The Shadow Queen

“Now,” Jaenelle said, “I’ll see your wife.”



Blood seeped from fine lines on Lady Rosalene’s hands, as if she’d pressed down on wires that had cut deep into her skin. Except the skin wasn’t cut. If you wiped away the blood, all that was visible were those silvery strands on the surface of her skin—until the blood welled up again from those strands.



Rosalene had pressed her hands on the shirt. She had walked into the bedroom, seen the body, seen the blood, and grabbed that bitch Vulchera’s arm in some shocked effort to help before she saw the reason there was no possible way to help.



Silver strands. Like the tangled web that had been woven into that silk shirt.



Ignoring Collyn, who hovered in the doorway, not quite daring to come into the room, Daemon stood near Jaenelle and watched her clean the blood off Rosalene’s hands again.



“I’ve tried everything I know.” The Healer was a middle-aged woman who sounded both frustrated and anxious. “I’ve tried every healing spell I know, but there’s nothing to actually heal.”



Jaenelle called in a small, short-bladed Healer’s knife and made a shallow cut in Rosalene’s hand, following the path of one of those silvery strands. Setting that knife aside, she called in another and pricked her own finger.



Daemon snarled, a reflex to smelling his Queen’s blood, to knowing her blood ran.



A phantom caress down his back—a caress that reassured enough for him to leash the instincts of a Warlord Prince.



As one drop of her blood fell on the shallow cut she had made in Rosalene’s hand, Jaenelle said,“And the Blood shall sing to the Blood. And in the blood.”



The Healer wet a small square of cloth with a healing lotion and handed it to Jaenelle, who murmured her thanks—and didn’t grumble at him when he took the cloth and cleaned her pricked finger.



“Clean off her hands again,” Jaenelle told the Healer.



The silvery strands showed once more, but this time when they faded, no blood seeped up through the skin.



“I didn’t think to do that,” the Healer said.



Jaenelle shook her head. “It wouldn’t have made a difference if you had.”



*Because the spell was made to recognize your blood?* Daemon asked.



*And yours.*



“I would recommend drinking a healing brew several times a day for the next couple of days,” Jaenelle told Rosalene. “That will help your body regain its strength and replace the blood you’ve lost.”



“I can take care of that,” the Healer said.



“Then I think we’re done here.” Jaenelle looked at him, clearly letting him make the choice.



He was more than ready to get out of that house, but he had duties as the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan.



“Everyone needs some rest,” he told Collyn, who was still hovering in the doorway. “I’ll return this afternoon, and you and I can discuss what happened yesterday.”



He escorted Jaenelle out of that room and down the stairs to the main floor . . . and escape.



*Daemon, I know you have duties, but I don’t want to stay in this house,* Jaenelle said.



*We’re not going to,* he said as they left the house and walked to the Coach. *Arrangements have already been made for us to stay at the estate house for as long as it takes to settle this.*



She stuttered a step. *Is that why Holt came with us? It seemed odd that Beale would assign a footman to look after us for a Coach ride, but I had other things on my mind.*



*Holt went on to the house to let them know we’re coming.*



*Ah.*



She had seemed grimly calm while she’d looked at the body. She had taken care of Rosalene’s hands with her usual skill as a Healer.



So he wasn’t prepared when she flung herself in his arms and held on with shuddering distress the moment they were safely inside the Coach.



“Jaenelle . . .” He held her, not knowing what else to do—and more unnerved by this reaction than he’d been by anything else. “Jaenelle, what’s wrong?”



“Not yet,” she whispered. “Please. I don’t want to talk about it yet, think about it yet. I don’t want to be completely sober when we talk about this.”



Mother Night. “Isn’t there anything you can tell me?”



Her eyes were so haunted when she eased back enough to look at him. “Do you know the story of Zuulaman?”



They had a summer blanket tucked around them—more for the idea of comfort, since it couldn’t relieve what chilled them—and they were both working on their third very large brandies before Jaenelle stopped shivering.



Daemon kept one arm wrapped around her. He would have preferred the privacy of the bedroom to a locked parlor, but he understood her choice. She wanted this conversation over with before they got into bed to offer each other some comfort and get some sleep.



“He’s not sane, Daemon.”



