The Shadow Queen

Then Ranon crouched and rested his hand above the ground. When he dropped the sight shield and revealed the wooden box, Gray rushed behind the shed to join him.



Plants. Lovely little plants ready for a garden.



“I talked to my people,” Ranon said. “Some of the elders, along with the Queens, traveled to my home village to meet with me. To hear about the new Queen. I told them about Cassidy. I told them she knew about witchblood—a plant that is not unknown in the reserves even though we’d forgotten what it meant. I told them about the flower bed you wanted to plant for her. I mentioned that some of the flowers Cassidy’s mother had sent looked similar to plants that grew in the southern part of Dena Nehele, so they sent these back with me. The Ladies sent notes with the plants.” He called in several folded sheets of paper. “They said some are perennials, some are annuals. Some can winter over. They tried to give me more of a gardening lesson than I wanted, but I figured you’d know what they were talking about.”



Each plant had a carefully written label attached to its pot. Gray touched each one gently, moved that strangers would be willing to help him make this special part of the garden.



He looked up, and was about to ask why Ranon was acting so uneasy about offering the plants. But when he looked into the other man’s dark eyes, he understood the risk—and the hope—that had been carried with these plants.



Would someone from the house of Grayhaven accept plants that came from the Shalador reserves? Would the new Queen accept a gift from the Shalador people?



“Thank you,” Gray said. “This will make the flower bed even more special.”



Ranon’s shoulders relaxed, and he smiled.



“I’ll be ready to plant tomorrow,” Gray said. “I just need to talk to Theran about keeping Cassie occupied for a few hours.”



“Won’t that be interesting?”



He wasn’t sure what that meant, but judging by Ranon’s amusement, he didn’t think Theran would share the opinion that tomorrow would be “interesting.”



Ebon ASKAVI



When Daemon arrived at the Keep at sunset, he didn’t know what to expect.



What he found scared him to the bone.



A sparely furnished room that was heavily shielded, but he couldn’t tell if the shields were Black or had been made by a power more ancient than the Blood—the power of the dragons, who had gifted the Blood with their magic long, long ago.



He also couldn’t tell if the shields were meant to contain the man who waited for him in that room or contain the rage. The cold, dark, glittering rage.



He entered the room and walked toward the table that was set a few paces from the door. An awkward place for the thing, which made him think it had been placed there so that no one would have to cross the room under that feral gaze.



He moved toward the table and the man waiting beside it, and he swallowed hard. When he looked into Saetan’s eyes, he saw the Warlord Prince who had destroyed an entire race so completely, there had been no trace of them left behind—including the islands they had called home.



And he saw a truth about himself.



“Prince,” the High Lord said.



Oh, no. He had no chance of reaching the man if they kept to formal titles.



“Father,” Daemon said—and saw a flicker of emotion in those glazed gold eyes. He stopped when he reached the edge of the table, still out of reach of lethally honed nails—and the venom in the snake tooth under Saetan’s ring finger nail. “Father, talk to me. Please.”



No response. Just a terrifying assessment being made by a powerful man who was walking who knew what roads in the Twisted Kingdom.



I can take him. If it comes to that, I’m strong enough to stop him.



Strong enough to win—maybe—but not strong enough to come out of that fight intact. Not when he’d be pitting a little extra raw power against thousands of years of experience.



Which made him glad Jaenelle had held Lucivar back instead of having both of them go to the Keep. One of them needed to survive to take care of the rest of the family.



If it came down to that.



Sweet Darkness, please don’t let it come down to that.



“Father,” Daemon said again.



Saetan looked at the table. Pressed the fingertips of his right hand on the polished wood. Two sheets of paper appeared beside his fingers.



Wary, Daemon took a step closer. “What are these?”



“Names,” Saetan said, his voice a hoarse, singsong croon. “The names of men who didn’t take the bait but were still caught by the trap.”



Moving slowly, painfully alert in case a simple action gave offense, Daemon drew one of the sheets closer so he could read it.



Names and places.



He took her head, Daemon thought. All he needed. What kind of pain did the High Lord extract along with these names in order to collect the full debt Vulchera owed the people she had harmed?



