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"The wings would have been a throwback, an aberration."
Saetan was very, very still. "I will tell you again what I told you at his birth. He is Eyrien in his soul and that had to be honored above all else. If you had cut off his wings, then yes, I would have slit his throat in the cradle. Not because I wasn't prepared for it, which I wasn't since you took such pains not to tell me, but because he would have suffered too much."
Luthvian honed her temper to a cutting edge. "And you think he hasn't suffered? You don't know much about Lucivar, Saetan."
"And why didn't he grow up under my care, Luthvian?" he said too softly. "Who was responsible forthat?"
The tears were back. The memories, the anguish, the guilt. "You didn't love me, and you didn't love him."
"Half right, my dear."
Luthvian gulped back a sob. She stared at the ceiling.
Saetan shook his head and sighed. "Even after all these years, trying to talk to each other is pointless. I'd better leave."
Luthvian wiped away the single tear that had escaped her self-control. "You haven't said why you came here." For the first time, she looked at him without the past blurring the present. He looked older, weighed down by something.
"It would probably be too difficult for all of us."
She waited. His uneasiness, his unwillingness to broach the subject filled her with apprehension—and curiosity.
"I wanted to hire you as a Craft tutor for a young Queen who is also a natural Black Widow and Healer. She's very gifted, but her education has been quite . . . erratic. The lessons would have to be private and held at SaDiablo Hall."
"No," Luthvian said sharply. "Here. If I'm going to teach her, it will have to be here."
"If she came here, she would have to be escorted. Since you've always found Andulvar and Prothvar too Eyrien to tolerate, it would have to be me."
Luthvian tapped a finger against her lips. A Queen who was also a Healerand a Black Widow? What a potentially deadly combination of strengths. Truly a challenge worthy of her skills. "She would apprentice with me for the healing and Hourglass training?"
"No. She still has difficulty with much of the Craft we consider basic, and that's what I wanted her to work on with you. I'd be willing to extend her training with you to the healing Craft as well, if that's of interest to you, but I'll take care of the Hourglass's Craft."
Pride demanded a challenge. "Just who is this witch who requires a Black-Jewelled mentor?"
The Prince of the Darkness, the High Lord of Hell studied her, weighing, judging, and finally replied, "My daughter."
4 / Hell
Mephis dropped the file on the desk in Saetan's private study and began rubbing his hands as if to clean away some filth. Saetan turned his hand in an opening gesture. The file
opened, revealing several sheets of Mephis's tightly packed writing.
"We're going to do something about him, aren't we?" Mephis snarled.
Saetan called in his half-moon glasses, settled them carefully on the bridge of his nose, and picked up the first sheet. "Let me read."
Mephis slammed his hands on the desk. "He's an obscenity!"
Saetan looked over his glasses at his eldest son, betraying none of the anger beginning to bloom. "Let me read, Mephis."
Mephis sprang away from the desk with a snarl and started pacing.
Saetan read the report and then read it again. Finally, he closed the file, vanished the glasses, and waited for Mephis to settle down.
Obscene was an inadequate word for Lord Menzar, the administrator of Halaway's school. Unfortunate accidents or illnesses had allowed Menzar to step into a position of authority at schools in several Districts in Dhemlan—accidents he couldn't be linked to, that had no scent of him. He always showed just enough deference to please, just enough self-assurance to convince others of his ability. And there he would be, carefully undercutting the ancient code of honor and snipping away at the fragile web of trust that bound men and women of the Blood.
What would happen to the Blood once that trust was destroyed? All one had to do was look at Terreille to see the answer.
Mephis stood before the desk, his hands clenched. "What are we going to do?"
"I'll take care of it, Mephis," Saetan said too softly. "If Menzar has been free to spread his poison this long, it's because I wasn't vigilant enough to detect him."
"What about all the Queens and their First Circles who also weren't vigilant enough to detect him when he was in their territories? You didn't ignore a warning that had been sent, younever got any warning until Sylvia came to you."
"The responsibility is still mine, Mephis." When Mephis
equal to Menzar's wages. The house is leased? Pay the lease for a five-year period."
Mephis crossed his arms. "Without the rent to pay, it will be more money than she's ever had at her disposal."
"It'll give her the time and the means to rest. There's no reason she should pay for her brother's crimes. If her wits have been buried beneath Menzar's manipulation, they'll surface. If she's truly incapable of taking care of herself, we'll make other arrangements."
Mephis looked troubled. "About the execution ..."
"I'll take care of it, Mephis." Saetan came around the desk and brushed his shoulder against his son's. "Besides, there's something else I want you to do." He waited until Mephis looked at him. "You still have the town house in Amdarh?"
"You know I do."
"And you still enjoy the theater?"
"Very much," Mephis said, puzzled. "I rent a box each season."
"Are there any plays that might intrigue a fifteen-year-old girl?"
Mephis smiled in understanding. "A couple of them next week."
Saetan's answering smile was chilling. "Well-timed, I think. An outing to Dhemlan's capital with her elder brother before her new tutors begin making demands on her time will suit our plans very well."
5 / Terreille
Lucivar's legs quivered from exhaustion and pain. Chained facing the back wall of his cell, he tried to rest his chest against it to lessen the strain on his legs, tried to ignore the tension in his shoulders and neck.
The tears came, slow and silent at first, then building into rib-squeezing, racking sobs of pent-up grief.
The surly guard had performed the beating. Not his back this time but his legs. Not a whip to cut, but a thick leather strap to pound against muscle stretched tight. Working to a slow drum rhythm, the guard had applied the strap with care, making each stroke overlap the one before so that no flesh was missed. Down and back, down and back. Except for the breath hissing between his teeth, Lucivar had made no sound. When it was finally done, he'd been hauled to his feet—feet too brutalized to take his weight—and fitted with Zuultah's latest toy: a metal chastity belt. It locked tight around his waist but the metal loop between his legs wasn't tight enough to cause discomfort. He'd puzzled over it for a moment before being forced to walk to his cell. There wasn't room for anything but the pain after that. And when he got to the cell, he understood only too well what was supposed to happen.
