The Shadow Queen bj-7

by Anne Bishop

  “What details?”

  “Connections, Theran. Connections.”

  Talon sagged suddenly, and that was more frightening than his anger.

  “I’m just as much to blame,” Talon said quietly. “Didn’t look closely enough. Didn’t think to ask until it was shoved in my face that I hadn’t asked.”

  “Talon,” Powell said. “It would help the rest of us understand the danger if you could be a little less vague.”

  Theran eased around to the other side of the table but didn’t take a seat. What sort of tale was Cassidy telling that would get Talon that pissed off at him?

  “We’ve got Lucivar Yaslana—yes, that’s who that Eyrien was—honing his weapons and looking in our direction. Which means Sadi is also going to be looking in our direction and honing his own brand of weapons. And don’t think for a minute that Yaslana isn’t going to report to his father—who happens to be the High Lord of Hell.”

  Some of the men sucked in a breath. Others groaned.

  “And worst of all,” Talon said grimly, “I don’t think Lady Cassidy’s friend is going to be looking kindly at us.”

  “Friend?” Ranon said, glancing at Theran. “You mean Sadi’s wife?”

  Talon looked at Theran, and there was a bleakness in the older man’s eyes that made Theran shudder.

  “Sadi’s wife,” Talon said softly. “Who was the Queen of Ebon Askavi.”

  Shocked silence.

  “Witch,” Talon continued, “chose Cassidy to be our Queen. So we’d all better start looking beyond a Rose Jewel to figure out why. Gentlemen, we’ve already made one bad mistake. We can’t afford to make another. So we’re going to study those books of Protocol, and we’re going to learn what we said we wanted to learn. And if the Darkness is merciful, the next time Lucivar Yaslana shows up here, he won’t invite all of us to step onto a killing field.”

  Ebon ASKAVI

  Lucivar stepped into the sitting room and stopped. He’d expected to find his father waiting for him, but . . .

  “What are you still doing here?” he asked Daemon as he approached a low table filled with different kinds of edibles.

  “Waiting for you.” Daemon put a thin slice of cheese on top of a triangle of toast and added a spoonful of chopped spicy beef.

  “Wine?” Saetan asked, indicating the open bottle.

  “I’d rather have ale,” Lucivar said as he took the remaining seat around the table.

  Saetan smiled dryly. “I thought as much. That’s why there’s some on the way.”

  Lucivar filled a plate while he considered the other two men. Saetan was . . . Amused was the politest word that came to mind. Daemon was definitely grumpy.

  “How was your day?” Lucivar asked, watching his brother.

  “Fine.”

  “And you’re still here because you were waiting for me?”

  Daemon made an inarticulate sound.

  Saetan said, “He’s trying to figure out how to explain a certain bit of Craft to his wife.”

  “Oh?” Lucivar said.

  Daemon was paying an awful lot of attention to making little sandwiches he wasn’t eating.

  “Marian is pretty sure she can clean the paint off the floor,” Daemon muttered. “Eventually.”

  “Oh?”

  Daemon huffed out a sigh. “Doesn’t that little beast ever get tired?”

  Saetan had an arm wrapped around his belly and his other fist pressed against his lips.

  “Oh, shit, Bastard. What did you do?”

  “He made the mistake of falling asleep,” Saetan said.

  Daemon growled. “I just thought . . . Something quiet. Just for a little while. We were sitting on the floor with sheets of sketching paper. They were big sheets. Why couldn’t he keep the paint on the paper?”

  “It would have been better if Daemon had thought to provide watercolors instead of a different kind of paint,” Saetan said.

  “And who in the name of Hell taught that boy about shields at his age?” Daemon snarled.

  Probably the wolf pups. “Wasn’t me.” Lucivar looked at both of them. “So Daemonar managed to put some kind of shield into the paint so the standard ways of removing it aren’t working? At least, not completely?”

  Saetan was going to strain a muscle trying not to laugh, and Daemon . . .

  “Besides the floor, what else did he paint?” Lucivar asked.

