by Anne Bishop
He shook his head, trying to clear blood out of his eyes, and let out a triumphant roar as he gauged his entry between the sharp stones that looked like petrified teeth.
A final gust of wind pushed him down as he shot through the Dragon's mouth. A "tooth" opened his left leg from hip to knee.
He drove into swirling mist, determined to reach the other side before he emptied the Jewels and his strength gave out.
Movement caught his eye. A startled face. Wings.
"Lucivar!"
He pushed to his limit, aware of the pursuers gaining on him.
"lucivar!"
The other mouth had to be… There! But. .
Two tunnels. The left one held lightened twilight. The right one was filled with a soft dawn.
Darkness would hide him better. He swung toward the twilight.
A rush of wings on his left. A hand grabbing at him.
He kicked, twisted away, and drove for the right-hand tunnel.
"luu-ci-vaarrr!"
Past the teeth and out, driving upward past the canyon rim toward the morning sky, pumping useless wings out of stubborn pride.
And there was Askavi, looking as he imagined it might have looked a long time ago. The muddy trickle he'd flown over was now a deep, clear river. Barren rock was softened by spring wildflowers. Beyond the Run, sunlight glinted off small lakes and twisting streams.
Pain flooded his senses. Blood mixed with tears.
Askavi. Home. Finally home.
He pumped his wings a last time, arched his body in a slow, painfully graceful backward curve, folded his wings, and plummeted toward the deep, clear water below.
2 / The Twisted Kingdom
The wind tried to rip him off the tiny island that was his only resting place in this endless, unforgiving sea. Waves smashed down on him, soaking him in blood. So much blood.
You are my instrument.
Words lie. Blood doesn't.
The words circled him, mental sharks closing in to tear out another piece of his soul.
Gasping, he choked on a mouthful of bloody foam as he dug his fingers into rock that suddenly softened. He screamed as the rock beneath his hands turned into pulpy, violet-black bruises.
Butchering whore.
Nooooo!
*I loved her!* he screamed. *I love her! I never meant her harm.*
You are my instrument.
Words lie. Blood doesn't.
Butchering whore.
The words leaped playfully over the island, slicing him deeper and deeper with each pass.
Pain deepening anguish deepening agony deepening pain until there was no pain at all.
Or, perhaps, no one left to feel it.
3 / Terreille
Surreal stared at the dirty, trembling wreck that had once been the most dangerous, beautiful man in the Realm. Before he could shy away, she pulled him into the flat, threw every physical bolt on the door, and then Gray-locked it for good measure. After a moment's thought, she put a Gray shield on all the windows to lessen the chance of a severed artery or a five-story uncontrolled dive.
Then she took a good look at him and wondered if a severed artery would be such a bad thing. He'd been mad the last time she'd seen him. Now he looked as if he'd been sliced open and scooped out as well.
"Daemon?" She walked toward him, slowly.
He shook, unable to control it. His bruised-looking eyes, empty of everything but pain, filled with tears. "He's dead."
Surreal sat on the couch and tugged on his arm until he sat beside her. "Who's dead?" Who would matter enough to produce this reaction?
"Lucivar. Lucivar's dead!" He buried his head in her lap and wept like a heartsick child.
Surreal patted Daemon's greasy, tangled hair, unable to think of one consoling thing to say. Lucivar had been important to Daemon. His death mattered to Daemon. But even thinking of expressing sympathy made her want to gag. As far as she was concerned, Lucivar was also responsible for some of the soul wounds that had pushed Daemon over the edge, and now the bastard's death might be the fatal slice.
When the sobs diminished to quiet sniffles, she called in a handkerchief and stuffed it into his hand. She'd do a lot of things for Sadi, but she'd be damned if she'd blow his nose for him.
Finally cried out, he sat next to her, saying nothing. She sat quietly and stared at the windows.
This backwater street was safe enough. She'd returned several times since Daemon's last visit, staying longer and longer each time. It felt comfortable here. She and Wyman, the Warlord Daemon had healed, had developed a casual friendship that kept loneliness at bay. Here, with someone looking after him, maybe Daemon could heal a little.
