ONE
Daemon Sadi, the Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince of
Dhemlan, crossed the bridge that marked the boundary between
private property and public land. On one side of the bridge was the
drive leading to SaDiablo Hall, his family’s seat; on the other
side was the public road leading to the village of
Halaway.
Fluffy snow dusted
the bottoms of his trousers as he walked toward the village in
blissful solitude. Of course, he’d had to sneak out of his own home
in order to have that solitude, and he
recognized that there was something not quite right about the most
powerful male in the Realm of Kaeleer sneaking out in order to
avoid three snoozing Sceltie puppies. But whether he was allowing
little bundles of fur to dictate his actions instead of using his
rank and power to do as he pleased wasn’t the point. At this
moment, here and now, he was alone on a crisp winter morning, and
that was the point. No one was whining
about having cold paws. No one was complaining that he walked too
fast. No one was grumbling because he wouldn’t stop every few feet
so interesting smells could be properly sniffed.
And no one was going
to sulk because he refused to carry someone with wet fur under his
coat and up against his white silk shirt.
Solitude. Bliss. And,
if his mother had created the gift he’d asked her to make,
fun.
Winsol was almost
here. Those thirteen days were a celebration of the Darkness—and
they were a celebration of Witch, the living myth, dreams made
flesh.
It would be his first
Winsol as the ruler of the Dhemlan Territory, his third celebration
since he’d come to live in Kaeleer. The first year, he’d still been
mentally fragile from the years when he’d wandered the roads in the
Twisted Kingdom, lost in the insanity of guilt and grief. And in
that first year, he’d also been lost in the wonder of finding
Jaenelle Angelline again, alive and well—and still able to love
him.
The second year, she
had been the one who had been so terrifyingly fragile. She had
unleashed her full power to prevent a war between Kaeleer and
Terreille that would have destroyed both Realms—and had torn her
body apart in the process. She shouldn’t have survived—wouldn’t
have if the kindred and the Weaver of Dreams hadn’t done the
impossible and remade the living myth, the Queen who was
Witch.
But this year he and
Jaenelle were together, they were married, and the worst thing
looming over their heads was how many invitations to parties and
public gatherings they needed to accept in order for him to fulfill
his duties as Dhemlan’s ruler.
He made his way
through Halaway’s quiet streets, noticing lights in the windows of
most of the houses. The snow wasn’t marred yet by many footprints
or cart wheels, but soon the merchants would open their shops,
people and carriages would fill the sidewalks and streets, and the
small village would bustle through another day of holiday
preparations.
As he approached the
cottage where his mother, Tersa, lived, he studied the walkways up
to her cottage and the neighboring one that was occupied by Manny,
an older woman he considered a friend rather than a former servant.
Then he smiled and, using Craft, dealt with the snow as he glided
up the walkway and knocked on the cottage door.
He waited a minute,
then knocked again.
The third time, he
put a bit of temper and Craft into the act of applying knuckles to
wood, which guaranteed the sound would roll through the cottage
like thunder.
A few seconds later,
the door swung open as the young woman on the other side growled,
“If someone doesn’t answer the door, you could take the hint that
it’s too early for com—”
She blinked at him.
He smiled at the journeymaid Black Widow who lived with Tersa as
part of her training.
“Lady Allista,” he
said politely.
“Prince Sadi.” Her
tone was much less polite. Since he was who and what he was, she
couldn’t shut the door in his face.
But she wanted
to.
Obviously, Allista
was one of those women who did not wake up cheerful. That was all
right. A few months of marriage to Jaenelle had taught him the
value of having a few tricks when it came to dealing with a witch
who woke up grumpy—and he had become an expert at all of
them.
“Tersa asked me to
come early,” he said, slipping past Allista. “Since my timing is a
bit off, why don’t I make breakfast for the two of
you?”
He shrugged out of
his overcoat and vanished it as he continued down the hall to the
kitchen, not giving Allista time to answer.
All right. Tersa
hadn’t told him to come this early, but
she would be awake—and he wanted to slip out with his requested
gift before too many people were up and about.
“Good morning,
darling,” he said as he walked into the kitchen.
Tersa turned away
from the counter and studied him for a moment. Then she smiled.
“It’s the boy. It’s my boy.”
Her boy. His mother
was a broken Black Widow lost in the madness the Blood called the
Twisted Kingdom. Lost in the dreams and visions—and the shattered
pieces of her mind. She remembered him as the child he had been
before he’d been taken from her. She remembered him as the youth
who had met her again but didn’t know who she was. And sometimes
she remembered him as the man he was now. But however she saw him
on any given day, he was always the boy. Her boy.
