Queen of Darkness

”And if he discovers her deceit…” Hekatah shrugged. ”Well, we would have had to get rid of her after the war anyway.”

Dorothea stared at their reflections in the glass. They had been lovely women once. Now Hekatah looked like a corpse that the worms had been feasting on, and she…

Sadi had created some kind of spell to age and twist her body, but he hadn’t done anything to diminish her sexual appetite. The Blood called him the Sadist, but she hadn’t really appreciated the depths of his cruelty. He had known her appetites-how could he not since he’d had to satisfy them when he was young? He had also known the humiliation she would feel when she saw revulsion in the eyes of the males she rode instead of that exciting combination of lust and fear. Now, after her tearful confession, she wouldn’t even be able to indulge in that much.

”You’ve informed your pet Queens that they’ll have to abstain from their more-imaginative-pleasures for the time being?” Hekatah asked.

”I’ve told them,” Dorothea replied irritably. ”Whether they will restrain themselves is difficult to say.”

”Any who indulge will have to be eliminated.”

”And how do we explain that?

Hekatah made an impatient sound. ”Obviously they, too, have been under the High Lord’s spell. Your gallant struggle to free yourself from his power also freed a number of your Sisters, but, unfortunately, not all of them. All it will take is one or two of them being killed for the others to understand the message and behave properly.”

”And after we’ve won?”

”After we’ve won, we can do whatever we damn well please. We’ll rule the Realms, Dorothea. Not just Terreille, but all of them-Terreille, Kaeleer, and Hell.”

Wanting to savor that possibility, Dorothea didn’t say anything for several minutes. Then finally, reluctantly, she asked, ”Do you really think that fear of the High Lord will be enough to start a war? Do you really think this will work?”

What was left of Hekatah’s lips pulled back in a terrible smile. ”It worked the last time.”

6 Kaeleerspan

The Queen of Arachna settled next to the shoulder of the weary, golden-haired woman who leaned against a flat-sided boulder.

Is bad? the large golden spider asked in her soft voice.

Jaenelle Angelline brushed her hair away from her face and sighed. Her haunted sapphire eyes narrowed a little against the early-morning sunlight as she once again studied the delicate strands of the tangled web that she’d woven during the night. ”Yes, it’s bad. A war is coming. A war between the Realms.”

Can stop?

Jaenelle shook her head slowly. ”No. No one can stop it.”

The spider shifted uneasily. The air around the woman tasted of sadness-and a growing, cold rage. The two-legs have fought before. Is more bad this time?

”You may look.”

Accepting the formal invitation, the Arachnian Queen opened her mind to the dreams and visions in the large tangled web Jaenelle had spun between a boulder and a nearby tree.

So much death. So much pain and sorrow. And a creeping taint that soiled the ones remaining.

Pulling back from the dreams and visions, she studied the web itself and noticed two odd things. One was the delicate silver ring set with an Ebony Jewel that had been placed in the center of the web. A Jewel chip was rarely woven into a tangled web because the magic that shaped those webs was powerful-and dangerous-enough, and this particular Jewel belonged to Jaenelle, who was Witch, the living myth, dreams made flesh. The other odd thing was the triangle. Many threads were connected to that ring, but overlying them were three threads that formed a triangle around it.

Intrigued, the spider continued to study the web. She had seen that triangle before. Strength, passion, courage. Loyalty, honor, love. She could almost taste the male tang in those threads.

”If Kaeleer accepts Terreille’s challenge and goes to war,” Jaenelle said softly, ”it will destroy the Blood in both Realms. All the Blood. Even the kindred.”

Some will live. It is always so.

”Not this time. Oh, there will be some who will physically survive the war, but…” Jaenelle’s voice broke. She took a deep breath. ”All of my Sisters, all of my friends will be gone. All of the Queens will be gone. All of the Warlord Princes.”

Aw.

”There will be no Queens left to heal the land, no Queens left to hold the Blood together. The slaughter will continue until there’s no one left to slaughter. The witches will be as barren as the land. The gift of power that had been given to us so long ago will be the final weapon that destroys us. If Kaeleer goes to war with Terreille.”

Must fight, the spider said. Must stop creeping taint.

Jaenelle smiled bitterly. ”War won’t stop it. I know who nurtured the seeds, and if eliminating Dorothea and Hekatah would stop this from coming, I’d destroy them right now. But it wouldn’t stop anything, not anymore. It would only delay it, and that would be worse. This is the right place and the right time to cleanse that taint out of the Blood.”

You speak paths that go no place, the spider scolded. You say can’t fight but must fight. You confused? Maybe you read web wrong.

Jaenelle turned her head toward the spider, a dryly amused look on her face. ”And where did I learn to weave a tangled web? If I’m not reading it right, maybe I wasn’t taught correctly.”

The spider used Craft to make a harsh, buzzing sound that indicated severe disapproval. Not fault of teaching spider if little spider pay more attention to catching fly than doing lesson.

Jaenelle’s silvery, velvet-coated laugh filled the air. ”I never once tried to catch a fly. And I did pay attention to the teaching spider. After all, she was the Dream Weavers’ Queen at the time.”

The Arachnian Queen resettled herself, somewhat mollified.

Jaenelle’s humor faded as she turned her sapphire eyes back to the web. ”Terreille will go to war.”

Then Kaeleer will war.

”This web shows two paths,” Jaenelle said very quietly.

No, the spider replied firmly. One web, one vision. That is the way.

”Two paths,” Jaenelle insisted. ”Following the second path, Kaeleer doesn’t go to war with Terreille, and the Queens and Warlord Princes survive to heal and protect the Shadow Realm.”

Then who war with Terreille?

Jaenelle hesitated. ”The Queen of the Darkness.”

But you are Queen!

Jaenelle exhaled sharply. ”A war that cleanses the Realms, calls in the debts, takes back the gift of power that was given. There’s a way. There must be a way, but the web can’t show me yet because of that.” Her finger pointed to the triangle. ”That’s not the Queen’s triangle.” Her finger traced the left side of the triangle. ”That thread is the High Lord.” She traced the bottom thread. ”And that thread is Lucivar.” Her finger hesitated at the triangle’s right side. ”But that thread isn’t Andulvar. It should be, since he’s the Master of the Guard, but it’s someone else. Someone who isn’t here yet, someone who can guide me to the answers I need to walk that other path.”

The thread not tell you its name?

”It says the mirror is coming. What kind of answer is-” Tensing, Jaenelle scrambled to her knees. ”Daemon,” she whispered. ”Daemon.”

The spider shifted uneasily. Witch had flavored the air with intense pleasure when she had whispered that name- but underneath the pleasure there was a little taste of fear.

”I have to go,” Jaenelle said hurriedly as she leaped to her feet. ”I still need to stop at a couple of kindred