Black Jewels Trilogy. Yes.
He hated the word. It sounded so small, so pathetic, so childish.
The ring closed tightly around his flesh, her voice whispering how he was hers now.
He’d come to her room, bowed stiffly, watched her with the usual wary dislike, but then things had changed.
She touched him, told him to strip down, and slid the ring over his organ, caressing him with overly long nails. He shuddered and tried to pull away, pushing against her with the strength of his Jewels. “Get away.”
She stepped away and he stepped back, but a moment later he was on the floor, bent double, screaming and crying as waves of pain washed through his penis into the rest of his body, pain centering in his groin until he couldn’t even gather the breath to scream but just writhed, crying and screaming silently.
When it was over she looked down at him and smiled her cold, cruel smile. He stared back at her defiantly, trying to snarl through the pain throbbing through his most sensitive parts.
“Do not disobey me again or I will hurt you again. And more, until you learn to obey.”
He shuddered, stood, his fists clenched, meeting her eyes defiantly, and spat.
It was three more rounds of screaming that he finally crawled to her feet, begged her for mercy, his whole body cramped and wracked with pain.
“Please,” he whispered, his voice worn out from screaming. He felt very young, hatefully young, as she lifted his chin and looked into his eyes and told him to come with her.
The bed was luscious and large, the sheets red and bright and soft, the carpet thick. It turned his stomach. He tried to shrink back but she just lifted her hand and he jerked forward, not wanting to suffer that agony again.
“You know why this is called a Ring of Obedience?” She said, after, caressing him and touching it with her cool fingers, her smile languorous and satisfied. “Because it will make you obey me.”
Her hands on his body were like fire. He burned with shame and suppressed fury.
“Please,” he begged as she spread her legs and pulled him to her. “Please, no,” as she pressed his mouth to her breast, a pang between his legs reminding him of the price for disobedience. “Please-“ As she grabbed him and worked her hands roughly even while he tried to pull away.
By the time it was over, he would never say that word again. It was so useless, so small, so pathetic. He closed himself away from her and she lay back, stretching her naked body, not allowing him to look away even as his cheeks flushed, not sure whether the shame was for himself or not. “Please,” one last time, hoarsely. Begging to leave.
Begging. Humiliation burned his face.
“Very well.” That cold smile. Hatred was a pit of heat in his belly. “You may go. I will see you again tonight.”
He couldn’t find his clothes. She gave him strange ones - pants that fit too tightly and a shirt slashed to his waist. He fidgeted and flushed looking at his reflection in the mirror, but she just laughed and he fled. Because he knew that he would be back. He didn’t dare do otherwise.
He went to find Manny, but they’d sent Manny away. She’d gone back home, they said. She was done caring for him.
His heart hardened a little more, the ice coating it a little thicker.
The closet in his room was full of clothes like the ones he was wearing. He curled up under the blankets without changing and shivered. He slept restlessly if at all.
The night came too soon, with the ting of a bell calling him and the jolt in his groin reminding him of the price.
He steeled himself on the long walk down the corridors. When he reached Dorothea’s door, he lifted his hand and knocked once. The servant who opened the door flinched back from deadly golden eyes, cold and almost lifeless.
“Dorothea,” he said in a voice that was no longer a child’s. “You called?”
Title: Yearning
Prompt: 080. Restraints
Characters: Lucivar Yaslana, Luthvian
Warnings: just angst.
Summary: He knew that something was missing, just not what.
Watching the movement of the court around him, he felt suddenly tense, claustrophobic, closed in, like the ceiling was pressing down on him. He needed to be outside. Needed to feel the air on his skin. Excusing himself with a tight smile and a quick, slight bow to the Lady he was dancing with, her smile setting off alarm bells for no reason he could detect or pin down, and headed for the door rapidly. They cleared a way for him, an Ebon Gray Warlord Prince known for his explosive temper.
He heard her following after him, could feel her anger and frustration with his ‘being difficult’ as she called it. This happened, sometimes, these days where he could not stay inside, could not be in the stifling air of a court, chained to small Queens in smaller territories. He felt, sometimes, almost as though his mother were trying to hide him away. From what, though, he hadn’t the least idea.
