by Anne Bishop
He didn’t want to think that about someone he’d watched grow from toddler to young woman. But he also didn’t want to think about the significance of those lists Daemon had made.
He had to think about that. “You’re going after the children.”
“Yes.”
“Because one of them reminds you of Dorothea.”
“Because there was a warning in a tangled web that another like Dorothea was going to rise, cloaked in youth and innocence. Well, she’s come, Prick. Our Queen said I would remember when I needed to remember. Your boy being at that school kept chipping away at the lock on that memory, and seeing that girl . . .” Daemon released a breath in a way that was too controlled, too careful. “That people are collecting Hayllian memorabilia troubles me. That people are romanticizing Dorothea’s cruelty to make it more palatable to those who had never been on the receiving end of that cruelty enrages me. But there is no indication of some widespread conspiracy to start a war here, no threats being made toward the rest of the people in Dhemlan. At least, not by the adults. However, there is a group of youngsters who seem to be actively following the kind of viciousness that Dorothea relished. Maybe their families are the ones who want to remake Dhemlan into another Hayll, or maybe the adults just like to talk about it and it’s the youngsters who have gathered around someone who has the right blend of malevolence and charisma to make it a reality. Either way, I’ve seen the faces of these particular enemies and have to deal with them, no matter the cost.”
A burning in his gut. “If you do this . . .”
“I will be known throughout the Realm as the High Lord of Hell, monstrous and feared.” Daemon smiled bitterly. “It was coming. Had to come. And I would rather it come saving Queens like Zoey and all the other strong young witches than for some lesser reason. I can live with destroying some in order to save the best.”
Lucivar huffed out a breath. “All right. What do we—”
“Me. Not you.”
“Piss on that,” he snapped. “You don’t walk into this alone.”
Daemon drained his glass and refilled it. “I need to be sure they deserve . . . When I destroyed bitches in Terreille, regardless of their age, I was always sure because of what they’d done to me or what I witnessed them do to someone else.”
“Okay. How can we be sure?” The thought of executing girls Titian’s age made him sick. “You think this is why Dorothea managed to grow up to become what she was, to do what she did? Because the Warlord Princes who saw the warning signs didn’t have the balls to carry the weight of those executions?”
“And she had Hekatah whispering in the shadows, nurturing that malevolent side of her nature,” Daemon said. “Be sure you want to carry the weight of this particular war, Lucivar.”
He held out his glass and waited for Daemon to refill it—and wished the whiskey decanter was filled with Chaosti’s home brew. That, at least, would knock him on his ass for a little while.
“If you’re going to do this, I have to carry part of that weight.” He stared into his glass. “My body still carries some of the scars from the beatings, the whippings, the torture. Inside me, I carry other kinds of scars. I still dream about it sometimes. Still feel the burning rage from the drugs they used to try to breed me. Still wake up some nights because I feel my skin part beneath the whip.” He looked at his brother. “You?”
“Sometimes.”
“My boys have seen some of the scars; I tell them stories so they have some understanding about the scars that can’t be seen. And I will stand on a killing field and meet whatever I need to meet in order to prevent them from knowing those things firsthand.”
“Agreed.” Daemon sighed. “Surreal and I are going to look at every girl who was broken in the towns or villages where one of the coven of malice resided. We’re going to find out who did the breaking. The Province Queens know me well enough to know how I’ll react if I find a pattern, so I have to think that there was nothing obvious enough to draw their attention.”
“Wouldn’t have drawn our attention right now if our children weren’t at that school too,” Lucivar said.
“Surreal set up a sanctuary for broken witches where they can receive training and rebuild their lives. She would have noticed eventually that specific kinds of girls were being ‘accidentally’ broken.”
“And she would have honed her knives.” But how many strong witches would have been lost before that?
Daemon smiled. “Of course.”
Lucivar drank the whiskey, then used Craft to float the glass back to the tray. “I’ll have a word with the Province Queens in Askavi, have them look to see if there is a pattern to the girls who aren’t surviving their Virgin Nights with their power and Jewels intact.”
“I’ll set up meetings with the other Territory Queens, give them warning that things could get messy in Dhemlan.”
“Winsol is coming soon.”
“I know. I won’t have enough information to act before then.”
“A last celebration.”
Daemon stepped close and rested his forehead against Lucivar’s. “Let’s hope it’s not the last.” He stepped back. “I’ve asked Chaosti to bring a fist of his men and take the night watch at the school. Weston and Zhara’s guards can take the day watch. We’ll keep the children safe, at least while they’re there.”
“Appreciate that.” He hesitated. “You have any objections to me paying my respects?”
“She’s your Queen too.”
She was, but entering Witch’s area of the Keep tended to prick Daemon’s temper.
They parted ways when Daemon headed for the library and he headed for the part of the Keep very few people knew was still occupied—in a way.
