pleased you approve."

"Really, it is," he insisted, responding to the laughter in her voice. "These things usually taste awful, and this tastes good."

Her laughter turned to puzzlement. "They're supposed to taste good, Lucivar. Otherwise, no one would want to drink them."

Not being able to argue with that, he said nothing, content to sip the brew. He was even content enough to feel a mild tolerance for the bowl of broth-soaked bread that Jaenelle placed in front of him, a tolerance that sharpened considerably when he noticed the slivers of beef sprinkled over the bread.

Then he noticed she was going to eat the same thing.

"I'm not the only one you drained to the limit in order to do this healing, am I, Cat?" he said quietly, unable to completely mask the anger underneath. How dare she risk herself this way, when there was no one to look after her?

Her cheeks colored faintly. She fiddled with her spoon, poked at the bread, and finally shrugged. "It was worth it."

He stabbed at the bread as another thought occurred to him. He'd let that wait for a moment. He tasted the bread and broth. "Not only do you make a good healing brew, you're also a decent cook."

She smacked the bread with her spoon, sending up a small geyser of broth. Wiping up the mess, she let out a hurt sniff and glared at him. "Mrs. Beale made this. I can't cook."

Lucivar took another mouthful and shrugged. "Cooking isn't that difficult." Then he looked up and wondered if a grown man had ever been beaten to death with a soup spoon.

"You can cook?" she asked ominously. Then she huffed. "Why do so many males know how to cook?"

He bit his tongue to keep from saying, "self-preservation." He ate a couple more spoonfuls of bread and broth. "I'll teach you to cook—on one condition."

"What condition?"

In the moment before he answered, he sensed a brittle fragility within her, but he could only respond as the Warlord Prince he was. "The bed's big enough for both of us," he said quietly, aware of how quickly she paled. "If you're not comfortable with that, fine. But if someone's going to sleep in front of the hearth, it's going to be me."

He saw the flash of temper, quickly reined in.

"You need the bed," she said through gritted teeth. "The healing isn't done yet."

"Since there's no one else here to look after you, I, as a Warlord Prince, have the duty and the privilege of overseeing your care." He was invoking ancient customs long ignored in Terreille, but he knew by her frustrated snarl that they still applied in Kaeleer.

"All right," she said, hiding her shaking hands in her lap. "We'll share the bed."

"And the blankets," he added.

The hostile look combined with the suppressed smile told him she wasn't sure what to think about him. That was all right. He wasn't sure, either.

"I suppose you want a pillow, too."

He smiled that lazy, arrogant smile. "Of course. And I promise not to kick you if you snore."

With her command of the Eyrien language, the girl could have made a Master of a hunting camp blush.

It hit him later, when he was comfortably settled on his belly in the bed, his wings open and gently supported, and Jaenelle and the wolves were out doing walkies—a silly word that struck him as an accurate description of the intricate, furry dance three wolves would perform around her while taking a late afternoon stroll.

He had made the Khaldharon Run intending to die and, instead, not only had survived but had found the living myth, his dreamed-of Queen.

Even as he smiled, the tears began, hot and bitter.

He was alive. And Jaenelle was alive. But Daemon . . .

He didn't know what had happened at Cassandra's Altar, or how that sheet had gotten drenched with Jaenelle's blood, or what Daemon had done, but he was beginning to understand what it had cost.

Pressing his face into the pillow to muffle the sobs, squeezing his eyes shut to deny the images his mind conjured, he saw Daemon. In Pruul that night, exhausted but determined. In the ruins of SaDiablo Hall in Terreille, burned out by the nightmare of madness and ready to die. He heard again Daemon's frightened, enraged denial. Heard again that anguished cry rising from the broken stones.

If he hadn't been so chained by bitterness that night, if he'd left with Daemon, they would have found a way through the Gates. Together, they would have. And they would have found her and had these years with her, watching her grow up, participating in the experiences that would transform a child into a woman, a Queen.

He would still do that. He would be with her during the final years of that transformation and would know the joy of serving her.

But Daemon . . .

Lucivar bit the pillow, muffling his own scream of anguish.

But Daemon . . .

Chapter Ten

Lucivar stood at the edge of the woods, not quite ready to step across the line that divided forest shadow from sun-drenched meadow. The day was warm enough to appreciate shade. Besides, Jaenelle was away on some kind of obligatory trip so there was no reason to hurry back.

Smoke trotted up, chose a tree, lifted a leg, and looked expectantly at Lucivar.

"I marked territory a ways back," Lucivar said.

Smoke's snort was a clear indication of what wolves thought about a human's ability to mark territory properly.

Amused, Lucivar waited until Smoke trotted off before stepping into the sunlight and spreading his wings to let them dry fully. The spring-fed pool Jaenelle had shown him wasn't quite warm enough yet, but he'd enjoyed the brisk dip.

He fanned his wings slowly, savoring the movement. He was halfway through the healing. If everything continued to go well, next week he would test his wings in flight. It was hard to be patient, but, at the end of the day, when he felt the good, quiet ache in his muscles, he knew Jaenelle was setting the right pace for the healing.

Folding his wings, Lucivar set off for the cabin at an easy pace.

Lulled by earlier physical activity and the day's warmth, it took him a moment to realize something wasn't right about the way the two young wolves raced toward him.

Jaenelle had taught him how to communicate with the kindred, and he'd been flattered when she'd told him they were highly selective about which humans they would speak to. But now, bracing himself as the wolves ran toward him, he wondered how much their opinion of him depended upon her presence.

A minute later he was engulfed in fur, fighting for balance while the wolf behind him wrapped its forelegs around his waist and pushed him forward and the one in front of him placed its paws on his shoulders and leaned hard against him, earnestly licking his face and whimpering for reassurance.

Their thoughts banged against his mind, too upset to be coherent.

The Lady had returned. The bad thing was going to happen. They were afraid. Smoke guarding, waiting for Lucivar. Lucivar come now. He was human. He would help the Lady.

Lucivar got untangled enough to start walking quickly toward the cabin. They didn't say she was hurt, so she wasn't wounded. But something bad was going to happen. Something that made them afraid to enter the cabin and be with her.

He remembered how uneasy Smoke had been when Jaenelle told them she was leaving for a few days.

Something bad. Something a human would make better.

He sincerely hoped they were right.

He opened the cabin door and understood why the wolves were afraid.

She sat in the rocking chair in front of the hearth, just staring.

The psychic pain in the room staggered him. The psychic shield around her felt deceptively passive, as easy to brush aside as a cobweb. Beneath the passivity, however, lay something that, if unleashed, would extract a brutal price.

Pulling his wings in tight, Lucivar carefully circled around the shield until he stood in front of her.

The Black Jewel around her neck glowed with deadly fire.

He shook, not sure if he was afraid for himself or for her. He closed his eyes and made rash promises to the Darkness to keep from being sick on the spot.

Having lived in Terreille most of his life, he recognized someone who had been tortured. He didn't think she'd been physically harmed, but there were subtle kinds of abuse that were just as destructive. Certainly, her body had paid a terrible price over the past four days. The weight she'd put on had been consumed along with the muscle she'd built up by working with him. Her skin was stretched too tight over her face and looked fragile enough to tear. Her eyes . . .

He couldn't stand what he saw in those eyes.

She sat there, quietly bleeding to death from a soul wound, and he didn't know how to help her, didn't know if there was anything he could do that would help her.

"Cat?" he called softly. "Cat?"

He felt her revulsion when she finally looked at him, saw the emotions writhing and twisting in those haunted, bottomless eyes.

She blinked. Sank her teeth into her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Blinked again. "Lucivar." Neither a question nor a statement, but an identification painfully drawn up from some deep well inside her. "Lucivar." Tears filled her eyes. "Lucivar?" A plea for comfort.

"Drop the shield, Cat." He watched her struggle to understand him. Sweet Darkness, she was so young. "Drop the shield. Let me in."

The shield dissolved. So did she. But she was in his arms before the first heart-tearing sob began. He settled them in the rocking chair and held her tight, murmuring soothing nothings, trying to rub warmth into icy limbs.

When the sobs eased to sniffles, he rubbed his cheek against her hair. "Cat, I think I should take you to your father's house."

"No!" She pushed at him, struggling to get free.

Her nails could have opened him to the bone. The venom in her snake tooth could have killed him twice over. One surge of the Black Jewels could have blown apart his inner barriers and left him a drooling husk.

Instead, she struggled futilely against a stronger body. That told him more about her temperament than anything else she might have done—and also explained why this had happened in the first place. Her temper had probably slipped once and the result had scared the shit out of her. Now she didn't trust herself to display any anger—even in self-defense. Well, he could do something about that.

"Cat—"

"No." She gave one more push. Then, too weak to fight anymore, she collapsed against him.

"Why?" He could think of one reason she was afraid to go home.

The words spilled out of her. "I know I look bad. I know. That's why I can't go home now. If Papa saw me, he'd be upset. He'd want to know what happened, and I can't tell him that, Lucivar. I can't. He'd be so angry, and he'd have another fight with the Dark Council and they'd just cause more trouble for him."

To Lucivar's way of thinking, having her father explode in a murderous rage over what had been done to her would be all to the good. Unfortunately, Jaenelle didn't share his way of thinking. She'd rather endure something that devastated her than cause trouble between her beloved papa and the Dark Council. That might suit her and the Dark Council and her papa, but it didn't suit him.

"That's not good enough, Cat," he said, keeping his voice low. "Either you tell me what happened, or I bundle you up and take you to your father right now."

Jaenelle sniffed. "You don't know where he is."

"Oh, I'm sure if I create enough of a fuss, someone will be happy to tell me where to find the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan."

Jaenelle studied his face. "You're a prick, Lucivar."

He smiled that lazy, arrogant smile. "I told you that the first time we met." He waited a minute, hoping he wouldn't have to prod her and knowing he would. "Which is it going to be, Cat?"

She squirmed. He could understand that. If someone had cornered him the way he'd cornered her, he'd squirm, too. He sensed she wanted physical distance between them before explaining, but he figured he'd hear something closer to the truth if she remained captured on his lap.

Finally giving up, she fluffed her hair and signed. "When I was twelve, I was hurt very badly—"

Was that how they had explained the rape to her? Being hurt?

"—and Papa became my legal guardian." She seemed to have a hard time breathing, and her voice thinned until, even sitting that close, he had to strain to hear her. "I woke up—came back to my body—two years later. I . . . was different when I came back, but Papa helped me rebuild my life piece by piece. He found teachers for me and encouraged my old friends to visit and he u-understood me." Her voice turned bitter. "But the Dark Council didn't think Papa was a suitable guardian and they tried to take me away from him and the rest of the family, so I stopped them and they had to let me stay with Papa."

Stopped them. Lucivar turned over the possibilities of how she could have stopped them. Apparently, she hadn't done quite enough.

"To placate the Council, I agreed to spend one week each season socializing with the aristo families in Little Terreille."

"Which doesn't explain why you came back in this condition," Lucivar said quietly. He rubbed her arm, trying to warm her up. He was sweating. She still shivered.

"It's like living in Terreille again," she whispered. The haunted look filled her eyes. "No, worse than that. It's like living in—" She paused, puzzled.

"Even aristos in Little Terreille have to eat," he said gently.

Her eyes glazed over. Her voice sounded hollow. "Can't trust the food. Never trust the food. Even if you test it, you can't always sense the badness until it's too late. Can't sleep. Mustn't sleep. But they get to you anyway. Lies are true, and truth is punished. Bad girl. Sick-mind girl to make up such lies."

An icy fist pressed into Lucivar's lower back as he wondered what nightmare in the inner landscape she was wandering through right now.

Capturing her chin between his thumb and finger, Lucivar turned her head, forcing her to look at him. "You're not a bad girl, you're not sick, and you don't lie," he said firmly.

She blinked. Confusion filled her eyes. "What?"

Would she understand if he told her what she'd said? He doubted it. "So the food is lousy and you don't sleep well. That still doesn't explain why you came back in this shape. What did they do to you, Cat?"

"Nothing," she whispered, closing her eyes. Her throat worked convulsively. "It's just that boys expect to be kissed and—"

"They expect what?" Lucivar snarled.

"—I'm f-f-frigid and—"

"Frigid!" Lucivar roared, ignoring her frightened squeak. "You're seventeen years old. Those strutting little sons of whoring bitches shouldn't be trying anything with you that would even bring up the question of whether or not you're 'frigid.' And where in the name of Hell were the chaperons?"

He rocked furiously, petting her hair with one hand while his other arm tightened protectively around her. Her yip of pain when he accidentally pinched her arm snapped him out of a red haze. He muttered an apology, resettled her in his lap, and began rocking at a more soothing tempo. After a couple of minutes, he shook his head.

"Frigid," he said with a snort of disgust. "Well, Cat, if objecting to having someone slobber on you or grope and squeeze you is their definition of frigid, then I'm frigid, too. They have no right to use you, no matter what they say. Any man who tells you otherwise deserves a knife between the ribs." He gave her a considering look, then shook his head. "You'd probably find it hard to gut a man. That's all right. I don't."

Jaenelle stared at him, wide-eyed.

He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and massaged gently. "Listen to me, Cat, because I'll only say this once. You're the finest Lady I've ever met and the dearest friend I've ever had. Besides that, I love you like a brother, and any bastard who hurts my little sister is going to answer to me."

"Y-you can't," she whispered. "The agreement—'"

"I'm not part of that damn agreement." He gave her a little shake, wondering how he could get that frail, bruised look out of her eyes. Then he squelched a grin. He'd do what he'd do with any feline he wanted to spark—rub her the wrong way. "Besides, Lady," he said in a courteous snarl, "you broke a solemn promise to me, and breaking a promise to a Warlord Prince is a serious offense."

Her eyes flashed fire. He could almost feel her back arch and the nonexistent fur stand on end. Maybe he wouldn't have to dig that hard to bring a little of her temper to the surface. "I never did!"

