The Queen's Price

FIFTY-EIGHT

Butler set an old door on top of two sawhorses, making a rough table for one of the hind legs of a pig that the butcher had delivered early that morning.

The first part of this lesson would be startling, more likely upsetting if Saetien understood what it meant. The second part, if she chose to participate in the second part, would be brutal.

He almost hoped she didn’t have enough courage to choose the second part of the lesson.

He already knew her well enough to know her choice, and then there would be no going back—for either of them.

When Kieran dropped her off at the gate and eyed the rough table and the pig’s leg, Butler said, “Go away, Lord Kieran. I’ll request the return of the pony cart when we’re ready, and I’ll escort Saetien back to your house.”

“Butler.” From the Warlord of Maghre, the word was both question and warning.

“Go,” he said again as Saetien climbed down from the cart.

He didn’t say anything else until Kieran was far enough down the road that Butler was sure there wouldn’t be anyone to interfere.

“What’s that?” Saetien gestured toward the table. “Besides a big piece of meat?”

“A leg for tonight’s lesson,” Butler replied as he created a couple of balls of witchlight and set them above each end of the table.

“We’re cooking a . . .” She suddenly went pale.

“It’s pork. I bought it from the butcher this morning.”

“What are we doing with it?”

“You are observing the collision of power and flesh.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will. Stand there and watch.” He created a Green shield around the table, then looked at her. He knew why she reacted that way to a leg. He didn’t need to touch her mind to supply a name and a place to go with that reaction. Dannie. In Briarwood. “Are you ready?”

Saetien nodded.

He unleashed his Green power on the meat. It exploded into tiny chunks caught in a bloody, bone-gritty mist. For several heartbeats there was nothing to see, until the chunks began to slide off his shield and the mist began to settle.

Saetien stared at the mess, then stared at him.

“Imagine getting hit with a backlash of power that exploded your body just like that. Imagine how it must have felt in the moments before the connection between your Self and your body was severed. Would you have had the courage to face that?”

“Why would I want to?” Saetien said.

“You’ve always thought you were competing with Jaenelle Angelline. She faced it.”

“I . . .” Saetien hugged herself.

“I can use a kind of illusion,” Butler said as he called in the other hind leg and used Craft to position it on the table. “Through a bit of Craft connecting you to the meat, you can feel what it would be like to have your leg explode. You’ll come to no physical harm.” He waited a beat, then added, “Whether or not you do this is your choice.”

He watched the push-pull of conflicting wants so clearly displayed on her face. She wanted to step away from this, from the certainty of pain. And she wanted to prove she could be as strong, as special, as Jaenelle Angelline. Even now, she didn’t understand that she had the freedom to choose another path—a freedom Jaenelle had never had.

Saetien lowered her arms and squared her shoulders. “I want to know. Show me.”

A Black Widow would have done it differently—could have done it differently—but this way was simple and would work. Butler called in a spool of spider silk, wrapped one end of the thread around the pig’s leg near the hock, then unwound more of the spider silk until he wrapped the other end around Saetien’s leg just above her ankle.

“Stand still,” he said, breaking off the thread and vanishing the spool.

She nodded, her eyes on the pig’s leg.

A Green shield around the pig’s leg with enough room to allow for the explosion without breaking the shield.

“Ready?” he asked.

Another nod.

The punch of Green power. This time, Butler watched Saetien at the moment the pig’s leg exploded just like the first one had.

She stayed upright for a heartbeat, maybe two, her eyes wide, her mouth open in an attempt to scream. Then she collapsed.

Butler caught her as she went down. He snapped the thread connecting her with the pig’s leg as he went down with her, holding her against his chest.

“You’re all right, darling.” He rocked her while she clutched her leg as if she needed to hold it together. “You’re all right. The pain is real but your leg is intact. Breathe, Saetien. You need to breathe.”

A gasping breath. Then another. And then the wailing scream—a sign that the pain was starting to fade.

Butler rubbed her leg briskly to help restore circulation. Not that it had been lacking, but the pins-and-needles sensation would be there and brisk rubbing helped.

“Let’s get you inside.” He picked her up and carried her into the cottage. She’d been silent after that one wailing scream, and that was a worry.

He settled her in a chair, tucked a quilt around her, and poured a generous amount of brandy into a glass. He wrapped her hands around the glass and said, “Healing tonic. Drink it down. It will help.”

“It smells like brandy.” Little girl voice. Hesitant to contradict an adult but certain of her facts.

“Tomorrow it will be brandy and you will be too young to drink it. Tonight it’s a healing tonic.”

“O-okay.” She took a sip, made a face, then continued sipping until she finished.

Butler took the glass and set it aside before sitting on the hassock in front of the chair. He waited, knowing she had to come to this in her own time. That was the only way she would listen and really understand what he said.

“She felt that,” Saetien finally said. “Her leg exploded and felt like that for real?”

“More than her leg,” he replied quietly. “Her whole body.” He gave her a moment to think about that.

“But . . . she survived.”

