Lord Jorval settled into a chair in Kartane SaDiablo’s sitting room. ”Your meeting with the Healer has been delayed.”
”Why?” Kartane said sharply. ”I had thought it was all arranged.”
”It was,” Jorval soothed. ”But there was an… incident… at the Healer’s residence, so it will be a few more days before she can meet with you.”
”You could insist,” Kartane said. ”Perhaps she doesn’t realize how important I-”
”It would do no good to insist,” Jorval interrupted. ”When she comes here, you want her attention on you, not on some domestic trivia.”
”Then I suppose I have no choice but to wait.”
Jorval rose. ”No choice at all.”
An incident has occurred that requires postponing…
An incident, Jorval thought as he walked back to his own home. That was how the High Lord had so carefully, so courteously phrased it. Since the men who had been in Halaway to assist the escort had suddenly disappeared, and there was no word from or sign of the escort, he had a good idea what sort of ”incident” was delaying Jaenelle Angelline’s trip to Little Terreille.
Which meant he had to inform the Dark Priestess that, in all probability, Alexandra was no longer a useful tool.
Hekatah wouldn’t be pleased about that, would probably come to Little Terreille in a foul temper-which she would take out on him.
But, perhaps, he could redirect that temper. Perhaps now would be a good time to take care of that other little problem.
Reaching his home, he rushed into his study and penned a quick note to Lord Magstrom.
”Where is my escort?” Alexandra demanded as soon as she took a seat in the High Lord’s study. After being confined for two days, she felt relieved to be out of her room, but she felt no relief at being in this room-or being with him.
Saetan leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, resting the long, black-tinted nails against his chin. His gold eyes looked sleepy-just as they had when he’d first seen her.
Conscious of the chill in the room, she pulled her shawl more tightly around herself.
”It’s interesting that Osvald is the first person you ask about,” Saetan said too mildly.
”Who should I have asked about?” Alexandra snapped, fear making her voice sharp.
”Your granddaughter, Wilhelmina. She is recovering from the drugs that bastard gave her. There will be no permanent damage.”
”Of course there’s no damage. He only gave her a mild sedative.”
”What he gave her was a great deal more than a mild sedative, Lady,” Saetan replied, his own voice turning sharp.
Alexandra hesitated. He was lying. Of course he was lying.
Saetan looked at her, curious. ”I keep wondering what sort of payment Dorothea and Hekatah offered you that was worth your granddaughter’s life.”
She shot out of the chair. ”You’re insulting!”
”Am I?” he replied, his voice returning to that infuriating-and frightening-mildness.
”I wasn’t selling Wilhelmina to Dorothea, I was just trying to get her away from you!”
A queer look came over his face. ”Yes, that always seems sufficient justification, doesn’t it? Just get the child away from me and be damned to what happens to the child. A lifetime of pain, of humiliation and torture, is certainly better than being with me.”
Alexandra settled back in the chair and watched him. He had turned inward, following some private thought-and she didn’t think he was talking about Wilhelmina anymore.
”What did you think was going to happen to Wilhelmina?” he asked.
”Osvald was going to get her out of Kaeleer, and then we would take her home.”
As Saetan studied her, a deep sadness filled his eyes. ”Not a payment then,” he said softly, ”but a bargaining chip.”
”What are you talking about?”
”How were you planning to get Wilhelmina out of Hayll?”
Alexandra stared at him. ”She wasn’t going to Hayll.”
”Yes, she was. Those were the orders, Alexandra. Wilhelmina would have been Dorothea’s ’guest’ for as long as you were willing to make concessions. How many concessions could you have made to Hayll before your people choked on them and refused to accept you as their Queen any longer? What could you have bargained with then to keep her safe?”
