"You ride the Winds?" he yelped.
She raised a finger to test the air.
"Not breezes or puffs of air." Lucivar ground his teeth. "The Winds. The Webs. The psychic roads in the Darkness."
Jaenelle perked up. "Is that what they are?"
He managed to stop in mid-curse.
Jaenelle leaned forward. "Are you always this prickly?"
"Most people think I'm a prick, yes."
"What's that mean?"
"Never mind." He chose a sharp stone and drew a circle on the ground between them. "This is the Realm of Terreille." He placed a round stone in the circle. "This is the Black Mountain, Ebon Askavi, where the Winds meet." He drew straight lines from the round stone to the circumference of the circle.
"These are tether lines." He drew smaller circles within the circle. "These are radial lines. The Winds are like a spider web. You can travel on the tether or the radial lines, changing direction where they intersect.
There's a Web for each rank of the Blood Jewels. The darker the Web, the more tether and radial lines there are and the faster the Wind is. You can ride a Web that's your rank or lighter. You can't ride a Web darker than your Jewel rank unless you're traveling inside a Coach being driven by someone strong enough to ride that Web or you're being shielded by someone who can ride that Web. If you try, you probably won't survive. Understand?"
Jaenelle chewed on her lower lip and pointed to a space between the strands. "What if I want to go there?"
Lucivar shook his head. "You'd have to drop from the Web back into the Realm at the nearest point and travel some other way."
"That's not how I got here," she protested.
Lucivar shuddered. There wasn't a strand of any Web around Zuultah's compound. Her court was deliberately in one of those blank spaces. The only way to get here directly from the Winds was by leaving the Web and gliding blind through the Darkness, which, even for the strongest and the best, was a chancy thing to do. Unless . . .
"Come here, Cat," he said gently. When she dropped in front of him, he rested his hands on her thin shoulders. "Do you often go wandering?"
Jaenelle nodded slowly. "People call me. Like you did."
Like he did. Mother Night! "Cat, listen to me. Children are vulnerable to many dangers."
There was a strange expression in her eyes. "Yes, I know."
"Sometimes an enemy can wear the mask of a friend until it's too late to escape."
"Yes," she whispered.
Lucivar shook her gently, forcing her to look at him. "Terreille is a dangerous place for little cats. Please, go home and don't go wandering anymore. Don't . . . don't answer the people who call you."
"But then I won't see you anymore."
Lucivar closed his gold eyes. A knife in the heart would hurt less. "I know. But we'll always be friends.
And it's not forever. When you're grown up, I'll come find you or
\
you'll come find me."
Jaenelle nibbled her lip. "How old is grown up?"
Yesterday. Tomorrow. "Let's say seventeen. It sounds like forever, I know, but it's really not that long."
Even Sadi couldn't have spun a better lie than that. "Will you promise not to go wandering?"
Jaenelle sighed. "I promise not to go wandering in Terreille."
Lucivar hauled her to her feet and spun her around. "There's one thing I want to teach you before you go. This will work if a man ever tries to grab you from behind."
When they'd gone through the demonstration enough times that he was sure she knew what to do, Lucivar kissed her forehead and stepped back. "Get out of here. The guards will be making the rounds any minute now. And | remember—a Queen never breaks a promise made to a Warlord Prince."
"I'll remember." She hesitated. "Lucivar? I won't look the same when I'm grown up. How will you know me?"
Lucivar smiled. Ten years or a hundred, it would make no difference. He'd always recognize those extraordinary sapphire eyes. "I'll know. Good-bye, Cat. May the Darkness embrace you."
She smiled at him and vanished.
Lucivar stared at that empty space. Was that a foolish thing to say to her? Probably.
A gate rattling caught his attention. He swiftly rubbed out the drawing of the Winds and slipped from shadow to shadow until he reached the stables. He passed through the outside wall and had just settled into his cell when the guard opened the barred window in the door.
Zuultah was arrogant enough to believe her holding spells kept her slaves from using Craft to pass through the
cell walls. It was uncomfortable to pass through a spelled wall but not impossible for him.
Let the bitch wonder. When the guards found the slave in the boat, she'd suspect him of breaking the man's neck. She suspected him when
anything
went wrong in her court—with good reason.