Stalking out into the gardens, he took a deep breath of the clean air. She followed him a moment after, the door closing with deceptive softness. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, knowing that an argument was coming that he couldn’t avoid. “I had to get out. It was crowded, I needed to move.”
“The Lady you just dropped so promptly was a powerful Priestess! You would have done well to respect her. She could have gained you a position in-“
“Is that all you can think of?” he snapped, suddenly tired of her incessant yapping. “A better position. I’m sick of this. All of it.”
He felt her jerk back. “This is where you belong.”
“No,” he said, and suddenly was very sure of himself. “It isn’t.”
There was a long silence. The wind picked up, stirring his black hair back from his forehead above golden eyes. It stirred something in him, as it always did, the wind singing in his ears, caressing his shoulders, setting his belly afire and putting a yearning deep within him that he couldn’t reach or name. For something. Something other than this endless dance of social intricacies and Court manners.
He heard the snap in her voice. “That’s a ridiculous thought.” And maybe a touch of fear. Why fear? “Where will you go?”
“I’m going home,” he said, clenching his jaw. “Feel free to tell the Ladies I won’t be back.”
He turned and caught the expression as if she’d been slapped just before he caught the Grey wind back toward the small cottage to which he was confined, his shoulders prickling and twitching even when the wind was gone, his whole body yearning for something, reaching…
-------------------------
Lucivar’s eyes snapped open with a shuddering breath, feeling the comforting weight of his wings as Marian shook him gently. “Lucivar?”
He closed his eyes and rolled over, taking her in his embrace and looking over at the cradle where Daemonar lay, fast asleep, his tiny little wings beautiful, like dark silk. “Marian.”
“You were dreaming again,” she accused him in a small voice - not a frightened voice, not quite. He gathered her close. She’s not going to take you from me. She’s not going to give me that life now. I’d rather be dead.
“It’s nothing. Just a dream.” He shook off the trappings and breathed in her soothing, sweet Marian smell, quiet with the fierce undertones of his hearth witch. He could hear her worry as she opened her mouth to protest and he laid a finger to her mouth. “No, Marian. It’s fine.”
…his whole body yearning for something, reaching…
His wings twitched and he shivered, just briefly. Like being tethered, tied down. Earthbound. He could still feel the wind in his hair, the painful need without knowing what for.
Marian sighed. “You know, Lucivar, if you want some times alone sometime, Luthvian could come and…”
“No.” He cut her off more harshly than he intended, and quickly tried to moderate his voice. “No…I’d rather not. I just…” Wouldn’t feel safe. Not with my little winged son and her. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Saetan offered, if you want to…”
She buried her face in his chest, too sleepy to focus on the oddness in his voice. “He’s such a sweet grandfather.”
Softly, Lucivar added, “And a good father, when he could be.”
He would have killed you in the cradle…
…she wanted to cut off your wings.
Marian just made a soft noise and snuggled against him, cold feet tucked up by his thighs, already half asleep again. Lucivar let his eyes closed and let out a sigh.
…yearning for something, reaching.
He shivered, wrapped his wings around himself and Marian, and closed his eyes, slipping back into uneasy sleep.
Title: The Rising
Prompt: 072. Sorrow
Characters: Daemon Sadi, Surreal SaDiablo, Jaenelle, Saetan and Lucivar by name.
Warnings: Aaangst!Daemon.
Summary: Rising from the Twisted Kingdom, Daemon has things to consider.
The climb was long, cold, and lonely. But every so often were those little signs, little reminders of her, even after he’d left the Twisted Kingdom. And when he reached the surface, it was those that gave him the courage to open his eyes and rise from the half-dream he’d been living in as he began to heal, even despite the fear and the pain and the persistent sense of loss.
So months after he stepped out of the Twisted Kingdom, Daemon opened his eyes and woke into the real world.
The psychic scent was wrong. He noticed that before he could remember the name attached to the Lady who was demolishing a piece of toast in the corner of the room. Lifting himself on his elbows, he found his voice with only the slightest effort. “Surreal?”
Her head snapped around in a moment, dropping the toast and half-rising, but then she relaxed, as much as she ever did. “You’re…” a pause. Daemon almost flinched from the words she didn’t say: sane, whole and felt the fragility within belie them both. “…awake,” she settled on.
“Where’s Jaenelle?”
Surreal shook her head. “I haven’t seen her.”
