by Anne Bishop
Jaenelle had disappeared shortly after she had talked to them. They, in turn, had talked to the rest of the coven, only telling them that the boyos needed to be held back for a few more days. They hadn't told the others about Witch's intention of going to war with Terreille—alone. They had understood the unspoken command when Jaenelle had finally shown them the dream that lived beneath the human skin.
So the coven, unhappy but united, had rounded up the boyos before any of them could slip the leash. It hadn't been easy, and the males' hostility toward what they considered a betrayal had been vicious enough to make Karla wonder if any of the marriages in the First Circle would survive. Some of those marriages might have been destroyed right there and then if Tersa hadn't come along and scolded the boyos for their lack of courtesy. Since the males weren't willing to attack her, they had given in.
Almost twenty-four hours of enforced togetherness hadn't made things any easier, but it was the only way to ensure the males' continued presence. Even by the Keep's standards, the sitting room the coven had chosen as a place of confinement was a large room with several clusters of furniture and lots of pacing room—and it wasn't big enough. The coven mostly kept to the chairs and couches to avoid being snarled at by a pacing male. And when the boyos weren't pacing, they were huddled together, muttering.
"How many days are we going to have to do this?" Karla muttered to herself.
"As many as it takes," Tersa replied quietly. She studied her newest creation for a minute, then knocked it down.
The wooden blocks clattered on the long table in front of the couch, but no one jumped this time, having gotten used to the noise. No one even paid much attention to Tersa's odd creations. The boyos, in an attempt to prove they could be courteous, had admired and inquired about the first few... structures... but when Tersa's replies became more and more confusing, they finally backed off and left her alone.
In fact, Karla would have bet they weren't paying attention to much of anything going on in the room—until Ladvarian came in and trotted over to her.
The Sceltie looked unbearably weary, and there was a deep sadness in his brown eyes—and just a bit of an accusation.
*Karla?* Ladvarian said.
"Little Brother," Karla replied.
Two bowls appeared on the small table next to Karla's chair. One was filled with...
Karla carefully picked one up, studied it.
... bubbles of water that had protective shields around them to form a kind of skin. The other bowl had one red bubble.
*I need a drop of blood from each of you,* Ladvarian said.
"Why?" Karla asked as she studied the bubble. It was a brilliant little piece of Craft.
*For Jaenelle.*
Hearing that, Chaosti jumped in. "If Jaenelle wants something from us right now, she can ask us herself."
"Chaosti," Gabrielle hissed.
Chaosti snarled at her.
Ladvarian cringed at the anger in the room, but his eyes never left Karla.
"Why?" Karla asked.
"Why why why," Tersa said irritably as she knocked over the building blocks. "Humans can't even give a little gift without asking why why why. It is for your Queen. What more do you need to know?" Then, as if the outburst had never happened, she began arranging blocks again.
Karla shivered as she stared at Ladvarian. There were two ways to interpret "for Jaenelle." Either the dog was just the courier and was bringing these drops of blood to Jaenelle because she needed them for something ... or Ladvarian wanted them for Jaenelle. But how to ask the right questions and get something more than an evasive answer. Because she was certain Ladvarian would become evasive if she pushed too hard.
"I'm not sure I can give you a drop of blood, little Brother," Karla said carefully. "My blood is still a bit tainted from the poison."
"That will have no effect on this," Tersa said absently as she used Craft to hold blocks in the air. "But what is in your heart... Yes, that will affect a great deal."
"Why?" Karla asked—and then winced when Tersa just looked at her. She turned her attention back to Ladvarian. "So, that's all we have to do? Just put a drop of blood into each bubble?"
*When you give the blood, you must think about Jaenelle. Good thoughts,* he added in a growl as he glanced at the other males.
Karla shook her head. "I don't understand. Why—"
"Because the Blood will sing to the Blood," Tersa answered quietly. "Because blood is the memory's river."
Exasperated, Karla looked at Tersa, but it was the structure that caught her eye first.
