SEVEN
Lucivar paced the length of the eyrie’s large front
room, back and forth, back and forth. The parlor would have been
warmer but not more comfortable—not while he could taste Surreal’s
pain in the air and imagined he still heard the echoes of her
crying.
Needing the movement,
he continued pacing and kept an eye on Daemon, who had taken a
position at the glass doors and done nothing but stare at the snow
that had been trampled by Daemonar and the wolf pups over the past
few days. Too silent and too still. Lucivar found this side of
Daemon’s temper the most frightening because there was no way to
gauge the ferocity hiding under passivity—or how that temper would
show itself when the passive surface broke.
“It wasn’t Daemonar’s
fault,” Lucivar said. “Or the wolf pups’. They were playing a game.
They didn’t know—”
Hell’s fire. Who could have known Surreal would react by
tearing the eyrie apart and scaring the youngsters so badly the
wolf pups forgot how to drop the sight shield?
Daemon turned away
from the glass doors, his gold eyes changing from blank to annoyed.
“Of course it wasn’t their fault. They’re just
children.”
“If you’re going to
blame someone, blame me.”
Daemon’s annoyance
held a sharper edge. “For what?”
Lucivar stopped
pacing and faced his brother. “She didn’t want to stay with the
boy. Not by herself. But, Daemon, I swear by the Jewels and all
that I am, I didn’t realize she was afraid to stay with the boy.”
“None of us realized
that. She wasn’t troubled being around him when we were all at the
Keep for Winsol.”
“Because we were there. She wasn’t responsible for keeping
him safe. For keeping him alive.” Lucivar started pacing again.
“Before she collapsed, she kept talking about the dead children,
how she couldn’t save them.”
“That answers the
question of what’s been eating at her these past few weeks,” Daemon
said, his voice bleak and angry.
“I can understand her
feeling raw about the children who died in the spooky house, but
she’s been shouldering the weight of children who were dead before
she knew they existed.”
Saetan walked into
the room.
Lucivar pivoted and
Daemon moved with him. When they stopped, they stood shoulder to
shoulder as they faced the High Lord.
“Nurian says there is
nothing physically wrong with Surreal,” Saetan said.
“Wasn’t she listening
to Surreal breathe?” Lucivar snapped. “If she’s that incompetent,
I’ll kick her ass out of Ebon Rih.”
“There is nothing
wrong with Nurian’s skill as a Healer,” Saetan snapped back. “But
if you need to kick someone’s ass, kick your own for not
considering the condition of Surreal’s lungs when you insisted that
she spend several weeks in the mountains during deep
winter.”
Lucivar rocked back,
hurt by the verbal slap.
Saetan huffed out a
sigh and held up a hand. “If Jaenelle had thought being here now
would harm Surreal’s health, Surreal would not be here. Right now,
her breathing is raspy and she probably will have a wicked bitch of
a sore throat from the crying and ... screaming. And she has
scrapes and bruises. But those things are understandable. Hell’s
fire, she went through every drawer, cupboard, and closet searching
for the boy. The Darkness only knows what she thought she saw in
the kitchen that led to the collapse. And that is the point. There is no physical reason for
the way she collapsed after Lucivar found her.”
“Bleeding in the
brain?” Daemon asked.
“No.”
“Nurian found
nothing,” Daemon said. “What about you?”
Saetan shook his
head. “She’s not in the Twisted Kingdom. Of that I am certain. But
she’s gone somewhere inside herself, and I don’t know where to
begin to look. Which is why Jaenelle is on her way. I think Witch
is the only one who can help Surreal now.”
And if Witch can’t help her? Lucivar
thought.
“I’ll stay with
Surreal until Jaenelle arrives,” Saetan continued. “Nurian is
checking Daemonar. Marian is going to keep him in his room until
things are calmer. Tassle and Graysfang have taken the pups back to
the wolf den and their mother.” He looked at Daemon. “What about
you?”
“Surreal asked me to
look for some information in the Keep’s library,” Daemon replied.
“I’ll take care of it so she’ll have it when she wakes
up.”
If she wakes up, Lucivar thought. They were all
thinking it—and not one of them would say it.
“Is there anything
concerning the Eyriens that needs to be dealt with right now?”
