The Priestess held her breath. How soon before it worked? How soon before the guards came?
His eyes changed. He swayed. Then he leaned across the Altar and looked at her the way a lover looks at his lady. She couldn't take her eyes off his lips. Soft. Sensual. She leaned toward him. One kiss. One sweet kiss.
Just before her lips touched his, his right hand closed around her wrist. "Bitch," he snarled softly.
Startled, she tried to pull away.
As his hand tightened, she stared at the Black-Jeweled ring.
His long nails pierced her skin. Then she felt the sharp needle prick of the snake tooth beneath his ring-finger nail, felt the venom chill her blood.
She flailed at him with her other hand, trying to reach his face, trying to scream for help as her vision blurred and her lungs refused to fill with needed air.
He broke both her wrists, snapping the bones as he thrust her away from him.
"The venom in my snake tooth doesn't work as quickly as you may think," he said too quietly, too gently.
"In the end, you'll be able to scream. You'll tear yourself apart doing it, but you'll scream."
Then he was gone, and there was nothing but a silence within the night's silence, a shadow within the shadows.
By the time the guards arrived, she was screaming.
5 / Terreille
The floor rolled beneath him, teasing legs that already shook from exhaustion and were cramped by the foul witch's brew.
Behind that door was a safe place. As he reached for it, the floor rolled again, knocking his feet out from under him. His shoulder hit the door, cracking the old, rotting wood, and he fell into the room, landing heavily on his side.
"Bitch," he snarled softly.
Gray mist. A shattered crystal chalice. Black candles. Golden hair.
Blood. So much blood.
Words lie. Blood doesn't. •"Shut up, Prick," he rasped.
The floor kept rolling under him. He dug his long nails into the wood, trying to keep his balance, trying to think.
His fever was dangerously high, and he knew he needed food, water, and rest. Right now, he was prey to whoever might think to look for him in this abandoned house where he had spent his earliest years with Tersa, his real mother.
Everything has a price.
If he had given up outside that Sanctuary three days ago, if he had let the Hayllian guards find him, he might not have become so ill from the brew. But he had ruthlessly pushed his body to the point of collapse in order to reach the Gate near the ruins of SaDiablo Hall.
And every time exhaustion crept in, every time his strength of will slipped a little, a gray mist began to cloud his mind, a mist he knew held something very, very terrible. Something he didn't want to see.
You are my instrument.
Words, like flickering black lightning, came out of that mist, threatening to sear his soul.
Words lie. Blood doesn't.
He was less than a mile from the Gate.
"Lucivar," he whispered. But he didn't have the strength to feel angry at his brother's betrayal.
You are my instrument.
"No." He tried to stand up, but he couldn't do it. Still, something in him required defiance. "No. I am not your instrument. I ... am ... Daemon . . . Sadi."
He closed his eyes, and the gray mist engulfed him.
With a groan, Daemon rolled onto his back and slowly opened his eyes. Even that was almost too much effort. At first, he wondered if he had gone blind. Then he began to make out dim shapes in the darkness.
Night. It was night.
Breathing slowly, he began to assess the physical damage.
He felt as dry as touchwood, as inflexible as stone. His muscles burned. His belly ached from hunger, and the craving for water was fierce. The fever had broken at some point, but . . .
Something was
wrong.
Words lie. Blood doesn't.
The words Lucivar had spoken swam round and round, growing larger, growing solid. They crashed against his mind, fragmenting it further.
Daemon screamed.
You are my instrument.
As Saetan's words thundered inside him, there was more pain—and there was fear. Fear that the mist filling his mind might part and show him something terrible.
Daemon.
Holding on fiercely to the memory of Jaenelle saying his name like a soft, sighing caress, Daemon got to his feet. As long as he could remember that, he could hold the other voices at bay.
His legs felt too heavy, but he managed to leave the house and follow the remnants of the drive that would take him to the Hall. Even though every movement was a fiery ache, by the time he reached the Hall, he was almost moving with his usual gliding stride.
But there was still something very wrong. It was hard to hold on to the Warlord Prince called Daemon Sadi, hard to hold on to his sense of self. But he had to hold on for a little while longer. He had to.
Gathering the last of his strength and will, Daemon cautiously approached the small building that held the Dark Altar.
Hekatah prowled the small building that stood in the shadow of the ruins of SaDiablo Hall. She shook her fists in the air, frustrated beyond endurance by the past three days. Even so, every time she circled the Altar, she glanced at the wall behind it, fearful it would turn to mist and Saetan would step through the Gate to challenge her.
But the High Lord was too preoccupied with his own concerns lately to pay attention to her.
Her main problem now was Daemon Sadi.
After drinking the brew she'd made, he
could not
have walked away from that Dark Altar, despite what those idiot guards swore. But if he was actually making his way to this Gate ... By now the second part of her brew, the part that would make his mind receptive to her carefully rehearsed words, would be at its peak. She had planned to whisper all her poisoned words while she nursed him through the fever and the pain so that, when the fever broke, those words would solidify into a terrible truth he wouldn't be able to escape. Then all that strength, all that rage would become a dagger aimed right at Saetan's heart.
All her carefully made plans were being
ruined
because . . .
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 be
some
expression in his eyes to tell her if she was getting through to him?
"Young is a relative term, don't you think?"
He was
playing
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 the
cildru dyathe,"
Hekatah said.
A long silence. "That isn't possible," he finally said. His voice was flat, totally without emotion.
"It's
true."
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. He
could
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 he
had
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 at
them.
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.
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? Would
she!
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?"