Shalador's Lady

by Bishop, Anne

  *Talon, I am so sorry,* Theran said.

  *Laska’s family isn’t the only one who has a reason to feel shame because of this.* Talon walked out of the room.

  After lowering the stretcher to the floor, Ranon and the other men followed Talon. Julien hurried out after them.

  “I’ll leave as soon as I’m packed.” Jhorma vanished the body and stretcher.

  “Let Bardoc give you a hand with the packing.”

  Jhorma gave Theran a long look, then signaled Bardoc, who joined them with too much haste.

  “I think Bardoc should accompany me to Dharo,” Jhorma said. “He and Laska came from the same village. He knows the family.”

  Theran nodded. He didn’t care what Jhorma did, not when all his hopes for Dena Nehele were breaking around him.

  He closed the door behind Jhorma and Bardoc—and put a Green lock on it. Then he turned to face Kermilla, who had left the card table and was now standing in the middle of the room, looking pale and scared.

  “What was Laska doing in Eyota?” He moved toward her while his temper strained the leash. “He had no reason to be there. He had no business being there.”

  “I don’t know,” Kermilla said.

  “Don’t lie to me.” He stopped, not willing to tempt his control by getting too close to her. “He’s a member of your court. You have to know.”

  “I don’t know!” Some anger in her voice and eyes now that he was challenging her.

  “Hell’s fire, Kermilla. Do you know what this has done to your reputation? One of your First Circle tried to abduct a young Warlord. I can tell you two reasons the Warlord Princes are going to think of when they hear about this: torture and rape.”

  “Laska wasn’t like that,” Kermilla snapped. “Laska wouldn’t do that. I would never have anyone in my court who would do that!”

  You would have brought Garth and Brok into your court. If you could overlook one kind of rapist, why not another?

  He pushed that thought away and buried it deep.

  “Then what was he doing in that village, and what was he doing with that boy that would piss off a brother enough to kill Laska that way?” Theran shouted.

  “He wasn’t getting a boy!” she screamed. “He went there to get me a Sceltie!”

  Theran took a step back, staggered by the foolishness that cost a man his life—and probably cost the rest of them in other ways.

  “A Sceltie.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Hell’s fire, woman, have you lost your mind?”

  “The Warlord Princes are all so impressed that Cassidy has some, and they’re not going to take me seriously until I have one too.” Tears filled her eyes and her lower lip trembled. “They wouldn’t have missed one in that stupid village. Besides, you sent Correne away, and that awful Talon killed Garth and Brok, and I wanted company. You’re always too busy to pay attention to me even though you say you love me.”

  “So this is my fault because I’m working in every way I can to get this town through the coming winter?” He paced, circled, wanted to tear up the room and smash the furniture. But he couldn’t afford to replace whatever he destroyed, so he held his temper and circled. And paced.

  “Even if Laska had managed to snatch one without being detected, how would you have held on to it?” he asked. “They’re kindred, Kermilla. Blood. Didn’t you notice anything while Vae was here? She’s a witch. She wears a Purple Dusk Jewel. Mother Night, woman, she outranks you.”

  “How dare you!”

  He stopped in front of her. “That’s fact, Kermilla. Vae’s Jewels outrank yours. So what were you going to do with this Warlord if he didn’t want to stay here? Chain him? Cage him? Beat him and torture him until he was too broken down in body and spirit to run?”

  “He wouldn’t be of any use if he was like that.” She stamped her foot. “But he would have wanted to stay with me. Once he got here, he would have.”

  “Doesn’t matter now.” Theran sank into the nearest chair, leaned back and closed his eyes.

  Kermilla wasn’t like the Queen who had tortured Gray. She wasn’t. But she’d made an error in judgment that would not be fixed easily. If he could fix it at all.

  “Theran?” Kermilla climbed into his lap and pressed against him. “Theran, I’m sorry about this little trouble.”

