Twilight's Dawn (28 page)

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Authors: Anne Bishop

Tags: #Fantasy fiction, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Witches, #Epic

BOOK: Twilight's Dawn
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“Are you forcing me back to Terreille?” Falonar asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“We rub against each other. Perhaps I should take command of the northern camps. That would give us both some breathing room.”
Something floated in the air between them. Something subtle, almost hidden. When he’d been a slave and couldn’t trust anything about the Queen who controlled him or anyone in her court, he survived because he never ignored what instincts couldn’t shape into words.
He wasn’t going to ignore his instincts now.
“I didn’t renew any of the contracts of the men from the northern camps,” Lucivar said. “I’m giving them a few extra days to pack their gear, but after that, they are barred from Ebon Rih.”
Falonar looked shocked. “
You let all of them go?
Who’s going to patrol that end of the valley?”
“Rothvar, Zaranar, and the other Riada Eyriens will have to stretch out a bit and work with the Agio Master of the Guard.”
“Rihlanders aren’t the same caliber of fighter as an Eyrien and you know it!”
“Yes, I do. But the Eyriens in those camps didn’t do a damn thing when they were needed—and proved to Agio’s Queen, her Master of the Guard, and me that they aren’t needed here. Or wanted here.”
They stared at each other.
“There’s nothing more to say,” Falonar said.
“No, I don’t think there is.”
Lucivar turned and walked out of the eyrie. Unless he had Ebon-gray shields already in place, it was the last time Falonar would see his back.
 
 
Falonar poured the coffee down the sink and carefully rinsed the pot. The spelled liquid he’d added to the coffee wasn’t a
true
violation of the Blood’s code of honor. It was too mild to be considered a compulsion spell, but adding it to food or drink helped make a person more open to suggestions.
He’d taken a lot of risks in order to buy those vials of liquid from a Black Widow. In the decade since then, he’d used the liquid carefully, slipping a few drops into a glass of wine or ale when there was a real chance that his words would make a difference, when that added
something
would help him influence people into making the right decisions. He’d used that influence to temper a punishment when a man didn’t deserve to be punished at all. He’d used the liquid to stop perversions that would have harmed common Eyriens as well as aristos. That had to count for something.
But he’d used too much of the liquid when, at his father’s demand, he tried to save his older brother from a punishment the fool had deserved. The change in the Master of the Guard’s chosen method of discipline had been too pronounced. No one had suspected Falonar of causing that change, but the discovery that
someone
had tried to manipulate the Queen’s Master had thrown the Lady into a rage.
The new punishment had gone beyond cruel. Falonar, his father, and their other male relatives had been required not only to witness the punishment but to participate in order to retain the family’s social standing and their own status in the courts where they served. When it was done, the Queen let what was left of his brother live and sent him back to the family. And that had been the cruelest punishment of all.
His father couldn’t publicly blame him without bringing attention to himself, but neither of his parents forgave him for what had happened to the favored son, and his mother deliberately began closing social doors, leaving him vulnerable to the whims of Prythian and the most elite members of the High Priestess’s court.
The service fair had offered him a way to escape his family and Terreille, but it hadn’t given him a way to regain his standing in Eyrien society because
there was no Eyrien society
. He accepted invitations for social events held by Riada’s aristos, but it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t
someone
among the people who mattered.
There was nothing left for him in Askavi Terreille. What he needed he would have to build here. Since his effort to influence Lucivar had failed, he had no other choice except to eliminate the obstacle that stood in his way.
 