“I’ve come to cook
you breakfast,” Daemon said. He gave her his best-boy grin. “And to
talk about gifts.”
She narrowed her gold
eyes as if she was about to argue. Then she shrugged and turned
back to the counter. “There are bacon and eggs and bread for
toast.”
“That sounds like
breakfast,” Daemon said. “How would you like me to make the
eggs?”
She hesitated—and he
wondered if she would be able to answer or if her mind had turned
down another path too far removed from such mundane things as bacon
and eggs.
“I like them
scrambled,” she finally said.
He put an arm around
her, brushed his lips against her temple, and felt all his love for
her well up and squeeze his heart. “Me too.”
Lucivar Yaslana
backwinged and landed lightly on the walkway in front of Tersa’s
cottage. He looked at the cottage directly in front of him, then at
its neighbor.
Manny had spent most
of her life as a servant, was used to working with her hands, and
didn’t shun physical labor. Even now she’d taken on the duties of
housekeeper for Tersa and Allista, an arrangement that satisfied
all three women. But Manny wasn’t a young woman by any stretch of
truth, and it seemed a bit early for her to have been out sweeping
the walkways.
Not swept, he
realized as he studied the sharp, perfect edge that divided the
snowy lawn from the cleared walkway. Not even a hearth witch could
get that kind of edge. Not with a shovel or broom, anyway. So
someone had used Craft to remove the snow.
He crouched, held out
a hand, and felt warm air.
And then someone had
put a warming spell on the flagstones to keep them clear of
snow.
The cottage door
opened and the someone walked
out.
Lucivar rose and
looked pointedly at the walkways, then at Daemon. “You know,
Bastard, using Craft is all well and good, but it wouldn’t hurt you
to sweat once in a while.”
“If I’m going to work
up a sweat for a woman, I’m going to be doing something besides
sweeping the walk,” Daemon replied.
Lucivar
grinned.
They were brothers.
Half brothers, but they had never made that distinction. They both
had the coloring of the three long-lived races—the black hair,
light brown skin, and gold eyes. They had inherited much of their
looks from their Hayllian father, who was the High Lord of Hell.
Daemon’s face was a more refined, beautiful version of Saetan’s,
while his own face was more rugged than their father’s. But the
real distinction between him and Daemon came from the other side of
his dual heritage. He had the dark, membranous wings that set the
Eyrien race apart from the Hayllian and Dhemlan Blood.
They studied each
other for a moment before Lucivar’s mouth curved in a lazy,
arrogant smile.
“You’re up early,”
Lucivar said, taking the few steps that separated
them.
“You’re up even
earlier, since you had to come in from Ebon Rih,” Daemon replied.
“You must have left at dawn.”
Lucivar shook his
head. “I’m farther east; sun rises earlier. But I was up at
dawn.”
“Was that by
choice?”
“Hell’s fire, no, but
the little beast is up with the sun, and I feel less guilty about
Marian holding the leash most of the day if she gets a little extra
sleep.”
“How is my darling
nephew? Counting the days until Winsol?”
“One of us is,”
Lucivar muttered. He smiled grimly in response to Daemon’s laugh.
“Last year,Winsol was something that just appeared and dazzled him.
This year he’s figured out that Winsol is coming.”
“Ah.”
“Ooooh, yeah. So
every morning, he climbs into bed with us, pries my eyes open, and
says, ‘Papa! Is it Winzel yet?’ ”
Daemon’s lips were
curved in a smile, but his golden eyes were full of sharp
understanding. “Can you put a shield around the bed?”
“Tried that.
Unfortunately, one that will keep him out also keeps Marian out.
She didn’t appreciate smacking into a shield when she wanted to get
back into bed after getting up to pee.”
“Lucivar.”
He heard Daemon’s
concern wrapped around that single word.
“I’ve got a light
shield around Daemonar’s room that will wake me if he starts
wandering,” he said. That shield was a necessary precaution now to
keep his son safe—from him. A Warlord Prince was a born predator, a
natural killer. A Warlord Prince startled awake didn’t think; he
attacked. The first morning Daemonar pounced on him, the boy’s
physical scent and psychic scent had penetrated his sleep-fogged
brain fast enough that he managed to pull back what might have been
a killing blow.
