Queen of the Darkness (The Black Jewels #3)(95)
Author: Anne Bishop

*Do not fear, little Brother. It iss a gift. The Weaver will need it for her web.*

Gathering his courage, Ladvarian approached the box. *I have never seen a Jewel like this.*

*And you never will again,* Lorn replied gently. *There will never be another one like it.*

Still cautious, Ladvarian said, *It has no rank. It does not know what it is.*

*It doess not yet know what it iss,* Lorn agreed. *But it doess have a name: Twilight’ss Dawn.*

When Ladvarian was on his way back to Arachna with the box, Draca and Lorn stared at each other.

"You rissk much giving him a Jewel like that," Draca said.

*There iss reasson to rissk much,* Lorn replied. *Witch hass almosst completed her web?*

"Yess." For the first time since she had met Jaenelle, she felt the weight of her years.

*We cannot heal the taint, Draca,* Lorn said softly. *Sshe can.*

"I know. When I gave the gift of magic, I gave it freely, knowing I could never alter what wass done with it." Draca hesitated. "If sshe doess thiss, sshe will be desstroyed."

*Sshe iss Kaeleer’ss Heart. Sshe musst not be desstroyed.* Lorn paused and added softly, *The kindred have alwayss been sstrong dreamerss.*

"Will they be sstrong enough?"

The question neither could answer hung between them.

3 / Kaeleer

A stealthy movement and the sudden glow of a small ball of witchlight woke Jorval from an uneasy sleep. "Priestess?"

A hand grabbed his hair, yanked his head up. "No," said the silver-haired woman as her knife cut his throat. "I am vengeance."

4 / Kaeleer

"Enough," Daemon said, leading Jaenelle into her sitting room. "You need to rest."

"The web’s almost complete. I need to—"

"Rest.If you make an error because you’re too exhausted to think clearly, this will all be for nothing." Making a weak attempt to snarl, she collapsed into a chair.

Daemon wanted to rage at her but knew it wouldn’t do any good. She had dropped weight she couldn’t afford to lose at a frightening speed. Putting obstacles in her path would only force her to waste energy she couldn’t spare, so he took the other path.

"You told me a few minutes ago that you still needed a couple of things to complete the web."

"Those things will take time," she protested.

He bent down and kissed her softly, persuasively. When he felt her yield, he murmured against her lips, "We’ll have a quiet dinner. Then we’ll play a couple of hands of ‘cradle.’ I’ll even let you win."

Her huff of laughter provoked another hunger. His kiss deepened as his hand caressed her breast.

"I think I am hungry," Jaenelle said breathlessly when he finally gave her a chance to speak.

After they had thoroughly satisfied one hunger, they finally sat down to dinner.

5 / Hell

Pain woke him.

Kartane opened his eyes. Two fading balls of witchlight provided enough light for him to clearly see that he was outside. Then he realized he was upside down.Someone had tied him upside down.

Something rustled the bushes nearby.

Turning his head a little, he stared at an odd pile of brown clothing, neatly folded.

Suddenly, his heart pounded. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

The surrounding shadows shifted just enough for him to see that the odd pile wasn’t clothing, it was brown skin.

As he drew in a breath to scream, glowing red eyes appeared in the darkness around him.

Even with her head under the water, Surreal heard Kartane scream.

She popped up out of the water, then immediately lowered herself to her neck. The pool, fed by a hot spring, was delightfully warm, but the air was cool enough to bite.

She heard snarls, a howl, a terrified shriek.

The air wasn’t the only thing around there that had a bite.

"So this is Hell," she said, looking around. It was too dark to see much, but the area around the pool had a kind of stark beauty.

"This is Hell," Titian replied, a blissful smile on her face. She straightened up and gave Surreal a searching look. "Has the debt been paid to your satisfaction, Surreal?"

The snarls and shrieks stopped for a moment, then started again.

"Yes," Surreal said, leaning back with a sigh, "I’m satisfied."

6 / Kaeleer

"Sometimes the heart reveals more than panes of glass can."

Saetan turned away from the window, tensed, took a step forward, stopped. "Tersa, why are you at the Keep?"

Smiling, Tersa walked across the room and held out a thick envelope. "I came to give you this."

Even before he took the envelope, he knew who it was from. Sylvia always added a drop of lavender oil to her wax seal.

Laying one hand on his shoulder, Tersa kissed him on the lips—a lingering kiss that surprised him. Worried him.

She stepped back. "That was the other part of the message." She was almost at the door before he gathered his wits.

"Tersa, this can’t be the only reason you traveled to the Keep."

"No?" she said, looking puzzled. Then, "No, it wasn’t."

He waited. She said nothing.

"Darling," he prodded gently, "why are you here?"

Her eyes cleared, and he felt certain that, for the first time in all the centuries he had known her, he was seeing a glimpse of Tersa as she had been before she was broken. She was formidable—and a bit dazzling.

"I’m needed here," she said quietly, then walked out of the room.

He stood there for several minutes, staring at the envelope in his hands. "Show some balls, SaDiablo," he finally muttered as he carefully opened the envelope. "No matter what the letter says, it isn’t the end of the world."

It was a long letter. He read it twice before he tucked it away.

He hadn’t been able to give Sylvia more than words, but apparently, thankfully, that had been enough.

7 / Terreille

Dorothea prowled around the room. "Armies are gathering all over Terreille, the Territories in the Shadow Realm have been attacked for weeks now by the people we had hidden in Little Terreille, and Kaeleerstill hasn’t formally declared war."

"That’s because Jaenelle Angelline doesn’t have the backbone to go along with her power," Hekatah said as she carefully arranged her full-length cape. "She’s just a mouse scurrying around in her hidey-hole while the cats gather for the feast."

"Even a mouse will bite," Dorothea snapped.

"This mouse won’t bite," Hekatah replied calmly. "She’s too emotionally squeamish to take the step that would begin a full-scale slaughter."

Dorothea wasn’t as sure of that as Hekatah seemed to be, but Jaenelle’s sparing Alexandra’s life after the abduction failed certainly seemed to indicate a lack of the proper temperament.She certainly wouldn’t have spared the bitch. That lack in Jaenelle was in their favor, but… "You seem to be forgetting that the High Lord has fangs and isn’t the least bit squeamish about using them."