Dreams Made Flesh (5 page)

But she still wished for something better.

Blinking back tears…and telling herself it was the wind that created them…she looked up… and saw the Black Mountain in the distance.

Ebon Askavi. The Keep. Rumors had been flying recently that there was a Queen there now…a powerful, terrible, Black-Jeweled Queen. But no one had actually seen her. No one could say for certain.

She paused, moving her wings to hover, unable to look away from that mountain.

Unable to shake the feeling that something was aware of her, watching her. From that mountain.

Heart pounding, she shook her head to pull her gaze away from the Keep, folded her wings, and did a fast dive toward the woods in the valley. She was an unimportant hearth witch. There was no reason for anyone to look in her direction.

Unless it had something to do with the envelope her father wanted delivered to a messenger without the court he served in being aware of it.

Pulling out of the dive, she glided to the edge of the woods, then backwinged to land lightly on the path. She'd deliver the envelope and go home. Once she was safely back in her mother's kitchen, she'd convince herself that the uneasiness growing in her was her own doing, that there wasn't something in the woods that made her want to turn and run, that she wasn't sensing ripples of dark power far, far, far below the strength of her Purple Dusk Jewel…ripples of power that were rising up from the abyss and coming toward her.

She kept to a fast walk, afraid to run because that would incite a predator's instinct to hunt. And there were predators out there, somewhere. She was certain of it.

She'd almost reached the other end of the small woods when an Eyrien Warlord stepped out of the trees and spread his wings to block the path. Four other Warlords stepped out of the trees behind her.

"You have a message for me?" the first Warlord asked.

They were all wearing clothes that were old but of good quality. The kind of quality only aristo families could afford. That didn't make her feel easier.

"Well?" he demanded.

Calling in the envelope, she walked toward him until she was close enough to hand him the envelope by extending her arm its full length.

He snatched it from her, tore it open, read the first page quickly, then tossed all of it aside. When he looked at her, his smile was amused and cruel.

"The message wasn't meant for you?" Marian said, backing away from him.

"Oh, it was for me. You're the payment, witchling."

"I… I don't understand."

"You don't have to."

She felt the other men moving closer, surrounding her. "If you hurt me, my father…"

The Warlord laughed, a vicious sound. "He sent you here, didn't he? He knew well enough what's going to happen. But nobody is going to miss the likes of you."

She leaped skyward. There wasn't much room to maneuver under the trees, but she was only a few wingstrokes away from open land…and open sky. If she could get past the Warlords, she might be able to stay ahead of them long enough to catch one of the Winds and… head where?

The Black Mountain. If she could reach the Keep, she could beg for sanctuary, and the Warlords couldn't hurt her.

She'd almost reached the open land when she heard the crack of a whip, felt the leather cut her skin as it wrapped around her ankle. They hauled her back under the cover of the trees…and they were on her, flying around her, letting her flail and struggle and try to fly while their knives and war blades sliced her. Blood flowed from dozens of shallow cuts. When they sliced her wings, she managed a rough landing, but there was nowhere to run, no way to escape.

Ripples of dark power coming closer. Closer.

"Help me!" she screamed. "Please! Help me!"

Laughing, the Warlords grabbed her arms and legs and flipped her over on her back, holding her down. The fifth man dropped to his knees between her legs and ripped her torn, bloody clothes to expose her.

"Hurry up," another Warlord said, "or the bitch will bleed out before we all have a chance to use her."

"She'll last long enough," the Warlord kneeling between her legs replied as he opened his trousers.

No, Marian thought. No.

"You want to play with a witch?" a midnight voice said quietly. "Then play with me."

The last thing Marian saw before her vision blurred was the fear on the face of the Warlord in front of her. Then a wave of freezing black rage washed over her, pulling her under. She thought she heard muted screams of agony and terror, then the sounds were gone. Everything was gone…

…until she felt a hand close over hers, felt power that wasn't hers flowing into her. She forced her eyes open and stared at the golden-haired, sapphire-eyed woman kneeling beside her. Stared at the Black Jewel that hung from a chain around the woman's neck.