She no longer had a physical body, and he suspected that her choice to appear as Witch, the dream that had been clothed in flesh—the dream that hadn’t been fully human—was as much a kindness to Daemon as it was an acknowledgment of who she had always been. This form wasn’t the body Daemon had worshipped with his own as husband and lover. This shadow, this illusion, was the Queen powerful enough to crush the Realms and everything in them.
He walked into the sitting room across from the Queen’s suite and waited.
He didn’t wait long.
“Daemonar sent a note telling me about the Sadist’s visit to the school,” Witch said, seeming to take shape out of the air.
“He’s the third side of the triangle and one of your weapons,” Lucivar replied. “Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“You’ll all do what needs to be done.”
“Yeah, we will.” He wasn’t sure how to ask. “Jaenelle . . .”
She shook her head and huffed. “Your boy was quicker off the mark this time. Inform young Prince Yaslana that he should tell you about the charm he gave his sister before she went to school. The Queen commands.”
He studied her. “A charm?”
“A protection. Blood sings to Blood. If Titian is in danger, she can call him.”
“If he’s within her reach.”
“No, Lucivar. If he’s within my reach.” She shrugged. “It was a reasonable request from a member of the triangle.”
“If it’s more than he can handle?”
Oh, he remembered that look in her eyes. “Then I will summon the Demon Prince—and the High Lord of Hell.”
He looked around the room, not sure what to say to her. That he was grateful she was still here? He was. More than he could say. That he had some inkling of what it must cost her to stay in this form, interacting with the people she had loved when she’d walked among the living—and still loved enough to do this? That he felt relieved that she was teaching Daemonar what a Queen should want from a Warlord Prince? That he felt even more relief that Daemon was still sane because he was under her hand? She already knew those things.
Instead, he said,
“I haven’t heard about any explosions lately, so I guess you and Karla have been too busy to experiment with spells.”
“You haven’t heard about any? Oh, good.”
She gave him a smile that turned the bones in his legs to water.
She could have been teasing. Maybe.
He’d ask Draca. The Seneschal would know if any part of the Keep had turned to rubble.
Lucivar walked out of the Keep, smiling. The Queen’s weapons would carry the weight of killing. They would pay the price. But today he would remember a sister and her coven—and mischief that had never contained any trace of malice.
TWENTY-NINE
Surreal woke as her nipple hardened against the hand Daemon had cupped around her breast while they’d slept. A simple thing for most married couples, she supposed, but for them, it not only indicated trust, it indicated that Daemon had set aside the burden of what might need to be done and would welcome an invitation from his lover.
The first few days of Winsol had been . . . fraught. They had attended the parties and public celebrations as required by the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan and his wife. They had quietly taken aside the Province Queens and the District Queens who ruled the larger cities in Dhemlan and told them to put together lists of the young witches who had been broken during the Virgin Night—and they told the Queens why they wanted those lists, told them what they suspected without naming the youngsters they believed were responsible. They didn’t want the Warlord Princes living in Dhemlan to turn on youngsters who had been stupid rather than malicious.
But the demands of those days had been felt by both of them. Some nights, after a day full of meetings and an evening full of parties, they had slept in the same bed but as far from each other as they could get. Some nights she woke and realized Daemon had gone to his own room to sleep alone, his temper too sharp and cold to stay with anyone.
Titian and Daemonar had asked to have parties at the town house in Amdarh to celebrate with friends before the whole family went to the Hall to celebrate Winsol Eve and Winsol. Jaenelle Saetien had thrown a hissy fit at first when she found out Titian hadn’t invited any of her friends to the party, and Daemon wouldn’t allow her to add those friends since it was Titian’s party and the girl wasn’t comfortable being around what Daemonar called the coven of malice.
The boys had their party on the Yaslana side of the town house, and the girls took over the SaDiablo side of the town house. Casually chaperoned by the adults, each group had seemed to have a good time, if the laughter and giggling had been the measuring stick.
Winsol Eve and Winsol Day at the Hall had been pleasant. She and Jaenelle Saetien had maintained a stilted formality, but Marian and Lucivar didn’t ask what had brought about that change in their relationship. For that, she was grateful. At first, she had hoped that Tersa had been wrong, that the bond between her and Jaenelle Saetien hadn’t been broken beyond repair. But the girl’s words had severed that connection between them, and she felt the jagged break those words had made inside her. She needed to figure out how to accept that and move beyond it.
No longer a mother. Maybe a guide.
Maybe that was just as well, considering how much blood she would have on her hands soon.
But this morning, they had reached the quiet side of the Winsol celebrations, the days that Daemon and Jaenelle Angelline had established as time just for themselves. For family. No work, no meetings, no parties. Quiet days to rest and read, or go out for a gallop over fresh snow, or walk down to the village. Days she and Daemon spent together as friends and lovers.
This year, those days would also be used to prepare body and mind for a vicious kind of war that most of the people in Dhemlan would never know had been waged—if they were lucky.
She didn’t think they would be that lucky.
Daemon’s hand flexed around her breast. His thumb stroked her nipple.
