Twilight’s Dawn (The Black Jewels #9)(73)
Author: Anne Bishop

All four Scelties spun to face the same direction.

“South,” Daemon snarled. He moved swiftly, out of the room and down the corridors. *Beale, I need a Coach on the landing web, and a driver to come with us.*

“If Tildee is running, someone is going to need a Healer,” Jaenelle said when she caught up to him.

*Rainier!* Daemon called.

*Prince?*

*Contact Sylvia’s Master of the Guard. I want to know exactly where she is and who is with her. There’s trouble. We need to find her.*

*Can you wait for Surreal?*

*Only if she can get to the Hall by the time you have the information. If not, you’ll have to tell her where to meet us.*

*We were on our way home, so I’ll stop at the Master’s house and she’ll come up to the Hall.*

When Daemon and Jaenelle reached the great hall, Beale and Holt were waiting, holding their winter coats.

“The driver will bring the Coach around in another minute or so,” Beale said. He helped Daemon into his coat while Holt helped Jaenelle into hers.

Daemon wanted to snap at the delay. There had been time to bring the Coach around to the landing web in front of the Hall. But he held his tongue. Once they caught the Winds, they would be out of touch, so they couldn’t leave until Rainier found out where Sylvia went.

“There are blankets and winter boots in the Coach,” Beale said. “Mrs. Beale is putting together a basket of food and jugs of water.”

We aren’t going on a picnic, Daemon thought. On the other hand, Tildee was running, and if whatever was happening around Sylvia was as bad as that indicated and Jaenelle was needed as a Healer, he wouldn’t want her eating or drinking anything that didn’t come from the Hall in case it had been tainted in some way.

*Prince?* Rainier called on a spear thread.

*Where is she?*

His temper turned viciously cold as Rainier gave him the information. As soon as Rainier broke the link, he turned to Jaenelle. “Let’s go. Lord Ladvarian, your presence is requested.”

The youngsters whined. Daemon pointed a finger at them, then at Holt and Beale. “You three tell them everything you know about this.” He looked at Beale. “Do whatever you can.”

Beale nodded.

Holt rushed to open the door. Daemon, Jaenelle, and Ladvarian walked out of the Hall.

Within moments of the driver setting the Coach on the landing web, a horse-drawn cab raced up to the Hall’s front doors. Surreal sprang from the cab and ran to the Coach. She didn’t say anything until they were inside and Daemon was settling into the other chair in the driver’s compartment.

*Jaenelle is going in as a Healer?* she asked on a Gray thread.

*Yes,* he replied.

*Then I’ll protect Jaenelle, and you and Ladvarian take care of the rest.*

*Agreed.*

Letting Jaenelle and Ladvarian explain the situation, Daemon lifted the Coach off the landing web, caught the Black Winds, and raced toward a village on the border of Little Terreille.

Sylvia fought her way up from a sludgy kind of sleep. Her legs were filled with a dull, draining ache, and her eyes wouldn’t open. She couldn’t remember where she was or why she felt so strange, but she knew her boys were in danger and needed her. She knew that much.

Then she remembered all of it—the attack, the pain, telling Tildee to run, and Beron coming to help her instead of running away.

Tildee would get Mikal to a safe hiding place. But Beron . . .

She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. Her body didn’t work.

She’d died in those moments when her attacker flung her far into the garden. But that had been the body’s death. The Blood had the ability to survive beyond the physical death and become demon-dead.

How long did it usually take to make the transition? Minutes? Hours? How much time had passed?

Her vision was cloudy. Her hearing returned halfway. Was this normal?

That bastard who attacked her was demon-dead. That was why he smelled like rotting meat. Had she managed to damage him at all?

Her fingers twitched. A few moments later, she was able to fist both hands.

Blood was the living river, and through it flowed the power that made the Blood who and what they were—and it was that power that sustained the flesh after the transformation to demon-dead. Dead flesh wasn’t capable of renewing the power, which was why the demon-dead drank the blood of the living.

She had died before completely draining her Purple Dusk Jewel, but there wasn’t much power left, so her Birthright Summer-sky was sustaining her body right now. Once the power completely drained from both Jewels, the final death would occur, and her Self would become a whisper in the Darkness—and she wouldn’t be able to do anything to protect her family from a faceless enemy.

*Beron?* she whispered, not sure if the lack of response meant he was too far away to hear her or meant that he too was dead.

She felt too exposed to send out a psychic call for help that might alert the people in the house to her location. If they weren’t looking for her yet, they would be, for no other reason than to make sure she couldn’t tell anyone about what happened.

Sylvia pushed herself to a sitting position. She wasn’t sure how much power was needed to sustain dead flesh, but she didn’t think she had a lot of time.

If all she wanted to do was gasp out a last message, Halaway would be the prudent destination. But her boys had been lured to this estate in order to be that monster’s prey, so she needed the help of someone who knew the demon-dead and could help her survive long enough to destroy that nameless, faceless enemy.

She needed Saetan.

Using Craft, she floated through the gardens, keeping low to the ground, moving away from garbled sounds that might have been people shouting or dogs barking. When she found a tether line for the White Wind, she caught it and headed north, carefully shifting to a darker Wind whenever she could until she was riding the Purple Dusk Wind to the Keep.

Dropping from the Black Winds, Daemon aimed the Coach at the estate that was a couple of miles from a village on the border of Little Terreille. He didn’t intend to announce his presence until he was right on top of the problem, but since the District Queen who ruled this village didn’t live here, he reached for the males in her home village and let his voice thunder a message through a psychic spear thread: *Get here. Now.*

Once he landed the Coach and let his Black power roll over the land, they would know where to find him—and they would do everything they could to accommodate him, because they, and their Queen, wouldn’t want him looking in their direction. Not when his temper had turned cold and he was riding the killing edge.