"Yes, you did. I distinctly remember teaching you what to do—"

"They weren't standing behind me!"

Lucivar narrowed his eyes. "You don't have any human male friends?"

"Of course I do!"

"And not one of them has ever taken you behind the barn and taught you what to do with your knee?" Her fingernails suddenly required her attention. "That's what I thought," Lucivar said dryly. "So I'll give you a choice. If one of those fine, rutting aristo males does something you don't like, you can give him a hard knee in the balls or I can start with his feet and end with his neck and break every bone in between."

"You couldn't."

"It's not that difficult. I've done it before." He waited a minute, then tapped her chin. She closed her mouth.

Then she seemed to shrink into herself. "But, Lucivar," she said weakly, "what if it's my fault that he's aroused and needs relief?"

He snorted, amused. "You didn't actually fall for that, did you?"

Her eyes narrowed to slits.

"I don't know how things are in Kaeleer, but it used to be, in Terreille, that a young man could register at a Red Moon house and not only get his relief but also learn how to do more than a thirty-second poke and hump."

She made a choking sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.

"And if they can't afford a Red Moon house, they can get their own relief easily enough."

"How?"

Lucivar suppressed a grin. Sometimes catching her interest was as easy as rolling a ball of yarn in front of a kitten. "I'm not sure an older brother is the right person to explain that," he said primly.

She studied him. "You don't like sex, do you?"

"Not my experience of it, no." He traced her fingers, needing to be honest. "But I've always thought that if I cared about a woman, it would be wonderful to give her that kind of pleasure." He shook himself and set her on her feet. "Enough of this. You need to eat and get your strength back. There's beef soup and a loaf of fresh bread."

Jaenelle paled. "It won't stay down. It never does after . . ."

"Try."

When they sat down to eat, she managed three spoonfuls of soup and one mouthful of bread before she bolted into the bathroom.

His own appetite gone, Lucivar cleared the table. He was pouring the soup back into the pan when Smoke slunk into the kitchen.

*Lucivar?*

Lucivar lifted his bowl of soup. "You want some of this?"

Smoke ignored the offer. *Bad dreams come now. Hurt the Lady. She not talk to us, not see us, not want males near. Not eat, not sleep, walk walk walk, snarl at us. Bad dreams now, Lucivar.*

*Do the bad dreams always come after one of these visits?* Lucivar asked, narrowing his thoughts to a spear thread.

Smoke bared his teeth in a silent snarl. *Always.*

Lucivar's stomach clenched. So it didn't end once she got away from Little Terreille. *How long?* The kindred had a fluid sense of time, but Smoke, at least, understood basic divisions of day and night.

Smoke cocked his head. *Night, day, night, day . . . maybe night.*

So she'd spend tonight and the next two days trying to outrun the nightmares hovering at the edge of her vision by depleting an already exhausted body that she would mercilessly flog until it collapsed under the strain of no food, no water, no rest. What kind of dreams could drive a young woman to such masochistic cruelty?

He found out that night.

The change in her breathing snapped him out of a light sleep. Propping himself up on one arm, he reached for her shoulder.

*Can't wake when bad dreams come.* Standing at the foot of the bed, Smoke's eyes caught the moonlight.

*Why?*

*Not see us. Not know us. All dreams.*

Lucivar swore under his breath. If every sound, every touch got sucked into the dreamscape.

Jaenelle's body arched like a tightly strung bow.

He studied the clenched, straining muscles and swore again. She'd be hurting sore in the morning.

The tension went out of her body. She collapsed against the mattress, twitching, moaning, sweat-soaked.

He had to wake her up. If it took throwing her into a cold shower or walking her around the meadow for the rest of the night, he was going to wake her up.

He reached out again . . . and she began to talk.

Every word was a physical blow as the memories poured out.

His head bowed, his body flinching, he listened as she talked about and to Marjane, Myrol and Rebecca, Dannie, and, especially, Rose. He listened to the horrors a child had witnessed and endured in a place called Briarwood. He listened to the names of the men who had hurt her, hurt them all. And he suffered with her as she relived the rape that had torn her apart physically and had shattered her mind, the rape that had made her desperately try to sever the link between body and spirit.

As she plunged once again into an abyss beyond reach, she took a deep, ragged breath, murmured a name, and was still.

He watched her for several minutes until he felt reasonably sure she was just sleeping deeply. Then he went into the bathroom and was quietly, but thoroughly, sick.

He rinsed out his mouth, padded into the kitchen, and poured a generous dose of whiskey. Naked, he stepped onto the porch and let the night air dry the sweat from his skin while he sipped his drink.

Smoke came out of the cabin, standing so close his fur tickled Lucivar's bare leg. The two young wolves remained huddled at the far end of the porch.

*She never remembers, does she?* Lucivar asked Smoke.

*No. The Darkness is kind.*

Maybe she just wasn't ready to face those memories. He certainly wasn't going to push her. But he had the uneasy feeling that the day would come when someone or something would force that door open and she would have to face her past. Until then, there were some things he would hold in silence—and he hoped she would forgive him.

He'd heard pain when she'd talked about the men who had hurt her. He'd heard pain when she'd talked about the man who had raped her.

But the only time she'd mentioned Daemon, his name had sounded like a promise, like a caress.

Blinking back tears and leashing his guilt, Lucivar finished the whiskey and turned to go back inside.

Lucivar settled on the tree stump that marked the usual halfway point for walkies. Summer was over. The healing was complete. Two days ago, he had successfully made the Khaldharon Run. Yesterday, he and Jaenelle had gone to the Fyreborn Islands to play with the small dragons who lived there. He would have happily spent today being lazy, but something had pushed Jaenelle out of the cabin the moment they'd returned this morning, and the way she shied away from his questions told him it had to do with him.

Well, if you couldn't entice the kitten with a ball of yarn, you certainly could provoke her with a fast dunk in a tub of cold water.

"You could have warned me, Cat."

Jaenelle bristled. "I told you to watch your angle when you whomped that wave." Her eyes flicked to his right side. She chewed her lower lip. "Lucivar, that bruise looks awfully nasty. Are you sure—"

"I wasn't talking about the wave," Lucivar said through his teeth. "I was talking about the pickle berries."

"Oh." Jaenelle sat down near the tree stump. She gave him a slanty-eyed look. "Well, I did think the name was sufficient warning so that a person wouldn't just sink his teeth into one."

"I was thirsty. You said they were juicy."

"They are," Jaenelle pointed out so reasonably that he wanted to belt her. She wrapped her arms around her knees. "The dragons were extremely impressed by the sounds you made. They wondered if you were demonstrating territorial claims or a mating challenge."

Lucivar shuddered at the memory of biting into that aptly named fruit. Juicy, yes. When he'd bitten into it, the juice had flooded his mouth with golden sweetness for a moment before the tartness made his teeth curl and his throat close. He'd stomped and howled so much he could understand why the dragons thought he'd been showing them examples of Eyrien display. To add to the insult, the dragons had chomped on pickle berries throughout that whole damn performance while Jaenelle had nibbled daintily and watched with wide-eyed apprehension.

The little traitor. She was sitting close enough to reach, the trusting little fool. No weapons. He wanted his bare hands on her. Strangling would be too quick, too permanent. Pulling her across his lap and whacking her ass until his hand got hot . . .

She shifted her hips, putting her just out of reach.

Lucivar bared his teeth in a smile, acknowledging the movement.

Shifting a little farther, she began to pluck grass. "I gave Mrs. Beale a pickle berry once," she said in a small voice.

Lucivar stared at the meadow. Over the past three months, he'd heard plenty of stories about the cook who worked for Jaenelle's family. "Did you tell her what it's called?"

"No." A small, pleased smile curved Jaenelle's lips.

He clenched his teeth. "What happened?"

"Well, Papa asked me if I had any idea why those sounds were coming from the kitchen and I said I did have some idea and he said 'I see,' stuffed me into one of our private Coaches, and told Khary to take me to Morghann's house since Scelt was on the other side of the Realm."

Struggling to keep a straight face, Lucivar clamped his right hand over his left wrist hard enough to hurt. It helped.

"The next morning, Mrs. Beale cornered Papa in his study and told him that I'd given her a sample of a new kind of fruit and, having thought about it, she'd decided that it would enhance the flavor of a number of common dishes and she'd appreciate having some. Then she set a wicker basket on Papa's desk and Papa had to tell her that he didn't know where the fruit came from and Mrs. Beale pointed out that, obviously, I did, and Papa just as politely pointed out that I was not at home at the moment and Mrs. Beale suggested that he and her wicker basket go find me and bring back the desired fruit. So he did and we did and because the Fyreborn Islands are a closed Territory, Mrs. Beale is envied by other cooks for her ability to produce this unique taste in the food she prepares."

Lucivar rubbed his head vigorously, then smoothed back his shoulder-length black hair. "Does Mrs. Beale outrank your father?"

"Not by a long shot," Jaenelle said tartly, and then added plaintively, "It's just that she's rather . . . large."

"I'd like to meet Mrs. Beale. I think I'm in love." He looked at Jaenelle's horrified expression, fell off the stump, and laughed himself silly.

He laughed even harder when she poked him, and said worriedly, "You were joking, weren't you, Lucivar? Lucivar?"

With a whoop, he yanked her down on top of him and wrapped his arms around her tight enough to hold her and loose enough not to panic her. "You should have been Eyrien," he said once his laughter had settled to a quiet simmer. "You've got the brass for it."

Then he smoothed her hair away from her face. "What is it, Cat?" he asked quietly. "What am I going to find so bitter to swallow that you wanted to give me this burst of sweetness first?"

Jaenelle traced his collarbone. "You're healed now."

He could almost taste her reluctance. "So?"

She rolled away from him and leaped to her feet, a movement so graceful nothing tame could have made it.

He rose more slowly, snapped his wings open to clear away the dust and bits of grass, settled on the tree stump again, and waited.

"Even after the war between Terreille and Kaeleer, people came through the Gates," Jaenelle said quietly, her eyes fixed on the horizon. "Mostly those who'd been born in the wrong place and were seeking 'home.' And there's always been some trading between Terreille and Little Terreille.

"A couple of years ago, the Dark Council decided to allow more open contact with Terreille, and aristo Blood began pouring in to see the Shadow Realm. The number of lower-ranking Blood wanting to immigrate to Kaeleer should have warned the Council about what courts are like in Terreille, but Little Terreille opened its arms to embrace the kinship ties. However, Kaeleer is not Terreille. Blood Law and Protocol can be . . . understood differently.

"Too many Terreilleans refused to understand that what they could get away with in Terreille isn't tolerated in Kaeleer, and they died.

"A year ago, in Dharo, three Terreillean males raped a young witch for sport. Raped her until her mind was so broken there was no one left to sing back to the body. She was my age."

Lucivar concentrated on his clenched hands, forcing them to open. "Did they catch the bastards who did it?"

Jaenelle smiled grimly. "The Dharo males executed those men. Then they banished the rest of the Terreilleans in Dharo, sending them back to Little Terreille. Within six months, the fatality rate for Terreilleans in most Territories was over ninety percent. Even in tittle Terreille it was over half. Since the slaughter strained good feelings between the Realms, the Dark Council passed some rules of immigration. Now, a Terreillean who wants to immigrate has to serve a Kaeleer witch to her satisfaction for a specified time. Non-Jeweled Blood have to serve for eighteen months. The lighter Jewels have to serve three years, the darker Jewels five. Queens and Warlord Princes of any rank have to serve five years."

Lucivar felt sick. His body shook. He felt detached sympathy for it. To her satisfaction. That meant the bitch could do anything to him and he would have to allow it if he wanted to stay in Kaeleer.

He tried to laugh. It sounded panicked.

She knelt beside him and petted him anxiously. "Lucivar, it won't be so bad. Truly. The Queens. . . . Serving in Kaeleer isn't like serving in Terreille. I know all of the Territory Queens. I'll help you find someone who suits you, someone you'll enjoy serving."

"Why can't I serve you?" He spread his hands over her shoulders, needing her to be his anchor as he fought against hurt and panic. "You like me—at least some of the time. And we work well together."

"Oh, Lucivar," Jaenelle said gently, cupping his face in her hands. "I always like you. Even when you're being a pain in the ass. But you should have the experience of serving in a Kaeleer court."

"You'll be setting up your court in a year or two."

"I'm not going to have a court. I don't want to have that kind of power over someone else's life. Besides, you don't want to serve me. You don't know about me, don't understand—"

He lost patience. "What? That you're Witch?"

She looked shocked.

He rubbed her shoulders, and said dryly, "Wearing the Black at your age makes it rather obvious, Cat. Anyway, I've known who, and what, you were since I met you." He tried to smile. "The night we met, I'd asked the Darkness for a strong Queen I'd be proud to serve, and there you were. Of course, you were a bit younger than I'd imagined, but I wasn't going to be picky about it. Cat, please. I've waited a lifetime to serve you. I'll do anything you want. Please don't send me away."

Jaenelle closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest. "It's not that easy, Lucivar. Even if you can accept what I am—"

"I do accept what you are."

"There are other reasons why you might not be willing to serve me."

Something inside him settled. He understood the custom of passing tests or challenges in order to earn a privilege. Whether she realized it or not, she was offering him a chance. "How many?"

She looked at him blankly.

"How many reasons? Set a number, now. If I can accept them, then I can choose to serve you. That's fair."

She gave him a strange look. "And will you be honest with yourself as well as with me about whether you can really accept them?"

"Yes."

She pulled away from him, sitting just out of reach. After several minutes of tense silence, she said, "Three."

Three. Not a dozen or so to natter about. Just three. Which meant he had to take them seriously. "All right. When?"

Jaenelle flowed to her feet. "Now. Pack a bag and plan to stay overnight." She headed for the cabin at a swift pace.

