“Is this a social call?” Witch asked.
He turned toward the voice and watched Craft and will and power create a shadow—an almost-tangible illusion of the Self that had lived within the flesh of the extraordinary Queen who had been the living myth, dreams made flesh.
Not all the dreamers had been human. While most of her body looked human, her golden hair was more like fur, and her hands had retractable cat’s claws. There was a small spiral horn on her forehead and a fawn’s tail at the base of her spine. The legs changed below the knees and ended in a delicate horse’s hooves. And she had the delicately pointed ears of the Dea al Mon.
But the ancient sapphire eyes were the same in this form as when her body had been completely human and she had walked among the living. Those eyes had looked at everything he was and seen him clearly, reshaping the violence in him into a weapon that fit her hand—and showing him that being with a Queen could be fun.
Hell’s fire, they’d had fun.
“I need to talk to you about Daemonar,” he said.
Those eyes stared at him. Stared right through him. “I am not taking sides in any of your squabbles.”
He snorted. “Since when?”
The feral sound she made would have scared a full-grown Arcerian cat. Lucivar felt impressed—and wary.
He made a placating gesture—and hoped she let him keep all his fingers. “All right, you never actually took sides when he went to the Misty Place to complain about me. You just helped him adjust his thinking.”
“I can help adjust your thinking,” she said.
He sighed and pressed a hand against the back of his neck to ease tension he hadn’t known was there. He’d always enjoyed these pissing contests, but that wasn’t why he was here tonight.
“I really need to talk to you,” he said quietly. “Start again?”
“Daemonar is all right?” Witch asked.
“He’s fine. He tangled with Orian. That’s one of the things I want to talk about.”
“Orian is the young Eyrien Queen?” She frowned.
As he explained what had happened, he watched her. Jaenelle Angelline had been a powerful Queen and could be dangerous when her temper turned cold. Witch was the feral side of Jaenelle’s temper—and far more dangerous.
“What bothers you about what he did?” she asked in her midnight voice.
He’d stayed still for as long as he could. Now he paced, needing the movement. “If Daemonar had gone after Orian as soon as he’d heard what she’d said to Titian . . . Well, he inherited his temper from me, so it would be hard for me to fault him for that. But he waited, Cat.” So easy to fall back into calling her by the nickname he’d given her. A spitting little cat. At the time, he hadn’t known how close he’d been to the truth of it. “He waited to see if Titian would shrug it off or handle it on her own. But she didn’t fight. The words wounded her to the point where she hid her drawings from Marian and me—even hid the fact that she was drawing because she was afraid we would be ashamed of her, would be disappointed in her.”
His fists clenched. His dark membranous wings flared out to their full span and resettled. His temper was rising hot and ready to burn.
Witch waited quietly, watching him.
If he struck at her, his hand would go through the illusion. If she struck at him, her claws would leave him bleeding. An almost-tangible shadow of her Self meant exactly that—touch only went one way.
“What bothers you about what he did?” she asked again. “That he used words instead of his fists?”
“Yeah, that bothers me. Using words . . . That’s more like something Daemon would do.”
The room chilled, a warning that any criticism of Daemon Sadi had best be said carefully.
He wasn’t trying to criticize his brother; he just needed her to understand so that she would agree to what he wanted from her.
“The boy drew a hard line, and he used the same kind of verbal meanness to punish Orian as she had used on Titian, calculating the amount of hurt his words would cause. Daemon might have done the same, but even when he was young, Sadi had intuitive knowledge about his prey and knew if a verbal warning was sufficient or if he needed to slide in that knife and twist in order to pay a debt. He knew when to draw a soft line and when to gut someone. Daemonar is a blunt blade and hasn’t acquired that skill yet.”
The room warmed back to its previous temperature. “Go on,” Witch said.
Lucivar resumed pacing. “He’s already a strong Warlord Prince. He’s going to be dealing with Queens all his life, and that means he’ll be doing it for centuries. If he reaches his full potential—and I will do everything I can to train him so that he will reach it—he will wear the Gray, and there won’t be many, if any, Queens strong enough to stand up to him. He needs to learn how to deal with Queens and how to deliver a warning when a Queen’s behavior has crossed a line. He needs to learn how someone with his potential strength can take a stand without gutting the opposition—at least initially.”
“So you want . . . ?”
“I want you to train him.” Lucivar looked into those sapphire eyes. “You’re his Queen. Your will is his life—and it always will be. Help me shape him into the man he should be. Hold the leash. Give him the guidance he needs.”
She walked over to the windows and looked out at the terraced gardens that she had helped create when she became the Queen of Ebon Askavi.
“What you’re asking takes time, Lucivar.”
Someone else might have been implying she didn’t want to give that time. He knew the woman, and the Queen—and his sister—better than that.
“I know. That brings me to making a request on behalf of another Brother in the court.”
She turned to look at him, her eyebrows rising. He noticed she didn’t correct him and say there was no longer a court, even if it was an unofficial one now.
“I’m asking, for myself and for my Brother in the court, that you permit Daemonar to visit you here at the Keep instead of him having to go to the Misty Place in order to ask for advice. I understand why you did it that way when he was the only one, and his Self was meeting your Self there. But it’s different now. You’re allowing Daemon and me to be with you here, so why not him? And it would be safer for him.” Lucivar waited a beat. “He promised not to pester you.”
“And you believe him?”
“Of course not. But you’re more than capable of sending him home if he gets underfoot.” He looked down. “Or under hoof.”
Jaenelle huffed out a laugh. Then she sobered. “How will you explain this?”
He gave her the lazy, arrogant smile that always meant trouble. “I’m the Warlord Prince of Askavi. The Demon Prince. I don’t have to explain anything.”
“And what are you, as a husband, going to say to your wife?”
“Oh. Well. I’ll tell Marian, of course. But as far as anyone else is concerned, Daemonar is receiving private instruction. If everyone assumes the instruction is being given by Karla, I have no trouble letting them assume that.”
“In that case, I’d better define the boundaries with Prince Daemonar sooner rather than later.”
Lucivar walked up to her and wished he could touch her, hold her. Saetan had waited thousands of years for this Queen to be born. So had Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis. Even supporting one another, the loneliness must have been crushing at times, but they’d endured it in order to be there to serve her. And now she was doing much the same thing—enduring the loneliness of almost being connected to the living in order to support those who needed her.
“I made the choice, Lucivar,” Witch said. “I understood the price I would have to pay.”