  “One of your men died. That’s not a little trouble,” he said wearily. “Talon, the most respected man in this land, is against you. That’s not a little trouble. The fact that Talon isn’t making a distinction between kindred and human Blood in this instance . . .” He sighed. “In a couple of days, every Warlord Prince is going to know that you sent a man to Eyota to abduct a young Warlord, and no one is going to care if you intended to take a boy or a dog.”

  She snuggled down and put her head on his shoulder. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.” He put his arms around her, unable to deny her whatever comfort he could give. “I really don’t know.”

  Ranon stood in the parlor doorway, unable to take that last step into the room. Vae looked up from her spot on the sofa and gave him one tail-tip wag. Darkmist, who was on the floor in front of the sofa, gave him no greeting but also didn’t challenge his presence.

  A hesitant touch of a hand on his back. He turned and followed Shira to the healing room in the Residence. As soon as she closed the door, he pulled her into his arms and held on.

  “I was ashamed that the least of them had chosen me,” he whispered into her hair. “I felt embarrassed when Ferall and the others saw him that day. And now . . .”

  “Hush, Ranon, hush,” she said as she stroked his back.

  “Is he coming back to us, Shira?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m hopeful.”

  He eased back enough to rest his forehead against hers. “Where is everyone?”

  “Gray took Cassie upstairs. She’s distraught. Powell has been in his office since you left. The rest of the First Circle and the guards have been patrolling the village in shifts. I sent Reyhana and Janos to your grandfather for the night. They spent hours in the parlor this evening, taking turns reading Sceltie Saves the Day, and they both needed to be away for a while. Vae and Darkmist have been here all the time. The other Scelties come for an hour, then go out with one of the men to patrol.”

  “Shira . . .”

  “He’s hiding under your shirt.” She said the words quickly, as if she needed to silence any questions she couldn’t answer. “Vae thinks that’s a good sign because he’s been making tiny movements to get himself completely covered. You can’t see anything but the tip of his nose now.”

  “I’m so tired, love. I was in a fight once that lasted a whole day. It was a relentless battle on a killing field, so we were all committed to winning or dying. Barely had time for a sip of water or a mouthful of food in the rare spaces between one enemy and the next. When I finally walked off that field, I didn’t feel this tired.”

  “Come to bed,” Shira said, caressing his face. “We’ll take Khollie up with us. Maybe we’ll both get a little rest that way.”

  He followed her back into the parlor and very carefully lifted the bundle hidden in his shirt. They went up to their room, and he tucked Khollie on the bed between them.

  The last thing he remembered after stretching out on the bed was linking fingers with Shira.

  *Ranon?*

  A scared little whisper of a voice, but enough to have his eyes opening to stare at the bedroom ceiling.

  *Ranon?*

  Ranon turned his head to look at the bundle on the bed. *Khollie?*

  Pinching a little of the shirt, he eased it back until he could see the dog’s head—and the dark eyes staring at him.

  *Hey, little brother. We were worried about you.*

  Khollie peered at his surroundings. *I am on the bed. I am not supposed to be on the bed. It is a Shira rule.*

  *I know. But she said you were allowed this one time.*

  *Ranon? I need a tree.*

  *
You want some food too?*

  *Yes.*

  *Come on, then. We’ll see what we can find.*

  He helped Khollie untangle himself from the shirt, then eased out of bed.

  Shira immediately woke up. “Ranon?”

  “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “Khollie and I are going to get something to eat.”

  She rolled over to look at Khollie, who gave her a quick lick on the chin before jumping off the bed.

  “Oh,” she said. “All right.”

  As Ranon let them out of the room, he heard her muffled sob.

  He closed the door as quietly as he could, but he’d barely taken a step before Cassie’s door opened and Gray stood there.

  He knew about Yaslana’s rules concerning Gray and Cassie’s physical relationship. Hell’s fire, everyone knew about Lucivar’s rules. But he wasn’t going to ask where Gray was sleeping tonight.

  Gray looked down and smiled. “Hey, Khollie.”

  Khollie wagged his tail and whined softly.

  “We’re going downstairs,” Ranon said.

  Gray nodded and closed the door.

  When they reached the back door, Khollie stood in the doorway, trembling.

