Queen of the Darkness

"Now, Lord Friall," Lucivar said, still sounding mild, "you know as well as I do that a person has to be accepted before the final bell, but there's an hour afterward for the contracts to be filled out and signed."

"If you want to sign the contract for the ones already listed, you can take them with you now. The others will have to wait until tomorrow," Friall insisted.

Lucivar raised his right hand and scratched his chin.

The rest happened so fast, Daemon didn't even see the move. One moment, Lucivar was scratching his chin. The next, his Eyrien war blade was delicately resting on Friall's left wrist.

"Now," Lucivar said pleasantly, "you can finish filling out that contract or I can cut off your left hand. Your choice."

"Shit," Surreal muttered as she moved closer to Daemon.

"You can't do this," Friall whimpered.

Lucivar's hand didn't seem to move, but a thin line of blood began to flow from Friall's wrist.

"I'll inform the Council," Friall wailed. "You'll be in trouble."

"Maybe," Lucivar replied. "But you'll still be without a left hand. If you're lucky, that's all you'll lose. If you're not"

A hurried movement made Daemon glance to the left. Lord Magstrom, the Dark Council member he had first talked with, stopped at the other end of the table.

"May I be of some assistance, Prince Yaslana?" the elderly man asked breathlessly.

Lucivar looked up, and Magstrom froze. The color drained from his face.

"Mother Night," Aaron muttered. "He's risen to the killing edge."

Daemon didn't move. Neither did anyone else. A Warlord Prince who had risen to the killing edge was violent and uncontrollable. He wore the Black, the only Jewel darker than Lucivar's Ebon-gray, but any effort he made to try to contain his brother would only snap whatever self-control Lucivar still had. At the very least, Friall would die. At the worst, there would be a slaughter.

"Lord Friall says the contracts can't be filled out after the last bell," Lucivar said with deceptive mildness.

"I'm sure he misunderstood," Magstrom replied quickly. "There's an hour's leniency after the last bell in order to fill out the papers." When Lucivar said nothing, he took a careful breath. "Lord Friall seems to be indisposed. With your permission, I will finish filling out the contracts."

By this time, the white lace around Friall's left wrist was a wet, bright red. Snot ran from the man's nose as he wept silently.

At Lucivar's slight nod, Magstrom pulled the papers away from the small pool of blood on the table and picked up the pen lying next to them. Retreating to the other end of the table, Magstrom sat down.

Lucivar raised his left hand and pointed at Daemon. "He's first."

Magstrom filled out the top of the contract and then looked at Daemon expectantly. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

Move, damn you, move.For a tense moment, Daemon's body refused to obey. When his legs finally started working, he had the chilling sensation that he was walking on thin, cracked ice where one false step could lead to disaster.

"Daemon Sadi," Magstrom said quietly, writing the name in neat script. "From Hayll, isn't that right?"

"Yes," Daemon replied. To his own ears, his voice sounded hoarse, hollow. If Magstrom noticed, the man gave no indication.

"When we met, I recall that you said you wore a dark Jewel, but I don't remember which one."

When he'd met with Magstrom, he'd said the Red was his Birthright Jewel, but he had evaded mentioning his Jewel of rank. There could be no evading now. "The Black."

Magstrom looked up, his eyes wide with shock. Then he quickly filled in the space on the paper. "And you brought two servants?"

"Manny is a White-Jeweled witch. Jazen is a Purple Dusk Warlord."

Magstrom wrote down the information, then turned the contract around. "Just sign here and then put your initials in the spaces for the other two signatures to indicate that you accept responsibility for your servants." As Daemon bent down to sign the contract, he whispered, "This court would have been my choice for you. You belong here."

Saying nothing, Daemon stepped away from the table to make room for Surreal. He glanced once at Lucivar, whose glazed gold eyes just stared at him.

"Name?" Magstrom asked.

"Surreal."

When she didn't say anything else, Magstrom said gently, "While they are not often used in Kaeleer, it is customary to formally record a family name."

Surreal stared at him. Then she smiled maliciously. "SaDiablo."

Magstrom gasped. Khardeen and Aaron gaped at her for a moment before turning away from the table.

Daemon closed his eyes and didn't listen to the rest of her answers. Since she was Kartane SaDiablo's bastard daughter, she had probably intended it as a slap against his mother, Dorothea. There was no reason for her to know that the name had meaning in Kaeleer.

"Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful," two voices said in unison.

Daemon opened his eyes. Aaron and Khardeen stood in front of him, watching Surreal move away from the table.

Aaron looked at him. "Is that really her family name?"

Daemon hesitated. He didn't know what kind of stigma being a bastard carried in Kaeleer, and he owed Surreal too much to reveal a potentially vulnerable spot. "The man who sired her goes by that name," he replied cautiously.

"What do you think we should do?" Aaron asked Khardeen.

"Sell tickets," Khardeen replied promptly. "And then find a safe place to watch the explosion."

Their amusement at Surreal's expense made Daemon's temper flash. "Is this going to be a problem?"

"You could say that," Khardeen said gleefully. Then he settled his face into a serious expression. "You see, what Lady Surreal hasn't realized yet is that by formally declaring herself as part of the SaDiablo family, she's just acquired Lucivar as a cousin."

"And if you think Lucivar has a dominating personality with other males, you should see him with the women in the family," Aaron added.

And with Jaenelle?

The question went unspoken because he didn't want to see a blank expression on their faces when they heard the name—and because he wasn't sure what he would do if he saw recognition. It would be better to ask Lucivar that question—in private. And the questions he now had about women and family... Those, too, would be asked later.

"And we're not even going to try to imagine what's going to happen when she tangles with the males on the Dea al Mon side of her family," Khardeen said.

"Why should they be involved at all?" Daemon asked.

"Because she's Titian's daughter, finally come home," Aaron said. Then he grinned. "Lady Surreal is about to find out that she now has male relatives from both her bloodlines who are going to make her life their business— and several of those males are Warlord Princes."

Mother Night! "She's never going to tolerate that," Daemon said.

"Well, she's not going to have a lot of choice," Khardeen replied.

"The Blood are matriarchal. Isn't that true in Kaeleer?"

"Of course," Aaron said cheerfully. "But males do have rights and privileges, and we take full advantage of them." He studied Daemon for a moment. "Why don't you try to keep her calm while we keep an eye on Lucivar. If nobody pushes him, he should be able to keep his temper leashed."

"Do you know him that well?" Daemon asked.

He saw the knowledge in their eyes that they had kept carefully masked until now. They knew he was Lucivar's brother. And they knew...

"We all serve in the same court, Prince Sadi," Aaron said quietly. "We all serve in the Lady's First Circle."

Then they walked away from him.

They might as well have shouted it from the rooftops.She's alive!

Joy and trepidation warred inside him, causing his heart to pound too hard, his blood to whip through his veins too fast.She's alive!

But what did she think of him? What did shefeel for him?

No answers. Not here. Not yet.

With exaggerated care, Daemon walked over to Surreal. The moment he stopped moving, he swayed like a willow in a heavy wind.

Surreal wrapped her arms around his left arm and planted her feet.

"What's wrong?" she asked quietly, urgently. "Are you ill?"

She, better than anyone, would be able to guess exactly what was wrong, but he wasn't about to admit it. Not now. "I've had almost no sleep and very little food in the past few days," he said.

She narrowed her eyes but accepted the truth that was also a lie. "I can understand that. This place makes my skin crawl."

Daemon tapped into the reservoir of power stored in his Black Jewel. It rushed through his body, and for the first time since he'd seen Lucivar, he felt steady.

Surreal sensed the change in him. She loosened her grip, but still kept one arm companionably linked with his. "Why do you think the old Warlord doing the contracts looked so shocked when I said my family name was SaDiablo? Is that bitch Dorothea that well-known here?"

"I don't know," Daemon said carefully. "But I have heard that the name of the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan is S. D. SaDiablo." This wasn't the time to tell her that the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan was also the High Lord of Hell—and his and Lucivar's father.

"Shit," Surreal muttered. Then she shrugged. "Well, I'm not likely to meet him, and if someone asks, I can just say that wemight be distantly related. Very distantly."

Remembering Khardeen's and Aaron's comments, Daemon made a sound that might have been a whimper.

"You sure you're all right?" Surreal asked, studying him.

"I'm fine." Just fine. More than fine. He would believe it, insist on it, until it was true. "Do me a favor. Ask Khardeen or Aaron if we're going to be traveling in the Web Coaches, and then contact Manny so that she and Jazen can meet us there." ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">