"I do accept what you are."
"There are other reasons why you might not be willing to serve me."
Something inside him settled. He understood the custom of passing tests or challenges in order to earn a privilege. Whether she realized it or not, she was offering him a chance. "How many?"
She looked at him blankly.
"How many reasons? Set a number, now. If I can accept them, then I can choose to serve you. That's fair."
She gave him a strange look. "And will you be honest with yourself as well as with me about whether you can really accept them?"
"Yes."
She pulled away from him, sitting just out of reach. After several minutes of tense silence, she said, "Three."
Three. Not a dozen or so to natter about. Just three. Which meant he had to take them seriously. "All right. When?"
Jaenelle flowed to her feet. "Now. Pack a bag and plan to stay overnight." She headed for the cabin at a swift pace.
Lucivar followed her but didn't try to catch up. Three tests would determine the next five years of his life.
She'd be fair. Whether she liked the end result or not, she'd be fair. And so would he.
As he approached the cabin, the wolves ran out to greet him, offering furry comfort to the adopted member of their pack.
Lucivar buried his hands in their fur. If he had to serve someone else, would he ever see them again? He would be honest. He wouldn't abuse her trust in him. But he was going to win.
3 / Kaeleer
Lucivar's heart pounded against his chest. He had never been inside the Keep, not even an outside courtyard. A half-breed bastard wasn't worthy of entering this place. If he'd learned nothing else in the Eyrien hunting camps, he'd learned that, no matter what Jewels he wore or how skilled he was with weapons, his birth made him unworthy to lick the boots of the ones who lived in Ebon Askavi, the Black Mountain.
Now he was here, walking beside Jaenelle through massive rooms with vaulted ceilings, through open courtyards and gardens, through a labyrinth of wide corridors—and the prickle between his shoulder blades told him that something had been watching him since he entered the Keep. Something that flitted inside the stone, hid inside shadows, created shadows where shadows shouldn't exist. Not malevolent—at least, not yet. But the stories about what guarded the Keep were the fireside tales that frightened young boys sleepless.
Lucivar twitched his shoulders and followed his Lady.
By the time they reached the upper levels that appeared to be more inhabited, Lucivar began wistfully eyeing the benches and chairs that lined the corridors and promising himself a drink of water from the next indoor fountain or decorative waterfall they came to.
Jaenelle had said nothing since they'd stepped off the landing web in the outer courtyard. Her silence was supportive but not comforting. He understood that. Ebon Askavi was Witch's home. If he served her, he had to come to terms with the place without leaning on her.
She reached an intersection of corridors, glanced left, and smiled. "Hello, Draca. This is Lucivar Yaslana. Lucivar, this is Draca, the Keep's Seneschal."
Draca's psychic scent, filled with great age and old, dark power, unnerved him as much as the reptilian cast of her features. He bowed respectfully, but was too nervous to speak a proper greeting.
Her unblinking eyes stared at him. He caught a whiff of emotion that unraveled his nerves even more. For some reason, he amused her.
"Sso, you have finally come," Draca said. When Lucivar didn't answer, she turned to Jaenelle. "He iss sshy?"
"Hardly that," Jaenelle said dryly, looking amused. "But a bit overwhelmed, I think. I gave him the long tour of the Keep."
"And he iss sstill sstanding?" Draca sounded approving.
Lucivar would have appreciated her approval more if his legs weren't shaking so badly.
"We have guestss. Sscholarss. You will wissh to dine privately?"
"Yes, thank you," Jaenelle said.
Draca stepped aside, moving with careful, ancient grace. "I will let you continue your journey." She stared at Lucivar again. "Welcome, Prince Yasslana."
Jaenelle led him down another maze of corridors. "There's someone else I want you to meet. By then, Draca will have a guest room ready for you, one with a whirl-bath. It'll be good for those tight leg muscles." She studied his face. "Did she intimidate you?"
He'd promised honesty. "Yes."
Jaenelle shook her head, baffled. "Everyone says that. I don't understand. She's a marvelous person when you get to know her."