He felt the cold anger and grief smooth out all the wrinkles within him as Surreal confirmed his worst fears. And then he noticed the brace on her wrist, holding it straight, as if it’d been broken. His voice smoothed out in flat calm without being conscious of it. “What happened to your wrist?”
She flushed bright red and tugged off the brace quickly, waving her hand at him. “Nothing. See? It’s fine. Promise.”
Daemon just looked at her and finally Surreal looked down. “I broke it. A few months ago.”
Sorting through the vague, fuzzy memories of the past few months, he happened upon one and flinched back from it, understanding her evasion without looking too closely. Looking around for a shirt and jacket, he found one on the back of a chair and tugged it on, too distracted to notice the way Surreal was looking at him, thinking of everything he’d have to do before leaving this place. “This is my island?”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Daemon turned his head and looked at her. She glanced down but didn’t give. “Jaenelle made me promise not to let you go anywhere until you’re healed.”
“I am healed,” flatly. He ignored the reference to Jaenelle.
“No, you’re not.” Her voice was strangely calm and assured. When had Surreal taken that tone with him? “Your mind’s still fragile.” She didn’t respond to the other statement, so she didn’t disagree.
The reminder set his teeth on edge and he answered too smoothly. “My mind is fine.”
“You’re not nearly strong enough, then. Or have you forgotten that there are those out there who want you dead?”
Daemon’s thoughts flicked one way and he jerked them back. Lucivar. “Lucivar’s dead.” The rest, he could handle.
“I wasn’t just talking about him,” Surreal said, and stood up in the corner of his eye. “Demon-dead can still kill you.”
The room swayed oddly and Daemon had to sit down. He put his head in his hands. “I can’t wait here forever. Neither can you.”
“I’m not going to.”
He jerked his head up and stared at her, his voice almost a purr. “What?”
She shifted, a little awkwardly, and he sensed the automatic movement into a position to defend herself. That bothered him, a little. “I’m not going to stay here. I have business to take care of.”
“Yes? And so do I.”
It was that little frown again he remembered from when she’d been little more than waist high, stubborn, challenging. “You can’t. You don’t have a mark of safe passage to-“ She snapped her mouth shut. “And you don’t know where to start looking.”
Daemon’s looked up at her and smiled a cold smile. “No, I know where to find what I’m looking for.” Because while he didn’t remember everything, he remembered just enough.
She shivered and he leaned back, pushing back the vague nausea and weakness hovering around him. Surreal regained her footing quickly, though.
“What do you have to do?”
“I’m going to find Manny. Then I’m going to buy my way into Kaeleer.”
“What do you want there?” Carefully, almost as though tense and waiting to deny him. Daemon tensed himself, too aware that with that inner fragility taking on Surreal would be a dangerous business.
Flatly, refusing to let his voice give anything away, he told the truth. Or part of it. “Anywhere’s better than Terreille as far as I’m concerned.”
A pause. “Daemon, if I stay here, will you promise not to go anywhere? At least for a month or two?”
Daemon shot a look at her, but there was nothing in her eyes but concern and maybe the slightest touch of fear. Reluctantly, he nodded at last, because he could feel exhaustion weighing on his shoulders like a ton of bricks. It was a small sacrifice to pay. He’d waited for years. One or two more months wouldn’t make a difference to a Queen already dead. His stomach clenched and he lay back on the bed, closing his eyes.
“Sadi?” A note of worry and he heard her start to move.
“I need to sleep. Can you go somewhere else?” Coolly. He didn’t want her there, just in case he dreamed.
“Yeah. Sure.” She came over and gave him one of her Surreal-looks. “But if I come back here in the morning and you’re gone, I’m going to be pissed.”
“I promised, didn’t I?” His mind felt fragmented and vague, blurry, like little pieces of glass shifted against each other and didn’t quite fit. A hesitation, as though she wanted to say something more, but then she was gone.
Daemon leaned his head back and allowed himself to think. Lucivar was dead, and so was Jaenelle. There was one man left alive, however, and it was him that Daemon’s thoughts, like vultures around a dying animal, kept circling back to.
You are my instrument.
His heart ached for Lucivar, even for the bitterness that his brother had wounded him as he had. His heart broke for Jaenelle. But he had enough left to feel the keen and cold edge of anger for the man who’d manipulated him into destroying the only Queen he was meant to serve. His heart lurched sideways.