  *Khollie?* Vae joined them. *Are you going outside? I have to go too. We will go together. Ranon will guard us.*

  “Yes, I will.” He put an Opal shield around the backyard. Nothing would get in—or out—without him knowing about it.

  He stood in the doorway, watching, and didn’t turn when Gray came up behind him.

  “I told Cassie that Khollie woke up,” Gray said. “She wants to cry by herself for a little while.”

  “Shira is crying too.” Maybe it wasn’t fair to ask, but there was no one else he could ask. “Will Khollie be all right, Gray?”

  Those green eyes held too much knowledge. Then Gray said, “We’ll help him be all right.”

  CHAPTER 25

  EBON ASKAVI

  Saetan sat on the wide arm of a stuffed chair and watched a storm gather in one of the Keep’s sitting rooms.

  The first warning of trouble had been the two Warlords who arrived at the Keep a couple days ago. They wanted passage through the Gate in order to return to Dharo—and they brought the body of another man.

  The second warning had come in a note from Daemon yesterday, requesting his presence at a meeting. Official, careful wording. Not a message from son to father but from Consort to Steward.

  When Jaenelle was pissed off about something, she didn’t seem to remember that she no longer had an official court.

  And no one was ballsy enough to remind her. Including him.

  The third warning was Daemon’s note to Draca, asking the Keep’s Seneschal to accommodate several overnight guests.

  Saetan wanted to believe the meeting was being held at the Keep to accommodate Lucivar, who still felt uneasy about leaving Marian on her own for too long. But when the others began to arrive, he knew why Jaenelle had chosen the Keep: It was the Sanctuary—and lair—of Witch.

  Jaenelle and Daemon arrived first. She wore a cobwebby, spidersilk dress known as Widow’s weeds, and her Jewel was mostly Gray with streaks of Red and Sapphire—and a single thread of Black. Daemon wore a face that revealed nothing of his thoughts or feelings. He wasn’t there as Jaenelle’s husband or Consort or as the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. He was in that room as the Queen’s weapon.

  Lucivar walked in. “Cat, what’s this—” He looked at Daemon’s face and didn’t finish the question.

  Sabrina came in next, tense and nervous, followed by Aaron, Morghann, and Khardeen.

  Four of Jaenelle’s childhood friends, Saetan thought as he watched Sabrina greet the others. Four people who had served in Witch’s First Circle. Will they still be friends when this discussion is over?

  Jaenelle sat on a half sofa across from several chairs. Daemon sat beside her, his right arm stretched out over the sofa’s back, looking calm and lazy.

  Saetan watched the way Lucivar prowled the room without ever turning his back to Daemon and felt a shiver of fear.

  The women sat. Aaron and Khardeen remained on their feet, tense and alert.

  Then Karla walked into the room.

  “Kiss kiss. Sorry I’m late.” She made her way to the chair closest to Saetan’s. “I was trying to undo an . . . incident . . . that turned a large white cat into a bright pink and blue cat.”

  A flash of warm humor from Jaenelle flowed through the room. “Did you fix it?”

  “When I left, KaeAskavi was an evenly tinted mauve cat—and he was not happy.”

  That produced a few chuckles, but the humor quickly faded as all their attention focused on Jaenelle.

  “I received a letter from Cassidy yesterday,” she said. “I felt you should all know what happened and that we should come to an agreement about what will—and will not—be done.”

  She called in the letter and handed it to Daemon. Lucivar immediately came around to the back of the sofa to read over his brother’s shoulder.

  Daemon read the letter and handed it to Khardeen. That beautiful face revealed nothing, and there was nothing Saetan could detect on a psychic thread, even at the level of the Black. Daemon had his emotions tightly leashed.

  But the room grew cold.

  Lucivar, on the other hand, began swearing softly, viciously in Eyrien as he resumed his prowling.

  Hot anger. Cold fury. The room filled with temper as, one by one, the friends who had been First Circle in the Dark Court at Ebon Askavi read Cassidy’s letter. Finally Karla read it and passed it to him as he called in his half-moon glasses.