”No,” Alexandra said. ’No. Dorothea agreed to help me because-” Because Dorothea was preparing to go to war with this man and had wanted Jaenelle’s alleged dark power away from his control. But she couldn’t let him know that. ”Wilhelmina wasn’t a bargaining chip.” But wouldn’t Jaenelle have become exactly that? A bargaining chip in the game of war? That was different. Jaenelle was obviously already permanently warped by the High Lord’s attentions, and if Jaenelle had ended up as Dorothea’s ”guest”…
With brutal honesty, Alexandra knew that she would never have made any concessions to Hayll to ensure Jaenelle’s well-being. She would have told her court about a family sacrifice made for the good of her people. And in truth, she wouldn’t have felt more than a twinge of guilt over that sacrifice. Always such a difficult child, always…
”Wilhelmina wasn’t a bargaining chip,” she said again lamely.
Saetan snorted softly. ”Think what you choose.”
That casual dismissal, as if it no longer mattered, disturbed her. ”What happened to Osvald? Were his wounds at least treated?”
Something queer filled Saetan’s eyes. ”He was executed. So were the three men who had been waiting for him.”
Alexandra stared at him. ”What right do you have-”
”He tried to abduct one member of the court and killed another. Did you really expect us to just sit back and swallow that?”
”He wasn’t abducting her!” Alexandra shouted. ”He was helping her leave this place. That animal attacked him. He had to defend himself.”
”He was taking her against her will. That’s abduction.”
”He was carrying out the wishes of her family.”
”She’s a grown woman,” Saetan snarled. ”You have no right to make decisions on her behalf.”
”She’s mentally fragile. She doesn’t have the ability to make-”
”Is that how you deal with anyone who doesn’t agree with you?” Saetan’s voice rose to a roar. ”You declare them mentally incompetent so you can justify locking them away in a place that revels in violating and torturing them?”
”How dare you?”
”Knowing what I know about Briarwood, I dare a great deal.”
The air whooshed out of her lungs. His eyes were filled with the hatred he no longer bothered to mask.
With effort, she gathered her strength and sat up straight to face him. ”I am a Queen-”
”You’re a naive, snotty little bitch,” Saetan replied in a singsong croon that made the words feel like a violent- and violating-caress. ”Live a long life, Alexandra. Live a long life and burn yourself out at the end of it so that you return straight to the Darkness. If you don’t, if you end up making the transition to demon-dead, I’ll be waiting for you.”
It took her a moment to understand him. The High Lord of Hell.
”Robert Benedict made the transition,” Saetan crooned, ”and he paid his part of the debt that is owed to me for what was done to the daughter of my soul.”
”I owe you nothing.” Alexandra tried to sound firm, but she couldn’t stop her voice from shaking.
Saetan smiled a gentle, terrible smile.
She had to get out of there, had to get away from him. ”Since this is supposed to be a court, I think it’s time I talked to this mysterious Queen of yours. The real Queen. In fact, I demand to talk to her.”
He went absolutely still. ”It seems she wants to talk to you, too,” he said in an odd voice. ”You’ve been summoned to Ebon Askavi to stand before the Dark Throne.”
With her heart pounding in her throat, Alexandra followed the High Lord down the dark stone stairs. The huge double doors at the bottom of the stairs swung open silently, revealing intense darkness.
She had protested when she had learned that Leland, Philip, and the rest of her entourage had also been summoned to the Keep. Not that it had made any difference. No one had made the slightest indication that they had even heard her protests, let alone might comply with them.
She had also protested when Daemon and Lucivar had joined the High Lord as ”escorts.” Now she felt pathetically grateful for the male strength that was guarding her. She had found the Hall frightening, but compared to the Keep, the Hall was just a pleasant manor house.
As Saetan walked forward, torches began to light until only the back of the room was still too dark to see at all.
Another torch lit. She stared at the huge dragon head coming out of the back wall. Its silver-gold scales gleamed. Its eyes were as dark as midnight. On a dais beside the head was a simple blackwood chair. The woman who sat in it was still too much in shadow for Alexandra to make out more than the shape.