He hadn’t told Surreal the whole truth; or even really, half of it. Because he knew her too well.
Fighting hands trying to drag him down. Swimming up through thick, tarlike darkness as they whispered horribly intimate words in his ear. Butchering whore. Too familiar voices. Voices he knew. Words lie, blood doesn’t. A hiss, soft and deadly, and then that powerful, smooth voice, so like and unlike his own.
You are my instrument.
A silent scream and his head broke the surface as he fought his way free of the tangling hands. Lucivar stood there, wings spread, watching him with horribly blank golden eyes, the glorious wings, his arrogant Eyrien brother’s pride and freedom, tattered, broken, torn, blood trickling from one corner of his mouth. Daemon stretched out a hand to him, desperate, half-pleading. “No, no, Lucivar, it wasn’t me.”
But that was a lie. And Lucivar said nothing, nothing, nothing, because he was dead and there was nothing left to say. The Darkness had swallowed the words that might have been.
Daemon jerked upright, tangled in sweaty sheets and panting, feeling overheated, confined, trapped. Standing, he went to the window and opened it, letting the sea breeze play across his skin. It didn’t comfort him.
Restless, knowing that to sleep would only bring more of the dreams, he went to the mahogany desk and sat down, calling in a quill and a piece of parchment, and began to write a letter. Halfway through, he tore it up and leaned back, tapping his left ring finger against the wood. The second part of his revenge would have to wait, but there was something he could still do, even confined here, fragile. The pieces of glass in a crystal chalice that had been precariously repaired shimmered and shifted, grating against each other. He would not sit idly by.
Witchblood curled around her shining golden hair, growing up around her, blood-red blooms black-tipped unfolding into the Darkness.
He shook the image away savagely, the wind off the water whispering around him. The hair rose on his arms, light goosebumps prickling. You are my instrument.
He stood and went to the piano in one corner of the room, sitting down and laying his hands on the keyboard, beginning to play a waltz, a familiar dance he’d played often before, and that he’d danced to, once, so very long ago, with a young, sapphire eyed witch.
Daemon played on, swallowing the bitterness.
The ring closed tightly around his flesh, her voice whispering how he was hers now.
He’d come to her room, bowed stiffly, watched her with the usual wary dislike, but then things had changed.
She touched him, told him to strip down, and slid the ring over his organ, caressing him with overly long nails. He shuddered and tried to pull away, pushing against her with the strength of his Jewels. “Get away.”
She stepped away and he stepped back, but a moment later he was on the floor, bent double, screaming and crying as waves of pain washed through his penis into the rest of his body, pain centering in his groin until he couldn’t even gather the breath to scream but just writhed, crying and screaming silently.
When it was over she looked down at him and smiled her cold, cruel smile. He stared back at her defiantly, trying to snarl through the pain throbbing through his most sensitive parts.
“Do not disobey me again or I will hurt you again. And more, until you learn to obey.”
He shuddered, stood, his fists clenched, meeting her eyes defiantly, and spat.
It was three more rounds of screaming that he finally crawled to her feet, begged her for mercy, his whole body cramped and wracked with pain.
“Please,” he whispered, his voice worn out from screaming. He felt very young, hatefully young, as she lifted his chin and looked into his eyes and told him to come with her.
The bed was luscious and large, the sheets red and bright and soft, the carpet thick. It turned his stomach. He tried to shrink back but she just lifted her hand and he jerked forward, not wanting to suffer that agony again.
“You know why this is called a Ring of Obedience?” She said, after, caressing him and touching it with her cool fingers, her smile languorous and satisfied. “Because it will make you obey me.”
Her hands on his body were like fire. He burned with shame and suppressed fury.
“Please,” he begged as she spread her legs and pulled him to her. “Please, no,” as she pressed his mouth to her breast, a pang between his legs reminding him of the price for disobedience. “Please-“ As she grabbed him and worked her hands roughly even while he tried to pull away.
By the time it was over, he would never say that word again. It was so useless, so small, so pathetic. He closed himself away from her and she lay back, stretching her naked body, not allowing him to look away even as his cheeks flushed, not sure whether the shame was for himself or not. “Please,” one last time, hoarsely. Begging to leave.
