Twilight's Dawn dj-9 Read online

  He should have told Daemon about the visits. Maybe not when Daemon had first arrived in Kaeleer, since Sadi had had enough things to deal with, but he should have said something soon after, instead of having that nugget of information come out a few weeks ago while they were dealing with that damned spooky house that had been built to trap, and kill, some of their family. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t said anything. Maybe because he’d been afraid he would be asked to step aside? After all, Tersa was Daemon’s mother, not his, and when the real son was present, a surrogate wasn’t needed. Or maybe, like his father, he had gotten into the habit of not mentioning any relationship that would have given Luthvian an excuse to feel neglected or cast aside. Even now, when his mother was a whisper in the Darkness and truly gone, he had continued to keep his visits to Tersa private. Either way, by the time Daemon came to Kaeleer, the visits were a long-established habit that he didn’t discuss with anyone.

  “Do you want food?” Tersa asked. “There are some scrambled eggs and toast left. The boy made them.”

  In that case, he wasn’t going to refuse. No one made scrambled eggs better than Daemon—including his own darling hearth witch wife. Which was something he would never ever admit to anyone. Especially Marian.

  Since Allista hadn’t joined them, he figured she had already eaten or would fend for herself, so he got a fork out of the drawer, hefted the bowl, leaned a hip against the counter, and began to eat.

  “You should sit at the table,” Tersa said.

  “I can eat just fine where I am.” She looked like she was about to scold, so he added casually, “Did you eat?”

  “I ate.”

  He caught the hesitation before she answered. She would have eaten something. Daemon wouldn’t have left if she hadn’t. But she still had the skinniness of someone who had been half-starved for too many years, and even now, when there was plenty of food, she sometimes became too distracted by something only she could see and forgot to eat.

  So he never wasted an opportunity to feed her.

  Scooping up another forkful of scrambled eggs, he held it in front of her. “Open up.”

  Her mouth remained stubbornly shut.

  He sighed—but his eyes never left her face and his hand remained steady. “Am I going to have to embarrass myself by making funny noises like I do with Daemonar?”

  Her mouth fell open in surprise, and he slipped the fork in before she realized what he was doing.

  She scowled at him. He grinned at her. And prudently ate a couple of forkfuls of egg himself before offering her another.

  Tersa waved him off and got her own fork.

  They polished off the eggs—and he made her work to claim the last bite—then he finished off the toast while enjoying a mug of coffee.

  “Were you able to do it?” he asked as he rinsed off the dishes and set them in the sink.

  Tersa frowned at him. “I was able to do it, but . . .”

  Grinning, he wiped his hands on a towel. “Let’s see.”

  Using Craft, she called in a small wooden frame and set it at one end of the kitchen table. The carefully constructed web attached to the frame held the illusion spell. She triggered the illusion spell, and they watched as a small black beetle appeared and headed for the other end of the table. It grew and grew with every step. When it got as big as his palm, it burst open with enough gore and green goo to delight a small Eyrien boy.

  “You have the box?” Tersa asked.

  He called in the long wood-and-glass box he’d had made to hold the illusion web and keep the entire illusion contained. He valued his skin—and his marriage—enough to make sure the bug remained in the box.

  After she placed the illusion web into its part of the box, they watched the beetle once more. Lucivar grinned at the way the gore and goo splattered all over the inside of the glass before it all faded away. “Darling, this is perfect.”

  Tersa looked uneasy. “Maybe I should ask your father.”

  Not quite a statement, not quite a question. More a tentative testing of an idea.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not quite sure if he was troubled or intrigued by the words. “Why?”

  “I made little surprises for my boys before, and it caused trouble. Almost hurt them. I don’t want to cause trouble for my boys. Your father will know what to do.” She nodded, as if she’d made a decision. “Yes. Your father will know.”

  Lucivar vanished the box and decided this would be a good time to give her something else to think about—before she contacted his father.

  Boys. My boys.

  The ground shifted under his feet. His breath caught. He felt like he was riding a current that could be a very sweet wind or have a cutting edge.

  “What boys, darling?” he asked.

  “My boys.” She glanced at him, suddenly shy and hesitant.

  Painfully sweet words, and a possibility he hadn’t considered about why Tersa had welcomed him from the first time he’d knocked on her cottage door.

  “Am I one of your boys, Tersa?” he asked.

  She was Daemon’s mother. She would have been around during the childhood years he couldn’t remember. She had known him as a child—and he must have known her. That hadn’t occurred to him before.

  “The girl,” Tersa said hesitantly. “Luthvian. So angry because she wanted what couldn’t be. So angry because she wanted to deny what was.”

  She reached out, not quite touching him, her eyes caressing the very thing his own mother had always pretended not to see.

  “Sails to the moon,” she said softly. “Banners unfurled in the sun. She was always so angry about something as natural as an arm or a leg. Such a foolish reason to hate a child.”

  “Tersa?”

  Her eyes had that unfocused look. She was no longer seeing the room she stood in, wouldn’t know where she was physically if he asked. She was looking at a memory seventeen hundred years in the past. Seeing Luthvian. Seeing him when he was Daemonar’s age. Maybe even younger.