Lucivar followed her but didn't try to catch up. Three tests would determine the next five years of his life.

She'd be fair. Whether she liked the end result or not, she'd be fair. And so would he.

As he approached the cabin, the wolves ran out to greet him, offering furry comfort to the adopted member of their pack.

Lucivar buried his hands in their fur. If he had to serve someone else, would he ever see them again? He would be honest. He wouldn't abuse her trust in him. But he was going to win.

Lucivar's heart pounded against his chest. He had never been inside the Keep, not even an outside courtyard. A half-breed bastard wasn't worthy of entering this place. If he'd learned nothing else in the Eyrien hunting camps, he'd learned that, no matter what Jewels he wore or how skilled he was with weapons, his birth made him unworthy to lick the boots of the ones who lived in Ebon Askavi, the Black Mountain.

Now he was here, walking beside Jaenelle through massive rooms with vaulted ceilings, through open courtyards and gardens, through a labyrinth of wide corridors—and the prickle between his shoulder blades told him that something had been watching him since he entered the Keep. Something that flitted inside the stone, hid inside shadows, created shadows where shadows shouldn't exist. Not malevolent—at least, not yet. But the stories about what guarded the Keep were the fireside tales that frightened young boys sleepless.

Lucivar twitched his shoulders and followed his Lady.

By the time they reached the upper levels that appeared to be more inhabited, Lucivar began wistfully eyeing the benches and chairs that lined the corridors and promising himself a drink of water from the next indoor fountain or decorative waterfall they came to.

Jaenelle had said nothing since they'd stepped off the landing web in the outer courtyard. Her silence was supportive but not comforting. He understood that. Ebon Askavi was Witch's home. If he served her, he had to come to terms with the place without leaning on her.

She reached an intersection of corridors, glanced left, and smiled. "Hello, Draca. This is Lucivar Yaslana. Lucivar, this is Draca, the Keep's Seneschal."

Draca's psychic scent, filled with great age and old, dark power, unnerved him as much as the reptilian cast of her features. He bowed respectfully, but was too nervous to speak a proper greeting.

Her unblinking eyes stared at him. He caught a whiff of emotion that unraveled his nerves even more. For some reason, he amused her.

"Sso, you have finally come," Draca said. When Lucivar didn't answer, she turned to Jaenelle. "He iss sshy?"

"Hardly that," Jaenelle said dryly, looking amused. "But a bit overwhelmed, I think. I gave him the long tour of the Keep."

"And he iss sstill sstanding?" Draca sounded approving.

Lucivar would have appreciated her approval more if his legs weren't shaking so badly.

"We have guestss. Sscholarss. You will wissh to dine privately?"

"Yes, thank you," Jaenelle said.

Draca stepped aside, moving with careful, ancient grace. "I will let you continue your journey." She stared at Lucivar again. "Welcome, Prince Yasslana."

Jaenelle led him down another maze of corridors. "There's someone else I want you to meet. By then, Draca will have a guest room ready for you, one with a whirl-bath. It'll be good for those tight leg muscles." She studied his face. "Did she intimidate you?"

He'd promised honesty. "Yes."

Jaenelle shook her head, baffled. "Everyone says that. I don't understand. She's a marvelous person when you get to know her."

He glanced at the Black Jewel hanging above the V neckline of her slim, black tunic-sweater and decided against trying to explain it.

After another flight of stairs and several twists and turns, Jaenelle finally stopped in front of a door. He sincerely hoped their destination was behind it. A door stood open at the end of the corridor. Voices drifted out of the room, enthusiastic and hot, but not angry. Must be the scholars.

Ignoring the voices, Jaenelle opened the door, and they stepped into part of the Keep's library. A large blackwood table filled one side of the room. At the other end were comfortable chairs and small tables. The back wall was a series of large arches. Beyond them, stacks of reference books stretched out of sight. The arch on the far right was fitted with a wooden door.

"The rest of the library is general reference, Craft, folklore, and history," Jaenelle said. "Things anyone can come and use. These rooms contain the older reference material, the more esoteric Craft texts, and the Blood registers, and can only be used with Geoffrey's permission."

"Geoffrey?"

"Yes?" said a quiet baritone voice.

He was the palest man Lucivar had ever seen. Skin like polished marble combined with black hair, black eyes, black clothes, and deep red lips that looked inviting in an unnerving sort of way. But there was something strange about his psychic scent, something inexplicably different. Almost as if the man weren't . . .

Guardian.

The word slammed into Lucivar, freezing his lungs.

Guardian. One of the living dead.

Jaenelle made the introductions. Then she smiled at Geoffrey. "Why don't you get acquainted? There's something I want to look up."

Geoffrey looked pained. "At least tell me the name of the volume before you leave. The last time I couldn't tell your father where you 'looked something up,' he treated me to some eloquent phrases that would have made me blush if I was still capable of doing it."

Jaenelle patted Geoffrey's shoulder and kissed his cheek. "I'll bring the book out and even mark the page for you."

"So kind of you."

Laughing, Jaenelle disappeared into the stacks.

Geoffrey turned to Lucivar. "So. You've finally come."

Why did they make him feel like he'd kept them waiting?

Geoffrey lifted a decanter. "Would you like some yarbarah? Or some other refreshment?"

With some effort, Lucivar found his voice. "Yarbarah's fine."

"Have you ever drunk yarbarah?" Geoffrey asked drolly.

"It's drunk during some Eyrien ceremonies." Of course, the cup used for those ceremonies held a mouthful of the blood wine. Geoffrey, he noted apprehensively, was filling and warming two wineglasses.

"It's lamb," Geoffrey said, handing a glass to Lucivar and settling into a chair beside the table.

Lucivar gratefully sank into a chair opposite Geoffrey and sipped the yarbarah. There was more blood in the mixture than was used in the ceremonies, the wine more full-bodied.

"How do you like it?" Geoffrey's black eyes sparkled.

"It's . .." Lucivar struggled to find something mild to say.

"Different," Geoffrey suggested. "It's an acquired taste, and here we drink it for other reasons than ceremonial."

Guardian. Was the blood mixed with the wine ever human? Lucivar took another swallow and decided he wasn't curious enough to ask.

"Why have you never come to the Keep, Lucivar?"

Lucivar set the glass down carefully. "I was under the impression a half-breed bastard wouldn't be welcome here."

"I see," Geoffrey said mildly. "Except for those who care for the Keep, who has the right to decide who is welcome and who is not?"

Lucivar forced himself to meet Geoffrey's eyes. "I'm a half-breed bastard," he said again, as if that should explain everything.

"Half-breed." Geoffrey sounded as if he were turning the word over and over. "The way you say it, it sounds insulting. Perhaps dual bloodline would be a more accurate way to think of it." He leaned back, cradling the wineglass in both hands. "Has it ever occurred to you that, without that other bloodline, you wouldn't be the man you are? That you wouldn't have the intelligence and strength you have?" He waved his glass at Lucivar's Ebon-gray Jewel. "That you never would have worn those? For all that you are Eyrien, Lucivar, you are also your father's son."

Lucivar froze. "You know my father?" he asked in a choked voice.

"We've been friends for many years."

It was there, in front of him. All he had to do was ask.

It took him two tries to get the word out. "Who?"

"The Prince of the Darkness," Geoffrey said gently. "The High Lord of Hell. It's Saetan's bloodline that runs through your veins."

Lucivar closed his eyes. No wonder his paternity had never been registered. Who would have believed a woman who claimed to be seeded by the High Lord? And if anyone had believed her, imagine the panic that would have caused. Saetan still walked the Realms. Mother Night!

Had Daemon ever learned who had sired them? He would have been pleased with this paternal bloodline.

The thought lanced through him. He locked it away.

At least there was one thing he was still sure of. Maybe. He looked at Geoffrey, afraid of either answer. "I'm still a bastard."

Geoffrey sighed. "I'm reluctant to pull the rest of the ground out from under you but, no, you're not. He formally registered you the day after you were born. Here, at the Keep."

He wasn't a bastard. They . . . "Daemon?" Had he said it out loud?

"Registered as well."

Mother Night. They weren't bastards. He scrambled, clawing for solid ground that kept turning into quicksand under him. "Doesn't make any difference since no one else knew."

"Have you ever been encouraged to play stud, Lucivar?"

Encouraged, pressured, imprisoned, punished, drugged, beaten, forced. They'd been able to use him, but they'd never been able to breed him. He'd never known if the reason was physical or if, somehow, his own rage had kept him sterile. He'd wondered sometimes why they'd wanted his seed so badly. Knowing who had sired him and the potential strength of any offspring he might produce. . . . Yes, they'd overlook a great deal to have him sire offspring for specific covens, specific aristo houses with failing bloodlines.

He gulped the yarbarah. Cold, it tasted thick. Shaking and choking, he wondered if his stomach was going to stay down.

A small water glass and another decanter appeared. "Here," Geoffrey said as he quickly filled the glass and shoved it into Lucivar's hand. "I believe whiskey is the proper drink for this kind of shock."

The whiskey cleansed his mouth and burned all the way down. He held out the glass for a refill.

By the time he drained his fourth glass, he was still shaking, but he also felt fuzzy and numb. He liked fuzzy and numb.

"What did you do to Lucivar?" Jaenelle asked, dropping the book on the table. "I thought I was the only one who made him look like that."

"Fuzzy and numb," Lucivar murmured, resting his head against her.

"So I see," Jaenelle replied, petting him.

A soft warmth surrounded him. That felt nice, too.

"Come on, Lucivar," Jaenelle said. "Let's tuck you into a bed."

He didn't want her to think four paltry glasses of whiskey could put him under the table, so he stood up.

The last things he clearly remembered seeing before the room began moving in unpredictable ways were Geoffrey's gentle smile and the understanding in Jaenelle's eyes.

Jaenelle was gone before he woke the next morning, leaving him to deal with a throbbing head and the emotional upheaval on his own. When he'd found out she'd left him at the Keep, he'd come close to hating her, silently accusing her of being cold, cruel, and unfeeling.

He spent the two days she was gone exploring the Keep and the mountain called Ebon Askavi. He returned for meals because he was expected to, spoke only when required, and retreated to his room each evening. The wolves offered silent company. He petted and brushed them and, finally, asked the question that had bothered him.

Yes, Smoke told him reluctantly, Lucivar had cried. Heart pain. Caught-in-a-trap pain. The Lady had petted and petted, sung and sung.

It had been more than a dream, then.

In one of the dreamscapes Black Widows spun so well, Jaenelle had met the boy he had been and had drawn the poison from the soul wound. He had wept for the boy, for the things he hadn't been allowed to do, for the things he hadn't been allowed to be. But he didn't weep for the man he'd become. "Ah, Lucivar," she'd said regretfully as they'd walked through the dreamscape. "I can heal the scars on your body, but I can't heal the scars of the soul. Not yours, not mine. You have to learn to live with them. You have to choose to live beyond them."

He couldn't remember anything else in the dream. Perhaps he wasn't meant to. But because of it, he didn't weep for the man he'd become.

Lucivar and Jaenelle stood on the wall of one of the Keep's outer courtyards, looking out over the valley.

Jaenelle pointed to the village below them. "Riada is the largest village in Ebon Rih. Agio is at the northern end of the valley. Doun is at the southern end. There are also several landen villages and a number of independent farmsteads, Blood and landen." She brushed stray hairs from her face. "Outside of Doun, there's a large stone house. The property's surrounded by a stone wall. You can't miss it."

He waited. "Is that where we're going?" he finally asked.

"I'm going back to the cabin. You're going to that house."

"Why?"

She kept her eyes fixed on the valley. "Your mother lives there."

A large, three-story, stone house. A low stone wall separating two acres of tended land from the wildflowers and grasses. Vegetable garden, herb garden, flower gardens, rock garden. In one corner, a stand of trees that whispered, "forest."

A solid place that should have welcomed. A place that gave no comfort. Conflicting emotions too familiar, even after all this time.

Sweet Darkness, don't let it be her.

Of course, it was her. And he wondered why she had abandoned him when he was so young he couldn't remember her and then tolerated his visits as a youth without ever once hinting that she was his mother.

He pushed the kitchen door wide open but remained outside. Until he crossed the threshold, she wouldn't realize he was there. How many times had he suggested that she extend her territorial shield a few feet beyond the stone walls she lived in so she'd have some warning of an intruder? One time less than she'd rejected the suggestion.

Her back was to the door as she fussed with something on the counter. He recognized her anyway by that distinctive white streak in her black hair and the stiff, angry way she always moved.

He stepped into the kitchen. "Hello, Luthvian."

She whirled around, a long-bladed kitchen knife in her hand. He knew it wasn't personal. She'd caught the psychic scent of a grown male and had reached automatically for a knife.

She stared at him, her gold eyes growing wider and wider, filming with tears. "Lucivar," she whispered. She took a step toward him. Then another. She made a funny little sound between a laugh and a sob. "She did it. She actually did it." She reached for him.

Lucivar flicked a glance at the knife and didn't move toward her.

Confusion swiftly changed to anger and changed back again. He saw the moment she realized she was pointing a knife at him.

Shaking her head, Luthvian dropped the knife on the kitchen table.

Lucivar stepped farther into the kitchen.

Her tear-bright eyes roamed over him, not like a Healer studying her Sister's Craft but like a woman who truly cared. She pressed one trembling hand against her mouth and reached for him with the other.

Hopeful, heart full, he linked his hand with hers.

And she changed. As she always did, had done since the first time the youth she'd tolerated like a stray-turned-sometimes-pet showed up on her doorstep wearing the traditional dress of an Eyrien warrior, and he'd learned, painfully, that the Black Widow Healer he'd thought of as a friend didn't feel the same way about him after she could no longer call him "boy" and believe it.

