by Anne Bishop
“I feel wobbly,” Cassidy said.
“Keep your head down,” Theran said, tugging the club out of her hand.
“I’ve never attacked anyone before,” Cassidy said. “Lucivar taught me how to use the club. He said I didn’t have the right temper for a knife. I worked on the moves lots of times in practice—Lucivar has a lust for practice—and I kept practicing because it was good exercise and a kind of mental discipline. But I’ve never hit anyone before and meant it. Well, my brother, Clayton, but that’s different.”
“I’m not finding anything,” Shira said. “What’s wrong with her?”
“First-fight nerves,” Ranon said. “She’s just shaky.”
“I’ve got a bit of something that might help that,” the man said.
Theran exchanged a look with Ranon. They both knew about the “bit of something” that was brewed in stills and cost a lot less than the liquor that didn’t require a man to bring his own container.
*It will fuzz her nerves,* Ranon said.
“Thanks,” Theran said as he rose to follow the man.
The flask was tucked away with the water jugs and makings for tea. The man took a cup and saucer, then filled the cup halfway from the flask. He glanced at Theran, then poured a bit more.
Theran accepted the cup and took a sip. His eyeballs sang and his teeth danced.
“Mother Night,” he wheezed.
“It’s got some bite to it,” the man agreed.
When he brought the cup over, Cassidy got a whiff of the stuff and refused to drink it until Shira snapped, “You can drink that tonic or I can make you one that tastes worse.”
She gulped it down, draining the cup.
Her throat didn’t catch on fire, and her lungs didn’t explode.
Theran wasn’t sure if he should admire her for that or be afraid of her.
“Give me a minute to check on the girl,” Shira said. “Then I’ll ride with you and help you get Lady Cassidy home.”
“Um aright,” Cassidy said.
“Uh-huh,” Theran replied as he hauled her to her feet.
Vae was stretched out on the seat, looking quite pleased with herself. Theran dropped the Green shield around the packages and said, “In the back.”
She grumbled a bit, but she stepped over the seat and walked on air while she nudged packages around until she’d made a Sceltie-sized spot. Then she lay down with a sigh.
Cassidy was more of a handful since the liquor and the fight were catching up to her and coordination became a vague concept. But he finally got her on the seat and wrapped a Green shield around her to keep her from falling out of the cart.
When he turned to find out what was keeping Shira, he saw Ranon holding the Healer back—and the landen man standing within reach.
“I’ve got something to say to you,” the man said.
Theran stiffened. “Then say it.”
“What happened today . . . What those boys did . . . That’s happened before. Not to me and mine, but to others.”
He nodded.
“Been a long time since someone looked at us and saw people instead of less.”
He nodded again, not knowing what to say or what this man wanted.
“I fought in the landen uprisings.”
“So did I,” Theran replied.
The man glanced at the cart. “If there had been someone like her around two years ago, maybe we wouldn’t have felt the need to fight. I just wanted you to know that.”
His throat closed. Something ached inside of him. He raised a hand in farewell, then climbed up to the seat. A moment later, Shira joined him, and they drove away with Ranon riding behind them as escort.
“Exciting day,” Shira said.
“Yeah.” Too many things had happened too fast. There were too many things to think about.
And he wasn’t sure how he felt about any of them.
CHAPTER 29
KAELEER
Daemon shifted the wooden delivery box to one hand and knocked on the cottage door.
He understood Jaenelle’s reason for waiting in solitude. Witch would not have been an easy companion last night, and Witch wouldn’t have been soothed by the company of all the women who had rallied around Marian. Lucivar had placed the Eyrien warriors on alert, and that had been enough warning for the women. For the warriors, seeing Lucivar go to the Keep armed and shielded told them everything they needed to know. If a fight broke out at Ebon Askavi between the three strongest Warlord Princes in the Realm, it would shake the whole damn valley. Or worse.
So the Eyrien women had gathered to keep Marian company, to keep Daemonar distracted. To wait.
But the Queen would have waited in silence, in solitude. Because if she’d felt the need to reclaim what she had given up, she would have terrified all of them.
He wasn’t sure who—or what—would open the door, and he began to worry when she didn’t answer.
Then the door opened and Jaenelle stood there, studying him with those haunted sapphire eyes that always saw too much.
“Why were you knocking?” she asked, the tension visible in her stance—and audible in her voice.
“Because this is your private place.”
Like his suite of rooms at the Hall.
Relaxing, she nodded, acknowledging his reason. “What did you bring?”
“A loving man—and breakfast.”
Her lips twitched, fighting a smile. “In that case, Prince, come in.”
He was so glad to see her, he didn’t try to fight a smile. There were shadows under her eyes, testimony of a sleepless night, and her hair was sticking up every which way, making her look like a scruffy waif . . . who was wearing snug trousers and one of his silk shirts.
Screw breakfast, he thought as he set the box on the table. I’ll just nibble on her for an hour or two.
Then Jaenelle peered into the box and her stomach growled so loudly, he figured it was prudent to change his priorities.
