The Queen's Weapons

by Anne Bishop

  Later that evening, Lucivar and Daemon dropped from the Winds and walked toward the southern-facing Sleeping Dragon. Some stories said the Sleeping Dragons were actual dragons from the legendary race that had created the Blood. Other stories said some ancient hand sculpted stone into the shape of two dragons, one facing north and the other south. Didn’t matter which story might be true. What mattered was the northern-facing dragon was at the end of the Khaldharon Run—and between the stone teeth in its gaping mouth was the entrance to a Gate between the Realms.

  A person couldn’t climb past those teeth without making at least part of the run—or so Lucivar had been told—so only the desperate or foolhardy would try to use that Gate instead of one of the others.

  He’d been that desperate after he’d escaped from the salt mines of Pruul. Running from all the warriors who were intent on bringing him down, and already dying, he’d made his choice to die in the Khaldharon as a free man. He’d made the Run and flown between those stone teeth—and had ended up in Kaeleer. Had ended up being saved by Prothvar Yaslana and healed by Jaenelle Angelline.

  But the Sleeping Dragon that faced to the south? No winds or Winds to slam a man against the stone teeth, and yet no one used the cavernous mouth as a hiding place. No one among the living, anyway.

  “Did we have to do this tonight?” he asked. He would have preferred being at home, keeping an eye on his firstborn.

  “Yes,” Daemon replied. “I’m not sure if this is coincidence or if the timing is significant, but you need to see this.”

  Shit. Choosing to think about something else until they had to step past those teeth, he said, “Do you think Daemonar will use those lessons?”

  Daemon smiled. “Eventually. He and I have had a number of frank discussions about . . . technique . . . over the past few years. And I know, because they’ve snarled at me for it, that he’s asked Surreal and his auntie J. for confirmation that women actually like those techniques.”

  “Sweet Darkness,” Lucivar breathed. “The boy’s got more balls than sense.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Prick. I suggested to Beron that he talk to Surreal when he first showed a rising interest in women.”

  Lucivar snorted a laugh.

  “Talking to Jaenelle about sex is a bit more adventurous than talking to Surreal, and I can tell when he’s had one of those talks with his auntie J. by the way Daemonar looks at me.” Daemon waited for Lucivar to stop laughing. “Just wait until he works up the nerve to ask you if you like doing the things he’s thinking about doing because you’d both have to acknowledge that you’re doing those things with his mother.”

  Lucivar swore. “She was my wife before she was his mother.”

  “That, old son, is an insignificant detail.”

  “Well, there have been whispers of Alanar and Tamnar setting up a bachelor eyrie, so I expect Daemonar will be looking to join them.”

  “No,” Daemon said as the air around them turned cold. “You’re going to keep him on a tight leash. Or you’ll send him to me, and I’ll do it.”

  Lucivar studied the man walking beside him. “So who wants to show me whatever is inside the Sleeping Dragon? My brother or the High Lord?”

  “Not your brother.”

  Mother Night.

  They didn’t speak until they eased past the teeth. Daemon created a ball of witchlight that floated above them as they walked toward the end of the cavern.

  Something was out there, watching them.

  Lucivar formed an Ebon-gray shield around himself and called in his war blade.

  Daemon didn’t react to shield or blade, and he didn’t react to whatever watched them.

  “Dark Altars were built around every Gate,” Daemon said. “Except this one. Here, you don’t light the black candles in a certain order to open the Gate to a specific Realm.”

  “There are tunnels,” Lucivar said quietly. “Two tunnels, one for each of the other two Realms.”

  “That’s true, but access is no longer a simple choice.”

  The witchlight above them expanded, revealing more. Two tunnels, as Lucivar had expected. The light that filled one tunnel was the forever-twilight of Hell. The other tunnel, which should have led to Terreille . . .

  Lucivar sucked in a breath as he stared at the tangled webs that filled that tunnel. Some were broken, as if something desperate had managed to escape after being ensnared—or had been collected and carried away.