 
Lucivar opened the front door of his eyrie and smelled vomit.
Shit
, he thought as he used Craft to remove the winter cape. Had Surreal come down with that stomach illness?
He didn’t have time to wonder, didn’t even have time to turn and hang up the cape. The wolf pups rushed him, so panicked their attempts to communicate were completely incoherent. Then Tassle appeared and ...
“Papa! I’m sorry, Papa!
I’m sorry!
”
He heard Daemonar’s voice, heard the slap of boots on stone, felt the change in air as something launched at him.
As he dropped the cape and reached out, he formed a skintight Ebon-gray shield around himself. His hand filled with fabric, and in the heartbeat he had to decide whether to shove something away or pull it close, he realized he’d grabbed Daemonar and pulled his boy close.
Little arms wrapped around his neck in a choke hold. “I’m sorry!”
Mother Night. When had Daemonar learned to create a sight shield? He was
much
too young for that level of Craft.
*Sorry sorry sorry!* the wolf pups wailed.
That probably explained
how
the boy had learned it.
“Okay, boyo,” he said soothingly. “What are you sorry about?” From the smell of him, the boy had wet his pants, proving he wasn’t as housebroken as Lucivar had thought.
“I broke Auntie Srell!”
Lucivar’s legs went out from under him. He sank to his knees, clutching his son, trying to make sense of the words. He looked at Tassle.
*Graysfang is with her. She will not hear us, Yas. She cries like she is being torn up in a trap, but we cannot smell a wound.*
Sweet Darkness, have mercy.
He pried Daemonar off him. “Listen to me, boyo. You have to drop the sight shield.”
“I don’t know how!” Daemonar wailed.
“All right. Tassle will help you. You stay with him. I have to help Auntie Surreal.
Stay here
, Daemonar.”
He whistled sharply as he headed toward the family’s rooms. Graysfang howled in reply.
He found Surreal in the parlor on the floor, crying in a way that went beyond simple pain. He dropped to his knees and gathered her in his arms.
“Surreal? Surreal! It’s Lucivar. You’re all right now. You’re all right!”
“He’s just a little boy!” she screamed, feebly beating on his chest. “How could you leave me with a little boy?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . .” What? That she wasn’t easy around children? That she’d been fine playing with Daemonar at Winsol as long as Marian or Jaenelle was also there, but she’d joined the adults the moment she was the only one with the boy? He just hadn’t considered
why
she’d responded that way.
Her breathing wasn’t good. It sounded like she’d torn something in her chest.
“I couldn’t save them,” she whimpered.
He cuddled her because it was the only thing he could do at that moment. “Surreal.”
Words poured out of her. Names that made him sick just to hear them. Marjane. Rebecca and Myrol. Dannie. Rose. He knew those names. How could he not? He’d heard them whenever Jaenelle had nightmares about a place called Briarwood.
Trist. Kester. Ginger. The children who had died in the spooky house.
He held on to her, not sure she knew she wasn’t alone.
When Marian suddenly appeared in the parlor doorway, he said, “Get Nurian. And Father.” Late enough in the day for Saetan to be awake, and he wanted the strongest Black Widow available to examine Surreal.
Words poured out with a pain he couldn’t imagine. How had she kept this inside her for so long?
She stopped speaking in midword, and he hoped that she was finally aware that he was there, that he would help.
She sagged in his arms, and there was a sudden, and terrible, silence.
SEVEN
 
 
L
ucivar paced the length of the eyrie’s large front room, back and forth, back and forth. The parlor would have been warmer but not more comfortable—not while he could taste Surreal’s pain in the air and imagined he still heard the echoes of her crying.
Needing the movement, he continued pacing and kept an eye on Daemon, who had taken a position at the glass doors and done nothing but stare at the snow that had been trampled by Daemonar and the wolf pups over the past few days. Too silent and too still. Lucivar found this side of Daemon’s temper the most frightening because there was no way to gauge the ferocity hiding under passivity—or how that temper would show itself when the passive surface broke.
“It wasn’t Daemonar’s fault,” Lucivar said. “Or the wolf pups’. They were playing a game. They didn’t know—”
Hell’s fire. Who could have known Surreal would react by tearing the eyrie apart and scaring the youngsters so badly the wolf pups forgot how to drop the sight shield?
Daemon turned away from the glass doors, his gold eyes changing from blank to annoyed. “Of course it wasn’t their fault. They’re just children.”
“If you’re going to blame someone, blame me.”
Daemon’s annoyance held a sharper edge. “For what?”
Lucivar stopped pacing and faced his brother. “She didn’t want to stay with the boy. Not by herself. But, Daemon, I swear by the Jewels and all that I am, I didn’t realize she was
afraid
to stay with the boy.”
“None of us realized that. She wasn’t troubled being around him when we were all at the Keep for Winsol.”
“Because
we
were there. She wasn’t responsible for keeping him safe. For keeping him alive.” Lucivar started pacing again. “Before she collapsed, she kept talking about the dead children, how she couldn’t save them.”
“That answers the question of what’s been eating at her these past few weeks,” Daemon said, his voice bleak and angry.
“I can understand her feeling raw about the children who died in the spooky house, but she’s been shouldering the weight of children who were dead before she knew they existed.”
Saetan walked into the room.
Lucivar pivoted and Daemon moved with him. When they stopped, they stood shoulder to shoulder as they faced the High Lord.
“Nurian says there is nothing physically wrong with Surreal,” Saetan said.
“Wasn’t she listening to Surreal breathe?” Lucivar snapped. “If she’s that incompetent, I’ll kick her ass out of Ebon Rih.”
“There is nothing wrong with Nurian’s skill as a Healer,” Saetan snapped back. “But if you need to kick someone’s ass, kick your own for not considering the condition of Surreal’s lungs when you insisted that she spend several weeks in the mountains during deep winter.”
Lucivar rocked back, hurt by the verbal slap.
Saetan huffed out a sigh and held up a hand. “If Jaenelle had thought being here now would harm Surreal’s health, Surreal would not be here. Right now, her breathing is raspy and she probably will have a wicked bitch of a sore throat from the crying and ... screaming. And she has scrapes and bruises. But those things are understandable. Hell’s fire, she went through every drawer, cupboard, and closet searching for the boy. The Darkness only knows what she thought she saw in the kitchen that led to the collapse. And
that
is the point. There is no physical reason for the way she collapsed after Lucivar found her.”
“Bleeding in the brain?” Daemon asked.
“No.”
“Nurian found nothing,” Daemon said. “What about you?”
Saetan shook his head. “She’s not in the Twisted Kingdom. Of that I am certain. But she’s gone somewhere inside herself, and I don’t know where to begin to look. Which is why Jaenelle is on her way. I think Witch is the only one who can help Surreal now.”
And if Witch can’t help her?
Lucivar thought.

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