"You're the Queen," Marian said, barely able to draw enough breath to shape the words.

"Yes, I'm the Queen," the woman replied.

"I don't want to die."

"Then don't." The woman placed her other hand on Marian's forehead.

The dark power closed in around her again, but it was warm now, gentle, a cocoon of soft blankets. Power not her own kept her heart beating, kept her lungs moving.

Her last thought before she surrendered to it was, I've seen the Queen of Ebon Askavi.

As soon as Saetan stepped through the Gate, he knew Jaenelle wasn't in the Keep in Terreille. A moment later, when her psychic scent flooded the corridors, he knew she'd returned…and the control on his temper frayed a bit more.

That she was his Queen didn't matter. That her power eclipsed his didn't matter.

By the time he was done explaining things, his Lady would be in no doubt about how her Steward felt about her entering Terreille, which was the enemy's territory, without even one escort going with her.

Then he stepped out of the room that held the Dark Altar and saw her moving toward him, one hand under the blankets wrapped around…

He smelled the blood, noted the dangerous, feral look in Jaenelle's eyes, and felt the heat of his temper chill to cold rage as he rose to the killing edge.

Jaenelle stopped in front of him. She said nothing while he carefully pulled aside a part of the blankets and looked at the young Eyrien woman, while he studied the torn clothing and the slices in her skin that still seeped blood despite the healing web he sensed Jaenelle weaving around her.

"Why?" he asked.

Jaenelle turned her head. "Ask them."

Five bodies appeared in the hallway. Saetan used Craft to probe the bodies. He felt equally chilled by and approving of what Jaenelle had done. From neck to toes, the bones of the Eyrien males had been crushed into small pebbles, making the bodies look like oddly shaped sacks. The muscles and internal organs had been ripped apart, as if claws had slipped beneath the skin, leaving it untouched while they tore through everything else in long, leisurely strokes. Which, he imagined, is exactly what she'd done. And for the few seconds it took her to do it, the pain would have been exquisite…

He looked at the Eyrien woman.

…but not enough to pay the debt.

"This is what you saw in the tangled web last night?" he asked too softly.

"I saw emptiness where something bright and joyful should have been. I saw happiness wither like a plant that couldn't find the right soil to take root in. And I saw the terrace where I was standing at dawn, but it was empty…a warning that my presence, or absence, would make the difference in what would come."

"I see." He looked at the bodies again. "Now I understand what kind of expertise you need from me."

Jaenelle nodded."Find out why this happened, High Lord… and settle the debt."

"It will be a pleasure, Lady."

He stepped back, watched her hurry into the room that held the Dark Altar and the Gate that would take her and the woman to Kaeleer.

He waited a few minutes, studying the bodies that flopped in unnatural positions.

Then he raised his right hand. His Black-Jeweled ring flashed with the reservoir of power it held. The bodies rose from the floor and floated toward him.Turning, he walked back to the Dark Altar, lit the four black candles in the candelabra in the proper sequence, and walked through the misty Gate, the bodies floating behind him.

When he walked out of the Gate, he felt the difference between this Realm and the two Realms that belonged to the living. Hell was the land of the demon-dead Blood who still had too much power even after the body's death to return to the Darkness. A cold, ever-twilight Realm. He'd begun ruling here while he still walked among the living. He'd been ruling the Dark Realm ever since.

Turning to look at the bodies floating behind him, he smiled a cold, cruel smile.

He accepted that executions were sometimes necessary, and he performed them with exacting skill when duty required it of him. He'd never developed a taste for them, but he suspected finishing what Jaenelle had begun was truly going to be a pleasure.

Walking through the corridors of the Keep, he went to the closest landing web, caught the Black Wind, and took the five bodies with him to the Hall he'd built in this Realm. There, he would have everything he needed to make sure the debt owed to the Eyrien woman was paid in full.

