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Hekatah jerked to a stop.
There was a silence within the night's silence.
She glanced at the unlit torches on the walls and decided against lighting them. There was enough moonlight to see by.
Not wanting to waste her strength on a sight shield, Hekatah slipped into a shadowy corner. Once he entered the Altar room, she would be behind him and could startle him with her presence.
She waited. Just when she was sure she'd been mistaken, he was there, without warning, standing just outside the wrought-iron gate, staring at the Altar. But he didn't enter the room.
Frowning, Hekatah turned her head slightly to look at the Altar. It was just as it should be. The candelabra was tarnished, and the wax from the black candles she'd burned so carefully so they wouldn't look new hung like stalactites from the silver arms.
Fearing that he might actually leave, Hekatah stepped up to the wrought-iron gate. "I've been waiting for you, Prince. "
"Have you?" His voice sounded rusty, exhausted.
Perfect.
"Are you the one I should thank for the demons at the other Altars?" he asked.
How could he know she was a demon? Did he know who she was? Suddenly, she didn't feel confident about dealing with this son who was too much like his father, but she shook her head sadly. "No, Prince. There's only one power in Hell that commands demons. I'm here because I had a young friend who was very special to me. A friend, I think, we had in common. That's why I've been waiting for you. "
Hell's fire! Couldn't there besome expression in his eyes to tell her if she was getting through to him?
"Young is a relative term, don't you think?"
He wasplaying with her! Hekatah gritted her teeth. "A child, Prince. A special child. " She forced a pleading note into her voice. "I've waited here at great risk. If the High
Lord finds out I've tried to tell her friends . . . " She glanced at the wall behind the Altar.
Still no reaction from the man on the other side of the gate.
"She walks among thecildru dyathe," Hekatah said.
A long silence. "That isn't possible," he finally said. His voice was flat, totally without emotion.
"It'strue. " Was she wrong about him? Was he only trying to escape Dorothea? No. He had cared for the girl. She sighed. "The High Lord is a jealous man, Prince. He doesn't share what he claims for himself—especially if what he claims is a female body. When he discovered the girl's affection for another male, he did nothing to prevent her from being raped. And he could have, Prince. Hecould have. The girl managed to escape afterward. In time, and with help, she would have healed. But the High Lord didn't want her to heal, so, under the pretense of helping her, he used another male to finish what was begun. It destroyed her completely. Her body died, and her mind was torn apart. Now she's a dead, blank-eyed pet he plays with. "
Hekatah looked up and wanted to scream with frustration. Had he heard any of it? "He should pay for what he's done," she said shrilly. "If you've courage enough to face him, I can open the Gate for you. Someone who remembers what she could have been should demand payment for what he did. "
He looked at her for a long time. Then he turned and walked away.
Swearing, Hekatah began to pace. Why did he say nothing? It was a plausible story. Oh, she knew he'd been accused of the rape, but she also knew it wasn't true. And she wasn't completely convinced that hehad been at Cassandra's Altar that night. All the males who'd sworn they had seen him had come from Briarwood. They could have said that to keep the Chaillot Queens from looking too closely atthem. Surely—
A scream shattered the night.
Hekatah jumped, shaken by the awful sound. Bestial, animal, human. None and all. Whatever could make a sound like that . . .
Hekatah quickly lit the black candles and waited impatiently for the wall to change to mist. Just before stepping through the Gate, she realized there was no one here to snuff out the candles and close the entrance to the other Realms. If that thing . . .
Hekatah raised her hand and Red-locked the wrought-iron gate.
Another scream tore the night.
Hekatah bolted through the Gate. She might be a demon, but she didn't want whatever that was to follow her into the Dark Realm.
Words swam round and round, slicing his mind, slicing his soul.
The gray mist parted, showing him a Dark Altar.
Blood. So much blood. . . . he used another male . . .
The world shattered.
You are my instrument.
His mind shattered. . . . destroyed her completely.
Screaming in agony, he fled through the mist, through a landscape washed in blood and filled with shattered crystal chalices.
Words lie. Blood doesn't.
He screamed again and tumbled into the shattered inner landscape landens called madness and the Blood called the Twisted Kingdom.
PART 2
Chapter three
1 / Kaeleer
Karla, a fifteen-year-old Glacian Queen, jabbed her cousin Morton in the ribs. "Who's that?"