Now, as she backed away from him, her eyes filled with wary distrust, he realized for the first time how young she was. Age and maturity became slippery things for the long-lived races. There was rapid growth followed by long plateaus. The white streak in her hair, her Craft skills, her temper and attitude had all helped him believe she was a mature woman granting him her company, a woman centuries older than he. And she was centuries older—and had been just old enough to breed and successfully carry a child to term.

"Why do you despise Eyrien males so much?" he asked quietly.

"My father was one."

Sadly, she didn't have to explain it any better than that.

Then he saw her do what she'd done a hundred times before—subtly shift the way her eyes focused. It was as if she created a sight shield that vanished his wings and left him without the one physical attribute that separated Eyriens from Dhemlans and Hayllians.

Swallowing his anger and a small lump of fear, he pulled out a kitchen chair and straddled it. "Even if I'd lost my wings, I'd still be an Eyrien warrior."

Moving restlessly around the kitchen, Luthvian picked up the knife and shoved it back in the knife rack. "If you'd grown up someplace where males learned how to be decent men instead of brutes—" She wiped her hands on her hips. "But you grew up in the hunting camps like the rest of them. Yes, even without your wings, you'd still be an Eyrien warrior. It's too late for you to be anything else."

He heard the bitterness, the sorrow. He heard the things that were unsaid. "If you felt that strongly, why didn't you do something?" He kept his voice neutral. His heart was being bruised to pulp.

She looked at him, emotions flashing through her eyes. Resignation. Anxiety. Fear. She pulled a chair close to his and sat down. "I had to, Lucivar," she said, pleading. "Giving you to Prythian was a mistake, but at the time I thought it was the only way to hide you from—"

him.

She touched his hand and then pulled away as if burned. "I wanted to keep you safe. She promised you would be safe," she added bitterly. Then her voice turned eager. "But you're here now, and we can be together." She waved her hand, silencing him before he could speak. "Oh, I know about the immigration rule, but I've been here long enough to count as a Kaeleer witch. The work wouldn't be hard, and you'd have plenty of time to be out on the land. I know you like that." She smiled too brightly. "You wouldn't even have to live in the house. We could build a small cabin nearby so that you would have privacy."

Privacy for what? he wondered coldly as the inside kitchen door opened. He felt walls and chains closing in on him.

"What do you want, Roxie?" Luthvian snapped.

Roxie stared at him, her lips turning up in a pouty smile. "Who are you?" she asked, eyeing him hungrily.

"None of your business," Luthvian said tightly. "Get back to your lessons. Now."

Roxie smiled at him, her finger tracing the V neckline of her dress. It made his blood burn, but not the way she imagined.

Lucivar's hands curled into fists. He'd smashed that look off a lot of faces over the centuries. There was battle-fire in the voice he kept low and controlled. "Get the slut out of here before I break her neck."

Roxie's eyes widened in shock.

Luthvian surged out of her chair, tossed Roxie out of the kitchen, and slammed the door.

Fine tremors ran through him. "Well, now I know why I need privacy. It would be an extra selling point for your school, wouldn't it? Your students would have the use of a strong Warlord Prince. You could assure fretful parents that their daughters would have a safe Virgin Night. I wouldn't dare provide anything else since the witch I serve has to be served to her satisfaction."

"It wouldn't be like that," Luthvian insisted, gripping the back of a chair. "You'd get something out of it, too. Hell's fire, Lucivar, you're a Warlord Prince. You need sexual relief on a regular basis just to keep your temper in check."

"I've never needed it before," he snarled, "and I don't need it now. I can keep my temper in check just fine— when I choose to."

"Then you don't choose to very often!"

"No, I don't. Especially when I'm being forced into a bed."

Luthvian smashed the chair against the table. She bared her teeth. "Forced to. Oh, yes, it's such an onerous task to give a little pleasure, isn't it? Forced to! You sound like—"

your father.

He'd tolerated her temper before, withstood her tantrums before. He'd tried to be understanding. He was trying hard now. What he couldn't understand was why a man like the High Lord had ever wanted to mount and breed such a troubled young woman.

"Tell me about my father, Luthvian."

Desperation and a keening rage flooded the kitchen. "It's past. It's done. He's not part of our lives."

"Tell me."

"He didn't want us! He didn't love us! He threatened to slit your throat in the cradle if I didn't do what he wanted." The length of the table stood between them. She stood there, shaking, hugging herself.

So young. So troubled. And he couldn't help her. They would destroy each other inside of a week if he tried to stay here with her.

She gave him a wavering smile. "We can be together. You can stay—"

"I'm already in service." He hadn't meant for it to come out so harshly, but it was kinder than saying he would never serve her.

Vulnerability crystallized into rejection, rejection froze into rage. "Jaenelle," Luthvian said, her voice dangerously empty. "She has a gift for wrapping males around her little finger." She braced her hands on the table. "You want to know about your father? Go ask precious Jaenelle. She knows him better than I ever did."

Lucivar snapped to his feet, knocking the chair over. "No."

Luthvian smiled with pleased malice. "Be careful how you play with your sire's toys, little Prince. He just might snip your balls off. Not that it would matter."

Never taking his eyes off her, Lucivar righted the chair and backed away to the outer kitchen door. Years of training kept him surefooted as he crossed the threshold. One more step. Two.

The door slammed in his face.

A moment later, he heard dishes smashing on the floor.

She knows him better than I ever did.

It was late afternoon by the time he reached the cabin. He was dirty, hungry, and shaking from physical and emotional fatigue.

He approached slowly but couldn't bring himself to step onto the porch where Jaenelle sat reading.

She closed the book and looked at him.

Wise eyes. Ancient eyes. Haunting and haunted eyes.

He forced the words out. "I want to meet my father. Now."

She studied him. When she finally answered, her gentle compassion inflicted pain he had no defense against. "Are you sure, Lucivar?"

No, he wasn't sure! "Yes, I'm sure."

Jaenelle remained seated. "Then there's something you need to understand before we go."

He heard the warning underneath the gentleness and compassion.

"Lucivar, your father is also my adopted father."

Frozen, he stared at her, finally understanding. He could accept them both or walk away from both, but he wouldn't be allowed to serve her and battle with a man who already had a claim on her love.

She'd been right when she'd said there were reasons he might not be able or willing to serve her. The Keep he could handle. He could deal with Luthvian as well. But the High Lord?

There was only one way to find out.

"Let's go," he said.

Jaenelle stepped off the landing web. "This is the family seat."

Lucivar reluctantly stepped off the web. A few months ago, he'd walked through the ruins of SaDiablo Hall in Terreille. Ruins didn't prepare a man for this dark-gray mountain of a building. Hell's fire, an entire court could live in the place and not get in each other's way.

Then the significance of her living at the Hall finally hit him, and he turned and stared at her as if he'd never seen her before.

All of those amusing stories she had told him about her loving, beleaguered papa—she had been talking about Saetan. The Prince of the Darkness. The High Lord of Hell. The man who had built the cabin for her, who had helped her rebuild her life. He couldn't reconcile the conflicting images of the man any better than he could reconcile the Hall with the manor house he'd imagined.

And he would never reconcile anything by just standing there.

"Come on, Cat. Let's knock on the door."

The door opened before they reached the top step. The large man standing in the doorway had the stoic, unflappable expression of an upper servant, but he also wore, a Red Jewel.

"Hello, Beale," Jaenelle said as she breezed through the door.

Beale's lips turned up in the tiniest hint of a smile. "Lady."

The smile disappeared when Lucivar walked in. "Prince," Beale said, bowing the exact, polite distance.

The lazy, arrogant smile came automatically. "Lord Beale." He put enough bite in his voice to warn the other man not to tangle with him, but not enough to issue a challenge. He'd never challenged a servant in his life. On the other hand, he'd never met a Red-Jeweled Warlord who was a butler by profession.

Ignoring the subtle, stiff-legged displays of dominance, Jaenelle called in the luggage and dumped it on the floor. "Beale? Would you ask Helene to prepare a suite in the family wing for Prince Yaslana?"

"It would be my pleasure, Lady."

Jaenelle pointed toward the back of the great hall. "Papa?"

"In his study."

Lucivar followed Jaenelle to the last right-hand door, trying, unsuccessfully, to think of another reason besides amusement for the sudden gleam in Beale's eyes.

Jaenelle tapped on the door and went in before anyone answered. Lucivar followed close on her heels and then stumbled as the man standing in front of the blackwood desk turned around.

Daemon.

While they stared at each other, both too startled to respond, Lucivar took in the details that denied the gut reaction.

The dark psychic scent was similar, yet subtly different. The man before him was an inch or two shorter than Daemon and more slender in build, but moved with the same feline grace. The thick black hair was silvered at the temples. His face—lined by laughter as well as by the weight of burdens—belonged to a man at the end of his prime or a little beyond. But that face. Masculine. Handsome. The warmer, rougher model for Daemon's cold, polished beauty. And the final touch—the long, black-tinted nails and the Black-Jeweled ring.

Saetan crossed his arms, leaned back against the desk, and said mildly, "Witch-child, I'm going to throttle you."

Instinctively, Lucivar bared his teeth and stepped forward to protect his Queen.

Jaenelle's aggrieved, adolescent wail stopped him cold.

"That's the sixth time in two weeks and I've barely been home!"

Anger flooded Lucivar. How dare the High Lord threaten her!

Except his darling Cat didn't seem the least bit intimidated and Saetan seemed to be fighting hard to keep a straight face.

"Sixth time?" Saetan said, his deep voice still mild but laced with an undercurrent of amusement.

"Twice from Prothvar, twice from Uncle Andulvar—"

All the blood drained out of Lucivar's head. Uncle Andulvar?

"—once from Mephis, and now you."

Saetan's lips twitched. "Prothvar always wants to throttle you so that's no surprise, and you do have a knack for provoking Andulvar, but what did you do to annoy Mephis?"

Jaenelle stuffed her hands in her trouser pockets. "I don't know," she grumped. "He said he couldn't discuss it while I was in the room."

Saetan's rich, warm laugh filled the room. When his laughter and Jaenelle's temper were both at a simmer, he looked knowingly at Lucivar. "And I suppose Lucivar has never threatened to throttle you, so he wouldn't understand the impulse to express the desire even when there was no intention of ever carrying it out."

"Oh, no," Jaenelle replied. "He just threatens to wallop me."

Saetan stiffened. "I beg your pardon?" he asked softly, coldly.

Lucivar shifted back into a fighting stance.

Startled, Jaenelle looked at both of them. "You're going to argue about the word when you mean the same thing?"

"Stay out of this, Cat," Lucivar snarled, watching his adversary.

Snarling back, she threw a punch at him with enough temper behind it that it could have broken his jaw if he hadn't dodged it.

The tussle that followed was just turning into fun when Saetan roared, "Enough!" He glared at them until they separated, then he rubbed his temples and growled, "How in the name of Hell did the two of you manage to live together and survive?"

Eyeing Jaenelle warily, Lucivar grinned. "She's harder to pin now."

"Don't rub it in," Jaenelle muttered.

Saetan sighed. "You might have warned me, witch-child."

Jaenelle laced her fingers together. "Well, there really wasn't any way for Lucivar to be prepared, so I figured if you both were unprepared, you'd start out on even ground."

They stared at her.

She gave them her best unsure-but-game smile.

"Witch-child, go terrify someone else for a while."

After Jaenelle slipped out of the room, they studied one another.

"You look a lot better than the last time I saw you," Saetan said, breaking the silence, "but you still look ready to keel over." He pushed away from the desk. "Care for some brandy?"

Turning toward the less formal side of the room, Lucivar settled into a chair designed to accommodate Eyrien wings and accepted the glass of brandy. "And when was the last time you saw me?"

Saetan sat on the couch and crossed his legs. He toyed with the brandy glass. "Shortly after Prothvar brought you to the cabin. If he hadn't been standing guard duty at the Sleeping Dragons, if he hadn't managed to reach you before—" He stroked the rim of the glass with a fingertip. "I don't think you realize how severe the injuries were. The internal damage, the broken bones . . . your wings."

Lucivar sipped his brandy. No, he hadn't realized. He'd known it was bad, but once he was in the Khaldharon Run, he'd stopped caring what happened physically. If what Saetan said was true . . .

"So you let a seventeen-year-old Healer take it on alone," he said, struggling to keep a tight rein on his rising anger. "You let her do that much healing, knowing what it would do to her, and left her without so much as a helper or servant to look after her."

Saetan's eyes filled with anger that was just as tightly leashed. "I was there to take care of her. I was there all the time she put you back together. I was there to coax her to eat when she could. I was there to watch the web during the resting times so she could get a little sleep. And when you finally started rising from the healing sleep, I held her and fed her spoonfuls of honeyed tea while she wept from exhaustion and pain because her throat was so raw from singing the healing web. I left the day before you woke because you had enough to deal with without having to come to terms with me. How dare you assume—" Saetan clamped his teeth together.

Dangerous, shaky ground. There might be a great many things he could no longer afford to assume.

Lucivar refilled his glass. "Since there was so much damage, wouldn't it have been better to split the healing between two Healers?" He kept his voice carefully neutral. "Luthvian's a temperamental bitch most of the time, but she's a good Healer."

Saetan hesitated. "She offered. I wouldn't let her because your wings were involved."

"She would have removed them." A small lump of fear settled in Lucivar's stomach.

"Jaenelle was sure she could rebuild them, but it would require a systemic healing—one Healer singing the web because everything had to be pulled into it. There could be no diversions, no hesitations, no lack of commitment to the whole. Doing it Luthvian's way, the two of them could have healed everything but your wings. Jaenelle's way was all or nothing—either you came out of it whole or you didn't survive."

Lucivar could see them—two strong-willed women standing on either side of a bed that held his mangled body. "You decided."

Saetan drained his glass and refilled it. "I decided."

"Why? You threatened to slit my throat in the cradle. Why fight for me now?"

"Because you're my son. But I would have slit your throat." Saetan's voice was strained. "May the Darkness help me, if she'd cut off your wings, I would have."

