Shalador's Lady bj-8 Read online

“I can’t talk about it.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t, won’t. The words make no difference.”

  They made a difference to him. His voice went flat. “You saw something in a web of dreams and visions. Didn’t you?”

  “I can’t speak of it, Ranon. None of us will speak of it.”

  The chill in his belly turned to jagged ice. “How many Black Widows have seen this?”

  She sighed, a sound full of exasperation and a hint of anger.

  He shifted away from her, sat up, and wrapped his arms around his bent knees. He had no right to push. If she felt he needed to know, she would have told him. Hell’s fire! She was the one who had pushed him to come to Grayhaven when Theran had first summoned the Warlord Princes to talk about bringing a Queen from Kaeleer. She hadn’t told him anything then, either. She’d just said he had to go.

  The Hourglass didn’t divulge what they saw in their tangled webs. Not very often, anyway. And not directly. But a Black Widow never made a suggestion about an action to take without a reason.

  “Is it something to do with Cassidy?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Shira . . .” He didn’t know what to ask.

  Finally Shira asked quietly, “Who has your loyalty, Prince Ranon? Tell me the list in order.”

  His heart ached, but she had asked. Because he would give her nothing less than honesty, the words had to be said. “I love you with everything I am, but my first loyalty is to my Queen. Then you, then our people, then Dena Nehele.”

  She sat up and pressed a hand against his face. When he looked at her, she said fiercely, “Remember the order of that list. Hold on to it with everything you are.”

  Was she warning him that something might happen to Cassie when they went to the Shalador reserves?

  “Hold on to it the same way you’ve held on to your honor,” Shira said.

  And that was the answer: Cassidy the Queen came before anything and everything else—his lover, his people, his land.

  The visions seen in tangled webs didn’t always come true. Sometimes they were warnings of what might be. Shira was telling him that his choices would make a difference. His choices. And she had told him, without breaking her own code of honor, what his choice had to be.

  That night, while Shira slept and he lay awake staring at the dark ceiling of her bedroom, he realized that fear could entwine with hope as well as love, and all he could do was give his best to the two women who were now the center of his life.

  CHAPTER 4

  KAELEER

  Daemon rounded a corner and let out a roar—which only made his quarry pump those little legs faster.

  Hell’s fire. He’d only looked away for a minute while he was packing up the things Daemonar would take home. One damn minute! That’s all it had taken for the boy to shoot out of the bedroom like an arrow released from a bow.

  Well, if this was going to be their last pissing contest during this visit, he was not going to lose.

  He was going to lose.

  When he realized the stairs leading down to the informal receiving room—and beyond that, the great hall—were up ahead, heran. The boy was going too fast to get down those stairs without a bad tumble.

  Almost in reach. If he couldn’t stop Daemonar . . .

  The boy spread those little membranous wings and launched himself over the railing.

  Daemon gave a moment’s thought to leaping over the railing and using Craft to make a controlled slide on air, but that wasn’t an easy bit of Craft to do, despite how simple Jaenelle always made it seem, and since it wasn’t something he did on a regular basis—until lately, anyway—a miscalculation could end with a broken leg. Or worse.

  At least the door to the great hall was closed, Daemon thought as he pounded down the stairs. At least the little beast didn’t know how to make a pass through a solid object. At least he’d only be chasing a flying boy around a contained space.

  Which was when Holt opened the door—and Daemonar dove right at the footman’s head. Startled, Holt dove for the floor, and Daemonar flew past him into the great hall and let out a happy squeal.

  Damn! Did someone just open the front door? If Daemonar got outside, it might take hours to catch him.

  Leaping over Holt, Daemon skidded into the great hall.

  And there was Lucivar, with his arms full of happy boy.

  “Hello, boyo,” Lucivar said, giving his bundle of boy a smacking kiss on the cheek.

  “Papa! Papa!”

  Daemon braced one hand on the wall and sucked in air while he watched the reunion.

  “Were you a good boy?” Lucivar asked Daemonar. He gave Daemon what might have been a sheepish look—if it had been anyone else but Lucivar.

