The Queen's Price

TWO

Regretting the impulse to invite Saetien SaDiablo to dinner in order to give the girl a break from some hard truths about the sanctuary where Jillian worked and Saetien resided, Jillian continued to cut up the vegetables for the salad. The beef and mushrooms were heating in their gravy; the egg noodles were almost cooked. When the food was on the table, this whining would end—one way or another.

“So, you’ve been telling the instructors at the sanctuary that the reason you fell in with Delora was because you felt neglected, that you never had enough of your father’s time and attention, that you didn’t learn things like Protocol that would have helped you.” Jillian added a light dressing to the salad and mixed it. When she set the bowl on the table, she looked Saetien in the eyes. “That is so much crap, I’m surprised you’re not choking on it. And just so you know? The instructors don’t believe a word of it.”

She turned away to drain the noodles and put them in a serving dish while Saetien sputtered. She ladled the beef-and-mushroom mixture over the noodles, then set the dish on the table. Bread from the bakery and freshly churned butter from the SaDiablo estate on the other side of the village completed the meal.

“If I’d been a Queen—” Saetien began.

“You would have been thumped so hard for being a bitch, you’d have had to walk backward to see where you were going,” Jillian said sharply. “Tell me this, oh poor, neglected child—and remember I’m part of this family. Who taught you how to ride a horse? Who taught you how to swim? Who taught you the simple country dances so that you could participate at harvest parties in Dhemlan and in Scelt? Who taught you to air walk? Who taught you to read before you went to school and read you bedtime stories? Who taught you—or tried to teach you—basic Craft and Protocol? Who wouldn’t let you fudge the rules and be a brat? Who took you riding when you were in Amdarh, and took you to the theater and to art exhibits? Who was that, hmm?”

Saetien stared at the table, one tear rolling down her cheek.

“Your father. You received more time and attention than most children who come from aristo families, but you probably heard someone whisper that you must have been neglected and that’s why you became Delora’s pet, and you seized on that as the excuse for ignoring what you knew to be right because that puts the blame on someone else and you’re just a victim.”

“He never—”

“Went with you to the country houses and the parties there?” Jillian nodded. “He couldn’t. With his sexual heat being as potent as it is, if he showed up at one of those parties, every female past puberty would have been on him like starving cats that had found a bowl of cream, and if he couldn’t get away from them fast enough, his temper would have slipped the leash and your happy little party would have turned into blood-soaked ground and corpses who would have had the unpleasant experience of meeting him again when they made the transition to demon-dead and learned why you shouldn’t piss off the High Lord of Hell.”

Jillian filled small bowls with the salad before dishing out beef and noodles for both of them.

“If I’d been a Queen—”

“Your education wouldn’t have been any different. Well, as I understand it, you would have been required to learn more and would have been required to practice your lessons in Protocol every time you were in public—which, come to think of it, your father did insist on except during playtime with your friends. And that’s no different than any other child after the Birthright Ceremony. The real training begins after that ceremony, and the rules become a lot stricter.”

“If I’d known about that war and Dorothea—”

“What?” Jillian snapped, losing patience. “Kaeleer’s history, which includes that war, is supposed to be taught in the schools. If the school in Halaway is neglecting that part of the children’s education, Prince Sadi should be informed.”

“He didn’t tell me he’d been . . .” Saetien grabbed a piece of bread and scooped up enough butter to generously cover three slices. “And she didn’t tell me that she’d been . . .”

“Maybe Daemon and Surreal thought you weren’t mature enough to understand their pasts, and they were waiting until you were older,” Jillian countered. “Or maybe because so much of the family’s history circles around a Queen you don’t want to know about, you always dragged Titian away when Daemon, Lucivar, Marian, and Surreal told stories about their lives before they came to Kaeleer. No one forced you to come back and listen, because the adults figured you weren’t ready to listen. And those stories were told in steps, depending on the age of the listeners. How many times have you heard Lucivar say, ‘You’re not old enough to hear that story. Someday, but not now’? Plenty of times.”

“My father should have stopped the party!”

“As I understand it, he intended to return all of you to the school in Amdarh when he had to leave to investigate a reported attack, but you whined about being allowed to stay and have the party. And when Beale, who stood in your father’s stead and is strong enough and ruthless enough to turf out the intruders, told those boys to leave because they were not supposed to be there, you undermined his authority and set up half of the girls at the party to be attacked, including your cousin and a young Queen. So if you’re feeling sorry about what this has cost you and want to point the finger and say ‘It’s your fault’? Well, it is your fault, Saetien. Your father carries some of the blame, and he knows it. Lucivar would have hauled all of you into the Coach and taken you back to the school, regardless of what you wanted, instead of hoping you had a glimmer of honor left.”

Jillian set her fork down, too churned up to eat. But she’d had a few weeks to think about this and realized something that felt like truth. “In a way, I understand why you did it. You were born into the SaDiablo family, but you don’t really belong to that family because Saetan and his sons have been committed to serving and protecting the Black-Jeweled Queen of Ebon Askavi from the moment Saetan made a promise to stay connected to the living for as long as it took for her to appear in the Realms. You think a promise that held for over fifty thousand years is going to fade away now?” She shook her head. “And it’s all there in the Hall—the history, the promise, the choice to serve. Some people fit into the family, and it has nothing to do with being related by blood. They feel the connection, feel the echo of a promise in the very marrow of their bones. Daemonar feels it. Marian. Lucivar. Mikal and Beron. So do I. So did all the Territory Queens who served in the Dark Court. But my sister, Nurian, doesn’t fit into what would have been the First Circle or even the Second Circle. Because of connections, she is welcome and included in gatherings when she wants to be, but she remains distant enough that she doesn’t have to face the raw power in the family on a daily basis, not alone. She wouldn’t be able to cope with the Black in a cold rage. And that’s all right. Not everyone can.”