Daemon asked.
Lucivar shook his
head. “There is nothing that can’t wait.” Including making the
decision about whether he could allow Falonar to remain in Ebon
Rih.
He waited until
Daemon left the eyrie and Saetan returned to the guest room where
Surreal drifted in that unnatural sleep. Then he put on his winter
cape and went outside, needing the sharp, cold air.
Wasn’t anyone’s
fault—not the boy’s, not the wolf pups’, not even his. But if
Surreal didn’t recover, her loss would leave scars on all of
them.
Daemon glided through
the stone corridors of the Keep until he reached the room that held
the Dark Altar—one of the thirteen Gates between the
Realms.
He picked up a
kindling stick, then used Craft to create a tongue of witchfire.
Once the kindling stick was burning, he extinguished the witchfire
and began lighting the four black candles that would open the Gate
and take him from the Keep in Kaeleer to the Keep in Terreille,
which was where he needed to go in order to find the information
about Falonar that Surreal wanted.
An empty shell. That
was what he’d seen before Saetan pushed him out of the guest room
and told him to wait with Lucivar. Nothing but an empty
shell.
He’d held an empty
shell once before. He’d lain beside Jaenelle’s bloody husk while
the Sadist tricked Witch into leaving the Misty Place and rising
high enough in the abyss so that he could force her to heal the
young body that had been violently raped. Now it was Surreal that
Saetan was trying to coax back into the body she had
abandoned.
The first time he saw
Surreal, she had been ten years old. Big eyes and long legs. Ready
to bolt because she’d already learned that men were the enemy, but
she’d had enough steel in her spine to stay beside her mother,
Titian, while he listened to Tersa’s request to help the woman and
her daughter.
Pretty girl all those
years ago. Beautiful woman now. And she still had steel in her
spine.
Would it be enough
this time? And what would it do to the boy if his auntie Surreal
never recovered from what should have been an innocent
game?
“Sweet Darkness, for
Daemonar’s sake and for her own, let Surreal come back to us,” he
whispered as he lit the last candle in the four-branched candelabra
and blew out the kindling stick.
The wall behind the
Dark Altar changed to mist, and Daemon walked through the
Gate.
Four steps. That was
all it took to move from one Realm to another. Four
steps.
The moment he took
that last step and walked into the other Dark Altar’s room, he knew
something wasn’t right. He’d been in the Terreille Keep’s Altar
room, and it didn’t look like this.
This room was rougher, smaller, colder.
Leaving the room,
Daemon called in his heavy winter coat and put it on while he
glided through the corridors to the doorway that should lead him to
one of the courtyards.
Too dark. Too cold.
Not enough candle-lights in the wall braces—not for this part of
the Keep.
And the air smelled
different.
He found the door and
went out to the courtyard that would give him a view of Ebon Rih—or
the Black Valley, as it was called in Terreille.
Twilight. That wasn’t
right. There had still been daylight when he’d returned to the Keep
from Lucivar’s eyrie.
There were lights in
the valley, indicating a gathering of people, but he wasn’t sensing
enough people down there to populate a village. Of course, the
witch storm two years ago had devastated the Blood’s population in
Terreille, so maybe it wasn’t surprising to sense so few minds. But
that explanation, while valid, didn’t feel right.
It was winter here,
as it should be, but there was an underlying cold that had nothing
to do with the season, as if this place never felt the
sun.
When he finally
focused on the plants growing around the courtyard walls, he
realized he’d never seen anything like them before.
There were three
Realms, and the black candles were lit in a specific order to open
the Gate to a specific Realm.
He’d been thinking
about Surreal, distracted by the fear that she might not recover,
and he’d opened the Gate without paying attention to the order in
which he’d lit the black candles.
“Mother Night,” he
whispered, looking out over the valley. “This is
Hell.”
Rainier laid out the
cards for a solitary game and watched a middle-aged Warlord
approach the bar. Briggs kept his eyes on the stranger, giving the
man no reason to look at anyone else in the room. Rainier nodded,
silent permission for Briggs to notice him and bring him to the
Warlord’s attention.
A few moments later,
the Warlord approached the table. “I’m Lord Randahl, Lady Erika’s
Master of the Guard. Could I have a few minutes of your time,
Prince?”