He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “You think Saetan got so pissed off about this bitch that he decided to take a walk in the Twisted Kingdom in order to deal with her?”



“I don’t think he decided anything,” Jaenelle said. “I think something about this shoved him over the border. Free fall into madness—and the rage inside that madness is huge . . . and terrible.”



He had walked in the Twisted Kingdom for eight years, lost in madness. He had lost none of his power during that time, but his madness had been self-destructive. If he’d understood Jaenelle’s reference to Zuulaman, Saetan’s madness tended to look outward. Toward an enemy.



“Why?” he asked. “What did you see in that room?”



She shook her head. “The spell in the shirt was an execution, a brutal kind of justice. He was in that room with her as the Executioner. But something changed toward the end.”



Shivering, she tried to tuck herself closer to him. Since that wasn’t possible, he put a warming spell on the blanket.



“It changed,” Jaenelle said. “It became personal. For him. Personal enough to break something inside him.”



She drained her glass, then used Craft to float the decanter of brandy from the table in front of the sofa. She filled her glass and topped off his before sending the decanter back to the table.



Daemon narrowed his eyes and considered the wobble as the decanter settled back on the wood. Then he considered his slightly glassy-eyed wife.



Yes, this was the first time she’d tossed back enough liquor to feel the effects since she’d healed and begun wearing Twilight’s Dawn. She hadn’t taken into account that since she no longer wore the Black, her body wouldn’t burn up the liquor as fast.



So his darling was a lot less sober than she realized. Which meant he could ask the questions he didn’t think she would have answered otherwise.



“He took Vulchera’s head,” he said, keeping his voice soothing. “Why did he take her head?”



“It was all he needed.” Jaenelle sipped her brandy. “He didn’t break her Jewels, didn’t strip her power. She’ll make the transition to demon-dead. He’ll make sure of it.”



“But . . . it’s just her head.”



“Which contains the brain, which contains the mind, which is the conduit to the Self. Or one of them, anyway. All he needs. He’s going to finish the execution. She bled to death. Slowly. That was what the shirt was intended to do. Bleed her out. He would have sealed her into that room. She would have tried to get out, would have tried to get the shirt off. When she couldn’t do either, when she knew she couldn’t do either . . . There was so much fear in that room. Could you feel it?”



“Yes, I could.”



“Bleeding out because she put on a shirt.” Jaenelle laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “I imagine when they burn the body . . . Whatever spell that releases . . . I guess there will be a few men who will sleep better for whatever message rises from that fire.”



There is nothing he has done that I couldn’t have done, Daemon thought. So why am I so uneasy?



“That fear while she bled out, that was the first part of the execution,” Jaenelle said. “After she makes the transition to demon-dead . . . That’s when the pain truly begins.”



“Why?”



She looked sleepy. Her body was relaxing against him.



“Because of you. This is about you, Daemon. About him . . . and you. That’s why you need to be the one who helps him come back from the Twisted Kingdom. He’ll answer you.”



“I don’t know how to do that,” he protested. “I don’t have any training to do that.”



“You don’t need training. This is about fathers and sons. Lucivar needs to go with you.”



“Hell’s fire, Jaenelle. Saetan is my father. Do you really think I’ll need Lucivar there to watch my back?”



She smiled gently. “No, think of his being there as stacking the deck in your favor.”



Suddenly exhausted, and scared sick of what he might be facing, he rested his cheek against her head. “When?”



“Tomorrow after sunset,” Jaenelle replied. “He’ll be done with the execution by then, and I think he’ll go back to the Keep after that.”



“All right.” His breath came out in a shuddering sigh. “Come to bed with me. Just be with me.”



They went to bed for rest, for comfort. And as he went through the motions of the rest of the day, talking to Lord Collyn and dealing with the aftermath of the kill, he tried not to think about what might be waiting for him at the Keep tomorrow.



CHAPTER 27



TERREILLE



“Psst. Gray.”



Gray tensed. When he’d been in captivity, that sound usually preceded some boy’s attempt to “befriend” him so that he could be blamed for whatever mischief the boy and his friends had done.



“Psst.”



He turned toward the sound—and wondered why Ranon was hiding behind the stone shed.



He moved toward the other man slowly, reluctantly. Ranon seemed hesitant, uncertain. That in itself was a reason to be wary.