  How many times did Cassidy write that letter before she achieved sentences that were so carefully honest? She didn’t accuse anyone of anything. She didn’t offer opinions or feelings. She didn’t report anything that hadn’t been witnessed. She didn’t say Kermilla had given the order, but there wasn’t a single person in the room who couldn’t read between the lines. The only break from that control was Cassidy’s excessive assurances that Khollie was still a little frightened because of the incident but they were confident that he would recover completely.

  Which meant there had been some doubt that Khollie would recover at all.

  “What in the name of Hell is going on there?” Khary said.

  “This wasn’t Cassie’s fault,” Aaron snapped, instantly ready to defend his cousin.

  “I didn’t say it was,” Khary snapped back. “But something should be done.”

  “Nothing will be done,” Jaenelle said quietly. “At least, not by us.”

  Daemon stiffened. Nothing anyone else would notice, but Saetan had been keeping a wary eye on him and saw the change.

  He knows something. Or suspects something. But his tongue, like his temper, is held by the Queen’s will, and he’ll tell us nothing.

  “What is Kermilla still doing in Dena Nehele anyway?” Sabrina snarled.

  “You were aware she had gone to visit Cassidy?” Jaenelle asked.

  “And aware of her mistreatment of a servant while she was a guest there. Believe me, that will weigh heavily in my decision about whether she’s going to continue ruling anything in my Territory.” Sabrina paced back and forth behind the chairs. “But that happened in early summer. We’re into the autumn harvest now. What’s she still doing there?”

  “Causing more trouble?” Khary suggested.

  “Khary,” Morghann said in quiet warning.

  “Don’t hush him, Morghann, he’s right,” Sabrina said. “Kermilla has no business being there, and it’s past time to go to Dena Nehele and haul the bitch’s ass home.”

  “No,” Saetan said. “You can’t take action outside of your own Territory, Sabrina. That line was drawn thousands of years ago, and it does not—cannot—change.” Because that was the line Dorothea and Hekatah crossed in their efforts to take control of the whole Realm of Terreille. As much as I love all of you, for the good of the Realms and the Blood, I will kill any one of you who tries to cross that l
ine.

  He glanced at Jaenelle and saw the way Witch looked at him. Looked through him.

  And if it came to that, she would expect me to do nothing less. “Besides,” he continued. “Kermilla is, and has been, Theran Grayhaven’s guest these past few weeks, not Cassidy’s. If the Queen of Dena Nehele wants Kermilla out of her Territory, it’s up to her to take care of it—and her First Circle has the strength to do it without help.”

  “Cassidy’s too polite,” Sabrina snapped at him, then turned to Jaenelle. “They have a history. You know that.”

  Jaenelle’s sapphire eyes held Sabrina. A moment passed. Two.

  Saetan wished fiercely that he was privy to that psychic thread and knew what passed between the two women. Because something had surprised Sabrina enough to drain the Dharo Queen’s temper.

  “Are you asking me to be blind to what’s happening?” Sabrina asked.

  “Outside of your own borders, yes,” Jaenelle replied. Then her lips curved in a sharp, chilly smile. “Would I ask you to be blind to what’s happening within your own borders? Never.” She considered. “Almost never.”

  Four Queens who began ruling at a young age—as soon as they had made the Offering to the Darkness, in fact. Each one was capable of great compassion—and of being totally ruthless. Saetan watched them, certain that in these few seconds of silence they had reached an agreement of how they would work together to achieve a desired result without crossing that unforgivable line.

  As curious as he was about what had passed between Sabrina and Jaenelle, he was equally certain that he didn’t want to know what the four Queens had decided to do. And maybe, if he was lucky, he wouldn’t have to know. After all, he was supposed to be retired from the living Realms.

  And the sun might shine in Hell tomorrow.

  *Coward,* Daemon said softly on a Black spear thread.

  A hint of humor, of relaxation. The Queen’s weapon would not be needed tonight.

  “The Warlord who acted on Kermilla’s orders came from Dharo?” Sabrina asked thoughtfully.