The Queen's Weapons

by Anne Bishop

  A corridor in the Hall. Was she home? But . . . Why was she with Clayton and why was he saying . . . No. No! She didn’t want to go with him, but if she loved him . . .

  And then Holt walking up to them. A flash of power and Clayton unable to move. And the next door revealed . . .

  . . . another corridor at the Hall, another boy from school, backhanding her for not letting him do . . . A snarl, a white paw, the crack of bone as the boy’s neck snapped beneath that angry blow. Fur and strength and safety. She held on to the big white cat, held on until she stumbled through the next doorway and . . .

  Her breasts were painfully swollen from a strange arousal, and her nipples were so tight, they hurt, and the wild throbbing she felt between her legs . . .

  Titian, I’m sick!

  Not excitement like the way girls felt in romantic stories. This was painful need that burned through her. Burned and burned.

  I’ll help you to your room. Krellis. No, not Krellis. He was the enemy, and he would . . . And there was Delora, her eyes glittering with the anticipation of destroying another rival.

  She was on the floor. Had to get up. Had to run. Had to help Titian. Titian!

  Would this pain, this need never end? Would it never end?

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “You reached the doorway, but there’s not much sand left in the glass,” Rose said. “If you don’t leave before the last grain falls, you never will.”

  Jaenelle Saetien pushed herself to a sitting position. Not a proper doorway, just an opening in the wall.

  An opening filled with a tangled web.

  “We’re surprised you only had to take back the harm done to Surreal and the girls at your party,” Rose said. “Everyone thought you’d been thoroughly corrupted by the coven of malice. That’s why the Queens wanted you executed along with the rest of Delora’s friends. That’s why you ended up here.” She began to fade. “Sand is running in the glass. You’d better hurry if you want to get out.”

  “Rose?” Jaenelle Saetien cried. “Rose! What am I supposed to do?”

  “Pay the debt,” a midnight voice said.

  On the other side of that tangled web stood . . .

  She scrambled to her feet and approached the web. “I remember you.”

  “Do you? Not well enough.”

  She hadn’t forgotten this strange female who had golden hair that looked more like fur, delicately pointed ears, a tiny spiral horn growing out of her forehead. A human female’s body, but the human hands had cat’s claws and the legs below the knees belonged to a horse and ended with delicate hooves.

  “You gave me Twilight’s Dawn,” Jaenelle Saetien said, feeling hopeful for the first time since she’d awakened in this place.

  “I gave you that Jewel because you had the potential to wear it,” was the cold reply. “You had the heart to wear it. And then you no longer wanted to be the person who could wear it. Choice by choice, you turned away from who you had been until you became an enemy of everyone who had fought against what you now embraced, until you became an insult to everyone who sacrificed themselves to cleanse the Realms of Dorothea’s and Hekatah’s taint.” She looked over her shoulder at the large hourglass floating on air. “It’s time to pay the debt.”

  “I just did that!” Jaenelle Saetien said. “I paid!”

  The creature she’d once thought of as her special friend laughed, a terrible sound that contained no mercy. “No. That was to tally up the debt and help you appreciate the pain you caused—and to show you what your friends had done to other people. By going through the web, you will pay what you owe to the Dhemlan Queens. Or you can stay here among the ghosts until your power fades. Your body will wither and die within a week so that your family won’t be chained to caring for a husk, but you will be here for a long time. That, too, would be considered payment in full.” A beat of silence. “Pay the price and, hopefully, live. Or stay here and let your body die. Choose.”

  Caught in the strands of the tangled web were Jewel chips. Rose, Summer-sky, Purple Dusk, Opal, Green. All the colors that made up her Twilight’s Dawn.

  The creature looked pointedly at the hourglass.

  Jaenelle Saetien studied the web. Try to go through on one side or the other? No, the web seemed thicker there. Through the middle.

  May the Darkness have mercy on her.

  She rushed the web, flinging up her arms and tucking her head to protect her face. The strands of the web caught her, tangled her, bit and tore out pieces of her as she struggled to move forward, to get out.

  A crack of power. A moment of feeling hollowed out, so terribly empty. Where was her inner web? Where was she in the abyss?

  Nowhere.

  She fell through that tangled web, landing on hands and knees beside the creature. She looked back and sucked in a breath. The tangled web across the doorway was in tatters, the strands turning to black ash.

  She’d gotten out. She was free. And furious.

  Scrambling to her feet, she shouted, “Who are you?” Had she ever asked? This creature had been her special friend, and she’d been dazzled when she was young.

  “I am Witch, the living myth. Dreams made flesh.” An odd smile. “As you can see, not all the dreamers were human.”

  She was who? What? That meant . . . “You’re the Queen? My father’s Queen?”

  “I was. I am. I always will be.”

  But that meant . . . “You’re Jaenelle Angelline?”

  “I was when I walked among the living.”

  Too much, too much. “Do you know why I wanted to be Delora’s friend? Because I didn’t want to be like you! I was tired of being compared to you!”