  “Guess what, Papa! Unka Daemon fell out of a tree!”

  Daemon’s face burned with embarrassment.

  Lucivar kept his eyes on his son. “What was Uncle Daemon doing in the tree?”

  Daemonar suddenly turned shy and began playing with the gold chain that held Lucivar’s Birthright Red Jewel.

  “What was Uncle Daemon doing in the tree?” Lucivar asked again.

  Daemonar hesitated. “Falling.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  *Is Marian pregnant?* Daemon asked on a Red psychic thread.

  *We won’t know for a few weeks,* Lucivar replied.

  You know, you prick, Daemon thought. And Lucivar not giving him a straight answer was an answer.

  Lucivar’s gold eyes brightened when Jaenelle stepped into the great hall.

  “Hey, boyo.” Jaenelle smiled at Daemonar. “Are you going home without reading one last story with me?”

  “No! Put me down, Papa!”

  When Lucivar didn’t respond fast enough, Daemonar rammed his feet into his father’s gut and launched himself at Jaenelle.

  Too fast, Daemon thought as the boy winged toward Jaenelle. But Daemonar backwinged an arm’s length from his beloved auntie. He dipped and wobbled, but he landed without slamming into Jaenelle.

  “Excellent backwinging.” Jaenelle held out her hand as she gave Daemon and Lucivar a warm, amused look. “Come on. We’ll sit in Uncle Daemon’s study and read a story while he and your papa have a little chat.”

  When boy and Queen disappeared into the study, Lucivar rubbed his belly. “Well, so much for my minute of being important.”

  Daemon didn’t reply. He just crossed the great hall and went into the formal receiving room.

  Thank you, Beale, he thought when he saw the tray that held a decanter of brandy and two glasses. Normally he wouldn’t consider a drink before the midday meal, but today . . .

  “You’re looking a bit rough, old son,” Lucivar said as he came into the room and closed the door.

  Daemon poured himself a hefty glass of brandy and took a generous gulp. “If you got Marian pregnant, you damn well better have a girl, because if you don’t, I will twist your cock off. I swear it.”

  When he didn’t get a smart-ass reply, he turned and looked at his brother—and the look on Lucivar’s face made his heart pound. “What’s wrong? Is Marian all right?”

  “She’s fine. She’s good. Father is at the eyrie now, pampering her.” Lucivar made a face. “When I do something, it’s fussing. When he does the same damn thing, it’s pampering.”

  “He has a way with women,” Daemon said. “Lucivar . . .”

  “Was it that hard?” Lucivar asked. “I know the boy is a handful. Hell’s fire, Bastard, I know he is.”

  “We did all right,” Daemon said sourly.

  Lucivar sighed. “Look, next time I’ll leave him with the Eyriens and—”

  “No, you will not.” Daemon’s voice chilled. “You and I were given a particular code of honor when we were very young—a code that isn’t known by many, if any, who come from Terreille. And that is the code of honor our family will live by. So when your boy needs to spend some days away from you, he comes here. Is that understood?”

/>   “Not all Eyriens view honor as something they can bend to suit themselves,” Lucivar said cautiously.

  Falonar. The name of Lucivar’s former second-in-command wasn’t spoken, but it hung in the air between them.

  Then the moment, and the tension, were gone.

  “Look,” Daemon said, setting the brandy aside. “I’m just pissing and moaning. I fell out of a damn tree. I’m entitled to piss and moan. And I feel . . . inadequate.” Hell’s fire, it bruised his ego to admit that.

  “You’re not Eyrien, old son,” Lucivar said. “You never will be.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “No, I don’t think you do.” Lucivar studied him. “We knew Daemonar couldn’t stay with us anymore when I went into rut, and when Marian recognized the signs and got him down to Merry and Briggs before I . . .” He raked a hand through his black hair. “The boy wanted you. His Uncle Daemon. Who isn’t Eyrien. Who doesn’t fly or fight—at least in a way he understands yet—but who knows lots of things. He doesn’t want you to be Eyrien. He wants to be with you because he loves you.”

