The Queen's Bargain Page 12

  Before he returned to his study to deal with more paperwork, Daemon wandered the Hall, checking on the shields that were woven into the building’s stones—protection for everyone living there against anyone foolish enough to launch an attack.

  All secure. And yet Surreal’s comment about having drained her Gray scratched at him. He’d have felt any spell or use of Craft that required that much power. Unless . . .

  Down and down and down through the cellars beneath the Hall until he came to the corridor that led to the door to his father’s private study. His private study now.

  Like Saetan, he was a Black Widow and had the snake tooth and venom sac beneath the ring finger of his right hand. Like Saetan, he had been trained in creating the Hourglass’s tangled webs of dreams and visions—and trained in the creation and use of poisons, although most of that knowledge he had acquired on his own.

  This study deep beneath the Hall was the place for the darker aspects of ruling Dhemlan and its people. It was the place for the creation of the darker kinds of Craft. It was not a place for weakened shields.

  His hand moved just above the stone walls on either side of the door. He hadn’t been down here for a while, hadn’t felt the need to visit the study. An error.

  Had Surreal thinned these shields for a reason, or had she chosen this part of the Hall because it was so out of the way that she thought using the shields here to drain the Gray would go unnoticed? It was tempting to follow her to the family estate she intended to visit and demand an answer, to ask why she was choosing this method of draining her Jewels instead of the personal contact he had offered. But he wouldn’t ask the question, wouldn’t demand an answer. Not until he figured out what was going wrong between them. For now . . .

  Black power flowed into the shields, replenishing them and wiping away all trace of the Gray. The next time Surreal came down here, she would realize he had discovered her secret. And he might discover one or two other things as well, based on what she did—or didn’t—say.

  * * *

  * * *

  Marian opened a secret drawer in the sewing cabinet Lucivar had given her when she’d still thought she was his housekeeper and nothing more. The cabinet held fabrics and skeins of yarn and all the other tools and supplies she used for the handcrafts and weaving that she enjoyed doing in her spare time.

  It also held a simple wooden box that contained Jaenelle Angelline’s last gift: a piece of a clear Jewel no bigger than her thumbnail. A special spell inside the Jewel made it look translucent black.

  “I made this for you, so don’t use it for anyone else,” Jaenelle said. “It won’t work for anyone else.”

  “What is it?” Marian asked, studying the Jewel.

  “It’s a healing spell. Put the Jewel in a mug and pour hot—not boiling—water over it. The hot water will release the spell. Let it steep for five minutes to release the whole spell and turn the water into a healing brew. Five minutes. No more. Time it carefully and make sure you drink all of it. This isn’t meant for something as simple as a head cold or a fever. It can be used only once, so keep it until you need it most. You’ll know when that day comes.”

  Marian lightly pressed a hand against her belly. Had Jaenelle seen this in a tangled web of dreams and visions? Had she known there would be complications from a birth that would occur years after she was gone?

  The pregnancy might not have happened. Lucivar had agreed to put aside the contraceptive brew because she’d wanted one more child, but this particular pregnancy might not have happened if he’d been away from home during that cycle of fertile days. A different pregnancy, a different outcome. And whatever Jaenelle had seen wouldn’t be more than a vision of what might have been.

  But Jaenelle had seen something, had known a day would come when something would go wrong inside Marian and had gifted her with a way to make things right.

  Was this the time? There were fewer and fewer days when she had the strength and energy to do more than take care of the baby. There were fewer and fewer nights when she wanted more from Lucivar than the warmth of his body and the unspoken assurance that she wasn’t facing this unknown illness alone.

  Was it time?

  “Don’t leave it too late, Marian.”

  Even when it took a while, women recovered from hard birthings. Maybe she was expecting too much from herself.

  Maybe she was afraid to make a choice because she didn’t know what to expect—and all Jaenelle could tell her was the healing would depend on why the spell was needed and would continue for as long as required. Which meant she might be bedridden for days, caught in whatever way the healing manifested.

  Was it time?

  Winsol was a few weeks away, a time of happiness and celebration. A time when the family gathered together. She didn’t want to shroud the Blood’s most important celebration with however the healing would manifest itself.

  “Admit it,” Marian whispered. “You’re scared. You don’t want this to be serious enough that you need Jaenelle’s gift.”

  She’d give her body a few more weeks to recover by itself. If she was still unwell after Winsol, she would use Jaenelle’s gift and make the healing brew—and hope that postponing this decision wasn’t going to be a fatal mistake.

  TWELVE

  Anticipating his father’s arrival, Dillon set the box of carefully wrapped gifts next to the trunk of clothes. He hadn’t been able to afford much and had spent more than he should have for these Winsol gifts.

  During the weeks leading up to Winsol, he had gone from one town to the next, reluctant to use the “if you loved me” spell on girls whose families couldn’t afford a decent payoff and might agree to a handfast because even a minor aristo would enhance their social standing. He couldn’t see himself spending a year with any of those girls—and their families. And the aristo girls he might have targeted for money looked at him like cats looked at mice—something to play with until it was too broken to be amusing.

