The Queen's Weapons

by Anne Bishop

  “What . . . ?” Raine began.

  “Not now,” Daemonar said quietly.

  “You have to do something,” Jaenelle Saetien said. “He’s having one of his funny turns.”

  Daemonar almost jerked her off her feet when he stopped moving. “Funny turns? What’s wrong with you? You never used to make light of something so serious. And Prince Sadi is not having a ‘funny turn,’ cousin. He’s in a cold rage, and the coven of malice is the reason for it.”

  “Don’t call them that,” she snapped. “It makes them sound—”

  “Like what they are.”

  She tried to pull away from him, but he tightened his grip on her arm, maybe hard enough to bruise. Right now he didn’t care. She was being willfully blind, and he was desperately afraid of what was coming.

  “He is having one of his . . . fits,” she insisted. “Moments after I introduced Delora, he called her Dorothea.”

  A shiver went down Daemonar’s spine. “The name Dorothea means nothing to you?”

  “Maybe I heard it in some dull history lesson.” She shrugged, but he suspected that she remembered enough from stories shared within the family and just didn’t want to think about why her father looked at her new best friend and saw his most hated enemy.

  He didn’t say anything else, just delivered her to her first class and walked away.

  Raine continued to stay with him, and he wondered where the instructor was supposed to be.

  “What does that name mean to you?” Raine asked.

  “Death and destruction. War.” When Raine stopped walking, Daemonar turned to face him. “Family history—and the price that was paid to save the Blood in Kaeleer. That’s what that name means to me.”

  “Prince Sadi didn’t make a mistake, did he?”

  He shook his head.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Send a message to my father.” And to Witch.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Surreal found Tersa in the cottage’s kitchen, standing next to the table and staring at a broken vase, a dozen red roses, and a dozen flowers that looked like daisies but were the same color as the roses. She wasn’t sure what advice Tersa could give her about this latest collision with Jaenelle Saetien, but Daemon’s mother did know about being broken. He was right about that. Besides, she and Tersa had been looking after each other, on and off, for most of her life. Who else could she talk to?

  “It’s getting colder,” she said as she removed her outer coat and scarf, placing both over the back of one kitchen chair. “We might have our first snow tonight.” She let her psychic senses flow through the cottage. Just the two of them here. “Where is Mikal?”

  “He’s out doing boy things.” Tersa paused. “Or talking to a girl. Maybe kissing, although it’s early in the day for kissing.”

  Not in her experience, but that wasn’t the reason for concern. “He asked Daemon for permission?”

  Tersa frowned at her. “The Mikal boy lives with me, so he asked me.”

  She’d better talk to Mikal soon and find out what rules Tersa had laid down before the boy found himself in trouble with the patriarch of the family—especially right now when Daemon’s temper would be sharper and colder than usual.

  Tersa reached out and tapped Surreal’s chest. “What’s broken can’t be mended. Put the pieces back together, they won’t be the same. Can’t be the same.”

  “What can’t be mended?”

  “The girl broke the bond. Can’t mend it.”

  “I have to mend it. She’s my daughter.”

  “Not anymore.” Tersa stroked Surreal’s hair, an odd gesture since Tersa’s hair was always as tangled as her mind. “She is Daemon’s daughter. You are Daemon’s wife. That is your connection now. You build new feelings or you don’t, but what the girl broke in you can’t be mended.”

  She knew the truth of that, had grieved for it last night. “I tried to keep her safe.”

  “You did that. Now it’s time to let go. Soon it will be time to be a guide—if she chooses to listen.”

  Tersa stepped back and picked up two flowers. “What is this?” She held out the flower in her left hand.

  “A rose,” Surreal replied, relieved to have a distraction.

  “And this?” She held out the flower in her right hand.

  “A red daisy.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Surreal shivered. Broken Black Widow. Mad Black Widow always living near the borders of the Twisted Kingdom but never fully sane. And that meant Tersa had seen some things that only one other Black Widow had seen. If she went to the Keep and asked, would Witch also tell her a part of her heart had broken beyond mending?

  Tersa set those flowers down and picked up two more, both roses.

  “A daisy travels, calls itself a rose, blends in. Changes itself in order to become one of the land’s roses, while others . . .” Both flowers bloomed. One remained a rose while the other unfurled its petals to reveal itself as a daisy with needle-thin thorns filling its center. “. . . hold on to what they were and wait to reveal their true nature. The trusting, the unwary are fooled by daisies that claim to be roses. You can’t afford to be a fool.”

  Surreal pressed her hands against the table. Daisies and roses. Hayllians and Dhemlans. The mingling of bloodlines. Why not? Sadi had Hayllian and Dhemlan bloodlines. He couldn’t be the only one. Hayllians could have come to Kaeleer over the centuries, married into Dhemlan families and adopted those family names. Honorable men and women who had been drawn to the Shadow Realm.

  But what about the ones who were less than honorable? What about twigs from the family trees of Hayll’s Hundred Families who had slipped into Kaeleer shortly before or after Witch had purged the Realms of Dorothea’s taint and now were biding their time, fostering the corruption that had eventually destroyed Terreille?

