ONE
Daemon Sadi, the Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, crossed the bridge that marked the boundary between private property and public land. On one side of the bridge was the drive leading to SaDiablo Hall, his family’s seat; on the other side was the public road leading to the village of Halaway.
Fluffy snow dusted the bottoms of his trousers as he walked toward the village in blissful solitude. Of course, he’d had to sneak out of his own home in order to have that solitude, and he recognized that there was something not quite right about the most powerful male in the Realm of Kaeleer sneaking out in order to avoid three snoozing Sceltie puppies. But whether he was allowing little bundles of fur to dictate his actions instead of using his rank and power to do as he pleased wasn’t the point. At this moment, here and now, he was alone on a crisp winter morning, and that was the point. No one was whining about having cold paws. No one was complaining that he walked too fast. No one was grumbling because he wouldn’t stop every few feet so interesting smells could be properly sniffed.
And no one was going to sulk because he refused to carry someone with wet fur under his coat and up against his white silk shirt.
Solitude. Bliss. And, if his mother had created the gift he’d asked her to make, fun.
Winsol was almost here. Those thirteen days were a celebration of the Darkness—and they were a celebration of Witch, the living myth, dreams made flesh.
It would be his first Winsol as the ruler of the Dhemlan Territory, his third celebration since he’d come to live in Kaeleer. The first year, he’d still been mentally fragile from the years when he’d wandered the roads in the Twisted Kingdom, lost in the insanity of guilt and grief. And in that first year, he’d also been lost in the wonder of finding Jaenelle Angelline again, alive and well—and still able to love him.
The second year, she had been the one who had been so terrifyingly fragile. She had unleashed her full power to prevent a war between Kaeleer and Terreille that would have destroyed both Realms—and had torn her body apart in the process. She shouldn’t have survived—wouldn’t have if the kindred and the Weaver of Dreams hadn’t done the impossible and remade the living myth, the Queen who was Witch.
But this year he and Jaenelle were together, they were married, and the worst thing looming over their heads was how many invitations to parties and public gatherings they needed to accept in order for him to fulfill his duties as Dhemlan’s ruler.
He made his way through Halaway’s quiet streets, noticing lights in the windows of most of the houses. The snow wasn’t marred yet by many footprints or cart wheels, but soon the merchants would open their shops, people and carriages would fill the sidewalks and streets, and the small village would bustle through another day of holiday preparations.
As he approached the cottage where his mother, Tersa, lived, he studied the walkways up to her cottage and the neighboring one that was occupied by Manny, an older woman he considered a friend rather than a former servant. Then he smiled and, using Craft, dealt with the snow as he glided up the walkway and knocked on the cottage door.
He waited a minute, then knocked again.
The third time, he put a bit of temper and Craft into the act of applying knuckles to wood, which guaranteed the sound would roll through the cottage like thunder.
A few seconds later, the door swung open as the young woman on the other side growled, “If someone doesn’t answer the door, you could take the hint that it’s too early for com—”
She blinked at him. He smiled at the journeymaid Black Widow who lived with Tersa as part of her training.
“Lady Allista,” he said politely.
“Prince Sadi.” Her tone was much less polite. Since he was who and what he was, she couldn’t shut the door in his face.
But she wanted to.
Obviously, Allista was one of those women who did not wake up cheerful. That was all right. A few months of marriage to Jaenelle had taught him the value of having a few tricks when it came to dealing with a witch who woke up grumpy—and he had become an expert at all of them.
“Tersa asked me to come early,” he said, slipping past Allista. “Since my timing is a bit off, why don’t I make breakfast for the two of you?”
He shrugged out of his overcoat and vanished it as he continued down the hall to the kitchen, not giving Allista time to answer.
All right. Tersa hadn’t told him to come this early, but she would be awake—and he wanted to slip out with his requested gift before too many people were up and about.
“Good morning, darling,” he said as he walked into the kitchen.
Tersa turned away from the counter and studied him for a moment. Then she smiled. “It’s the boy. It’s my boy.”
Her boy. His mother was a broken Black Widow lost in the madness the Blood called the Twisted Kingdom. Lost in the dreams and visions—and the shattered pieces of her mind. She remembered him as the child he had been before he’d been taken from her. She remembered him as the youth who had met her again but didn’t know who she was. And sometimes she remembered him as the man he was now. But however she saw him on any given day, he was always the boy. Her boy.
“I’ve come to cook you breakfast,” Daemon said. He gave her his best-boy grin. “And to talk about gifts.”
She narrowed her gold eyes as if she was about to argue. Then she shrugged and turned back to the counter. “There are bacon and eggs and bread for toast.”
