The Shadow Queen

CHAPTER 3

“Why am I doing this?”

Saetan Daemon SaDiablo, the former Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, glanced at Daemon Sadi, the current Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, and swallowed the urge to laugh. That tone of voice was more suited to a surly adolescent than a strong adult male in his prime, and being Hayllian, one of the long-lived races, Daemon had left adolescence behind several centuries ago.

But he’d noticed that there were times when Daemon and his brother, Lucivar Yaslana, set adulthood—and a good portion of their brains—aside and were just . . . boys. They seemed to test the emotional waters of adolescence when they were alone with him. Maybe it was because he’d been denied the privilege of raising them and the three of them hadn’t gone through the pissing contests they would have all endured if they’d lived with him. Maybe it was because they’d had to grow up too hard and too fast in order to survive the vicious slavery that had been used to control them. At least, that had attempted to control them. The slavery, the pain, the fear, and the cruelty had turned two young men, two Warlord Princes who were natural predators, into lethally honed weapons.

They were intelligent and vicious. Loyal and loving. Powerful and independent. Fiercely protective of those they loved to a sometimes annoying degree.

They were his sons, and he loved them both. But the one standing at the other end of the table, looking at him through long black eyelashes, was his mirror, his true heir. And since he was, among other things, the High Lord of Hell, the fact that Daemon was a mirror was something he never forgot.

“Why am I doing this?” Daemon asked again.

“Because when you arrived at the Keep in Kaeleer and discovered I was here at the Keep in Terreille, you came through the Gate to this Realm in order to ask me something about the family estates. And when you saw me sorting reams of old papers, you asked if there was anything you could do to help.”

“That was a polite offer, not a sincere one,” Daemon grumbled.

“I know,” Saetan replied dryly. “But I chose to take the words at face value.”

Daemon snarled softly and went back to sorting papers.

Saetan hid a smile and concentrated on clearing out the stacks of papers at his end of the table.

“What are you planning to do with this?” Daemon asked several minutes later. “Bring it back to the Keep in Kaeleer?”

“Why in the name of Hell would I do that?”

“Marian says shredded parchment makes a good mulch for flower beds.”

Marian was Lucivar’s wife, a lovely woman and a talented hearth witch whose gentler nature balanced her husband’s volatile one. But there were times, Saetan felt, when hearth-Craft practicality needed to be put aside for a more direct and simple solution.

“I’m planning to haul this out to one of the stone courtyards, put a shield around it to keep it contained, blast it with witchfire, and transform several wagonloads of useless paper into a barrel of ash.”

“If you asked Marian to help, you’d get this done a lot faster. I bet she knows several ‘tidy-up’ spells,” Daemon said. Then he paused. Considered. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t get it done faster, but Marian would be thorough.”

Damn the boy for knowing just where to apply the needle in order to prick and annoy.

He wasn’t trying to clean the place; he was trying to eliminate reams of history so old it was no longer of any use to anyone—including the long-lived races.

Well, two could play the needle game. “If I wanted things to get interesting, I could ask Jaenelle to help.”

Daemon looked at the parchment in his hand, tipped it a little closer to the ball of witchlight hovering over the table so he could read the faded script . . . and paled.

Saetan had no idea what was written on that parchment, but clearly the thought of Jaenelle Angelline, the former Queen of Ebon Askavi and now Daemon’s darling wife, having that information was sufficient to scare a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince.

Daemon put the paper on the discard pile and quietly cleared his throat. “I think the two of us can take care of this without mentioning it to the Ladies.”

“A wise decision.” And the same conclusion he’d come to when he’d decided to clear out some of this stuff.

They worked for another hour. Then Saetan said, “That’s all that can be done today.”

Daemon looked around. They’d thrown the discarded papers into a large crate, but the table and surrounding floor were still strewn with stacks that hadn’t been touched.

“It’s midday, Prince,” Saetan said.

Daemon nodded. “I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late.”

The hours between sunset and sunrise were the part of the day that belonged to the demon-dead—and Guardians, the ones like Saetan who were the living dead, who straddled a line that extended their lifetimes beyond counting. During the years when Jaenelle had lived with him as his adopted daughter, his habits had changed and his waking hours had extended through the morning so that he would be available to the living. But even here at the Keep, the Sanctuary of Witch, he needed to rest when the sun was at its strongest.

“Let’s go back to the Keep in Kaeleer,” Saetan said. “We’ll wash up, have something to eat before I retire, and you can ask me about whatever you’d originally come here to ask.”