Cut off your wings. Lucivar felt sick. "Why did you breed her?"

Saetan set the glass down and raked his fingers through his hair. "I didn't mean to. When I agreed to see her through her Virgin Night, I honestly didn't think I was still fertile, and she swore that she'd been drinking the brew to prevent pregnancy, swore it wasn't her fertile time. And she never told me she was Eyrien." He looked up, his eyes filled with pain. "I didn't know. Lucivar, I swear by all I am, until I saw the wings, I didn't know. But you're Eyrien in your soul. Altering your physical appearance would have changed nothing."

Lucivar drained his glass and wondered if he dared ask. This meeting was bruising Saetan as badly as it was bruising him—if not worse. But he had come here to ask so that he could make an honest decision. "Couldn't you have been there sometimes? Even in secret?"

"If you have some objection to my not being part of your life, take it up with your mother. That was her choice, not mine." Saetan closed his eyes. His fingers tightened around his glass. "For reasons I've never been able to explain rationally to myself, I agreed to try to breed with a Black Widow in order to bring a strong, dark bloodline back into the long-lived races. Dorothea was the Hayllian Hourglass's choice but not mine." He hesitated. "Have you ever met Tersa?"

"Yes."

"An extraordinarily gifted witch. Dorothea would never have become the force she is in Terreille if Tersa had survived her Virgin Night. Tersa was my choice. And Tersa became pregnant."

With Daemon.Had Daemon ever known, ever guessed?

"A couple of weeks later, she asked me to see a friend through her Virgin Night, a young Black Widow with strong potential who, if I refused, would end up broken and shattered. I was still capable of performing the service, and I wouldn't have refused Tersa anything within reason. Everyone was willing to accommodate Tersa at that point. No one wanted her to become distressed enough to miscarry since there would be no second chances.

"A few weeks after I saw Luthvian through her Virgin Night, she told me she was pregnant with my child. There was an empty house on the estate, about a mile from the Hall. I insisted she and Tersa live there instead of with Dorothea's court. Tersa wasn't much older than Luthvian, but she understood a great deal more, especially about Guardians. She was content with the companionship I offered. Luthvian was more high-strung and had discovered the pleasure of the bed. She craved sex. For a while, I could still provide the kind of intimacy she wanted. By the time I couldn't, she had lost interest. But after she healed from the birthing, the hunger returned. By then, I could satisfy her in other ways but not the way she craved.

"Between the fights about raising you in Dhemlan, as she wanted, or raising you in Askavi, where I believed you needed to be, and my sexual inability, our relationship became strained to the point that, when she was spoon-fed half-truths about Guardians, she chose to believe them.

"Dorothea timed her schemes well. With Prythian's help, I lost both of you. Within a day, I lost both of you."

Not Luthvian. Daemon.

A sigh shuddered out of Saetan. "Lucivar, for what it's worth, I've never regretted your existence. I've regretted the pain you've endured, but not you. And I'm very glad you survived."

Unable to think of anything to say, Lucivar nodded.

Saetan hesitated. "Would you tell me something, if you can?"

Lucivar knew what Saetan was going to ask. He wasn't sure what he thought about the man who had sired him, but for this moment at least, he could look beyond the titles and the power and see a man asking about one of his children.

He closed his eyes, and said, "He's in the Twisted Kingdom."

Saetan lay on the couch in his study, desperately glad to be alone.

Everything has a price.

He just hadn't expected the price to be so high.

Regrets were useless. And guilt was useless. A Warlord Prince's first duty was to his Queen. But Daemon . . .

Shards of memories floated through him, pricking his heart.

Tersa ripely pregnant, holding his hand against her belly.

Luthvian's constant circle of anger and sexual hunger.

Daemon sitting in his lap while he read a bedtime story.

Lucivar fluttering around the room, laughing gleefully while just staying out of his reach.

Jaenelle turning his study upside down the first time he tried to show her how to use Craft to retrieve her shoes.

Tersa's madness. Luthvian's fury.

Lucivar lying on the bed in the cabin, his body torn apart.

Daemon, lying on Cassandra's Altar, his mind so terribly fragile.

Jaenelle rising out of the abyss after two heartbreaking years.

Fragments. Like Daemon's mind.

Which explained why, during the careful searches he had made over the past two years, he hadn't been able to find this son who was like a mirror. He'd been looking in the wrong place.

A regret slipped in, as useless as any other.

He might be able to find Daemon, but the one person who could have brought Daemon out of the Twisted Kingdom without question was Jaenelle. And Jaenelle was the one person who couldn't know what he intended to do.

Chapter Eleven

Waiting for dinner, Saetan's stomach tightened another notch.

Jaenelle had been home for a week, helping Lucivar adjust to the family—and helping the family adjust to Lucivar—when a pointed letter from the Dark Council arrived, reminding her that she had not finished her visit to Little Terreille.

He still didn't understand Lucivar's cryptic remark, "Knees or bones, Cat," but Jaenelle had stomped out of the Hall spitting Eyrien curses, and Lucivar had seemed grimly pleased.

That had been three days ago.

She had returned abruptly that afternoon, snarled at Beale, "Tell Lucivar I used my knee," and had locked herself in her room.

Disturbed, Beale had informed him of her return and the comment meant for Lucivar, and had added that the Lady seemed unwell.

Jaenelle always seemed unwell after a visit to Little Terreille. He'd never been able to pry the reason for that out of her. Nothing she said about the activities she'd participated in explained the strained, haunted look in her eyes, the weight loss, the restless nights afterward, or the inability to eat.

The only person besides Beale who saw Jaenelle after she returned was Karla. And Karla, teary-eyed and distressed, had picked a fight with the one person she could count on to give her a battle—Lucivar.

After enduring a vicious harangue about males, Lucivar had hauled her out to the lawn, handed her one of the Eyrien sticks, and let her try to whack him. He'd pushed and taunted her until her muscles and emotions finally gave out. He'd offered no explanation, and the fury in his eyes had warned all of them not to ask.

The dining room door opened. Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis joined him, the concern in their eyes needing no words.

Karla arrived a minute later, moving stiffly. Lucivar came in behind her, threw an arm around her shoulders—which, amazingly, produced no temperamental explosion—and helped her into a chair.

Beale appeared, looking as strained as Saetan felt, and said, "The Lady says she will be unable to join you for dinner."

Lucivar pulled out the chair on Saetan's right. "Tell the Lady she's joining us for dinner. She can come down on her own two feet or over my shoulder. Her choice."

Beale's eyes widened.

A low growl of displeasure came, unexpectedly, from Mephis.

The room smelled dangerous.

Wanting to avoid the confrontation building up between the men in the family, Saetan nodded to Beale, silently backing Lucivar.

Beale hastily retreated.

Lucivar just leaned against the chair and waited.

Jaenelle appeared a few minutes later, her face drained of color except for the dark smudges underneath her eyes.

Smiling that lazy, arrogant smile, Lucivar pulled out the chair beside his and waited.

Jaenelle swallowed hard. "I—I'm sorry. I can't."

She moved fast. Lucivar moved faster.

In stunned silence, they watched him drag her to her place at the table and dump her in the chair. She immediately shot upward, smacking into the fist he calmly held above her head. Dazed, she didn't protest when he pushed her chair up to the table and sat down beside her.

Saetan sat down, torn between his concern for Jaenelle and his desire to treat Lucivar to the same kind of affection.

Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis took their seats, bristling. If Lucivar noticed the anger being directed at him, he ignored it.

The arrogance of not acknowledging the displeasure of males of equal or darker rank galled Saetan, but he held his tongue and his temper. There would be time to unleash both later.

"You're going to eat," Lucivar said calmly.

Jaenelle stared at the place setting in front of her. "I can't."

"Cat, if we have to dump the soup on the floor so that you can puke into the tureen, then that's what we'll do. But you're going to eat."

Jaenelle snarled at him.

A pale, shaky footman brought the soup.

Lucivar put a ladle full into her bowl and filled his own halfway. He picked up his spoon and waited.

Her snarl grew louder as she reluctantly picked up her spoon.

After a narrow-eyed, considering look at Lucivar, Karla asked a question about a Craft lesson she was working on.

Mephis responded, and the discussion covered the first course.

Jaenelle ate one spoonful of soup.

Andulvar shifted in his seat, rustling his wings.

Saetan flicked a glance at Andulvar, warning him to keep still. He'd caught the scent of feminine anger. He'd caught Lucivar's tightly focused awareness of Jaenelle and her rising temper—a temper Lucivar was able to provoke with frightening ease.

With each dish offered in the second course, Lucivar selected food for her, pricked at her, scraped away her self-control.

"Liver?" Lucivar asked.

"Only if it's yours," she snapped, her eyes glittering queerly.

Lucivar smiled slightly.

By the end of the second course, Jaenelle was an explosion waiting for a spark, and Saetan couldn't understand the point of taunting her.

Until the meat course.

Lucivar slipped a small piece of prime rib onto her plate and then stacked two large pieces on his own.

Jaenelle stared at the tender, pink-centered meat for a long moment. Then she picked up her knife and fork and began to eat with single-minded intensity. When the meat was gone, she turned to her right and looked at Karla's plate.

Karla's face paled to a ghastly white.

When Jaenelle turned to her left and Saetan got a good look at her eyes, he realized that Lucivar had turned the meal into a violent, brilliantly choreographed dance designed to bring the predatory side of Witch to the surface.

Finally her attention fixed on Lucivar's plate. Snarling softly, she licked her lips and raised her fork.

Keeping his movements slow and deliberate, Lucivar transferred the second piece of prime rib from his plate to hers.

She stabbed the meat with her fork and bared her teeth at him.

Lucivar withdrew his utensils and hands and calmly resumed his meal while Jaenelle devoured the meat.

By the time they reached the fruit and cheese course, Jaenelle's attention was entirely focused on Lucivar and his offerings of food. When he held up the last grape, she stared at it for a moment, then wrinkled her nose and sat back with a contented sigh.

And the woman-child Saetan knew and loved returned.

For the first time since the meal began, Lucivar looked at the other men sitting at the table, and Saetan felt keen sympathy for this son with the battle-weary look in his golden eyes.

After the coffee was served, Lucivar took a deep breath and turned to Jaenelle. "By the way, you owe me a piece of jewelry."

"What jewelry?" Jaenelle asked, baffled.

"Kaeleer's equivalent to the Ring of Obedience."

She choked on her coffee.

Lucivar thumped her back until she gave him a teary-eyed glare. He smiled at her. "Will you tell them, or shall I?"

Jaenelle looked at the men who made up her family. She hunched her shoulders, and said in a small voice, "In order to fill the immigration requirement, Lucivar's going to serve me for the next five years."

This time Saetan choked.

"And?" Lucivar prodded.

"I'll come up with something," Jaenelle said testily. "Although why you want to wear one of those Rings is beyond me."

"I did a little checking while you were gone. Males have to wear a Restraining Ring as part of the immigration requirements."

Jaenelle let out an exasperated snort. "Lucivar, who's going to be foolish enough to ask you to prove you're wearing one?"

"That Ring is physical proof that I serve you, and I want it."

Jaenelle gave Saetan one fleeting, pleading look—which he ignored. "All right. I'll come up with something," she growled, pushing her chair back. "Karla and I are going to take a walk."

Karla, gathering her wits faster than the men could, moaned to her feet and shuffled after Jaenelle.

Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis swiftly found excuses to leave.

After the brandy and yarbarah were brought to the table, Saetan dismissed the footmen, grimly amused by their strained eagerness to return to the servants' hall. His staff didn't gossip to outsiders—Beale and Helene saw to that— but only a fool would think they didn't talk among themselves. Lucivar's arrival had caused quite a stir. Lucivar in service to their Lady . . .

If tonight was a sample of what to expect, it was going to be an interesting—and long—five years.

"You play an intriguing game," Saetan said quietly as he warmed a glass of yarbarah. "And a dangerous one."

Lucivar shrugged. "Not so dangerous, as long as I don't push her past surface temper."

Saetan studied Lucivar's carefully neutral expression. "But do you understand who, and what, lies beneath that surface temper?"

Lucivar smiled tiredly. "I know who she is." He sipped his brandy. "You don't approve of my serving her, do you?"

Saetan rolled his glass between his hands. "You've been able to do more in three months to improve her physical and emotional health than I've been able to do in two years. That galls a little."

"You laid a stronger foundation than you realize." Lucivar grinned. "Besides, a father's supposed to be strong, supportive, and protective. Older brothers, on the other hand, are naturally a pain in the ass and are inclined to be overprotective bullies."

Saetan smiled. "You're an overprotective bully?"

"So I'm told frequently and with great vigor."

Saetan's smiled faded. "Be careful, Lucivar. She has some deep emotional scars you're not aware of."

"I know about the rape—and about Briarwood. When she's pushed too hard, she talks in her sleep." Lucivar refilled his glass and met Saetan's cool stare. "I slept with her. I didn't mount her."

Slept with her. Saetan kept a tight rein on his temper while he sifted through the implications of that statement and weighed it against the amount of physical contact Jaenelle allowed Lucivar without retreating into that chilling emotional blankness that always scared the rest of them. "She didn't object?" he asked carefully.

Lucivar snorted. "Of course she objected. What woman wouldn't after being hurt that badly? But she objected more to having her patient sleeping in front of the hearth, and I objected just as strongly to having the Healer who saved my life sleeping in front of the hearth. So we reached an agreement. I didn't complain about the way she hogged the pillows, tangled the covers, sprawled over more than her share of the bed, made those cute little noises that we don't call snoring no matter what it sounds like, and growled at everything and everyone until she had her first cup of coffee. And she didn't complain about the way I hogged the pillows, tangled the covers, sprawled over more than my share of the bed, made funny noises that woke her up and stopped the minute she was awake, and tended to be overly cheerful in the morning. And we both agreed that neither of us wanted the other for sex."