Rainier tipped his
head to indicate another chair at the table. “What brings Agio’s
Master to Riada?” he asked as Randahl took a seat.
“Wanted to talk to
Prince Yaslana, but when I reached the landing web for his eyrie .
. . Well, when shields go up around a home in that way, you know there’s some trouble
there—accident, illness, death.”
An unspoken question.
Because Rainier sensed concern rather than curiosity, he said,
“Accident.”
“Something a Healer
can fix?” Randahl asked.
“We hope
so.”
A nod. “If there is
any assistance Agio’s court can give, just send word.”
That told Rainier all
he needed to know about how Randahl felt about
Lucivar.
“So I felt those
shields and came down here, mostly looking for a drink and a bite
to eat,” Randahl said. “Followed an impulse and asked the man at
the bar where I could find a person Lucivar might trust with
delicate matters. He pointed me to you.”
“Why didn’t you
approach Lady Shayne or her Master?”
“Like I said, it’s a
delicate matter.”
“Wouldn’t you
normally ask for the second-in-command?”
Randahl looked
Rainier in the eyes and said nothing—and that told him
everything.
Hell’s
fire.
“Yaslana rules the
Eyriens,” Randahl said.
“Yaslana rules the
whole valley and everyone in it,” Rainier countered.
“But specifically, he
rules the Eyriens. None of them serve in a Rihlander court. They
serve him.”
Rainier tipped his
head to acknowledge the distinction.
“That said, Lady
Erika respectfully requests that the Eyriens now residing in the
northern camps be relocated if Yaslana intends to let them stay in
the valley.”
Rainier played a
couple of cards to give himself time. “Has there been
trouble?”
“Not yet, but it’s
coming.” Randahl clasped his hands, rested his arms on the table,
and leaned forward. “There’s a storm growing in those mountains,
and we’re not sure why.”
“You think it’s
because the emigration contracts are done?”
Randahl shook his
head. “If anything, I’d think that would be more reason to walk
softly. This has been building for a while now, but the Eyriens
keep it hidden most of the time—especially when Lucivar is
around.”
“But not when Falonar
visits the camps?”
Randahl let out a
huff of air tinged with anger. “The words weren’t said, you
understand me? The last time Falonar was in the northern part of
the valley, the Eyriens in the camps seemed pleased and stirred up,
and I got the impression . . .” He hesitated.
“Just say it,
Randahl.”
“Is Lucivar going
somewhere else? Is he planning to leave Ebon Rih?”
“No.
Why?”
“From what we’ve
observed lately, Falonar doesn’t act like a second-in-command. At
least, not with the Eyriens in the northern camps. And they don’t
think of him as the second-in-command,
you understand me? So it’s made some of us wonder if the valley is
going to get split between the two Warlord Princes. And frankly, if
that happens, Lady Erika doesn’t want her people in Falonar’s part
of the valley.”
“Lucivar isn’t giving
up any piece of Ebon Rih to anyone,” Rainier said. “And a fight is
out of the question.”
“Because only one
side walks away from a killing field. I know,” Randahl said,
nodding. “I know. But we don’t feel easy about having Eyriens
living so close to us when they aren’t being held on a tight leash.
Not those Eyriens, anyway. We’d really
like to get those bastards out of the mountains around Agio. Just
wanted Lucivar to know that.”
“I’ll see that he
gets the message.” All the
messages.
Randahl sat back.
“Thank you. I’ll be heading back, then.”
“Stay and have a bite
to eat,” Rainier said, raising a hand to catch Briggs’s eye.
*Food?*
He’d barely finished
the thought when Merry swung out of the kitchen with a tray. She
set plates on the table, said, “It’s time for your healing brew,”
and headed back to the kitchen.
Randahl stared at
slices of roasted beef and the mound of fresh vegetables. “Did we
decide what to eat?”
“Apparently we did.”
Smiling, Rainier picked up a fork and dug in.
A thick-vined plant
tried to eat him, which snapped Daemon out of his complacent
wandering of the Keep’s outer courtyards. In Hell, the Realm of
forever twilight, most of the native flora and fauna welcomed the
opportunity to dine on fresh blood, and any man who stumbled into
this Realm was meat for the taking.