  Or was the interest in Hayllian memorabilia a sign that the corruption already had taken root again? Were the girls who were being broken another sign? And what about the disruptions within the Realm’s most powerful family caused by a girl’s rebellion?

  An orchestrated rebellion?

  “Jaenelle Saetien,” she whispered. She shouldn’t have consented to let the girl go to that damn school.

  “You can’t save her,” Tersa said. “Not this time.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Jaenelle Saetien skipped one of her classes—it was a class that everyone found boring and useless, anyway—and waited for Daemonar to leave his afternoon tutorial. She’d wanted to meet him sooner, but he’d been a prick and had refused to give up a lesson. So she had to give up one of her classes instead.

  He walked out of the building, gave her a slashing look, and kept going.

  She hurried after him. “We have to talk about this morning!”

  “Do we? Seemed pretty clear to me.”

  She tried to grab his arm and jerked back when she met a defensive Green shield that had some snap to it that hurt. “Why are you pissed off at me?”

  “You want me to pat your head and say ‘There, there, no one minds you turning into an insufferable bitch,’ or do you want the truth?”

  “You’re being mean!”

  “Just giving back what you’re dishing out, darling.” Daemonar finally stopped walking. “Tell me this: Did you tell Delora about Prince Sadi’s need for solitude? Did she come up with calling it his funny turns, or did you belittle what he does to protect all of us as a way to impress her?”

  “I needed to talk to someone, and it makes those times sound . . .” She trailed off as she saw his eyes fill with hot anger.

  “Tame? Amusing? Harmless? He isn’t tame and he isn’t harmless, and you’re damn lucky his temper didn’t snap the leash this morning because he would have splattered the coven of malice all over the
green.”

  Her father had been scary and strange because he was pissed off about what she’d said about that woman, but he wouldn’t have killed anyone at the school. Would he?

  “Did you know my father was a pleasure slave?” She wanted to shock him.

  He didn’t look impressed. “Yeah, I did. He told me. Not all of it, certainly not the worst of what he’d endured, but we’ve talked about it.”

  “He never told me!”

  “Well, he probably figured you weren’t mature enough to understand.”

  It burned that he would say that, that he believed that. It burned enough to douse the anger and make her lower lip quiver. “You said you’d always have my back.”

  He didn’t even try to give her a hug, and that shield around him made it impossible for her to touch him.

  Daemonar sighed, a sound of impatience. “I don’t like the girl you’ve become, Jaenelle Saetien. I don’t like that girl at all. But you’re still my cousin, and I will still have your back—up to a point. If I have to choose between you and Titian, I will choose my sister every time.”

  He walked away.

  When she turned to head toward the dormitory, she saw Krellis. He stood far enough away that he wouldn’t have heard what was said, but he must have realized it wasn’t a friendly discussion.

  He fell into step beside her. “Having trouble with the bat?”

  She should have told him not to insult her cousin. Instead, she said, “Yeah. He’s being a prick.”

  Krellis tucked her arm into his. “What can you expect from a rube?”

  Some people didn’t think she was an insufferable bitch. “Yeah. What can you expect?”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  SaDiablo Hall was an immense structure, and yet there was nowhere to run. Not for her.

  As the frigid warning of Sadi’s return rippled through the Hall, Surreal stepped into the great hall, looked at Beale and Holt, and said, “Get the rest of the staff out of this part of the Hall.”

  She had the best chance against the Black. Not because she wore Gray. She had no chance against the Black if it came to a fight, but as Sadi’s wife, she could offer a distraction that might keep everyone else safe.

  She retreated to the sitting room and waited for him to walk through the front door. She didn’t know where he’d been after he escorted Jaenelle Saetien to school, but if this was as much as his temper had thawed, they were all in trouble.

  He walked into the sitting room—and she struggled to control bowels and bladder.

  The Sadist, unleashed.

  Lucivar had told her years ago that she had never really danced with the Sadist, that she had never seen that aspect of Daemon’s temper without him showing some restraint. Well, she was seeing it now, and there was nothing she could do to stop whatever he was going to do to her.

  When he walked up to her, the room turned so cold, she could see her breath. His hand, with its lethally sharp black-tinted nails, curled around the back of her neck, drawing her closer. As the sexual heat wrapped around her, his lips settled over hers, making her shake with lust and fear. And when his tongue demanded entry and he gave her a brutally gentle kiss, she knew there was nothing of the lover in him. Not now. And yet . . .

  He ended the kiss, smiled at her, and crooned, “Surreal, darling, we’re going hunting.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lucivar walked into the Keep and hesitated. When he’d left his eyrie to fly here, the Black had been inside the Keep. Now he had no sense of Daemon being anywhere in Ebon Rih. Of course, that could mean Sadi had gone into the Queen’s part of the Keep. Once a person walked through the metal gate that separated that part of the mountain from the rest, Witch’s vast power cloaked everyone else within those rooms.

  He couldn’t find the Black, but he felt the presence of two Gray Jewels.

  He went to the rooms that had been converted into the official office of the Warlord Prince of Askavi. That was Karla’s domain within Ebon Askavi, but the demon-dead Black Widow Queen who was his administrative second-in-command wasn’t there.