  He’d ended up in a small village where he’d found work in a sweetshop, of all places, and had settled in to do some honest work. The owner of the shop, a Warlord heading into his twilight years, had been pleased by his enthusiasm and glad to have employed a young man who wanted to learn all aspects of the trade.

  Then the bitches found him. Not the girls from merchant families who had thought he was shy because he didn’t flirt. No, it was the bitches from the handful of aristo families in the village, who must have talked to someone who had talked to someone. Oh, the first couple of times they came in, they bought the chocolates and other sweets. Then they made it very clear to the owner that they expected to be able to buy something else as well—and if they couldn’t buy the services of that particular sweet, well, a shop depended on the perceived quality of its merchandise, didn’t it?

  He didn’t blame the owner for dismissing him. After all, one of the bitches was a second cousin to the District Queen who ruled that town. The owner couldn’t even lodge a complaint about a verbal threat when it would have been his word against an aristo’s. And for what? To defend a young man who might have been a good worker but whose reputation was already sullied?

  Now he was back to counting coppers and needing a new place to live. If the bitches had found him at the shop, it wouldn’t be long before they found his lodgings. Whether he opened the door or barricaded it against them, the result would be the same. He would be shunned by the other tenants, and the landlord would want him gone before a respectable place to live became smeared with a reputation for being a kind of brothel.

  A quiet knock. Dillon’s pulse raced until he recognized the psychic scent of the man on the other side of the door. Filled with relief, he rushed across the room. His father was here, responding to the letter he’d sent. He was going home for Winsol.

  He’d barely opened the door before his father slipped into the room.

  “Cold out t
here,” his father said.

  “Yes. Well, it’s Winsol.” Unease began to replace the relief when his father wouldn’t look him in the eyes. “Let me take your coat.”

  “No, no. I won’t be long.”

  “Of course. I’m all packed.”

  His father looked at the trunk and the box of gifts. “Ah.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m sorry, Dillon, but we can’t have you staying with us over Winsol.”

  The room spun once. “What?”

  “Some of our social engagements are with families of quality. Those are important connections for your brothers.”

  “All right.” Dillon swallowed bitterness. “I don’t have to attend any parties or—”

  “Just you being in the house might give some people the wrong idea.” His father’s voice took on a wheedling tone. “You understand.”

  “But it’s Winsol.” It wasn’t about going to parties. It was about taking quiet walks and being with family. “If I can’t come home, where am I supposed to go?”

  His father smiled sadly. “If it was my decision . . .”

  Except you haven’t made a decision in a lot of years, have you?

  “We have to think of your brothers,” his father added. “We have to protect their reputations.”

  Dillon felt something break inside him. Felt some part of himself die—and wanted to inflict an equal amount of pain.

  “Like father, like son,” he said quietly.

  His father looked puzzled—and nervous. “I don’t—”

  “I can count, Father. Early baby?” Dillon shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think my being born seven months after you married Mother proved to everyone that you were doing more than cuddling before the marriage contract was signed.”

  His father paled.

  “While it might have proved sufficient vigor to sire offspring, it also showed a lamentable lack of restraint.” Dillon smiled. “How much did your father pay her father to get that marriage contract signed so that your actions wouldn’t smear your brothers’ reputations?”

  “Now see here!”

  Bluster without power. Why hadn’t he realized that until now?

  “If a whisper were to start in certain circles that your moral weakness was a flaw you had passed on to your sons—all your sons—what do you think would happen to those promising invitations?”

  “You wouldn’t!” His father stared at him. “You would ruin your brothers?”

  “If you had stood up for me the way your father stood up for you, would we be having this discussion?”

  His father sputtered. Dillon smiled and waited.

  “You’re no son of mine.”

  He’d expected that verbal thrust and blamed the sentiments of the season for the words hurting so much. “In that case, sir, let’s discuss what your sons’ reputations are worth to you.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Dillon counted the gold marks. One thousand in the first envelope. That was the one his father had brought as “compensation” for his not being allowed to come home. The three thousand gold marks in the other envelope had arrived an hour ago. Which of his uncles had been tapped for the loan? Didn’t matter. His uncles had sons, too, and four thousand marks wasn’t a high price to pay to keep the reputations of all the males in the family from getting dirty. A scandal from a generation back shouldn’t have caused that much worry, so maybe his brothers and cousins weren’t quite as pristine as his father wanted him to believe.

  He’d find a quiet village and use a different name. He could be a young widower whose cherished wife had died after a swift illness that the Healer was unable to identify in time. He could take those quiet walks and avoid people. He could purchase a stack of books and spend his evenings reading. He could smile sadly when invited to participate in festivities. He could do that.

  And no one would wonder why he wore loneliness like a heavy cloak.