Which, for Jaenelle, would have made the difference.

"Do you pay much attention to who immigrates to Kaeleer?" Lucivar asked suddenly.

"Not much," Saetan replied cautiously.

Lucivar studied his brandy. "You wouldn't know if a Hayllian named Greer came in, would you?"

The question chilled him. "Greer is dead."

Lucivar fixed his eyes on the dining room wall. "Being the High Lord of Hell, you could arrange a meeting, couldn't you?"

Why was Lucivar straining to breathe evenly?

"Greer is dead, not just a citizen of the Dark Realm."

Lucivar's jaw tightened. "Damn."

Saetan clenched his teeth. Sweet Darkness, how was Lucivar involved with Greer? "Why are you so interested in him?"

Lucivar's hands curled into tight fists. "He was the bastard who raped Jaenelle."

Saetan's temper exploded. The dining room windows shattered. Zigzag cracks raced across the ceiling. Swearing viciously, he rechanneled the power to strike the drive out front, turning the gravel into powder.

Greer. Another link between Hekatah and Dorothea.

Saetan sank his nails into the table, tearing through the wood again and again, an unsatisfying exercise since he wanted flesh beneath his nails.

The training was too deeply ingrained in him. Damn the Darkness, it was too deeply ingrained. He couldn't kill a witch in cold blood. And if he was going to break the code of honor he'd lived by all his life, he should have done it more than five years ago when it might have made a difference, might have saved Jaenelle. Not now, when she already bore the scars. Not now, when it wouldn't change anything.

Hands clamped on his wrists. Tightened. Tightened some more.

"High Lord."

He should have torn that bastard apart the first time Greer asked about Jaenelle. Should have shredded his mind. What was wrong with him? Had he become too tame, too docile? What was he doing, trying to appease those puny fools in the Dark Council when they were doing something that hurt his daughter, his Queen?

"High Lord."

And who was this fool who dared lay hands on the Prince of the Darkness, the High Lord of Hell? No more. No more.

"Father."

Saetan gulped air, fought to clear his head. Lucivar. Lucivar was pinning his arms to the table.

Someone pounded on the door. "Saetan! Lucivar!"

Jaenelle. Sweet Darkness, not Jaenelle. He couldn't see her now.

"SAETAN!"

"Please," he whispered. "Don't let her—"

The door shattered.

"Get out, Cat," Lucivar snapped.

"What—"

"OUT!"

Andulvar's voice. "Go upstairs, waif. We'll take care of this."

Voices arguing, fading.

"Yarbarah?" Lucivar asked after a long, tense silence.

Saetan shuddered, shook his head. Until he was settled, if he tasted blood, he would want it hot from the vein. "Brandy."

Lucivar pressed a glass into his hand.

Saetan gulped the brandy. "You should have gotten out of here."

Lucivar raised his glass with an unsteady hand and offered a wobbly grin. "I've had some experience tangling with the Black. All in all, you're not too bad. Daemon always scared the shit out of me when he turned savage." He drained his glass and refilled both of them. "I hope you didn't redecorate in here recently. You're going to have to do it again, but it doesn't look like the room's going to fall in on us."

"The girls didn't like the wallpaper anyway." Ten good reasons to hold his temper. Ten good reasons to unleash it. And always, always, for Blood males like him, the fine line he had to walk to hold on to the balance between two conflicting instincts. "The Harpies executed Greer," he said abruptly. "They have a distinct sensibility when it comes to that sort of thing."

Lucivar nodded.

Steady. He would need to be steady for the days ahead. "Lucivar, see if you can persuade Jaenelle to show you Sceval. You should meet Kaetien and the other unicorns."

Lucivar regarded him steadily. "Why?"

"I have some business I want to take care of. I'll need to stay at the Keep in Terreille for a few days, and I'd prefer it if Jaenelle wasn't around to ask questions or wonder where I was."

Lucivar considered this for a minute. "Do you think you can do it?"

Saetan sighed wearily. "I won't know until I try."

Saetan carefully secured his Black-Jeweled ring to the center of the large tangled web. It had taken two days of searching through Geoffrey's Hourglass archives to find the answer. It had taken two more to construct the web. He'd given himself two nerve-fraying days more to rest and slowly gather his strength.

Draca had said nothing when he'd asked for a guest room and workroom at the Terreille Keep, but the workroom had been supplied with a frame large enough to hold the tangled web. Geoffrey had said nothing about the requested books, but he had added a couple of books Saetan wouldn't have thought of.

Saetan took a deep breath. It was time.

Normally a Black Widow needed physical contact to guide someone out of the Twisted Kingdom. But sometimes blood-ties could cross boundaries otherwise impossible to cross, and no one had a stronger tie to Daemon than he did. The tie of father to son; more, the bond of that night at Cassandra's Altar.

And the Blood shall sing to the Blood.

Pricking his finger, Saetan placed a drop of blood on the four anchor threads that held the web to its wooden frame. The blood flowed down the top threads, and up the bottom threads. Just as the drops reached his ring, Saetan lightly touched the Black Jewel, smearing it with blood.

The web glowed. Saetan sang the spell that opened the dreamscape that would lead him to the one he sought.

A tortured landscape, full of blood and shattered crystal chalices.

Taking another deep breath, Saetan focused his eyes on the Black-Jeweled ring and began the inward journey into madness.

*Daemon.*

He raised his head.

The words circled, waiting for him. The edges of the tiny island crumbled a little more.

*Daemon.*

He knew that voice. You are my instrument.

*Daemon!*

He looked up. Flattened himself against the pulpy ground.

A hand hovered over him, reached for him. A light-brown hand with long, black-tinted nails. A wrist appeared. Part of a forearm. Straining to reach him.

He knew that voice. He knew that hand. He hated them.

*Daemon, reach for me. I can show you the road back.*

Words lie. Blood doesn't.

The hand shook with the effort to reach him.

*Daemon, let me help you. Please.*

Inches separated them. All he had to do was raise his hand and he could leave this island.

His fingers twitched.

*Daemon, trust me. I can help you.*

Blood. So much blood. A sea of it. He would drown in it. Because he'd trusted that voice once and he'd done something . . . he'd done . . .

*LIAR!* he screamed. *I'll never trust you!*

*Daemon.* An anguished plea.

*NEVER!*

The hand began to fade.

Fear swamped him. He didn't want to be alone in this sea of blood with the words circling, waiting to slice into him again and again. He wanted to grab the hand and hold tight, wanted whatever lies might ease this pain for a little while.

But he owed someone this pain because he'd done something . . .

Butchering whore.

That voice, that hand had tricked him into hurting someone. But, sweet Darkness, how he wanted to trust, wanted to hold on.

*Daemon.* A whisper of sound.

The hand faded, withdrew.

He waited.

The words circled and circled. The island crumbled a little more.

He waited. The hand didn't return.

He pressed himself against the pulpy ground and wept in relief.

Saetan sank to his knees. The threads of the tangled web were blackened, crumbling. He caught his ring as it fell from the center of the web and slipped it on his finger.

So close. A hand span at most. A moment of trust. That's all it would have taken to begin the journey out of that pain and madness.

That's all it would have taken.

Stretching out on the cold stone floor, Saetan pillowed his head on his arms and wept bitterly.

Saetan looked at Lucivar and shook his head.

"Well," Lucivar said, his voice tight, "you tried." After a minute he added, "You're wanted in the kitchen."

"In the kitchen? Why?" Saetan asked as Lucivar herded him toward Mrs. Beale's undisputed territory.

Lucivar smiled and dropped a friendly hand on Saetan's shoulder.

The gesture filled him with foreboding. "How was your trip?"

"Traveling with Cat is an experience."

"Do I really want to know about this?"

"No," Lucivar said cheerfully, "but you're going to anyway."

Jaenelle sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor. A brown-and-white Sceltie puppy tumbled about in front of her. Her lap was full of a large, white . . . kitten?

"Hello, Papa," Jaenelle said meekly.

*Papa High Lord,* said the puppy. When Saetan didn't answer, the puppy looked at Jaenelle. *Papa High Lord?*

"Kindred." Saetan cleared his throat. His voice went back to a deep baritone. "The Scelties are kindred?"

"Not all of them," Jaenelle said defensively.

"About the same ratio of Blood to landen as other species," Lucivar said, grinning. "You're taking this a lot better than Khardeen did. He sat down in the middle of the road and became hysterical. We had to drag him over to the side before he got run over by a cart."

A muffled chuckle-snort came from the direction of the worktable where Mrs. Beale was busily chopping up some meat.

"And with that one little explanation, the humans suddenly realized why some of the Scelties matured so late and had a longer life span," Lucivar added with annoying cheerfulness. "After Ladvarian made it clear that Cat belonged to him—"

*Mine!* said the puppy.

The kitten lifted a large, white, furry paw and squashed the puppy.

*Ours!* said the puppy, wriggling out from beneath the paw.

"—we fixed a strong sedative for the Warlord who had just discovered that his bitch was also a Priestess."

"Mother Night." Saetan switched to a Red spear thread. *Why does a male Sceltie have a name with an Eyrien feminine ending?*

*That's what he said his name is. Who am I to argue?*

"After that," Lucivar continued, "Khary dragged us to Tuathal to see Lady Duana, who had a few pointed things to say about not being told there were kindred in her Territory."

Yes, he was sure the Queen of Scelt would have had quite a few things to say—and would have a few more to say to him.

Jaenelle hid her face in the kitten's fur.

Lucivar, damn his soul, seemed to be enjoying this now that he could dump it into someone else's lap.

Since Jaenelle wasn't jumping into the conversation, Lucivar continued the tale. "In the invigorating discussion that followed, it came out that there are also two breeds of horses who are kindred."

Saetan swayed. Lucivar propped him up.

The Scelts were noted horsemen. Khary's and Morghann's families especially were passionate about horses.

"Imagine how surprised people were when they discovered their horses could talk back to them," Lucivar said.

Saetan knelt beside Jaenelle. At least if he fainted now he wouldn't fall so far. "And our feline Brother?"

Jaenelle's fingers tightened in the kitten's fur. Her eyes held a dark, dangerous look. "Kaelas is Arcerian. He's an orphan. His mother was killed by hunters."

Kaelas. In the Old Tongue, the word meant "white death." It usually referred to a kind of snowstorm that came with little warning—swift, violent, and deadly.

Saetan switched to a spear thread again. *I suppose no one named him, either.*

*Nope,* Lucivar replied.

Saetan didn't like the sober caution in Lucivar's tone. He reached out to pet the kitten.

Kaelas took a swipe at him.

"Hey!" Jaenelle said sharply. "Don't swat the High Lord."

Kaelas snarled, displaying an impressive set of baby teeth. The claws weren't anything to shrug off either.

"Here you are, sweeties," Mrs. Beale cooed, setting two bowls on the kitchen floor. "Some meat and warm milk."

Saetan eyed his cook. This was the same woman who always cornered him whenever the wolf pups chased the bunnies through her garden? Then he looked at the bowl of chopped meat and frowned. "Isn't that the cold roast you were going to serve for lunch?"

Mrs. Beale glared at him. Lucivar prudently stepped behind him.

Abandoning the kitchen to Mrs. Beale and her charges, Saetan headed for his suite. Lucivar went with him.

"The puppy's cute," Saetan said. If that was the best he could do, he definitely needed to rest.

"Don't let puppy cute fool you," Lucivar said quietly. "He's a Warlord, and there's a shrewd intelligence inside that furry little head. Combine that with a large Warlord Prince predator and you've got a partnership that needs to be handled with care."

Saetan stopped at the door of his suite. "Lucivar, just how big do Arcerian cats get?"

Lucivar grinned. "Let's just say you ought to start putting strengthening spells on the furniture now."

"Mother Night," Saetan muttered, stumbling to his bed. The paperwork on his desk could wait. He didn't need to look for trouble.

He'd just started to doze off when he felt eyes staring at him. Rolling over, Saetan blinked at Ladvarian and Kaelas. Someone—he snorted—had already taught Ladvarian to air walk. True, the puppy wobbled, but he was, after all, a Puppy-Groaning, Saetan rolled back over, hoping they would go away.

Two bodies landed on the bed. Well, he didn't have to worry about rolling over on the Sceltie. He wasn't going to roll anywhere with Kaelas pressed against his back—except, perhaps, onto the floor.

And where was Jaenelle?

The Lady, he was told, was taking a bath. They wanted a nap. Since Papa High Lord was taking a nap, they would stay with him.

With grim determination, Saetan closed his eyes.

He didn't need to look for trouble. It had just pounced on him.

Chapter Twelve

Carrying a glass globe and a small glass bowl, both cobalt blue, Tersa walked a few feet into her backyard, her bare feet sinking into ankle-deep snow. The full moon played hide-and-seek among the clouds, much as the vision had eluded her throughout the day. She had lived within visions for so many centuries, she understood that this one needed to be given a physical shape before revealing itself.

Letting her body be the dreamscape's instrument, she used Craft to sail the globe and bowl through the air. When they reached the center of the lawn, they settled quietly into the snow.

She took a step toward them, then looked down. Her nightgown brushed the snow, disturbing it. That wouldn't do. Pulling it off, she tossed it near the cottage's back door and walked toward the globe and bowl. She stopped. Yes. This was the right place to begin.

One long stride to keep the snow pristine between her shuffled footsteps from the cottage and the footsteps that would guide the vision. Placing one foot carefully in front of the other, heel to toe, she waited. There was something else, something more.

Using Craft to sharpen a fingernail, she cut the instep of each foot deep enough for the blood to run freely. Then she walked the vision's pattern. When it brought her back to her first footstep, she leaped to reach the snow disturbed by shuffled footsteps.

As she turned to see the pattern, the journey maid Black Widow who was staying with her for a few weeks called out, "Tersa? What are you doing outside at this time of night?"

Snarling, Tersa whirled back to face the young witch.

