by Anne Bishop
Page 61
“Prince,” Tersa said. “You will have no answers until the last choice is made. ”
He moved away from Surreal until he stood in the spot where the other men had stood.
“Come here, Jaenelle,” Surreal said. She placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders and looked at him.
“I, Surreal SaDiablo, acknowledge Prince Daemon Sadi as the father of Jaenelle Saetien SaDiablo. I grant him all paternal rights from this day forward. ”
Surreal raised her hands. Jaenelle walked the distance between them and took the hand he held out to her. Even though his hand closed around the child’s, his eyes never left the woman’s.
*She’s yours now,* Surreal said on a psychic Gray thread.
*Thank you. *
*Let’s hear you say that the next time she asks an ‘interesting’ question. *
He huffed out a quiet laugh. *Smart-ass. *
That made her smile.
“Well,” Daemon said, as he led Jaenelle back to the rest of the family. “Let’s finish up here so we can go to the estate and have our party. ”
“We can’t go yet,” Jaenelle protested. “We have to wait for my Jewel!”
“Witch-child . . . ”
Jaenelle and Tersa turned at the same moment, looked in the same direction. Jaenelle pulled away from him and ran off. Before he could take off after her, Tersa froze him in place with three words.
“She has come. ”
He stared at his mother, a Black Widow who walked the roads of the Twisted Kingdom. She had changed his life centuries ago with those same three words.
“Daemon. ” Surreal looked stricken, but she squared her shoulders and said, “Go. ”
Not sure how much pain he was leaving behind him, he ran after his daughter.
She was walking back to him when he caught up to her, her smile brilliant as she clutched a pendant, its gold chain spilling over her hands.
“Look at my Jewel, Papa! Isn’t it wonderful?”
He looked at the Jewel in her hands and sank to his knees.
“I told the Priestess that I would have a Rose and a Summer-sky and a Purple Dusk and an Opal and a Green as my Birthright, but she said I could only have one, and I knew that wasn’t right because the Lady had shown me this Jewel and said it used to be hers but now it would be mine. It even has a name! It’s called—”
“Twilight’s Dawn,” he whispered.
“Yes. ” She beamed at him. “She said you would understand and teach me how to use it. ”
His mind was spinning. His heart was in turmoil. “Who said this, witch-child?”
“My special friend. The Lady in the Misty Place. The one who’s called the Song in the Darkness. ”
He swallowed a sob. Pain? Joy? He couldn’t tell. “Where . . . ?”
“She’s over there. ” Jaenelle turned and pointed. “She’s waiting for you. She said I should wait for you here. ” She rolled her eyes. “And that I should let you put a shield around me. ”
“She always was a wise Lady. ”
Jaenelle hesitated. “She said, when you were ready, you would tell me stories about her. About when she lived in the Realms. She said Uncle Lucivar and Mama could tell me stories too. ”
“They can. They will. ”
He stood up. After a moment’s hesitation, he put a Red shield around his darling witch-child, since Lucivar or Surreal could break it and get her out. Just in case he didn’t come back.
He walked over to the place where she had pointed. One moment he felt nothing. The next . . .
Not the Misty Place, but not the grounds of the Sanctuary either.
And there she was. Witch. The living myth. His love and his heart.
“Prince,” Witch said, smiling.
“Jaenelle,” he whispered, reaching for her.
His hand went through hers, but when she reached up and rested that same hand against his face, he felt the warmth of her, breathed in the familiar scent of her. She had chosen to show him the Self that lived in the Misty Place deep in the abyss, to show him the dream that had lived within the human flesh.
She was showing him his Queen rather than his former wife.
“How can you be here?”
“This is a shadow, an illusion. ”
“I know, but . . . ”
She looked at him with those haunted, ancient sapphire eyes. One hand still rested against his face; the other now rested against his chest, over his heart.