  “There are Arachnians in the tunnels now?” Lucivar asked. Black Widows also spun tangled webs, and it was possible that demon-dead Sisters of the Hourglass had made those webs at Daemon’s request, but he didn’t think these webs had been made by anything human.

  “Beware the golden spider that spins a tangled web,” Daemon said softly. “From what I’ve been told by the demon-dead who guard this Gate, the webs appeared a few weeks ago. They cover the tunnel’s exit into Kaeleer from the northern-facing Dragon and this southern tunnel that leads out of Kaeleer. Because the golden spiders’ tangled webs ensnare a person’s mind, letting the body fail on its own before they begin to feast, anyone who reaches the Shadow Realm and meets up with someone on this side isn’t going to have the mental ability to return to Terreille. He either stumbles into the webs in that tunnel or stumbles into Hell, where he is considered fresh meat and blood for the taking.”

  Movement in the twilight tunnel. Three demon-dead Eyriens stepped out. Lucivar didn’t recognize them, but they had been his age and they had died hard.

  “Prince,” one of them said, nodding to Lucivar. “High Lord.” He laid a large sack at Daemon’s feet and retreated. “We didn’t open the bag to see what the last fool carried.”

  “My thanks for holding on to it,” Daemon said, his smile cold and knowing. “Go enjoy your share of the feast. You’ve earned it.”

  With another bow, the three Eyriens retreated.

  A few hours ago, the feast had been a living man. The body might be kept among the living until all the fresh blood had been consumed and the heart stopped beating. What was left, after the High Lord finished the kill and the person’s Self became a whisper in the Darkness, would feed Hell’s flora and fauna.

  Lucivar wondered if Saetan had ever flinched from such brutal practicality. He knew Daemon never would.

  “There has always been some trade between Terreille and Kaeleer,” Daemon said. “There is more now as every generation of the short-lived races becomes farther removed from the purge that cleansed the Realms.”

  “You have businesses in Dena Nehele and Shalador Nehele, so you’ve traded with those Territories for centuries.”

  “I have. I’ve also drawn lines about what I’ll allow to come into Dhemlan from Terreille, and I extract a heavy price from anyone who crosses those lines. But I can’t watch everyone, and things have slipped in.” Daemon stared at the tunnel filled with tangled webs. “Surreal caught the first whispers about a year ago of items being smuggled into Dhemlan, but she couldn’t find anything tangible to support the whispers. It seems that there is a growing nostalgia for Hayll and the way it was ruled.”

  Lucivar swore fiercely. “Have people lost their minds? Have they forgotten how many died because of that bitch Dorothea?”

  “It is the romance of believing power can be had without a price.” Daemon shrugged. “Apparently some people collect Hayllian memorabilia—especially anything that can be connected to Dorothea’s court—and are willing to pay enough for those items to make bringing them in worth the risk.”

  “She was a High Priestess, not a Queen. She didn’t have a court.” That wasn’t true. The bitch had had a court because she said she had a court and no one had dared challenge her. And the ones who did challenge her? Well, they ended up dead . . . or worse.

  “Are you telling me this shit is being brought in through this Gate in Askavi?” He felt his temper burn hot and
fierce as he rose to the killing edge.

  “Some of it,” Daemon said. “It’s likely coming in through other Territories that have a Gate, but there’s nothing I can do about that except inform the Queens.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me until now?”

  “I had no way to confirm it.” A quiet laugh, cutting and cold. “Oh, I knew from having chats with fools who didn’t survive the attempt to return to Terreille that items were being smuggled in because any goods coming into Dhemlan are inspected, and these items weren’t something anyone wanted me to know about. But the smugglers didn’t know what they were bringing into Kaeleer, just that the money was worth the risk.”

  “Inspectors can be bribed to let goods in.”

  “Not after they are required to witness a slow execution of someone who had betrayed my trust.”

