Daughter of the Blood

Saetan snapped to attention. "Where’s Beldon Mor?"

"On Chaillot. That’s an island just west of here. You can see it from the hill behind the Sanctuary. Beldon Mor is the capital. I think Jaenelle lives there. I tried to find a way into—"

Now she had his full attention. "Are you mad?" He combed his fingers through his thick black hair. "If she went to that much effort to retain her privacy, why are you trying to invade it?"

"Because of what she is," Cassandra said through clenched teeth. "I thought that would be obvious."

"Don’t invade her privacy, Cassandra. Don’t give her a reason to distrust you. And the reason forthat should be obvious, too."

Minutes passed in tense silence.

Saetan’s attention drifted back to the picture. A creative use of vivid colors, even if he couldn’t quite figure out what it was supposed to be. How could a child capable of creating butterflies, moving a structure the size of the Hall, and constructing a psychic shield that only kept specific kinds of beings out be so hopeless at basic Craft?

"It’s clumsy," Saetan whispered as his eyes widened.

Cassandra looked up wearily. "She’s a child, Saetan. You can’t expect her to have the training or the motor control—"

She squeaked when he grabbed her arm. "But that’s just it! For Jaenelle, doing things that require tremendous expenditures of psychic energy is like giving her a large piece of paper and color-sticks she can wrap her fist around. Small things, the basic things we usually start with because they don’t require a lot of strength, are like asking her to use a single-haired brush. She doesn’t have the physical or mental control yet to do them." He sprawled in the chair, exultant.

"Wonderful," Cassandra said sarcastically. "So she can’t move furniture around a room, but she can destroy an entire continent."

"She’ll never do that. It’s not in her temperament."

"How can you be sure? How will you control her?"

They were back to that.

He took his cape back and settled it over his shoulders. "I’m not going to control her, Cassandra. She’s Witch. No male has the right to control Witch."

Cassandra studied him. "Then what are you going to do?"

Saetan picked up his cane. "Love her. That will have to be enough."

"And if it’s not?"

"It will have to be." He paused at the kitchen door. "May I see you from time to time?"

Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. "Friends do."

He left the Sanctuary feeling exhilarated and bruised. He’d loved Cassandra dearly once, but he had no right to ask anything of her except what Protocol dictated a Warlord Prince could ask of a Queen.

Besides, Cassandra was his past. Jaenelle, may the Darkness help him, was his future.

2—Hell

Dropping from the Black Wind, Saetan appeared in an outer courtyard that held one of the Keep’s official landing webs, which was etched in the stone with a clear Jewel at its center. The clear Jewels acted as beacons for those who rode the Winds—a kind of welcoming candle in the window—and every landing web had a piece of one. It was the only use that had ever been found for them. Leaning heavily on his cane, Saetan limped across the empty courtyard to the huge, open-metal doors embedded into the mountain itself, rang the bell, and waited to enter the Keep, the Black Mountain, Ebon Askavi, where the Winds meet. It was the repository for the Blood’s history as well as a sanctuary for the darkest-Jeweled Blood. It was also the private lair of Witch.

The doors opened silently. Geoffrey, the Keep’s historian/librarian, waited for him on the other side. "High Lord." Geoffrey bowed slightly in greeting.

Saetan returned the bow. "Geoffrey."

"It’s been a while since you’ve visited the Keep. Your absence has been noted."

Saetan snorted softly, his lips curving into a faint, dry smile. "In other words, I haven’t been useful lately."

"In other words," Geoffrey agreed, smiling. As he walked beside Saetan, his black eyes glanced once at the cane. "So you’re here."

"I need your help." Saetan looked at the Guardian’s pale face, a stark, unsettling white when combined with the black eyes, feathery black eyebrows, black hair with a pronounced widow’s peak, the black tunic and trousers, and the most sensuous blood-red lips Saetan had ever seen on anyone, man or woman. Geoffrey was the last of his race, a race gone to dust so long ago that no one remembered who they were. He was ancient when Saetan first came to the Keep as Cassandra’s Consort. Then, as now, he was the Keep’s historian and librarian. "I need to look up some of the ancient legends."

"Lorn, for example?"

Saetan jerked to a stop.

Geoffrey turned, his black eyes carefully neutral.

"You’ve seen her," Saetan said, a hint of jealousy in his voice.

"We’ve seen her."

"Draca, too?" Saetan’s chest tightened at the thought of Jaenelle confronting the Keep’s Seneschal. Draca had been caretaker and overseer of Ebon Askavi long, long before Geoffrey had ever come. She still served the Keep itself, looking after the comfort of the scholars who came to study, of the Queens who needed a dark place to rest. She was reserved to the point of coldness, using it as a defense against those who shuddered to look upon a human figure with unmistakably reptilian ancestry. Coldness as a defense for the heart was something Saetan understood all too well.

"They’re great friends," Geoffrey said as they walked through the twisting corridors. "Draca’s given her a guest room until the Queen’s apartment is finished." He opened the library door. "Saetan, you are going to train her, aren’t you?"

Hearing something odd in Geoffrey’s voice, Saetan turned with much of his old grace. "Do you object?" He immediately choked back the snarl in his voice when he saw the uneasiness in Geoffrey’s eyes.

"No," Geoffrey whispered, "I don’t object. I’m . . . relieved." He pointed to the books neatly stacked at one end of the blackwood table. "I pulled those out anticipating your visit, but there are some other volumes, some very ancient texts, that I’ll pull out for you next time. I think you’ll need them."

Saetan settled into a leather chair beside the large blackwood table and gratefully accepted the glass of yarbarah Geoffrey offered. His leg ached. He wasn’t up to this much walking.

He pulled the top book off the stack and opened it at the first marker. Lorn. "You did anticipate."

Geoffrey sat at the other end of the table, checking other books. "Some. Certainly not all." They exchanged a look. "Anything else I can check for you?"