Queen of the Darkness (51 page)

Jaenelle hugged Surreal. ”May the Darkness embrace you, Sister.”

”We’ll get them back,” Surreal said, returning the hug. ”Count on it.” Glancing at Daemon, she went into the Altar’s room and quietly closed the door.

Daemon just looked at Jaenelle, his heart too full to say anything. Besides, words seemed so inadequate at the moment. He brushed a thumb across her cheek, kissed her gently. Then he took a deep breath.

”The game begins at midnight.”

”And at midnight, seventy-two hours later, you’re going to be riding the Winds back to the Keep in Terreille. No stops, no delays.” She paused, waited for him to nod agreement, then added, ”Don’t ride any Wind darker than the Red. The others will be unstable.”

It took effort to keep his jaw from dropping. A strong witch storm could create a disturbance on
part
of the psychic roadways through the Darkness, could even throw someone off the Web to be lost in the Darkness, but ”unstable” sounded much, much worse.

”All right,” he finally said. ”We’ll stay on the Red.”

”Daemon,” Jaenelle said softly, ”I want you to promise me something.”

”Anything.”

Her eyes filled with tears. It took her a moment to regain control. ”Thirteen years ago, you gave everything you had in order to help me.”

”And I’ll give you everything again,” he replied just as softly.

She shook her head fiercely. ”No. No more sacrifices, Daemon. Not from you. That’s what I want you to promise me.” She swallowed hard. ”The Keep is going to be the only safe place. I want your promise that, at the appointed hour, you’ll be on your way there. No matter who you have to walk away from, no matter who you have to leave behind,
you must get to the Keep before dawn.
Promise me, Daemon.”

She gripped his arm hard enough to hurt. ”I have to know you’ll be safe. Promise me.”

Gently, he removed her hand, then raised it to place a kiss in her palm—and smiled. ”I’m not going to do anything that will make me late for my own wedding.”

Pain flashed in her eyes, making him wonder if she really
wanted
to marry him. No. He wouldn’t begin to doubt, couldn’t
afford
to doubt. ”I’ll come back to you,” he said. ”I swear it.”

She gave him a brief, fierce kiss. ”See that you do.”

She looked pale and exhausted. There were dark smudges under her eyes. She had never looked more beautiful to him.

”I’ll see you in a few days.”

”Good-bye, Daemon. I love you.”

As he approached the Dark Altar that was a Gate between the Realms, he didn’t find Jaenelle’s last words reassuring.

22 / Kaeleer

Karla eased herself into a chair in Jaenelle’s sitting room. She could use Craft to float herself from place to place, and could even stand on her own now for a little while with the help of two canes. But channeling power through her body left her quickly exhausted, and standing made her legs ache. Still, the daily cup of Jaenelle’s tonic
was
working. But she had an uneasy feeling she would need her strength for something else very soon.

It was the first time since Jaenelle had refused to allow Kaeleer to go to war that Karla had seen her.

But even now, when
Jaenelle
had summoned her and Gabrielle, the Queen of Ebon Askavi was keeping her back to them, just staring out the window.

”I need the two of you to keep the boyos leashed for another few days,” Jaenelle said quietly. ”It won’t be easy, but it’s necessary.”

”Why?” Gabrielle demanded. ”Hell’s fire, Jaenelle, we need to gather into armies and
fight.
Scattered the way we are now, we’re barely holding our own and we aren’t even fighting the armies that are bound to come in from Terreille, just the Terreilleans who were already in Kaeleer. The
bastards.
It’s time to go to war. We
have
to go to war. It’s not just the people who are dying. The
land
is being destroyed, too.”

”The Queens can heal the land,” Jaenelle replied, still not looking at them. ”That is the Queens’ special gift. And not as many of our people have died as you seem to think.”

”No,” Gabrielle said bitterly, ”they’re just dying of shame because they’ve been ordered to abandon their land.”

”They can survive a little shame.”

Karla laid a hand on Gabrielle’s arm. Trying to keep her voice reasonable, she said, ”I don’t think there’s any choice now, Jaenelle. If we don’t stop retreating and start attacking, we aren’t going to have a place to take a stand when the Terreillean armies
do
get here.”

”They won’t receive orders to enter Kaeleer for a few more days. By then, it won’t make any difference.”

”Because we’ll be forced to surrender,” Gabrielle snapped.