“Where did you get this?” Jaenelle asked.
“I stopped at The Tavern after seeing Lucivar home. There’s a steak pie, a vegetable casserole, and some fruit.”
“The Tavern isn’t usually open this early.”
Daemon hesitated, then wondered why he bothered. She would have been aware of the mood of the Blood in Riada. “They were just closing when I got there.” Merry and Briggs had stayed open because so many had been sleepless and uneasy last night, and a gathering place offered comfort.
He reached into the box for the steak pie. “The food needs to be warmed a bit.”
Her hands settled over his, stopping him.
“Daemon, why don’t you say what you need to say? The food will settle better on an easy stomach—and an easy heart.”
He removed his hands from the box and slipped them into his trouser pockets. He wanted to hold her, but he chose to keep the table between them.
“I am my father’s son,” he said.
She tipped her head. “That shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, Prince. You’re more than his son. You are your father’s mirror.”
“Yes, I am. But despite all the things I’ve done, that wasn’t as clear to me before as it was last night.”
He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He and Lucivar had taken shifts, one standing watch while the other rested, and during one of those vigils, as he replayed that dance with Saetan, he’d acknowledged a difficult truth.
“Last night I saw the man who had destroyed an entire race, and I understood something about myself. That kind of rage is in me, Jaenelle, in a way it’s not in Lucivar. I am capable of doing what Saetan did to Zuulaman, and unlike my father, I wouldn’t need to be drowning in grief or insane rage before I made that choice. Given the right provocation, I could do what he did.”
“I know.”
That stopped him, had him rocking back on his heels. When he’d first met her, those sapphire eyes had looked through him and she had made some decision about him, passed some judgment. Ha
d she known then, at twelve, the depth of his temper, his potential for violence?
Probably.
“And yet you love me,” he said, “despite what I am.”
Jaenelle walked around the table and took his face in her hands. “No, Daemon. I love you because of what you are. Because of all that you are. Right now, you’re feeling raw, which is understandable, and you’re shining a light on one truth about a complex man and not seeing the rest. So I’ll see the whole of who you are and not let you shine a light on one part for too long.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “Do you know how much I love you? How much I need you?”
Her arms twined around his neck. “Why don’t you show me—”
His stomach growled.
“—after breakfast?” she finished, laughing.
They ate, they slept, they made love. When they were heating up the remainder of the food for a midday meal, Daemon said, “Your strategy was quite brilliant. In case you were wondering.”
“Strategy?” Jaenelle said, setting two plates on the counter in anticipation of simply dividing the food.
“Having Lucivar draw that particular line.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “I told Lucivar to give Saetan a nudge that would remind him of his family as it is, here and now. You would be able to get him to the border, but that reminder is what Saetan would need to take those last steps out of the Twisted Kingdom.”
Daemon laughed. “Well, it was a damn good bluff, threatening to toss Daemonar into the library unsupervised and let him at the books.”
Jaenelle dropped the silverware. “What? Lucivar said what?”
Daemon turned away from the stove and studied Jaenelle’s pale face.
“That was your bluff, wasn’t it?” Daemon asked, feeling the blood draining out of his head.
“I would never threaten Papa that way.”
“Hell’s fire.”
“Daemon? Daemon!”
One moment he was standing by the stove. The next moment he was sitting on the floor with Jaenelle kneeling beside him.
“That wasn’t your idea?” he asked weakly.
She shook her head.
“Lucivar is Eyrien.”
“I know,” she said.
“He wears Ebon-gray.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t bluff.”
She plopped on the floor beside him. They sat there for several minutes before she said, “Did Saetan think it was a bluff?”
“I’m sure he did—at least after he woke up and thought, as I did, that you had told Lucivar to say that.”
“Oh.”
They pondered that for a few more minutes while their meal got cold.
“So,” Jaenelle finally said, “how long do you want to wait before we explain this to Papa?”
No point having children who could match a man’s temper if they weren’t going to be a pain in the ass on occasion.
“Let’s give him a couple of days,” he said. “By then he won’t be expecting anything.”
“That’s mean,” Jaenelle said. “I like it.”
Picturing the look on Saetan’s face when he discovered the library threat had been Lucivar’s idea, Daemon wrapped his arms around Jaenelle, lay back on the kitchen floor—and laughed.
CHAPTER 30
TERREILLE
Shira walked into the Steward’s office and shook her head in response to the men’s unspoken question. “She wouldn’t answer the door, and Vae says Cassidy still doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
“Why not?” Gray said, hugging himself. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“She was in a fight, Gray,” Theran said. “That’s bound to unsettle anyone, and it would be more unsettling for a Queen.”
A hard look from Ranon and an equally hard look from Talon, who had delayed going to his room when the sun rose in order to hear the morning report.
Since they’d come back from town three days ago, Cassidy hadn’t left her suite, claiming to be unsettled by the fight—a fight Theran could have ended before it began.
Should have ended.
Talon had made that abundantly clear when he’d heard their account of what had happened.