  Something feral and beyond ice filled those sapphire eyes. “Didn’t want to be like me? That was exactly what you wanted when you were young. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that, before your Birthright Ceremony, you were who I might have been if I’d had your childhood instead of mine.” A terrible smile. “Did you enjoy your tour of Briarwood?”

  “It’s an awful place.”

  “I was five years old the first time I was put in there.”

  Moments? Minutes? Jaenelle Saetien didn’t know how long she stared into those sapphire eyes as she remembered Myrol and Rebecca, Dannie and Marjane. Rose. “Why?”

  “Because I told the truth about meeting unicorns and dragons. Because I told the truth about the men who came to that place and what they did to the girls. Truth was inconvenient for the Queen of Chaillot, so it was decided that I was unbalanced and needed to be in Briarwood. I was in and out of that place until I was twelve and was raped by a man named Greer.”

  Jaenelle Saetien shivered. The girl on the bed, with golden hair and blue eyes. The girl Surreal . . .

  “You grew up at the Hall, loved and protected by two of the strongest people in the Realm. Daemon and Surreal let you explore, they let you learn—and they always kept you safe. That was your childhood. Briarwood was mine.” Witch stared through Jaenelle Saetien. “How dare you use me as the excuse for choosing corruption over honor?”

  Black lightning flashed across the sky, its silence more terrible than the loudest thunder would have been.

  “You didn’t want to be like me?” Witch said. “You could never be like me. By keeping you safe, Daemon and Surreal made sure of that.”

  Jaenelle Saetien felt odd, hollow, not whole. She looked at the Jewel in the pendant that hung from her neck. “Something’s wrong! My Jewel . . .”

  Witch studied the Jewel. “Purple Dusk. You kept that much. The rest of what was Twilight’s Dawn is gone. That was the price for the harm you have done.”

  “No.”

  “The girls—and boys—who were accomplices but didn’t actively participate in breaking the girls Delora considered rivals didn’t lose their Jewels completely. Not this time. But
, like you, their power is diminished, and if any of you stray toward someone like Delora again, you will lose a great deal more than your Jewels. After all, there is no cure for Briarwood. It will be inside all of you forever, as remembrance. As a reminder.”

  Jaenelle Saetien shivered. “But when I make the Offering to the Darkness . . .”

  “You might regain the Green. Maybe even Sapphire. But the Gray you might have worn is gone.”

  “You’re cruel.”

  “If you mistake mercy for cruelty, then you have not learned enough.” Plants suddenly grew all around them, bloodred flowers, with black throats and black-tipped petals. “This is witchblood. It grows where a witch’s blood was spilled violently or where a witch who had met a violent death was buried. Witchblood is deadly, but if you sing to it correctly, it will tell you the names of the ones who are gone.”

  The look in Witch’s eyes had Jaenelle Saetien backing away, but her feet got tangled in the plants and she ended up on the ground.

  Witch pointed to the Purple Dusk Jewel. “That paid the debt you owed the Dhemlan Queens for what you did on behalf of the coven of malice. Now let’s discuss the debt you owe me for hurting Daemon and Surreal.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  A slight movement. The faintest moan.

  Surreal sprang out of the chair next to Jaenelle Saetien’s bed and grabbed the girl’s hand.

  “Wake up now, Jaenelle Saetien. Wake up!”

  Glazed, dazed gold eyes focused on her.

  “Wake up now,” Surreal said.

  “Am I home?”

  “You’re home.”

  The girl clung to her hand and cried.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  No one asked any questions. Except for breathing and a slowly beating heart, it seemed her body hadn’t worked at all while she’d been gone. Now needs returned with a vengeance.

  Surreal helped her to the toilet, then helped her into the shower and back out. Helene and some maids changed the linens on the bed and opened the windows to let in fresh cold air. By the time Jaenelle Saetien was helped into clean clothes and returned to the bed, the warming spells had returned the room to a comfortable temperature and Beale brought up a tray with water, beef broth, and chunks of bread she could dip into the broth.

  She looked at the Hall’s butler, but she saw no relief that she had returned, no welcome or warmth in his eyes. The message was clear: from now on, she was just a daughter of the house—and not one he felt any liking toward.

  She drank some water, swallowed a few spoonfuls of broth.

  When Surreal set the tray on the table and sat on the side of the bed, Jaenelle Saetien dared to talk. She wanted to ask where her father was, but that might make her seem ungrateful for Surreal’s help.

  “My body was here?”

  “Yes,” Surreal replied.

  “But I felt . . .” Wanton, desperate burning between her legs and fear when she realized what Krellis was going to do. “I thought I was in a place. A terrible place.” Hard to breathe. Why was it hard to breathe? “Briarwood is the pretty poison.”

  “There is no cure for Briarwood.” Surreal touched Jaenelle Saetien’s knee, the covers separating them.

  “You’ve seen that place.” Not a question.