So this was the Queen of Ebon Askavi.
The light in the room shifted somehow, softly illuminating the unicorn’s horn that was part of the scepter the woman held in her hands.
As Alexandra stared at the rings on those hands, a shiver of fear ran down her spine. At first glance, she would have said the rings held pieces of a Black Jewel, but the Jewels in those rings felt darker than the Black. Which was impossible-wasn’t it?
The light continued to grow, and as it grew, the power in the room swelled. The woman’s face was still in shadow, but now Alexandra could make out the black gown and another Black-but-not-Black Jewel that was set in a necklace that looked like a spiderweb of gold and silver threads.
The light grew. Alexandra looked up and found herself staring into Jaenelle’s frozen sapphire eyes.
Long seconds passed before those eyes shifted to look at Leland and Philip, Vania and Nyselle, and the Consorts and escorts who had come with them.
Released from that frozen stare, Alexandra pressed a hand to her stomach, desperately trying not to double over. In this formal setting, she finally understood what Jaenelle had said at their first meeting at the Hall. The difference is that when the dream appeared, he recognized it.
The dark power that flowed from Jaenelle could have kept Chaillot free of Dorothea’s influence. But how could she have been expected to recognize this in a difficult, eccentric child!
… he recognized it.
She dared a quick glance at Daemon. He had recognized it, too. Had recognized it and…
But wasn’t that what Dorothea had said? The Sadist and the High Lord had recognized the potential of all that dark power and had set out to seduce and shape it. It was clear now why Dorothea had wanted control of Jaenelle, but that didn’t alter the possible truth of what she had said about Daemon and the High Lord.
The thoughts kept spinning, twisting-until those sapphire eyes pinned her again.
”You conspired with Dorothea SaDiablo and Hekatah SaDiablo, who are known enemies, with the intent of handing over to them a member of my court, my sister.” The voice, while quiet, filled the immense room. ”In attempting to carry out that plan, you killed another member of my court, a young Warlord Prince.”
Leland stirred, shrugging off Philip’s attempt to restrain her. ”It was just an animal.”
Something vicious and terrible filled Jaenelle’s face. ”He was Blood… and he was a Brother. His life was worth as much as yours.”
”I didn’t kill him,” Alexandra said, her voice muted.
Underneath the ice in those sapphire eyes was deadly rage bordering on madness. ”You didn’t strike the killing blow,” Jaenelle agreed. ”Because of that, I have decided not to execute you.”
Alexandra would have fallen if Philip hadn’t reached out to steady her. Execute her?
”However,” Jaenelle continued, ”everything has a price, and a price will be paid for Dejaal’s life.”
Desperation began to well up in Alexandra. ”There is no law against murder.”
”No, there isn’t,” Jaenelle replied too softly. ”But a Queen can demand a price for the life that was lost.”
Vania or Nyselle whimpered. She wasn’t sure which one.
”You are no longer welcome in Kaeleer. You will never again be welcome in Kaeleer. If any of you return for any reason, you will be executed. There will be no reprieve.”
”Can she do that?” Nyselle whispered.
Jaenelle’s eyes flicked to the Province Queens before returning to Alexandra. ”I am the Queen. My will is the law.”
And no one, Alexandra realized, no one would defy that will.
”You will be taken to Cassandra’s Altar and sent back through that Gate to Terreille,” Jaenelle said. ”High Lord, you will see to the arrangements.”
”It will be my pleasure, Lady,” Saetan replied solemnly.
”You’re dismissed.” The scepter swung until the unicorn’s horn pointed right at Alexandra’s breast. ”Except you.”
Leland made a wordless protest, but didn’t argue when Philip, looking pale and sick, took her arm and led her from the room. The other members of the entourage hurried after them, followed more slowly by Saetan, Daemon, and Lucivar.
When the double doors had closed and they were the only people left in the room, Jaenelle lowered the scepter. ”You should have gone when I first told you to. Now…”
It took Alexandra a minute to speak. ”And now?”
