The cold made Saetan's muscles ache, made his blood
sluggish. This wasn't the searing, cleansing cold of rage. This was fear. "Did Beron recognize the plant?"
"Yes. I had shown it to him only last year and explained what it was. None of it, thank the Darkness, grows in Halaway." Sylvia looked at him, deeply troubled. "High Lord, she was planting witch blood."
Why hadn't Jaenelle told him? "If the witch blood blooms ..."
Sylvia looked horrified. "It won't unless. ... It mustn't!"
Saetan spaced his words carefully, feeling too fragile to have even words collide. "I'll have that area investigated. Discreetly. And I'll take care of the problem in Halaway."
"Thank you." Sylvia fussed with the folds of her dress.
Saetan waited, forcing himself to be patient. He wanted to be alone, wanted time to think. But Sylvia obviously had something else on her mind. "What?"
"It's trivial in comparison."
"But?"
In one swift glance, Sylvia examined him from head to toe. "You have very good taste in clothes, High Lord."
Saetan rubbed his forehead, trying to find a connection. "Thank you." Hell's fire! How did women make these mental jumps so easily?
Why
did they make them?
"But you're probably not aware of what is considered fashionable for a young woman these days." It wasn't quite a question.
"If that's your way of telling me that Jaenelle looks like she got her wardrobe from an attic, then you're right. I think the Seneschal of the Keep opened every old trunk that was left there and let my wayward child pick and choose." It was a small subject, a safe subject. He became happily grumpy. "I wouldn't mind so much if any of them fit—that's not true, I
would
mind. She should have new clothes."
"Then why don't you take her shopping in Amdarh, or one of the nearby towns, or even Halaway?"
"Do you think I haven't tried?" he growled.
Sylvia made no comment for several moments. "I have two sons. They're very good boys—for boys—but they're not much fun to go shopping with." She gave him a twin-cling little smile. "Perhaps if it was just two women having lunch and then looking around ..."
Saetan called in a leather wallet and handed it to Sylvia. "Is that enough?"
Sylvia opened the wallet, riffled through the gold marks, and laughed. "I think we can get a decent wardrobe or three out of this."
He liked her laugh, liked the finely etched lines around her eyes. "You'll spend some of that on yourself, of course."
Sylvia gave him her best Queen stare. "I didn't suggest this with the expectation of being paid for helping a young Sister."
"I didn't offer it as payment, but if you feel uncomfortable about using some of it to please yourself, then do it to please me." He watched her expression change from anger to uneasiness, and he wondered who the fool had been who had made her unhappy. "Besides," he added gently, "you should set a proper example."
Sylvia vanished the wallet and stood up. "I will, naturally, provide you with receipts for all of the purchases."
"Naturally."
Saetan escorted her to the great hall. Taking her cape from Beale, he settled it carefully over her shoulders.
As they slowly walked to the door, Sylvia studied the carved wooden moldings that ran along the top of each wall. "I've only been here half a dozen times, if that. I never noticed the carvings before.
"Whoever carved these was very talented," she said. "Did he also make the sketches for all these creatures?"
"No." He heard the defensiveness in his voice and winced.
"You made the sketches." She studied the carvings with more interest, then muffled a laugh. "I think the wood-carver played a little with one of your sketches, High Lord. That little beastie has his eyes crossed and is sticking his tongue out—and he's placed just about where someone would stop after walking in.
Apparently the beastie doesn't think much of your guests." She paused and studied him with as much interest as she'd just given the carving. "The woodcarver didn't play with your sketch, did he?"
Saetan felt his face heat. He bit back a growl. "No."
"I see," Sylvia said after a long moment. "It's been an interesting evening, High Lord."
Not sure how to interpret that remark, he escorted her into her carriage with a bit more haste than was proper.
When he could no longer hear the carriage wheels, he turned toward the open front door, wishing he could postpone the next conversation. But Jaenelle was more attuned to him during the dark hours, more revealing when hidden in shadows, more—
The sound snapped his thoughts. Holding his breath, Saetan looked toward the north woods that bordered the Hall's lawns and formal gardens. He waited, but the sound didn't come again.