“That sounds like breakfast,” Daemon said. “How would you like me to make the eggs?”
She hesitated—and he wondered if she would be able to answer or if her mind had turned down another path too far removed from such mundane things as bacon and eggs.
“I like them scrambled,” she finally said.
He put an arm around her, brushed his lips against her temple, and felt all his love for her well up and squeeze his heart. “Me too.”
Lucivar Yaslana backwinged and landed lightly on the walkway in front of Tersa’s cottage. He looked at the cottage directly in front of him, then at its neighbor.
Manny had spent most of her life as a servant, was used to working with her hands, and didn’t shun physical labor. Even now she’d taken on the duties of housekeeper for Tersa and Allista, an arrangement that satisfied all three women. But Manny wasn’t a young woman by any stretch of truth, and it seemed a bit early for her to have been out sweeping the walkways.
Not swept, he realized as he studied the sharp, perfect edge that divided the snowy lawn from the cleared walkway. Not even a hearth witch could get that kind of edge. Not with a shovel or broom, anyway. So someone had used Craft to remove the snow.
He crouched, held out a hand, and felt warm air.
And then someone had put a warming spell on the flagstones to keep them clear of snow.
The cottage door opened and the someone walked out.
Lucivar rose and looked pointedly at the walkways, then at Daemon. “You know, Bastard, using Craft is all well and good, but it wouldn’t hurt you to sweat once in a while.”
“If I’m going to work up a sweat for a woman, I’m going to be doing something besides sweeping the walk,” Daemon replied.
Lucivar grinned.
They were brothers. Half brothers, but they had never made that distinction. They both had the coloring of the three long-lived races—the black hair, light brown skin, and gold eyes. They had inherited much of their looks from their Hayllian father, who was the High Lord of Hell. Daemon’s face was a more refined, beautiful version of Saetan’s, while his own face was more rugged than their father’s. But the real distinction between him and Daemon came from the other side of his dual heritage. He had the dark, membranous wings that set the Eyrien race apart from the Hayllian and Dhemlan Blood.
They studied each other for a moment before Lucivar’s mouth curved in a lazy, arrogant smile.
“You’re up early,” Lucivar said, taking the few steps that separated them.
“You’re up even earlier, since you had to come in from Ebon Rih,” Daemon replied. “You must have left at dawn.”
Lucivar shook his head. “I’m farther east; sun rises earlier. But I was up at dawn.”
“Was that by choice?”
“Hell’s fire, no, but the little beast is up with the sun, and I feel less guilty about Marian holding the leash most of the day if she gets a little extra sleep.”
“How is my darling nephew? Counting the days until Winsol?”
“One of us is,” Lucivar muttered. He smiled grimly in response to Daemon’s laugh. “Last year,Winsol was something that just appeared and dazzled him. This year he’s figured out that Winsol is coming.”
“Ah.”
“Ooooh, yeah. So every morning, he climbs into bed with us, pries my eyes open, and says, ‘Papa! Is it Winzel yet?’ ”
Daemon’s lips were curved in a smile, but his golden eyes were full of sharp understanding. “Can you put a shield around the bed?”
“Tried that. Unfortunately, one that will keep him out also keeps Marian out. She didn’t appreciate smacking into a shield when she wanted to get back into bed after getting up to pee.”
“Lucivar.”
He heard Daemon’s concern wrapped around that single word.
“I’ve got a light shield around Daemonar’s room that will wake me if he starts wandering,” he said. That shield was a necessary precaution now to keep his son safe—from him. A Warlord Prince was a born predator, a natural killer. A Warlord Prince startled awake didn’t think; he attacked. The first morning Daemonar pounced on him, the boy’s physical scent and psychic scent had penetrated his sleep-fogged brain fast enough that he managed to pull back what might have been a killing blow.
Marian’s presence didn’t bother him. He was so steeped in the feel of her, she could touch him, mount him, do just about anything to him before he was fully awake without provoking that lethal rise to the killing edge. But Daemonar was male, he was a Warlord Prince, and he’d matured just enough over the past few weeks that Lucivar’s aggressive instincts now recognized caste before son.
So even though he let the boy have the fun of prying his eyes open, Lucivar was always awake and aware before Daemonar entered the room.
He looked into his brother’s eyes and knew he didn’t need to say anything more.
Then Daemon looked pointedly at Tersa’s cottage and raised an eyebrow as if asking a question—or demanding an explanation.
“None of your business, Bastard,” Lucivar said.
It wasn’t, and they both knew it. They also knew that Daemon was protective of Tersa and, in the past, had been brutally efficient when it came to dealing with men who had taken the wrong kind of interest in her.