Karla’s hand tightened on Gabrielle’s arm. She didn’t have much strength, but the gesture was enough to leash the other Queen’s temper—at least for the moment.

”Is Kaeleer finally going to war with Terreille?” she asked.

”No,” Jaenelle said. ”Kaeleer will not go to war with Terreille.”

It was the slight inflection that made ice run through Karla’s body. The way Gabrielle’s arm tensed under her hand, she knew the other woman had heard it, too.

”Then who
is
going to war with Terreille?”

Jaenelle turned around.

Gabrielle sucked in her breath.

For the first time, they were seeing the dream beneath the flesh.

Karla stared at the pointed ears that had come from the Dea al Mon, the hands with sheathed claws that had come from the Tigre, the hooves peeking out from beneath the black gown that could have come from the centaurs or the horses or the unicorns. Most of all, she stared at the tiny spiral horn.

The living myth. Dreams made flesh. But, oh, had any of them really thought about who the dreamers had been?

No wonder the kindred love her. No wonder we’veall
loved her.

Karla quietly cleared her throat to ask the question she suddenly hoped wouldn’t be answered. ”Who is going to war with Terreille?”

”I am,” Witch said.

1 / Terreille

Half-blinded by the pain inflicted on him during the past two days, Saetan watched Hekatah approach and give him a long, slow study. Whenever the whim had struck either of them, she and Dorothea had used the Ring of Obedience on him, but more carefully now, stopping just before the moment when he would have fainted from the pain. Worse, for him, they had left him chained to the post through the daylight hours. Already weakened by pain, the afternoon sun had drained his psychic strength and stabbed at his eyes, producing a headache so violent even the pain from the Ring couldn’t engulf it.

Bit by bit, pain had chewed away all the revitalizing effects Jaenelle’s tonics had produced in him, changing his body back to where it had been when he’d first met her— closer to the demon-dead than to the living.

If he could have made a fast transition from Guardian to demon-dead, he might have considered it—the kind of transition Andulvar and Prothvar had made on the battlefield all those long centuries ago. They had both been so deep in battle fury, they hadn’t even realized they had received deathblows. If he could have done it that way, he might have. It would be easy enough to slit a vein and bleed himself out, and there would be less pain. But he would be more vulnerable, and without a supply of fresh blood, the sunlight would weaken him to the point that, when Jaenelle finally came, he would be a liability to her instead of finding some way to fight with her.

When Jaenelle finally came.
If
Jaenelle ever came. She should have reacted by now, should have been there by now—if she was coming at all.

”I think it’s time to send Jaenelle another little gift,” Hekatah said, her girlish voice now slurred by the misshapen jaw. ”Another finger?” She used the same tone another woman might use when trying to decide the merits of serving one dish over another at dinner. ”Perhaps a toe this time. No, too insignificant. An eye? Too disfiguring. We don’t want her to start thinking you’ve become too repulsive to rescue.” Her eyes focused on his balls—and she smiled. ”It’s dead meat now, but it will still be useful for
this
anyway.”

He didn’t react. Wouldn’t allow himself to react. It
was
dead meat now—the last part revitalized, the first part to die. He wouldn’t react. And he wouldn’t think of Sylvia. Not now. Not ever again.

With their eyes locked on each other, Hekatah stepped closer, closer. One of her hands stroked him, caressed him, closed around him to hold him for the knife.

An enraged shriek tore through the normal nighttime sounds.

Hekatah jumped back and whirled toward the sound.

Surreal came flying into the camp as if she’d been tossed by a huge hand. Her feet hit the ground first, but she couldn’t stop the forward momentum. She tucked and rolled, coming up on her knees facing the darkness beyond the area illuminated by candle-lights.

”YOU COLD-BLOODED, HEARTLESS BASTARD!” Surreal screamed. ”YOU GUTLESS SON

OF A WHORING BITCH!”

Dorothea burst out of her cabin, shouting, ”Guards! Guards!”

The guards rushed in from three sides of the camp. No one came out of the darkness facing them.

”GUARDS!” Dorothea shouted again.

From out of that darkness, a deep, amused voice said, ”They aren’t going to answer you, darling.

They’ve been permanently detained.”

