The Queen's Price

ELEVEN

Since she had to talk to him anyway, Surreal contacted Lucivar on a Gray psychic thread and arranged to meet him at his eyrie the following day.

She had ridden the Winds without the encumbrance of a Coach, so she didn’t bother with the landing web that was on flat ground below the eyrie. Instead, she dropped from the Winds and landed on the flagstone courtyard right outside Lucivar and Marian’s home.

“Surreal!”

She turned and saw Marian walking toward her, carrying a few flowers that bloomed in early spring. She felt a stab of guilt that she hadn’t replied to the last couple of letters Marian had sent. She just wasn’t sure what to say. That the relief of having renegotiated her marriage with Daemon was almost painful some days? That she had no desire to herd the group of adolescents now occupying the Hall and she used her position as Sadi’s second-in-command as an excuse to stay away from the family seat? That every time she had to deal with Saetien it felt like someone scraping a dull knife along the edges of a still-bleeding wound?

She didn’t want to say any of those things. Sometimes you just had to fill the days with duty until you were ready to give sorrow a place to exist for a while.

Marian opened the wooden gate that separated her garden from the flagstone courtyard and hurried toward Surreal.

“Lucivar said you were coming to visit today. He’s gone down to The Tavern to pick up a couple of steak and ale pies for the midday meal and should be back soon. Come in. You’re looking well.” Marian hooked her arm through Surreal’s and led her into the eyrie. “Hang up your coat while I put these in water. I usually leave the flowers where they grow, but today I wanted a few blooms for the table.”

“They’re lovely.” Surreal hung up her coat on the coat-tree near the door and followed Marian to the big kitchen. “But they came from your garden, so that’s not a surprise. I heard you’re displaying some of your loom art in an exhibition in Dharo.”

Marian blushed. “Yes. It’s an honor for someone who isn’t Dharo born to be invited, but I do use wool from Dharo—and from Scelt.”

“Considering the family connection to the Sceltie school in Maghre—and its little farm—how could you not use wool that came from Sceltie-raised sheep?”

“Those poor sheep,” Marian said as she arranged the flowers.

“Better to let Scelties herd the woolly sheep than have them herding us.”

Marian laughed.

Surreal went to the cupboards above the kitchen counters and reached for the plates. “How many?”

“Just the three of us. Andulvar is having his meal with Nurian and Rothvar’s children.” Marian stepped up beside Surreal and opened the silverware drawer. “We weren’t sure what you wanted to talk about—or how private you wanted it to be.”

She set the plates on the table. “There are things I want to discuss with both of you.”

“Are you all right?” Marian asked quietly.

She laughed. “Me? Yes. But you might want to pour your husband a large mug of ale to go with his meal. He’ll need it.”

“Oh, dear.”

Marian didn’t have a chance to say anything else before the front door opened and Lucivar’s presence—and sexual heat—filled the eyrie.

Surreal grabbed the back of a kitchen chair, overwhelmed by the heat. Then it was gone—or so diminished that it was almost unnoticeable.

“Surreal?” Marian helped her into the chair.

“I’m all right.” She looked toward the archway that connected the kitchen with the big front room and saw Lucivar standing there, watching her. “Just took a funny turn for a moment.”

“There is a kind of cleansing spell that absorbs the heat, but it takes a few moments to start working,” Marian said.

“I’m fine now. Truly.”

Lucivar set the steak and ale pies on the table, then backed away. “It’s like a poison for you now, isn’t it? The trouble you and Daemon had burned out your tolerance for the heat. Is that true of every Warlord Prince you cross paths with, or just the ones who wear Jewels darker than the Red?”

Why the Red? Surreal thought. Then she knew what he was saying. Did she also have trouble with the sexual heat of Warlord Princes who wore the Gray? “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it that way.” But she would now that he had raised the question.

A cleansing spell that could absorb a Warlord Prince’s sexual heat. If she’d had access to something like that when Sadi’s heat had gone into its last phase and become intolerable . . .

Except a spell like that hadn’t existed because it had taken all the mistakes she and Sadi had made to bring back the one person who had the knowledge and power to create such a spell. Without Witch’s skill in Craft, would Marian be able to continue living with Lucivar? Had she unwittingly spared these two people from a heartbreaking choice?