She reached back and between them, and her hand closed around the part of him that was standing at attention, begging to be stroked.
The sound he made was part sigh, part dark chuckle.
She smiled. “What would you like to do today?”
“Is staying in bed an option?” he asked.
Releasing him, she vanished her nightgown and turned toward him, reclaiming the part of him that was exclusively hers. Guiding his cock into her, she said, “If you put a Black shield around the room, we can stay long enough to combine breakfast with the midday meal.”
“You won’t get too hungry?” he asked as he moved inside her.
Not for food. She kissed him—and his response was to give her an edgy sweetness they hadn’t shared in a long time.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“Ease up now,” Jaenelle Saetien said, putting a little pressure on the reins attached to the mare’s halter.
The kindred mare—a witch who wore a Tiger Eye Jewel—slowed to a walk. *I am not tired. We can run some more.*
“I’d like to go down to the village and visit Manny.”
*We can run?*
“Sure.” The snow was deep enough she didn’t think the mare would want to run for long.
The mare gave a funny hop that almost tossed her out of the saddle. When she regained her balance and looked around to see what the mare had reacted to, she realized the hooves were standing on air just above the snow.
*Now we can run.*
That was all the warning she got before the mare took off in the direction of Halaway. They galloped, they cantered, they wove around trees, they jumped over shadows on the snow just because the mare wanted to jump.
“We can go over the bridge,” she said when they reached the creek and the bridge that separated the land belonging to the SaDiablo family seat from the village.
The mare just snorted, bunched her hindquarters, and used Craft to help her fly over the creek and land lightly on the other side.
Jaenelle Saetien laughed and shouted, “Well done!”
Pleased with herself, the mare slowed to a walk when they reached the edge of the village.
Jaenelle Saetien dismounted and the two of them walked side by side for a minute before she stopped. She unclipped the reins from the halter, carefully looped them as she’d been taught, then attached them to a ring on the saddle.
“I’m going to be visiting a while. Why don’t you go back to the Hall so you don’t stand out here in the cold?”
*No more running?* the mare asked.
“Not today.”
The mare trotted off, heading toward the Hall. She would get there eventually, when she was ready for a rubdown and a meal.
Jaenelle Saetien walked into the village.
There were paddocks at the Hall’s stables like you would expect to see around any place that had horses, but they weren’t used in the same way. Each stallion in residence had his own paddock, where he romanced his chosen mares, and there was a paddock for the youngsters. That was more like a large playpen than anything else to keep them out of trouble—and out of Mrs. Beale’s kitchen garden. But the kindred horses roamed the estate, usually returning to the stables in the evening.
In the same way that Beale and Helene assigned chores to the staff working in the Hall, the stable master assigned horses to stay nearby for any human who wanted to go out riding. So you never knew who would go riding with you, although the horses did have their favorite humans. The stallion who was an Opal-Jeweled Warlord Prince preferred her father and often refused to consider anyone else for his rider.
That was fine with her. Warlord Princes were bossy at the best of times. One that didn’t have hands tended to use his teeth to grab and tug you where he wanted you to go, and arguing with something that outweighed you by that much was futile most of the time.
Halaway was a pretty village. Being so close to the Hall and under her father’s watchful eye, it couldn’t be
anything else. Delora had made disparaging comments about her being stuck in a little village for days and days and days, and Jaenelle Saetien hadn’t disagreed with her because she didn’t want Delora and Hespera to think she was a rube. But Halaway was a comfortable place. It didn’t bustle like the city, and maybe it didn’t have the best of the best shops, but it had everything people needed.
She’d been tired of the village children she had grown up with, had played with and gone to school with. She’d wanted—needed—something exciting, something different. She’d wanted—needed—to be around people who had never met, let alone known, that Queen she couldn’t begin to compete with. From the moment she’d met Delora at a party when they were still children, she’d wanted to be part of the dazzle the other girl made happen so effortlessly. Wasn’t that what aristos did? Dazzle everyone else?
Except . . .
Daemonar’s comment that he didn’t like her anymore had hurt. A lot. But, somehow, hearing that comment had made her hear other things that she had ignored—or made excuses for. Like Hespera calling Titian a fat bat all the time. Titian wasn’t fat. Her bones weren’t showing through her skin and she didn’t have a caved-in belly that looked like someone had scooped out her insides, but she wasn’t fat.
They said they were only teasing, and if a girl’s feelings were hurt, it was her own fault. But meanness was meanness. Wasn’t it? She wasn’t sure she would ever be sophisticated enough to participate in that kind of teasing. But if you weren’t doing the teasing, then you were on the receiving end. Weren’t you?
She could admit to herself that she’d been upset—all right, she’d been bitchy—when Papa wouldn’t let her add her friends to the girls invited to the party at the town house. Then Titian had said, “Why would I want people who call me a fat bat to come to my Winsol party?”
Words that hurt. Meanness disguised as teasing.