The library door opened before they reached it. A Warlord who served the Keep in Terreille nodded to them and said, “High Lord, a Warlord Prince has arrived.”

“His name?” Saetan asked.

“He wouldn’t offer it,” the Warlord replied. “And he wouldn’t say which Territory he’s from. He says he’s looking for someone, and he insists on talking to ‘someone in authority.’ ”

“Does he?” Saetan said softly. “How foolish of him. Put our guest in one of the receiving rooms. I’ll be with him shortly.”

“Yes, High Lord.”

The Warlord’s look of gleeful anticipation told Saetan how deeply the idiot had offended those who served the Keep by not following the basic courtesies. Fools who tried to withhold their names when asking to speak with someone here were usually given as much as they’d offered—which was nothing.

When the Warlord left, Saetan turned and touched Daemon’s arm. “Why don’t you go back to Kaeleer and ask for a meal. I’ll talk to this unknown Prince and join you when I’m done. I doubt this will take more than a few minutes.”

The air around them chilled—a warning that a violent temper was turning cold, cold, cold.

“If you’re going to talk to anyone from Terreille, you should have someone watching your back,” Daemon said too softly.

He wasn’t sure if he should feel flattered or insulted by his son’s desire to protect, but he decided it was best to keep his own temper out of this conversation—especially now that Daemon’s temper had turned lethal. “Have you forgotten that I’m a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince and do know how to defend myself?”

One sweep of those golden eyes that were now glazed and sleepy. One pointed look at his left hand—which was missing the little finger.

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Daemon crooned.

A shiver went down Saetan’s spine.

The boyish posturing was gone. Even their relationship as father and son was gone. The man before him was a Warlord Prince of equal rank, who was standing one step away from the killing edge. A Warlord Prince the Blood in Terreille had called the Sadist. A man who was capable of doing anything if provoked the wrong way.

And that, more than anything else, was reason enough to get Daemon out of Terreille.

“Would you have told Lucivar he had to have someone guarding his back?” Saetan asked.

“I wouldn’t have needed to,” Daemon replied. “He would have known I’d stand with him.”

This isn’t a fight, Saetan thought. But he caught, too late, the undercurrent that had been hiding beneath the boyish posturing.

For Daemon, simply being back in Terreille meant being prepared to fight. To kill.

“Prince, I’m asking you to return to Kaeleer. This is the Keep. It’s a sanctuary. To treat someone as an enemy simply because they’ve come here requesting information would be a violation of everything this place stands for. Daemon, it isn’t done.” At least, not by another guest. What guarded the mountain called Ebon Askavi passed its own judgment on anyone entering the Keep. And people who entered did not always leave.

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize how difficult it is for you to be in this Realm, even here at the Keep,” Saetan said. “If I had, we would have left hours ago.”

That keen mind assessed his words while those golden eyes assessed him.

“You’ll shield?” Daemon finally asked.

“I will shield.” Despite his efforts to hold on to his own temper, the words came out in a growl.

Daemon’s lips twitched in a reluctant smile. “You would have made the same demand of me if I was the one staying.”

“Of course I would, but that’s different. I’m your father.”

Daemon’s smile—and the air around them—warmed. “Fine. I’ll go back to Kaeleer and see about getting us a meal.”

Saetan waited, tense, until he no longer felt the presence of the other Black Jewel—confirmation that Daemon had gone through the Gate and returned to Kaeleer. Then he sagged against the doorway until he heard the sound of Craft-enhanced footsteps announcing the Warlord’s return.

“Is everything all right, High Lord?” the Warlord asked. “I felt . . . We all felt . . . Prince Sadi went cold for a minute.”

“Yes, he did. Being in Terreille makes the Prince feel a little defensive.”

The Warlord stared at him. “If that’s how Prince Sadi reacts when he’s feeling a little defensive, I wouldn’t want to be around him when he’s feeling really defensive.”

“No,” Saetan said quietly, “you wouldn’t want to be around him.”

Theran opened the glass doors that led out to a tiered garden, then closed them again until there was only a finger-width opening. Despite the spring season, it was cold up in the mountains. He would have preferred sitting in a comfortable chair by the fire, except . . .

This place chilled him a lot more than the cold air. The Black Mountain. Ebon Askavi. Repository of the Blood’s history—and the lair of Witch, the living myth, dreams made flesh. Who was, he suspected, nothing more than a dream and myth. There had been rumors that there was, in fact, a Black-Jeweled Queen who ruled Ebon Askavi, but after the witch storm or war or whatever it was that had swept through Terreille and devastated the Blood, the rumors stopped.