Jaenelle didn’t answer.
Alexandra swayed, then took a half step to catch her balance as the room began to spiral and everything went dark.
What in the name of Hell just happened? Alexandra wondered as she caught her balance. Then she looked around.
She stood alone in the center of a large stone circle. The floor was perfectly smooth. Surrounding the circle was a solid wall of sharp, jagged rock that soared high above her head. Beyond that wall …
She felt the enormous pressure pushing against those walls, as if something was trying to break in and crush this space.
Where…?
We’re deep in the abyss, said a midnight voice.
Alexandra turned toward Jaenelle’s voice-and stared at the creature who now stood a few feet away. Stared at the slender, naked human body; at the human legs that ended in delicate hooves; at the human hands that had unsheathed claws instead of fingernails; at the delicately pointed ears; at the gold mane that wasn’t quite hair and wasn’t quite fur; at the tiny spiral horn in the middle of its forehead; at the frozen sapphire eyes.
What are you? Alexandra whispered.
I am dreams made flesh, the other answered. I am Witch.
Jaenelle’s voice. Jaenelle’s strange eyes. But…
Alexandra backed away. No. No. You’re what’s inside …
She couldn’t say it. Revulsion choked her. This is what her daughter Leland had birthed? This?
What did you do with my granddaughter? Alexandra demanded.
I did nothing to her.
You must have! What did you do? Devour the spirit in order to use the flesh?
If you mean the husk you call Jaenelle, that flesh was always mine. I was born within that skin.
Never! Never! You couldn’t have come from Leland.
Why? Witch asked.
Because you’re monstrous.
A painful silence. Then Witch said coldly, I am what I am.
And whatever that is, it didn’t come from my daughter. It didn’t come from me.
Your dreams-
NO! THERE IS NO PART OF ME IN YOU!
Another long silence. Beyond the wall of rocks, it sounded like a fierce storm was gathering.
Have you anything else to say? Witch asked quietly.
I will never have anything to say to you, Alexandra replied.
Very well.
The rock walls vanished. The power in the abyss rushed in to fill the empty space-and tried to fill the vessel inside that space.
Alexandra felt that rushing flood of power start to crush her, then felt another source of dark power balance and control that flood, to keep her mind from shattering. Something inside her snapped and, for a fleeting second, she felt intense pain and agonizing grief.
And then she felt nothing at all.
Alexandra woke slowly. She was lying in a bed, covered up and comfortably warm, but it only took a moment for her to realize something was wrong. Her head had an odd stuffed-with-wool feeling, and her body ached as if she had a fever.
She opened her eyes, saw Saetan sitting in a chair near the bed, and said hoarsely, ”I don’t want you.”
”I don’t want you either,” he replied dryly as he reached for a mug sitting on the bedside table. ”Here. This will help clear your head.”
With a grunt, she propped herself up on one elbow-and saw her Opal Jewels, the pendant and ring, lying on the table. They were empty, completely drained of the reservoir of stored power.
Instinctively, desperately, she turned inward, reaching for the depth of her Opal strength. She couldn’t even reach the depth of the White. She was sealed off from the abyss, and her mind felt as if it had been encased in stone.
”You still have basic Craft,” Saetan said quietly.
Alexandra stared at him in horror. ”Basic Craft?”
”Yes.”
She continued to stare as she remembered that crushing flood of power and the fleeting moment of pain. ”She broke me,” Alexandra whispered. ”That bitch broke me.”
”Take care what you say about my Queen,” Saetan snarled.
”What are you going to do?” she snapped. ”Rip my tongue out?”
He didn’t have to answer. She saw it in his eyes.
”Drink this,” he said too quietly as he handed her the mug.
Not daring to do otherwise, she drank the brew and handed the mug back to him.
”I’m not even a witch anymore,” she said as tears filled her eyes.