"Daemon? Would you stay here with me for a while?" Watching him, she couldn't tell what he was thinking, even if he was thinking.
Eventually, he said, "If you want."
She thought she saw a faint flicker of understanding. "You promise to stay?" she pressed. "You promise not to leave without telling me?"
The nicker died. "There's nowhere else to go."
4 / Kaeleer
A light breeze. Sunlight warming his hand. Birdsong. Firm comfort under him. Soft cotton over him.
Lucivar slowly opened his eyes and stared at the white ceiling and the smooth, exposed beams. Where. .?
Out of habit, he immediately looked for ways out of the room. Two windows covered by white curtains embroidered with morning glories. A door on the wall opposite the bed he was lying on.
Then he noticed the rest of the room. The pine bedside table and dresser. The piece of driftwood turned into a lamp. A cabinet, its top bare except for a simple brass stand for holding music crystals. An open workbasket stuffed with skeins of yarn and floss. A large, worn, forest-green chair and matching hassock. A needlework frame covered with white material. An overstuffed bookcase. Braided, earth-tone rugs. Two framed charcoal sketches – head views of a unicorn and a wolf.
Lucivar's lip curled automatically when he caught the feminine psychic scent that saturated the walls and wood.
Then he frowned. For some reason, that psychic scent didn't repulse him.
He looked around the room again, confused. This was Hell?
A door opened in the room beyond. He heard a woman's voice say, "All right, go look, but don't wake him."
He closed his eyes. The door opened. Nails clicked on the wood floor. Something snuffled his shoulder. He kept his muscles relaxed, feigning sleep while his senses strained to identify the thing.
Fur against his bare skin. A cold, wet nose sniffing his ear.
Then a snort that made him twitch, followed by satisfied silence.
Giving in to curiosity and the warrior's need to identify an enemy, Lucivar opened his eyes and returned the wolfs intent gaze for a moment before it let out a pleased whuff and trotted out the door.
He barely had time to gather his wits when the woman pushed the door fully open and leaned against the doorway. "So you've finally decided to rejoin the living."
She sounded amused, but if the rest of her was anything to go by, the hoarseness in her voice was caused by strain, fatigue, and overuse. Painfully thin. The way the trousers and shirt hung on her, she'd probably dropped the weight far too fast to be healthy. The long, loose braid of gold hair looked as dull as her skin, and there were dark smudges under those beautiful, ancient sapphire eyes.
Lucivar blinked. Swallowed hard. Finally remembered to breathe. "Cat?" he whispered. He raised his hand in a mute plea.
She raised one eyebrow and walked toward him. "I know you said you would find me when I was seventeen, but I had no idea you would do it in such a dramatic fashion."
The moment she touched his hand, he pulled her down on top of him and wrapped his arms around her squirming body, laughing and crying, ignoring her muffled protests as he said, "Cat, Cat, Cat, oowww!"
Jaenelle scrambled off the bed and out of reach, breathing hard.
Lucivar rubbed his shoulder. "You bit me." He didn't min
d the bite – well, yes, he did – but he didn't like her pulling away from him.
"I told you I couldn't breathe."
"Do we need to?" he asked, still rubbing his shoulder.
Judging by the look in her eyes, if she were actually feline, she'd be puffed to twice her size.
"I don't know, Lucivar," she said in a voice that could scorch a desert. "I could always remove your lungs and we'd find out firsthand if breathing is optional."
The tiny doubt that she might not be kidding was sufficient to make him swallow the flippant remark he was about to make. Besides, he had enough confusing things to think about, not to mention doing something about the urgent, basic message his body was now sending. Hell's fire, he'd never imagined being dead would feel so much like being alive.
He rolled onto his side, wondering if his muscles were always going to feel so limp – weren't there any advantages to being a demon? – and thrust his legs out from under the covers.
"Lucivar," Jaenelle said in a midnight voice.