  Hearing those words relaxed the knot of expectations he’d inflicted on himself—and filled him with warm pleasure.

  “I’d better get the little beast home. His mother misses him.” Turning, Lucivar reached for the doorknob, then stopped and looked at Daemon. “You really fell out of a tree?”

  He sighed. “I really did.”

  “He was up in the tree?”

  “I wouldn’t have climbed it for any other reason,” he said dryly.

  Lucivar’s face was filled with baffled amusement. “Didn’t you tell him to come down?”

  “Of course I did.”

  Even more baffled. “Since you told him to come down and he didn’t obey, why didn’t you use Craft to haul his ass down? I would have.”

  CHAPTER 5

  TERREILLE

  Cassidy closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing.

  Nerves and excitement. Her first official visit among the people she ruled. And the first time people outside the town of Grayhaven would see her First Circle working together as a First Circle.

  She glanced at Theran. Ever since she had found the treasure hidden in the attic at Grayhaven, he had made an obvious effort to act like he wanted to serve in her court. But his forced courtesy was a daily reminder that he didn’t belong to her the way the other men in her First Circle did.

  In fact, his effort to serve felt too much like her previous court. They had lavished her with forced courtesy too—right before they broke her court and left her to serve another Queen.

  This visit to Eyota, Ranon’s home village, was harder for him to accept than it was for the rest of the First Circle. They had spent the days prior to this trip discussing the details of what was required to guard their Queen in an unfamiliar place. Theran had offered no comments, no suggestions, nothing. He had, in fact, voiced none of the concerns that a First Escort should have. Was he distancing himself because she had refused to cancel this visit—or because being on a Shalador reserve would make him look at the other side of his heritage? He was proud to be descended from Jared, but he seemed to resent having to acknowledge that Jared came from Shalador.

  Then there was Gray, who was clinging to her hand despite the fact they were in a Coach that had a driver experienced with controlling a long, enclosed, furnished box designed to ride the Winds, those psychic webs through the Darkness. It wasn’t being dependent on someone else’s power and skill that made Gray cling to her. Captured at fifteen and given to Dena Nehele’s Queen, he had survived two years of torture before being rescued. It had taken courage for him to go back to Grayhaven when Theran and Talon had announced they were going to live there with the new Territory Queen. And she knew it had taken even more courage for him to leave Grayhaven and come with her to a place that was unfamiliar and spend time among strangers.

  “The boardinghouse looks shabby, but it’s solid, has running water and a kitchen, and it’s big enough to accommodate all of the First Circle,” Ranon said.

  Since this was the fourth time he’d told her that—and sounded both defensive and apologetic—Cassidy figured the Shalador Warlord Prince wasn’t as calm or confident about this visit as he appeared to be. And Shira’s composure had become more frayed as this day approached.

  “It will be fine, Ranon,” Cassidy said. “I’m sure everything will be fine.” She hoped so, because the success of this visit would determine if she would be allowed to be a Queen to these people in the truest sense or only a symbol the Warlord Princes would use to try to rebuild Dena Nehele. The witch storm unleashed by Jaenelle Angelline two years ago had swept away the Blood who had been tainted by Dorothea SaDiablo, and the landen uprisings that followed had killed so many more. The survivors not only had to worry about keeping peace within their own Territory, they had to remain strong enough to stop any Blood from other Territories who might try to encroach on Dena Nehele’s land and take whatever resources could be won from a fight.

  “It will be fine,” Shira echoed.

  Noticing the way Ranon stopped himself from looking at Shira, as if a look at that moment might betray some confidence, Cassidy wondered what the Black Widow knew that could make the two Shaladorans so doubtful that anything would be fine.

  They were a proud, ragged people.

  Since he wasn’t an official member of Cassie’s First Circle, Gray stood back and watched as Lady Nimarr, the eldest Shalador Queen, formally introduced Cassie to the other Queens who ruled in the Shalador reserves. Cassie had met several of the women a few days before when they came to Grayhaven and requested an audience, so Gray figured this introduction was for the benefit of the people who had gathered to get a look at the Queen of Dena Nehele.