”A witch is still a witch, even if she’s broken and can no longer wear the Jewels. A Queen is still a Queen.”
Alexandra laughed bitterly. ”Oh, that’s so easy to say, isn’t it? What kind of Queen can I be? Do you really think I can hold a court around me?”
”Other Queens have. Psychic strength is only one factor that attracts strong males and entices them to serve. You don’t need that kind of strength if you have the use of theirs.”
”And do you think I can hold on to a strong-enough court to remain the Queen of Chaillot?”
”No,” Saetan replied quietly after a long pause. ”But that has nothing to do with your ability to wear Jewels.”
She choked on the insult, not daring to do anything else. ”Do you realize what’s going to happen to Chaillot now?”
”Your people will, in all probability, choose another Queen.”
”There isn’t another Queen strong enough to be accepted as the Territory Queen. That’s why-” — I still rule. No, she couldn’t say that to him.
She pushed herself into a sitting position, then waited for her head to clear. That odd, muffled feeling would go away eventually, but the sense of loss never would. The bitch who had masqueraded as her granddaughter had done this to her. ”She’s monstrous,” she muttered.
”She is the living myth, dreams made flesh,” Saetan said coldly.
”Well, she wasn’t my dream,” Alexandra snapped. ”How that repulsive, distorted creature could be anyone’s dream-”
”Don’t cross that line again, Alexandra,” Saetan warned.
Hearing the edge in his voice, she hunched to make herself smaller. She could grit her teeth and hold her tongue because she had no choice, but she couldn’t stop thinking about that creature. It had lived in her house. She shuddered. Every year at Winsol, we dance for the glory of Witch. Every year, we celebrate that.
She didn’t realize she had spoken out loud until the room turned to ice. ”I want to go home,” she said in a small voice. ”Can you arrange that?”
”It would be my pleasure,” Saetan crooned.
Daemon stared with intense dislike at the blackwood hourglass floating outside Jaenelle’s door. When he’d noticed it the first time he’d tried to check on Jaenelle, Ladvarian, the Sceltie Warlord, had explained what it meant. So he had accepted Ladvarian’s offer to act as guide and had done a little exploring of the Keep. Returning an hour later, he’d discovered that the hourglass had been turned, the sand trickling into the base to mark another hour of solitude. This was the third time the sand had almost run out, and this time he was going to be waiting at the door when the last grain of sand dropped.
”You are impatient?” asked a sibilant voice.
Daemon turned toward Draca, the Keep’s Seneschal. When they had first arrived at the Keep, Lucivar had given him a cryptic warning: Draca is a dragon in human form. The moment he’d seen the Seneschal, he’d understood what Lucivar meant. Her looks, combined with the feel of great age and old, deep power, had fascinated him.
”I’m worried,” he replied, meeting the dark eyes that stared right through him. ”She shouldn’t be alone right now.”
”Yet you sstand outsside the door.”
Daemon gave the floating hourglass a killing look.
Draca made a sound that might have been muted laughter. ”Are you alwayss sso obedient?”
”Almost never,” Daemon muttered-and then remembered who he was talking to.
But Draca nodded, as if pleased to have something confirmed. ”It iss wisse for maless to know when to yield and obey. But the Conssort iss permitted to bend many ruless.”
Daemon considered the words carefully. It was hard to catch inflections in that sibilant voice, but he thought he understood her. ”You know more of the finer points of Protocol than I do,” he said, watching her closely. ”I appreciate the instruction.”
Her face didn’t alter, but he would have sworn she smiled at him. As she turned away, she added, ”The glasss iss almosst empty.”
His hand was on the doorknob, quietly turning it as the last grains of sand trickled into the hourglass’s base. As he opened the door, he saw the hourglass turning to declare another hour of solitude. He slipped quickly into the room and closed the door behind him.
Jaenelle stood by a window, looking out at the night, still dressed in the black gown. As a man, that gown appealed to him in every way a woman’s garment could, and he hoped she didn’t just wear it for formal occasions.