“Words that were said cannot be unsaid,” Saetan whispered. “But sometimes hearts can forgive when a lie is revealed, and maybe, for some, the truth will let them hold what is most dear.”



Daemon frowned at the list as he sorted through the layers of messages in those words. Marriages had been broken by Vulchera’s games. There weren’t many women who would forgive a husband’s betrayal of the marriage bed, especially when fidelity was one of the things a man offered as part of the marriage contract. But Jaenelle was sure Saetan’s slide into the Twisted Kingdom was about him and was personal. So if it wasn’t about the wives and broken marriages, it had to be about the children.



Daemon pushed aside the chill of fear. He couldn’t afford to have Saetan pick up that particular psychic scent.



Children. Dangerous ground where the High Lord of Hell was concerned.



“You want me to contact the families of these men?” he asked.



Saetan’s fingertips brushed the second sheet of paper. “Their lives were torn apart because of a lie. Because some bitch liked to play games.”



The words started softly and ended in a savage snarl.



Who are we talking about? Daemon wondered—and felt something shiver through him.



The rage still filled the room, but something else was building under the rage. Something that could be the spark that would light the tinder and unleash the High Lord’s temper.



“You don’t know what it’s like,” Saetan whispered. “You don’t know the agony a man can f-feel when he hears those three words: ‘Paternity is denied.’ ”



The hoarseness in that deep voice. As if Saetan’s throat had been strained by the effort of keeping the rage in—or by screaming to get some of the rage out.



Daemon had to choose. Had to commit to the fight. If Saetan lost control of that madness-driven rage, he had to strike without hesitation—because hesitating would, most likely, leave him open to an attack that would cripple him enough to take him out of the fight . . . and leave Lucivar standing alone on the killing field.



“Father. Talk to me.”



The silence held for almost too long.



“When the burden of existing as demon-dead becomes too great, sometimes Hell’s citizens will seek out the High Lord and ask him to finish what was begun,” Saetan said. “So even though I wasn’t informed by any of the Dhemlan Queens, as I should have been, I heard the story anyway.”



“What happened?” Daemon asked, watching Saetan’s eyes become lifeless and blank of everything but a memory.



“By his own admission, the Warlord had flirted a few times with the idea of becoming another woman’s lover, but he hadn’t done anything that would force his wife into making a choice about their marriage. They had a son who had gone through the Birthright Ceremony and was irrevocably his by law. But they also had a little girl who hadn’t gone through the Ceremony yet.



“Whatever trouble he had with the woman, he adored the little girl, and it was for her sake that he trod so carefully when it came to his marriage vows.



“A few months before his daughter’s Birthright Ceremony, he went to visit a close friend for a few days—an annual house party he and his wife had gone to for several years. But his wife didn’t go with him that year because their boy was feeling poorly, so it was prudent to keep the children at home.”



Daemon nodded, seeing where the next part of the story was going. “Vulchera was at the house party, playing her games. Did he take the bait?”



“No. He came close to it because he and his wife were growing more and more unhappy with each other, but he walked out of the bedroom and went to find his friend. By the time they got back to the room, the bitch was gone.”



“She denied being in his bedroom?” Daemon said.



“Of course. But his friend’s wife told her to pack her things and leave, and that didn’t sit well with the Lady.”



“She sent a shirt to the Warlord’s wife.”



Saetan nodded. “With enough details about his body to make it clear she’d seen him undressed. The day before she’d set her trap, he’d gotten a soaking during some game the men were playing and had stripped off his wet shirt—which she had kindly offered to take into the laundry room, along with a few others.



“The marriage broke. He’d played too close to that line too many times, and his wife had not been as unaware as he’d believed. As sometimes happens, he began to regret the loss of what he’d had—including the woman, who hadn’t seemed as exciting after she’d become familiar. And there was his daughter, his little girl, to consider.



“So they tried to rebuild what had been broken. He wasn’t living with them, but he visited every evening, doing chores he’d previously resented, playing with his children. Talking to his wife and rediscovering the woman.



“A month before his daughter’s Birthright Ceremony, he’d worked his way back to living at the family home half the time and had earned his way back into the marriage bed.”



Daemon said nothing. Saetan’s eyes still held that blankness, but Daemon felt a terrible something building under the words. Building and building.