  A beat of silence. Then Saetan said, “He painted Unka Daemon.”

  Lucivar ended up on the floor, roaring with laughter, which might have pissed off his brother if their father hadn’t ended up on the floor too.

  “Oh, my,” Lucivar said, crawling back up on the chair. He looked at Daemon’s face, which, outside of looking unnaturally flushed, didn’t seem any different. “Where?”

  Saetan propped himself up against a chair. “Let’s just say Daemon needs to explain this to Jaenelle before he takes his shirt off.”

  Oh, shit.

  The pitcher of ale arrived at that moment, making Lucivar wonder if that was luck or his father’s exquisite sense of timing.

  For a few minutes they ate, drank, and generally avoided looking at one another.

  Then Saetan said, “So. Would you like to tell us why you were still pissed off when you walked in the room?”

  Should have known he couldn’t keep it leashed enough to hide it from those two.

  “Is there a problem?” Daemon asked.

  “Maybe.” Lucivar drained his glass and refilled it. “Cassidy got hurt. She was so focused on running from one kind of pain, she worked until she ripped up her hands.” He hesitated, then looked at Daemon. “I think Grayhaven was the cause of that pain, but I don’t know that for sure.”

  Daemon’s eyes looked glazed and a little sleepy—and the chill that was filling the room came from two sources.

  “Why didn’t you bring her back with you?” Saetan asked too softly.

  “There’s another Warlord Prince at the house. About the same age as Grayhaven. Calls himself Gray. He was tortured when he was fifteen and hasn’t recovered from it mentally or emotionally. It’s safe for him to be a boy, to be nothing that would be considered a threat.” Lucivar took a long swallow of ale. “And yet he’s the one who stepped up to the line. He’s the one who told me flat out I had no right to take his Queen anywhere. He called her Cassie.”

  “Jewels?” Saetan asked.

  “Didn’t see them, but he felt like Purple Dusk. And he felt like he should have been more.”

  “Your impression?” Daemon asked.

  “They’re not a court yet. The males are resisting, and damned if I could figure out why. So I left some instructions with Vae. I’ll be there for Cassidy’s first moontime to make sure things get sorted out. And if I don’t trust the males in her First Circle the next time I see them, I’ll bring her back.”

  “Fair enough,” Saetan said.

  “What about Gray?” Daemon asked. “Anything we can do to help him?”

  Lucivar thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Not yet. But I’ll tell you this: if that boy decides to wake up, the Master of the Guard is going to have his hands full.”

  CHAPTER 15

  TERREILLE

  As the last bandage came off, Shira studied Cassidy’s hands, then sighed in relief.

  So did Cassidy.

  “You’ll need to work them gently,” Shira said, “and I do mean gently. There’s still healing going on under the skin. And the skin itself is still fragile. Pulling on a tough blade of grass could be enough to slice it open.”

  “Are you telling me not to work in the garden?”

  “I’m telling you to be very careful about how much you do for the next few days,” Shira said. “And you should put a tight shield over your hands to protect them. And wear gloves.”

  Cassidy rolled her eyes. “Now you sound like my father.”

  “Maybe you should have listened to him.”

  They glared at each other. Then Shira looked
away, as if suddenly realizing she’d crossed some line.

  And she had.

  “I guess we’ve become friends,” Cassidy said, noting the look of surprise and pleasure in Shira’s eyes.

  “I guess we have,” Shira replied a little cautiously. “So, what are you going to do first now that you can do things again?”

  “It’s not the first thing I’ll do, but tonight I’m going to take a long, hot bath and soak until all of me wrinkles.” To her way of thinking, being given sponge baths because she couldn’t wash herself had been sufficient punishment for ripping up both hands. And needing someone’s help with even more personal needs . . .

  Which made her think of the other thing she needed to discuss with Shira.

  “Do you know a brew to delay a moontime?” Cassidy asked.

  Shira frowned. “Why would you want to do that? It will only make the next one a lot worse.”