A spiral. A glistening black spiral.
Then the brown wooden blocks crashed down on the table.
*Karla,* Gabrielle said softly.
*I saw it.* She looked at Tersa, who looked back at her with frighteningly clear-sighted eyes. She knows. Mother Night, whatever is going to happen... Tersa knows. And so does Ladvarian.
And knowing that much, there was no longer any need to ask "why."
Glancing at Ladvarian for permission, Karla sent out the most delicate psychic tendril she could create and lightly touched the red bubble.
Ladvarian, as a puppy, being taught by Jaenelle to air walk. Being brushed and petted. Being taught...
She backed away. Those memories were private, the best he had to give.
She swallowed hard—and tasted tears. "What Jaenelle is trying to do... Is it dangerous?"
*Yes,* Ladvarian answered.
"Have other kindred given this gift?"
*All the kindred who know her.*
And I'll bet none of them asked why why why.Karla looked at the rest of the First Circle. No trace of anger. Not anymore. They would think about Jaenelle's actions over the past few weeks and reach the right conclusion.
"All right, little Brother," Karla said. Before she could use her thumbnail to prick a finger, Gabrielle touched her shoulder.
"I think..." Gabrielle hesitated, took a deep breath. "I think this should be done as ritual."
So that it would be as powerful as they could make it. "Yes, you're right." Karla set the clear bubble back into the bowl.
"I'll get what we need," Gabrielle said.
"I'll go with you," Morghann said.
As Gabrielle and Morghann walked past the males, Chaosti and Khary reached out, each one giving his wife a gentle touch of apology before stepping aside.
With a weary sigh, Ladvarian moved out of the way and lay down.
Tersa stood up.
"Tersa?" Karla said. "Aren't you going to give the gift?"
Those clear-sighted eyes looked into her. Then Tersa smiled, said, "I already have," and left the room.
That was enough to tell Karla who had shown the kindred how to create those brilliant little pieces of Craft.
Watching the males shift places and take up their usual protective stance, Karla's eyes filled with tears, and she wished, futilely, that Morton could have been standing among them.
We'll be all right, she thought when she saw Aaron wrap his arms around Kalush. The harsh words will be forgiven, and we'll be all right.
But would Jaenelle?
3 / Terreille
"It's your turn, little bitch," Daemon said as he unfastened the chains from the post.
Surreal stared at him. It was after midnight—was, in fact, almost twenty-four hours since he had killed Marian and Daemonar. The day had been quiet enough. Sadi had prowled around the camp, making everyone nervous, and Dorothea and Hekatah had played least-in-sight.
"What are you going to do with the bitch?" Dorothea said, approaching the posts.
Until now.
Daemon looked at Dorothea and smiled. "Well, darling, I'm going to use her to give you what you've always wanted."
"Meaning what?" Dorothea asked uneasily.
"Meaning," Daemon purred, "that I'm going to break your slut of a granddaughter. And then I'm going to mount her until she's seeded with my child. She's ripe for it. It'll catch. And I'll make sure she has
all the incentive she needs not to try to abort it. Your bloodline and me, Dorothea. Exactly what you've wanted from me. And all you'll have to overlook is the fact that the result might have pointed ears."
Laughing, he dragged Surreal into the same hut that had held Marian and Daemonar.
She waited until he had turned to close the door before she called in her stiletto and launched herself at him. He spun around, raised an arm to block the knife. She twisted, bringing the knife in under his arm, intending to drive it between his ribs up to the hilt. Instead, the knife hit a shield, slid right past him, and went into the door.
Before she could yank the knife out of the wood, Daemon grabbed her, shoved her back to the center of the small room. Screaming, she launched herself at him again. He caught her hands and roughly pushed her back until her knees hit the edge of the narrow bed. She went down with him on top of her.
He rolled off immediately, sprang to his feet. "That's enough."
She leaped off the bed and hurled every curse she knew at the top of her lungs before she lunged at him again.
