The Queen's Price

FORTY-SIX

Daemonar felt Grizande’s arm brush his as she moved a little closer.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Good question. Too bad he didn’t have an answer, except to say that he was pretty sure that was the reason all the students and instructors were gathered in this room.

“You know the straw-and-burlap dummies we’ve been using for weapons practice?” he whispered in reply. “I think it’s meant to be like that, only wearing fancy clothes.”

“We are learning to stab through clothes?” She sounded hopeful.

“More likely she is some kind of training for the Queens and courts.”

She growled softly. “Then why we here if we can’t stab it?”

He shrugged—but he watched Uncle Daemon, whose face was a mask that revealed nothing. Not thoughts, not feelings.

“This is Lady Dumm, the Hall’s special guest,” Daemon said. “The Queens in residence and their courts will have the pleasure of entertaining her.”

Hell’s fire.

Grizande growled loudly enough to draw Uncle Daemon’s attention.

Daemonar nudged her in the ribs and said on a psychic thread, *Not us. We’re outside of these lessons—remember?*

*Still want to stab it,* she replied.

*Yeah. But we’re not allowed to do that.* Probably. Maybe.

Someone sneezed loudly. Then a stentorian voice said, “I need a hanky!”

With the exception of Uncle Daemon, who remained quiet and still, offering nothing, every male in the room froze. A few hands reached toward pockets; then the males must have remembered that the handkerchiefs weren’t pristine.

Finally Felisha called in a lace-edged bit of cloth and held it out.

Brenda shook her head. “Darling, that bit of nothing is fine for dabbing away a tear or two at the theater, but it won’t do if someone really needs a handkerchief.” She called in a square of cloth more typical of what males carried and held it out.

Lady Dumm reached up, took the handkerchief—somehow—and brought it to her face.

Daemonar had grown up hunting with men who could put aside all pretense of being civilized, but none of them had ever made a sound so disgusting that it had his breakfast rising toward his throat.

Dumm thrust out the hand holding the handkerchief, as if she expected someone to take it. Reason told him there was nothing in or on the cloth, but unless he could use witchfire to burn it right out of her hand, he wasn’t getting near it.

“Well, this is a dainty bunch,” Neala said as she took the handkerchief, dropped it in a bowl, and walked out of the room.

Even the Warlord Princes scrambled to clear a path for her to avoid getting too close.

“Lady Zoela, you are the dominant Queen today,” Daemon said. “Lady Dumm would like to take a carriage ride around the estate this morning and requires companions and a sufficient escort in case she wants to extend the ride into Halaway. The carriage will be at the door in twenty minutes. You have that long to give out the assignments for the day.”

If Zoey collapses, Weston will call in a weapon—and only the Darkness knows what will happen after that.

Zoey paled, but she raised her chin. “It will be my pleasure to accompany Lady Dumm. If you’ll excuse me, Prince, my Sisters and I will take a few minutes to discuss the assignments and who is best able to perform those duties.”

Daemon gave her a small bow—his permission for Zoey and the other Queens to leave the room.

When no one else made an effort to leave, Daemon said pleasantly, “The rest of you might want to find out what you’re doing today.”

It was a . . . controlled . . . stampede for the door.

“Come on,” Daemonar said. “You’re having your first riding lesson, so let’s get down to the stables. That way we’ll be in position to observe.”

As he followed Grizande out the door, Daemonar looked back. Uncle Daemon remained quiet and still, his face a beautiful mask that revealed nothing. Raine looked a bit stunned. Weston looked ready to bounce off the ceiling. And Brenda just pulled out her pocket watch, looked at the time—and grinned.

Because Grizande wanted to go out the front door—which meant going the long way to the stable and giving her and Daemonar some time to settle—Holt stopped them in the great hall.

“Prince Yaslana, I thought you should know that your parents will be here this afternoon and will be staying for a day or two,” Holt said.

Mother Night. This was like free fall with no safe place to land.

Daemonar cleared his throat. “Does Lady Dumm join us for meals?”

“She does,” Holt replied.

