Bishop, Anne - Dark Jewels 02 - Heir to the Shadows (v1.0)

by Heir to the Shadows [lit]

  "He's not here for a healing, Lady."

  Luthvian ground her teeth. She was an Eyrien Black Widow and Healer. It grated her pride to have to teach Craft to these Rihlan girls. If she still lived in Terreille, they would have been her servants, not her pupils. Of course, if she still lived in Terreille, she would still be bartering her healing skills for a stringy rabbit or a loaf of stale bread. "If he's not here for—"

  She shuddered. If she hadn't closed her inner barriers so tightly in order to shut out the frustrated bleating of her students, she would have felt him the moment he walked into her house. His dark scent was unmistakable.

  Luthvian fought to keep her voice steady and unconcerned. "Tell the High Lord I'll be with him shortly."

  The girl's eyes widened. She bolted down the hallway, caught a friend by the arm, and began whispering excitedly.

  Luthvian quietly closed the door of her workroom. She let out a whimpering laugh and thrust her shaking hands into her work apron's pockets. That little two-legged sheep was trembling with excitement at the prospect of mouthing practiced courtesies to the High Lord of Hell. She was trembling too, but for a very different reason.

  Oh, Tersa, in your madness perhaps you didn't know or care what spear was slipped into your sheath. I was young and frightened, but I wasn't mad. He made my body sing, and I thought. . . I thought. . .

  Even after so many centuries, the truth still left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  Luthvian removed her apron and smoothed out the wrinkles in her old dress as best she could. A hearth-witch would have known some little spell to make it look crisply ironed. A witch in personal service would have known some little spell to smooth and rebraid her long black hair in seconds. She was neither, and it was beneath a Healer's dignity to learn such mundane Craft. It was beneath a Black Widow's dignity to care whether a man—any man— expressed approval of how she dressed.

  After locking her workroom and vanishing the key, Luthvian squared her shoulders -and lifted her chin. There was only one way to find out why he was here.

  As she walked down the main hallway that divided the lower floor of her house, Luthvian kept her pace slow and dignified as befitted a Sister of the Hourglass. Her workroom, healing room, dining room, kitchen, and storerooms took up the back part of the lower floor. Student workroom, study room, Craft library, and the parlor took up the front. Baths and bedrooms for her boarders were on the second floor. Her suite of rooms and a smaller suite for special guests filled the third floor.

  She didn't keep live-in servants. Doun was just around the bend in the road, so her hired help went home each night to their own families.

  Luthvian paused, not yet willing to open the parlor door. She was an Eyrien exiled among Rihlanders—an Eyrien who had been born without the wings that would have been an unspoken reminder that she came from the warrior race who ruled the mountains. So she snapped and snarled, never allowing the Rihlanders to become overly familiar. But that didn't mean she wanted to leave, that she didn't take some satisfaction in her work. She enjoyed the deference paid to her because she was a good Healer and a Black Widow. She had influence in Doun.

  But her house didn't belong to her, and the land, like all the land in Ebon Rih, belonged to the Keep. Oh, the house had been built for her, to her specifications, but that didn't mean the owner couldn't show her the front door and lock it behind him.

  Was that why he was here, to call in the debt and pay her back?

  Taking a deep breath, Luthvian opened the parlor door, not fully prepared to meet her former lover.

  He was surrounded by her students, the whole giggling, flirting, lash-batting lot of them. He didn't look bored or desperate to be rid of them, nor was he preening as a young buck might when faced with so much undiluted feminine attention. He was as he'd always been, a courteous listener who wouldn't interrupt inane chatter unless it was absolutely necessary, a man who could skilfully phrase a refusal.

  She knew so well how skilfully he could phrase a refusal.

  He saw her then. There was no anger in his gold eyes. There was also no warm smile of greeting. That told her enough. Whatever business he had with her was personal but not personal.

  It made her furious, and a Black Widow in a temper wasn't a woman to tamper with. He saw the shift in her mood, acknowledged it with a slight lift of one eyebrow, and finally interrupted the girls' chatter.