The journey maid studied her face for a moment. Fetching the discarded nightgown, she tore it into strips, wrapped Tersa's feet to absorb the blood, then moved aside.

Urgency pushed Tersa up the stairs to her bedroom. Opening the curtains, she looked down at the yard and the lines she had drawn in the snow with her blood.

Two sides of a triangle, strong and connected. The father and the brother. The third side, the father's mirror, was separated from the other two and the middle was worn away. If it broke fully, that side would never be strong enough again to complete the triangle.

Moonlight and shadows filled the yard. The cobalt globe and bowl that rested in the center of the triangle became sapphire eyes.

"Yes," Tersa whispered. "The threads are now in place. It's time."

Receiving Jaenelle's silent permission, Saetan entered her sitting room. He glanced at the dark bedroom where Kaelas and Ladvarian were awake and anxious. Which meant Lucivar would be appearing soon. In the five months since he'd begun serving her, Lucivar had become extraordinarily sensitive to Jaenelle's moods.

Saetan sat down on the hassock in front of the overstuffed chair where Jaenelle was curled up. "Bad dream?" he asked. She'd had quite a few restless nights and bad dreams in the past few weeks.

"A dream," she agreed. She hesitated for a moment. "I was standing in front of a cloudy crystal door. I couldn't see what was behind it, wasn't sure I wanted to see. But someone kept trying to hand me a gold key, and I knew that if I took it, the door would open and then I would have to know what was hidden behind it."

"Did you take the key?" He kept his voice soft and soothing while his heart began to pound in his chest.

"I woke up before I touched it." She smiled wearily.

This was the first time she remembered one of those dreams upon waking. He had a good idea what memories were hidden behind that crystal door. Which meant they needed to talk about her past soon. But not tonight. "Would you like a brew to help you sleep?"

"No, thank you. I'll be all right."

He kissed her forehead and left the room.

Lucivar waited for him in the corridor. "Problem?" Lucivar asked.

"Perhaps." Saetan took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Let's go down to the study. There's something we need to discuss."

"Cat!" Lucivar rushed into the great hall. He didn't know what had set her off, but after talking with Saetan last night, he wasn't about to let her go anywhere by herself.

Fortunately, Beale was equally reluctant to let the Lady rush out the door without telling someone her destination.

Caught between them, Jaenelle unleashed her frustration with enough force to make all the windows rattle. "Damn you both! I have to go."

"Fine." Lucivar approached her slowly, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "I'm going with you. Where are we going?"

Jaenelle raked her fingers through her hair. "Halaway. Sylvia just sent a message. Something's wrong with Tersa."

Lucivar exchanged a look with Beale. The butler nodded. Saetan and Mephis would be back at any moment from their meeting with Lady Zhara, the Queen of Amdarh, Dhemlan's capital—and Beale would remain in the great hall until they arrived.

"Let me go!" Jaenelle wailed.

Thank the Darkness, it didn't occur to her to use force against them. She could easily eliminate what amounted to token resistance.

"In a minute," Lucivar said, swallowing hard when her eyes turned stormy. "You can't go out in your socks. There's snow on the ground."

Jaenelle swore. Lucivar called in her winter boots and handed them to her while a breathless footman brought her winter coat and the belted, wool cape with wing slits that served as a coat for him.

A minute later, they were flying toward Tersa's cottage.

The journey maid Black Widow who was staying with Tersa flung the door open as soon as they landed. "In the bedroom," she said in a worried voice. "Lady Sylvia is with her."

Jaenelle raced up to the bedroom with Lucivar right behind her.

Seeing them, Sylvia sagged against the dresser, the relief in her face overshadowed by stark concern. Lucivar put his arm around her, uneasy about the way she clung to him.

Jaenelle circled the bed to face Tersa, who was frantically packing a small trunk. Scattered among the clothing strewn on the bed were books, candles, and a few things Lucivar recognized as tools only a Black Widow would own.

"Tersa," Jaenelle said in a quiet, commanding voice.

Tersa shook her head. "I have to find him. It's time now."

"Who do you have to find?"

"The boy. My son. Daemon."

Lucivar's heart clogged his throat as he watched Jaenelle pale.

"Daemon." Jaenelle shuddered. "The gold key."

"I have to find him." Tersa's voice rang with frustration and fear. "If the pain doesn't end soon, it will destroy him."

Jaenelle gave no sign of having heard or understood the words. "Daemon," she whispered. "How could I have forgotten Daemon?"

"I must go back to Terreille. I must find him."

"No," Jaenelle said in her midnight voice. "I'll find him."

Tersa stopped her restless movements. "Yes," she said slowly, as if trying hard to remember something. "He would trust you. He would follow you out of the Twisted Kingdom."

Jaenelle closed her eyes.

Still holding Sylvia, Lucivar braced himself against the wall. Hell's fire, why was the room slowly spinning?

When Jaenelle opened her eyes, Lucivar stared, unable to look away. He'd never seen her eyes look like that. He hoped he'd never again see her eyes look like that. Jaenelle swept out of the room.

Leaving Sylvia to manage on her own, Lucivar raced after Jaenelle, who was striding toward the landing web at the edge of the village.

"Cat, the Hall's in the other direction."

When she didn't answer him, he tried to grab her arm. The shield around her was so cold it burned his hand.

She passed the landing web and kept walking. He fell into step beside her, not sure what to say—not sure what he dared say.

"Stubborn, snarly male," she muttered as tears filled her eyes. "I told you the chalice needed time to heal. I told you to go someplace safe. Why didn't you listen to me? Couldn't you obey just once!" She stopped walking.

Lucivar watched her grief slowly transform into rage as she turned in the direction of the Hall.

"Saetan," she said in a malevolent whisper. "You were there that night. You . . ."

Lucivar didn't try to keep up with her when she ran back to the Hall. Instead, he sent a warning to Beale on a Red spear thread. Beale, in turn, informed him that the High Lord had just arrived.

He hoped his father was prepared for this fight.

He felt her coming.

Too nervous to sit, Saetan leaned against the front of his blackwood desk, his hands locked on the surface in a vise grip.

He'd had two years to prepare for this, had spent countless hours trying to find the right phrases to explain the brutality that had almost destroyed her. But, somehow, he had never found the right time to tell her. Even after last night, when he realized the memories were trying to surface, he had delayed talking to her.

Now the time had come. And he still wasn't prepared.

He'd arrived home to find Beale fretting in the great hall, waiting to convey Lucivar's warning: "She remembers Daemon—and she's furious."

He felt her enter the Hall and hoped he could now find a way to help her face those memories in the daylight instead of in her dreams.

His study door blew off the hinges and shattered when it hit the opposite wall. Dark power ripped through the room, breaking the tables and tearing the couch and chairs apart.

Fear hammered at him. But he also noted that she didn't harm the irreplaceable paintings and sculpture.

Then she stepped into the room, and nothing could have prepared him for the cold rage focused directly at him.

"Damn you." Her midnight voice sounded calm. It sounded deadly.

She meant it. If the malevolence and loathing in her eyes was any indication of the depth of her rage, then he was truly damned.

"You heartless bastard."

His mind chattered frantically. He couldn't make a sound. He desperately hoped that her feelings for him would balance her fury—and knew they wouldn't, not with Daemon added to the balance.

She walked toward him, flexing her fingers, drawing part of his attention to the dagger-sharp nails he now had reason to fear.

"You used him. He was a friend, and you used him."

Saetan gritted his teeth. "There was no choice."

"There was a choice." She slashed open the chair in front of his desk. "THERE WAS A CHOICE!"

His rising temper pushed the fear aside. "To lose you," he said roughly. "To stand back and let your body die and lose you. I didn't consider that a choice, Lady. Neither did Daemon."

"You wouldn't have lost me if the body had died. I would have eventually put the crystal chalice back together and—"

"You're Witch, and Witch doesn't become cildru dyathe. We would have lost you. Every part of you. He knew that."

That stopped her for a moment.

"I gave him all the strength I had. He went too deep into the abyss trying to reach you. When I tried to draw him back up, he fought me and the link between us snapped."

"He shattered his crystal chalice," Jaenelle said in a hollow voice. "He shattered his mind. I put it back together, but it was so terribly fragile. When he rose out of the abyss, anything could have damaged him. A harsh word would have been enough at that point."

"I know," Saetan said cautiously. "I felt him."

The cold rage filled her eyes again. "But you left him there, didn't you, Saetan?" she said too softly. "Briarwood's uncles had arrived at the Altar, and you left a defenseless man to face them."

"He was supposed to go through the Gate," Saetan replied hotly. "I don't know why he didn't."

"Of course you know." Her voice became a sepulchral croon. "We both know. If a timing spell wasn't put on the candles to snuff them out and close the Gate, then someone had to stay behind to close it. Naturally it was the Warlord Prince who was expected to stay."

"He may have had other reasons to stay," Saetan said carefully.

"Perhaps," she replied with equal care. "But that doesn't explain why he's in the Twisted Kingdom, does it, High Lord?" She took a step closer to him. "That doesn't explain why you left him there."

"I didn't know he was in the Twisted Kingdom until—" Saetan clamped his teeth to hold the words back.

"Until Lucivar came to Kaeleer," Jaenelle finished for him. She waved a hand dismissively before he could speak. "Lucivar was in the salt mines of Pruul. I know there was nothing he could do. But you."

Saetan spaced out the words. "Getting you back was the first requirement. I gave my strength to that task. Daemon would have understood that, would have demanded it."

"I came back two years ago, and there's nothing draining your strength now." Pain and betrayal filled her eyes. "But you didn't even try to reach him, did you?"

"Yes, I tried! damn you, I tried!" He sagged against the desk. "Stop acting like a petty little bitch. He may be your friend, but he's also my son. Do you really think I wouldn't try to help him?" The bitter failure filled him again. "I was so close, witch-child. So close. But he was just out of reach. And he didn't trust me. If he would have tried a little, I would have had him. I could have shown him the way out of the Twisted Kingdom. But he didn't trust me."

The silence stretched.

"I'm going to get him back," Jaenelle said quietly.

Saetan straightened up. "You can't go back to Terreille."

"Don't tell me what I can or can't do," Jaenelle snarled.

"Listen to me, Jaenelle," he said urgently. "You can't go back to Terreille. As soon as she realized you were there, Dorothea would do everything she could to contain you or destroy you. And you're still not of age. Your Chaillot relatives could try to regain custody."

"I'll take that chance. I'm not leaving him to suffer." She turned to leave the room.

Saetan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Since I'm his father, I can reach him without needing physical contact."

"But he doesn't trust you."

"I can help you, Jaenelle."

She turned back to look at him, and he saw a stranger.

"I don't want your help, High Lord," she said quietly.

Then she walked away from him, and he knew she was doing a great deal more than simply walking out of a room.

Everything has a price.

Lucivar found her in the gardens a couple of hours later sitting on a stone bench with her hands pressed between her knees hard enough to bruise. Straddling the bench, he sat as close as he could without touching her. "Cat?" he said softly, afraid that even sound would shatter her. "Talk to me. Please."

"I—" She shuddered.

"You remember."

"I remember." She let out a laugh full of knife-sharp edges. "I remember all of it. Marjane, Dannie, Rose. Briarwood. Greer. All of it." She glanced at him. "You've known about Briarwood. And Greer."

Lucivar brushed a lock of hair away from his face. Maybe he should get it cut short, the way Eyrien warriors usually wore it. "Sometimes when you have bad dreams you talk in your sleep."

"So you've both known. And said nothing."

"What could we have said, Cat?" Lucivar asked slowly. "If we had forced someone else to remember something that emotionally scarring, you would have thrown a fit—as well as a few pieces of furniture."

Jaenelle's lips curved in a ghost of a smile. "True." Her smile faded. "Do you know the worst thing about it? I forgot him. Daemon was a friend, and I forgot him. That Winsol, before I was . . . he gave me a silver bracelet. I don't know what happened to it. I had a picture of him. I don't know what happened to that either. And then he gave everything he had to help me, and when it was done, everyone walked away from him as if he didn't matter."

"If you had remembered the rape when you first came back, would you have stayed? Or would you have fled from your body again?"

"I don't know."

"Then if forgetting Daemon was the price that had to be paid in order to keep those memories at bay until you were strong enough to face them. . . . He would say it was a fair price."

"It's very easy to make statements about what Daemon would say since he's not here to deny them, isn't it?" Tears filled her eyes.

"You're forgetting something, little witch," Lucivar said sharply. "He's my brother, and he's a Warlord Prince. I've known him longer and far better than you."

Jaenelle shifted on the bench. "I don't blame you for what happened to him. The High Lord—"

"If you're going to demand that the High Lord shoulder the blame for Daemon being in the Twisted Kingdom, then you're going to have to shovel some of that blame onto me as well."

She twisted around to face him, her eyes chilly.

Lucivar took a deep breath. "He came to get me out of Pruul. He wanted me to go with him. And I refused to go because I thought he had killed you, that he was the one who had raped you."

"Daemon?"

Lucivar swore viciously. "Sometimes you can be incredibly naive. You have no idea what Daemon is capable of doing when he goes cold."

"You really believed that?"

He braced bis head in his hands. "There was so much blood, so much pain. I couldn't get past the grief to think clearly enough to doubt what I'd been told. And when I accused him, he didn't deny it."

Jaenelle looked thoughtful. "He seduced me. Well, seduced Witch. When we were in the abyss."

"He what?" Lucivar asked with deadly calm.

"Don't get snarly," Jaenelle snapped. "It was a trick to make me heal the body. He didn't really want me. Her. He didn't . . ." Her voice trailed away. She waited a minute before continuing. "He said he'd been waiting for Witch all his life. That he'd been born to be her lover. But then he didn't want to be her lover."

"Hell's fire, Cat," Lucivar exploded. "You were a twelve-year-old who had recently been raped. What did you expect him to do?"

"I wasn't twelve in the abyss."

