“No, you didn’t. She was just a respite in a jagged day.”
“Then give yourself some quiet time. In the evening, we’ll drain some of the reservoir in the Black.”
He nodded. “I’ll see Titian tomorrow.”
She didn’t kiss him. She never did when she was with him here. That was an intimacy that would have wounded his wife. Even if Surreal never knew why, she would have sensed a difference in him. As long as he could separate wife and lover from Queen, as long as he knew without any doubt that it wasn’t possible for the Queen to be the lover again, he could stay connected to the living and stay married—and faithful to his wife.
Witch walked into her bedroom. The door shut behind her.
Daemon vanished the art supplies and settled into a chair by the window, letting the immense power of his Queen quiet his mind and heart.
FOUR
“I don’t want to go!” Sitting beside the pool at the far end of the play yard, Titian pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
Jaenelle Saetien sat back on her heels, hooked her black hair behind her delicately pointed ears, and tried to puzzle out her cousin’s behavior. Titian didn’t like adventure the way she did, which she didn’t mind because that was Titian, and they did have fun together. And she could talk to this cousin and say things she couldn’t say to anyone else.
“We’re just going to run some errands for Auntie Marian and pick up the things she needs at the market,” she said. “It won’t take long. I’m not allowed to go by myself, and Daemonar and Andulvar are at the communal eyrie doing their weapons training.” If she’d known Titian was just going to sit there doing nothing, she would have joined the boys in order to do something.
But maybe not. Her cousin looked so unhappy, so maybe having someone there was helpful even if Titian didn’t want to talk about . . . whatever . . . and Jaenelle Saetien couldn’t figure out anything that would make this better. Kind of like one of the Scelties curling up with her when she felt sad and just wanted company.
She could be a Sceltie. But not as bossy.
Maybe not as bossy.
Her ability to stay quiet lasted another minute. “Are you worried that we’ll run into Orian and her friends? They won’t say anything mean.” Not after Daemonar promised to bloody the girl if she jabbed at his sister again.
“I just don’t want to go down to Riada.” The words were close to a wail.
Sighing, Jaenelle Saetien returned to the eyrie and found Auntie Marian in the kitchen. “Titian doesn’t want to go to Riada, but I could go. I go to Halaway on my own all the time.” Well, on her own with a Sceltie as escort.
“That’s Halaway,” Marian replied. “I’m not giving you permission to break your father’s and your uncle’s rules about you going to Riada on your own. And you and Titian aren’t quite old enough to stay here on your own.”
“But . . .” She felt the familiar dark power a moment before someone knocked on the eyrie’s front door. “Papa’s here!”
She ran to the front door as her papa walked into the eyrie. She flung herself at him and hugged him as hard as she could.
“Witch-child?” He returned her hug for a moment before he eased her back enough to look at her. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Titian. Can you help her, Papa?”
He didn’t answer. He simply led her back to the kitchen archway, where Auntie Marian waited.
“Lucivar and some of his men left early this morning,” Marian said. “A Province Queen requested his assistance. The girls were going to run some errands for me in the village, but Titian . . .” She looked at the glass doors that led to the play yard.
“Why don’t you and Jaenelle Saetien go down to Riada and take care of your errands?” Daemon suggested. “I’ll stay here with Titian.”
She wasn’t sure what message passed between the adults, but Auntie Marian nodded and said, “We won’t be long.”
As she and Auntie Marian walked out of the eyrie, Jaenelle Saetien wondered if by asking her papa to help, she was somehow saying Uncle Lucivar couldn’t fix this.
Since Jaenelle Saetien’s Jewel was unique and, therefore, easy to locate, Daemon waited until his daughter and Marian dropped from the Winds and he could feel their presence in Riada. Then he turned his attention to the girl sitting at the far end of the yard.
Of all the children in their family, Titian was the quiet child, the one content to sit and think or daydream; the one who wondered about so many things but often wasn’t bold enough to ask questions or look for answers. Not yet, anyway.
And she was the one, right now, who was deeply wounded by another girl’s cutting remark and needed protection and help. It didn’t matter that another child might have shrugged off the remark as unimportant—or shrugged off the person, letting any connection fade. It didn’t matter that this whole thing had boiled up from a moment that was childish and petty. For Warlord Princes, the promise to “honor, cherish, and protect” was a serious vow. For him and Lucivar—and Daemonar—the reason for the wound didn’t matter anymore. That verbal wound striking Titian so deep, for whatever reason, did matter.
The fact that a Queen had delivered that wound mattered beyond family. He and Lucivar remembered too well how many men had died because of Queens hurling insults at one another until they insisted that a battle was the only way for them, and their courts, to recover lost status.
Queens needed time to grow up and make mistakes like any other child, but deliberate meanness couldn’t be overlooked or excused because of the girl’s age. Anyone who thought otherwise hadn’t seen what had happened to the Blood in Terreille.
Daemon opened the glass doors and walked the length of the play yard until he reached the small pool.
“Hello, witchling.”
“Uncle Daemon.” She smiled, but he read misery and dullness in her eyes. And some measure of fear.
No wonder this was tearing at Lucivar’s heart. He was just surprised his brother hadn’t sent Orian to Hell yet—living or dead.
After putting a thin shield over his trousers to avoid grass stains, and the subsequent scold from his valet, Daemon sat down next to Titian.
“Your father showed me some of your drawings. I thought they were excellent, especially since you’re self-taught.”
She didn’t look at him, but he could feel her listening.
“I like to draw,” she said in a voice so soft, he had to strain to hear her. “But . . .”
“No buts.” Daemon bumped his arm against hers—his right arm, which carried the four white scars Witch had given him as remembrance and reminder. “You like to draw. But I think this was . . . private. Maybe so your brothers wouldn’t tease you about it?”
“They wouldn’t have teased me.” Titian frowned. “Well, Andulvar might have, but Daemonar would have thumped him if he did.”
That was not surprising. “Being private,” he continued, “you probably didn’t think much about what you used to create your drawings because you were exploring and not quite ready to show your work to other people.” One finger to her chin bringing her head up as a command to look at him. “After seeing your drawings, I did think about it.”
Releasing her, Daemon called in the pads of paper and a decorative box that held one set of colored pencils, the sharpener, and the eraser. “An artist should have the proper tools.”
“Oh.” That was all she said as she examined the pencils and then the different kinds of paper. After carefully setting everything to one side, she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Uncle Daemon. Thank you!” Then she sat back. “But I’m not an artist.”