  * * *

  * * *

  Surreal stood beside Daemon as he listened to another Province Queen struggle to find things to say in order to keep his attention a little while longer. He gave no indication that he knew why these women were struggling or why women whom he’d been on good terms with a year ago now looked like they wished to do nothing but rub themselves against him.

  She could have told them to be careful of such wishes.

  Since the Province Queen had to deal with Daemon in his role as the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, she would be cautious. She would be wary. And she would wonder if the Prince was meting out some subtle form of punishment.

  Lately, Surreal wondered the same thing.

  Despite his insistence that the sexual heat was leashed, it continued to smother her, made her helpless and desperately needy—and resentful. An hour ago, he’d humiliated her by arousing her so fiercely that she’d come when he’d done nothing more than brush his fingertips across her palm. No matter how hard she’d tried to hide her response, she was sure everyone in the room had recognized what had happened. Some of the women might have thought it was terribly romantic to be so consumed by a lover, but it wasn’t romantic. Not anymore. Now it was just terrible. And the cruelest part was the baffled look he gave her, as if he didn’t know what he’d done.

  She hadn’t been paying attention to the words, but she heard the sharpness in Daemon’s reply and knew the Queen’s unwitting—and, most likely, unwilling—sexual interest had honed his temper.

  “Let’s dance,” she said abruptly, slipping her arm through his. “If you’ll excuse us, Lady?”

  “Of course.” The Province Queen looked relieved, as if she’d been pulled away from a steep cliff that had been crumbling beneath her.

  Surreal swore silently when she realized the dance was a waltz. Better for the rest of the people in the room—certainly safer for them—but a misery for her. Still, she smiled at the women who looked at her with envy and greed and ambition and let her smile say: Look at that beautiful face, that body. Listen to that voice so deep and dark and luxurious, and imagine what it’s like when he comes to your bed and whispers all the things he’ll do to you. You may look but never touch, because he’s mine. I won the prize, and I’m going to keep him.

  “Another hour should be enough to fulfill our official obligations, don’t you think?” Daemon asked as they moved with the other dancers.

  “It’s up to you.” She gave his face a quick study when he looked past her. “You all right, Sadi?”

  “I have a headache.”

  “That’s usually the woman’s excuse.” She wanted to kick herself when he looked at her, confused. “The clash of perfumes is making my head a bit achy too.”

  Maybe he wouldn’t want to sleep with her tonight. Did she want that when this need for him was building again?

  She’d loved him for decades—centuries, even—and had never thought she could have him as a lover. Had never expected to be Daemon Sadi’s wife.

  Lately, as she tried to endure this game he was playing, she didn’t know if she loved him or hated him. Sometimes she wondered what would happen if hate became the dominant emotion. After all, when she’d lived in Terreille, she had been a very good assassin and sex had always been the best bait.

  * * *

  * * *

  Karla studied the crystal chalice. It had been shattered twice and expertly repaired.

  More than repaired. It had been healed with a skill that no longer existed in the Realms. Oh, the seams between the individual pieces were still visible, were, in fact, filled with a hairline of power that didn’t come from anything as simple as the Black.

  “It can no longer hold what it was meant to hold. Not completely.”

  Karla looked over her shoulder and watched Tersa walk into her web of dreams and visions. She turned back to the chalice. “If it shatters . . .”

 
“He will fall into the Twisted Kingdom beyond reach,” Tersa said. “The Black gone mad will bring terror to the Realms.”

  “Will bring war.”

  Daemon Sadi, raging and insane, against armies of Warlords and Warlord Princes. And leading those armies . . .

  “The winged boy will not turn against his brother,” Tersa said. “Even if the boy falls, the winged boy will stand with him.”

  “Then may the Darkness have mercy on the living,” Karla replied. “And the dead.” Lucivar and Daemon at war with the rest of Kaeleer. The cost would be staggering. “There must be something we can do.”

  “Pain will lance the wound, but the blade isn’t sharp enough yet.”

  Tersa walked around the chalice, then studied the four leashes that were wrapped around posts at one end and secured to the chalice’s stem at the other. She pointed to something at the base of the chalice.

  Karla looked closely to find the pinprick hole. As she watched, a tiny bead of Black power oozed out of the hole, hung for a moment, then fell on one of the leashes. Thank the Darkness it wasn’t the leash braided with chain, but two of the other choices wouldn’t be much better.

  As she watched, the bead moved down the leash to the post. Or what should have been the post. What had been the post when she’d seen it in another vision not that long ago.

  Now that post looked bloated, and the leash, instead of giving Sadi some measure of control, was being covered, like a tree might grow over a wire wrapped around its trunk. Except the spillage, the excess . . .

  “He’s fighting to survive,” Tersa said.

  “I told him he was holding on too tight. I told him to relax his hold on that leash.” But when she’d said that in a dream, she hadn’t seen this. Hadn’t realized he was channeling Black power he couldn’t hold and transforming it into more sexual heat than anyone could want or need.