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“Subject?”
“Rainier. ”
Not what he’d expected. He relaxed a little.
“He’s not healing the way he should. ”
She grabbed her golden hair and pulled hard enough to make him wince.
“Maybe it’s because I can’t . . . because I’m not . . . ”
“No,” he said softly, a clear enough warning to anyone who knew him. And Jaenelle, his daughter and Queen, knew him.
She lowered her hands and looked him in the eyes. “Maybe if I took back the power—”
“No. ” Saetan straightened, then lowered his arms so that his fingers rested lightly along the edge of the table. “That part of your life is done. ”
“I didn’t lose the Ebony like everyone thought. Maybe I can—”
“Damn you to the bowels of Hell, you will not do this. ”
He saw the change in her and recognized the instant when it was Witch staring at him through Jaenelle’s sapphire eyes.
“You don’t know why things are different, High Lord,” Witch said in her midnight voice.
“Yes, I do, Lady. I went to Arachna. I met the Weaver of Dreams. I saw the tangled web that made dreams into flesh. And I saw that one slender strand of spider silk that changed the dream when she came back to us. There was another dreamer. You. ”
She stepped back, wary now. “How long have you known?”
“A while now. Before you and Daemon married. ” He paused, then added dryly, “Well, between the secret wedding and the public one, anyway. The point—and I hope you believe I will do what I say—is that my daughter has the life she wanted for herself, and taking back the Ebony would ruin that life. ” And there was no certainty—none at all—that Jaenelle could still be a vessel for that much power, that taking back the Ebony wouldn’t kill her. “So you need to understand that I will fight my Queen into the ground in order to protect my daughter’s life. Witch-child, you never wanted that kind of power, so the only way you will take it back is by going through me. You’ll have to destroy me completely, because I will fight you with everything I am. ”
Her face turned alarmingly pale. “You mean that. ”
“Yes, I mean that. Everything has a price, Lady. That will be the price if you try to reclaim the Ebony. ”
A heartbeat. Another. Then he was no longer facing Witch. It was Jaenelle studying him with haunted eyes.
“But . . . Rainier,” she said.
“I’ll remind you of a few things you’ve obviously forgotten. ” His voice slipped into that tightly controlled scolding tone that could intimidate any child. Even this one. “When you were seventeen, you put Lucivar back together. Considering the condition he was in when Prothvar brought him to your cottage in Ebon Rih, he shouldn’t have survived at all. But you not only healed the broken bones and internal damage; you rebuilt his wings out of the few healthy scraps that were left. ”
“I wore the Black then and had a reservoir of thirteen Jewels to tap,” Jaenelle said, her voice full of frustration. “And Lucivar was all-or-nothing. Systemic healing. He came out of it whole or he died. ”
“The Black isn’t Ebony,” Saetan said. “You’ve never used Ebony for healing because it was too dark, too powerful. You used the Black. ”
“Well, Twilight’s Dawn isn’t the Black,” she snapped.
“No, but there is a Black thread in your Jewel. Compared to a true Black, you’ve got a thimbleful of power at that level, but it’s there. You also have two Black-Jeweled Warlord Princes and an Ebon-gray Warlord Prince who would have given you whatever power you needed for a healing web. And if you’d needed that kind of strength to add to a healing brew, Daemon or Lucivar would have given you the blood. The power was available, witch-child. This has nothing to do with the Jewels you no longer wear. ”
“Then why isn’t Rainier healing?” Jaenelle paced, circled—and began snarling in a way that made Saetan wish he could put a shield between them without insulting her. “He was healing. He was. ”
“Could he dance again?”
“Yes!” She paused. Thought. “Not everything. Not the demanding dances he and I used to do sometimes as a special performance. His leg muscles will never be able to support that kind of demand. But all the social dances, yes. All the kinds of dances he taught. ” She looked cold and bitter. “But he’s done enough damage to those muscles now that he won’t be able to do that. ”
“Then whatever is wrong with Rainier has nothing, or little, to do with the healing itself,” Saetan said quietly. “I don’t think it’s his leg that needs to heal so much as his heart. ”
He opened his arms. She stepped into the embrace and held on.
“Would you like some advice?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Let Lucivar deal with Rainier. ”
She raised her head and narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“Because I think Lucivar will be able to figure out the right motivation to help Rainier heal. ”
“Lucivar will scare the shit out of him. ”
“Precisely. ”
She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder.
He savored the embrace. Since the day he’d met her—a seven-year-old girl who had walked through Hell without fear—he’d had to share her with so many others. Quiet moments when it was just the two of them had been rare, and he cherished every one.
“Papa?”
“Witch-child?”
“I won’t destroy the life your daughter dreamed of having. ”
His breath caught. “Is that a promise?”
“Would you see a promise like that as a gift?”
“Yes, I would. ”
She looked at him and smiled. “Then it’s a promise. ”
FIVE
Surreal looked at the fat, fluffy, lazy flakes of snow, then at the fire in the sitting room’s hearth, and decided the fire had more appeal. Especially after she coughed and felt the burn in her lungs.
