The Queen's Weapons

by Anne Bishop

  “What are you going to do?” Marcus asked.

  Daemon created a tongue of witchfire. He held one corner of the paper to the fire and watched it burn until he dropped the last scrap into a marble bowl on his desk. Then he smiled a cold, cruel smile as he finally knew exactly what to do with all the rage that had been building inside him. “I’m going to call in a debt.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Jaenelle Saetien didn’t recognize the bedroom or the girl on the bed who was flailing weakly and begging for it to stop. But she recognized Clayton—and she realized he and the girl were having sex.

  No, not sex. Not when the girl was begging him to stop and he seemed triumphant when the girl screamed and . . . became less.

  Rose studied her. “Nothing? You didn’t feel him pounding between your legs, driving you down to your inner web, using pain and fear to make you fall and shatter that inner web? That’s how it’s done, you know. That’s how witches are broken on their Virgin Night.”

  Jaenelle Saetien stared at Rose, horrified. “But that’s . . .” Clayton. One of Delora’s friends. A boy I thought was also my friend.

  “If you didn’t feel the rape, then you didn’t have a hand in that girl ending up under him. Some of your friends won’t be so lucky.” Rose paused. “You might want to take a good look at her face. She comes from a minor aristo family. You might see her again. Or what’s left of her after he was done.”

  See that girl and remember this? No. Never.

  “There’s the door,” Rose said. “Time to move on.”

  “Can’t we find a room where we can rest for a while?” Jaenelle Saetien asked.

  “You have no body here, nothing that requires rest.”

  What about a heart, a mind?

  “You want to stay here?” Rose demanded.

  And watch Clayton doing . . . that? “Let’s go on.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Daemon walked onto the school grounds and let his Black power flow beneath all the minds still in residence.

  He’d met Lady Fharra and knew what her mind felt like. She wasn’t at the school. He’d bet the other instructors who owned a percentage of the school weren’t there either. But there were still plenty of other people within the grounds. Students and instructors. The grooms who took care of the horses—and the horses.

  He had given Lady Fharra the courtesy of informing her that the school would burn at midnight. Instead of using the time to evacuate the students and instructors, she had fled.

  That made one decision simple.

  He reached for two minds. One he knew well; the other was just learning what it meant to serve someone like the High Lord of Hell. *Prince Chaosti. Prince Raine. Your presence is required.*

  News had traveled through Dhemlan about the unnatural sleep that had struck Delora and every member of her coven, as well as the youngsters who had been the coven’s accomplices. No Healer could wake them. A few strong Black Widows had found enough of an answer to run from the bedrooms in terror. And he had remained in Amdarh, conspicuously in sight.

  Chaosti strode toward him, the movement easy and confident. Raine came on the run from the direction of the instructors’ rooms.

  “At midnight, witchfire will consume the school,” Daemon said. “Raine, inform the boys who are still in residence to pack what they don’t want to lose and be ready to leave. Then pack your own belongings.”

  “A few of Lady Zhara’s guards are still here,” Chaosti said. “Not Lord Weston, unfortunately, since the other men are unnerved when approached by the demon-dead. They can rouse the grooms and any other staff who are still here.”

  “What about Lady Fharra?” Raine asked.

  “She was informed about the fire earlier today,” Daemon replied. “She isn’t here.”

  Raine stared at him. “She knew and said nothing?”

  “Don’t concern yourself, Prince,” Daemon crooned. “She’ll pay her debts.”

  “My men and I will rouse the girls,” Chaosti said. “Where should we take them? The town house can’t hold all the people who are still here.”

  “Take them to Lady Zhara’s court. She’ll have rooms large enough to accommodate them. Prince Raine, you may stay in one of the town house’s guest rooms if you choose.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Daemon met Chaosti’s eyes, then focused on Raine. “Witchfire burns,” he said too softly. “Make sure you’re off the school grounds by midnight.”

  He turned and walked away.