Begging. Humiliation burned his face.
“Very well.” That cold smile. Hatred was a pit of heat in his belly. “You may go. I will see you again tonight.”
He couldn’t find his clothes. She gave him strange ones - pants that fit too tightly and a shirt slashed to his waist. He fidgeted and flushed looking at his reflection in the mirror, but she just laughed and he fled. Because he knew that he would be back. He didn’t dare do otherwise.
He went to find Manny, but they’d sent Manny away. She’d gone back home, they said. She was done caring for him.
His heart hardened a little more, the ice coating it a little thicker.
The closet in his room was full of clothes like the ones he was wearing. He curled up under the blankets without changing and shivered. He slept restlessly if at all.
The night came too soon, with the ting of a bell calling him and the jolt in his groin reminding him of the price.
He steeled himself on the long walk down the corridors. When he reached Dorothea’s door, he lifted his hand and knocked once. The servant who opened the door flinched back from deadly golden eyes, cold and almost lifeless.
“Dorothea,” he said in a voice that was no longer a child’s. “You called?”
Title: Yearning
Prompt: 080. Restraints
Characters: Lucivar Yaslana, Luthvian
Warnings: just angst.
Summary: He knew that something was missing, just not what.
Watching the movement of the court around him, he felt suddenly tense, claustrophobic, closed in, like the ceiling was pressing down on him. He needed to be outside. Needed to feel the air on his skin. Excusing himself with a tight smile and a quick, slight bow to the Lady he was dancing with, her smile setting off alarm bells for no reason he could detect or pin down, and headed for the door rapidly. They cleared a way for him, an Ebon Gray Warlord Prince known for his explosive temper.
He heard her following after him, could feel her anger and frustration with his ‘being difficult’ as she called it. This happened, sometimes, these days where he could not stay inside, could not be in the stifling air of a court, chained to small Queens in smaller territories. He felt, sometimes, almost as though his mother were trying to hide him away. From what, though, he hadn’t the least idea.
Stalking out into the gardens, he took a deep breath of the clean air. She followed him a moment after, the door closing with deceptive softness. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, knowing that an argument was coming that he couldn’t avoid. “I had to get out. It was crowded, I needed to move.”
“The Lady you just dropped so promptly was a powerful Priestess! You would have done well to respect her. She could have gained you a position in-“
“Is that all you can think of?” he snapped, suddenly tired of her incessant yapping. “A better position. I’m sick of this. All of it.”
He felt her jerk back. “This is where you belong.”
“No,” he said, and suddenly was very sure of himself. “It isn’t.”
There was a long silence. The wind picked up, stirring his black hair back from his forehead above golden eyes. It stirred something in him, as it always did, the wind singing in his ears, caressing his shoulders, setting his belly afire and putting a yearning deep within him that he couldn’t reach or name. For something. Something other than this endless dance of social intricacies and Court manners.
He heard the snap in her voice. “That’s a ridiculous thought.” And maybe a touch of fear. Why fear? “Where will you go?”
“I’m going home,” he said, clenching his jaw. “Feel free to tell the Ladies I won’t be back.”
He turned and caught the expression as if she’d been slapped just before he caught the Grey wind back toward the small cottage to which he was confined, his shoulders prickling and twitching even when the wind was gone, his whole body yearning for something, reaching…
-------------------------
Lucivar’s eyes snapped open with a shuddering breath, feeling the comforting weight of his wings as Marian shook him gently. “Lucivar?”
He closed his eyes and rolled over, taking her in his embrace and looking over at the cradle where Daemonar lay, fast asleep, his tiny little wings beautiful, like dark silk. “Marian.”
“You were dreaming again,” she accused him in a small voice - not a frightened voice, not quite. He gathered her close. She’s not going to take you from me. She’s not going to give me that life now. I’d rather be dead.
“It’s nothing. Just a dream.” He shook off the trappings and breathed in her soothing, sweet Marian smell, quiet with the fierce undertones of his hearth witch. He could hear her worry as she opened her mouth to protest and he laid a finger to her mouth. “No, Marian. It’s fine.”
…his whole body yearning for something, reaching…
His wings twitched and he shivered, just briefly. Like being tethered, tied down. Earthbound. He could still feel the wind in his hair, the painful need without knowing what for.