“There was one chance to cleanse the Realms of Dorothea’s and Hekatah’s taint. There would never be another witch strong enough to do that if Jaenelle failed. So she needed all her power—and it took her three days to descend to her full strength. Marian and Daemonar had been taken captive and brought to Hayll. Lucivar had gone after them and was captured. Saetan went after them, intending to be captured. He hadn’t known what Jaenelle was planning to do. He’d thought she was stalling because she didn’t want the war they all knew was coming. He knew if he was captured, Jaenelle would go after Dorothea because he was the father of her heart and she always protected him. He didn’t see in time that she was going after more than Dorothea.

“They’d sent her Saetan’s little finger as a warning to surrender and become an instrument for Dorothea’s rule of all the Realms. She needed those three days, so she asked Daemon to distract Dorothea and Hekatah. She asked—and he answered. But he knew what he’d have to do, and he knew the price he would pay, so he agreed to be Jaenelle’s diversion only if she agreed to marry him when he returned.”

“But she killed all those people,” Saetien said. “Thousands and thousands of people.”

“Yes. I think some part of her didn’t expect to survive the unleashing of all that power. Maybe some part of her didn’t want to survive and carry the burden of all those dead. But she gave Daemon her word that they would be married when he got back from Hayll, and what he wanted—what he needed—would have mattered more to her than her own peace of mind.

“She told me some things about that unleashing and what happened afterward. Not everything, but more than she’d told anyone else. Including Daemon.” Butler hesitated. “Especially Daemon.”

“Why didn’t she tell him?”

“She had to make sure that she would succeed, so she unleashed most of her power and knew there would be some backlash. Because of her promise to Daemon, she kept some power back to form an Ebony shield around herself. She miscalculated. Or maybe in the moments when she created that shield she remembered Wilhelmina calling her a monster and wondered if everyone would see her that way. Maybe she didn’t make the shield quite strong enough. Not deliberately, but in a moment when her courage failed. Maybe she expected to become a whisper in the Darkness and not have to see another person she loved look on her with horror.

“She hadn’t known that the Queen of Arachna, that weaver of dreams, had seen what Jaenelle had intended and also saw a way to save her. She hadn’t known that Ladvarian had rallied the rest of the kindred to use their strength and power and skills in order to tend all the healing webs and hold their Lady to the living while she was put back together, piece by piece, bone shard by bone shard. She hadn’t known that Lorn, the last great Prince of the Dragon race that had created the Blood, had made it possible for Daemon, Lucivar, and Saetan to hold on to Witch’s Self as she fell into the abyss.

“The backlash hit, and Jaenelle’s body exploded. But the shield she created must have held her suspended in that moment just long enough for the flesh to be captured in all the webs the Arachnians had spun. And Daemon, Lucivar, and Saetan managed to stop her Self from falling into the Darkness, out of anyone’s reach.”

Butler let out a shuddering breath. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Not the tonic,” Saetien replied.

He smiled. “Tea?” When she nodded, he went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. He gave her the illusion of privacy, but he stayed aware of her and the emotions churning inside her. He returned a few minutes later with a mug of tea and a glass of yarbarah. Handing her the mug, he resumed his seat on the hassock.

“Her whole body exploded?” Saetien asked after taking a sip of tea. “Everything?”

“Yes.”

“The kindred put her back together?”

“Yes.”

“So she felt that pain for a few mo—”

“Weeks,” he interrupted. “She endured that pain for weeks, Saetien. Maybe not immediately afterward. Being in the healing webs would have numbed the pain, at least to some extent. But she rose before the healing was complete, and after that, there was unrelenting pain.”

“Why did she rise before the healing was complete?”

“Because she loved Daemon Sadi, and he was breaking under the grief of losing her. You have to remember that he’d waited seventeen hundred years for her, and they were together for a few months. It wasn’t enough time. After so many centuries of waiting, of yearning, of loving a dream he wasn’t sure he would ever see, when she was finally there, it wasn’t enough time. Lucivar had a few years with her, and he had a family to anchor him. Saetan had the experience of participating in the years while she grew up to become the Queen she would be. But Daemon? Given a choice, he would have died with her rather than live another day without her. He wasn’t given that choice, but he’d lost the will to live. His father and brother could see him failing a little more day by day.

“Then the day came when they were told that Jaenelle had survived. And finally the day came when Daemon could bring her back to the Hall to continue healing.”

“Did my father know she was in pain?”

“In pain, yes, but not the extent of the pain. She rose too soon in order to save him. She would never tell him how much his grief had cost her. She loved him with everything in her—and he loved her the same way. Still loves her. He would do anything for Jaenelle, and that was what made him so dangerous. And she would do anything for him.” Butler drained his glass. “After all, she came back because he needed her to be more than an occasional dream and a song in the Darkness. She came back and made everyone aware of her return in order to help him save you.”

Saetien set aside the mug of tea. “Everything has a price.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to go home now.”

“Home?”

“Eileen’s house.”

Butler touched her hand, a moment’s connection. “She was dreams made flesh, Saetien. Because of the dreamers and what they needed from that dream, it was her nature to respond to people who asked for her help. Especially Daemon. Always Daemon. But I don’t think she would have wanted you to choose that path in the same way. You can be so many things that she couldn’t be.”

“Because she was the Queen?”

“Yes. Because she was the Queen.”

They didn’t say anything more while they waited for the pony cart to arrive. They didn’t speak on the drive back to Eileen’s house.

As he walked back to his cottage, Butler wondered if he’d done too much, said too much.

He would find out when the sun set tomorrow.