The place didn’t need a Queen. It was creepy enough without one, and he couldn’t imagine anyone . . . normal . . . ruling this place. There were things flitting in the shadows, watching him. He was sure of it, even if he couldn’t detect a psychic scent or any kind of presence.

Which didn’t change the conviction that the things he couldn’t feel or see could—and would—kill him before he realized anything was there.

When the door opened, he breathed a sigh of relief but stayed by the window. If something went wrong, he had a better chance of getting out and catching one of the Winds if he could reach open ground.

The man who entered the room was Hayllian or Dhemlan—the black hair, brown skin, and gold eyes were common to both long-lived races, and he’d never been able to distinguish between the two. An older man, whose black hair was heavily silvered at the temples, and whose face was beginning to show lines that indicated the weight of centuries. A Red Jewel hung from a gold chain. A Red Jewel flashed in the ring worn on a hand with slender fingers—and long, black-tinted nails.

“Who are you?” Theran demanded. The Territory of Hayll had been at the root of all the suffering his people had endured, and he didn’t want to deal with anyone who came from that race. With one exception.

The man came to an abrupt halt.

A sharp-edged chill suddenly filled the room, a different kind of cold from the one coming from the open glass door.

“I am a Warlord Prince who outranks you,” the man said too softly. “Now, puppy, you can brush off your manners and try again—or you can go back to wherever you came from.”

He’d fixed on the man’s race instead of paying attention to the Jewels that did outrank his own and the psychic scent that left no doubt the other man was a Warlord Prince.

“My apologies, sir,” Theran said, trying to sound sincere. The sun would shine in Hell before he sincerely apologized to a Hayllian—for any reason. “I find this place a bit overwhelming.”

“Many do. Let’s see if we can’t settle your business quickly so that you can be on your way.”

“I’m not sure you can help me.” I don’t want you to be the one helping me.

“I’m the assistant historian/librarian here at the Keep. If I can’t help you, no one can.”

If I won’t help you, no one will. That was the underlying message.

Pissy old cock, Theran thought.

He hadn’t meant to send that thought along a psychic thread, and was almost certain he hadn’t. But judging by the way those gold eyes were starting to glaze, something in his expression must have conveyed the sentiment clearly enough.

“Let’s start with your name,” the man said.

Because the man was Hayllian, Theran choked on the thought of giving the old bastard his family name.

“Let me put it this way,” the man said. “You can offer the basic courtesy of your name and where you are from—or you can go to Hell.”

Theran shivered, because there was something about the soft thunder in that deep voice that warned him his choices were very literal.

“Theran. From Dena Nehele.”

“Since the mountain didn’t fall down around us and your head didn’t explode, I’m delighted that the consequences of revealing so much information were not, in fact, dire.”

He wasn’t used to being slapped down. Not by a stranger. A response scalded his throat, but he choked it back. He didn’t like the Hayllian on principle—and the Hayllian didn’t seem to like him. But the man was the only way of getting the information he sought.

“There has been reason for secrecy,” Theran muttered.

“Then your lack of manners can be understood—if not forgiven.”

Cold voice, cold eyes, cold temper. If he’d ruined this chance...

“I understand you’re looking for someone,” the man said. “Who?”

Maybe there was still a chance.

“Daemon Sadi,” Theran said.

The chill in the air gained a sharp edge. The man asked too softly, “Why?”

None of your business. Theran bit his tongue to keep from saying the words. “He owes my family a favor.”

He wasn’t sure that was an accurate assessment of the message that had been handed down to the males in his family, but it was sufficient explanation for this librarian.

“I see.”

A long silence while those gold eyes stared at him.

“I’ll have some refreshments brought in for you,” the man said.

“I don’t need anything.” Hell’s fire! Remember some of the manners you were taught! “Thank you. Something hot to drink would be most welcome.”

“I’ll have it brought in. And I’ll see what I can find out about Prince Sadi.”

The Hayllian walked out of the room—and Theran breathed a sigh of relief.

The control required to close the door and walk away, leaving that little whelp’s mind intact, made Saetan’s hand tremble.

I guess Daemon’s not the only one who feels overprotective at times, he thought ruefully.

Feeling the other presence in the corridor, he made sure the door was firmly shut and stepped away from it as Geoffrey, the Keep’s historian/librarian, dropped the sight shield that had kept him hidden.

