He closed his inner barriers, and his mind, damaged as it was, was his own again.
“She kept saying I was playing with her, kept demanding that I leash the sexual heat and wouldn’t believe me when I said it was leashed.”
Witch sighed. “Well, Surreal is right in one way, and this is why she was very wrong in another way.”
She called in four brass rings and placed them on the altar. First, she arranged them in a row from smallest to largest. Then she nested the rings, making the difference in sizes apparent. The difference between the first and second brass ring was significant. So was the difference between the second and third. Not much difference between the third and fourth, but enough that the third fit into the fourth.
Witch pointed to the smallest ring. “Like other traits that are part of a Warlord Prince’s nature, the sexual heat begins to manifest at puberty.”
Oh, Hell’s fire. They would have to deal with Daemonar when the boy reached that age.
“When a Warlord Prince reaches the age when he makes the Offering to the Darkness and comes into his mature power, the sexual heat becomes more potent.” She pointed to the second ring, then went on to the third. “And then he reaches physical maturity, a man entering his prime.”
“Which is where I was when we were married. Which is where I am now.”
“Not quite.” She tapped the fourth ring. “A century ago, you were just coming into your prime. Your sexual heat hadn’t reached its peak yet. Now you are solidly in your prime, and I’m guessing the last phase of sexual heat happened right around the night you had invited Surreal to play, and by the following morning, it had settled into where it will be until you reach your autumn years, when it starts to decline.”
Horrified by the thought, he shook his head. “It can’t stay at this level.”
“It can—and will. But you’ll adjust, and so will the people around you.”
“Jaenelle, no. You don’t know the misery this has already caused.”
“Daemon,” she said gently. “This is part of who you are.”
“How am I supposed to cope with that?” Was Lucivar going through this too?
“For one thing, you’re going to stop hurting yourself. For another, you’re going to use that brilliant mind to recognize that every Warlord Prince goes through this. You’ve seen men go through this. Clearly it didn’t make much of an impression.”
“I would have noticed.”
“Really? Chaosti. Rainier. Aaron. Elan. You knew every one of them before he reached his prime and went through this last phase of the sexual heat. Every one of them, Daemon. You knew their wives or, in Rainier’s case, a woman he lived with for decades. The difference is the depth of power. Like so many other things about the Blood, the potency of the heat is connected to the power that flows through the veins.” She reached out and tapped the pendant that held his Black Jewel. “That little bit more that might go unnoticed in a Warlord Prince who wore a lighter Jewel is going to be felt by everyone who is dealing with the Black.”
Surreal would never want to endure that.
Witch vanished the four brass rings. “You went to Healers who couldn’t help you. Why didn’t you talk to someone else?”
“The only other man who wore the Black and went through this is gone,” he said bitterly.
“Yes, Saetan is gone, but there are two people at the Keep who knew him when he was your age. And there is a Black Widow who might have supplied some answers—”
“Oh, she was a lot of help. Cryptic dreams about the wiggle-waggle.”
“Which you ignored.”
She said it with a sweetness that made his balls want to tuck up inside his belly. Just in case.
“There is also a Warlord Prince currently residing at the Keep, at least some of the time. If you had bothered to talk to him, he would have recognized what was happening and why.” Witch looked back at the posts and the chalice on the altar. “You tried so hard to repress your sexual heat, you’ve actually done some damage to your heart and lungs. It may be centuries before you feel the effects, but what you’ve done here will extract a price.”
Daemon studied the posts and chalice. “The headaches won’t abate, will they?”
Silence. Finally, she looked at him. “Not while this remains as it is. I can try to fix what is broken.”
A broken vessel mended again. Did he want that? If he wanted to be there for Jaenelle Saetien while she grew up, there wasn’t a choice. “Will that relieve the pain?”
“That will depend on how much of the damage I can repair.” Witch hesitated. “Daemon, this healing will hurt.”
“Everything has a price. Do what you need to do.”
Pain washed over him, through him, became him. Beyond the pain, he was aware of nothing but her voice. Sometimes she sang cadences of healing Craft. Sometimes she swore at him viciously in several languages as she carefully broke through carapaces of pus and drained swellings created by his attempt to please Surreal and subdue the sexual heat.
Hours? Days? A lifetime? He didn’t know how long she worked, how long he endured the healing, before she finally said, “It’s done. Look. And learn.”
Daemon climbed to his feet, having no memory of sinking to the floor next to the altar.
The crystal chalice—his mind, his sanity—had been repaired. Again.
The three posts and leashes that represented his control over his power, his temper, and the Sadist looked as they had before. The fourth post, his sexual heat . . . Cleaned and back to its normal size. But the loops that should have snugged the leashes to the posts were loose, and when he tried to tighten them, he discovered a ring of Witch’s darker power forming a cushion between loop and post, making it impossible for him to tighten the leashes all the way.
“Jaenelle . . .”
She pointed at the chalice. “I did what I could, but even I can’t mend this a fourth time. Daemon, you can’t afford to risk your sanity by being careless with yourself. You wear the Black. If you slide into the Twisted Kingdom, you could be a weapon powerful enough to destroy Kaeleer.”
“Could you break the Black?” As soon as he said the words, he felt everything in him resist the idea. Give up the Black without a fight? Never.
Witch gave him a look that would have shriveled his balls if this wasn’t a dream. “It doesn’t matter if I could. It will not be done, because the Shadow Realm is going to need the Black. Your family, your daughter, are going to need the High Lord.”
He swallowed hard. “War?”
“I don’t know, Daemon. Even I can’t see everything.”
“But enough,” he said quietly.
“Enough to know that the man you are will be needed. Everything you are will be needed.” Her hand moved around the chalice, not touching it, but he still felt her nearness like a caress. “You need to keep the reservoir in your Black Jewel drained enough to make room for the power your body and mind can no longer hold.”
“Not an easy thing to do.”
He saw the question in her eyes. He waited for her to ask why he wasn’t helping Surreal drain her Gray Jewel before her moontime. But Witch didn’t ask. Maybe she already knew.
“I have some thoughts about that.” She pointed at the posts. “As for these . . .”
“They’re too loose.”
A hesitation. “Everything has a price, remember? It may take decades of slow healing before you can hold the leashes as tightly as you used to. It may be never. Your mind is too fragile to exert that kind of force on any part of you right now.”