“Are you okay with me being here?” Lucivar asked.

“Yes. The heat is quiet now,” Surreal replied.

“You sit,” Marian said when Surreal pushed up to help finish setting the table. “You still look a bit peaky. Maybe some ale would do you good.”

Lucivar went into the pantry and returned with three glass mugs filled with ale.

She liked Lucivar and Marian, had been easy around them for a lot of years. Now? She thought Marian still considered her a friend, but she wasn’t sure about Lucivar. Was she an outsider or still considered a member of the family who needed breathing room?

“Does Helton share any of the gossip about the Hall with you?” Lucivar asked as they settled into their meal.

“Helton is the butler at the town house, not at the Hall,” Surreal said primly. “He never gossips.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He does inform me of any developments that Beale feels the staff at the town house should know about.”

“Did Beale inform Helton about the spell in the window?” Lucivar cut several slices off a block of sharp yellow cheese, then offered the slices to her and Marian before taking a couple for himself.

“Not that I’m aware of, but I haven’t been to the town house for several days.” Surreal bit into a slice of cheese and wondered if Marian would be upset if she borrowed her rolling pin and beat Lucivar over the head with it to encourage him to talk instead of baiting her.

“In that case, I’ll tell you about the damn window.” And he did.

After almost snorting ale out of her nose at one point, Surreal gave up trying to eat while Lucivar told them about the window that swore in Eyrien and about the spell that roamed from one window to another, and how Karla had to come to the Hall with a summoning spell to coax the window’s spell to a spot where the long-awaited apology could be issued to end the bit of Craft Saetan had put into a window so long ago.

“Was Daemon upset?” Marian finally asked. She picked up her fork but looked like she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Eat,” Lucivar said, concentrating on his own meal. “I think he’s feeling grateful that he has stout locks on his study door—and that Holt and Beale have seen this before and keep assuring him that it could be worse.”

“That’s not much comfort,” Surreal said.

Lucivar smiled. “Apparently he’s been given a reason to believe it is.”

Saying I’m so glad I’m not living there would have been heartfelt but maybe not tactful.

Speaking of tactful . . .

She waited until Lucivar had cleared the table and Marian made coffee.

“Several things,” she said, turning to Lucivar. “First, Saetien wants to locate Wilhelmina Benedict.”

“Why?” Lucivar growled.

“Because a broken Black Widow said this is something she needs to do.” She waited for Lucivar to stop swearing. “I’m sure Geoffrey will have the information, but I don’t want to go to the Keep, because I don’t want to call attention to this request. You’re there all the time talking to Karla, so your presence wouldn’t be noted as unusual.”

“You still pissed about Witch sending the girl to Briarwood? Or the memory of Briarwood?” Lucivar asked.

“Sometimes,” Surreal admitted. “I’m grateful to Witch for many things. I’m even grateful to her for that, since the alternative would have been Saetien’s execution. But I’m not ready to go up there and see her.”

“You wouldn’t have to see Witch. People go to the Keep for information all the time.”

Funny how this aversion had come on slowly, quietly. “I don’t want to go to the Keep.”

Lucivar studied her for a long moment. “All right. I’ll talk to Geoffrey and find out what I can. Anything else?”

Surreal eyed his mug of coffee. “You might want to add something to that. Something with some kick.”

Marian sat up, looking alarmed. “Has something happened?”

She looked at Marian. “Jillian is ready for her Virgin Night.”

“Oh,” Marian breathed.

Neither of them looked at Lucivar, who was completely still in an absolutely terrifying way.

“She’s considered it a couple of times, but when the men who perform that service found out she was the Demon Prince’s daughter, their enthusiasm, to say nothing of their ability, withered on the vine.” Since Marian looked confused, Surreal held up a forefinger and then curled it.

Marian burst out laughing.

“Why now?” Lucivar said. “Who’s the prick who wants her under him?”

Oh, no. That wasn’t part of this discussion. “Now is because Jillian is also ready to make the Offering to the Darkness, and if she reaches the full potential of her mature strength, she’ll wear Sapphire—and it will be more difficult to find someone who can see her safely through her Virgin Night.”