"Did you hear it?" he asked Beale when he reached the door.
"Hear what, High Lord?"
Saetan shook his head. "Nothing. Probably a village dog strayed too far from home."
She was still awake, walking in the garden below her rooms.
Saetan drifted toward the waterfall and small pool in the center of the garden, letting her feel his presence without intruding on her silence. It was a good place to talk because the lights from her rooms on the second floor didn't quite reach the pool.
He settled comfortably on the edge of the pool and let the peace of a soft, early summer night and the murmur of water soothe him. While he waited for her, he idly stirred the water with his fingers and smiled.
He'd told her to landscape this inner garden for her own pleasure. The formal fountain had been the first thing to go. As he studied the water lilies, water celery, and dwarf cattails she'd planted in the pool and the ferns she'd planted around it, he wondered again if she had just wanted something that looked more natural or if she had been trying to re-create a place she had known.
"Do you think it's inappropriate?" Jaenelle asked, her voice drifting out of the shadows.
Saetan dipped his hand into the pool and raised the cupped palm, watching the water trickle through his fingers. "No, I was wishing I'd thought of it myself." He flicked drops of water from his fingers and finally looked at her.
The dark-colored dress she was wearing faded into the surrounding shadows, giving him the impression that her face, one bare shoulder, and the golden hair were rising up out of the night itself.
He looked away, focusing on a water lily but intensely aware of her.
"I like the sound of water singing over stone," Jaenelle said, coming a little closer. "It's restful."
But not restful enough. How many things haunt you, witch-child?
Saetan listened to the water. He pitched his voice to blend with it. "Have you planted witch blood before?"
She was silent so long he didn't think she would answer, but when she did, her voice had that midnight, sepulchral quality that always produced a shiver up his spine. "I've planted it before."
Sensing her brittleness, he knew he was getting too close to a soul-wound—and secrets. "Will it bloom in Marasten Gardens?" he asked quietly, once more moving his fingers slowly through the water.
Another long silence. "It will bloom."
Which meant a witch who had died violently was buried there.
Tread softly, he cautioned himself. This was dangerous ground. He looked at her, needing to see what those ancient, haunted eyes would tell him. "Will we have to plant it in Halaway?"
Jaenelle turned away. Her profile was all angles and shadows, an exotic face carved out of marble. "I don't know." She stood very still. "Do you trust your instincts, Saetan?"
"Yes. But I trust yours more."
She had the strangest expression, but it was gone so swiftly he didn't know what it meant. "Perhaps you shouldn't." She laced her fingers together, pressing and pressing until dark beads of blood dotted her hands where her nails pierced her skin. "When I lived in Beldon Mor, I was often ... ill. Hospitalised for weeks, sometimes months at a time." Then she added, "I wasn't physically ill, High Lord."
Breathe, damn you, breathe. Don't freeze up now.
"Why didn't you ever mention this?"
Jaenelle laughed softly. The bitterness in it tore him apart. "I was afraid to tell you, afraid you wouldn't be my friend anymore, afraid you wouldn't teach me Craft if you knew." Her voice was low and pained.
"And I was afraid you were just another manifestation of the illness, like the unicorns and the dragons and
. . . the others."
Saetan swallowed his pain, his fear, his rage. There was no outlet for those feelings on a soft night like this. "I'm not part of a dreamscape, witch-child. If you take my hand, flesh will touch flesh. The Shadow Realm, and all who reside in it, are real." He saw her eyes fill with tears, but he couldn't tell if they were tears of pain or relief. While she had lived in Beldon Mor, her instincts had been brutalized until she no longer trusted them. She had recognized the danger in Halaway before Sylvia had, but she had doubted herself so much she hadn't been willing to admit it—just in case someone told her it wasn't real.
"Jaenelle," he said softly, "I won't act until I've verified what you tell me, but please, for the sake of those who are too young to protect themselves, tell me what you can."
Jaenelle walked away, her head down, her golden hair a veil around her face. Saetan turned around, giving her privacy without actually leaving. The stones he sat on felt cold and hard now. He gritted his teeth against the physical discomfort, knowing instinctively that if he moved she wouldn't be able to find the words he needed.