Lucivar narrowed his eyes, wondering what she meant by that.

"He lied to me," she said in a small voice.

"No, he didn't. He meant exactly what he said. If you had been eighteen and had offered him the Consort's ring, you would have found that out quick enough." Lucivar stared at the blurry garden. He cleared his throat. "Saetan loves you, Cat. And you love him. He did what he had to do to save his Queen. He did what any Warlord Prince would do. If you can't forgive him, how will you ever be able to forgive me?"

"Oh, Lucivar." Sobbing, Jaenelle threw her arms around him.

Lucivar held her, petted her, took aching comfort from the way she held him tight. His silent tears wet her hair. His tears were for her, whose soul wounds had been reopened; for himself, because he may have lost something precious so soon after it was found; for Saetan, who may have lost even more; and for Daemon. Most of all, for Daemon.

It was almost twilight when Jaenelle gently pulled away from him. "There's someone I need to talk to. I'll be back later."

Worried, Lucivar studied her slumped shoulders and pale face. "Where—" Caution warred with instinct. He floundered.

Jaenelle's lips held a shadow of an understanding smile. "I'm not going anywhere dangerous. I'll still be in Kaeleer. And no, Prince Yaslana, this isn't risky. I'm just going to see a friend."

He let her go, unable to do anything else.

Saetan stared at nothing, holding the pain at bay, holding the memories at bay. If he released his hold and they flooded in . . . he wasn't sure he would survive them, wasn't sure he would even try.

"Saetan?" Jaenelle hovered near the open study doorway.

"Lady." Protocol. The courtesies given and granted when a Warlord Prince addressed a Queen of equal or darker rank. He'd lost the privilege of addressing her any other way, of being anything more.

When she entered the room, he walked around the desk. He couldn't sit while she was standing, and he couldn't offer her a seat since the rest of the furniture in his study had been destroyed and he hadn't allowed Beale to clear up the mess.

Jaenelle approached hesitantly, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her hands twining restlessly. She didn't look at him.

"I talked to Lorn." Her voice quivered. She blinked rapidly. "He agreed with you that I shouldn't go to Terreille—except the Keep. We decided that I would create a shadow of myself that can interact with people so that I can search for Daemon while my body remains safe at the Keep. I'll only be able to search three days out of every month because of the physical drain the shadow will place on me, but I know someone I think will help me look for him."

"You must do what you think best," he said carefully.

She looked at him, her beautiful, ancient, haunted eyes full of tears. "S-Saetan?"

Still so young for all her strength and wisdom.

He opened his arms, opened his heart.

She clung to him, trembling violently.

She was the most painful, most glorious dance of his life.

"Saetan, I—"

He pressed a finger against her lips. "No, witch-child," he said with gentle regret. "Forgiveness doesn't work that way. You may want to forgive me, but you can't do it yet. Forgiving someone can take weeks, months, years. Sometimes it takes a lifetime. Until Daemon is whole again, all we can do is try to be kind to one another, and understanding, and take each day as it comes." He held her close, savoring the feeling, not knowing when, or if, he'd ever hold her like this again. "Come along, witch-child. It's almost dawn. You need to rest now."

He led her to her bedroom but didn't enter. Safe in his own room, he felt the loneliness already pressing down on him.

He curled up on his bed, unable to stop the tears he'd held back throughout the long, terrible night. It would take time. Weeks, months, maybe years. He knew it would take time.

But, please, sweet Darkness, please don't let it take a lifetime.

Surreal walked down the neglected street toward the market square, hoping her icy expression would offset her vulnerable physical state. She shouldn't have used that witch's brew to suppress last month's moon time, but the Hayllian guards Kartane SaDiablo had sent after her had been breathing down her neck then and she hadn't felt safe enough to risk being defenseless during the days when her body couldn't tolerate the use of her power beyond basic Craft.

Damn all Blood males to the bowels of Hell. When a witch's body made her vulnerable for a few days, it also made every Blood male a potential enemy. And right now she had enough enemies to worry about.

Well, she'd pick up a few things at the market and then hole up in her rooms with a couple of thick novels and wait it out.

Stifled, frightened cries came from the alley up ahead.

Calling in a long-bladed knife, Surreal slipped to the edge of the alley and peeked around the corner.

Four large, surly, Hayllian men. And one girl who was barely more than a child. Two of the men stood back, watching, as one of their comrades held the girl and the other's hands yanked her clothes aside.

Damn, damn, damn. It was a trap. There was no other reason for Hayllians to be in this part of the Realm, especially in this part of a dying city. She should just slip back to her rooms. If she was careful, they might not find her. There would be other Hayllians waiting around the places where she might purchase a ticket for a Web Coach, so that was out. And riding the Winds without the protection of a Coach might not be suicidal right now, but it would feel damn close.

But there was that girl. If she didn't intervene, that child was going to end up under those four brutes. Even if someone "rescued" her afterward, she'd be passed from man to man until the constant use or the brutality of one of them killed her.

Taking a deep breath, Surreal rushed into the alley.

An upward slash opened one man from armpit to collarbone. She swung her arm, just missing the girl's face, and managed to get in a shallow slash across the other's chest while she tried to pull the girl away.

Then the other two men joined the fight.

Diving under a fist that would have pulped one side of her head, Surreal rolled, sprang up, took two running steps and, because no one tried to stop her from going deeper into the alley, spun around.

A dead end behind her, and the Hayllians blocking the only way out.

Surreal looked at the girl, wanting to express her regret.

Smiling greedily as one of the unwounded men dropped a small bag of coins into her hands, the girl pulled her clothes together and hurried out of the alley.

Mercenary little bitch.

Surreal tried hard to remember the other girls she'd helped over the past five years, but remembering them didn't diminish the overwhelming sense of betrayal. Well, she'd come full circle. She'd come up from living in stinking alleys. Now she'd die in one, because she wasn't about to let Kartane SaDiablo truss her up and hand her over as a present to the High Priestess of Hayll.

The men stepped forward, smiling viciously.

"Let her go."

The quiet, eerie, midnight voice came from behind her.

Surreal watched the men, watched surprise, uneasiness, and fear harden into a look that always meant pain for a woman.

"Let her go," the voice said again.

"Go to Hell," the largest Hayllian said, stepping forward.

A mist rose up behind the men, forming a wall across the alley.

"Just slit the bitch's throat and be done with it," the man with the shoulder wound said.

"Can't have any fun and games with the half-breed, so the other will have to learn some manners," the largest man said.

Thick mist suddenly filled the alley. Eyes, like burning red gems, appeared, and something let out a wet-sounding snarl.

Surreal screamed breathlessly as a hand clamped on her left arm.

"Come with me," said that terrifyingly familiar midnight voice.

The mist swirled, too thick to see the person guiding her through it as easily as if it were clear water.

More snarls. Then high-pitched, desperate screams.

"W-what—" Surreal stammered.

"Hell Hounds."

To the right of her, something hit the ground with a wet plop.

Surreal tried hard to swallow, tried hard not to breathe.

The next step took them out of the mist and back to the welcome sight of the neglected street.

"Are you staying around here?" the voice asked.

Surreal finally looked at her companion and felt a stab of disappointment immediately followed by a sense of relief. The woman was her height, and the body in the form-fitting black jumpsuit, though slender, definitely didn't belong to the child she remembered. But the long hair was golden, and the eyes were hidden behind dark glasses.

Surreal tried to pull away. "I'm grateful you got my ass out of that alley, but my mother told me not to tell strangers where I live."

"We're not strangers, and I'm sure that's not all Titian told you."

Surreal tried again to pull away. The hand on her arm clamped down harder. Finally realizing she still held a weapon in her other hand, Surreal swung the knife, bringing it down hard on the woman's wrist.

The knife went through as if there was nothing there and vanished.

"What are you?" Surreal gasped.

"An illusion that's called a shadow."

"Who are you?"

"Briarwood is the pretty poison. There is no cure for Briarwood." The woman smiled coldly. "Does that answer your question?"

Surreal studied the woman, trying to find some trace of the child she remembered. After a minute, she said, "You really are Jaenelle, aren't you? Or some part of her?"

Jaenelle smiled, but there was no humor in it. "I really am." A pause. Then, "We need to talk, Surreal. Privately."

Oh, yes, they needed to talk. "I have to go to the market first."

The hand with the dagger-sharp, black-tinted nails tightened for a moment before releasing her. "All right."

Surreal hesitated. Snarls and crunching noises came out of the mist behind them. "Don't you have to finish the kill?"

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Jaenelle said dryly. "Piles of Hound shit aren't much of a threat to anyone."

Surreal paled.

Jaenelle's lips tightened. "I apologize," she said after a minute. "We all have facets to our personalities. This has brought out the nastier ones in mine. No one will enter the alley and nothing will leave. The Harpies will arrive soon and take care of things."

Surreal led the way to the market square, where she bought folded breads filled with chicken and vegetables from one vendor, small beef pies from another, and fresh fruit from a third.

"I'll make you a healing brew," Jaenelle said when they finally returned to Surreal's rooms.

Still wondering why Jaenelle had sought her out, Surreal nodded before retreating into the bathroom to get cleaned up. When she returned, there was a covered plate on the small kitchen table and a steaming cup filled with a witch's brew.

Settling into a chair, Surreal sipped the brew and felt the pain in her abdomen gradually dull. "How did you find me?" she asked.

For the first time, there was amusement in Jaenelle's smile. "Well, sugar, since you're the only Gray Jewel in the entire Realm of Terreille, you're not that hard to find."

"I didn't know someone could be traced that way."

"Whoever is hunting you can't use that method. It requires wearing a Jewel equal or darker than yours."

"Why did you find me?" Surreal asked quietly.

"I need your help. I want to find Daemon."

Surreal stared at the cup. "Whatever he did at Cassandra's Altar that night was done to help you. Hasn't he suffered enough?"

"Too much."

There was sorrow and regret in Jaenelle's voice. The eyes would have told her more. "Do you have to wear those damn dark glasses?" Surreal asked sharply.

Jaenelle hesitated. "You might find my eyes disturbing."

"I'll take the chance."

Jaenelle raised the glasses.

Those eyes belonged to someone who had experienced the most twisted nightmares of the soul and had survived.

Surreal swallowed hard. "I see what you mean."

Jaenelle replaced the glasses. "I can bring him out of the Twisted Kingdom, but I need to make the link through his body."

If only Jaenelle had come a few months ago.

"I don't know where he is," Surreal said.

"But you can look for him. I can stay in this form only three days out of the month. He's running out of time, Surreal. If he isn't shown the road back soon, there won't be anything left of him."

Surreal closed her eyes. Shit.

Jaenelle poured the rest of the brew into Surreal's cup. "Even a Gray-Jeweled witch's moontime shouldn't give her this much pain."

Surreal shifted. Winced. "I suppressed last month's time." She wrapped her hands around the cup. "Daemon lived with me for a little while. Until a few months ago."

"What happened a few months ago?"

"Kartane SaDiablo happened," Surreal said viciously. Then she smiled. "Your spell or web or whatever it was you spun around Briarwood's uncles did a good job on him. You wouldn't even recognize the bastard." She paused. "Robert Benedict is dead, by the way."

"How unfortunate," Jaenelle murmured, her voice dripping yenom. "And dear Dr. Carvay?"

"Alive, more or less. Not for much longer from what I've heard."

"Tell me about Kartane . . . and Daemon."

"Last spring, Daemon showed up at the flat where I was living. Our paths have crossed a few times since—" Surreal faltered.

"Since the night at Cassandra's Altar."

"Yes. He's like Tersa used to be. Show up, stay a couple of days, and vanish again. This time he stayed. Then Kartane showed up." Surreal drained her cup. "Apparently he's been hunting for Daemon for some time, but, unlike Dorothea, he seems to have a better idea of where to look. He started demanding that Daemon help him get free of this terrible spell someone had put on him. As if he'd never done anything to deserve it. When it became apparent that Daemon was lost in the Twisted Kingdom and, therefore, useless, Kartane looked at me—and noticed my ears. At the same moment he realized I was Titian's child—and his—Daemon exploded and threw him out.

"I guess he figured that bringing Sadi to Dorothea wouldn't buy him enough help, but bringing Dorothea his only possible offspring would be a solid bargaining chip. And a female offspring who could continue the bloodline would provide strong incentive—even if she was a half-breed.

"Daemon insisted that we leave immediately because Kartane would return after dark with guards. And he did.

"Before Daemon and I caught the Wind and headed out, we had agreed on a city in another Territory. He was right behind me, riding close. And then he wasn't there anymore. I haven't seen him since."

"And you've been running since then."

"Yeah." She felt so tired. She wanted to lose herself in a book, in sleep. Too much of a risk now. The rest of the Hayllian guards would start wondering about those four men, would start looking soon.

"Eat your food, Surreal."

Surreal bit into the folded bread and finally wondered why she hadn't tested that brew—and wondered why she didn't care.

Jaenelle checked the bedroom, then studied the worn sofa in the living area. "Do you want to tuck up in bed or curl up here?"

"Can't," Surreal mumbled, annoyed because she was going to cry.

"Yes, you can." Taking comforters and pillows from the bedroom, Jaenelle turned the sofa into an inviting nest. "I can stay two more days. No one will disturb you while I'm here."

"I'll help you search," Surreal said, snuggling into the sofa.

"I know." Jaenelle smiled dryly. "You're Titian's daughter. You wouldn't do anything else."

"Don't know if I like being that predictable," Surreal grumbled.

Jaenelle made another cup of the healing brew, gave Surreal first choice of two new novels, and settled into a chair.

Surreal drank her brew, read the first page of the novel twice, and gave up. Looking at Jaenelle, questions buzzed inside her head.

She didn't want to hear the answers to any of them.

For now, it was enough that, once they found Daemon, Jaenelle would bring him out of the Twisted Kingdom.

For now, it was enough to feel safe.