Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels #2)(127)
Author: Anne Bishop

"You have made good usse of my gift. You have sserved well."

Saetan thought of all he’d done in his life. All the mistakes, the regrets. All the blood spilled. "Have I?" he asked quietly, more to himself than Lorn.

"You have honored the Darknesss. You have resspected the wayss of the Blood. You have alwayss undersstood what the Blood were meant to be—caretakerss and guardianss. You have ussed teeth and clawss when teeth and clawss were needed. You have protected your young. The Darknesss hass ssung to you, and you have followed roadss few but the Dragonss have walked. You have undersstood the Blood’ss heart, the Blood’ss ssoul. You have sserved well."

Saetan took a deep breath. His throat felt too tight to make an answer. "Thank you," he said hoarsely.

There was a long pause. "Ass sshe iss the daughter of your ssoul, you are the sson of mine."

Saetan clutched the Jewel around his neck. Did Lorn have any idea what those words meant to him?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was it formed a bond between them, a bridge he could cross. He would finally be able to talk to the keeper of all the Blood’s Craft knowledge. Maybe he’d even find out how Jae—

"If I’m the daughter of Saetan’s soul and he’s the son of yours, does that make you my grandfather?" Jaenelle asked, joining them.

"No," Lorn replied promptly.

"Why not?"

Hot, dusty-dry air hit them with enough force to push them back a couple of steps.

"I suppose that’s an answer," Jaenelle grumped. She shook her arms to untangle all the cobwebby strands. "Although I don’t see why you’re getting all snorty about one little granddaughter."

"And the wide assortment of grandnieces and nephews that come with her," Saetan muttered under his breath.

Jaenelle gave him a sharp look and her wrists a last shake. "Well, at least you’ve finally met. You should’ve invited him sooner," she added, giving Lorn an I-told-you- so look.

"He wass not ready. He wass too young."

Saetan would have protested but Jaenelle beat him to it.

"I was much younger when you invited me," Jaenelle said.

Saetan pressed an arm against his stomach and tried very hard to keep his expression neutral. But the emotional flavor of baffled male he was picking up from Lorn was making it very difficult.

"I did not invite you, Jaenelle," Lorn said slowly.

"Yes, you did. Sort of. Well, not as blatantly as Saetan did—"

Saetan clamped his teeth together and made a funny, fizzy noise.

"—but I heard you, so I answered." She smiled at both of them.

Being smiled at like that was a good reason for a man to panic.

Before he had time to, Jaenelle rapidly headed for the stairs, muttering something about having to be there for the toast, and Lucivar had a very strong hand clamped on his shoulder.

"If great-grandpapa is finished with you," Lucivar said with a feral smile, "I’d like you to come upstairs and lean hard on Karla because, Queen of Glacia or not, if she makes one more of those smart-ass remarks about wing-spans, I’m going to drop her into a deep mountain lake."

"Lucivar, this is a dignified occasion," Saetan said at the same time Lorn said, "I am not your great-grandpapa."

"No, you’re not," Lucivar agreed. "But since no one was quite sure how many generations separate them from you— and it’s different for each race or species—it was decided to condense all the generations into one ‘great.’ As for this being a dignified occasion, it was. As for the party that’s waiting for Saetan to make the opening toast, I suspect it’s going to be a lot of things and none of them are going to be remotely close to dignified." Lucivar looked at them and let out a pitying sigh. "You’re both old enough to know better. And you’ve both known Jaenelle long enough to know better."

Saetan found himself being steered toward the doors at the other end of the chamber.

"Come on, be a good papa and let great-grandpapa dragon get some rest before all the little dragons pile on top of him."

Reaching the stairs, Saetan thought that the inner doors to the chamber closed just a little too quickly.

"We will talk," Lorn said softly. "There iss much to talk about.

Yes, there was, Saetan thought as he entered the upper chamber, accepted a glass of yarbarah, and looked at the animated, laughing faces that now ruled Kaeleer.

He wondered what Lorn thought about the many-strand web Jaenelle had woven over Kaeleer, the web that had called so many races out of the mist they’d hidden in for thousands of years.

And he wondered what the Dark Council was going to think.

4 / Kaeleer

Lord Magstrom rubbed his forehead and wished, violently, that this session of the Dark Council would end soon. Lord Jorval, the First Tribune, had been making soothing noises and deftly evading making firm promises since the first petitioner had stepped into the circle. They all wanted the same thing: assurance that the males sent into the kindred lands that had been granted as human territories wouldn’t be slaughtered by these "Hell-spawned animals."

The Council couldn’t give such assurances.

The stories told by the few survivors who returned from those first attempts to secure the land had roused a great anger in the people of Little Terreille and demands for retaliation. The piles of mutilated corpses—some partially eaten—that clogged the main street of Goth a few days later when all the males who had gone into kindred lands were mysteriously returned had chilled that anger into furious impotence.

Everyone wanted something done to make these unclaimed lands safe for human occupation. No one wanted to face what was already living in those "unclaimed" lands.

"I assure you, Lady," Lord Jorval said to the strident petitioner, "we’re doing everything possible to rectify the situation."

"When I came here, I was promised land to rule and males who knew how to serve properly," the Terreillean Queen replied angrily.

Lord Magstrom wondered if anyone else had noticed that the majority of Kaeleer-born males, even with the enticement of serving in the First or Second Circle of a Terreillean Queen’s court, resigned with bitter animosity after a few weeks of service. Terreillean males pleaded to serve Kaeleer-born Queens, willing to serve in the Thirteenth Circle as a menial servant if that’s all that was available. Over the past three years, he’d had a few tearfully beg him to approach minor Queens outside of Little Terreille and see if there was any way they could serve in a Territory like Dharo or Nharkhava. They would do anything, they’d told him. Anything.