  Surreal nodded. “Myrol and Rebecca. Dannie. Rose.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Marjane was the daughter of a friend of mine. I didn’t even know Deje had had a daughter until I was shown Briarwood.”

  “I saw them too.” Jaenelle Saetien hesitated. “And I saw you when you saved Jaenelle Angelline.”

  Surreal shook her head. “I was too late to save her. But I did slit that bastard’s throat—just like he slit my mother’s throat. She died when I was twelve. I was raped a few days later and became a whore soon after that in order to survive.”

  Jaenelle Saetien plucked at the covers, not sure what to say. “Where’s Father?”

  “I don’t know. He destroyed the school. There’s nothing left of it. He executed Lady Fharra and several instructors for the part they played in allowing Delora to attack other students. And he executed all the boys who came to the house party uninvited.”

  Her stomach flipped. She swallowed hard. “All of them?”

  “The two boys who were Zoey’s friends were spared. The rest . . .”

  “What about the rest?” Krellis, Dhuran, and Clayton were dead?

  “They danced with the Sadist, and he ripped them apart, body and mind.”

  “Because they were here when boys weren’t supposed to be at the party.”

  “Well, their being at the Hall to rape and break Zoey and some of the other girls certainly fueled his rage, but those boys died hard for what they’d already done.”

  She couldn’t think about the boys, couldn’t imagine what had been done to them. “Zoey. She was sick.”

  “She was drugged,” Surreal corrected sharply. Then she softened her voice. “She’ll be fine. Lucivar helped her while the drug was burning through her. She’s still recovering, has some trouble with anyone touching her. Hopefully that will fade in time. Titian is having nightmares, wakes up crying.” She shook her head. “I know you just woke up, but you should rest. You want me to fetch a couple of books, put them on the bedside table?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” She told Surreal which ones she wanted. “You haven’t said anything about my Jewel.”

  “It’s Purple Dusk now.”

  “The rest of Twilight’s Dawn was taken from me.”

  “To pay the debt you owed.” Surreal made an impatient sound. “Sugar, you weren’t broken back to basic Craft, and you’re not dead. By my figuring, you’re way ahead of anyone else who was identified as part of the coven of malice. The problem now, for your father, is convincing the Dhemlan Queens and Warlord Princes that your debt was paid in full.” She walked to the door, adding, “Get some rest.”

  No sympathy for what she lost. No understanding about the price she still had to pay.

  She slid out of bed, bracing herself on the mattress until she trusted her legs to hold her. Then she tottered to the table where she’d left the printed-and-bound information about the girls who had been harmed by Delora and her friends.

  “There is a list. Choose seven of the girls. You will take the time to learn who they were, who they might have been. You will understand what they lost and what Dhemlan lost because they were stripped of their power, their potential. Until you can feel the weight of them on your heart, you will walk through Briarwood every night. You will become a kind of memento mori for those seven girls. They will become your scars. That is the price you will pay to me for hurting Surreal—and for hurting Daemon and forcing him to choose between giving you to me or killing you himself.”

  Jaenelle Saetien picked up the printed list and shuffled back to bed. She shoved the list under one of the pillows and remembered the last thing Witch had said to her.

  “If it’s the name that’s getting in your way, then change your name to something that won’t remind people of me. Daemon won’t care. I doubt he chose that name in the first place.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  *Daemon. The debt is paid. Go home.*

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Daemon rushed through the open front door and into the great hall, where Beale waited for him.

  “Any problems here?” he asked.

  “No, High Lord.” Beale studied him. “Would you prefer I use a different title?”

  “No,” he said softly. For most of the Blood, he would never be Prince Daemon Sadi again. He wondered if Saetan had felt the extra weight of being the High Lord once it became known throughout the Realms. No stepping back from it now. For any of them. “Where is Surreal?”

  “In her suite. We persuaded her to get some rest now that the young Lady woke up and w
as bathed and had a bite to eat.”

  He couldn’t think about the young Lady yet, wasn’t ready to face what was left of Jaenelle Saetien. He moved swiftly through the corridors, acknowledging the footmen and maids with just a look. When he reached Surreal’s suite, he knocked on her sitting room door and then entered before being given permission. But as he crossed the threshold, he leashed every part of himself as tightly as he could.

  “Surreal?” He said her name softly, unwilling to disturb her if she was asleep—and unwilling to walk into her bedroom without her permission in order to check on her. That room was her sanctuary, and he spent time with her there as an invited guest.

  She appeared in the doorway between the rooms, looking exhausted and fragile. “Sadi?” She ran across the room and threw herself into his arms.

  He held her, his hands moving over her head and back to caress and reassure. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here to help you. I am sorry for that.”

  “Did that bitch Fharra get everything she deserved?” Her words were muffled, spoken against his chest.

  “She did. They all did.” He couldn’t ease her back enough to get a good look at her, so he settled her more comfortably against him. “Sweetheart, did you get any rest?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t . . . It was easier to keep watch.” She finally leaned back and looked at him. “Have you seen her?”