He glanced at the Black Jewel hanging above the V neckline of her slim, black tunic-sweater and decided against trying to explain it.
After another flight of stairs and several twists and turns, Jaenelle finally stopped in front of a door. He sincerely hoped their destination was behind it. A door stood open at the end of the corridor. Voices drifted out of the room, enthusiastic and hot, but not angry. Must be the scholars.
Ignoring the voices, Jaenelle opened the door, and they stepped into part of the Keep's library. A large blackwood
table filled one side of the room. At the other end were comfortable chairs and small tables. The back wall was a series of large arches. Beyond them, stacks of reference books stretched out of sight. The arch on the far right was fitted with a wooden door.
"The rest of the library is general reference, Craft, folklore, and history," Jaenelle said. "Things anyone can come and use. These rooms contain the older reference material, the more esoteric Craft texts, and the Blood registers, and can only be used with Geoffrey's permission."
"Geoffrey?"
"Yes?" said a quiet baritone voice.
He was the palest man Lucivar had ever seen. Skin like polished marble combined with black hair, black eyes, black clothes, and deep red lips that looked inviting in an unnerving sort of way. But there was something strange about his psychic scent, something inexplicably different. Almost as if the man weren't ...
Guardian.
The word slammed into Lucivar, freezing his lungs.
Guardian. One of the living dead.
Jaenelle made the introductions. Then she smiled at Geoffrey. "Why don't you get acquainted? There's something I want to look up."
Geoffrey looked pained. "At least tell me the name of the volume before you leave. The last time I couldn't tell your father where you 'looked something up,' he treated me to some eloquent phrases that would have made me blush if I was still capable of doing it."
Jaenelle patted Geoffrey's shoulder and kissed his cheek. "I'll bring the book out and even mark the page for you."
"So kind of you."
Laughing, Jaenelle disappeared into the stacks.
Geoffrey turned to Lucivar. "So. You've finally come."
Why did they make him feel like he'd kept them waiting?
Geoffrey lifted a decanter. "Would you like some yarbarah? Or some other refreshment?"
With some effort, Lucivar found his voice. "Yarbarah's fine."
"Have you ever drunk yarbarah?" Geoffrey asked drolly.
"It's drunk during some Eyrien ceremonies." Of course, the cup used for those ceremonies held a mouthful of the blood wine. Geoffrey, he noted apprehensively, was filling and warming two wineglasses.
"It's lamb," Geoffrey said, handing a glass to Lucivar and settling into a chair beside the table.
Lucivar gratefully sank into a chair opposite Geoffrey and sipped the yarbarah. There was more blood in the mixture than was used in the ceremonies, the wine more full-bodied.
"How do you like it?" Geoffrey's black eyes sparkled.
"It's . .." Lucivar struggled to find something mild to say.
"Different," Geoffrey suggested. "It's an acquired taste, and here we drink it for other reasons than ceremonial."
Guardian. Was the blood mixed with the wine ever human? Lucivar took another swallow and decided he wasn't curious enough to ask.
"Why have you never come to the Keep, Lucivar?"
Lucivar
set the glass down carefully. "I was under the ..impression a half-breed bastard wouldn't be welcome here."
"I see," Geoffrey said mildly. "Except for those who care for the Keep, who has the right to decide who is welcome and who is not?"
Lucivar forced himself to meet Geoffrey's eyes. "I'm a half-breed bastard," he said again, as if that should explain everything.
"Half-breed." Geoffrey sounded as if he were turning the word over and over. "The way you say it, it sounds insulting. Perhaps dual bloodline would be a more accurate way to think of it." He leaned back, cradling the wineglass in both hands. "Has it ever occurred to you that, without that other bloodline, you wouldn't be the man you are? That you wouldn't have the intelligence and strength you have?" He waved his glass at Lucivar's Ebon-gray Jewel. "That you never would have worn those? For all that you are Eyrien, Lucivar, you are also your father's son."
Lucivar froze. "You know my father?" he asked in a choked voice.
"We've been friends for many years."
It was there, in front of him. All he had to do was ask.
It took him two tries to get the word out. "Who?"