And Gray . . . Since the two young Warlords were working on the estate to pay off their debt of ten days’ labor, Gray had turned into a merciless taskmaster, and Ranon’s job wasn’t supervising the Warlords so much as holding Gray back and providing some balance.
Theran didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what to do. Cassidy hadn’t been hurt, hadn’t been harmed. Not really. Shaken up, sure, but not harmed.
Except she hadn’t left her suite since it happened, hadn’t talked to any of them.
Not even Gray.
What in the name of Hell was she thinking?
Cassidy brushed her fingers over the cover of each journal, as if touch could be a conduit, and wisdom would seep into her fingers from the leather.
She had been hiding in her room for the past three days. It was time to stop hiding. Time to do the right thing.
Lia had revealed her heart in the journals, but Cassidy had found no wisdom that would help a Queen who didn’t belong. Could never belong. She’d shocked her court, shocked the Blood in the town. Hell’s fire, she’d even shocked the landens by standing up for them. What had made her think she could rule these people when she saw and thought about things so differently from them? And what made her think any of them would accept the way she thought about things? She wasn’t Lia. Could never be Lia.
“I wish I had found some of the journals from when you were my age,” she said as she stacked the journals and set them on one side of the bed. “I wish . . .”
She opened the trinket box and took out each piece of jewelry. Memories. Family heirlooms. Talismans of a life filled with love. She would give the jewelry to Theran, along with the journals—and her resignation. This time, she wouldn’t wait for the court to resign from her. She’d release these people from their unwilling loyalty, and she’d go home before the roots she’d begun putting down sank in too deep.
Before going would hurt as much as staying.
She put each piece of jewelry back in the box, one by one. Would Theran let her take one as a keepsake? Would she have the courage to ask him?
Her lower lip quivered and her vision blurred. She pressed her lips together hard enough to stop the quiver, then blinked back tears.
Just go. Just get it done.
She picked up the trinket box, intending to set it on the desk while she wrote the letter that would dissolve her court. She heard the crack as the bottom of the box broke and fell, spilling the jewelry over the bed.
“Hell’s fire,” Cassidy muttered, shaking her head. Something else she couldn’t do right.
When she picked up the bottom of the box to see if it could be repaired, she discovered it was made of two thin layers of wood.
Then she discovered the paper that had been hidden between those layers.
And when she opened the paper, she found the map—and another key.
*There are bad smells up here.* Vae pressed against Cassidy’s leg.
“I know.” The psychic onslaught was bad enough for her. Who knew what else the dog might be sensing?
The attic was a graveyard of furniture. Nothing physically wrong with most of it from what she could see, but the psychic scents that had been absorbed by the wood—the pain and despair or the gleeful cruelty—had probably reached a saturation point where no one could stand being in the same room with the stuff.
Of course, piling it up here in the attic got the furniture out of sight but did nothing to cleanse the house. The weight of emotions pressed down on everyone living here, and most likely, none of them realized why.
Why would they? Cassidy thought. Theran and his family had returned to Grayhaven shortly before bringing her here, the rest of the court hadn’t lived here before, and the servants were probably so used to these feelings, they had no reaso
n to think things might be different.
They could be different. There were cleansing spells that could remove psychic residue from an object. Shira might know some, and if she didn’t, Cassidy could ask Jaenelle and send the information back to Shira.
“And if that doesn’t work, burn the damn stuff,” Cassidy muttered.
*Fire?* The Sceltie sounded much too eager to use witchfire to take care of the bad smells.
“Not up here.” Crouching, Cassidy held up the key. If Vae had been able to find the hiding place under the bed by smelling a key, maybe she could find what this key opened. “We’re looking for the thing that fits this key, that has the same smell.”
Vae sniffed the key. *Not much smell, even for kindred.*
Damn. Well, she hadn’t expected this to be easy. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find the starting point that’s shown on the map.”
Grayhaven was a big mansion, so there were several ways up to the attic, and the map, by accident or deliberate omission, didn’t indicate direction. So she was hot and dusty, and Vae’s tail was veiled in cobwebs, by the time she found the attic entrance that looked like the starting point for this stage of the treasure hunt.
Of course, that assumed no one had removed or added windows in the past few centuries or made other structural changes to the house. And the map had been made long before generations of furniture had been disposed of by tossing it up here.
Cassidy tipped the paper toward the light to read the small print around the section of the attic that had been marked as the end of the search.
“We need to find a large wardrobe that has a mirror beside it and a clothes trunk in front of the mirror.” She looked around at all the discarded furniture. “Hell’s fire, Lia. Didn’t you consider that someone else might toss a trunk or two up here?”
The attic had been divided into sections. The interior walls didn’t go all the way up to the roof, but they did offer sufficient privacy. Would she find remnants of servants’ quarters at the other end of the attic, or would she find more out-of-reach shelves?
“She tells me the number of paces from here to the treasure if I walk in a straight line,” Cassidy muttered. “So were the walls here then, and she assumed whoever was searching would use Craft to pass through the wood, or were the walls added later?”