Even if that man was
a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince.
He turned toward the
door and mentally stumbled when he saw Draca standing there,
clearly waiting for him.
She said nothing.
Just the same, he felt chastised for staying in the Dark Realm so
that he could look round a bit—and for his boyish excitement at
seeing a place that was usually forbidden to anyone who still
walked among the living.
“Draca,” he said
pleasantly, as if the past hour or so had been nothing out of the
ordinary. Hell’s fire. How long had she been keeping track of
him?
“Prince Ssadi,” she
replied. “Come with me.”
She led him back to
the Dark Altar and opened the Gate. Moments later, he felt the
difference and knew they were in Terreille. Which was where he
should have been in the first place.
“You’re probably
wondering why I was wandering around the other Keep.”
“You are your
father’ss sson,” Draca said. “The firsst time he ssaw Hell, Ssaetan
alsso became disstracted and forgot to return to the
Gate.”
The look she gave him
muzzled curiosity. Doing his best to appear meek, since he had a
feeling that anything else would get him tossed out of the Keep, he
followed her to one of the sitting rooms that had a large blackwood
worktable.
“It iss a cold day,”
Draca said. “You should eat ssomething hot.”
“I just wanted to
talk to Geoffrey about . . .” Daemon studied the Seneschal. “Thank
you. That would be welcome.” And he was going to eat it whether he
wanted it or not.
He also understood
that he was supposed to stay where he had been put. Too bad this
particular room was singularly uninteresting. Maybe that was the
reason she had put him here.
Slipping his hands in
his trousers pockets, Daemon wandered over to a window. Another
courtyard. Here the plants slept under a cover of
snow.
He knew this was
Terreille, but he felt more uneasy, more vulnerable, than when he’d
been foolishly wandering around the Keep in Hell.
He turned when the
door opened and watched a servant set a tray at one end of the
blackwood table and retreat, pausing in the doorway to let Geoffrey
enter.
The Keep’s
historian/librarian looked around the room, then looked at him with
black eyes that glittered with sharp humor. “What did you do to end
up here?”
“Wandered where I
wasn’t supposed to.”
The black eyes still
glittered, but the humor was gone. “A dangerous thing to
do.”
“Yes,” Daemon replied
quietly. “And not something I’ll do again without permission.” It
suddenly occurred to him that most people who stumbled into the
Dark Realm never returned to the living—and he had too much to live
for to be so careless.
“In that case, is
there something I can do for you?”
“Surreal wants
whatever family information you can find about
Falonar.”
“That might take a
little while, but I should be able to tell you something from the
registers,” Geoffrey said. “Eat your meal while it’s hot.” When he
reached the door, he stopped and turned back. “Pondering this
should keep you out of trouble for a while.”
As soon as Geoffrey
left the room, a large piece of parchment appeared above the
blackwood table, then drifted down to cover half the
surface.
Not exactly a map,
Daemon decided, feeling an excited chill. Two webs, one drawn in
black ink, the other in red. The center point was labeled “Ebon
Askavi” in his father’s handwriting.
He picked up the bowl
of soup and ate while he walked back and forth, studying the
markers. The Keep. SaDiablo Hall. The Khaldharon Run and the Blood
Run. The cildru dyathe’s island. The
Harpies’territory. The thirteen Gates. Not a map showing terrain or
boundaries. Not a map useful to anyone who couldn’t ride the Black
Winds, but he learned a great deal about Hell in the hour he spent
perusing that piece of parchment, including the locations of the
most benign and most dangerous sections of the Dark
Realm.
Then the parchment
vanished, the door opened, and Geoffrey returned.
“I found some
information that might be of interest to you,” Geoffrey said. “You
can review the material in the private section of the library. Then
you will go home.”
Daemon let out a huff
of laughter. “I guess I overstepped a few boundaries. Are you going
to mention this to my father?”
“That you’re looking
into Falonar’s bloodlines? Why should I?”
Messages received and understood, Daemon thought as
he and Geoffrey went to the private section of the
library.
Geoffrey hadn’t shown
him that parchment because he was the High Lord’s son. Geoffrey had
shown him that parchment because he was the High Lord’s
heir.