She spent the day wandering the land her mother had walked and thought about who she had been and who she was now—and who she might want to be.
Late that night, she brought two mugs of coffee to a tree she had chosen that afternoon for no particular reason. One mug held black coffee; the other held coffee mixed with a precise amount of sugar and cream. Holding out that mug, she said, “I brought coffee.”
A biting cold. Mist and stone. And the living myth, the girl who had first shown her the pretty poison and then, later, become a great Queen despite her scars. Or, maybe, because of those scars.
“Saetien being at the sanctuary,” she said. “Is that part of her price to pay?”
“It is,” Witch said, accepting the coffee. “She needs to see what someone like Delora can do when there is no one to stop her. She needs to see that before you tell her about the maternal side of her bloodline.”
“Tell her what?”
“That she’s Dorothea’s great-granddaughter. That Dorothea’s son was your sire. That she is descended from one of Hayll’s Hundred Families.” Witch smiled. “That you took SaDiablo as your family name as a way to spit in Dorothea’s eye.”
“How was I supposed to know that the patriarch of the family was living in Dhemlan?” Surreal grumbled. Saetan’s acceptance when she arrived in Kaeleer changed her life.
“This interest in Hayll has stirred up memories, and for the people who fled Terreille, most of those memories are painful. Don’t let your daughter find out from someone else.”
“You think some of the aristos will say Saetien was infatuated with Delora because she can trace her bloodline to Dorothea?”
“Better for both of you if she has an answer to that before the question is raised.”
“My connection to Dorothea never bothered you, did it?”
“Why should it? You’re Titian’s daughter. You were always Dea al Mon. Kin of my kin.”
“And that makes us kin.” Surreal blinked away sentimental tears. Then she hooked her hair behind one delicately pointed ear. “I’m going to look for a place of my own. Something that doesn’t belong to the SaDiablo family. I thought about living in Dea al Mon, but living among trees for more than a couple of days makes me itch. Besides, I like cities. Or maybe I could buy a cottage in a village like Halaway where I could walk to the shops but also have a choice of dining houses if I wanted to eat out.”
“A first step in separating your life from Daemon’s?” Witch asked.
Surreal hesitated. Then she nodded. “A life apart yet still connected to him and the rest of the family. I had that once, during the years I lived with Rainier, and I can have it again because a Warlord Prince belongs to his Queen before he belongs to anyone else, and Daemon Sadi’s Queen is once more in residence at Ebon Askavi.” She raised her mug in a salute. “Thank you for coming back to save all of us.” And for setting me free of a choice I made so many years ago.
Witch smiled, handed the mug back, and disappeared.
Biting cold. Then Surreal felt the tree’s bark against her back. Wiping a tear off her cheek, she walked back to the Dea al Mon equivalent of an inn.
FIFTY-TWO
“You all right, witchling?” Lucivar asked.
“Uh-huh.” In truth, even though she knew Jaenelle Saetien wasn’t going to be there, Titian felt sick and excited about being back at the Hall. She linked her arm with her father’s left arm, leaving his right hand free in case he needed to call in his war blade. Not that she expected he would need to, but there were girls and boys standing outside the Hall that she didn’t know, and the unknown could be dangerous. Deadly.
Then she spotted Lord Weston, and excitement won out over sickness. Zoey had come.
She pulled her father along as she wove through the youngsters who were hesitating to approach the door, unsure, now that they were here, about the wisdom of this choice. Then she caught sight of Zoey and stopped abruptly as she noticed the face that looked drawn from the loss of too much weight and the smudges under Zoey’s eyes that looked more like awful bruises.
“You look like shit, witchling,” Lucivar said, eyeing Zoey. Then he focused on the Sceltie pressed against Zoey’s legs. “You need to persuade her to eat and do walkies.”
*I am trying,* Allis complained. *But she is stubborn, and I am not allowed to nip.*
“Says who?” Lucivar asked.
Lord Weston made an angry sound of warning.
“You have my permission to nip—”
“Hey!” Zoey protested.
“—and if Prince Sadi has a problem with that, he can talk to me.” He gave Zoey, then Weston a lazy, arrogant smile.
The door opened. Beale looked at them, then beyond them to the youngsters milling around the landing web.
“I’ll fix it,” Lucivar said. He untangled his arm from Titian’s, then grabbed both girls by the backs of their tunics and toe-walked them across the threshold, first Zoey, then Titian. “Now, go say hello to your uncle while I deal with the rest of the youngsters.”
Uncle Daemon stood in the great hall. His hands, tucked in his trouser pockets, made him look relaxed, but she saw the slightly glazed look in his eyes and realized he wasn’t there to welcome them as much as he was there to inspect every person who walked through the door.
She didn’t want to think about what would happen this time to anyone who didn’t meet with his approval.
“Hello, Uncle Daemon.”
His smile was warm when he leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I’m glad you’re here. You too, Zoey.”
When he gave Zoey a kiss as well, Titian wondered if he felt the flinch.
“Prince Sadi,” Zoey said.
“You’re safe,” he said quietly. “You, Titian, and some of the other girls have been given suites that had belonged to the Queens in the Dark Court. No one can get to you without going through me—and no one will get through me, Zoey. You have my word on that.”
“Thank you,” Weston said quietly, coming up to stand behind Zoey as he kept an eye on the open front door.
Holt approached from the back of the great hall. “Should I show the Ladies to their suites?”
“Let’s wait for a few more,” Daemon replied. “Assuming they decide they’re brave enough to enter.”
A sharp whistle, followed by Lucivar’s voice. “You can enter the Hall on your own, or I can pick you up and toss you over the threshold. Your choice.”
Weston looked alarmed. “He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“Care to bet on that?” Daemon asked dryly.
“But . . . there are Queens out there.”
“That never stopped him before,” Holt said. “Twenty marks says he tosses one of the Warlord Princes in first.”
Daemon nodded. “I’ll take that bet.”
Titian stared at her uncle as if she’d never seen him before. He and Holt were betting on her father—
The first Warlord Prince came in low and horizontal, landing on his butt and skidding across the polished floor until he was stopped by Uncle Daemon’s shoe.
“Hell’s fire,” Weston breathed. “He really did it.”