Twilight's Dawn

“That answers the question of what’s been eating at her these past few weeks,” Daemon said, his voice bleak and angry.

“I can understand her feeling raw about the children who died in the spooky house, but she’s been shouldering the weight of children who were dead before she knew they existed.”

Saetan walked into the room.

Lucivar pivoted and Daemon moved with him. When they stopped, they stood shoulder to shoulder as they faced the High Lord.

“Nurian says there is nothing physically wrong with Surreal,” Saetan said.

“Wasn’t she listening to Surreal breathe?” Lucivar snapped. “If she’s that incompetent, I’ll kick her ass out of Ebon Rih.”

“There is nothing wrong with Nurian’s skill as a Healer,” Saetan snapped back. “But if you need to kick someone’s ass, kick your own for not considering the condition of Surreal’s lungs when you insisted that she spend several weeks in the mountains during deep winter.”

Lucivar rocked back, hurt by the verbal slap.

Saetan huffed out a sigh and held up a hand. “If Jaenelle had thought being here now would harm Surreal’s health, Surreal would not be here. Right now, her breathing is raspy and she probably will have a wicked bitch of a sore throat from the crying and ... screaming. And she has scrapes and bruises. But those things are understandable. Hell’s fire, she went through every drawer, cupboard, and closet searching for the boy. The Darkness only knows what she thought she saw in the kitchen that led to the collapse. And that is the point. There is no physical reason for the way she collapsed after Lucivar found her.”

“Bleeding in the brain?” Daemon asked.

“No.”

“Nurian found nothing,” Daemon said. “What about you?”

Saetan shook his head. “She’s not in the Twisted Kingdom. Of that I am certain. But she’s gone somewhere inside herself, and I don’t know where to begin to look. Which is why Jaenelle is on her way. I think Witch is the only one who can help Surreal now.”

And if Witch can’t help her? Lucivar thought.

“I’ll stay with Surreal until Jaenelle arrives,” Saetan continued. “Nurian is checking Daemonar. Marian is going to keep him in his room until things are calmer. Tassle and Graysfang have taken the pups back to the wolf den and their mother.” He looked at Daemon. “What about you?”

“Surreal asked me to look for some information in the Keep’s library,” Daemon replied. “I’ll take care of it so she’ll have it when she wakes up.”

If she wakes up, Lucivar thought. They were all thinking it—and not one of them would say it.

“Is there anything concerning the Eyriens that needs to be dealt with right now?” Daemon asked.

Lucivar shook his head. “There is nothing that can’t wait.” Including making the decision about whether he could allow Falonar to remain in Ebon Rih.

He waited until Daemon left the eyrie and Saetan returned to the guest room where Surreal drifted in that unnatural sleep. Then he put on his winter cape and went outside, needing the sharp, cold air.

Wasn’t anyone’s fault—not the boy’s, not the wolf pups’, not even his. But if Surreal didn’t recover, her loss would leave scars on all of them.

Daemon glided through the stone corridors of the Keep until he reached the room that held the Dark Altar—one of the thirteen Gates between the Realms.

He picked up a kindling stick, then used Craft to create a tongue of witchfire. Once the kindling stick was burning, he extinguished the witchfire and began lighting the four black candles that would open the Gate and take him from the Keep in Kaeleer to the Keep in Terreille, which was where he needed to go in order to find the information about Falonar that Surreal wanted.

An empty shell. That was what he’d seen before Saetan pushed him out of the guest room and told him to wait with Lucivar. Nothing but an empty shell.

He’d held an empty shell once before. He’d lain beside Jaenelle’s bloody husk while the Sadist tricked Witch into leaving the Misty Place and rising high enough in the abyss so that he could force her to heal the young body that had been violently raped. Now it was Surreal that Saetan was trying to coax back into the body she had abandoned.

The first time he saw Surreal, she had been ten years old. Big eyes and long legs. Ready to bolt because she’d already learned that men were the enemy, but she’d had enough steel in her spine to stay beside her mother, Titian, while he listened to Tersa’s request to help the woman and her daughter.

Pretty girl all those years ago. Beautiful woman now. And she still had steel in her spine.

Would it be enough this time? And what would it do to the boy if his auntie Surreal never recovered from what should have been an innocent game?

“Sweet Darkness, for Daemonar’s sake and for her own, let Surreal come back to us,” he whispered as he lit the last candle in the four-branched candelabra and blew out the kindling stick.

The wall behind the Dark Altar changed to mist, and Daemon walked through the Gate.

Four steps. That was all it took to move from one Realm to another. Four steps.

The moment he took that last step and walked into the other Dark Altar’s room, he knew something wasn’t right. He’d been in the Terreille Keep’s Altar room, and it didn’t look like this. This room was rougher, smaller, colder.

Leaving the room, Daemon called in his heavy winter coat and put it on while he glided through the corridors to the doorway that should lead him to one of the courtyards.

Too dark. Too cold. Not enough candle-lights in the wall braces—not for this part of the Keep.

And the air smelled different.

He found the door and went out to the courtyard that would give him a view of Ebon Rih—or the Black Valley, as it was called in Terreille.

Twilight. That wasn’t right. There had still been daylight when he’d returned to the Keep from Lucivar’s eyrie.

There were lights in the valley, indicating a gathering of people, but he wasn’t sensing enough people down there to populate a village. Of course, the witch storm two years ago had devastated the Blood’s population in Terreille, so maybe it wasn’t surprising to sense so few minds. But that explanation, while valid, didn’t feel right.

It was winter here, as it should be, but there was an underlying cold that had nothing to do with the season, as if this place never felt the sun.

When he finally focused on the plants growing around the courtyard walls, he realized he’d never seen anything like them before.

