Anne Bishop - Heir to the Shadows

"Quite a collection," he finally said, placing the last book

carefully on its stack. "What are those?" He pointed to the three books half-hidden under brown paper.

Blushing, Jaenelle mumbled, "Just books."

Saetan raised an eyebrow and waited.

With a resigned sigh, Jaenelle reached under the brown paper and thrust a book at him.

Odd. Sylvia had reacted much the same way when he'd called unexpectedly one evening and found her reading the same book. She hadn't heard him come in, and when she finally did glance up and notice him, she immediately stuffed the book behind a pillow and gave him the strong impression it would take an army to pull her away from her book-hiding pillow and nothing less would make her surrender it.

"It's a romantic novel," Jaenelle said in a small voice as he called in his half-moon glasses and started idly flipping the pages. "A couple of women in a bookseller's shop kept talking about it."

Romance. Passion. Sex.

He suppressed – barely – the urge to leap to his feet and twirl her around the room. A sign of emotional healing? Please, sweet Darkness, please let it be a sign of healing.

"You think it's silly." Her tone was defensive.

"Romance is never silly, witch-child. Well, sometimes it's silly, but not silly." He flipped more pages. "Besides, I used to read things like this. They were an important part of my education."

Jaenelle gaped at him. "Really?"

"Mmm. Of course, they were a bit more-" He scanned a page. He carefully closed the book. "Then again, maybe not." He removed his glasses and vanished them before they steamed up.

Jaenelle nervously fluffed her hair. "Papa, if I have any questions about things, would you be willing to answer them?"

"Of course, witch-child. I'll give you whatever help you want in Craft or your other subjects."

"Nooo. I meant. ." She glanced at the book in front of him.

Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be mer-

ciful. The whole prospect filled him with delight and dread. Delight because he might be able to help her paint a different emotional canvas that would, he hoped balance the wounds the rape had caused. Dread because, no matter how knowledgeable he was about any subject, Jaenelle always viewed things from an angle totally outside his experience.

Menzar's thoughts, Menzar's imaginings flooded his mind again.

Saetan closed his eyes, fought to stop the images.

"He hurt you."

His body reacted to the midnight, sepulchral voice, to the instant chill in the room. "I was the one performing the execution, Lady. He's the one who is very, very dead."

The room got colder. The silence was more than silence.

"Did he suffer?" she asked too softly.

Mist. Darkness streaked with lightning. The edge of the abyss was very close and the ground was swiftly crumbling beneath his feet.

"Yes, he suffered."

She considered his answer. "Not enough," she finally said, getting to her feet.

Numbed, Saetan stared at the hand stretched toward him. Not enough? What had her Chaillot relatives done to her that she had no regrets about killing? Even he regretted taking a life.

"Come with me, Saetan." She watched him with her ancient, haunted eyes, waiting for him to turn away from her.

Never. He grasped her hand, letting her pull him to his feet. He would never turn away from her.

But he couldn't deny the shiver down his spine as he followed her to the music room that was on the same floor as their suites. He couldn't deny the instinctive wariness when he saw that the only light in the room came from two freestanding candelabras on either side of the piano. Candles, not candlelights. Light that danced with every current of air, making the room look alien, sensual, and forbidding. The candles lit the piano keys and the music stand. The rest of the room belonged to the night.

Jaenelle called in a brown-paper package, opened it, and leafed through the music. "I found a lot of this tucked into back bins without any kind of preservation spell on them to protect them." She shook her head, annoyed, then handed him a sheet of music. "Can you play this?"

Saetan sat on the piano bench and opened the music. The paper was yellowed and fragile, the notation faded. Straining to see it in the flickering candlelight, he silently went through the piece, his fingers barely touching the keys. "I think I can get through it well enough."

Jaenelle stood behind one candelabra, becoming part of the shadows.

He played the introduction and stopped. Strange music. Unfamiliar and yet… He began again.

Her voice rose, a molten sound. It soared, dove, spiraled around the notes he was playing and his soul soared, dove, spiraled with her voice. A Song of Sorrow, Death, and Healing. In the Old Tongue. A song of grieving. . for both victims of an execution. Strange music. Soul-searing, heart-tearing, ancient, ancient music.

Witch song. No, more than that. The songs of Witch.

He didn't know when he stopped playing, when his shaking hands could no longer find the keys, when the tears blinded him. He was caught in that voice as it lanced the memory of the execution and left a clean-bleeding wound- and then healed that.

Mephis, you were right.

"Saetan?"

Saetan blinked away the tears and took a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry, witch-child. I… I wasn't prepared."

Jaenelle opened her arms.

He stumbled around the piano, aching for her clean, loving embrace. Menzar was a fresh scar on his soul, one that would be with him forever, like so many others, but he no longer feared to hold her, no longer doubted the kind of love he felt for her.

He stroked her hair for a long time before gathering his courage to ask, "How did you know about this music?"

She pressed her face deeper into his shoulder. Finally she whispered, "It's part of what I am."

He felt the beginning of an inward retreat, a protective distancing between himself and her.

No, my Queen. You say "It's part of what I am" with conviction, but your retreat screams your doubt of acceptance. That I will not permit.

He gently rapped her nose. "Do you know what else you are?"

"What?"

"A very tired little witch."

She started to laugh and had to stifle a yawn. "Since daylight is so draining for Mephis, we did most of our wandering after sunset, but I didn't want to waste the daytime sleeping, so. ." She yawned again.

"You did get some sleep, didn't you?"

"Mephis made me take naps," she grumbled. "He said it was the only way he'd get any rest. I didn't think demons needed to rest."

It was better not to answer that.

She was half-asleep by the time he guided her to her room. As he removed her shoes and socks, she assured him she was still awake enough to get ready for bed by herself and he didn't need to fuss. She was sound asleep before he reached her bedroom door.

He, on the other hand, was wide-awake and restless.

Letting himself out one of the Hall's back doors, Saetan wandered across the carefully trimmed lawn, down a short flight of wide stone steps, and followed the paths into the wilder gardens. Leaves whispered in the light breeze. A rabbit hopped across the path a body length in front of him, watchful but not terribly concerned.

"You should be more wary, fluffball," Saetan said softly. "You or some other member of your family has been eating Mrs. Beale's young beans. If you cross her path, you're going to end up the main dish one of these nights."

The rabbit swiveled its ears before disappearing under a fire bush.

Saetan brushed his fingers against the orange-red leaves. The fire bush was full of swollen buds almost ready to bloom. Soon it would be covered with yellow flowers, like flames rising above hot embers.