“You didn’t mention . . .” Saetien hesitated. “Surreal.”

“I think Surreal is like Nurian, needing enough distance from what drove—and still drives—Lucivar and Daemon. It just took her some years to remember that.” Now Jillian hesitated, then decided to say the rest. “You love your father—I know you do—but you’re never going to be comfortable being around him, never going to be able to accept him, when he’s anything but the courteous and controlled Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. There was a time when you might have. I don’t know. But that’s not the case anymore. And maybe something in you recognized that you couldn’t survive a tight connection to the SaDiablo family. So you did something that broke the bonds, that set you on the outside and has allowed you to get away from your father—and get away from the memories of the Queen who still rules the family. I think if you’d told Daemon that you were having trouble living at the Hall and had been honest about why you were struggling, he might have found another way for you to be independent.”

Jillian reached across the table and patted Saetien’s hand. “You’re not the first who needed to leave in order to survive. I doubt you’ll be the last. Just stop pretending that you weren’t the one who made the choice, even if you didn’t understand the truth of it at the time.”

Saetien sat on the side of her bed, willing the tears not to fall. She didn’t know who she was anymore, didn’t know what she wanted—except to be free of this burden of blame.

“I made a mistake,” she said quietly. “I wanted something so much, I didn’t listen to anyone who tried to tell me I was wrong about Delora, about the other girls. About the boys who were close to those girls.”

Shelby, the Warlord Sceltie puppy who was her special friend, sat at her feet watching her closely. *But we are learning now, and we will listen to our teachers. Then we will know when humans tell us to do a wrong thing.* He paused. *And we will bite them.*

The puppy sounded a bit too pleased with that idea. “I don’t think biting would be acceptable.”

*Sometimes we need to bite.* He sounded so sure of that.

Maybe she should talk to the adult Scelties who lived at the sanctuary to find out if—or when—biting was considered an acceptable response to some human behavior.

When her bedroom door opened, Saetien wished she’d locked it after returning from Jillian’s house. Most of the girls locked their doors before trying to sleep, which wasn’t surprising. This place housed girls who had been raped in order to break their power. Many of them struggled with an aversion to being in a bed for any reason, and sleep was precious when it came at all—and it was a rare night when everyone wasn’t awakened by a girl screaming herself out of a nightmare.

Teresa walked in. She had been a natural Black Widow before a male had . . . done what he’d done. She was still a Black Widow, but her power was broken now, leaving her with nothing but basic Craft. And her mind had shattered under the attack, leaving her walking the paths of the Twisted Kingdom, her thoughts and memories fragmented.

So much like Tersa, Saetien’s paternal grandmother. But Tersa had chosen madness in order to regain some of the Hourglass’s Craft, and she was strange in ways that had always made Saetien uneasy. Most days Tersa seemed absentminded, dithery, unable to alter even the simplest routine without becoming flustered. On other days, when the clarity of madness filled her gold eyes, she was . . . terrifying.

Not something Saetien could say out loud about her father’s mother. Daemon Sadi loved Tersa and respected her skills as a Black Widow. So did Lucivar Yaslana. In fact, no one else in the family felt uncomfortable around Tersa, which was another way in which Saetien had felt like an outsider among her own kin.

Teresa sat next to Saetien and held out a sheet of paper. “This is you.”

The drawing looked like the top of a box with rounded corners. The design was made up of strong lines and curves, bold but not hard. Two-thirds of the design resonated with something inside her, appealed to her in ways she couldn’t put into words. But the right-hand side turned into a mash of chaotic lines—bloated dissonance that spilled over the edge of the box, filaments reaching and reaching as if to ensnare the unwary.

“This is how you see me?” Saetien asked, still feeling raw from the things Jillian had said.

“Yes.” No condemnation in Teresa’s voice. Nothing unusual in the voice as she pointed to the strong lines and curves. “This is who you were.” Her finger moved over the chaotic lines. “This is who you are. You don’t fit in the SaDiablo box anymore. You did once, but not anymore. You need to find a new box.”

A new box. A new family was what Teresa meant. “Where am I supposed to find it?”

Teresa pointed to the paper. “She can tell you. She tastes of sadness—and truth.”

Saetien looked at the name under the chaotic lines. “Who is she?”

Teresa blinked. “Who?”

“This girl. Is she here at the sanctuary?” Doubtful, unless the girl had just come in.

“What girl?” Teresa looked down. “The puppy!” She slid off the bed and sat on the floor. “Hello, puppy!”

Shelby gave the girl kisses and received pats and hugs before Teresa got up and wandered off, hopefully to her own room.

Saetien sat for a long time, staring at the drawing. Staring at a name.

“This is who you were. This is who you are. . . . She can tell you. She tastes of sadness—and truth.”

“That’s all well and good,” Saetien told Shelby. “But who is Wilhelmina Benedict?”