All right, she should have mentioned the burning sensation and continued shortness of breath weeks ago when Jaenelle was first healing the poisoned wound in her side. But she’d thought she’d shaken off the effects of the backlash spell that had trapped her and Rainier in that damn spooky house and that the shortness of breath was because of the poison.
You can take care of this now or you can flirt with pneumonia all winter, Jaenelle had told her.
She didn’t want to flirt with anything at the moment, and since the “cure” was drinking a healing brew three times a day, limiting her time outdoors when the air was bitter cold, and stopping physical activity before she became fatigued, she wasn’t about to argue.
Especially since she planned to have Jaenelle put those instructions in writing so she could wave them in front of Lucivar when she went to Ebon Rih after Winsol. She couldn’t get out of everything he had planned for her, but even Yaslana wouldn’t challenge Jaenelle as Healer.
Maybe she could take up knitting or something.
She tried to picture herself sitting on the sidelines making a badly knit blanket while everyone else was doing something interesting.
Maybe not.
A quick knock on the sitting room door announced Helton, the butler at the SaDiablo town house. Entering with a full tray, he said, “I’ve brought the hot water for your healing brew, and a piece of berry pie still warm from the oven. ”
There was also a sandwich and a small plate of cheese and grapes. After all, it had been at least two hours since she’d eaten the broth he’d insisted she have to “warm her up” when she returned from shopping that morning.
Everything has a price, Surreal thought. And the price for not being completely well was having her butler fussing over her more than his duties would normally allow.
She settled on the sofa and called in a small hourglass timer and the glass jar that held the healing mixture. After filling a tea ball with the mixtu
re, she put the ball in the pot of hot water and turned the timer.
Helton started to leave, then stopped, his head turned in a way that indicated he was talking to someone on a psychic thread.
“Prince Rainier is here,” he said.
“Send him in. ” She glanced at the tray.
Helton studied the tray too. “I should bring in another serving. ”
“Just another piece of berry pie. ” Surreal bared her teeth in a smile that had Helton shifting a little closer to the door. “I’ll share the rest, but not the pie. ”
A twitch of his lips. A twinkle in his eyes. “Very well, Lady. ”
“Are you all right?” Rainier asked sharply as soon as Helton ushered him into the sitting room and closed the door.
Better than you are, boyo, Surreal thought as she watched Rainier limp to the chair nearest the sofa. “I’m all right. ”
“The footman said he had to check and see if you were feeling up to seeing visitors today. ” Rainier winced as he got himself settled.
“Should I ask Helton to bring in some coffee for you?” Surreal asked. “Or there’s brandy if you prefer. ”
“What are you drinking?”
“Healing brew. ” She watched the timer. Almost done.
“Then you’re not all right,” Rainier snapped.
She removed the tea ball and put it in the little bowl on the tray. She poured a cup of the brew and sat back—and wondered how much of the anger suddenly filling the room was on her behalf.
“Turns out my lungs are more vulnerable to cold weather because of that backlash spell. Or the backlash spell made them more vulnerable to the poison, which has made them more vulnerable to cold weather. ” She shrugged. “So after Jaenelle got done snarling at me for not mentioning that my lungs still burned, she made up this brew, which I’m drinking three times a day for a few more days. Then it’s once a day for the rest of this winter. ”
“You also fatigue easily, don’t you?” Rainier said. “That’s why there was a question about whether you wanted visitors. ”
It was tempting to make light of all of this. After all, she was healing. But he had been in that house with her, and he deserved better than a light answer.
“Yes, I still fatigue easily. And it’s humiliating to admit, but I’ll need to take a nap this afternoon because I was out most of the morning shopping. ”
“Does Lucivar know about this?” Rainier asked.
She grinned. “Not yet. But I’m going to make sure he does. In fact, I’m going to make sure everyone in the family knows I fatigue easily. ”
“Why . . . ?” He thought for a moment, then huffed out a laugh. “Well, I guess he’ll back down a little bit if he knows he’ll get his ass chewed by Jaenelle every time you start wheezing. ”
“I hope that will be enough incentive, but you can’t count on it with Lucivar. ” She wasn’t looking forward to spending the winter months in Ebon Rih. For a lot of reasons.
She drank her brew, and they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes.
When she caught Rainier eyeing the piece of berry pie, she snarled, “Mine. ”
“Greedy,” he muttered.
“I’ll share the sandwich, grapes, and cheese. ”
His expression told her plain enough he didn’t consider that a fair exchange, but he perked up when Helton returned with another tray that was a duplicate of her own “tray of nibbles. ”
Draining her cup and setting it aside, Surreal studied the tray—and sighed. “I guess I’ll eat myself into a stupor and let Helton roll me up to my room. ”
“When you’re drinking healing brews, your body burns even more fuel,” Rainier said. “You actually do need that food. ”
She looked at him, her unspoken question filling the room.
He held her eyes for a moment, trying to bluff. Then he looked away, snatched his plate off the tray, and began to eat.
“Leave it alone, Surreal,” he said after the silence became strained. “As a favor to a friend, leave it alone. ”
For now. But she was going to have a chat with Jaenelle and find out how bad things really were with Rainier.
“So were you just out wandering today?” Surreal asked.