"Do you know a witch called the Dark Priestess?" Jaenelle whispered from the nearby shadows.
Saetan bared his teeth but kept his voice low and calm. "Yes."
"So does Lord Menzar."
Saetan stared at nothing, pressing his hands against the stones, relishing the pain of skin against rough edges. He didn't move, did nothing more than breathe until he heard Jaenelle climb the stairs that led to the balcony outside her rooms, heard the quiet click when she closed the glass door.
He still didn't move except to raise his golden eyes and watch the candle-lights dim one by one.
The last light in Jaenelle's room went out.
He sat beneath the night sky and listened to water sing over stone. "Games and lies," he whispered.
"Well, I, too, know how to play games. You shouldn't have forgotten that, Hekatah. I don't like them, but you've just made the stakes high enough." He smiled, but it was too soft, too gentle. "And I know how to be patient. But someday I'm going to have a talk with Jaenelle's foolish Chaillot relatives, and then it will be blood and not water that will be singing over stone in a very . . . private . . . garden."
"Lock it."
Mephis SaDiablo reluctantly turned the key in the door of Saetan's private study deep beneath the Hall, the High Lord's chosen place for very private conversations. He took a moment to remind himself that he had done nothing wrong, that the man who had summoned him was his father as well as the Warlord Prince he served.
"Prince SaDiablo."
The deep voice pulled him toward the man sitting behind the desk.
It was a terrible face that watched him cross the room, so still, so expressionless, so contained. The silver in Saetan's thick black hair formed two graceful triangles at the temples, drawing one's gaze to the golden eyes. Those eyes now burned with an emotion so intense words like "hate" and "rage" were inadequate. There was only one way to describe the High Lord of Hell: cold.
Centuries of training helped Mephis take the last few necessary steps. Centuries and memories. As a boy, he had feared provoking his father's temper, but he'd never feared the man. The man had sung to him, laughed with him, listened seriously to childhood troubles, respected him. It wasn't until he was grown that he understood why the High Lord should be feared—and it wasn't until he was much older that he came to appreciate
when
the High Lord should be feared.
Like now.
"Sit." Saetan's voice had that singsong croon that was usually the last thing a man ever heard—except his own screams.
Mephis tried to find a comfortable position in the chair. The large blackwood desk that separated them offered little comfort. Saetan didn't need to touch a man to destroy him.
A little flicker of irritation leaped into Saetan's eyes. "Have some yarbarah." The decanter lifted from the desk, neatly pouring the blood wine into two glasses. Two tongues of witch fire popped into existence.
The glasses tilted, travelled upward, and began turning slowly above the fires. When the yarbarah was wanned, one glass floated to Mephis while the other cradled itself in Saetan's waiting hand. "Rest easy, Mephis. I require your skills, nothing more."
Mephis sipped the yarbarah. "My skills, High Lord?"
Saetan smiled. It made him look vicious. "You are meticulous, you are thorough, and, most of all, I trust you." He paused. "I want you to find out everything you can about Lord Menzar, the administrator of Halaway's school."
"Am I looking for something in particular?"
The cold in the room intensified. "Let your instincts guide you." Saetan bared his teeth in a snarl. "But this is just between you and me, Mephis. I want no one asking questions about what you're seeking."
Mephis almost asked who would dare question the High Lord, but he already knew the answer.
Hekatah. This had to do with Hekatah.
Mephis drained his glass and set it carefully on the blackwood desk. "Then with your permission, I'd like to begin now."
3 / Kaeleer
Luthvian hunched her shoulders against the intrusion and vigorously pounded the pestle into the mortar, ignoring the girl hovering in the doorway. If they didn't stop pestering her with their inane questions, she'd never get these tonics made.
"Finished your Craft lesson so soon?" Luthvian asked without turning around.
"No, Lady, but—"
"Then why are you bothering me?" Luthvian snapped, flinging the pestle into the mortar before advancing on the girl.
The girl cowered in the doorway but looked confused rather than frightened. "There's a man to see you."