Marian’s presence
didn’t bother him. He was so steeped in the feel of her, she could
touch him, mount him, do just about anything to him before he was
fully awake without provoking that lethal rise to the killing edge.
But Daemonar was male, he was a Warlord Prince, and he’d matured
just enough over the past few weeks that Lucivar’s aggressive
instincts now recognized caste before son.
So even though he let
the boy have the fun of prying his eyes open, Lucivar was always
awake and aware before Daemonar entered the room.
He looked into his
brother’s eyes and knew he didn’t need to say anything
more.
Then Daemon looked
pointedly at Tersa’s cottage and raised an eyebrow as if asking a
question—or demanding an explanation.
“None of your
business, Bastard,” Lucivar said.
It wasn’t, and they
both knew it. They also knew that Daemon was protective of Tersa
and, in the past, had been brutally efficient when it came to
dealing with men who had taken the wrong kind of interest in
her.
And they also both
knew that, in Terreille, Lucivar Yaslana had earned his reputation
for being unpredictable, uncontrollable, and explosively violent
toward women, so Daemon’s concern about his brother spending time
with his mother was not without reason.
“Well,” Daemon said
after an awkward moment. “I’d better get back to the Hall before
the rest of the household is up.”
Lucivar nodded.
“We’ll be coming in at the end of the week to help you and Jaenelle
get the Hall ready for Winsol.”
“Get what
ready?”
Lucivar blinked,
decided Daemon wasn’t being a smart-ass, and gave his brother a
pitying look. “Since I’ve been married longer than you, here’s a
piece of advice: Never ask questions like that. They’ll only get
you into trouble.”
Daemon huffed out a
breath. “There are servants at the Hall. Lots of them. They’re the ones who are getting
things ready.”
The pitying look
changed to a wicked grin. “You do have
a lot to learn.”
“No, really. They
haven’t put up any of the fresh greenery because that’s done on the
first day of Winsol, but yesterday Helene hauled out a century’s
worth of decorations from the Hall’s attics. Hell’s fire, one of
the young maids even put bells on the Sceltie
puppies.”
“Did the puppies
jingle into your study to complain?” Lucivar asked.
“Of course they did.
Until the wolf pups decided the bells sounded fun. So now I have
Sceltie puppies prancing up and down the great hall wearing bells
while the wolf pups howl.”
“Your guests are
going to be greeted by a jingle howl?” Correctly interpreting
Daemon’s look, Lucivar added, “If you try to whack me upside the
head, you’ll end up on the ground.”
Daemon squeezed his
eyes shut and muttered, “Maybe I can run away from
home.”
“We’re not allowed to
do that. Trust me. We’re allowed to hide for an hour or two at a
time, but we’re not allowed to run away from the
festivities.”
“Says
who?”
“The women we
married.”
Daemon sighed. “Was
life simpler when we were slaves in Terreille?”
“Simpler in some
ways, yes. But not as much fun. See you in a few
days.”
Lucivar stepped aside
to let Daemon pass. Choosing to be cautious, because the Sadist had
earned his reputation too, he watched until Daemon was out of
sight, that gliding walk and feline grace covering a lot of ground.
Then he approached the cottage and knocked on the
door.
Allista, looking like
a cat who had been dunked in a tub of water and then stroked the
wrong way, hesitated before letting him into the
cottage.
“The witchling is
still sleepy,” Tersa said when he walked into the kitchen. “But
boys start the day early in order to do all their boy
things.”
On another day, it
would have been interesting to find out what Tersa considered “boy
things,” but one of them needed to stay focused, and it had to be
him.
Her mind had
shattered centuries ago, but Tersa was still brilliant in her own
way, still powerful in her own way. She had given up sanity in
order to regain the Hourglass’s Craft and could draw power out of
madness in ways that even Saetan didn’t understand.
Lucivar loved her. It
was that simple. He had begun these twice-monthly visits for the
same reason he had visited his own mother, Luthvian—as a family
duty. But unlike Luthvian, who had hated her son because of the
heritage she had given him, Tersa had accepted the wings and the
fact that he was an Eyrien warrior down to the very marrow of his
bones. She didn’t criticize him for what he was—or for what he
wasn’t. She didn’t lash out at him physically or verbally. He could
sit in her kitchen and enjoy her company, and she seemed to enjoy
his.