“Jaenelle Saetien . . . ”
“Is the daughter of your blood, the daughter of your heart, and the daughter of your dreams. She is those things to Surreal as well. Two dreamers, Daemon, yearning for the same dream. ”
His brain felt sluggish. He couldn’t get past that he was seeing her again, feeling her touch—but he had to try because his daughter waited for him.
His daughter. And Surreal’s.
“You know about me and Surreal?”
Her cat claws pricked his chest. “The Arachnian Queens tended the web until it was ready to be more than dreams, but I’m the one who first gave it shape because of what I saw in a tangled web years before I became a song in the Darkness. You could have married someone else, and you might have had children. But not this child, Daemon. Not this one. This one needed a mother who had known you before you came to Kaeleer, who had known me. ”
“This one?” Words tumbled through his mind. Webs. Visions. Dreams.
He turned his head and looked toward the spot where he’d left his little girl—and suddenly it made sense. “Jaenelle Saetien is . . . ?”
“Dreams made flesh. ” Witch smiled. “Your dreams. Surreal’s dreams. And my dreams for both of you. ”
Like Jaenelle Angelline, but not the same.
“Daemon. ”
He turned back to her. “I don’t know what to do. ”
“Don’t you? It’s simple, Prince. Listen to your heart. It’s healed. It’s whole. You loved me as a wife with all your heart for the whole of my life. You will love me as your Queen for the whole of your life. But there is someone else you love now, Daemon, and it’s time for you to share your heart with more than your daughter. ”
He closed his eyes and said nothing.
“Stubborn snarly male. Do you need my permission to love the woman who is now your wife, to acknowledge what you feel for her?”
“I don’t love Surreal the way I loved you. I’ll never love anyone the way I loved you. ”
“I know. But you do love her, Daemon. ”
“Yes. I do. ”
Her voice softened. “Then it’s time you told her. ”
She stepped back, and the loss of her touch raked his heart.
He opened his eyes and studied her, drinking in her face. “Will I see you again?”
She hesitated, then said, “Your daughter will, when she needs to, but you need to let go of the past. However, you won’t be alone. No one understands what it’s like to stand so deep in the abyss. No one understands what it’s like to know there is no one who can touch the most private part of your Self. Saetan was the strongest protector the Realms had ever known, but he also made mistakes because even Andulvar’s presence at the depth of the Ebon-gray wasn’t enough to keep him from feeling isolated and alone. You’re not alone there, Daemon. ”
“How can I not be . . . ”
What had Jaenelle Saetien called the Lady in the Misty Place? The Song in the Darkness. He’d heard it when he stood in the abyss at the full depth of his power, when he knew, with absolute certainty, that he was alone. But that song had been there, a voice that wrapped around him down where it wasn’t possible for anyone else to be. He thought he imagined it being Jaenelle’s voice because he missed her so much, but she’d been with him all along.
“You won’t be alone,” she said again.
“For how long?”
Witch smiled. “Long enough. ”
; He thought about that web of power that spiraled from the Misty Place down into the Darkness. Enough power to keep her with him in this one way, to keep him balanced for a lifetime.
And because he had this assurance that she was still with him in some way, he began letting go of what could no longer be.
“May I tell Lucivar about any of this?”
“He’s your brother. You can tell him anything. ” She took a step back and began to fade away. “It’s time for you to go. ”
“Your will is my life. ”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them, she was gone.
“Papa?”
And there was his other dream, waiting for him. She’d put the chain over her neck and was holding the Jewel, shifting it this way and that to look at the colors.
He walked over to her, sank to his knees, wrapped his arms around her, and pressed his face against her shoulder.
“Papa?” Jaenelle put her arms around him. “Why are you crying? Weren’t you happy to see the Lady?”
“Yes. Yes, I was. She gave me a gift. Such a wonderful gift. For your mother too. ”
Fighting for control, he sat back on his heels, took out a handkerchief, and cleaned up.
Jaenelle Saetien studied him. “Maybe if we go to our house and have the party, you’ll feel better?”