He gave her a measuring look and decided to ignore the dangerous glitter in her eyes. He levered himself upright, pulled the sheet across his lap, and grinned weakly. "I've always been proud of my accuracy and aim, Cat, but even I can't water the flowers from here."
Thankfully, he didn't understand anything she said after the first Eyrien curse she flung at him.
She slung his arm over her shoulders, wrapped her arm around his waist, and pulled him to his feet. "Just take it slow. I've got most of your weight."
"The males who serve here should be doing this, not you," Lucivar snarled as they shuffled to the door, not sure if he was more embarrassed about being naked or needing her support.
"There aren't any. Hey!"
He almost overbalanced both of them reaching for the door, but he needed to tighten his hand around something. His darling Cat was here alone, unprotected, with no one
but a wolf for company? Taking care of his. . "You're a young woman," he said through clenched teeth.
"I'm a fully qualified Healer." She tugged at his waist. It didn't do any good. "You were easier to take care of before you woke up."
He snarled at her. *
"Lucivar," Jaenelle said in that voice Healers used on irascible patients and idiots, "you've been in a healing sleep for the past three weeks. Taking that into consideration as well as what it took to put you back together, I think I've seen every inch of you more than once. Now, are you going to dribble on the floor like an untrained puppy or are we going to get to where you wanted to go?"
A fierce desire to get well enough to stand on his own two feet so that he could strangle her got him to the bathroom. Pride made him snarl her out the door. Stubbornness kept him upright long enough to do what was necessary, tie a bath towel around his waist, and reach the bathroom door.
By then his energy and useful emotions were tapped out, so he didn't protest when Jaenelle helped him walk to a stool near a large pine table in the cabin's main room. She moved behind him, her hands firm and gentle as they explored his back. He kept his eyes fixed on the outside door, not ready yet to ask about the healing. Then he felt one of his wings slowly unfurl, guided by those same gentle hands.
The wing closed. The other stretched out. As she came around to the front, he turned his head and stared at a wing that was healthy and whole. Stunned, he bit his lip and blinked back tears.
Jaenelle glanced at his face, then returned her attention to the wing. "You were lucky," she said quietly. "In another week there wouldn't have been enough healthy tissue left to rebuild them."
Rebuild them? Considering the damage the slime mold and the salt mines had done, even the best Eyrien Healers would have cut off the wings. How could she rebuild them?
Mother Night, he was tired, but there were too many things here that didn't fit his expectations. He desperately needed to understand and didn't know where to begin.
Then Jaenelle bent over to look at the lower part of the wing and the jewelry around her neck swung out of her shirt. Later he'd ask why Witch was wearing a Sapphire Jewel. Right now, all his attention was caught by the hourglass pendant that hung above the Jewel.
The hourglass was the Black Widows' symbol, both a declaration and a warning about the witch who wore it. An apprentice wore a pendant with the gold dust sealed in the top half of the glass. A journey maid’s pendant had the gold dust evenly divided between top and bottom. A fully trained Black Widow wore an hourglass with all the gold dust in the bottom chamber.
"When did you become a fully trained Black Widow?"
The air around him cooled. "Does it bother you that I am?"
Obviously it bothered some people. "No, just curious."
She gave him a quick smile of apology and continued her inspection. The air returned to normal. "Last year."
"And you became a qualified Healer?"
She carefully folded the wing and started checking his right shoulder. "Last year."
Lucivar whistled. "Busy year."
Jaenelle laughed. "Papa says he's thrilled he survived it."
He could almost hear the blade against the whetstone as his temper rose to the killing edge. She had a father, a family, and yet lived without human companionship, not even a servant. Exiled here because of the Hourglass? Or because she was Witch? Once he was fit again, this father of hers would have a few things to adjust to – like the Warlord Prince who now served her.
"Lucivar." Jaenelle's voice seemed as far away as the hand squeezing his taut shoulder. "Lucivar, what's wrong?"
Time moved slowly at the killing edge, measured by the beat of a war drum heart. The world became filled with individual, razor-sharp details. A blade would flow through muscle, humble bone. And the mouth would fill with the living wine as teeth sank into a throat.