He should have told
Daemon about the visits. Maybe not when Daemon had first arrived in
Kaeleer, since Sadi had had enough things to deal with, but he
should have said something soon after, instead of having that
nugget of information come out a few weeks ago while they were
dealing with that damned spooky house that had been built to trap,
and kill, some of their family. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t said
anything. Maybe because he’d been afraid he would be asked to step
aside? After all, Tersa was Daemon’s mother, not his, and when the
real son was present, a surrogate wasn’t needed. Or maybe, like his
father, he had gotten into the habit of not mentioning any
relationship that would have given Luthvian an excuse to feel
neglected or cast aside. Even now, when his mother was a whisper in
the Darkness and truly gone, he had continued to keep his visits to
Tersa private. Either way, by the time Daemon came to Kaeleer, the
visits were a long-established habit that he didn’t discuss with
anyone.
“Do you want food?”
Tersa asked. “There are some scrambled eggs and toast left. The boy
made them.”
In that case, he
wasn’t going to refuse. No one made scrambled eggs better than
Daemon—including his own darling hearth witch wife. Which was
something he would never ever admit to anyone. Especially
Marian.
Since Allista hadn’t
joined them, he figured she had already eaten or would fend for
herself, so he got a fork out of the drawer, hefted the bowl,
leaned a hip against the counter, and began to eat.
“You should sit at
the table,” Tersa said.
“I can eat just fine
where I am.” She looked like she was about to scold, so he added
casually, “Did you eat?”
“I ate.”
He caught the
hesitation before she answered. She would have eaten something.
Daemon wouldn’t have left if she hadn’t. But she still had the
skinniness of someone who had been half-starved for too many years,
and even now, when there was plenty of food, she sometimes became
too distracted by something only she could see and forgot to
eat.
So he never wasted an
opportunity to feed her.
Scooping up another
forkful of scrambled eggs, he held it in front of her. “Open
up.”
Her mouth remained
stubbornly shut.
He sighed—but his
eyes never left her face and his hand remained steady. “Am I going
to have to embarrass myself by making funny noises like I do with
Daemonar?”
Her mouth fell open
in surprise, and he slipped the fork in before she realized what he
was doing.
She scowled at him.
He grinned at her. And prudently ate a couple of forkfuls of egg
himself before offering her another.
Tersa waved him off
and got her own fork.
They polished off the
eggs—and he made her work to claim the last bite—then he finished
off the toast while enjoying a mug of coffee.
“Were you able to do
it?” he asked as he rinsed off the dishes and set them in the
sink.
Tersa frowned at him.
“I was able to do it, but . . .”
Grinning, he wiped
his hands on a towel. “Let’s see.”
Using Craft, she
called in a small wooden frame and set it at one end of the kitchen
table. The carefully constructed web attached to the frame held the
illusion spell. She triggered the illusion spell, and they watched
as a small black beetle appeared and headed for the other end of
the table. It grew and grew with every step. When it got as big as
his palm, it burst open with enough gore and green goo to delight a
small Eyrien boy.
“You have the box?”
Tersa asked.
He called in the long
wood-and-glass box he’d had made to hold the illusion web and keep
the entire illusion contained. He valued his skin—and his
marriage—enough to make sure the bug remained in the
box.
After she placed the
illusion web into its part of the box, they watched the beetle once
more. Lucivar grinned at the way the gore and goo splattered all
over the inside of the glass before it all faded away. “Darling,
this is perfect.”
Tersa looked uneasy.
“Maybe I should ask your father.”
Not quite a
statement, not quite a question. More a tentative testing of an
idea.
He shifted his weight
from one foot to the other, not quite sure if he was troubled or
intrigued by the words. “Why?”
“I made little
surprises for my boys before, and it caused trouble. Almost hurt
them. I don’t want to cause trouble for my boys. Your father will
know what to do.” She nodded, as if she’d made a decision. “Yes.
Your father will know.”
Lucivar vanished the
box and decided this would be a good time to give her something
else to think about—before she
contacted his father.
Boys. My boys.
The ground shifted
under his feet. His breath caught. He felt like he was riding a
current that could be a very sweet wind or have a cutting
edge.
“What boys, darling?”
he asked.
“My boys.” She
glanced at him, suddenly shy and hesitant.
Painfully sweet
words, and a possibility he hadn’t considered about why Tersa had
welcomed him from the first time he’d knocked on her cottage
door.
“Am I one of your
boys, Tersa?” he asked.
She was Daemon’s
mother. She would have been around during the childhood years he
couldn’t remember. She had known him as a child—and he must have
known her. That hadn’t occurred to him before.
“The girl,” Tersa
said hesitantly. “Luthvian. So angry because she wanted what
couldn’t be. So angry because she wanted to deny what
was.”