Marian sighed. “You know, Lucivar, if you want some times alone sometime, Luthvian could come and…”
“No.” He cut her off more harshly than he intended, and quickly tried to moderate his voice. “No…I’d rather not. I just…” Wouldn’t feel safe. Not with my little winged son and her. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Saetan offered, if you want to…”
She buried her face in his chest, too sleepy to focus on the oddness in his voice. “He’s such a sweet grandfather.”
Softly, Lucivar added, “And a good father, when he could be.”
He would have killed you in the cradle…
…she wanted to cut off your wings.
Marian just made a soft noise and snuggled against him, cold feet tucked up by his thighs, already half asleep again. Lucivar let his eyes closed and let out a sigh.
…yearning for something, reaching.
He shivered, wrapped his wings around himself and Marian, and closed his eyes, slipping back into uneasy sleep.
Title: The Rising
Prompt: 072. Sorrow
Characters: Daemon Sadi, Surreal SaDiablo, Jaenelle, Saetan and Lucivar by name.
Warnings: Aaangst!Daemon.
Summary: Rising from the Twisted Kingdom, Daemon has things to consider.
The climb was long, cold, and lonely. But every so often were those little signs, little reminders of her, even after he’d left the Twisted Kingdom. And when he reached the surface, it was those that gave him the courage to open his eyes and rise from the half-dream he’d been living in as he began to heal, even despite the fear and the pain and the persistent sense of loss.
So months after he stepped out of the Twisted Kingdom, Daemon opened his eyes and woke into the real world.
The psychic scent was wrong. He noticed that before he could remember the name attached to the Lady who was demolishing a piece of toast in the corner of the room. Lifting himself on his elbows, he found his voice with only the slightest effort. “Surreal?”
Her head snapped around in a moment, dropping the toast and half-rising, but then she relaxed, as much as she ever did. “You’re…” a pause. Daemon almost flinched from the words she didn’t say: sane, whole and felt the fragility within belie them both. “…awake,” she settled on.
“Where’s Jaenelle?”
Surreal shook her head. “I haven’t seen her.”
He felt the cold anger and grief smooth out all the wrinkles within him as Surreal confirmed his worst fears. And then he noticed the brace on her wrist, holding it straight, as if it’d been broken. His voice smoothed out in flat calm without being conscious of it. “What happened to your wrist?”
She flushed bright red and tugged off the brace quickly, waving her hand at him. “Nothing. See? It’s fine. Promise.”
Daemon just looked at her and finally Surreal looked down. “I broke it. A few months ago.”
Sorting through the vague, fuzzy memories of the past few months, he happened upon one and flinched back from it, understanding her evasion without looking too closely. Looking around for a shirt and jacket, he found one on the back of a chair and tugged it on, too distracted to notice the way Surreal was looking at him, thinking of everything he’d have to do before leaving this place. “This is my island?”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Daemon turned his head and looked at her. She glanced down but didn’t give. “Jaenelle made me promise not to let you go anywhere until you’re healed.”
“I am healed,” flatly. He ignored the reference to Jaenelle.
“No, you’re not.” Her voice was strangely calm and assured. When had Surreal taken that tone with him? “Your mind’s still fragile.” She didn’t respond to the other statement, so she didn’t disagree.
The reminder set his teeth on edge and he answered too smoothly. “My mind is fine.”
“You’re not nearly strong enough, then. Or have you forgotten that there are those out there who want you dead?”
Daemon’s thoughts flicked one way and he jerked them back. Lucivar. “Lucivar’s dead.” The rest, he could handle.
“I wasn’t just talking about him,” Surreal said, and stood up in the corner of his eye. “Demon-dead can still kill you.”
The room swayed oddly and Daemon had to sit down. He put his head in his hands. “I can’t wait here forever. Neither can you.”
“I’m not going to.”
He jerked his head up and stared at her, his voice almost a purr. “What?”
She shifted, a little awkwardly, and he sensed the automatic movement into a position to defend herself. That bothered him, a little. “I’m not going to stay here. I have business to take care of.”
“Yes? And so do I.”
It was that little frown again he remembered from when she’d been little more than waist high, stubborn, challenging. “You can’t. You don’t have a mark of safe passage to-“ She snapped her mouth shut. “And you don’t know where to start looking.”
