Lucivar would know. So would Daemon. Except they had forced themselves to stand and fight again, even when there was nothing left. Had Grizande done that?
A tap on the glass door that opened onto the balcony that ringed the courtyard.
Holt.
Daemonar crossed the room and opened the glass door.
“Rough?” Holt asked quietly.
“Rough,” Daemonar agreed.
“Did you get any food?”
“Not much.”
“You want some?”
He shook his head. “Not right now. Wouldn’t sit well.” He tried to smile. “They need help, Holt. They really do.”
“They’ll get it.” Holt hesitated. “Beale has already informed Lord Weston that, regardless of Lady Zoela’s feelings, Weston can have no quarrel with you.”
A warning to Zoey’s sword and shield that Daemonar hadn’t crossed any lines.
Holt rested a hand on his shoulder, a moment’s touch. “Get some rest. We’ll take care of whatever else is needed tonight.”
“Thanks.”
A hot shower eased the soreness in his tense muscles but did nothing to soothe the raw churning in his gut or the ache in his heart. He’d never lashed out at Titian like that before. Hadn’t thought it possible. But . . .
Fear. Pain. Grizande, what did they do to you?
When all the young people had retired for the evening, leaving the staff free to take care of preparations for the next day, Beale waited in Prince Sadi’s study for the senior members of the staff to join him and make their reports. He’d chosen the Prince’s study because it would be private—and it was large enough to hold all the people who needed to be present.
Mrs. Beale arrived first. “The Dharo Boy is looking through my books to find the recipes I used for the Tigre during the Lady’s time here. The girl can’t live on currant jam and chicken.” She frowned at Beale. “Did Prince Yaslana request a meal from the auxiliary kitchen? He ate next to nothing while talking to the girl.”
His wife knew as well as he did that Daemonar hadn’t requested any food. If the boy turned down food in the morning, something would need to be done. Daemonar had stepped up to the line, and Beale had let the boy take the lead because the girl had responded to his name, had trusted his name.
The girl hadn’t trusted Lady Zoela. Had looked at a Queen and seen an enemy.
And Daemonar had done what needed to be done to protect both girls—and had received an emotional hit on behalf of one of those girls as thanks.
Something else he would mention to Prince Sadi, along with what he’d gleaned about the spitting and spatting going on among the females today. Another day of that and the boys would be pulled into the scrapping, arguing with the girls and with one another about who was right and who was wrong when what they should be concentrating on was who would get their asses kicked for this excess of emotions.
Holt, Helene, and Nadene entered the study. Holt locked the door. Beale put a Red aural shield around the room.
“What does Prince Sadi need to know about his guests?” Beale asked.
Helene and Nadene exchanged a look before Nadene said, “Lady Grizande was tortured. More than once, since some scars are older than others. Scars on her back are from a whip.” She swallowed hard. “Burns on her legs, like a hot knife had been pressed down on some of the dark stripes in her skin. I’d say there has been little formal education, based on how she speaks the common tongue. The way she does some basic Craft is different from how we teach our young, but that could be cultural—or it could be she’s had to figure things out on her own. She hasn’t had enough food for too many days, and she’s exhausted. I didn’t detect any illness or other cause for concern.”
“Her clothes are little more than rags,” Helene said. “I think she’s spent a good part of her life pretending not to care about such things, but I think it’s weighing on her now to appear before Prince Sadi like a beggar. We have enough spare clothes on hand that I put together a couple of outfits for Lady Grizande to use—or keep.”
Tortured. The girl had been tortured. Beale forced himself to ask the next question because it would be Prince Sadi’s first question. “Sexual torture?”
Nadene shook her head. “She was spared that.”
Or she managed to escape before it happened.
“And she’s still a virgin,” Nadene added.
“I expect the Prince to return in the morning,” Beale said. “I’ll inform him then.”
“It might be prudent to make him aware that we do need him here in the morning,” Holt said. “In case someone else requests his attention.”
“Yes.”
Holt opened the door for the women, then closed it again and looked at Beale. “You have to tell her.”
Beale released his breath in a long sigh. “It was a small indiscretion, and Lady Zoela intended no harm.”
“Lady Saetien hadn’t intended harm either, but people died that night because of her lack of judgment and her refusal to acknowledge your authority,” Holt replied.
Beale nodded. He liked Lady Zoela and he regretted the storm of fury he was about to unleash on her. “I’ll take care of it tonight.”
“Unless you need something, I’ll do a quick check on everyone on my way to my suite.”
“Good night, Holt.”
Beale waited until he was the only one in this part of the Hall. Then he called in a gold coin. One side was etched with a unicorn’s horn laid over Ebon Askavi. The other side had an A.
If anyone challenges your authority again when you stand for Daemon, I want to know. I don’t care who they are or why they did it; I want to know. This is more than a request, Lord Beale.
Shortly after that awful night when the coven of malice had used a house party at the Hall as the cover for attacking Lady Zoela and her friends, he thought he had dreamed of a place so deep in the abyss that no one could reach it and survive. But he’d found himself there, in that place of mist and stone—and power—and he’d seen the dream that had lived beneath the flesh he’d known as Jaenelle Angelline.
He’d thought she would tear him apart for failing to protect the Hall. But that wasn’t the girl or woman he’d known. She looked different in this place, but she wasn’t different. Not really. She’d been angry on his behalf. She’d been angry about the lack of respect for who he was and the Jewel he wore and how that disrespect had put him in such a difficult position. So she’d given him a gold mark as a way to reach her—and she’d given him one of her rare commands.
Beale called in a small knife and nicked his left thumb. He pressed the bead of blood against the Queen’s gold mark. *Lady.*
He waited. Almost hoped nothing would happen and this would be left for Prince Sadi to handle. Then . . .
*Lord Beale?*
*I regret to inform you that a young Lady residing at the Hall ignored my authority and almost put another young person at risk.*
A silence that held feral ice before Witch said, *Tell me everything.*
EIGHTEEN
With Surreal beside him, Daemon stepped off the landing web, then dropped the Black shield he’d wrapped around her so that they could both travel on the Black Winds.
He’d asked her to come with him because Beale’s message last night had been lacking in information, considering that the Hall’s butler had said his presence was required this morning. A quick psychic scan of the Hall’s residents revealed a great deal of emotional turmoil but little information of use. With one exception.
Daemonar felt . . . wounded. And Daemon’s temper went cold in response to the boy’s pain.