Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels #2)(8)
Author: Anne Bishop

Dorothea called in a silver flask and set it beside the goblet.

Hekatah let out an annoyed sniff at the size of the flask, but pointed one finger at it. The flask opened and lifted from the table. Its hot, red contents poured into the goblet, which then glided through the air to Hekatah’s waiting hand. She drank deeply.

Dorothea clenched her hands and waited. Finally out of patience, she snapped, "Sadi is still on the loose."

"And each day will hone his temper a little more," Hekatah said in that girlish voice that always seemed at odds with her vicious nature.

"Exactly."

Hekatah sighed like a sated woman. "That’s good."

"Good?" Dorothea exploded from the chair. "You don’t know him!"

"But I do know his father."

Dorothea shuddered.

Hekatah set the empty goblet on the table. "Calm yourself, Sister. I’m weaving a delicious web for Daemon Sadi, a web he won’t escape from because he won’t want to escape."

Dorothea went back to her chair. "Then he can be Ringed again."

Hekatah laughed softly, maliciously. "Oh, no, he’d be useless to us Ringed. But don’t worry. He’ll be hunting bigger prey than you." She wagged a finger at Dorothea. "I’ve been very busy on your behalf."

Dorothea pressed her lips together, refusing to take the bait.

Hekatah waited a minute. "He’ll be going after the High Lord."

Dorothea stared. "Why?"

"To avenge the girl."

"But Greer is the one who destroyed her!"

"Sadi doesn’t know that," Hekatah said. "By the time I’m done telling him the sad tale ofwhy this happened to the girl, the only thing he’ll want to do is tear out Saetan’s heart. Naturally the High Lord will protest such action."

Dorothea sat back. It had been months since she’d felt this good. "What do you need from me?"

"A troop of guards to help me spring a trap."

"Then I’d better choose males who are expendable."

"Don’t concern yourself about the guards. Sadi won’t be any threat to them." Hekatah stood up, an unspoken dismissal.

When they were outside, Hekatah said coolly, "You’ve said nothing about my gift, Sister."

"Your gift?"

"The boy. I’d thought to keep him for myself, but you were entitled to some compensation for losing Greer. He’s a most attentive servant."

"You know what to do?" Hekatah said, handing two vials to Greer.

"Yes, Priestess. But are you sure he’ll go there?"

Hekatah caressed Greer’s cheek. "For whatever reason, Sadi has gone to every Dark Altar, working his way east. He’ll go there. It’s the only Gate left before the one located near the ruins of SaDiablo Hall." She tapped her fingers against her lips and frowned. "The old Priestess there may be a problem. However, her assistant is a practical girl—a trait one finds in abundance among the less-gifted Blood. You’ll be able to deal with her." –

"And the old Priestess?"

Hekatah shrugged delicately. "A meal shouldn’t be wasted."

Greer smiled, bowed over the hand she held out to him, and left.

Humming, Hekatah performed the first movements of a court dance. For seven months Daemon Sadi had slipped through her traps, and his retaliation every time he was driven away from a Gate had made even her most loyal servants in the Dark Realm afraid to strike at him. For seven months she had failed. But so had he.

There were very few Priestesses left in Terreille who knew how to open the Gates. Those who hadn’t gone into hiding after her first warning had been eliminated.

It had cost her some of her strongest demons, but she’d made sure Sadi never had time to figure out for himself how to light the black candles in the correct sequence to open a Gate. Of course, if he had gone straight to Ebon Askavi, his search would have ended months ago. But she had spent century upon century turning a natural awe of the place into a subtle terror—which wasn’t difficult since the one time she had been inside the Keep the place had terrifiedher. Now,no one in Terreille would willingly go there to ask for help or sanctuary unless he was desperate enough to risk anything—and most of the time, not even then.

So Sadi, with no safe place to go and no one he could trust, would continue hiding, searching, running. When he finally got to the Gate where she would be waiting, the strain of the past months would make him all the more susceptible to what she’d planned.

"Rule Hell while you can, you gutter son of a whore," she said as she hugged herself. "This time I have the perfect weapon."

2 / Hell

Saetan opened the door of his private study and froze as the Harpy standing hi the corridor drew back the bowstring and aimed her arrow at his heart.

"A rather blunt way of requesting an audience, isn’t it, Titian?" he asked dryly.

"None of my weapons are blunt, High Lord," the Harpy snarled.

Saetan studied her for a moment before stepping back

into the room. "Come in and say what you’ve come to say." Leaning heavily on his cane, he limped to the blackwood desk, settled himself on one corner, and waited.

Titian came in slowly, her anger swirling like a winter storm. She stood at the other end of the room, facing him, fearless in her fury, a demon-dead Black Widow Queen of the Dea al Mon. Once more the bowstring was drawn back, the arrow aimed at Saetan’s heart.

His patience, already frayed from the unrelenting months, snapped. "Put that thing down before I do something we’ll both regret."

Titian didn’t waver. "Haven’t you already done something you regret, High Lord? Or are you so filled with the pus of jealousy you have no room for regret?"

The walls of the Hall rumbled. "Titian," he said too softly, "I won’t warn you again."

Reluctantly, Titian vanished the bow and arrow.

Saetan crossed his arms. "Actually, your forbearance surprises me, Lady. I expected to have this conversation long before now."

Titian hissed. "Then it’s true? She walks among thecildru dyathe!"

Saetan watched the tension building in her. "And if it is?"

Titian looked at him for one awful moment, then threw back her head and keened.

Saetan stared at her, shaken. He had known the rumor would drift through Hell. He had expected that Titian, like Char, the leader of thecildru dyathe, would seek him out. He had expected their fury. Their fury he could face. Their hatred he could accept. But not this.

"Titian," he said, his voice unsteady. "Titian, come here."

Titian continued to keen.

Saetan limped over to her. She didn’t seem to notice when he took her in his arms and held her tightly against him. He stroked her long silver hair, and murmured words of sorrow in the Old Tongue.