The Queens would be out for blood, and rightly so. Everyone who ruled in Dhemlan remembered the purge of Dorothea’s taint, remembered the power darker than the Black that had screamed through the Realms to stop a war that would have destroyed Kaeleer as well as Terreille.
She blew out a breath and walked in.
The girl had been crying. But she looked at Surreal with a mix of hope and defiance. “What now?”
Surreal dropped the bound pages on the table in front of the sofa. “Something for you to read while you wait for your father’s return.”
Jaenelle Saetien glanced at the top page, then gasped and stared. “High Lord of Hell?”
“I told you he was.”
“But . . . now everyone will know!”
“They will. And they will fear him.” They have reason to fear him.
A beat of silence. “Where is everyone?”
“The male intruders were taken to Hell and executed, as you will see in that report. Amara and Borsala were also taken to Hell. They were killed during the house party while attacking other guests. I imagine that, once they made the transition to demon-dead, they had a very unpleasant chat with the High Lord. Delora, Hespera, Leena, and Tacita are still here, confined in the lower cells. All the other girls, and the two boys who were also victims, have been escorted home.”
Holt and Tarl had escorted the messenger home, but Surreal didn’t think Jaenelle Saetien would care about an incidental player in this game—who might have suffered if he had refused to perform his role.
Another silence before Jaenelle Saetien asked, “What’s going to happen now?”
“That will depend on Dhemlan’s Queens.” She ignored the ache in her chest, an ache that had begun when she received Zhara’s warning of what was coming. “I’ve been told the Queens are going to make a formal demand to the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan that all the girls who belong to the coven of malice be executed. Unfortunately, sugar, because you were instrumental in putting a young Queen at risk, they consider you a part of that coven, which means Daemon will have to execute you too.”
Unable to stay in that room a moment longer, Surreal paused only long enough to make sure she’d secured the Gray lock on the door before she ran to her own suite and made it to the toilet before being sick. Then she lay on the bathroom floor and wept for herself and for Daemon and for the daughter they were going to lose—and she wept for the woman Jaenelle Saetien could have been.
FORTY-ONE
Hearing his daughter’s cries, Lucivar rushed into Titian’s room and held on when she flung herself into his arms.
“It’s all right, witchling. It’s all right,” he murmured.
“My shields broke, Papa. They broke! I wasn’t strong enough to protect Zoey, and they killed her.”
He shifted around until he could sit on the edge of the bed and hold her in his arms while he rocked her.
“Your shields held long enough.” He’d said the same words every night for the past week after she screamed herself out of the same nightmare. “You’re safe now, and Zoey is safe.”
“I want to learn to fight.” Fierce desperation.
“All right, baby. All right. I’ll teach you. Daemonar and I will teach you.”
Marian came in, tears running down her face. She handed him the small cup of tonic Nurian had made after the first night of broken sleep filled with nightmares.
He took the cup and held it to Titian’s lips. “Drink this. It will banish the bad dreams.”
She drank. When she drained the cup and he had her tucked back in bed, she said, “You’ll teach me?”
“I’ll teach you anything you want to know,” he promised. “We’ll start tomorrow.”
He escorted Marian back to their room and held her while she cried.
“Daemonar?” he asked when she sounded calmer.
“He’s with Andulvar.”
Of course he was. He wouldn’t leave his younger brother alone when Titian’s nightmares woke everyone in the eyrie.
“She’s strong,” Marian said. “She’ll heal.”
Lucivar smiled. “Yes, she will. She’s your daughter.”
“And yours.”
He kissed her gently. “I’ll come to bed in a few minutes.”
Her eyes asked a question she didn’t voice.
After she tucked into bed with a book, he walked to the front of the eyrie. Walked outside, ignoring the biting cold against his bare skin, and looked toward Ebon Askavi.
He’d felt the Black when Daemon arrived at the Keep, but there had been no request for a meeting, no contact of any kind. Now there was nothing, which meant Daemon was in the Queen’s private part of the Keep.
He knew what the Dhemlan Queens had demanded after they’d seen the list of girls whom the coven of malice had targeted. A whole generation of Queens, Black Widows, and Healers—the strongest in power and will—eliminated in order to clear the way for that bitch Delora? Not again. Not while he could stand and fight.
But, sweet Darkness, he didn’t know how Daemon would survive if he did what needed to be done.
FORTY-TWO
Daemon stared out the window of the Consort’s suite. He’d been staring out that window for the past two hours, turning everything over in his mind—and coming to the same bitter conclusion.
When he felt Witch’s presence, he said, “All the Queens in Dhemlan signed a demand that everyone in the coven of malice be executed. Physical death and final death. They want nothing left of the bitches who wanted to turn Dhemlan into another Hayll. They are willing to allow the girls who were accomplices to be broken back to basic Craft so that they will never have the power or influence to be a threat, but that is as far as they will yield.”
“They’ve included your daughter as part of the coven, rather than an accomplice?” Witch asked.
“Yes. If the Queens hadn’t seen the list of targets, they might have settled for Delora and Hespera being executed and the other girls being broken, as their victims had been broken—forfeiting their Jewels as well as the possibility of becoming pregnant more than once.” A broken witch had one chance to have a child of her own. Long, long ago, it had been a kind of defense against males who would have broken strong witches they couldn’t control in order to breed them and have offspring from the witches’ bloodlines that the males could control. Now it was part of the price that was paid. Only one chance, whether that chance ended in a miscarriage, a stillbirth, or a healthy baby.
“You are your father’s son and his true heir, Daemon. You weren’t going to lie to the Queens, and not telling them about the targets and all that had been at stake would have been a lie.” She said nothing else for a minute. Then, “If you keep your bargain with the Queens, as the ruler of Dhemlan must do, but don’t execute your daughter with the rest of the coven, what will happen?”
“She’ll have no life outside the walls of SaDiablo Hall,” he replied. “She’ll have no friends. She’ll be isolated from everyone because she’ll be trusted by no one. And if she manages to slip beyond the walls of the Hall, every Warlord Prince in Dhemlan will be waiting for the chance to kill her, the last member of the coven of malice.”
His darling girl, who had entertained his mind and delighted his heart. His little witch, who had loved the Scelties and had terrified him the first time she had ridden a horsey all by herself. His girl, who had been fearless when she engaged in adventures with her cousins.
And under the bitch she had become when she fell in with Delora, she was still his witch-child.