There were three Realms, and the black candles were lit in a specific order to open the Gate to a specific Realm.

He’d been thinking about Surreal, distracted by the fear that she might not recover, and he’d opened the Gate without paying attention to the order in which he’d lit the black candles.

“Mother Night,” he whispered, looking out over the valley. “This is Hell.”

Rainier laid out the cards for a solitary game and watched a middle-aged Warlord approach the bar. Briggs kept his eyes on the stranger, giving the man no reason to look at anyone else in the room. Rainier nodded, silent permission for Briggs to notice him and bring him to the Warlord’s attention.

A few moments later, the Warlord approached the table. “I’m Lord Randahl, Lady Erika’s Master of the Guard. Could I have a few minutes of your time, Prince?”

Rainier tipped his head to indicate another chair at the table. “What brings Agio’s Master to Riada?” he asked as Randahl took a seat.

“Wanted to talk to Prince Yaslana, but when I reached the landing web for his eyrie . . . Well, when shields go up around a home in that way, you know there’s some trouble there—accident, illness, death.”

An unspoken question. Because Rainier sensed concern rather than curiosity, he said, “Accident.”

“Something a Healer can fix?” Randahl asked.

“We hope so.”

A nod. “If there is any assistance Agio’s court can give, just send word.”

That told Rainier all he needed to know about how Randahl felt about Lucivar.

“So I felt those shields and came down here, mostly looking for a drink and a bite to eat,” Randahl said. “Followed an impulse and asked the man at the bar where I could find a person Lucivar might trust with delicate matters. He pointed me to you.”

“Why didn’t you approach Lady Shayne or her Master?”

“Like I said, it’s a delicate matter.”

“Wouldn’t you normally ask for the second-in-command?”

Randahl looked Rainier in the eyes and said nothing—and that told him everything.

Hell’s fire.

“Yaslana rules the Eyriens,” Randahl said.

“Yaslana rules the whole valley and everyone in it,” Rainier countered.

“But specifically, he rules the Eyriens. None of them serve in a Rihlander court. They serve him.”

Rainier tipped his head to acknowledge the distinction.

“That said, Lady Erika respectfully requests that the Eyriens now residing in the northern camps be relocated if Yaslana intends to let them stay in the valley.”

Rainier played a couple of cards to give himself time. “Has there been trouble?”

“Not yet, but it’s coming.” Randahl clasped his hands, rested his arms on the table, and leaned forward. “There’s a storm growing in those mountains, and we’re not sure why.”

“You think it’s because the emigration contracts are done?”

Randahl shook his head. “If anything, I’d think that would be more reason to walk softly. This has been building for a while now, but the Eyriens keep it hidden most of the time—especially when Lucivar is around.”

“But not when Falonar visits the camps?”

Randahl let out a huff of air tinged with anger. “The words weren’t said, you understand me? The last time Falonar was in the northern part of the valley, the Eyriens in the camps seemed pleased and stirred up, and I got the impression . . .” He hesitated.

“Just say it, Randahl.”

“Is Lucivar going somewhere else? Is he planning to leave Ebon Rih?”

“No. Why?”

“From what we’ve observed lately, Falonar doesn’t act like a second-in-command. At least, not with the Eyriens in the northern camps. And they don’t think of him as the second-in-command, you understand me? So it’s made some of us wonder if the valley is going to get split between the two Warlord Princes. And frankly, if that happens, Lady Erika doesn’t want her people in Falonar’s part of the valley.”

“Lucivar isn’t giving up any piece of Ebon Rih to anyone,” Rainier said. “And a fight is out of the question.”

“Because only one side walks away from a killing field. I know,” Randahl said, nodding. “I know. But we don’t feel easy about having Eyriens living so close to us when they aren’t being held on a tight leash. Not those Eyriens, anyway. We’d really like to get those bastards out of the mountains around Agio. Just wanted Lucivar to know that.”

“I’ll see that he gets the message.” All the messages.

Randahl sat back. “Thank you. I’ll be heading back, then.”

“Stay and have a bite to eat,” Rainier said, raising a hand to catch Briggs’s eye. *Food?*

He’d barely finished the thought when Merry swung out of the kitchen with a tray. She set plates on the table, said, “It’s time for your healing brew,” and headed back to the kitchen.

Randahl stared at slices of roasted beef and the mound of fresh vegetables. “Did we decide what to eat?”

“Apparently we did.” Smiling, Rainier picked up a fork and dug in.

A thick-vined plant tried to eat him, which snapped Daemon out of his complacent wandering of the Keep’s outer courtyards. In Hell, the Realm of forever twilight, most of the native flora and fauna welcomed the opportunity to dine on fresh blood, and any man who stumbled into this Realm was meat for the taking.

Even if that man was a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince.

He turned toward the door and mentally stumbled when he saw Draca standing there, clearly waiting for him.

She said nothing. Just the same, he felt chastised for staying in the Dark Realm so that he could look round a bit—and for his boyish excitement at seeing a place that was usually forbidden to anyone who still walked among the living.

“Draca,” he said pleasantly, as if the past hour or so had been nothing out of the ordinary. Hell’s fire. How long had she been keeping track of him?

“Prince Ssadi,” she replied. “Come with me.”

She led him back to the Dark Altar and opened the Gate. Moments later, he felt the difference and knew they were in Terreille. Which was where he should have been in the first place.

“You’re probably wondering why I was wandering around the other Keep.”

“You are your father’ss sson,” Draca said. “The firsst time he ssaw Hell, Ssaetan alsso became disstracted and forgot to return to the Gate.”

The look she gave him muzzled curiosity. Doing his best to appear meek, since he had a feeling that anything else would get him tossed out of the Keep, he followed her to one of the sitting rooms that had a large blackwood worktable.