"The Prince of the Darkness," Geoffrey said gently. "The High Lord of Hell. It's Saetan's bloodline that runs through your veins."
Lucivar closed his eyes. No wonder his paternity had never been registered. Who would have believed a woman who claimed to be seeded by the High Lord? And if anyone had believed her, imagine the panic that would have caused. Saetan still walked the Realms. Mother Night!
Had Daemon ever learned who had sired them? He would have been pleased with this paternal bloodline.
The thought lanced through him. He locked it away.
At least there was one thing he was still sure of. Maybe. He looked at Geoffrey, afraid of either answer. "I'm still a bastard."
Geoffrey sighed. "I'm reluctant to pull the rest of the ground out from under you but, no, you're not. He formally registered you the day after you were born. Here, at the Keep."
He wasn't a bastard. They . . . "Daemon?" Had he said it out loud?
"Registered as well."
Mother Night. They weren't bastards. He scrambled, clawing for solid ground that kept turning into quicksand under him. "Doesn't make any difference since no one else knew."
"Have you ever been encouraged to play stud, Lucivar?"
Encouraged, pressured, imprisoned, punished, drugged, beaten, forced. They'd been able to use him, but they'd never been able to breed him. He'd never known if the reason was physical or if, somehow, his own rage had kept him sterile. He'd wondered sometimes why they'd wanted his seed so badly. Knowing who had sired him and the potential strength of any offspring he might produce. . . . Yes, they'd overlook a great deal to have him sire offspring for specific covens, specific aristo houses with failing bloodlines.
He gulped the yarbarah. Cold, it tasted thick. Shaking
and choking, he wondered if his stomach was going to stay down.
A small water glass and another decanter appeared. "Here," Geoffrey said as he quickly filled the glass and shoved it into Lucivar's hand. "I believe whiskey is the proper drink for this kind of shock."
The whiskey cleansed his mouth and burned all the way down. He held out the glass for a refill.
By the time he drained his fourth glass, he was still shaking, but he also felt fuzzy and numb. He liked fuzzy and numb.
"What did you do to Lucivar?" Jaenelle asked, dropping the book on the table. "I thought I was the only one who made him look like that." *
"Fuzzy and numb," Lucivar murmured, resting his head against her.
"So I see," Jaenelle replied, petting him.
A soft warmth surrounded him. That felt nice, too.
"Come on, Lucivar," Jaenelle said. "Let's tuck you into a bed."
He didn't want her to think four paltry glasses of whiskey could put him under the table, so he stood up.
The last things he clearly remembered seeing before the room began moving in unpredictable ways were Geoffrey's gentle smile and the understanding in Jaenelle's eyes.
4 / Kaeleer
Jaenelle was gone before he woke the next morning, leaving him to deal with a throbbing head and the emotional upheaval on his own. When he'd found out she'd left him at the Keep, he'd come close to hating her, silently accusing her of being cold, cruel, and unfeeling.
He spent the two days she was gone exploring the Keep and the mountain called Ebon Askavi. He returned for meals because he was expected to, spoke only when required, and retreated to his room each evening. The wolves offered silent company. He petted and brushed them and, finally, asked the question that had bothered him.
Yes, Smoke told him reluctantly, Lucivar had cried. Heart pain. Caught-in-a-trap pain. The Lady had petted and petted, sung and sung.
It had been more than a dream, then.
In one of the dreamscapes Black Widows spun so well, Jaenelle had met the boy he had been and had drawn the poison from the soul wound. He had wept for the boy, for the things he hadn't been allowed to do, for the things he hadn't been allowed to be. But he didn't weep for the man he'd become. "Ah, Lucivar," she'd said regretfully as they'd walked through the dreamscape. "I can heal the scars on your body, but I can't heal the scars of the soul. Not yours, not mine. You have to learn to live with them. You have to choose to live beyond them."
He couldn't remember anything else in the dream. Perhaps he wasn't meant to. But because of it, he didn't weep for the man he'd become.
Lucivar and Jaenelle stood on the wall of one of the Keep's outer courtyards, looking out over the valley.
