“You whoring bitch.”
Planting one knee on air, Jaenelle threw herself across the bed, grabbed the Healer’s Jewel, and channeled a blast of power through cold rage.
Surreal yelped in surprise. Other people screamed, and the Healer shrieked as Jaenelle shattered the woman’s Jewels, both ranking Jewel and Birthright, breaking her back to basic Craft. Windows shattered. The walls of the room cracked in patterns that made Daemon think a violent lightning storm had been etched on the plaster.
He felt as if the Winds had turned into a funnel of speed and power that would sweep away anything in its path, and he was standing at the edge of that fury.
Then the power and fury were gone, reclaimed by the witch who had unleashed it.
Jaenelle opened her hand. The shattered pieces of the Healer’s Jewel fell to the floor, completely empty of power. Pushing against air, Jaenelle returned to the other side of the bed.
“Lady?” Daemon asked sharply.
“She was destroying Beron’s vocal cords under the guise of healing his throat,” Jaenelle snarled.
He didn’t ask how she knew or if she was certain the harm was deliberate. Jaenelle wouldn’t have broken a Healer that way unless she was certain.
Daemon looked at the adults, then at Haeze, who was curled up on the floor.
Everyone in the room had known the bitch was doing it—including the boy who was supposed to be Beron’s friend.
That was the something more he had picked up in their psychic scents—their worry that someone would find out they had stood by and allowed Beron to be harmed.
Well, someone had, and he wasn’t about to overlook or forgive anything.
While Witch’s fury shook the room, Ladvarian had pressed himself against the bed over Beron’s legs. Now he stood up, shook himself vigorously, and looked at Jaenelle. *This room has bad smells, and it is getting cold. You should take Beron to the Coach so you can heal him properly. Surreal will guard you while the Prince and I look for Lady Sylvia.*
*Why aren’t you being that bossy?* Surreal asked Daemon on a Gray thread.
*I wouldn’t have dared. Not yet, anyway,* he replied dryly.
Jaenelle looked at Beron. “Agreed.” She pulled the top sheet loose. Ladvarian jumped off the bed as she floated the boy on air and wrapped the sheet around him.
*Can you handle this?* Daemon asked Surreal.
*Do you have a problem with me burying anyone who upsets her?*
*No problem at all.*
*Then I can handle this.*
Ladvarian went with the women as they hurried to get Beron to the Coach. Daemon remained, his hands in his coat pockets, doing nothing but staring at the people huddled together. Now that Witch was out of the room, he was, once more, the dominant predator.
“Prince?”
The male voice was unfamiliar and cautious. Not surprising, since the man was coming up behind him and wouldn’t want to be mistaken for an enemy.
Looking over his shoulder, Daemon studied the Warlord wearing the badge of a Master of the Guard. “Come in.”
The Master entered the room, flanked by several other Warlords. “Someone has been hurt?”
“The Queen of Halaway’s son,” Daemon replied. “And Lady Sylvia is missing.”
“How may we be of service?” The Master’s voice turned grim.
“Lord Ladvarian and I are going to search the grounds for Lady Sylvia. Have some of your men search the house.” Daemon pointed at the Healer, then at the adults he assumed were Sylvia’s hosts. “Keep them under guard, separately, until I’m ready to have a little chat. Take the boy to his room, under protection.”
“Done,” the Master said.
Daemon walked out of the room as the Warlords swarmed around the people being detained. The Master followed him out.
“Something else?” Daemon asked, pausing at the top of the stairs.
“Does this have anything to do with the missing children?”
Cold rage swept through him, but he kept it chained. “What do you know about missing children?” And why hadn’t you shown some balls and come up to the Hall to tell me about them?
The Master licked his lips, a nervous movement. “Sometimes borders are just lines on a map. The folks living in the towns and villages on the other side of the border in Little Terreille? They’re good people. We have no quarrel with them. When children started going missing, they asked us to keep a lookout for them. Not hard to do. A child from Little Terreille isn’t going to have the looks that would blend in with Dhemlan children, so he’s easy enough to spot. Most of the time, when a youngster runs away, he’s angry or unhappy, but no one has done him real harm, if you understand me.”
“I do. And if you do suspect real harm?”
“The youngster is brought before the Queen and isn’t returned to his family unless she’s satisfied that the reason he left home wasn’t more than growing pains.”
“Do you think the missing children are runaways?”
The Master hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. We’ve checked the runaway houses within our Queen’s territory.”
Most small villages had at least one runaway house—a safe place an unhappy child could go to receive a hug, nutcakes, and a sympathetic ear, or be given some space to brood over some trouble at home.
“I want to know if there are any children missing from Dhemlan villages.”
“I’ll check with the village guards, but I haven’t heard of any children going missing,” the Master said. Then he finished grimly, “Which doesn’t mean there haven’t been some that have gone missing.”
“I want daily reports until this is settled,” Daemon said as he started down the stairs.
“You’ll have them.”
“And get in touch with the Province Queen’s Master and make him aware—”
*Daemon!*
The urgency in Ladvarian’s voice made him rush down the rest of the stairs and out of the house. Dim balls of witchlight hung over a spot in the garden, so it wasn’t hard to find the dog.
And it wasn’t hard to see what the Sceltie had found.
Ladvarian circled the lower halves of two severed legs. The legs were bare; the feet were still covered by ankle boots.
*These smell like Sylvia,* Ladvarian growled as he daintily walked on air to avoid leaving paw prints in the blood. *And I smell dead flesh.*
Daemon caught himself before pointing out that the severed legs were dead flesh. The dog had grown up at the Hall and had been given the same training in Protocol as any other young male who had resided there. Ladvarian wouldn’t use a disrespectful description simply because a person was demon-dead, so calling someone “dead flesh” was an indication of the dog’s contempt for the person—an indication that the scent belonged to an enemy.
“Track the dead flesh, but don’t go farther than these gardens,” Daemon said. “I’ll search for Sylvia. And stay shielded.”
*I will.* Ladvarian headed down a path that led away from the house.
Daemon put a Black shield around the legs to prevent anyone from taking them. Then he searched the ground for a blood trail. Nothing clean about the severing, so there should be plenty of blood for him to follow.
Unless the attacker had used Craft and vanished Sylvia. Those personal storage cupboards the Blood created with Craft and power couldn’t support anything that was alive. But you could move a body that way—or kill someone who was wounded.