Daemon Sadi stepped out of the darkness, stopping at the edge of the light. His black hair was a little wind-mussed. His hands were casually tucked in his trouser pockets. His black jacket was open, revealing the white silk shirt that was unbuttoned to the waist. The Black Jewel around his neck glittered with power. His golden eyes glittered, too.

Seeing that queer glitter in Daemon’s eyes, Saetan shivered. Something was wrong here.
Very
wrong.

Hekatah turned halfway, resting the knife against Saetan’s belly. ”Take one more step and I’ll gut him—and kill the Eyrien, too.”

”Go ahead,” Daemon said pleasantly as he walked into the camp. ”It’ll save me the trouble of arranging a couple of careful accidents, which I would have had to have done soon anyway since the Steward and the First Escort were becoming . .. troublesome. So, you kill them, I destroy you— and then I return to Kaeleer to console the grieving Queen. Yes, that will work out quite nicely. You’ll be blamed for their deaths, and Jaenelle will never look at me and wonder why I’m the only male left whom she can depend on.”

”You’re forgetting about the Master of the Guard,” Hekatah said.

Daemon smiled a gentle, brutal smile. ”No, I haven’t. I didn’t forget about Prothvar or Mephis either.

They’re no longer a concern.”

For a moment, Saetan thought Hekatah
had
gutted him. But while the wound wasn’t physical, the pain
was.
”No,” he said. ”No. You couldn’t have.”

Daemon laughed. ”Couldn’t I? Then where are they, old man?”

Because he had wondered the same thing, Saetan couldn’t answer that. But he still found himself denying it. ”You couldn’t have.
They’re your family.”

”My family,” Daemon said thoughtfully. ”How convenient that they decided to become ’family’ after I became the Consort to the strongest Queen in the history of the Blood.”

”That’s not true,” Saetan said, straining forward despite the knife Hekatah still held against his belly. It was mad to be arguing about this, but all his instincts shouted at him that it had to be
now,
that there might not be another chance to alter that look in Daemon’s eyes.

”Isn’t it?” Daemon said bitterly. ”Then where were they 1,700 years ago when I was a child? Where were you? Where were
any
of you during all the years between then and now? Don’t talk to me about
family,
High Lord.”

Saetan sagged against the post. Mother Night, every worry he’d had about Daemon’s loyalty was coming true.

”How very touching,” Hekatah sneered. ”Do you expect us to believe that? You’re your father’s son.”

Daemon’s gold eyes fastened on Hekatah. ”I think it’s more accurate to say I’m the man my father
might
have been if he’d had the balls for it.”

”Don’t listen to him,” Dorothea said suddenly. ”It’s a trick, a trap. He’s
lying.”

”It seems to be his day for it,” Surreal muttered bitterly.

Giving Surreal a brief, dismissive glance, Daemon shifted his attention to Dorothea. ”Hello, darling. You look like a hag. It suits you.”

Dorothea hissed.

”I brought you a present,” Daemon said, glancing at Surreal again.

Dorothea looked at Surreal’s pointed ears and sneered. ”I’ve heard of her. She’s nothing but a whore.”

”Yes,” Daemon agreed mildly, ”she’s a first-class slut who will spread her legs for anything that will pay her. She’s also your granddaughter. Kartane’s child. The only one he’ll ever sire. The only continuation of
your
bloodline.”

”No slut is
my
granddaughter,” Dorothea snarled.

Daemon raised one eyebrow. ”Really, darling, I thought that would be the convincing argument. The only difference between you is she’s under a male most of the time while you’re on top of him. But your legs are spread just as wide.” He paused. ”Well, there is
one
other difference. Since she was getting paid for it,
she
had to acquire some skill in bed.”

Dorothea shook with rage. ”Guards! Seize him!”

Twenty men surged forward, then dropped in their tracks.

Daemon just smiled. ”Perhaps I should kill the rest of them now to eliminate further annoyances.”

Hekatah carefully lowered the knife. ”Why are you here, Sadi?”

”Your little schemes are interfering with my plans, and that annoys me.”

”Terreille is going to war with Kaeleer. That’s hardly a ’little scheme.’ ”

”Well, that all depends on whether you have the power to win, doesn’t it?” Daemon crooned.

”However, I’m not interested in ruling a Realm that’s been devastated by a war, so I decided it was time we had a little talk.” Dorothea jumped forward. ”Don’t listen to him!”

”How can
you
rule a Realm?” Hekatah asked, ignoring Dorothea.