He stepped away from those thoughts. Not only were they useless tonight, they teased his body into wanting to respond to her in a way that wouldn’t be acceptable.
”Are they gone?” Jaenelle asked quietly, still staring out the window.
Daemon studied her, trying to decide if it was meant as small talk or if she had withdrawn so deep within herself she really didn’t know. ”They’re gone.” He moved toward her slowly, cautiously, until he was only a few feet away and at an angle where he could see her profile.
”It was the appropriate punishment,” Jaenelle said as another tear rolled down her face. ”It’s the appropriate punishment when one Queen violates another’s court to do harm.”
”You could have asked one of us to do it,” Daemon said quietly.
Jaenelle shook her head. ”I’m the Queen. It was mine to do.”
Not if you’re going to eat your heart out because of it.
”There’s a traditional way to break one of the Blood, to strip away the power without doing any other harm. It’s quick and clean.” She hesitated. ”I took her deep into the abyss.”
”You took her to the misty place?”
”No,” Jaenelle said too sharply, too quickly. ”That’s a special place. I didn’t want it tainted-” She bit her lip.
He didn’t want to examine the relief he felt at knowing Alexandra hadn’t fouled the misty place with her presence.
As he continued to study her, it struck him with the force of a blow: she hadn’t withdrawn so far into herself because she grieved over having to break another witch; she had withdrawn in order to deal with some kind of personal pain.
”Sweetheart,” he said quietly, ”what’s wrong? Please tell me. Let me help.”
When she turned to look at him, he didn’t see a grown woman or a Queen or Witch. He saw a child in agony.
”Leland… Leland cared, I think, but I never expected much from her. Philip cared, but there was nothing he could really do. Alexandra was the m-mother in the family. She was the one who had the strength. She was the one we all wanted to please. And I could never please her, could never be… I loved all of them-Leland and Alexandra and Philip and Wilhelmina.” Jaenelle’s breathing hitched on a suppressed sob. ”I loved her-and she s-said I was m-monstrous.”
Daemon just stared at her, the sudden rage that engulfed him making it impossible to speak for a moment. ”The bitch said what?”
Startled by the venom in his voice, she gave him a clear-eyed look before she crumbled again. ”She said I was monstrous.”
He could almost see all the deep childhood scars reopening, bleeding. This was the final rejection, the final pain. The child had defied that rejection, had tried to justify the sparse love given only with conditions placed on it. The child had tried to justify being sent to that horror, Briarwood. But the child was no longer a child, and the agony of having to face a bitter truth was ripping her apart.
He also realized that, faced with this emotional battering, she was now clinging to the one solid wall of her childhood: Saetan’s love and acceptance.
Well, he could give her another wall to cling to. He opened his arms enough to invite but not enough to demand. ”Come here,” he said softly. ”Come to me.”
It broke his heart the way she crept toward him without looking at him, the way her body was braced for rejection.
His arms closed around her, comforting and protecting.
”She was a good Queen, wasn’t she?” Jaenelle asked in a pleading voice a few minutes later.
Daemon felt a stab of pain. At another time, the lie would have been easy enough to say, but not tonight. Knowing he was going to rip away her last justification for Alexandra’s behavior, he gave her the truth as gently as he could. ”Compared to the other Queens in Terreille, she was a good Queen. Compared to any of the Queens I’ve met since I’ve been in Kaeleer… No, sweetheart, she was not a good Queen.”
Pain flowed with the tears as Jaenelle finally gave up the people she had once tried to love.
He held her, saying nothing. Just held her while he let all of his love surround her.
The door opened quietly. Ladvarian walked in, followed by Kaelas.
Daemon watched them, and wondered if they had decided on their own to defy the command for solitude or if they had equated his presence with permission to enter.
After a minute, the tip of Ladvarian’s tail waved once. We will come back later.
They left as quietly as they had come.