  During the hours before midnight, he visited the homes of Lady Fharra and all the instructors who were partners at the school—and the death spells the Sadist wove around each of those fools were exquisite.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Lucivar stared at the mounds of still-smoking gravel and ash that had been a school the day before. The ground looked more like clay fired in a kiln than soil capable of growing anything.

  The taste of ash and the heat of witchfire still hung in the air.

  So did the taste of merciless, cold rage.

  Lord Weston walked toward him, trying to move within his sight without setting so much as the side of a boot on that barren ground.

  “He gave everyone time to get out,” Weston said, standing beside Lucivar. “From what I heard, some of the youngsters were pissing and moaning about packing up and leaving—until the witchfire started burning the outbuildings. The grooms didn’t take as much persuading and removed all the horses from the school’s stables. A couple instructors grabbed the last youngsters who were still dragging their feet and tossed them into the street. They were only a few steps beyond the school when the fire flashed from one end of the school grounds to the other, burning as tall as the buildings but contained within the school’s boundaries.”

  “Where are they?” Lucivar lifted his chin to indicate the school’s former residents.

  “Boys are camped out in Lady Zhara’s ballroom. I think the girls were bedded down in a couple of the reception rooms.”

  “You were guarding Zoey?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Lucivar gave the school grounds one last, long look. It wasn’t the first time the city of Amdarh had experienced the Sadist’s temper. Wasn’t the first time his witchfire had burned a building. At least this time . . . “No bodies as warning and lesson.”

  “Not here.”

  Lucivar looked at the Warlord who was Lady Zoela’s primary escort.

  “Lady Fharra and a handful of senior instructors were executed last night.” Weston swallowed hard. “I didn’t see the bodies, but Lady Zhara’s Master of the Guard is a strong man who will stand in a fight to defend his Queen. He saw what was done, and he was . . . frightened.”

  Easy enough to guess what Weston felt too nervous to ask. “Sadi isn’t in Amdarh. I’m not sure where he is.” And he wasn’t looking forward to finding out. “Tell Zhara if she needs help, let me know. I’d say my brother was settling the debts that were owed to his family and the people of Dhemlan. I don’t think she needs to worry about him showing up to have a little chat.”

  Weston looked relieved. Then he called in a pale rose envelope and held it out. “Zoey asked me to take this, in case I ran into you.”

  Lucivar took the envelope, read Titian’s name on the front, and vanished it. “How is Zoey doing?”

  “She’s not sleeping, and when she does sleep, she wakes up frightened. She wants to go back to the Hall. She says it’s safer there.”

  “That’s where she was attacked.”

  “I know, but she says—and I agree—that if she’d been at any other house and the same thing had been done, she wouldn’t have survived. Krellis would have gotten to her and Titian and . . .” Weston stopped. “She says the people who serve Prince Sadi are strong, and even when he can’t be at the Hall
, they will still protect the people who live there.”

  “Nothing can be done until the coven of malice rises from wherever they are in the abyss,” Lucivar said. He’d stopped at the town house before coming to the school and had heard all about the girls falling into a sleep and somehow escaping the Queens’ demand for execution. “If you need any help with Zoey, Helton will know where to find me.”

  “Thank you, Prince.” Weston bowed and walked away.

  *Bastard?* Lucivar called on an Ebon-gray spear thread. *Daemon, where are you?*

  *Unless you want to dance, stay away from me.*

  Even that connection on a psychic thread was enough to wrap around him, making him painfully aroused—and frightened. He had danced with the Sadist before, and he was certain they would dance again. But not today. He didn’t want to die that way.

  *Is there anything I can do for you?*

  *Do what you can for Surreal. I am not permitted to be at the Hall. Not yet.*

  Thank the Darkness for that. *I’ll go there now.*

  Sadi withdrew from the link with a gentleness that almost felt like a blow.