  “She wanted the boy, but did not want the boy to be the boy,” Tersa said. “But what else could he be? Cuddles and hugs. Their father’s love is strong, and they need him, but they want softer love too. Cuddles and hugs. And little surprises.” She smiled. “They pick flowers in the meadow. The boy brings his flowers to me. I tell him the names of the ones I remember as we arrange them in a vase. His father tells him the rest. Tells both boys. But the girl doesn’t want flowers from the meadow. That is too simple, too Eyrien. She will not take the flowers, so the winged boy brings them to me. There is so much fire in his heart, so much laughter. And trouble. That gleam in his eyes. Oh, yes, he is trouble. But there is no meanness. He is a boy. He will be a strong man. She will not look, will not see. So he comes to me for cuddles and hugs and little surprises.”

  Tears stung Lucivar’s eyes. He blinked them away. Swallowed them with his heart.

  He took a step closer, touched her shoulder with his fingertips. “Tersa? Am I one of your boys?”

  She looked at him, her eyes full of uncertainty. But she nodded. “My winged boy.”

  He took her in his arms and held her gently as he finally understood why spending time with her mattered so much to him. He hadn’t remembered those early years of his childhood; he hadn’t remembered her. But his heart had recognized her and knew what she had been for him.

  “Thank you,” he whispered into her tangled hair. “Thank you.” He added silently, Mother.

  * * *

  Jaenelle leaned back from the breakfast table and stared at the object in front of her. “It’s a mousie in a glass dome.”

  “Yes.” Daemon smiled at the illusion he’d talked Tersa into making for him.

  “It’s a mousie wearing the formal dress of a court official.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you intend to give this to Lucivar? The Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih? The man who has said that the only reason for paperwork is to have something to wipe your ass with after
taking a crap?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  As they watched, the mousie began squeaking emphatically while gesturing with one paw and waving a scroll held in the other. Of course, the squeaking could barely be heard through the glass dome, but the tone was still clear. Especially when the mousie began jumping up and down in a tantrum.

  “He’s capable of leaving this out on the desk without a sight shield so that court officials see it,” Jaenelle said. “You know he’s capable of doing that.”

  “I know. But I figure having this just might keep him from strangling some pompous ass from a Queen’s court.”

  Jaenelle pursed her lips and studied the mousie. Then she sighed. “You have a point. There have been a few times when he’s come too close to strangling a pompous ass.”

  “All the more reason to give him something to laugh about.” Daemon kissed the top of her head and reached for the glass dome. “I’m heading up to the Keep to show this to Father, so I’ll—”

  “You can’t go today.”

  He stopped, his hand frozen over the dome. “I can’t?”

  “Daemon. You have to help me get ready. This will be our first Winsol when we’re officially hosting the family. You can’t just shrug off the details.”

  Sure, he could.

  “Marian is coming later in the week to help out,” Jaenelle continued. “And Winsol begins next week. We have to go over the lists.”

  “Lists?”

  His wife stiffened. Then she turned in her chair and looked at him.

  The bones in his legs turned to jelly—and not in a good she’s-looking-for-hot-sex kind of way.

  “I’ll be in my study,” he said meekly.

  “Good,” Jaenelle replied sweetly. “I’ll join you there after I finish breakfast. I hope you didn’t have anything scheduled for this morning.”

  Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.

  “Only my Lady’s pleasure,” he said.

  Jaenelle reached up and tugged on his jacket. Obeying the unspoken command, he leaned over and touched his lips to hers.

  “Your tone lacks sincerity, Prince,” Jaenelle said. “But since this is your first Winsol as a husband, you’re forgiven.”

  Then she kissed him—and he hoped she would have reason to forgive him for a lot of things over the next few days.

  TWO

  Prince Sadi,

  Your presence is requested at your mother’s cottage. Please join me

  there after dinner.

  SaDiablo

  Daemon banged once on the cottage’s front door. It couldn’t be too serious, since he hadn’t been asked to respond immediately. But a command like this from his father was unusual—and “your presence is requested” was a phrase in Protocol that amounted to a command.

  And just because it wasn’t “too serious” didn’t mean it wasn’t serious.

  Hell’s fire! What could have happened since his visit yesterday morning that required the High Lord to come to Halaway? And why hadn’t he been told about it before Saetan had arrived?

  He banged on the door again, then opened it himself, almost clobbering Allista, who had been hurrying to reach it.

  “Where?” he snapped, too worried about why he’d been summoned to be polite.

  “The parlor,” she replied.

  He opened the parlor door—and froze.

  His father sat in one of the chairs by the fire, his legs crossed at the knees, his fingers steepled, and the black-tinted nails of his forefingers resting against his chin. His mother stood in front of the other chair, twisting her fingers and looking anxious.

  The room looked wrong. He kept his eyes on his father, but he knew the room looked wrong. Then he realized why. He didn’t have an actual memory of the situation, but he was certain that the last time he’d seen his parents positioned like this, he had been much, much younger and much, much shorter.

  “Come in, Prince. Sit down,” Saetan said. He looked at Tersa. “Darling, could you bring in some coffee?”