Daemon’s looked up at her and smiled a cold smile. “No, I know where to find what I’m looking for.” Because while he didn’t remember everything, he remembered just enough.
She shivered and he leaned back, pushing back the vague nausea and weakness hovering around him. Surreal regained her footing quickly, though.
“What do you have to do?”
“I’m going to find Manny. Then I’m going to buy my way into Kaeleer.”
“What do you want there?” Carefully, almost as though tense and waiting to deny him. Daemon tensed himself, too aware that with that inner fragility taking on Surreal would be a dangerous business.
Flatly, refusing to let his voice give anything away, he told the truth. Or part of it. “Anywhere’s better than Terreille as far as I’m concerned.”
A pause. “Daemon, if I stay here, will you promise not to go anywhere? At least for a month or two?”
Daemon shot a look at her, but there was nothing in her eyes but concern and maybe the slightest touch of fear. Reluctantly, he nodded at last, because he could feel exhaustion weighing on his shoulders like a ton of bricks. It was a small sacrifice to pay. He’d waited for years. One or two more months wouldn’t make a difference to a Queen already dead. His stomach clenched and he lay back on the bed, closing his eyes.
“Sadi?” A note of worry and he heard her start to move.
“I need to sleep. Can you go somewhere else?” Coolly. He didn’t want her there, just in case he dreamed.
“Yeah. Sure.” She came over and gave him one of her Surreal-looks. “But if I come back here in the morning and you’re gone, I’m going to be pissed.”
“I promised, didn’t I?” His mind felt fragmented and vague, blurry, like little pieces of glass shifted against each other and didn’t quite fit. A hesitation, as though she wanted to say something more, but then she was gone.
Daemon leaned his head back and allowed himself to think. Lucivar was dead, and so was Jaenelle. There was one man left alive, however, and it was him that Daemon’s thoughts, like vultures around a dying animal, kept circling back to.
You are my instrument.
His heart ached for Lucivar, even for the bitterness that his brother had wounded him as he had. His heart broke for Jaenelle. But he had enough left to feel the keen and cold edge of anger for the man who’d manipulated him into destroying the only Queen he was meant to serve. His heart lurched sideways.
He hadn’t told Surreal the whole truth; or even really, half of it. Because he knew her too well.
Fighting hands trying to drag him down. Swimming up through thick, tarlike darkness as they whispered horribly intimate words in his ear. Butchering whore. Too familiar voices. Voices he knew. Words lie, blood doesn’t. A hiss, soft and deadly, and then that powerful, smooth voice, so like and unlike his own.
You are my instrument.
A silent scream and his head broke the surface as he fought his way free of the tangling hands. Lucivar stood there, wings spread, watching him with horribly blank golden eyes, the glorious wings, his arrogant Eyrien brother’s pride and freedom, tattered, broken, torn, blood trickling from one corner of his mouth. Daemon stretched out a hand to him, desperate, half-pleading. “No, no, Lucivar, it wasn’t me.”
But that was a lie. And Lucivar said nothing, nothing, nothing, because he was dead and there was nothing left to say. The Darkness had swallowed the words that might have been.
Daemon jerked upright, tangled in sweaty sheets and panting, feeling overheated, confined, trapped. Standing, he went to the window and opened it, letting the sea breeze play across his skin. It didn’t comfort him.
Restless, knowing that to sleep would only bring more of the dreams, he went to the mahogany desk and sat down, calling in a quill and a piece of parchment, and began to write a letter. Halfway through, he tore it up and leaned back, tapping his left ring finger against the wood. The second part of his revenge would have to wait, but there was something he could still do, even confined here, fragile. The pieces of glass in a crystal chalice that had been precariously repaired shimmered and shifted, grating against each other. He would not sit idly by.
Witchblood curled around her shining golden hair, growing up around her, blood-red blooms black-tipped unfolding into the Darkness.
He shook the image away savagely, the wind off the water whispering around him. The hair rose on his arms, light goosebumps prickling. You are my instrument.
He stood and went to the piano in one corner of the room, sitting down and laying his hands on the keyboard, beginning to play a waltz, a familiar dance he’d played often before, and that he’d danced to, once, so very long ago, with a young, sapphire eyed witch.
Daemon played on, swallowing the bitterness.