He pushed her away and swore viciously. "Damn it, Surreal, that's enough."
"If you think I'm going to spread my legs for you, you'd better think again, Sadist."
"Shut up, Surreal," Daemon said quietly but intensely.
She felt the shields go up around the hut. Not just a Black protective shield but a Black aural shield as well. Which meant no one could hear what was happening inside.
He took a deep breath, raked his fingers through his hair. "Well," he said dryly, "that little performance ought to convince the bitches that something is happening in here."
She had been gathering herself to spring at him again, intending to go for his balls this time. But that tone and those words sounded so... Daemon... that she paused. And remembered Karla's warning about a friend who becomes an enemy in order to remain a friend.
He eyed her, then approached warily. "Let's see your wrists."
She held out her hands, watching him—and saw the fury in his eyes when he snapped off the manacles and looked at the raw skin underneath.
Surreal huffed. "Damn it, Sadi, what kind of game are you playing?"
"A vicious one," he replied, calling in a leather box. He looked through it, pulled out a jar, and handed it to her. "Put that on your wrists."
She opened the jar, sniffed. A Healer's ointment. While she applied it to her wrists, he called in another box. There were several balls of clay sitting in nests of paper. Two of the nests were empty.
"Do you still have the food pack you brought?"
"Yes. I haven't had a chance to eat any of it," she added tartly.
"Then eat something now," he said, still looking through the box. "I'd give you some from mine, but I gave most of it to Marian."
A chill went down Surreal's spine. There was a funny buzzing in her head. "To Marian?"
"Do you remember the shack we stopped at when we got to Hayll?"
"Yes." Of course she remembered it. It was a couple of miles away from the camp. That was where Daemon had changed into the Sadist. One minute he had been carefully explaining about the sentries and the perimeter stakes that would alert the guards, and the next thing she knew, she was tied up and he was purring threats about how she should have stayed under Falonar and stayed out of his way. He had scared her, badly. And the fact that he had made her furious now. "You could have told me, you son of a bitch."
He looked up. "Would you have been as convincing?"
She bristled, insulted. "You're damn right I would have been."
"Well, we're going to have a chance to find out. You said you wanted to help, Surreal. That you were willing to be a diversion."
She had said that, but she'd thought she would have known when she was being a diversion. "So?"
"So now you will be." He approached her, held up a small gold hoop. "Listen carefully. This will produce the illusion that you're broken." He slipped the hoop through one of the links of the necklace that held her Gray Jewel. "No one will be able to detect that you're still wearing the Gray unless you use it. If you do need to use it, then don't hesitate. I'll figure out some way to deal with things here."
"The High Lord will know I'm not broken."
Daemon shook his head as he turned back to search for something else in the box. "You'd have to wear Jewels darker than the Black to be able to detect that spell."
Darker than the Black? Sadi couldn't make a spell like that. Which meant...
Mother Night.
"This"—Daemon held up a tiny crystal vial before attaching it to the necklace—"will convince anyone who thinks to check that you're not only fertile but you're now pregnant. A Healer would be able to tell within twenty-four hours," he added, answering her unspoken question.
Lifting the necklace, Surreal studied the vial. "You asked Jaenelle to create an illusion that I was pregnant with your child?"
She saw his face tighten.
Yes, he had asked Jaenelle. And it had hurt him to ask.
Looking to change the subject, she pointed to the balls of clay. "What are those?"
"The raw spells to create shadows."
Shadows. Illusions that could be made to fool someone into believing the person in front of them was real.
"Marian and Daemonar," she said weakly, staring at the two empty nests of paper.
"Yes," he replied sharply.
She hissed at him. "You didn't trust me, a whore, to put on a good show, but you figured Lucivar would be convin—" Her voice trailed away. "He doesn't know, does he?"
"No," Daemon said quietly, "he doesn't know."
Her legs weakened so abruptly, she sat on the floor. "Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful."