  *Karla?* he called on a psychic thread.

  *In the library with Surreal.*

  That confirmed the identity of the second Gray Jewel.

  He strode to that part of the Keep and found both women in the private section of the library, standing around a large blackwood table filled with the registers that held the information for generations of bloodlines and Jewels.

  Karla glanced at him, said, “Kiss kiss,” and went back to making notes about whatever she was reading in the registers.

  Surreal, on the other hand, stopped and straightened. Her gold-green eyes still held residual fear and she looked shaken. Easy enough to guess why after receiving Daemonar’s terse message yesterday about the collision at the school. But she didn’t appear to be physically hurt. In fact, despite the fear and shakiness, she looked more like a predator who had caught the scent of prey.

  “Chaosti showed up a little while ago,” Surreal said. “Sadi was needed in the Dark Realm. He’ll be back after he takes care of business there.”

  Lucivar nodded. “What are you two doing?”

  “Looking up bloodlines and family connections.”

  Surreal held out a list. Recognizing Daemon’s blend of printed script—a form he’d developed because it was easier for his brother to read than regular handwriting—Lucivar took the paper and read the list. He knew some of the names from things Daemonar had said and from letters Titian had written to Marian.

  “Daemonar refers to this group as the coven of malice,” Surreal said. “I’m tracing the bloodlines to find out if the families originally came from Dhemlan or Hayll—and how long those families have been in Kaeleer.”

  “You think some of them slipped in during the service fairs?” he asked.

  “Or before that. A minor aristo family with enough money to purchase a small estate could have slipped into Kaeleer and settled in a village easily enough—as long as they followed the Old Ways of the Blood and didn’t give anyone a reason to wonder where they had been before that. And it’s not like there is an obvious difference between the Hayllian and Dhemlan races.”

  Unlike Eyriens, whose wings made them distinctive among the long-lived races.

  “I’m checking out a different list,” Karla said. “Apparently, Daemon went back to the school and had a little chat with Lady Zoela to obtain the names of the girls she considers friends. Most have some claim to an aristo bloodline, which seems a requirement for being accepted at that school, but otherwise, what I’m looking at is the beginning of an unofficial court. One girl is a natural Black Widow and should be leaving that school soon to begin an apprenticeship in the Hourglass. One seems to be a natural Healer who, like the Black Widow, will need to begin a different kind of training within the next year or so. The rest of this group has the potential to wear dark Jewels when they mature.” She smiled grimly. “Just the kind of young witches that a rival group would not want coming into power around a strong Queen.”

  “Mother Night,” he muttered.

  “One other name was on my list,” Karla said. “An instructor named Raine, a Prince from Dharo. This is his first year at the school.”

  “He’s tutoring Daemonar. I haven’t heard any reason to think ill of him.”

  “I don’t think you will.” Karla looked at Surreal. “I followed his line back to one of Rainier’s brothers.”

  Surreal sank into a chair. “Rainier? He’s kin to Rainier?”

  Surreal and Rainier had been friends for decades, had shared a house for decades. Never lovers, as far as Lucivar knew, since Rainier preferred men when it came to the pleasures of the bed, but they had loved each other in their own way.

  Karla nodded. “I wonder if that’s why he came to Amdarh to teach at a school here. From what I can se
e, Rainier was the only Warlord Prince in the family who wore dark Jewels, and that caste has been rare in this bloodline, regardless of what Jewels were worn.”

  “Rainier’s family liked him better when he kept his distance,” Surreal said. “That’s why he rarely went back to Dharo to visit—and why he never went back to live there.”

  “Anyway,” Karla said. “Everything points to him being an honorable man who can be trusted.”

  “Daemonar likes him,” Lucivar said. He felt the Black approaching and turned toward the library door.

  Daemon opened the door and took one step inside. “Prince Yaslana, we need to talk.”

  Not his brother standing there. Not the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. And not the Sadist. Which left the High Lord of Hell.

  He followed Daemon to one of the sitting rooms situated not far from the library. Daemon walked over to a table that held a tray with several cut-crystal decanters and glasses, filled two glasses, and held one out.

  He took the glass but didn’t drink.

  “I’m sorry, Lucivar.”

  He studied Daemon’s eyes. This wasn’t . . . personal. This wasn’t about his wife or children. But Daemon thought it would hurt him and wanted to tell him in private.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Orian and Dorian.”

  Lucivar sighed. “Hell’s fire, that didn’t take long.”

  Daemon took a long swallow of whiskey. “The demon-dead Eyriens who keep watch over Askavi Terreille brought them to Hell. When the two women made the transition to demon-dead, more or less, Chaosti came to get me.”

  “More or less?” A fine tremor went through his hand, almost sloshing whiskey over the rim of the glass. He drank half of it, letting the burn steady him.

  “I don’t know what they did or said, but the rage behind those executions . . .” Daemon hesitated. “I drained what was left of their power and finished the kill. They’re whispers in the Darkness now.”

  “You gave them mercy.”

  “That was part of it. Another part was wondering if Orian would become a malevolence like Hekatah became if she was allowed to remain in Hell, hiding until her presence was forgotten.”