  Lucivar took a deep breath and blew it out, hoping to clear his head. Then he launched himself skyward and caught the closest Wind—the Red—and headed for SaDiablo Hall.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Jaenelle Saetien watched Delora and Krellis pick up rocks and beat a boy’s face into an unrecognizable mess before they smashed his hands to pulp. And all the while, Delora kept saying, “Going to tattle on us again? Are you? Are you?”

  “What happened to the boy?” she asked Rose.

  “They didn’t care, so that isn’t part of what was remembered,” Rose replied.

  They didn’t care.

  She’d watched Krellis rape a girl, with Delora and Hespera urging him on. She watched Dhuran telling some of the other boys from the school that using the girl he’d selected was their initiation into the group.

  She passed through rooms where other boys who were part of Delora and Krellis’s pack of males beat and bullied younger boys to prove they were worthy of being . . . what? The predators instead of the prey?

  At each room, Rose watched her and waited, but she felt no pain that matched what was being done. No pain beyond a growing misery as she looked at what the people whom she’d thought were her friends had done to other children.

  And then, as she put her hand on the knob of the next door, she heard a familiar voice shout, “Jaenelle!”

  She rushed into the room, then froze at the sight of a girl with golden hair and blue eyes tied to a bed and a man with maimed hands . . .

  Surreal appeared out of the wall and whirled to face the man who kept thrusting into the girl’s too-still body. She grabbed the man’s hair in one hand and slashed a knife across his throat—and the walls turned red.

  With her teeth bared, Surreal drove a knife into his heart, lifting him off the bed. Lifting him off the girl. As she pulled out her knife and raised her hand for the final strike, another Rose, more transparent than the one standing beside Jaenelle Saetien, moaned and Surreal glanced at the bed and the blood. So much blood. Too much blood.

  “Jaenelle,” Surreal said.

  Jaenelle Saetien’s stomach rolled as she watched Surreal, who looked more like one of her older schoolmates than her mother, cut the cords that bound the girl to the bed, wrap that body in the bloody sheet, and pass through the wall, shouting for Daemon Sadi.

  Jaenelle Saetien backed out of the room and slumped to the floor.

  Rose closed the door and crouched beside her. “Not much farther to go.”

  She pushed her hair away from her tear-dampened face and climbed to her feet. Walking to the end of the corridor, she opened the next door.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Surreal pushed out of the chair by the bed when Lucivar walked into Jaenelle Saetien’s bedroom.

  “Sadi?” she asked.

  Lucivar didn’t reply, just opened his arms and wrapped them around her when she fell against him. She couldn’t cry anymore. Maybe when this was over. Maybe when she knew . . . What?

  “How long can she survive this way?” she asked.

  “Slow executions usually take three days,” he replied. When she jerked back to look at his face, he added, “I don’t expect this to take longer.”

  “She didn’t do . . .” She bit back the rest of the words. Most likely every parent of a girl who had belonged to the coven of malice was saying the same thing. Their daughter hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Didn’t she? From where I’m standing, she did enough to deserve some punishment.”

  She pushed away from him. She should have realized his anger was still close to the surface and might never go away. “Why are you here?”

  “To help you.”

  “Jaenelle Saetien’s father should be here. He’s the one who got her into this by letting her go to that school.” She hurt, and she needed to blame someone for the pain—and right now she couldn’t blame the girl lying in bed.

  “She got herself into this, Surreal. She made the choice to be one of Delora’s followers.”

  “How could she know what that bitch could do?” Surreal cried. “We kept her safe, Lucivar. We kept her protected and safe so she wouldn’t end up on some bed, torn and bloody and broken!”

  “Yeah,” Lucivar said. “You did keep her safe. Maybe she needed some scars in order to appreciate that being safe was a gift not everyone receives.”

  Surreal raked her fingers through her hair. “Witch sent her to Briarwood.”

  He said nothing.

  “And her father—”

  “Needed help to find a way to call in the debts without having to kill his daughter.”

  “But . . . Briarwood.”

  “I know what was there. I listened to enough of Jaenelle’s nightmares over the years.”