  Cassidy wasn’t sure how to explain without sounding insulting. Because wanting to delay this was insulting.

  “You don’t trust them, do you?” Shira asked.

  “Trust who?”

  “Your First Circle. You don’t trust them to protect you. You don’t trust them not to turn on you.”

  She didn’t want to admit it, but she wasn’t going to deny the truth. A witch was vulnerable during the first three days of her moon cycle because she couldn’t use her own power to protect herself. And she felt far more vulnerable here in Dena Nehele than she had back home in Dharo.

  Shira gave her a considering look. “You can trust Ranon. He won’t hurt you.”

  “He’s not sure he wants to serve me.”

  “No,” Shira said thoughtfully, “he’s sure of that. He’s . . . puzzled . . . by his response to you.”

  A flash of understanding, especially when she realized Shira was acting more like a woman trying to brace herself for a truth that would wound.

  “He wants to sniff my neck,” Cassidy said.

  Shira hesitated, then nodded.

  “And he’s not sure if that means something sexual.”

  Another reluctant nod.

  “It doesn’t.”

  Shira’s eyes widened. “It doesn’t?”

  “No. I’m not sure what the attraction is. I can’t see or feel anything. And I’m not sure what this impulse means to the males, except it’s not sexual.” She was pretty sure it wasn’t sexual. Maybe she should write to Jaenelle soon and ask. “When I was preparing to come here, Jaenelle told me any Warlord Prince who truly belongs to me will want to sniff my neck and I wasn’t to make a fuss about it.”

  Shira’s mouth hung open. “Jaenelle? Witch told you that?”

  Obviously the rest of the court knew what she’d told Talon about Jaenelle Angelline. Maybe that was why Theran had been so stiffly polite these past few days. “Yes. When I thought about it later, I realized I’d seen all the males in her First Circle stand behind her and a little to the right so that they could . . . Well, they weren’t obvious about it, but basically they were standing there in order to sniff her. But there wasn’t anything sexual about it. I suppose it was sexual with her Consort, but he arrived years after I had served my apprenticeship in the Dark Court, so Jaenelle’s brother Lucivar was the only one I saw kiss her on that spot, and it was friendly. Like when my brother, Clayton, gives me a kiss on the head.”

  “It’s not sexual,” Shira said, not quite believing.

  Cassidy shook her head and smiled. “Ranon is in love with you. I figured that out the first day when you offered your services to the court. So if the two of you want to find a suite of rooms in this place so you can live together, I have no objection. If you want to handfast, we’ll all ignore Theran’s mutters about expenses and have a party.” She frowned. “There are still Priestesses here, aren’t there?”

  Looking a bit dazed, Shira nodded. “But I’m a Black Widow.”

  “And judging by the reaction when you first came here, that’s not going to be an easy thing to be openly. But it shouldn’t stop you from being with someone you love.”

  Shira walked over to the window and stared out. Since she kept wiping her cheeks, Cassidy went to the door, intending to slip out and give the other woman a little time to shed happy tears in private.

  “How close are you?” Shira asked, turning her head a little. “To your moontime.”

  “It will start in a few days. Maybe any day now, actually.”

  “I can make up a brew that will delay it. Since you’re so close, I’m not sure it will delay it for a full cycle, but it will give you a little more time to get used to the males here.”

  “Thank you.”

  Cassidy left the room and paused outside the door. In Dharo, she had made few decisions that had meant much. Here, every decision she made, no matter how small, could ripple through the entire Territory.

  Be what you are. That had been Jaenelle’s last bit of advice.

  Maybe she wouldn’t accomplish much. Maybe her court would decide among themselves to keep her for a year as a token while they actually ruled. The Darkness knew they were all stronger than she, so there wasn’t anything she could do if they opposed her.

  But she had done something of value today, and if she did nothing else while she was here, at least she’d made it possible for two people to love each other openly.

  As she headed for the door that opened onto the terrace, Cassidy couldn’t stop smiling.