  The murderously sweet smile. The glazed eyes.

  Hell’s fire, Bastard. You won’t be able to hide who, and what, you are for much longer.

  Lucivar looked at the sack. “I gather this smuggler didn’t live long enough to deliver the goods. So what’s inside?”

  Daemon raised a hand. Using Craft, he opened the sack.

  Lucivar’s breath caught. His stomach rolled. And everything in him screamed that he needed to fight.

  “Coincidence?” Daemon asked. “Or was this shipment timed for a particular event?”

  He stared at the gold rings lying on top of other items. He didn’t need to touch one to feel the malevolence crawling through the metal.

  “A Ring of Obedience is the only way to control a Warlord Prince if he doesn’t choose to serve.” Daemon waited a beat, then said, “Orian?”

  “She’s ignored Daemonar since that collision when they were children. She resents him for the training she was required to have with the Queens in Ebon Rih.” The girl was especially resentful for the apprenticeships she’d had to serve in the courts of the Queens ruling Agio and Doun since she’d had to live away from home and those Queens had insisted that fun was a reward for good work and good behavior.

  For a while, it had seemed the time away had helped Orian settle back into the girl she had been before her mother had embraced a warped idea of what a Queen was entitled to claim.

  “She was at the eyrie tonight,” Daemon pointed out.

  “Every Eyrien youngster within the appropriate age was invited to the eyrie. And Daemonar’s Rihlander friends as well, both male and female, aristo and not aristo.”

  “If your boy is old enough to make the Blood Run, Orian is old enough to have her Virgin Night. And once that happens, she won’t continue to ignore him, Prick. He is a handsome young man who comes from a wealthy, powerful aristo family. He is also the only available Eyrien Warlord Prince in Kaeleer. And in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s entered the first stage of his sexual heat.”

  Lucivar vanished his war blade, then scrubbed his hands over his face. “I noticed. And I noticed how all the females in Riada have noticed. He and I have talked about why some people respond differently to him now.”

  “Which of us is going to tell him about the Ring of Obedience and what it can do—and why he needs to be vigilant from now on?”

  “I’ll tell him, and I’ll let him know he can talk to you as well.”

  “Don’t soften it, Lucivar. Give him the worst truth you know about being Ringed.”

  “His first lesson as a man?”

  “At least he’s learning it when he’s old enough to be considered a man.”

  Lucivar shivered at the reminder that, in so many ways, Daemon was what he was because of what had been done to him as a child. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve been gone long enough.”

  Daemon vanished the sack. “I’ll look through what’s here and let you know if anything else poses a threat.”

  Nodding, Lucivar led the way out of the Sleeping Dragon. Before they caught the Winds back to the eyrie, he said, “Who is going to tell Witch?”

  “I will,” Daemon replied.

  “I guess it’s time to prepare for war.”

  “We don’t know the enemy yet.”

  “But we know one of the weapons the enemy will bring to the fight.” As soon as he said the words, Lucivar felt the change in his brother’s temper.

  “Yes,” the Sadist whispered. “We know that much.”

  ELEVEN

  After a few days of Daemonar’s silence and sharp looks, Lucivar was delighted to see Titian when she walked into his study. He understood his boy’s need for distance after being told—after being shown—what a Ring of Obedience could do, but he wondered if he’d made a mistake sharing one memory of how the Ring was used to punish a man.

  Pushing that worry aside, he smiled at Titian. His smile faded when she closed the door, perched on the edge of one of the chairs in front of his blackwood desk, and gave him a smile that held a lot of nerves and a dollop of courage.

  He knew what that meant. His sweet little witchling was about to stab him in the heart.

  “Father . . .” She hesitated.

  Father, not Papa. Another sign that she was shedding—or shredding—childhood. And that meant he had to strap some steel to his spine and help her.

  “Titian . . . ?”

  “I want to go to school. To study art. It’s time, Papa.”