The sun had set by the time Saetan returned to the Keep in Kaeleer and entered Jaenelle's suite of rooms. She was on the couch in her sitting room, reading one of those romances that was as close as she was willing to get when it came to experiencing intimacy with a man. With Lucivar as her First Escort, she didn't need a man just to fill the position of Consort, and when Daemon finally …

He wouldn't allow himself to travel down that road. He would defend Jaenelle's choice not to have a Consort…and he would hope that, with the right man, someday her interest in sex would go beyond the pages of a book.

Jaenelle closed the book and looked at him with sapphire eyes that still held a touch of feral rage. His daughter hadn't come back yet. Not completely. He was still dealing with Witch…and his Queen…and he needed to tread carefully.

"How is the woman?" he asked quietly.

"Marian will be all right," Jaenelle replied just as quietly.

Marian. Saetan tightened the chain on his temper. The bastards hadn't known her name, hadn't cared who she was. Finishing the kill shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes for each of them. It was why they'd done it that had spurred him to prolong their suffering with a viciousness that wasn't a side of himself that usually surfaced. But they had deserved everything he'd done after he helped them make the transition to demon-dead…and then proceeded to rip their minds apart before he drained what was left of their psychic power, finishing the kill so they could become a whisper in the Darkness.

"She lost a lot of blood," Jaenelle continued, "but all the wounds were shallow.

Her wings were sliced in several places, but they were easily repaired. A couple of days of bed rest and good food will rebuild her strength. There won't be any permanent damage to her body."

Yes, Jaenelle would make the distinction between body and heart. Her body had healed from the brutal rape that had almost destroyed her when she was twelve years old, but she carried the emotional scars… and always would.

"Have you eaten?" Saetan asked, noticing the decanter of yarbarah on the table in front of the couch.

When she gave him a wary smile, he knew his daughter was back.

"I was waiting for you." Shifting her legs, Jaenelle poured a glass of yarbarah, warmed it over a tongue of witchfire, and offered it to him.

Accepting the glass, he sat on the couch, and tipped his head to read the title of the book between them. "Are you going to loan that to me when you're done?"

"Why?"

Oh, yes. His daughter was back. "A father should be aware of his children's interests."

"Then why don't you ask Lucivar what he's reading?"

"Because Lucivar rarely picks up a book, let alone reads any of it. If he showed an interest in one, any comment from me would more than likely embarrass him into putting it down and not picking up another for at least a decade."

"You could point out some of the stories have sex in them,"Jaenelle said.

A topic his son found even less interesting than his daughter did.

A quiet chime sounded. Moments later the small table on one side of the sitting room held a basket of fresh bread, a small bowl of whipped butter, and two steaming bowls of soup.

Grateful for the interruption, Saetan offered his hand and led Jaenelle to the table.

As a Guardian, he really didn't need more than yarbarah and a token amount of fresh blood once in a while, but he could eat and enjoy food again, thanks to the tonics Jaenelle made for him, and she'd eat more if someone joined her than she would alone.

She settled into her meal with a healthy appetite that relieved him… and enforced the decision not to tell her why Marian had been attacked by those five Eyrien males unless she specifically asked him.

They'd finished the soup and were halfway through the prime rib that followed before Jaenelle spoke again.

"I was thinking," she said with enough hesitation to make him watch her sharply.

"If Marian doesn't want to return to Askavi in Terreille, she'll need a place to stay.

So I was thinking she could stay with Luthvian for a while. Help out a little with small hearth-Craft things while she regains her strength."

"Why Luthvian?" Saetan asked, keeping his voice painfully neutral.

"She's the only Eyrien female in Ebon Rih. She could help Marian adjust to living here. And she's a Healer, so she could keep an eye on how well Marian is recovering."

He focused his attention on his meal, biting back all the comments that were ready to spill out if he wasn't careful. His relationship with Luthvian, who was Lucivar's mother, was too tangled and adversarial, and any response he made would reflect that. But he understood why Jaenelle would think staying with another woman would be easier for Marian right now, and she could be right. So he offered no opinion.

"If it doesn't work, I'll find another place for her," Jaenelle said.