Anne Bishop: The Shadow Queen

Feeling the other presence in the corridor, he made sure the door was firmly shut and stepped away from it as Geoffrey, the Keep’s historian/librarian, dropped the sight shield that had kept him hidden.

“You heard?” Saetan asked.

“Since you left the door open, it was hard not to,” Geoffrey replied.

“See to the refreshments, will you? I’ll deal with the rest.”

Geoffrey raised a white-skinned hand. “Just one question. Who is that jumping jackass?”

Saetan rocked back on his heels. “Jumping jackass? What have you been reading?”

The other Guardian wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Saetan had seen over fifty thousand years. Geoffrey had been serving the Keep for much longer. The thought of discovering after all those years that Geoffrey’s choice of recreational reading leaned toward . . . Well, he wasn’t sure what category of fiction would use such a phrase, and he was almost afraid to ask anyone in order to find out. But the whole thing tickled him enough to push aside temper.

Which, from the look in Geoffrey’s black eyes, might have been the point.

“I’ll look after our guest,” Geoffrey said. “You look after your son.”

The thought of Daemon owing anyone in Terreille was enough to prick his temper again, but out of courtesy to Geoffrey, he kept that temper leashed until he opened the Gate between the Realms and walked into the Keep that existed in Kaeleer.

Daemon studied the food on the table.

He could breathe again. He hadn’t set foot in the thrice-cursed Realm of Terreille for two years—since he’d gone to Hayll to play out some savage games in order to give Jaenelle the time she’d needed to gather her strength and unleash all her dark power, cleansing the Realms of the Blood tainted by Dorothea and Hekatah SaDiablo.

Even here at the Keep, which was a protected sanctuary, he had felt the difference between Terreille and Kaeleer, had felt centuries of memories cling to him like cobwebby strands of pain and fear. When he’d lived in Terreille, he’d embraced the pain, and he’d met the fear by playing games that matched—or surpassed—the cruelty and viciousness that Dorothea had excelled in.

He’d survived seventeen centuries of slavery and cruelty—but not without a price. His body was unmarked; the scars he bore he carried in his mind and heart.

When he found Saetan in the library, he should have admitted his discomfort instead of trying to push it aside. He should have realized he could no more be in Terreille with his father than he could with his brother, Lucivar. Too many memories—and the last memories of them being in Hayll together still crawled through his dreams on occasion.

His father in that Hayllian camp, being tortured. His brother in that camp, being tortured. And he, in order to keep them alive and get them out, had been the cruelest torturer.

Daemon scrubbed his face with his hands and focused on the table. While he waited for Saetan to come back to this Realm, he needed to fix his mind on something else.

“So what do we have?” Thick slices of rare roast beef. A vegetable casserole. Crusty bread and whipped butter. And . . .

He lifted the cover off the last dish, raising an eyebrow at the puff of cold air that was released.

Two bowls filled with . . .

Daemon picked one up, gave it a thoughtful study, then picked up a spoon. Since it wasn’t anything he’d seen before, tasting it was the only way to figure out what it was.

He took a spoonful, then closed his eyes as the flavors melted on his tongue.

A sweetened cheese whipped into lightness. Little chunks of chocolate. Veins of raspberry sauce.

He opened his eyes and licked his lips. Then he studied the table once more. There were two bowls of the stuff, so one of them must be for him. What difference did it make if he ate it before the rest of the meal or after?

Pleased with the rationalization—in case one was needed—he dug in.

Whom was he going to have to bribe to get the recipe? And if he did get it, would he keep it to make himself, or would he offer to share it with Mrs. Beale, the large, rather terrifying witch who was his cook at SaDiablo Hall? Sharing a recipe like this might be a fair trade for her tolerating his putting in a small, additional kitchen for his personal use. So far the only reasons Mrs. Beale hadn’t declared outright war on this affront to her domestic territory were (1) he owned the Hall; (2) his Black Jewels outranked her Yellow Jewels by a considerable degree; and (3) technically, she worked for him.

None of which meant a damn thing to Mrs. Beale unless it was convenient for her to remember them.

And in a way, having Mrs. Beale challenge his authority and power was convenient for him too. Now that he was ruling the Territory of Dhemlan, he understood why Saetan had been so passive within his own home and allowed himself to be dominated at times by the people who worked for him.

The people in Dhemlan—or more accurately the Queens and their courts, who were the ones who had to answer to him directly—feared him. They had reason to fear him. The Black Jewels were a reservoir for the power that lived within him, a warning of the depth and potency of strength that could be turned against anyone he considered an enemy. But at home . . .

He’d been in places where everyone lived in constant, debilitating fear. He didn’t want to live in a place like that. He didn’t want to be the cause of that. Not in his home. Not with the people who worked for him.

And especially not with Jaenelle, the woman who was his life.

So he appreciated the game he played with Mrs. Beale, although, admittedly, she was a damn scary woman and his fear of her was not altogether feigned.

Rather like his father, come to think of it.

Lucivar was right. There was something cleansing—not to mention fun—about being able to throw yourself against a strong personality just to see what would happen, and to know you would come to no harm by doing it. It was a relief to be a son, to really be a son of a father who drew a firm line about some things and wouldn’t bend but who also had a fine understanding of when to be indulgent—or look the other way altogether.

A father who truly understood him.

He was just scraping the last of the treat out of the second bowl when that father thundered into the room.

Mother Night, Daemon thought, hastily vanishing both bowls.

“If you truly owe a favor to that little prick’s family, then we will pay the debt and be rid of him,” Saetan snarled. “Or I can send him to the bowels of Hell here and now.”

“What? Who?”

“The ill-mannered Warlord Prince who came to the Keep looking for someone? He’s looking for you. He says you owe his family a favor.”

Ice shivered in his veins, a prelude to his unsheathing the lethal blade of his temper. “Who?” he asked too softly.

“Theran. From Dena Nehele.”

Dena Nehele. A place he wouldn’t forget.

Daemon tightened the leash on his temper. “What does he look like?”

A light brush against the first of his inner barriers. When he opened that first level of his mind to his father, he saw the man. The same green eyes. The same sun-kissed skin. The same dark hair.

“Jared,” Daemon whispered.

Saetan shook his head. “He said his name was Theran.”

“The man I knew. Jared. This one has the look of him.”

He could feel Saetan reevaluating, making an effort to rein in his own formidable temper. “Do you owe them a favor?”

“Not exactly.”

Jared had left a written account of his journey with Lia while being pursued by Dorothea’s Master of the Guard. Within that account, which Jared had left at the Keep for Daemon, Jaenelle had found the answer to cleansing the taint from the Blood without destroying all of the Blood.