  Tersa nodded. “And nutcakes. Boys need something sweet after a scolding.” She gave Daemon a distracted smile as she scurried past him.

  Scolding? he thought as his heart settled back to a regular beat and his mind adjusted to the fact that his mother wasn’t hurt or ill. Oh, no. There is not going to be a scolding.

  He looked his father in the eyes and said, “I’m an adult.”

  Saetan met his look with steely calm. “When you walk out that door, you’re an adult. Right here, right now, you’re a son. Sit.”

  He sat. It was humiliating that his body had obeyed that voice before his brain made a decision.

  Saetan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Your mother is concerned about her boys.”

  “We didn’t do anything.”

  Where in the name of Hell had those words come from? And why had there been a flash of amused panic in Saetan’s eyes before the High Lord regained that steely calm?

  “When you and Lucivar were little boys and one of you said that to me, I knew we had something to talk about,” Saetan said. “And we would sit for as long as it took to discuss it.”

  Meaning for as long as it took the boy to start squirming beneath the weight of that stare and blurt out whatever it was he had done.

  And damn it, that stare still worked.

  “It’s nothing,” Daemon said.

  “Tersa didn’t summon me here for ‘nothing.’ ”

  Daemon considered the alternatives. There were none. Reminding himself that he’d intended to show the gift to Saetan anyway, he called in the globe and set it on the table next to the chair. As the mousie went through its routine, he watched the fingers that had been resting on Saetan’s chin creep up until they were pressed hard between the High Lord’s eyes.

  When the spell finished with the mousie squaring its little shoulders, ready to begin again, Saetan lowered his hands and said in a strangled voice, “You’re going to give this to your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Saetan shook his head and sighed.

  Daemon heard the chuckle under the sigh and felt woozy relief wash through him.

  “Put that away,” Saetan said, pointing at the globe.

  He did, with alacrity.

  “You came because of this?” Daemon glanced at the still-closed parlor door. Was Tersa waiting for some kind of signal before coming back into the room?

  “Because of what happened in the spooky house, your mother was concerned about making surprises for her boys and wanted my opinion.”

  “Boys?” Daemon asked as the significance of the word sank in.

  A flood of . . . Not memories. Not exactly. More like he was riding a wave of remembered feelings.

  “We were hers when we were young, weren’t we?” Daemon said slowly. “Both of us.”

  “Luthvian birthed Lucivar, but Tersa was the one who loved him.” Saetan looked at the fire burning in the hearth. “That was fitting in a way. If Tersa hadn’t insisted that I see Luthvian through her Virgin Night, Lucivar wouldn’t exist. She had as much to do with that conception as the two people who were in the bed that night. So in a very real sense, he is her winged boy.”

  Daemon stared at the carpet, trying to sort through feelings that were more elusive than memories. Trying to sort through the tangle of his bond with Lucivar. They had loved each other, hated each other, fought with each other, and fought for each other. There were things he might have done—and things he wouldn’t have done—if Lucivar hadn’t existed, but none of those things would have been worth the price of not having a brother. Especially this brother.

  An aftertaste of bitterness filled him. He looked up to find his father watching him.

  “Since Tersa was willing to take the cast-off boy, I’m surprised Luthvian . . .” He trailed off.

  “The way your mother is now is about how she was then,” Saetan said softly. “Walking the roads of dreams and visions, yes, but not walking so deepl
y in the Twisted Kingdom that she couldn’t find the borders of sanity. If Tersa could have been persuaded to trade, Luthvian would have taken you in a heartbeat, because even then you were everything she wanted—and everything your brother wasn’t.”

  Daemon stiffened, and the air chilled in response to his temper.

  Saetan smiled. “Same response, all these centuries later.”

  “She didn’t try to talk Tersa into trading?” The word choked him, sounding too much like the years of slavery that would never be forgotten.

  “Luthvian didn’t like your brother, so you didn’t like her. Hell’s fire, Daemon. Sometimes you took my breath away when Luthvian tried to coax you into doing something with her. Just you and her. You were barely old enough to string words together in a complete sentence, and you were still so coldly and cuttingly polite there was no doubt how you felt about her.”

  Good.

  Saetan studied him. “Being Warlord Princes, the two of you are bound to feel territorial about anyone who matters to you, and subtle challenges and bristling are not unexpected when those territories overlap, especially when the individuals are still getting used to sharing. But for Tersa’s sake, I need to know if it’s more than that. So I want an answer to a question: Do you have a problem with Lucivar spending time with your mother?”

  “Our mother.” The moment Daemon said the words, something in him settled. Things that were the most precious, the most important, were shared cautiously, if at all. Their years of slavery had taught him and Lucivar that hard lesson. Sooner or later, Lucivar would have told him about visiting Tersa. Of that he was certain. “Tersa is our mother.”

  “Fine, then. We’ll all have coffee and nutcakes, and I’ll reassure Tersa that making these little Winsol surprises won’t get her boys into too much trouble.”

  “Wait.” Daemon held up a hand. “What did Lucivar ask her to make? Aren’t you going to tell me?”

  His father just looked at him—and laughed.