  "Ladies," he said in that deep, caressing voice, "I thank you for making my wait so delightful, but I mustn't keep you from your studies any longer." Without raising his voice, he managed to silence their vigorous protests. "Besides, Lady Luthvian's time is valuable."

  Luthvian stepped away from the door just enough for them to scurry past her. Roxie, her oldest student, stopped in the doorway, looked over her shoulder, and fluttered her eyelashes at the High Lord.

  Luthvian slammed the door in her face.

  She waited for him to approach her with the cautious respect a male who serves the Hourglass always displays when approaching a Black Widow. When he didn't move, she blushed at the silent reminder that he didn't serve the Hourglass. He was still the High Priest, a Black Widow who outranked her.

  She moved with studied casualness, as if getting close to him had no importance, but stopped with half the length of the room between them. Close enough. "How could you stand listening to that drivel?"

  "I found it interesting—and highly educational," he added dryly.

  "Ah," Luthvian said. "Did Roxie give you her tasteful or her colorfully detailed version of her Virgin Night? She's the only one old enough to have gone through the ceremony, and she primps and preens and explains to the other girls that she's really too tired for morning lessons these days because her lover's soooo demanding."

  "She's very young," Saetan said quietly, "and—"

  "She's vulgar," Luthvian snapped.

  "—young girls can be foolish."

  Tears pricked Luthvian's eyes. She wouldn't cry in front of him. Not again. "Is that what you thought of me?"

  "No," Saetan said gently. "You were a natural Black Widow, driven by your intense need to express your Craft, and driven even harder by your need to survive. You were far from foolish."

  "I was foolish enough to trust you!"

  There was no expression in his golden eyes. "I told you who, and what, I was before I got into bed with you. I was there as an experienced consort to see a young witch through her Virgin Night so that when she woke in the morning the only thing broken was a membrane—not her mind, not her Jewels, not her spirit. It was a role I'd played many times before when I ruled the Dhemlan Territory in both Realms. I understood and honored the rules of that ceremony."

  Luthvian grabbed a vase from a side table and flung it at his head. "Was impregnating her part of the understood rules?" she screamed.

  Saetan caught the vase easily, then opened his hand and let it smash on the bare wood floor. His eyes blazed, and his voice roughened. "I truly didn't think I was still fertile. I didn't expect the spell's effects to last that long. And if you'll excuse an old man's memory, I distinctly remember asking if you'd been drinking the witch's brew to prevent pregnancy and I distinctly remember you saying that you had."

  "What was I supposed to say?" Luthvian cried. "Every hour put me at risk of ending up destroyed under one of Dorothea's butchers. You were my only chance of survival. I knew I was close to my fertile time, but I had to take that risk!"

  Saetan didn't move, didn't speak for a long time. "You knew there was a risk, you knew you'd done nothing to prevent it, you deliberately lied to me when I asked you, and you still dare to blame me?"

  "Not for that," she screamed at him, "but for what came after." There was no understanding in his eyes. "You only cared about the baby. You didn't w-want to b-be with me anymore."

  Saetan sighed and wandered over to the picture window, fixing his gaze on the low stone wall that surrounded the property. "Luthvian," he said wearily, "the man who guides a witch through her V
irgin Night isn't meant to become her lover. That only happens when there's a strong bond between them beforehand, when they're already lovers in all but the physical sense. Most of the time—"

  "You don't have to recite the rules, High Lord," Luthvian snapped.

  "—after he rises from the bed, he may become a valued friend or no more than a soft memory. He cares about her—he has to care in order to keep her safe—but there can be a very big difference between caring and loving." He looked over his shoulder. "I cared about you, Luthvian. I gave you what I could. It just wasn't enough."

  Luthvian hugged herself and wondered if she'd ever stop feeling the bitterness and disappointment. "No, it wasn't enough."

  "You could have chosen another man. You should have. I told you that, even encouraged it."

  Luthvian stared at him. Hurt, damn you, hurt as much as I have. "And how eager do you think those men were once they realized my son had been sired by the High Lord of Hell?"