She reached out, not
quite touching him, her eyes caressing the very thing his own
mother had always pretended not to see.
“Sails to the moon,”
she said softly. “Banners unfurled in the sun. She was always so
angry about something as natural as an arm or a leg. Such a foolish
reason to hate a child.”
“Tersa?”
Her eyes had that
unfocused look. She was no longer seeing the room she stood in,
wouldn’t know where she was physically if he asked. She was looking
at a memory seventeen hundred years in the past. Seeing Luthvian.
Seeing him when he was Daemonar’s age. Maybe even
younger.
“She wanted the boy,
but did not want the boy to be the
boy,” Tersa said. “But what else could he be? Cuddles and hugs.
Their father’s love is strong, and they need him, but they want
softer love too. Cuddles and hugs. And little surprises.” She
smiled. “They pick flowers in the meadow. The boy brings his
flowers to me. I tell him the names of the ones I remember as we
arrange them in a vase. His father tells him the rest. Tells both
boys. But the girl doesn’t want flowers from the meadow. That is
too simple, too Eyrien. She will not take the flowers, so the
winged boy brings them to me. There is so much fire in his heart,
so much laughter. And trouble. That gleam in his eyes. Oh, yes, he
is trouble. But there is no meanness. He is a boy. He will be a
strong man. She will not look, will not see. So he comes to me for
cuddles and hugs and little surprises.”
Tears stung Lucivar’s
eyes. He blinked them away. Swallowed them with his
heart.
He took a step
closer, touched her shoulder with his fingertips. “Tersa? Am I one
of your boys?”
She looked at him,
her eyes full of uncertainty. But she nodded. “My winged
boy.”
He took her in his
arms and held her gently as he finally understood why spending time
with her mattered so much to him. He hadn’t remembered those early
years of his childhood; he hadn’t remembered her. But his heart had
recognized her and knew what she had been for him.
“Thank you,” he
whispered into her tangled hair. “Thank you.” He added silently,
Mother.
Jaenelle leaned back
from the breakfast table and stared at the object in front of her.
“It’s a mousie in a glass dome.”
“Yes.” Daemon smiled
at the illusion he’d talked Tersa into making for him.
“It’s a mousie
wearing the formal dress of a court official.”
“Yes.”
“And you intend to
give this to Lucivar? The Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih? The man who
has said that the only reason for paperwork is to have something to
wipe your ass with after taking a crap?”
“Oh,
yes.”
As they watched, the
mousie began squeaking emphatically while gesturing with one paw
and waving a scroll held in the other. Of course, the squeaking
could barely be heard through the glass dome, but the tone was
still clear. Especially when the mousie began jumping up and down
in a tantrum.
“He’s capable of
leaving this out on the desk without a sight shield so that court
officials see it,” Jaenelle said. “You know he’s capable of doing
that.”
“I know. But I figure
having this just might keep him from strangling some pompous ass
from a Queen’s court.”
Jaenelle pursed her
lips and studied the mousie. Then she sighed. “You have a point.
There have been a few times when he’s come too close to strangling
a pompous ass.”
“All the more reason
to give him something to laugh about.” Daemon kissed the top of her
head and reached for the glass dome. “I’m heading up to the Keep to
show this to Father, so I’ll—”
“You can’t go
today.”
He stopped, his hand
frozen over the dome. “I can’t?”
“Daemon. You have to help me get ready.This will be
our first Winsol when we’re officially hosting the family. You
can’t just shrug off the details.”
Sure, he
could.
“Marian is coming
later in the week to help out,” Jaenelle continued. “And Winsol
begins next week. We have to go over the lists.”
“Lists?”
His wife stiffened.
Then she turned in her chair and looked at him.
The bones in his legs
turned to jelly—and not in a good she’s-looking-for-hot-sex kind of
way.
“I’ll be in my
study,” he said meekly.
“Good,” Jaenelle
replied sweetly. “I’ll join you there after I finish breakfast. I
hope you didn’t have anything scheduled for this
morning.”
Hell’s fire, Mother
Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.
“Only my Lady’s
pleasure,” he said.
Jaenelle reached up
and tugged on his jacket. Obeying the unspoken command, he leaned
over and touched his lips to hers.
“Your tone lacks
sincerity, Prince,” Jaenelle said. “But since this is your first
Winsol as a husband, you’re forgiven.”
Then she kissed
him—and he hoped she would have reason to forgive him for a lot of
things over the next few days.