Maybe he would offer a little resistance when the guards tried to tie him to the whipping posts. A vicious brawl would keep Zuultah distracted, and the violent emotions would cover up any lingering psychic scent from the girl.
Oh, yes, he could keep Lady Zuultah so distracted, she would
never
realize that Witch now walked the Realm.
2 / Terreille
Lady Maris turned her head toward the large, freestanding mirror. "You may go now."
Daemon Sadi slipped out of bed and began dressing slowly, tauntingly, fully aware that she watched him in the mirror. She always watched the mirror when he serviced her. A bit of self-voyeurism perhaps? Did she pretend the man in the mirror actually cared about her, that her climax aroused him?
Stupid bitch.
Maris stretched and sighed with pleasure. "You remind me of a wild cat, all silky skin and rippling muscles."
Daemon slipped into the white silk shirt. A savage predator? That was a fair enough description. If she ever annoyed him beyond his limited tolerance for the distaff gender, he would be happy to show her his claws. One little one in particular.
Maris sighed again. "You're so beautiful."
Yes, he was. His face was a gift of his mysterious heritage, aristocratic and too beautifully shaped to be called merely handsome. He was tall and broad-shouldered. He kept his body well toned and muscular enough to please. His voice was deep and cultured, with a husky, seductive edge to it that made women go all misty-eyed. His gold eyes and thick black hair were typical of all three of Terreille's long-lived races, but his warm, golden-brown skin
was a little lighter than the Hayllian aristos—more like the Dhemlan race.
His body was a weapon, and he kept his weapons well honed.
Daemon shrugged into his black jacket. The clothes, too, I were weapons, from the skimpy underwear to the perfectly ] tailored suits. Nectar to seduce the unwary to their doom. |
Fanning herself with her hand, Maris looked directly at him. "Even in this weather, you didn't work up a sweat."
It sounded like the complaint it was.
Daemon smiled mockingly. "Why should I?"
Maris sat up, pulling at the sheet to cover herself. "You're a cruel, unfeeling bastard."
Daemon raised one finely shaped eyebrow. "You think I'm cruel? You're quite right, of course. I'm a connoisseur of cruelty."
"And you're proud of it, aren't you?" Maris blinked back tears. Her face tightened, showing all the petulant age lines. ; "Everything they said about you is true. Even that." She waved a hand toward his groin.
"That?" he asked, knowing perfectly well what she meant. She, and every woman like her, would forgive every vicious thing he did if she could coax him into an erection.
"You're not a true man. You never were."
"Ah. In that, too, you're quite right." Daemon slipped his hands into his trouser pockets. "Personally, I've always thought it's the discomfort of the Ring of Obedience that's caused the problem." The cold, mocking smile returned. "Perhaps if you removed it . . ."
Maris became so pale he wondered if she was going to faint. He doubted Maris wanted to test his theory badly enough that she would actually remove that gold circle around his organ. Just as well. She wouldn't survive one minute after he was free.
Most of the witches he'd served hadn't survived anyway.
Daemon smiled that cold, familiar, brutal smile and settled next to her on the bed. "So you think I'm cruel." Her eyes were already glazing from the psychic seduction tendrils he was weaving around her.
"Yes," Maris whispered, watching his lips. Daemon leaned forward, amused at how quickly she opened her mouth for a kiss. Her tongue flirted hungrily with his, and when he finally raised his head, she tried to pull him down on top of her. "Do you really want to know why I don't work up a sweat?" he asked too gently. She hesitated, lust warring with curiosity. "Why?" Daemon smiled. "Because, my darling Lady Maris, your so-called intelligence bores me to tears and that body you think so fine and flaunt whenever and wherever possible isn't fit to be crowbait."
Maris's lower lip quivered. "Y-you're a sadistic brute." Daemon slipped off the bed. "How do you know?" he asked pleasantly. "The game hasn't even begun." "Get out.get out!"
He quickly left the bedroom, but waited a moment outside the door. Her wail of anguish was perfect counterpoint to his mocking laughter.