  The thrust went home, but the hurt and sorrow she saw in his eyes didn't make her feel better.

  "I would have taken him, raised him. You knew that, too."

  The old rage, the old uncertainties exploded out of her. "Raised him for what? For fodder? To have a steady supply of strong fresh blood? When you found out he was half Eyrien, you wanted to kill him!"

  Saetan's eyes glittered. "You wanted to cut off his wings."

  "So he'd have a chance at a decent life! Without them he would have passed for Dhemlan. He could have managed one of your estates. He could have been respected."

  "Do you really think that would have been a fair trade? Living a lie of respectability against his never knowing about his Eyrien bloodline, never understanding the hunger in his soul when he felt the wind in his face, always wondering about longings that made no sense—until the day he looked at his firstborn and saw the wings. Or were you intending to clip each generation?"

  "The wings would have been a throwback, an aberration."

  Saetan was very, very still. "I will tell you again what I told you at his birth. He is Eyrien in his soul and that had to be honored above all else. If you had cut off his wings, then yes, I would have slit his throat in the cradle. Not because I wasn't prepared for it, which I wasn't since you took such pains not to tell me, but because he would have suffered too much."

  Luthvian honed her temper to a cutting edge. "And you think he hasn't suffered? You don't know much about Lucivar, Saetan."

  "And why didn't he grow up under my care, Luthvian?" he said too softly. "Who was responsible for that?"

  The tears were back. The memories, the anguish, the guilt. "You didn't love me, and you didn't love him."

  "Half right, my dear."

  Luthvian gulped back a sob. She stared at the ceiling.

  Saetan shook his head and sighed. "Even after all these years, trying to talk to each other is pointless. I'd better leave."

  Luthvian wiped away the single tear that had escaped her self-control. "You haven't said why you came here." For the first time, she looked at him without the past blurring the present. He looked older, weighed down by something.

  "It would probably be too difficult for all of us."

  She waited. His uneasiness, his unwillingness to broach the subject filled her with apprehension—and curiosity.

  "I wanted to hire you as a Craft tutor for a young Queen who is also a natural Black Widow and Healer. She's very gifted, but her education has been quite . . . erratic. The lessons would have to be private and held at SaDiablo Hall."

  "No," Luthvian said sharply. "Here. If I'm going to teach her, it will have to be here."

  "If she came here, she would have to be escorted. Since you've always found Andulvar and Prothvar too Eyrien to tolerate, it would have to be me."

  Luthvian tapped a finger against her lips. A Queen who was also a Healer and a Black Widow? What a potentially deadly combination of strengths. Truly a challenge worthy of her skills. "She would apprentice with me for the healing and Hourglass training?"

  "No. She still has difficulty with much of the Craft we consider basic, and that's what I wanted her to work on with you. I'd be willing to extend her training with you to the healing Craft as well, if that's of interest to you, but I'll take care of the Hourglass's Craft."

  Pride demanded a challenge. "Just who is this witch who requires a Black-Jewelled mentor?"

  The Prince of the Darkness, the High Lord of Hell studied her, weighing, judging, and finally replied, "My daughter."

  4 / Hell

  Mephis dropped the file on the desk in Saetan's private study and began rubbing his hands as if to clean away some filth. Saetan turned his hand in an opening gesture. The file

  opened, revealing several sheets of Mephis's tightly packed writing.

  "We're going to do something about him, aren't we?" Mephis snarled.

  Saetan called in his half-moon glasses, settled them carefully on the bridge of his nose, and picked up the first sheet. "Let me read."

  Mephis slammed his hands on the desk. "He's an obscenity!"

  Saetan looked over his glasses at his eldest son, betraying none of the anger beginning to bloom. "Let me read, Mephis."

  Mephis sprang away from the desk with a snarl and started pacing.

  Saetan read the report and then read it again. Finally, he closed the file, vanished the glasses, and waited for Mephis to settle down.