“You heard?” Saetan asked.

“Since you left the door open, it was hard not to,” Geoffrey replied.

“See to the refreshments, will you? I’ll deal with the rest.”

Geoffrey raised a white-skinned hand. “Just one question. Who is that jumping jackass?”

Saetan rocked back on his heels. “Jumping jackass? What have you been reading?”

The other Guardian wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Saetan had seen over fifty thousand years. Geoffrey had been serving the Keep for much longer. The thought of discovering after all those years that Geoffrey’s choice of recreational reading leaned toward . . . Well, he wasn’t sure what category of fiction would use such a phrase, and he was almost afraid to ask anyone in order to find out. But the whole thing tickled him enough to push aside temper.

Which, from the look in Geoffrey’s black eyes, might have been the point.

“I’ll look after our guest,” Geoffrey said. “You look after your son.”

The thought of Daemon owing anyone in Terreille was enough to prick his temper again, but out of courtesy to Geoffrey, he kept that temper leashed until he opened the Gate between the Realms and walked into the Keep that existed in Kaeleer.

Daemon studied the food on the table.

He could breathe again. He hadn’t set foot in the thrice-cursed Realm of Terreille for two years—since he’d gone to Hayll to play out some savage games in order to give Jaenelle the time she’d needed to gather her strength and unleash all her dark power, cleansing the Realms of the Blood tainted by Dorothea and Hekatah SaDiablo.

Even here at the Keep, which was a protected sanctuary, he had felt the difference between Terreille and Kaeleer, had felt centuries of memories cling to him like cobwebby strands of pain and fear. When he’d lived in Terreille, he’d embraced the pain, and he’d met the fear by playing games that matched—or surpassed—the cruelty and viciousness that Dorothea had excelled in.

He’d survived seventeen centuries of slavery and cruelty—but not without a price. His body was unmarked; the scars he bore he carried in his mind and heart.

When he found Saetan in the library, he should have admitted his discomfort instead of trying to push it aside. He should have realized he could no more be in Terreille with his father than he could with his brother, Lucivar. Too many memories—and the last memories of them being in Hayll together still crawled through his dreams on occasion.

His father in that Hayllian camp, being tortured. His brother in that camp, being tortured. And he, in order to keep them alive and get them out, had been the cruelest torturer.

Daemon scrubbed his face with his hands and focused on the table. While he waited for Saetan to come back to this Realm, he needed to fix his mind on something else.

“So what do we have?” Thick slices of rare roast beef. A vegetable casserole. Crusty bread and whipped butter. And . . .

He lifted the cover off the last dish, raising an eyebrow at the puff of cold air that was released.

Two bowls filled with . . .

Daemon picked one up, gave it a thoughtful study, then picked up a spoon. Since it wasn’t anything he’d seen before, tasting it was the only way to figure out what it was.

He took a spoonful, then closed his eyes as the flavors melted on his tongue.

A sweetened cheese whipped into lightness. Little chunks of chocolate. Veins of raspberry sauce.

He opened his eyes and licked his lips. Then he studied the table once more. There were two bowls of the stuff, so one of them must be for him. What difference did it make if he ate it before the rest of the meal or after?

Pleased with the rationalization—in case one was needed—he dug in.

Whom was he going to have to bribe to get the recipe? And if he did get it, would he keep it to make himself, or would he offer to share it with Mrs. Beale, the large, rather terrifying witch who was his cook at SaDiablo Hall? Sharing a recipe like this might be a fair trade for her tolerating his putting in a small, additional kitchen for his personal use. So far the only reasons Mrs. Beale hadn’t declared outright war on this affront to her domestic territory were (1) he owned the Hall; (2) his Black Jewels outranked her Yellow Jewels by a considerable degree; and (3) technically, she worked for him.

None of which meant a damn thing to Mrs. Beale unless it was convenient for her to remember them.

And in a way, having Mrs. Beale challenge his authority and power was convenient for him too. Now that he was ruling the Territory of Dhemlan, he understood why Saetan had been so passive within his own home and allowed himself to be dominated at times by the people who worked for him.

The people in Dhemlan—or more accurately the Queens and their courts, who were the ones who had to answer to him directly—feared him. They had reason to fear him. The Black Jewels were a reservoir for the power that lived within him, a warning of the depth and potency of strength that could be turned against anyone he considered an enemy. But at home . . .