Jaenelle pointed to the village below them. "Riada is the largest village in Ebon Rih. Agio is at the northern end of the valley. Doun is at the southern end. There are also several landen villages and a number of independent farmsteads, Blood and landen." She brushed stray hairs from her face. "Outside of Doun, there's a large stone house. The property's surrounded by a stone wall. You can't miss it."
He waited. "Is that where we're going?" he finally asked.
"I'm going back to the cabin. You're going to that house."
"Why?"
She kept her eyes fixed on the valley. "Your mother lives there."
A large, three-story, stone house. A low stone wall separating two acres of tended land from the wildflowers and grasses. Vegetable garden, herb garden, flower gardens", rock garden. In one corner, a stand of trees that whispered, "forest."
A solid place that should have welcomed. A place that gave no comfort. Conflicting emotions too familiar, even after all this time.
Sweet Darkness, don't let it be her.
Of course, it was her. And he wondered why she had abandoned him when he was so young he couldn't remember her and then tolerated his visits as a youth without ever once hinting that she was his mother.
He pushed the kitchen door wide open but remained outside. Until he crossed the threshold, she wouldn't realize he was there. How many times had he suggested that she extend her territorial shield a few feet beyond the stone walls she lived in so she'd have some warning of an intruder? One time less than she'd rejected the suggestion.
Her back was to the door as she fussed with something on the counter. He recognized her anyway by that distinctive white streak in her black hair and the stiff, angry way she always moved.
He stepped into the kitchen. "Hello, Luthvian."
She whirled around, a long-bladed kitchen knife in her hand. He knew it wasn't personal. She'd caught the psychic scent of a grown male and had reached automatically for a knife.
She stared at him, her gold eyes growing wider and wider, filming with tears. "Lucivar," she whispered. She took a step toward him. Then another. She made a funny little sound between a laugh and a sob. "She did it. She actually did it." She reached for him.
Lucivar flicked a glance at the knife and didn't move toward her.
Confusion swiftly changed to anger and changed back again. He saw the moment she realized she was po
inting a knife at him.
Shaking her head, Luthvian dropped the knife on the kitchen table.
Lucivar stepped farther into the kitchen.
Her tear-bright eyes roamed over him, not like a Healer studying her Sister's Craft but like a woman who truly cared. She pressed one trembling hand against her mouth and reached for him with the other.
Hopeful, heart full, he linked his hand with hers.
And she changed. As she always did, had done since the first time the youth she'd tolerated like a stray-turned-sometimes-pet showed up on her doorstep wearing the traditional dress of an Eyrien warrior, and he'd learned, painfully, that the Black Widow Healer he'd thought of as a friend didn't feel the same way about him after she could no longer call him "boy" and believe it.
Now, as she backed away from him, her eyes filled with wary distrust, he realized for the first time how young she was. Age and maturity became slippery things for the long-lived races. There was rapid growth followed by long plateaus. The white streak in her hair, her Craft skills, her temper and attitude had all helped him believe she was a mature woman granting him her company, a woman centuries older than he. And she was centuries older—and had been just old enough to breed and successfully carry a child to term.
"Why do you despise Eyrien males so much?" he asked quietly.
"My father was one."
Sadly, she didn't have to explain it any better than that.
Then he saw her do what she'd done a hundred times before—subtly shift the way her eyes focused. It was as if she created a sight shield that vanished his wings and left him without the one physical attribute that separated Eyriens from Dhemlans and Hayllians.
Swallowing his anger and a small lump of fear, he pulled out a kitchen chair and straddled it. "Even if I'd lost my wings, I'd still be an Eyrien warrior."
Moving restlessly around the kitchen, Luthvian picked up the knife and shoved it back in the knife rack. "If you'd grown up someplace where males learned how to be decent men instead of brutes—" She wiped her hands on her hips. "But you grew up in the hunting camps like the rest of them. Yes, even without your wings, you'd still be an Eyrien warrior. It's too late for you to be anything else."
Bishop, Anne - Dark Jewels 02 - Heir to the Shadows (v1.0) Page 29