  Obscene was an inadequate word for Lord Menzar, the administrator of Halaway's school. Unfortunate accidents or illnesses had allowed Menzar to step into a position of authority at schools in several Districts in Dhemlan—accidents he couldn't be linked to, that had no scent of him. He always showed just enough deference to please, just enough self-assurance to convince others of his ability. And there he would be, carefully undercutting the ancient code of honor and snipping away at the fragile web of trust that bound men and women of the Blood.

  What would happen to the Blood once that trust was destroyed? All one had to do was look at Terreille to see the answer.

  Mephis stood before the desk, his hands clenched. "What are we going to do?"

  "I'll take care of it, Mephis," Saetan said too softly. "If Menzar has been free to spread his poison this long, it's because I wasn't vigilant enough to detect him."

  "What about all the Queens and their First Circles who also weren't vigilant enough to detect him when he was in their territories? You didn't ignore a warning that had been sent, you never got any warning until Sylvia came to you."

  "The responsibility is still mine, Mephis." When Mephis

  equal to Menzar's wages. The house is leased? Pay the lease for a five-year period."

  Mephis crossed his arms. "Without the rent to pay, it will be more money than she's ever had at her disposal."

  "It'll give her the time and the means to rest. There's no reason she should pay for her brother's crimes. If her wits have been buried beneath Menzar's manipulation, they'll surface. If she's truly incapable of taking care of herself, we'll make other arrangements."

  Mephis looked troubled. "About the execution ..."

  "I'll take care of it, Mephis." Saetan came around the desk and brushed his shoulder against his son's. "Besides, there's something else I want you to do." He waited until Mephis looked at him. "You still have the town house in Amdarh?"

  "You know I do."

  "And you still enjoy the theater?"

  "Very much," Mephis said, puzzled. "I rent a box each season."

  "Are there any plays that might intrigue a fifteen-year-old girl?"

  Mephis smiled in understanding. "A couple of them next week."

  Saetan's answering smile was chilling. "Well-timed, I think. An outing to Dhemlan's capital with her elder brother before her new tutors begin making demands on her time will suit our plans very well."

  5 / Terreille

  Lucivar's legs quivered from exhaustion and pain. Chained facing the back wall of his cell, he tried to rest his chest against it to lessen t
he strain on his legs, tried to ignore the tension in his shoulders and neck.

  The tears came, slow and silent at first, then building into rib-squeezing, racking sobs of pent-up grief.

  The surly guard had performed the beating. Not his back this time but his legs. Not a whip to cut, but a thick leather strap to pound against muscle stretched tight. Working to a slow drum rhythm, the guard had applied the strap with care, making each stroke overlap the one before so that no flesh was missed. Down and back, down and back. Except for the breath hissing between his teeth, Lucivar had made no sound. When it was finally done, he'd been hauled to his feet—feet too brutalized to take his weight—and fitted with Zuultah's latest toy: a metal chastity belt. It locked tight around his waist but the metal loop between his legs wasn't tight enough to cause discomfort. He'd puzzled over it for a moment before being forced to walk to his cell. There wasn't room for anything but the pain after that. And when he got to the cell, he understood only too well what was supposed to happen.

  There was a new, thick-linked chain attached to the back wall. The bottom loop of the belt was pulled through a slot in the band around his waist, and the chain was locked to it. The chain wasn't long enough for him to do anything but stand, and if his legs buckled, it wouldn't be his waist absorbing his weight. No doubt Zuultah was being oiled and massaged while she waited for his scream of agony.

  That wasn't reason enough to cry.

  Slime mold had begun forming on his wings. Without a cleansing by a Healer, it would spread and spread until his wings were nothing more than greasy strings of membranous skin hanging from the frame. He couldn't spread his wings in the salt mine without being whipped, and now his hands were chained behind his back each night, locking his wings tight against a body coated with salt dust and dripping with sweat.

  He'd told Daemon once he would rather lose his balls than his wings, and he had meant it.

  But that wasn't reason enough to cry.

  He hadn't seen the sun in over a year. Except for the few precious minutes each day when he was led from his cell to the salt mines and back again, he hadn't breathed clean air or felt a breeze against his skin. His world had become two dark, stinking holes—and a covered courtyard where he was stretched out on the stones and regularly beaten.