The repair was done in a way to elicit sympathy. By itself, the door didn’t keep out the cold but it did keep anyone from easily seeing the front room. By itself, the door’s position was intended to be a message that this was the best the two women could do in the face of his unjust decision.
It was too bad for Dorian that not a single Eyrien had come to the eyrie and seen the message.
He created an opening in the shield the size and shape of the doorway.
The door, which had been leaning on the shield, fell with a crash.
When Dorian and Orian rushed into the front room, all he said was, “It’s time.”
“No!” Dorian protested. “We haven’t finished packing.”
He’d given them sufficient time to gather what they valued the most and could carry by using Craft. He wasn’t interested in delaying tactics or any other kind of game.
Ignoring their increasingly shrill protests, he wrapped Dorian and Orian in Ebon-gray shields that he tethered to himself. Then he flew to Ebon Askavi.
No sign of Endar or Alanar when he arrived at the Keep with his burden. He’d wondered if man and youth would come to say good-bye to wife and sister, but it seemed they already felt enough hurt.
All the way to the Dark Altar, the two women protested their innocence and screamed at his mistreatment of them over something that couldn’t be proved and had been nothing more than foolish words.
Lucivar stopped at the door leading to the Dark Altar, one of the thirteen Gates between the Realms. Nothing he could do for Dorian, but there was one brutal lesson he could give the girl, who was a Queen, one chance to help her understand what she had threatened to do to Daemonar.
Daemon was so much better at this subtle kind of Craft, but . . .
He hit both of them with power shaped into pain—the kind of excruciating, nerve-burning pain inflicted by a Ring of Obedience. He counted off the seconds as the women screamed.
Just a few seconds. So little time compared to what men had endured, but enough, he hoped, for this warning and lesson.
He ended the spell and the pain. Then he walked up to Orian. No defiance there now. Just fear.
“That’s what a Ring of Obedience does,” he said quietly. “That’s what you threatened to do to my son.”
“I didn’t,” she whimpered. “I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. And now you know how it feels. There are plenty of Eyrien men living in Terreille Askavi who had worn a Ring of Obedience. There are plenty more who witnessed what those men suffered. Orian, the day you so much as hint that you have a device that can be used to control men and force them to be accommodating, all those warriors will sharpen their knives and come for you, and you will not survive to see another sunrise. You could still be a good Queen. . . .”
“I could,” she said. “I will.”
“But not here. I am a weapon that stands against anyone who tries to bring Terreille’s poison into Kaeleer. If you stay, I can’t allow you to survive. Once you get settled in Terreille, don’t let whatever is twisting up your mother destroy you too.”
Lucivar used Craft to open the door and guide his burdens to the Dark Altar. Karla and Chaosti—and Draca—waited for him as witnesses.
“The reassonss for banishment have been recorded in the regissterss,” Draca said. “A ssmall taint on the bloodline that will grow or be forgotten, depending on what the young Queen doess from now on.”
Karla lit the black candles in the four-branched candelabrum, lighting them in the sequence that would open the Gate between Kaeleer and Terreille.
Lucivar walked through the Gate, bringing Dorian and Orian with him—and was followed by Chaosti.
“I’ll wait for you here,” Chaosti said when they reached the Dark Altar in the Keep in Terreille.
So few steps for such a significant journey.
Lucivar nodded and began the long walk through the corridors of the Keep, finally reaching the outer door that opened to a courtyard and the gates where . . .
Memories crowded him, even now.
He used Craft to open the tall wrought-iron gates and float the two women to the other side. Then he closed the gates and put an Ebon-gray lock on them. Finally, he released the shields he’d wrapped around Dorian and Orian.
“You’re standing on the spot where Hekatah SaDiablo was destroyed when the Realms were finally purged of her taint,” he said, swallowing bile. “If you choose to become like her, may the Darkness have mercy on you because the living, and the demon-dead, will have none.” He called in a pouch, vanished it, then called it back in on the other side of the gates. “Twenty thousand gold marks.”
Dorian grabbed the pouch, then caught herself and sniffed. “That’s not a sufficient annual allowance for a Queen.”
“That’s not an annual allowance, Dorian. That’s a onetime resettlement gift, given in memory of the woman and girl who came to Kaeleer looking for a better life. It’s more than enough to pay for food and lodgings until you find work.” He raised his voice to override Dorian’s protest that she, the mother of a Queen, should not be required to work. “You’ll receive nothing else from me . . . except this.” The document floated in front of her. “Endar’s request for an immediate divorce was granted and has been recorded in the registers at the Keep in Kaeleer. He is no longer bound to you in any way—or you to him.”
He walked away from their screams and cries and curses.
That camp in Hayll during those awful hours before the purge. Dorothea and Hekatah so sure they were going to have control of the Realms. Marian and Daemonar—and the Sadist—in that place.
He hadn’t set foot in Terreille since that time. He hoped with everything in him that he wouldn’t have to again.
When he returned to the Dark Altar, Chaosti held out a flask. He didn’t ask what it contained, didn’t really care at that moment. He just drank—and then wished he’d asked because his throat burned, his stomach melted, his lungs crisped, and the room did one slow spin before his body burned off enough of the stuff for him not to be staggeringly drunk. Which should have been impossible.
“Too strong?” Chaosti asked.
“Hell’s fire, what is that?” All right, throat and lungs were working, and his stomach was intact—he hoped. His voice was raspy, but he had one.
“It’s been a while, but I attempted to re-create Lord Khardeen’s home brew. I thought you might find it beneficial.”
“Mother Night.” Lucivar handed back the flask. “It’s been a long time since something came close to knocking me on my ass.”
“This Realm holds bad memories for you.”
“Terrible memories.”
“Leave them here, Lucivar, and go home to what you’ve built since then.”
Lucivar nodded. Chaosti lit the candles and opened the Gate, and the two of them returned to the Keep in the Shadow Realm.
TWENTY-ONE
Prince Raine handed the assignment back to Daemonar. “When you said you had read those two books, I thought you were one of those students who made claims about scholarship without any substance to back up those claims. But what you wrote for the assignment tells me you’ve not only read the books, you’ve thought about the lessons they contain.”
Daemonar felt the question in the pause that followed. He thought for a moment about how to answer without revealing too much. “My family has a strong connection to the Keep. Before he became a whisper in the Darkness, my grandfather had been the assistant historian/librarian. Once I was old enough to appreciate the library, I was allowed to read anything an adult felt I could understand. And when I had questions or got myself into trouble, as Eyrien boys tend to do, I was given things to read that would address the trouble or teach me the lessons I needed for the next stage of my training.”