Queen of Darkness

Leaving the door open, Daemon walked into Jaenelle’s workroom. She had been spending hours there every day since she’d brought Karla to the Keep to continue the healing, but he didn’t think her distraction or the controlled frenzy of her activities had anything to do with Karla. In fact, he was certain he was the only one who had been allowed a glimpse of that frenzy. Something was eating at her, and after the little scene in the meeting room, he was determined to find out what.

”Jaenelle, we need to talk.”

She glanced up from the mound of books that filled one

table. ”I don’t have time to talk now, Daemon,” she said dismissively.

With a flick of a thought, he slammed the door so hard all the objects in the room jumped-including her.

”Make time,” he said too softly. When she started to protest, he cut her off. ”I’ll do anything for you. Anything. But before I put myself against the rest of the First Circle, I want to know why.”

”Kaeleer cannot go to war with Terreille.” Her voice trembled.

”Why?”

Hot, angry tears filled her eyes. ”Because if we go to war, every person who was in that room will die.”

”You don’t know that,” he snapped.

The tears spilled over, slicing his heart. ”Yes, I do.”

Daemon rocked back on his heels. She was a very strong, very gifted Black Widow. If she’d seen their deaths in a tangled web of dreams and visions, there was no room for doubt. That explained her resistance.

He took a deep breath to steady himself. ”Sweetheart… sometimes killing is necessary. Sometimes it’s the only path to take in order to save what is good.”

”I know that.” Jaenelle slammed a book on the table. ”I’ve spent the past three weeks searching for an answer. No, I’ve spent longer than that, but time is running out. I can feel it.”

”Jaenelle,” he said carefully, ”you have the strength …” The look in her eyes was almost hateful, but he pushed on. ”A portion of your strength would eliminate a Terreillean army.”

”And while I was eliminating that one, six more would be killing the Kaeleer Blood in other Territories. Even if I do destroy them, one army at a time, it won’t make any difference.”

”You wouldn’t be the only one fighting,” Daemon insisted, bracing one hand on the table to lean toward her. ”Hell’s fire, woman, look at the strength of the males in this Realm. Look at the Jewels. The Blacks. The Ebon- grays. The Grays. We have the dominant strength.”

”Kaeleer had the dominant strength in the last war, too,” Jaenelle replied quietly. ”And Kaeleer won-barely, but Kaeleer won. But all those males died. And it didn’t make any difference. The taint that fed that war is still in the Blood, even stronger now.”

”Hekatah and Dorothea can be destroyed.”

Jaenelle moved around the table in order to pace. ”It wouldn’t do any good at this point. Even if they’re destroyed, even if Kaeleer wins the initial war, the Shadow Realm won’t win. The taint’s too widespread now. Terreille will keep sending armies. Will keep sending them and sending them, and the fighting will go on and on, in Terreille as well as in Kaeleer, until the Blood can’t remember who they are or that they were supposed to be the caretakers of the Realms.”

”We’re at war, Jaenelle,” Daemon said earnestly. ”It doesn’t matter if it’s been formally declared or not. We are at war.”

”No.”

”You have the strength to make the difference. If you unleash-”

”I can’t.”

”You can.”

”I can’t.”

”WHY NOT?”

She turned on him. ”BECAUSE, DAMN YOU, I’M TOO STRONG! If I unleash my strength, it will destroy the Blood. All the Blood. In Terreille. In Kaeleer. In Hell.”

Daemon’s legs turned to water. Weakly, he pushed aside some books so that he could sit on the table. You had said she was six times stronger than our combined strength. Oh, Father, you were so wrong. Six times? Six hundred times? Six thousand times?

Enough power to wipe the Blood out of existence.

With her arms wrapped around herself, Jaenelle paced. ”The Keep is the Sanctuary. It wouldn’t be affected. But how many could it hold? A few thousand at most? Who chooses, Daemon? What if the wrong choices are made and the taint is still there, hidden because someone is so damn sure she’s right?”

She was thinking of Alexandra. Would anyone have considered Alexandra tainted? Misguided, certainly, but unless they were obviously twisted, the Queens would definitely be among the chosen. And what about someone like Vania? Not tainted the way Jaenelle was talking about, but the kind of woman who could sour the males around her and eventually ruin a land. Exactly the kind of woman Dorothea cultivated.

”The Blood are the Blood,” Jaenelle continued. ”Two feet, four feet, it doesn’t matter. The Blood are the Blood. The gift of Craft came from one source, and it binds all of us.”

So not even the kindred could be spared. No wonder this had been ripping her apart. ”Does Kaeleer win?” Daemon asked quietly. A full minute passed before Jaenelle answered. ”Yes. But the price for winning will be all the Kaeleer Queens and all the Warlord Princes.”

Daemon thought about the decent people he had met since he’d come to Kaeleer. He thought about the kindred. He thought about the children. Most of all, he thought about Daemonar, Lucivar’s son. If, for some reason, they didn’t destroy Dorothea and Hekatah, and those two got their hands on Daemonar… ”Do it,” he said. ”Unleash your strength. Destroy the Blood.” Jaenelle’s mouth fell open. She stared at him. ”Do it,” he repeated. ”If that’s the only way to get rid of the taint Dorothea and Hekatah have spread in the Blood, then, by the Darkness, Jaenelle, show some mercy for those you love and do it.”

She began pacing again. ”There has to be a way to separate Blood from Blood. There has to be.”

A memory teased him, but he couldn’t catch hold of it while her frenzied movement seemed to put everything in motion. ”Stand still,” he snapped. She came to an abrupt halt and huffed. He raised a hand, commanding silence. The memory continued to tease, but he caught the tail of it. ”I think there’s a way.”

Her eyes widened but she obeyed the command for silence.

”A few centuries ago, there was a Queen called the Gray Lady. When a village she was staying in was about to be attacked by Hayllian warriors, she found a way to separate the villagers from the Hayllians so that when she unleashed her strength, the villagers were spared.”

”How did she do it?” Jaenelle asked very quietly.

”I don’t know.” He hesitated-and wondered why he hesitated. ”A man I knew was with her at the time. A few years before his death, he sent a message to me that he had made a written account of the ’adventure’ and had left it for me in a safe place. She was a good Queen, the last Queen to hold Dorothea at bay. He wanted her remembered.”

Jaenelle leaped at him, grabbed him. ”Then you do know how she did it!”

”No, I don’t know. I never picked up the written account. I decided to leave it where it was, out of Dorothea’s reach.”

”Do you think you could find it?” Jaenelle asked anxiously.

”That shouldn’t be difficult,” Daemon replied dryly as he wrapped his arms around her, suddenly needing to touch her. ”He left it with the Keep’s librarian.”

”I retrieved it from the Terreillean Keep the first time you came to Ebon Askavi with Jaenelle,” Geoffrey said as he handed Daemon a carefully wrapped parcel. ”I wondered at the time why you didn’t ask for it. What made you think of it now?”

The question sounded innocently curious, but there wasn’t anything innocent about it.

Looking straight into Geoffrey’s black eyes, Daemon smiled. ”I just remembered it.”

He didn’t unwrap it, didn’t look at it. He probed it just enough to make sure there weren’t any spells hidden in it that would be triggered if someone besides him handled it. Then he gave it to Jaenelle and spent the next several