*This is hard for him,* Marian said on a distaff thread. *Especially after seeing Daemon’s report on how many girls the coven of malice destroyed.*

*I know,* Surreal replied. Then she turned to Lucivar. “This is what I’m proposing. There is an establishment in Amdarh that can accommodate this rite of passage. It has the advantage of being a place Jillian isn’t likely to visit again, so she won’t have to associate a place she usually visits with her experience of that night. I will go with her, and help her if she runs into any trouble. I can do that without scaring the man into impotence.”

Lucivar snorted. “Only if he doesn’t know you.”

True. “You and Daemon can wait for us at the town house. Then we can all have a celebratory dinner and acknowledge that Jillian is now a woman who can take a lover.”

“We can acknowledge that when the sun shines in Hell.”

Marian huffed out an exasperated breath. “Lucivar! She’s grown up. She’s reached her majority, and she’s ready to have sex. This is no longer your decision.”

He stared at his wife.

“And Jillian would like Marian and Nurian—and me—to accompany her when she goes to make the Offering to the Darkness.”

Lucivar said nothing. He simply pushed away from the table and walked out of the kitchen.

“He feels excluded,” Marian said quietly.

“He’s too strong. So is Sadi.” Surreal breathed out. “The Darkness only knows what their presence might do during the Offering. Not that they would interfere, but the Offering tests everything you are, and you can’t afford to be thinking of anyone else—or feeling the presence of anyone else. I might decline to join her for that reason. I was alone when I made the Offering. I’ll ask around, find out if someone else’s power is really a concern. I’ll stay with Lucivar while you and Nurian are with Jillian. Help keep him steady—or at least keep him from trying to break walls with his fists.”

Marian sighed. “That would be good.” She hesitated. “My father never cared about me enough to be concerned about any of these things.”

“And I didn’t want mine anywhere near me. We’ll just have to help him as best we can.”

Lucivar stayed focused on driving his fists into one of the punching bags that had been hung in the communal eyrie. They’d been acquired recently as a way for the Eyrien warriors to keep their skills honed without damaging another person. He knew the moment when Rothvar, his second-in-command, entered the eyrie, but he kept his fists—and his temper—focused on the bag.

“You want to spar?” Rothvar asked.

“No. Stay away from me.”

Rothvar kept his distance but didn’t leave. He just waited, saying nothing for a minute. “I felt the Gray arrive in Ebon Rih. Lady Surreal?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there a problem?”

Lucivar beat on the punching bag for a minute before he could answer the question. “Jillian says she’s ready for her Virgin Night.”

“Hell’s fire.” Rothvar blew out a breath. “She’s at the age . . .”

“To let a man do with her what you or I do with a woman?”

Rothvar paced and swore for a minute. “That’s different.”

“I don’t think either of us is going to be able to explain that to our girl.” He wasn’t sure he could explain the difference to anyone who had breasts—including his wife and his Queen.

Rothvar continued to pace while Lucivar slammed his fists into the punching bag.

Finally Rothvar stopped pacing and Lucivar stopped punching.

“She have her eye on someone?” Rothvar asked.

Lucivar nodded. “I’m sure Surreal knows who it is, but she won’t say. Not to me.” He could ask Daemon to find out, but there was always a chance that the Sadist would dislike Jillian’s choice enough to . . . remove . . . him from the living.

“Gotta find someone trained who will see the girl through this,” Rothvar said.

“Surreal is going to take care of that. And she’s going to stand as Jillian’s escort.” Lucivar snarled. “Apparently no one’s cock will stand up long enough to do the job if the Demon Prince is nearby keeping watch.”

Rothvar coughed. “I’d take you over Surreal any day.”

“Yeah, well, an assassin does things quietly, so it’s easy not to see how dangerous she is.”

“Probably for the best.” Rothvar rubbed the back of his neck. “I think Nurian will be relieved to have it done. It’s a risk. It always is. But it’s one night instead of Jillian being vulnerable every day.”

He knew that. He did. “After that, she’ll make the Offering to the Darkness. She says she’s ready.”

“I guess we’re going to have to strap some steel to our spines and not get in her way.”

Lucivar rubbed his sore knuckles and sighed. “I guess we’ll have to do that.”