A light breeze ruffled Daemon's hair as he followed a gravel path through the back gardens. Unbuttoning his shirt, he smiled with pleasure as the breeze caressed his bare skin. He pulled a thin black cigarette from its gold case, lit it, and sighed as the smoke drifted slowly out of his mouth and nostrils, burning away Maris's stench.
The light in Maris's bedroom went out.
Stupid bitch. She didn't understand the game she played. No—she didn't understand the game
he
played. He was 1,700 years old and just coming into his prime. He'd worn a Ring of Obedience controlled by Dorothea SaDiablo, Hayll's High Priestess, for as long as he could remember. He had been raised in her court as her cousin's bastard son, had been educated and trained to serve Hayll's Black Widows. That is, taught enough of the Craft to serve those witch-bitches as they wanted to be served.
He'd been whoring in courts long turned to dust while Maris's people were just beginning to build cities.
He'd destroyed better witches than her, and he could destroy her, too. He'd brought down courts, laid waste to cities, brought about minor wars as vengeance for bedroom games.
Dorothea punished him, hurt him, sold him into service in court after court, but in the end, Maris and her kind were expendable. He was not. It had cost Dorothea and Hayll's other Black Widows dearly to create him, and whatever they had done, they couldn't do again.
Hayll's Blood was failing. In his generation, there were very few who wore the darker Jewels—not surprising since Dorothea had been so thorough about purging the stronger witches who might have challenged her rule after she became High Priestess, leaving her followers within Hayll's Hundred Families, lighter-Jeweled witches who had no social standing, and Blood females who had little power as the only ones capable of mating with a Blood male and producing healthy Blood children.
Now she needed a dark bloodline to mate with her Black Widow Sisters. So while she gladly humiliated and tortured him, she wouldn't destroy him because, if there was any possibility at all, she wanted his willing seed in her Sisters' bodies, and she would use fools like Maris to wear him down until he was ready to submit. He would never submit.
Seven hundred years ago, Tersa had told him the living myth was coming. Seven hundred years of waiting, watch- ing, searching, hoping. Seven hundred heartbreaking, exhausting years. He refused to give up, refused to wonder if she'd been mistaken, refused because his heart yearned too much for that strange, wonderful, terrifying creature called Witch.
In his soul, he knew her. In his dreams, he saw her. He | never envisioned a face. It always blurred if he tried to focus on it. But he could see her dressed in a robe made of dark, transparent spidersilk, a robe that slid from her shoulders as she moved, a robe that opened and closed as she walked, revealing bare, night-cool skin. And there would be a scent in the room that was her, a scent he would wake to, burying his face in her pillow after she was up and attending her own concerns.
It wasn't lust—the body's fire paled in comparison to the embrace of mind to mind—although physical pleasure was part of it. He wanted to touch her, feel the texture of her skin, taste the warmth of her. He wanted to caress her until they both burned. He wanted to weave his life into hers until there was no telling where one began and the other ended. He wanted to put his arms around her, strong and protecting, and find himself protected; possess her and be possessed; dominate her and be dominated.
He wanted that Other, that shadow across his life, who made him ache with every breath while he stumbled among these feeble women who meant nothing to him and never could.
Simply, he believed that he had been born to be her lover.
Daemon lit another cigarette and flexed the ring finger of his right hand. The snake tooth slid smoothly out of its channel and rested on the underside of his long, black-tinted fingernail. He smiled. Maris wondered if he had claws? Well, this little darling would impress her. Not for very long, though, since the venom in the sac beneath his fingernail was extremely potent.
He was lucky that he'd reached sexual maturity a little later than most Hayllians. The snake tooth had come along with the -rest of the physical changes, a shocking surprise, for he'd thought it was impossible for a male to be a natural Black Widow. During that time, he'd been serving in a court where it was fashionable for men to wear their nails long and tint them, so no one had thought it strange when he assumed the fashion, and no one had ever questioned why he continued to wear them that way.
Not even Dorothea. Since the witches of the Hourglass covens specialized in poisons and the darker aspects of the Craft, as well as dreams and visions, he'd always thought it strange that Dorothea had never guessed what he was. If she had, no doubt she would have tried to maim him beyond recognition.