  As she’d sat here hour after hour, watching an empty shell—guarding an empty shell—a question had formed. Now she faced the Demon Prince and asked, “If Witch, your Queen, told you to walk away from your wife and children to be with her and only her, would you do it?”

  “She never asked that of the men who served her when she walked among the living. She wouldn’t ask it now,” he replied.

  “But if she did?”

  “I would miss Marian and the children every day for the rest of my life and beyond, but if that was my Queen’s command, I would walk away and not look back.”

  So. It wasn’t just Daemon’s loyalty to Witch that ran that deep.

  “What did you expect?” Lucivar asked. “We waited seventeen hundred years for her. We actively searched for her for seven hundred years because Tersa told us she was coming. We fought to stay alive in order to find her. She was, and is, everything that matters. And she always will be. And one reason why that’s true is she will never ask for a sacrifice from us if she can pay the price herself.” He smiled sadly. “You loved her as friend and sister, and you served the Queen. But you weren’t one of the dreamers, Surreal. You weren’t one of the yearning, desperate hearts that shaped dreams into flesh. I was one of them. So was Saetan. So was Daemon. She is vital to his survival. And his being with her is vital to the survival of the rest of us.”

  She knew that. Had known it for decades, centuries. Witch was the only one who could control the Sadist. Without her . . .

  “He destroyed the school,” Lucivar said. “There’s nothing left. And he executed the administrator and several senior instructors. The Queens are frozen in fear, waiting for his next move.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. But you don’t want the Sadist here. Not now.”

  Not ever. She wouldn’t be that lucky. Everything had a price.

  She looked at Jaenelle Saetien lying so sti
ll and frowned as Lucivar’s words settled into her mind. “What sort of price is Witch paying in order to help Daemon save some part of Jaenelle Saetien?”

  “Well,” Lucivar said, “that’s an interesting question, isn’t it?”

  FORTY-SIX

  Jaenelle Saetien pressed a fist to her chest and struggled to breathe as excruciating pain ripped through her, making it impossible to move, impossible to think, impossible to feel anything except that perfectly aimed blow. Then the pain faded, leaving a cold, empty spot in her chest where something had been scooped out. Had died.

  “Well done!” Rose said, clapping. “Fatal blow to the heart. How does it feel to make your first kill?”

  Jaenelle Saetien stared at this frozen image of Surreal, standing there with a deep, jagged wound in her chest, exposing everything beneath. And the handle of a knife sticking out of her heart.

  “I didn’t do that.” She rubbed her chest, feeling the echo of pain.

  “‘I didn’t, I didn’t,’” Rose mocked. “That’s how you justify everything, isn’t it? Everyone kills her mother, so why shouldn’t you?”

  “I didn’t do that!” she shouted. “Surreal SaDiablo is still alive!”

  Rose nodded. “Surreal is. But Mother . . .” She looked at the knife’s bone handle and then at the oddly shaped blade—and pointed. “The blade is made from the words ‘not my mother’ and it sliced right through the piece of Surreal’s heart that’s labeled mother. There’s a piece labeled wife, friend, sister, protector. No damage to those bits. But mother?” She shook her head. “You killed that part of her so well, there’s nothing left. Must have hurt when you said those words.”

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  Rose just looked at her.

  “Okay, yes, I meant it. I’d just found out she’d been a whore. What would you have done?”

  Rose shrugged.

  “I meant to hurt her, but . . .”

  “Yes, yes, adolescent drama. Big, big feelings that can’t consider someone else’s struggle because yours are the only feelings that count. You said things you knew would hurt, but you expected her to get over them as soon as it was convenient for you.” Rose stared at her. “It doesn’t always work that way. Maybe it does most of the time, but sometimes wounds go too deep, and you can’t fix the harm you’ve done. When that happens, you have to accept the consequences. She’ll always be your mother in terms of bloodline, and she’ll probably always try to protect you to make up for the ones she couldn’t save—she still dreams about them sometimes. Did you know that? But Mother is gone. Look. There’s the next door.”