Morton glanced in the direction of Karla's slightly lifted chin, then went back to watching the young Warlords gathering at one end of the banquet hall. "That's Uncle Hobart's new mistress. "
Karla studied the young witch through narrowed, ice-blue eyes. "She doesn't look much older than me. "
"She isn't," Morton said grimly.
Karla linked arms with her cousin, finding comfort in his nearness.
Glacian society had started to change after the "accident" that had killed her parents and Morton's six years ago. A group of aristo males had immediately formed a male council "for the good of the Territory"—a council led by Hobart, a Yellow-Jeweled Warlord who was a distant relation of her father's.
Every Province Queen, after declining to become a figurehead for the council, had also refused to acknowledge the Queen of a small village that the council finally had chosen to rule the Territory. Their refusal had fractured Glacia, but it had also prevented the male council from becoming too powerful or too effective in carrying out their "adjustments" to Glacian society.
Even so, after six years there was an uneasy feel in the air, a sense of wrongness.
Karla didn't have many friends. She was a sharp-tongued, sharp-tempered Queen whose Birthright Jewel was the Sapphire. She was also a natural Black Widow and a Healer. But, since Lord Hobart was now the head of the family, she spent much of her social time with the daughters of other members of the male council—and what those girls were saying was obscene: respectable witches defer to wiser, more knowledgeable males; Blood males shouldn't have to serve or yield to Queens because they're the stronger gender; the only reason Queens and Black Widows want the power to control males is because they're sexually and emotionally incapable of being real women.
Obscene. And terrifying.
When she was younger, she had wondered why the Province Queens and the Black Widows had settled for a stalemate instead of fighting.
Glacia is locked in a cold, dark winter,the Black Widows had told her. We must do what we can to remain strong until the spring returns.
But would they be able to hold out for five more years until she came of age? Wouldshe! Her mother's and her aunt's deaths had not been an accident. Someone had eliminated Glacia's strongest Queen and strongest Black Widow, leaving the Territory vulnerable to . . . what?
Jaenelle could have told her, but Jaenelle . . .
Karla clamped down on the bitter anger that had been simmering too close to the surface lately. Forcing her attention away from memories, she studied Hobart's mistress, then jabbed Morton in the ribs again.
"Stop that," he snapped.
Karla ignored him. "Why is she wearing a fur coat indoors?"
"It was Uncle Hobart's consummation prize. "
She fingered her short, spiky, white-blond hair. "I'v
e never seen fur like that. It's not white bear. "
"I think it's Arcerian cat. "
"Arcerian cat?" That couldn't be right. Most Glacians wouldn't hunt in Arceria because the cats were big, fierce predators, and the odds of a hunter not becoming the prey were less than fifty-fifty. Besides, there was somethingwrong with that fur. She could feel it even at this distance. "I'm going to pay my respects. "
"Karla. " There was no mistaking the warning in Morton's voice.
"Kiss kiss. " She gave him a wicked smile and an affectionate squeeze before making her way to the group of women admiring the coat.
It was easy to slip in among them. Some of the women noticed her, but most were intent on the girl's—Karla couldn't bring herself to call her a Sister—hushed gossip.
"—hunters from a faraway place," the girl said.
"I've got a collar made from Arcerian fur, but it's not as luxurious as this," one of the women said enviously.
"These hunters have found a new way of harvesting the fur. Hobie told me after we'd—" She giggled.
"How?"
"It's a secret. "
Coaxing murmurs.
Mesmerized by the fur, Karla touched it at the same moment the girl giggled again, and said, "They skin the catalive. "
She jerked her hand away, shocked numb. Alive.
And some of the power of the one who had lived in that fur was still there. That's what made it so luxurious.
A witch. One of the Blood Jaenelle had called kindred.
Karla swayed. They had butchered a witch.
She shoved her way out of the group of women and stumbled toward the door. A moment later, Morton was beside her, one arm around her waist. "Outside," she gasped. "I think I'm going to be sick. "
As soon as they were outside, she gulped the sharp winter air and started to cry.
"Karla," Morton murmured, holding her close.
"She was a witch," Karla sobbed. "She was a witch and they skinned her alive so that little bitch could—"
She felt a shudder go through Morton. Then his arms tightened, as if he could protect her. And hewould try to protect her, which is why she couldn't tell him about the danger she sensed every time Uncle Hobart looked at her. At sixteen, Morton had just begun his formal court training.