  Then some of the Tradition Keepers were introduced, including Ranon’s grandfather Yairen, who was a Keeper of Music.

  Gray looked at Theran, whose face seemed frozen in an expression between stubbornness and forced courtesy, then at Ranon, who stood tall and proud—but not confident, despite his effort to appear so. Too much depended on this meeting for Ranon to feel confident of the outcome.

  Gray watched Cassie talk to the Tradition Keepers. Her eyes never left Lord Yairen’s face, but he knew her well enough to appreciate how much effort it took for her not to look at the old man’s crippled hands. And he was certain she understood that the crippling hadn’t been caused by age or accident.

  The Queens wore new dresses that were simple in design. Over those dresses were finely embroidered vests—old vests that were tended carefully and probably only worn for special occasions. The Tradition Keepers had worn their best clothes too, but even skilled seamstresses couldn’t hide all the mending and patches in those clothes, and Gray admired the men and women for not using illusion spells to cover one truth about the reserves.

  He had lived a rough life in the rogue camps hidden in the Tamanara Mountains. These people had lived a desperate life, had endured more—and worse—than anyone else in Dena Nehele because of Dorothea SaDiablo’s hatred for Jared.

  Was it any wonder that Ranon felt so bitter and angry about the way his people had been treated? Was it any wonder that he took every opportunity to call attention to the way the Shaladorans lived—and what they lived without?

  But was Ranon hoping for more than Cassie could give?

  Thank the Darkness, the ceremonies were over. At least until that evening when she would be the special guest at a feast held in her honor.

  Honor, Cassidy thought as she brushed her hair. The Shaladorans had held on to honor when they could hold on to nothing else. She saw that truth in their dark eyes, heard it in the quiet voices. Unlike Ranon, who was vocal on his people’s behalf, the Queens and elders had said nothing. They didn’t have to. Just looking at them, just hearing the dignity in their voices told her more than words.

  The boardinghouse told her even more. Shabby? Yes. But there was a new mattress on the bed in her room, new linens. The room
had been scrubbed free of every speck of dirt, although the wallpaper still showed signs of water stains. And everything was free of psychic scents. There was no psychic residue on the bed or linens or carpets to reveal the previous owners.

  Who in the village had given up these new things in order to furnish this room for her visit?

  She didn’t know how much she could do for these people, but she knew where to begin—if the Shaladorans, and Theran, would let her do this much.

  She looked at the door that opened into the adjoining bedroom. By rights it should have been her First Escort’s room, but Ranon must have said something to the elders, and Gray had been assigned that room. His need to be close to her had been so obvious, Theran had said nothing about taking the room on the other side of hers—the room without an adjoining door. Ranon and Shira were across the hall from her, sharing a room. At some point she would ask Shira if the elders’ eyes had widened because it was a Black Widow and a Warlord Prince sharing a room or just because it was unusual in the reserves for unmarried lovers to share a room so openly.

  For now, she would go outside and take a look at the boardinghouse’s gardens and see what she could do.

  When she opened the bedroom door, there were no guards waiting for her in the hallway, there were no escorts. There were no males of any kind.

  But there was a Sceltie, who took one look at her and said, *Hat, Cassie.*

  “I’m just—”

  *Hat.*

  She fetched the brown, open-weave hat she had bought for this visit. Gray insisted she wear a hat to protect her skin, and Shira had talked her into shopping for one and had gone so far as to buy a hat too, laughingly saying it would become a trademark of the court—any Lady serving in the First Circle would wear a hat as a symbol of her service to the Queen.

  At the time, Cassidy had accepted the teasing and Shira’s purchase of a hat without a second thought. Now she wondered how dear the cost of the hat had been for the Shalador witch. Her hat had been put on the court account, and its price would be deducted from the tithe the shopkeeper owed at the end of summer. But Shira had paid for her own hat.