He’d been in places where everyone lived in constant, debilitating fear. He didn’t want to live in a place like that. He didn’t want to be the cause of that. Not in his home. Not with the people who worked for him.

And especially not with Jaenelle, the woman who was his life.

So he appreciated the game he played with Mrs. Beale, although, admittedly, she was a damn scary woman and his fear of her was not altogether feigned.

Rather like his father, come to think of it.

Lucivar was right. There was something cleansing—not to mention fun—about being able to throw yourself against a strong personality just to see what would happen, and to know you would come to no harm by doing it. It was a relief to be a son, to really be a son of a father who drew a firm line about some things and wouldn’t bend but who also had a fine understanding of when to be indulgent—or look the other way altogether.

A father who truly understood him.

He was just scraping the last of the treat out of the second bowl when that father thundered into the room.

Mother Night, Daemon thought, hastily vanishing both bowls.

“If you truly owe a favor to that little prick’s family, then we will pay the debt and be rid of him,” Saetan snarled. “Or I can send him to the bowels of Hell here and now.”

“What? Who?”

“The ill-mannered Warlord Prince who came to the Keep looking for someone? He’s looking for you. He says you owe his family a favor.”

Ice shivered in his veins, a prelude to his unsheathing the lethal blade of his temper. “Who?” he asked too softly.

“Theran. From Dena Nehele.”

Dena Nehele. A place he wouldn’t forget.

Daemon tightened the leash on his temper. “What does he look like?”

A light brush against the first of his inner barriers. When he opened that first level of his mind to his father, he saw the man. The same green eyes. The same sun-kissed skin. The same dark hair.

“Jared,” Daemon whispered.

Saetan shook his head. “He said his name was Theran.”

“The man I knew. Jared. This one has the look of him.”

He could feel Saetan reevaluating, making an effort to rein in his own formidable temper. “Do you owe them a favor?”

“Not exactly.”

Jared had left a written account of his journey with Lia while being pursued by Dorothea’s Master of the Guard. Within that account, which Jared had left at the Keep for Daemon, Jaenelle had found the answer to cleansing the taint from the Blood without destroying all of the Blood.

So, in a way, he did owe Jared. Whether he owed anything to Jared’s bloodline . . .

“I liked Jared,” Daemon said. “He was a good man. So for his sake, I would be willing to talk to this Prince Theran and find out what he wants.” He paused and considered. “But not here. I’d like Jaenelle to meet him.”

“Why?”

“Because I would trust her instincts about him better than I’d trust mine.”

Saetan considered that and nodded. “Then we’ll arrange to have him brought to the Hall. How soon do you want me to discover your whereabouts?”

Daemon huffed out a laugh. “Since you’re my father, you’d know where to find me.”

“Oh, he doesn’t know I’m your father. As far as Prince Theran is concerned, I’m just the assistant historian/librarian. Just a ‘pissy old cock.’ ” Saetan’s smile turned feral and sharp. “The boy doesn’t shield his thoughts as well as he should.”

Oh, shit. “Arrange to have him arrive at the Hall late this afternoon.”

“Done.” As if trying to shake off the mood—and the temper—Saetan looked at the table and raised an eyebrow. “I see you enjoyed the sweet-cheese confection.”

Damn. He must not have vanished the bowls fast enough.

“Even so,” Saetan continued, “you should eat some of the beef and vegetables.”

An undercurrent of amusement. A fatherly kind of amusement.

Feeling like a boy wasn’t as much fun when he didn’t choose to feel like a boy. And feeling like an erring son was downright uncomfortable. “I just meant to taste it.”

“Hmm.” Saetan pulled out a chair and sat down. He took a spoonful of vegetable casserole and a slice of roast beef, and warmed his customary goblet of yarbarah, the blood wine that was all the sustenance the demon-dead—and Guardians—needed.

Not seeing any options, Daemon sat across from his father and filled his own plate.

“There’s been very little of interest in those piles of papers,” Saetan said. “Even with the preservation spells that were put on them, most are illegible or the parchment crumbles when it’s touched. But I did find a few things—like the recipe for that sweet-cheese confection. Well, the basic idea for it at any rate. I had to fiddle with it a bit and embellished it after that.”

Daemon chewed a mouthful of beef and swallowed carefully. “You made that?”

“Yes. Like you, I enjoy puttering in the kitchen on occasion.”

“And you’re the only one who has the recipe?”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other.

Finally Daemon asked, “What are the chances of you sharing that recipe?”

His father, the too-knowing bastard, just smiled.