  Gray pretended to rake the softened earth in front of him while he watched Cassie. The sun shone on that braid of fire as she walked across the lawn, and her strides were long and easy. Like the rest of her.

  Every morning since the hurting she had come out to sit in the chair he set out for her. They talked about plants while he dug and weeded, reclaiming another piece of the gardens. And she talked to him about Protocol, since he studied a little more of the books each night and asked her questions.

  He enjoyed the simple easiness of being around her, and looked forward to the hour or so they could spend together before she had to go inside to do her Queen work.

  He hoped she would enjoy the surprise he had hidden in the wheelbarrow.

  “Look,” Cassidy said, giving him a wide smile as she held up her hands. “No more bandages.”

  Setting the rake aside, Gray scrubbed his hands on his pants to clean off a bit of the dirt before taking careful hold of her hands.

  Healed. Not even a small scar to show the damage she had done to her hands.

  Healed but not whole. Not yet. Maybe never. Maybe never as strong as before the hurting.

  He had learned that painful lesson years ago.

  “They’re not strong enough for digging,” Gray said. “Not yet.”

  “I won’t know that until I—”

  “No,” he said, his voice sharpened by a certainty he couldn’t explain. “They’re not strong enough yet, Cassie. Not for digging in ground that hasn’t been tended for too many years.”

  She looked bewildered—and hurt—that he would snap at her like that.

  He couldn’t stand to see her hurting, so he added quickly, “But you could plant.”

  “Plant?”

  Gray stepped to one side so that Cassie could see inside the wheelbarrow.

  “Oh,” Cassie said, picking up one seed pot. “What are they?”

  No longer sounding hurt. Now she sounded curious and excited—the seedlings of happiness.

  “Don’t know the fancy name for it, but the common name is blue river,” Gray said. “It’s a delicate trailing plant that has small blue flowers. Starts blooming in late spring and into summer. If you cut it back some at that point, it will have a second blooming season. I was thinking about that boulder you weren’t sure of.”

  Still looking at the plant, Cassie nodded. “It has that funny hole in it.”

  “I figure that hole is about the size of a good-size pot. So if you plant one blue river in that hole and the others in front of the boulder . . .”

  “
It will look like a waterfall tumbling down rocks into a river. Gray, that’s a wonderful idea.” She gave him a quick kiss, right on the mouth, before she turned back to the wheelbarrow and began crooning to the little plants.

  Gray stood frozen. She had kissed him. But not in a mean way. Not in a way that meant he was going to be tied down and hurt. Not the way the other Queen had done.

  And not quite like a man-and-woman kiss. At least, he didn’t think so. It was done before he’d known it had started.

  He wouldn’t mind trying a man-and-woman kiss if the woman was Cassie.

  Would she want to try that kind of kissing with him?

  “Gray?”

  “Huh?”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Huh?”

  Cassie stood in front of him, holding two of the seed pots, smiling at him, and looking a little puzzled.

  “You have the strangest expression on your face,” Cassie said. “What are you thinking about?”

  Oh, no. He knew better than to answer that question. “Did you ask me something before?”

  Cassie studied him for a moment, then shook her head. “Males are very strange.”

  Not half as strange as females, Gray thought.

  “I asked where you got the plants.”

  “Oh. There are a couple of women in town who grow plants for sale. They have greenhouses and everything. And there are two sisters who grow a lot of the plants Healers need for their brews and salves. So when Shira and Ranon went to look at plants yesterday, I went with them. And I found these.”

  “I’d like to take a look at what’s available,” Cassidy said. “Maybe we could go back to those places tomorrow morning or the day after.” She wrinkled her nose. “I haven’t been in the town yet; things have been so busy here.”

  “We?” Gray asked, wondering why his heart was feeling funny all of a sudden.

  “You and me. Oh, and I suppose I’ll need an official escort as well just to keep everything proper.”

  “Protocol,” Gray said, nodding. “You have to set a good example.”

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “I know you’ve lived here all your life, but you sound like you’re from Kaeleer.”