“She’s going to sit at a table with my mother when my father is in the same room?” If the . . . guest . . . blew her nose at the table and made that sound, they’d all spend a week picking bits of her out of the dining room walls after Lucivar’s temper snapped the leash.

Holt smiled. “Should be interesting, don’t you think?”

Daemonar walked out the door, muttering, “That’s one way of putting it.”

Daemon watched Raine ease away from Lady Dumm. Brenda slipped her pocket watch back into her vest pocket and gave him a bright smile.

Weston swung around to face him. “If Zoey is going out in a carriage with that, then I’m going with her.”

“As her sword and shield, that is your privilege—and your choice,” Daemon replied. Then he added quietly, “She could have assigned another Queen to accompany Dumm. She didn’t.”

“She used up her courage making that choice.”

“I know that—and I’ll make sure Dumm’s handlers know it too.” He looked at Brenda and smiled in warning as he raised his voice just enough to carry across the room. “But Allis will be there, and if Lady Dumm wants to keep all her stuffing, she’ll take some care around Zoey.”

I wonder if there is any precedent for when a Queen can toss a guest out of a moving carriage, Zoey thought. So far, Lady Dumm’s family had better carriages and better horses. Obviously, no one had informed Dumm that the horses pulling this carriage were kindred and might express some opinions of their own. And according to Dumm, the estate’s farm didn’t rotate the crops properly—although how something without a face could tell was anyone’s guess.

“This is the estate’s lake,” Zoey said. The students had arrived too late in the season for ice-skating, but they’d be able to swim and have picnics there in the summer.

“That’s a puddle, not a lake,” Dumm said. “On my family’s estate, we have a proper lake.”

“Of course you do,” Zoey muttered. Hell’s fire, did aristos act like this around Grandmother Zhara?

“Don’t mumble, girl. It’s rude.”

Zoey felt movement on her right as Weston rode up beside the carriage. But the sword and shield didn’t have a chance to voice his objection to Zoey’s being called a girl instead of being addressed by her title because Allis growled. Loudly.

“Dogs should be on the floor,” Dumm said.

“She’s on my lap,” Zoey replied. “She’s not taking up space on your half of the seat.” In fact, Allis had settled in Zoey’s lap in such a way as to guarantee that she and Zoey had their share of the seat.

“Stupid animal.”

*Tough mutton,* Allis replied.

Neala, who was acting as Lady Dumm’s maid that day, clapped a hand over her mouth and stared beyond the carriage, her shoulders shaking. Jhett, who was Zoey’s companion on this ride, closed her eyes to avoid looking at anyone. Weston, suffering from a violent coughing fit, fell back to ride beside Raeth.

“Well,” Zoey said, “I think we’ve had enough fresh air, don’t you?”

The horses must have decided her comment was a command and spun the carriage in a tight turn before heading for the stables at a speed that was just shy of reckless.

Once they reached the stables, Raeth helped Zoey and Jhett step down from the carriage, leaving Neala and the two footmen assigned to Lady Dumm to deal with their guest, who seemed to have run out of comments about the estate—and thank the Darkness for that.

Reaching the great hall, Zoey hesitated. Should she inform Prince Sadi that the kindred had shortened the carriage ride?

*You are sick,* said the Sceltie herding Azara into the great hall.

“I’m not sick!” Azara almost wailed the words, a sign that this discussion was on its second—or third—round.

*You are sneezing. You are sick. You need to see the Healer, and you need blankets, and you need hot drinks. And a nap.*

“Something in the greenhouse made me sneeze. That’s not the same as being sick. You sneezed too.”

*There was a stinky. But that is me. That is not you.*

Being the dominant Queen, Zoey took pity on Azara. “Lady Azara, go see Lady Nadene and have the Healer confirm that the sneezing is caused by a plant in the greenhouse and not by illness. Then take some quiet time. Napping is not required. Reading or writing letters are acceptable activities for quiet time.”

*Is dealing with them always like this?* Azara asked on a psychic thread.

*She’s just getting started,* Zoey replied.

Azara headed for the healing room with the Sceltie right behind her. Zoey, Raeth, and Jhett went into the informal reception room and collapsed.

