“He seemed fine this morning.” And more than fine last night.
“Ah. A passing indisposition.” Beale sounded relieved.
“I’m sure it’s nothing more than that.”
Hurrying toward the family wing, she stopped at Daemon’s suite of rooms first, relieved when she found Jazen, his valet, hanging up freshly laundered silk shirts in the dressing room.
“Prince Sadi,” she said before Jazen could greet her. “If he was ill, would you know?”
Jazen hesitated, and Surreal wondered if it was because the man was considering the question or trying to balance loyalties.
“Some mornings he seems indisposed, but I’ve thought it was due to stiff muscles, since he seems to shake it off after a hot shower. Should I be watching for something?”
“No. Never mind.”
A fully shaved man—mutilated for the entertainment of Dorothea SaDiablo and her cronies—who had had no future until Daemon hired him as a valet, Jazen would be loyal to the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. While he might not say anything to her, if Daemon really was ill, Jazen would say something to someone.
And what she’d told Beale was true: the man had been in fine form last night when he’d come to her bed.
Not finding Jaenelle Saetien in the playroom, she knocked on the girl’s bedroom door and went in without waiting for a response. Her daughter sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, looking sulky.
Surreal sat on the edge of the bed. “I hear you butted heads with your papa and lost.” No response. “And the penalty for whatever you butted heads about is no dessert or treats for the rest of today and all of tomorrow.”
That got a response. “That’s not fair!”
“Why isn’t it fair?”
The story poured out. Nutcakes. Mikal. Papa being mean about her wanting a second nutcake even though Manny did say just one each. But she was special.
Surreal suspected that the real conflict was buried in the things Jaenelle Saetien didn’t say, but she’d work with this. “You’re lucky it was your papa and not your grandfather who decided the penalty for this nutcakes-and-sass drama. Your grandfather, like your papa, was indulgent about some things and very strict about other things. Very strict. If you’d tried this with him, you’d be lucky if the no-desserts-and-treats order was for less than a week.”
She couldn’t have shocked the girl more if she’d dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.
“Do you want to know what ‘special’ really means, my darling? It means more training, more work, more study, more discipline, more rules. Part of the power you wield is at the level of the Green, and that means you wear a dark Jewel. No one can afford to look away from bad behavior and allow you to become a bitch. Too many people died in wars that were started by bitches who thought they were above the laws, above the rules we live by.”
“It was just a nutcake,” Jaenelle Saetien whispered.
“Was it? Then why aren’t the Scelties here with you?”
The girl didn’t answer.
Surreal nodded, guessing a bit more of what must have happened. “I used to say your papa had a firm no and a soft no when it came to something you wanted to do or have. After today, I think you’re going to find him drawing a harder line, and no matter how pleasantly he says it, from now on, no will mean no, and disobeying him will have consequences.”
She gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead and headed for the door to let the girl sulk for a while. Then she went to her own suite and locked the doors so that no one would walk in on her while she paced and wondered if the life she’d built around being Daemon’s wife and the mother of his child was breaking apart around her.
٭Prick.٭
The pained whisper on a Red spear thread had Lucivar calling in his Eyrien war blade as he strode out of his home and tried to pinpoint his brother’s location. ٭Bastard?٭
٭Here.٭
He spotted Daemon coming up the stone stairs from the landing area below the eyrie—saw his brother sway.
Vanishing the war blade, Lucivar rushed down the remaining stairs and grabbed Daemon before the man could lose his balance and take a hard fall down the stairs—or even fall off the damn mountain. Securing one of Daemon’s arms around his shoulders, he wrapped his arm around his brother’s waist, closed his fingers around the thin leather belt, and half carried Sadi up to the eyrie.
٭Nurian!٭ The command, sent out on a general psychic thread, thundered over the valley. ٭To my eyrie, now!٭
“What in the name of Hell is wrong with you?” he muttered as they reached the flagstone courtyard in front of his home. Marian stood in the doorway. She met his eyes, nodded, and disappeared into the eyrie.
“Headache,” Daemon whispered.
“Try again, old son.”
“Fine,” Daemon snapped, sounding a bit more like himself. “It’s a wicked bitch of a headache.”
Sadi hadn’t been anywhere in Ebon Rih until he arrived a minute ago, so that begged the question of why he’d made the journey here instead of staying put until the headache had eased.
And the answer was he’d been someplace where he couldn’t afford to be vulnerable.
One thing at a time.
٭Stay out, boyo,٭ Lucivar said when he hauled Daemon into the eyrie and saw his elder son standing in the doorway leading to the shielded yard. If Daemon was suffering from something more than a headache, he wanted the boy out of the way of any . . . unpleasantness.
Marian had the covers of the bed in the primary guest room pulled down. She also had a basin full of water and a cloth on the wide window ledge, and an empty basin floating on air near the bed.
٭Papa? Nurian is here,٭ Daemonar said.
٭Tell her to come back to the guest room. And you stay in the front of the eyrie and keep your sister with you.٭
٭What’s wrong with Uncle Daemon?٭
٭Don’t know yet.٭
Ignoring his brother’s grumbling, Lucivar stripped off Daemon’s black jacket and white silk shirt, then pushed him down on the bed so that Marian could remove the shoes and socks.
“What . . . ?” Nurian stopped on the threshold, her dark, membranous wings folding tight to her body.
“Prince Sadi says he has a headache,” Lucivar said.
“I do have a headache,” Daemon growled.
“Well, let’s take a look.” After a moment’s hesitation, Nurian entered the room, all brisk efficiency—as if being in the same room with the two most powerful men in Kaeleer when one of them was in pain wasn’t the least bit dangerous. “Let’s sit him on that padded bench. It’ll be easier for me to get a good look at everything.”
Nurian and Marian moved the bench from under the window to a spot in the room that allowed Nurian full access to her patient.
“Come on.” Lucivar wrapped a hand around Daemon’s arm and hauled him to his feet.
“You son of a—,” Daemon began.
“I love you too, Bastard. Now sit on the bench before I knock you down.”
What he saw in Daemon’s pain-glazed gold eyes scared him to the bone—which was why he gave his brother the lazy, arrogant smile that always promised trouble.
After settling Daemon on the bench, he and Marian left the room and walked to the end of the corridor.
“Was he in a fight?” Marian whispered.
“Don’t think so,” Lucivar replied, keeping his voice low. “But something is wrong.” Had been wrong for a while now.