Laughing, he vanished the handkerchief. “Maybe I will. ”
He stood up, brushed off his knees before she could comment about the dirt, and held out his right hand.
“Papa! I’m supposed to stand on your left. Those are the rules. ”
His Jaenelle Saetien was a stickler for Protocol. Much like his father had been.
“Indulge your papa. Just for today. We’ll go back to following the rules tomorrow. ”
She looked skeptical, but she put her left hand over his right and let him escort her back to where the rest of the family waited.
Most of the families had left for their own celebrations, but the Queens and aristos who had come to witness the spectacle, as Lucivar called it, were still milling around when he walked by. So they saw Lucivar’s stunned look and the way Surreal pressed a hand against her chest and began to laugh and cry when she realized what Jewel her daughter wore.
He walked up to Surreal and said softly, “We need to talk. ”
“You saw her?” she whispered. “You actually saw her?”
“Yes. ”
Pain. Confusion. Unhappy acceptance.
“It will be all right,” he said. “I swear by all that I am, it will be all right. ”
“Can we go now?” Daemonar asked. “I’m starving. ”
“Shall we go?” he asked Surreal.
She nodded.
He dropped his hand from under Jaenelle’s, tacit permission for her to race after her cousins. Then he slipped an arm around Surreal’s waist and guided her to the Coach.
Surreal gulped a mouthful of sparkling wine as she watched the children run around. As soon as they reached the estate, Jillian had herded the younger children to their rooms to change out of their formal clothes.
Good thing, Surreal thought. She wasn’t sure what game they were playing, but it was a good bet that at least one of them was going to end up with scraped knees or a bloody nose.
“Enough!”
Unless Lucivar roared them into a decision to find a less rambunctious game.
Twilight’s Dawn. Jaenelle Saetien wore Twilight’s Dawn—a Jewel no one thought would be seen again.
“Are you brooding or just getting drunk?” Lucivar asked as he reached from behind her, took her glass, and drained it in one long swallow.
“I guess I’m not getting drunk,” she replied, looking at the empty glass. She followed the sound of laughter, and there was Daemon standing next to Tersa and Manny, looking as beautiful as the first time she saw him. “I don’t know what to do, Lucivar. I don’t know what he wants me to do now. She’s come back to him. ”
He handed her the empty glass and gave her a lazy smile. “If you believe that, you’re drunker than you look. ”
“Mean-hearted prick,” she muttered. But since she suspected he was right, at least about the being drunk part, she didn’t try to walk over to the terrace and refill her glass.
“Who’s a mean-hearted prick?” Daemon’s arm wrapped around her waist. “Do you want more wine?”
“I think I’ve already had a bit too much. ”
He pressed his lips gently against her temple. “Me too. It’s been quite a day. ”
The sexual heat that usually poured out of him was banked to a sensual warmth. She leaned into him, more comforted than aroused.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood there with the light fading around them and the autumn air turning cool. She would stand here with him forever if that was what he wanted.
“Surreal?” he said quietly.
“Hmm?”
He took the glass from her and vanished it. “You know that small table in the sitting room that you’re so fond of?”
“Uh-huh. ”
“It now has a vase in it. ”
“You mean on it. ”
“No, in it. ”
She was suddenly a lot more sober. “There isn’t one of them old enough or with sufficient training to try to pass one object through another. ” And she had a bad feeling she knew exactly which child had tried it. “They shouldn’t be—”
He pressed a finger against her lips. She narrowed her eyes and raised his hand. “If I have to deal with this tonight when I’m on the shaky side of sober, you have to answer the next sex question. ”
There was the expected glint of panic, but there was also laughter in his eyes. “Or the table could just disappear and we could scratch our heads and wonder where it went. ”
Playful. She hadn’t expected that from him. Not tonight. “We could do that. ”
He brushed a finger over her lips. “Surreal . . . ”
I love you.
He didn’t say it. Not quite. But when he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, she felt the words.
And that night, when he made love to her and said her name, it sounded like a promise, like a lovely caress.