"Lucivar."
Lucivar blinked. Felt the tension in Jaenelle's fingers as she gripped his shoulders. He backed from the edge, step
by mental step, while the wildness in him howled to run free. Senses dulled by the salt mines of Pruul were reborn. The land called him, seducing him with scents and sounds. She seduced him, too. Not for sex, but for another kind of bond, in its own way just as powerful. He wanted to rub against her so that her physical scent was on his skin. He wanted to rub against her so that his physical scent on her warned others that a powerful male had some claim to her, was claimed by her. He wanted. .
He turned his head, catching her finger between his teeth, exerting enough force to display dominance without actually hurting her. Her hand relaxed in submission, embracing the wild darkness within him. And because she could embrace it, he surrendered everything.
A minute later, completely returned to the mundane world, he noticed the open outer door and the three wolves standing on the covered porch, studying him with sharp interest.
Jaenelle, now inspecting his collarbone and chest muscles, glanced at the wolves and shook her head. "No, he can't come out and play."
Making disappointed-sounding whuffs, the wolves went back outside.
He studied the land framed by the open door. "I never thought Hell would look like this," he said softly.
"Hell doesn't." She slapped his hand when he tried to stop her from probing his hip and thigh.
Forcefully reminding himself that he shouldn't smack a Healer, he gritted his teeth and tried again to find some answers. "I didn't know that demon-dead children grew up or that demons could be healed."
She gave him a penetrating look before examining his other leg. Heat and power flowed from her hands. "Cildru dyathe don't and demons can't. But I'm not cildru dyathe and you're not a demon – although you did your damnedest to become one," she added tartly. She pulled up a straight-backed chair, sat down facing him, and took his hands in hers. "Lucivar, you're not dead. This isn't the Dark Realm."
He'd been so sure. "Then. . where are we?"
"We're in Askavi. In Kaeleer." She watched him anxiously.
"The Shadow Realm?" Lucivar whis
tled softly. Two tunnels. One a lightening twilight, the other a soft dawn. The Dark Realm and the Shadow. He grinned at her. "Since we're not dead, can we go exploring?"
He watched, intrigued, as she tried to force her answering grin into a sober, professional expression.
"When you're fully healed," she said sternly, then spoiled it with a silvery, velvet-coated laugh. "Oh, Lucivar, the dragons who live on the Fyreborn Islands are going to love you. You not only have wings, you're big enough to wave whomp."
"Wave what?"
Her eyes widened and her teeth caught her lower lip. "Umm. Never mind," she said too brightly, bouncing off her chair.
He caught the back of her shirt. After a brief tussle that left him breathing hard and left her looking more than a little rumpled, she was once again slumped in the chair.
"Why are you living here, Cat?"
"What's wrong with it?" she said defensively. "It's a good place."
Lucivar narrowed his eyes. "I didn't say it wasn't."
She leaned forward, studying his face. "You're not one of those males who gets hysterical about every little thing, are you?"
He leaned forward, forearms braced on thighs, and smiled his lazy, arrogant smile. "I never get hysterical."
"Uh-huh."
The smile showed a hint of teeth. "Why, Cat?"
"Wolves can be real tattletales, did you know that?" She looked at him hopefully. When he didn't say anything, she fluffed her hair and sighed. "You see, there are times when I need to get away from everyone and just be with the land, and I used to come and camp out here for a few days, but during one of those trips it rained and I was sleeping on the wet ground and got chilled and the wolves went running off to tell Papa and he said he appreciated my need to spend some time with the land but he saw no reason why
I couldn't have the option of some shelter and I said that a lean-to would probably be a reasonable idea so he had this cabin built." She paused and gave him an apprehensive smile. "Papa and I have rather different definitions of 'lean-to.''
Looking at the large stone hearth and the solid walls and ceiling, and then at the woman-child sitting in front of him with her hands pressed between her knees, Lucivar reluctantly let go of the knot of anger he'd felt for this unknown father of hers. "Frankly, Cat, I like your papa's definition better."
