Shalador's Lady (19 page)

“Why do you ask?”

Her voice—that midnight, sepulchral, lightning-filled voice—ripped icy claws down his spine.

And not just his spine, Daemon thought as he put down his knife and fork. There were ice crystals on his food, and the water in the glass was frozen solid. And when he looked up, the sapphire eyes staring at him were filled with cold rage.

Mother Night.

“I asked a simple question, Lady,” he said, keeping his own voice quiet and respectful.

“She is someone who will never be a guest in this house if you want me to continue living here,” Witch replied.

Had Surreal guessed this would be Jaenelle’s reaction? A little more warning would have been appreciated.

“Hell’s fire, Jaenelle, who is she?”

“She’s the Queen who took Cassie’s court.”

“Then . . .” Oh, shit.

“Why are you asking about Kermilla, Prince?”

The look in her eyes and the lethal purr in her voice made him put a double Black shield around himself before he said, “She’s in Dena Nehele, staying at the Grayhaven estate.”

Daemon removed his shoes and socks. He checked one foot, then the other. He didn’t respond to the knock on his study door, but the door opened anyway. Jaenelle walked in, carrying a large tray.

“What are you doing?” she asked, sounding contrite.

“Counting my toes.”

A pause. “They’re all there, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” Thank the Darkness.

She set the tray down on the low table in front of the sofa, then sat close to him. But not next to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t usually lose my temper like that.”

No, she didn’t. Her response was so fast and so fierce . . . Well, even a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince can have the shit scared out of him—especially when one moment he was sitting at a large blackwood dining table and the next he was surrounded by a table, chairs, dishes, silverware, glasses, and food that had all been reduced to a pile of uniform pieces no bigger than grains of rice.

It wasn’t the table exploding that upset him. It was the uniformity of the debris that was proof of the depth of her rage. And that rage, and whatever blend of power she had been channeling through Twilight’s Dawn at that moment, had been strong enough to crack his outermost Black shield.

That was something he needed to talk to Lucivar about. Soon.

“You were wrapped in a double Black shield,” Jaenelle said. “I didn’t think you would get hurt.”

“That’s not the point.” Now that he’d gotten over the shock of it, her slash of temper was starting to piss him off. But he leashed that because there had to be a reason for this. Jaenelle didn’t explode like that as some kind of twisted entertainment. And the strength of her reaction got him thinking.

He rubbed his forehead to ease the headache building behind his eyes, then shifted and turned so he was close to her.

“Queens lose men or courts to rivals all the time. And even though Cassidy is a friend and losing her court did leave her bruised, that doesn’t equal your rage. If Cassidy doesn’t have enough spine to tell Kermilla to take a piss in the wind, then she’d better acquire some. From everything Surreal and Rainier told me, her court is becoming a solid team committed to their Queen.”

“All of them?” Jaenelle asked softly.

“Except Theran Grayhaven.” He brushed fingertips over her shoulder. “Jaenelle, what aren’t you telling me?”

Those sapphire eyes studied him. “There is nothing you can do about this. Neither of us have any right to interfere in this. Is that understood?”

Oh, he didn’t like the sound of that. “Maybe.”

“I spun a tangled web after Cassidy discovered the treasure in the Grayhaven attics. I wasn’t going to share what I saw with anyone, but I owe you that as an explanation for how I reacted.”

Sweet Darkness. A tangled web. Dreams and visions.

“All right.”

“Dena Nehele is going to fall.”

He closed his eyes. Why now, when they had survived everything Dorothea SaDiablo had done to them?

“Because Kermilla went there?”

“More because Kermilla is still there.”

“I can bury the bitch,” he said too softly, opening his eyes to stare into hers. “I’ll go to Terreille, no matter the price, and bury the bitch if that’s what you want. Or I’ll let Surreal go. She’d be willing.”

“No.” Her fingers brushed through his hair, soothing. “It’s up to them now. Their decisions. Their choices.

Sorrow and joy, Daemon. There is sorrow and joy in what I saw.”

How can there be joy? But he trusted her, and if she said there could be joy in Dena Nehele’s fall, he would believe her.

“So there is nothing we can do for them,” he said, making it a statement rather than a question.

“We can’t interfere with another Queen’s Territory. That would violate Blood law and our code of honor.

But that doesn’t mean there is nothing we can do. In fact, I’ve already helped make arrangements for a couple of things.”

“How is that different from interfering?”

“In the first instance, I gave only the help requested by someone living in Dena Nehele. In the second, I’m simply making available something I think Cassie and her court will find useful. What they do with the material is up to them.”

“That sounds intriguing.” He looked at the food on the tray. “Why don’t we eat the soup while it’s hot, and you can tell me all about it?”

“P
rince Theran,” Dryden said. “There are some Ladies here to see the Queen.”

Theran tried to relax his jaw. He’d spent the morning gritting his teeth as he waded through all the crap the Steward should be doing. He was going to have to hire someone to deal with the paperwork—and complaints—until he could get a new court established. Of course, hiring someone meant paying wages, and he still had to figure out how much income he would get from the tithe and what part of that was already committed to paying the guards who protected the town and its citizens. Now that Cassidy was no longer in residence, he also had to figure out if the servants could be paid out of the tithe or if he’d have to pay their wages out of the Grayhaven inheritance.

“What Ladies?” he growled. “Why are they here to see Kermilla?”

“They are Queens. They do not wish to offer their names or where they live, and as a courtesy to them, I did not press for that information. They said they received a letter from Lady Cassidy about some Craft the Queens can do to help increase the harvest. She offered to teach them.”

Hell’s fire. “Well, tell them . . .”

