Anne Bishop - Queen of Darkness

A shadow fell across the bangles.

He looked up into Daemon’s glazed eyes.

”It’s time to dance,” Daemon crooned.

He might have said something, but he could smell Hekatah nearby. So he let Daemon lead him into the prison hut, said nothing while he was tied to the bed.

When Daemon stretched out beside him, he whispered, ”When does the game end?”

Daemon tensed, swallowed hard. ”In a couple more hours,” he said, keeping his voice low. ”At midnight.” He laid a hand gently on Saetan’s chest. ”Nothing’s going to happen. Just-”

They both heard someone brush against the door, both knew who was listening.

Saetan shook his head. Everything has a price. ”Make it convincing, Daemon,” he whispered.

He saw the sick resignation and the apology in Daemon’s eyes before his son kissed him.

And he learned why the Blood called Daemon the Sadist.

Saetan lay on his side, staring at the wall.

Daemon had actually done very little. Very little. But he’d managed to convince that bitch who had hovered outside the door that a son was raping his own father without actually doing anything that would prevent either of them from being able to look the other in the eye. A rather impressive display of skill.

And very brief. He’d been concerned about that, but when Daemon walked out of the hut, he’d heard a murmured comment and Hekatah’s delighted, abrasive laugh.

So, while Daemon continued to prowl and keep the camp on edge, he’d had time to rest, to gather his strength, to think.

The game ended at midnight. What was the significance of midnight? Well, it was called the witching hour, that moment suspended between one day and the next. And it would be seventy-two hours from the time Daemon appeared in the camp.

Saetan jerked upright. Seventy-two hours.

Confined to a sitting room in the Keep, he had paced. ”From sunset to sunrise. That’s how long an Offering takes. For the White, for the Black, that’s how long it takes.”

”For the Prince of the Darkness,” Tersa had said as she pushed around the pieces of a puzzle. ”But for the Queen?”

When Jaenelle had made the Offering to the Darkness, it had taken her three days. Seventy-two hours.

”Mother Night,” he whispered, shifting into a sitting position.

The door opened. Daemon rushed in and dropped a bundle of clothing on the bed.

Before Saetan could say anything, one of Daemon’s hands was clamped behind his head and the other was holding a cup to his lips, pouring warm liquid down his throat. He had no choice but to swallow or choke. He swallowed. A moment later, he wished he had choked.

”Hell’s fire, what did you just give me?” he gasped as he bent over and pressed his forehead to his knees.

”A tonic,” Daemon said, vigorously rubbing Saetan’s back.

”Stop that,” Saetan snapped. He turned his head just enough to glare at Daemon. ”Whose tonic?”

”Jaenelle’s-with my blood added.”

Saetan swore softly, viciously, with great sincerity.

Daemon winced and muttered, ”She said it would kick like two teams of draft horses.”

”Only someone who’s never had to drink one of these little tonics would describe it that mildly.”

Daemon went down on his knees in front of Saetan and busily undid the chains. ”I couldn’t search for your clothes, so I brought you these. They should fit well enough.”

Saetan gritted his teeth as Daemon massaged his legs and feet. ”Where did you get them?”

”Off a guard. He won’t be needing them.”

”Damn things probably have lice.”

”Deal with it,” Daemon growled. Taking a ball of clay out of his jacket pocket, he rolled it into a stubby cylinder, then carefully forced the Ring of Obedience to open enough to slide off Saetan’s organ. It clamped down on the clay with the same viciousness it had clamped down on flesh.

Setting the cylinder on the bed, Daemon glanced at Saetan’s organ and sucked in a breath.

”It doesn’t matter,” Saetan said quietly. ”I’m a Guardian. I’m past that part of my life.”

”But-” Daemon pressed his lips together. ”Get these on.” After helping Saetan into the trousers, he knelt again to deal with the socks and boots. ”It’s almost midnight. We’ll be cutting it close since we’ve got to cover a bit of ground in order to reach the nearest strand of the Winds. But in a few more hours, we’ll be at the Keep. We’ll be home.”

The desperate eagerness in Daemon’s eyes tore the veil off the vision.

Two webs. One moldy, tainted. The other beautiful, full of shining beads of power.

She had found a way to separate those who lived by the ways of the Blood from those who had been perverted by Hekatah and Dorothea.

But the third web.

She was a Queen, and a Queen wouldn’t ask for what she herself wouldn’t give. And perhaps it was also the only selfish thing she’d ever done. By sacrificing herself, she wouldn’t have to carry the burden of all the lives she was about to destroy. But…

He doesn’t know. You didn’t tell him. He came here expecting you to be waiting for him when he got back. Oh, witch-child.

Which is why she had asked him to take care of Daemon, why she had known he would need to.

Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe there was still a way to stop it, to stop her.

”Let’s go,” he said abruptly.

Daemon put a sight shield over both of them, and they slipped away from the camp.

By the time they reached the place where they could catch the Winds, a cold, sharp wind had begun to blow.

Saetan stopped, drew a breath through his mouth, tasted the air.

”It’s just the wind,” Daemon said.

”No,” Saetan replied grimly, ”it’s not. Let’s go.”

Two hours later, Hekatah burst into Dorothea’s cabin, waving a stubby clay cylinder. ”We’ve been tricked. They’re all gone. That thing in the prison hut isn’t Lucivar, it’s some kind of illusion. And Saetan …” She hurled the cylinder across the room. ”That bastard Sadi lied to us.”

Lying on the floor where she’d been all day, Dorothea stared at Hekatah. As her bowels released more bloody flux, she started to laugh.

A storm had been gathering all night-thunder, lightning, wind. Now, as dawn approached, the wind had turned fierce, sounding almost as if it had a voice. ”Come,” Tersa said, helping Karla over to a couch. ”You must lie down now. Morghann, come over here and lie on the floor.”

”What’s going on?” Khardeen asked as Morghann obediently lay down on the floor near the couch. He retrieved a pillow and slipped it under his wife’s head.

”It would be better for all of you to sit on the floor. Even the Keep will feel this storm.”

The First Circle glanced at each other uneasily and obeyed.

”What is it?” Karla asked when Tersa placed an arm protectively over her and rested the other hand on Morghann’s shoulder.

”The day has come for the debts to be called in and for the Blood to answer for what they’ve become.”

”I don’t understand,” Karla said. ”What does the storm mean?”

Lightning flashed. The wind howled.

Tersa closed her eyes-and smiled. ”She is coming.”

He’d cut it too close. He hadn’t expected the ride on the Winds to be that rough or that Saetan’s physical endurance would give out so fast-or his own. They’d had to drop from the Red Wind to the Sapphire and finally, on the last part of the journey, down to the Green.

They couldn’t land at the Keep itself. Some kind of shields had come down all around the place. So he’d homed in on Lucivar’s Ebon-gray Jewel-and the one small place in the shields that Lucivar was using his Jewels to keep open-and dropped them from the Winds as close as he could. It hadn’t been close enough, not for two exhausted men trying to scramble up a steep mountain path.