"I know." Daemon hesitated. "I'm buying time, Surreal. I have got to buy enough time and still get everyone out of here. In order to make Dorothea and Hekatah believe Marian and Daemonar were dead, Lucivar had to believe it."
"Mother Night." Surreal rested her forehead on her knees. "What's worth paying a price like this?"
"My Queen needs the time in order to save Kaeleer."
"Oh, shit, Sadi." She looked up at him. "Tell me something. Even though you knew it was an illusion, how did you keep your stomach down afterward?"
He swallowed hard. "I didn't."
"You're mad," she muttered as she climbed to her feet.
"I serve," he said sharply.
Sometimes, for a male, it amounted to the same thing.
"All right," she said as she hooked her hair behind her pointed ears. "What do you need me to do?"
He hesitated, then started to hedge. "It's dangerous."
"Daemon," she said patiently, "what do you need?" When he still didn't answer, she took a guess. "You want me to wander around the camp whimpering and looking like a woman who's been raped out of her mind and is now terrified of what will happen to her if she miscarries the child that was produced from that rape. Right?"
"Yes," he said faintly.
"And then what?"
"Marian and Daemonar are at that shack. Slip out of camp tomorrow night, pick them up, and then go to the Keep. Don't stop, don't go anywhere else. Get to the Keep. You'll have to ride the Red Wind. The darker ones are unstable."
"Un—Never mind, I don't want to know about that." She thought everything through carefully. Yes, she could play this out. A woman that broken would spend a lot of time hiding, so letting people get glimpses of her throughout the day would be enough—and would hide the fact that she had disappeared.
Daemon reached for one of the balls of clay.
"What's that for?" Surreal asked.
"You would have fought for as long as you could," Daemon said, not looking at her. "You would look like you'd fought. After I create the illusion, you can carry this and—"
"No." Surreal shrugged out of her jacket and started unbuttoning her shirt. "You can't play all of this out with illusions. Not if you want to convince Dorothea and Hekatah
long enough to buy the time Jaenelle needs."
His eyes turned hard yellow. "I'll give up a great deal for this, Surreal, but I'm not going to break my vow of fidelity."
"I know," she replied quietly. "That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?" Daemon snapped.
She took a deep breath to steady herself. "You have to make the bruises real."
4 / Kaeleer
Calling in the bowl, Ladvarian placed it carefully on the chamber floor and watched the Arachnian Queen delicately touch the little bubbles now filled with blood and memories.
*Is good,* the spider said with approval. *Good memories. Strong memories. As strong as kindred.*
Ladvarian looked at the bowl that sat in front of the huge tangled web. There were still a lot of the kindred's gifts left in the bowl. It wasn't a fast thing the Weaver was doing.
*You must rest,* the spider said as she selected a bubble from the humans' offerings and floated up to a thread in the web. *All kindred must rest. Must be strong when the time comes to anchor the dream to flesh.*
*Will you have enough time to add all the memories?* Ladvarian asked respectfully.
The Weaver of Dreams didn't reply for a long time. Then, *Enough. Just enough.*
5 / Terreille
The whimpering wasn't all feigned.
But, Hell's fire, Surreal thought as she wandered aimlessly around the camp, she hadn't expected to have to goad Daemon quite that much before he finally got down to business. And she'd understood that the anger behind his teeth and hands was because he'd had to touch a woman besides Jaenelle in a few intimate places. But, shit, he didn't have to bite her breast quite that hard.
On the other hand, he had chosen his marks very carefully. Judging by the look in people's eyes when they saw her, the bruises were impressive, but none of them impeded movement or would freeze a muscle if she had to fight.
The hardest part had been seeing the hatred in Saetan's eyes. She'd wanted to tell him. Oh, how she'd wanted to say something, anything, to get that look out of his eyes. And she might have if Daemon hadn't chosen that moment to glide by and make a devastatingly cutting remark. After that, throughout the rest of the morning, she had avoided the High Lord—and she hadn't dared get anywhere near Lucivar.