An opportunity. A chance for the other Queens to meet Kermilla—and a chance for Kermilla to show the Queens and, through them, the Warlord Princes that she had as much, if not more, to offer the people of Dena Nehele as Cassidy.

“Tell them Lady Kermilla and I will join them shortly.” Theran pushed away from the desk and the nagging paperwork.

He found Kermilla in the parlor, playing cards with Jhorma and two of the escorts.

“Oh, la. You must be cheating, Jhorma,” Kermilla said, throwing down her cards.

“I’m not cheating,” Jhorma replied with tight courtesy.

“You must be! I haven’t won anything in the last six hands!”

After playing cards with them a couple of times, Theran realized Jhorma cheated in order to ensure she did win a few hands. The man must not be in an accommodating mood today.

“Kermilla, I need your help for an hour or so,” Theran said, glad he could offer an interruption. A display of bad temper was exactly what they didn’t need with other Queens in the mansion.

“I might as well help you,” Kermilla said, leaving the table. “Jhorma isn’t being any fun.”

Good, Theran thought. He wasn’t sure how to approach a Queen to find out if she wanted to have sex, but if her Consort wasn’t entertaining her sufficiently, Kermilla might be receptive to another man’s interest.

She slipped her arm through his as he led her from the room. “Are we going to a party or one of those quaint outdoor concerts?” Her laugh tinkled through the hallway. “I don’t mean to make fun but, la, the musicians aren’t very good.”

He tried not to wince. There wasn’t much in the town that could entertain a vivacious young woman who was used to finer amusements. Since Cassidy had been so keen to attend one of the outdoor concerts, he’d figured Kermilla would enjoy going to one.

That evening only emphasized the differences between the two women. Kermilla might be younger, but she was far more aristo and sophisticated. Which made it difficult when the town, and the remaining aristo families, had so little to offer.

“No, this is something else,” Theran said. “Some Queens have arrived to learn that Queen’s Craft of using power to enrich the land.”

Kermilla rolled her eyes. “Oh. That. Every Queen knows how to do that.”

“No, they don’t. The Queens here have forgotten. They need someone to lead them, to teach them.”

She gave him a sexy pout that always made him wonder what her mouth would taste like, but there wasn’t time for distractions.

“Cassidy offered to show them,” Theran said.

“Then let Cassidy show them,” Kermilla snapped. “She always liked digging in the dirt.”

Theran hesitated. He couldn’t make promises, couldn’t give her assurances yet, but he could hint strongly enough that she wouldn’t mistake his meaning. Not after the other hints he’d given her.

“A Territory Queen needs to be a strong leader, needs to teach the skills that will benefit the people.” He stopped walking and looked at her intently so she would understand this was important. “When Cassidy’s contract ends next spring, the Warlord Princes will need to select another Queen to rule Dena Nehele.

They’ll take the opinions and preferences of the Queens who are here today into account.”

He waited.

Several seconds later, her eyes widened. “Oh. I see. Well then, since Cassidy isn’t here to perform her duties, I will be happy to assist you, Theran. It would be a shame if my Sisters made a journey here for nothing.”

He smiled, relieved. “Exactly.”

Surreal took his face between her hands and smiled. “You have a penis, and it makes you strange. Try not to be an ass on top of it.”

“I’m not an ass,” Gray muttered as he watched Cassidy explain to another group of Queens the different ways of using their power to enhance the crops in a field.

“Are you still snarling about that?” Ranon asked, also keeping close watch.

“You’d be snarling too if she’d said it to you.”

“Probably,” Ranon replied, smiling. Then he sighed. Gray heard so much relief in that sound.

“Last one,” Gray said. “Then we can go home.”

They had fought it out for hours after Surreal and Rainier left. Powell had tried to keep things courteous, but it felt like yelling was the only way to bridge the gap between what Cassie wanted to do and what the court was willing to let her do.

In the end, neither side was happy, but the compromise was something they could all live with.

Thirty villages in five days, spread over the three Shalador reserves and the two southernmost Provinces.

Fifteen Blood and fifteen landen. Cassie had insisted that the landens be included. Every man had been opposed to that—until Vae nipped Ranon in the ass. So Cassie, backed by Vae’s teeth, had won that part of the argument.

Gray hadn’t fought in the landen uprising. Hadn’t seen the bodies in the burned villages. Hadn’t found what was left of people he’d loved. But he understood why the other men had argued. It had been hard for the Warlord Princes especially to watch Cassie open a vein and fill that small offering cup to benefit landens.

But after the first landen village, they all understood why she had fought to do this. The landens were hostile and wary—and sure that a Queen’s presence meant pain. Mother Night, the looks on their faces when they realized Cassie and the Queens who came with her were doing something that would benefit their village and increase their crops so they could pay the tithe and still feed their children through the coming winter.

“You can’t erase generations of suffering and two years of war in a couple of hours,” Ranon said quietly.

“But, sweet Darkness, Gray, the people in this village won’t look at the Blood the same way the next time we ride in.”

Because of the Queen with hazel eyes and sunset hair.

The Queens walked the field, dipping into the barrels of water that floated behind them and sprinkling the ground with water enhanced with their blood and power. First and last plant in each row got a dipper full of water. Gray could already see a difference in the first rows that had been given the Queens’ touch.

A gift. A part of what it meant to be a Queen. The ritual cup of blood made the water richer and nourished the land faster, but power alone could be released into the water or directly into the land. The results weren’t as dramatic, but it was less physically demanding for the Queen and something they could do often without endangering themselves.

Learning about that option had almost started another quarrel between him and Cassie over her first careless release of power. Probably just as well that Surreal and Rainier had already gone home before he found out about it.