Not looking at her friends, Jhett said, “Did you notice how Lady Dumm almost flew out of the carriage when we hit that bump in the road? If you hadn’t grabbed her arm . . .” She waved a hand at Zoey.

Raeth stared at the ceiling. “Did you notice there was nothing on that smooth road to cause the carriage to bounce like that?”

Zoey and Jhett stared at him.

“There had to be something,” Zoey said.

Raeth shook his head.

Allis, who had disappeared when they returned, trotted into the room. *Beale is bringing water and treats.*

Two kindred horses and one ticked-off Sceltie. Which of them had put the bounce in the road?

Deciding she didn’t want the answer, Zoey nibbled on treats and waited for the rest of her court to finish their morning assignments.

Daemonar watched Raeth, Caede, Trent, and Jarrod whack at straw-and-burlap dummies until the seams split. He wasn’t sure if they were releasing their feelings about dealing with Lady Dumm or expressing their new understanding about dealing with Scelties when the dogs were looking at humans not as playmates but as humans who needed their help.

He waved at the other Warlord Princes. “Prince Raine is expecting me, so I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Daemonar?” Jarrod said. “Do you have any idea how long Lady Dumm is staying around?”

“No idea at all. But if the Scelties start digging a hole, you should let someone know.”

Lucivar understood why Daemon had rearranged the seating, putting him at the other end of the table.

The battlefield was the length of the table, and the combatants were everyone seated at that table—and they were caught between the Black and the Ebon-gray.

Marian was seated next to Daemon at the head of the table, a change made because Daemon wanted to keep Grizande near him and the girl had been so pleased to see Marian. Lucivar, on the other hand, had Daemonar and Weston. Better than trying to talk to the girls, who all looked . . . Well, except for Zoey and Titian, they all looked like sheep who had seen a Sceltie for the first time—which probably wasn’t far from the truth.

Lady Dumm was seated in the center across from Brenda. Everyone else, students and instructors, found their assigned seats—and Lucivar wondered who had made the seating choices.

They finished the soup course before everyone relaxed enough to start talking.

“Are you all wound up for a reason?” Lucivar asked Daemonar.

Daemonar looked at Weston, who said, “Being from an aristo family does not guarantee good manners.”

Daemonar nodded. “She’s . . .”

The loud smacking of lips came from the chairs at the center of the table.

Daemonar closed his eyes and muttered, “Hell’s fire.”

Daemon continued talking to Marian as if he couldn’t hear the sound, couldn’t see the way all the youngsters were staring at Dumm, then looking at Sadi as if expecting—hoping?—he would put a stop to it.

The sound stopped. The whole table—except Daemon—sighed with relief as everyone finished the second course.

The third course ended with a belch that would have earned Lucivar’s boys extra chores if they’d done that at their mother’s table. But the loud, protracted fart had everyone putting down their forks, leaving the desserts unfinished.

Daemon still didn’t act like he’d noticed a thing—but in his gold eyes there was a glitter that warned Lucivar that they were all in trouble.

Daemon called in the red folder Saetan had left for his sons, and he flipped through the papers until he found the one he wanted. It wasn’t like the spells and instructions and notes about things the coven had done. It was a simple suggestion for how to deal with a difficult guest—and where to find what was needed.

An hour later, the High Lord walked to the Dark Altar protected by the Hall. He entered the chamber and lit the black candles in the proper order to open a Gate between Kaeleer and Hell. Passing from one Realm to the other, he walked out of the Dark Altar located next to the Hall in the Dark Realm—and waited.

He didn’t wait long before a couple of demon-dead Warlords approached. Cautious, yes, but not afraid.

“High Lord,” they said, bowing.

“There is something I need. I know it exists in this Realm, but I don’t know how easy it is to locate.”

“Easy enough to locate,” one said with a grin when he’d told them what he wanted. “Not so easy to procure.”

“Keep it shielded and bring it to me here. In exchange, I offer a case of yarbarah from the SaDiablo vineyards and a cup of fresh blood.”

“Whose blood?” the other asked.

The High Lord smiled. “Mine.”