The Shadow Queen

Table of Contents

 

 

ROC
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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, March 2009

Copyright © Anne Bishop, 2009 All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-01705-0

 

 

 

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eISBN : 978-1-101-01705-0

FOR CASS, MAGGIE, CHERIL, AND DEE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to Blair Boone for continuing to be my first reader, to Debra Dixon for being second reader, to Doranna Durgin for maintaining the Web site, to Anne Sowards and Jennifer Jackson for being enthusiastic about this story, to Pat Feidner just because, and to all the friends and readers who make this journey with me.

JEWELS

WHITE
YELLOW
TIGER EYE
ROSE
SUMMER-SKY
PURPLE DUSK
OPAL
GREEN
SAPPHIRE
RED
GRAY
EBON-GRAY
BLACK

 

*Opal is the dividing line between lighter and darker Jewels because it
can be either.

 

When making the Offering to the Darkness, a person can descend a
maximum of three ranks from his/her Birthright Jewel.

 

Example: Birthright White could descend to Rose.

BLOOD HIERARCHY/CASTES

MALES

landen—non-Blood of any race

Blood male—a general term for all males of the Blood; also refers to any Blood male who doesn’t wear Jewels

Warlord—a Jeweled male equal in status to a witch

Prince—a Jeweled male equal in status to a Priestess or a Healer

Warlord Prince—a dangerous, extremely aggressive Jeweled male; in status, slightly lower than a Queen

 

 

FEMALES

landen—non-Blood of any race

Blood female—a general term for all females of the Blood; mostly refers to any Blood female who doesn’t wear Jewels

witch—a Blood female who wears Jewels but isn’t one of the other hierarchical levels; also refers to any Jeweled female

Healer—a witch who heals physical wounds and illnesses; equal in status to a Priestess and a Prince

Priestess—a witch who cares for altars, sanctuaries, and Dark Altars; witnesses handfasts and marriages; performs offerings; equal in status to a Healer and a Prince

Black Widow—a witch who heals the mind; weaves the tangled webs of dreams and visions; is trained in illusions and poisons

Queen—a witch who rules the Blood; is considered to be the land’s heart and the Blood’s moral center; as such, she is the focal point of their society

PLACES IN THE REALMS

TERREILLE

TAMANARA MOUNTAINS

GRAYHAVEN—BOTH A FAMILY ESTATE AND A Town

 

 

 

 

KAELEER (THE SHADOW REALM)

Ebon ASKAVI (AKA THE BLACK MOUNTAIN, THE KEEP)

Ebon RIH—VALLEY THAT IS THE KEEP’S TERRITORY

RIADA—BLOOD VILLAGE in Ebon Rih

 

 

WEAVERS FIELD—BLOOD VILLAGE

BHAK—BLOOD VILLAGE

WOOLSKIN—LANDEN VILLAGE

AMDARH—CAPITAL CITY

HALAWAY—VILLAGE NEAR SADIABLO HALL

SADIABLO HALL (THE HALL)

 

TAJRANA—CAPITAL CITY

 

Scelt
(
shelt
)

MAGHRE (MA-GRA)—VILLAGE

 

 

 

HELL (THE DARK REAlM, THE REALM OF THE DEAD)

SADIABLO HALL

PROLOGUE

TERREILLEE

 

S
till shaken by the storm of power that had destroyed half the Blood in Dena Nehele only a few days before, the rogues came down from their camps in the Tamanara Mountains to face an unexpected enemy.

The landens, who had been brutalized for generations by the “caretakers of the Realms,” hadn’t wasted time. When they realized the surviving Blood were stunned by the violent loss of Queens and courts, they rebelled—and decided that dying by the thousands was an acceptable price to pay in order to wipe out the Blood in Dena Nehele.

So the landens died during those first days of the uprising. Oh, how they died.

But so did the Blood.

The males in the Blood’s towns and villages died as they exhausted the power that made the Blood who and what they were, until even the ones who wore Jewels and had a reservoir of power had used up everything they had in the effort to defend the women and children who didn’t have the strength or skill to defend themselves.

When that power that lived within them was gone, they fought with weapons like any other man. But the landens kept coming, kept fighting—and the Blood, outnumbered, had no chance of surviving.

Women and children died, along with the men. The landens, steeped in their hatred for the Blood, set fire to the buildings, turning entire villages into funeral pyres.

Then the rogues, trained warriors who had refused to serve any Queen, came down from the mountains—and the battle for Dena Nehele really began.

He rode with one pack of rogues, a leader committed to slaughter in order to defend what was left of his people. But as they reached a walled estate on their way to the town that served as Dena Nehele’s capital, he pulled his horse aside and stared through the iron bars of a double gate at the big stone mansion.

Grayhaven.

It was his family name. This was his family’s home.

He had never lived in that mansion because the Queens who had controlled Dena Nehele had claimed it for their own residence, their own seat of power. And like the rest of the Territory, the house and the land had declined under the rule of bitches who had stood in the shadow of Dorothea SaDiablo, the High Priestess of Hayll.

He had grown up in the mountain camps ruled by the rogues because he was the last of his line, the last direct descendant of Lord Jared and Lady Lia, the Queen who, like her grandmother before her, had been called “the Gray Lady.” And if there was any truth to the family stories, he was the last person capable of finding the key that would reveal a treasure great enough to restore Dena Nehele.

Lord Jared had told his grandsons about the treasure the Gray Lady and Thera, a powerful Black Widow, had hidden somewhere around Grayhaven. While the family still lived in the house, every male had searched for it, and the story had spread to trusted advisers who shouldn’t have been trusted. When the family line failed to produce even a minor Queen, Dorothea’s pet Queens had descended on Dena Nehele like scavengers fighting over a fresh carcass. What was left of his family abandoned Grayhaven and spoke the family name only in secret.