  It was time. Titian had been drawing and painting for centuries now, developing her own artistic style. During all those years, she’d retreated from every suggestion he or Daemon had made about taking lessons. Now, it seemed, she was ready to take that step.

  And now, it seemed, he wasn’t quite as ready to let her go.

  Show some balls, old son. “All right. We can look into . . .”

  “In Amdarh,” Titian added hurriedly. “There’s a private school in Amdarh that has an art course. Zoey is going to be there. Lady Zhara has already reviewed the school’s credentials and given her approval. But . . .” She winced. “It’s expensive, but I could use my allowance to help pay for it.”

  Lucivar sat back and eyed his daughter. Did she think the cost was the issue? He might live simply for a man who came from an aristo bloodline, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t wealthy. Taken as a whole, the SaDiablo family was the wealthiest family in the entire Realm of Kaeleer. Daemon had seen to that, as had their father before him.

  In Amdarh, Titian would be under Daemon’s hand, even if she boarded at the school. He could count on his brother to know what was happening in his daughter’s life—or at least know as much as any man could know about a daughter.

  He pushed back from the desk and headed for the door. “Come with me.”

  She followed him through the eyrie’s corridors until they reached the large front room. He kept going, using Craft to open the glass doors to the yard where the children played and practiced their fighting skills in good weather. As he walked into the yard, he called in two sparring sticks and held one out to her.

  “Papa . . .”

  She seemed to wilt in front of his eyes, reminding him how easily this child’s heart could bruise, how easily she could be damaged by harsh or cutting words.

  “Papa, I don’t want to learn to fight.”

  But you have to learn, witchling, even if it’s not the same kind of fighting your brothers embrace. “This isn’t about learning to fight. This is about proving you can defend.”

  She met his eyes. As timid as she was so much of the time, she always had the courage to meet his eyes—something even her brothers didn’t do.

  He rested a hand on her shoulder, a connection. “You want to go to this school and study art? Then show me that you can defend my precious daughter. Show me that you can shape protective shields fast enough to block an attack and strong enough to hold you safe until someone who does know how to fight can reach you. When you show me you can do that, then I will see about getting you enro
lled in the school and whatever else is required.” His hand tightened on her shoulder, just a little, just enough to warn her he was serious. “There will be rules, witchling, lines that will be drawn about what you can and cannot do. Your uncle Daemon and aunt Surreal will know the conditions I’m setting for you attending the school, and your uncle will have the same authority over you when you’re in his Territory as I do here. If you cross any of those lines, one of us will haul you back here before you have time to spin. You understand me?”

  “Yes, Papa.” The smile, shy and slow in coming, became bright enough to dazzle. “I won’t break the rules.”

  “There will be people who will try to convince you—or force you—to break them. Maybe they’ll do it just to see if they can push you hard enough to give in. Maybe they’ll do it just to be mean and hurtful.”

  “Zoey wouldn’t do that.”

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hug Daemon or smack him for introducing the two girls. The threesome—Titian, Zoey, and Jaenelle Saetien—made so many plans when they were together in Amdarh, he didn’t know how Daemon got any sleep during those days.

  Well, he did know, actually. Daemon, quite sensibly, assigned Scelties to be chaperones and escorts, since the dogs could doze through late-night giggles and innocent foolishness.

  “No,” he replied, “I don’t think Lady Zoela would do that, but others will. Don’t let them win, Titian. You hold to who you are.”

  “Yes, Papa.” She raised her sparring stick.

  Lucivar suppressed a sigh. “All right, witchling. Let’s see what you can do and what still needs some work before you leave home.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Wondering if Alanar had set him up for an “accidental” meeting with Orian, Daemonar shaped a tight Green shield around himself, then let his awareness flow through what Uncle Daemon called a psychic web, using a touch of power to identify the position of everyone around him within a block of where he stood on Riada’s main street. He couldn’t identify the psychic scent of all of the individuals, but he knew the Eyriens who lived around this village.