Lucivar picked up the coffeepot and filled Daemonar’s mug before topping off Daemon’s mug and his own. “We didn’t wake up anyone. There is now a full auxiliary kitchen just across the corridor from this square, and your uncle and I both know how to cook.”
It might have been a full kitchen, but it had a limited menu that was prepared by the apprentice cooks on duty. Still, you could usually get a bowl of soup and a sandwich there throughout the day, as well as fresh fruit and cheese.
“You made pastries?” Daemonar took a big bite out of an apple and cinnamon pastry and decided not to mention that the pastry wasn’t light and flaky—and the flavor of the filling was a little off. Just enough that he doubted it would have been presented in the breakfast room for the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan’s official first meal. Which would be funny if Uncle Daemon had made the pastries. Or it would be funny as long as no one told Mrs. Beale that the Prince was eating substandard fare.
“Those pastries and the muffins were left over from yesterday’s baking lessons,” Daemon replied as he sipped his coffee.
Well, that explained why the pastries didn’t taste quite right. Since they weren’t inedible and he was hungry, Daemonar took another bite.
Daemon lifted the basket and held it out to Lucivar. “Muffin?”
“Thanks.” Lucivar took one.
Looking at their plates, Daemonar realized that Daemon and Lucivar had already finished their meals and were waiting for him. He probably had another five minutes before his father hauled him out the door, so he applied himself to eating while he could.
* * *
* * *
They gave him seven minutes. Daemonar figured Uncle Daemon was the reason he got the extra two minutes. But as soon as Daemon set his mug on the table, Lucivar was on his feet, and seeing the look in their eyes, Daemonar thought it was fortunate for everyone that those two men weren’t hunting for anything except a weird piece of window glass.
Daemon and Lucivar walked through the corridors side by side, the dominant Warlord Princes in the Realm of Kaeleer. The predators who had no rivals.
He didn’t usually think of them that way, didn’t usually see them that way. They were his father and uncle, and usually when they were together it was for family, and there was an easiness to being around them. As he followed a couple of steps behind them, he saw them as the rest of the Blood must see them. Ruthless. Merciless. Power and temper controlled by a Queen who was no longer flesh but was still the will that commanded their lives.
As she commanded his.
Witch’s public return had shaken the entire Realm. The High Lord of Hell and the Demon Prince might be her weapons, but her power eclipsed theirs in ways no one could measure—except in remembering the purge that had destroyed all the Blood who had been tainted by Dorothea and Hekatah SaDiablo. And he’d heard a few whispers of warnings issued by Black Widows who had looked for answers in dreams and visions. No matter what she had been when she’d walked among the living, Witch, the living myth, was more ruthless, less merciful, and far more feral than her weapons, and it was in everyone’s best interest not to give the Lady who resided in the Keep a reason to look too closely at the living.
She was feared now in ways she hadn’t been feared before, but she was still his Queen and, more important, she was still his beloved Auntie J.
They slowed when they reached the Black shield that closed off one side of the corridor with the weird window.
Lucivar looked over his shoulder at Daemonar and said, “Shield.”
As soon as Daemonar wrapped himself in a Green defensive shield, Lucivar shielded in Ebon-gray and Daemon shielded in Black. Then Daemon dropped the shield blocking that side of the corridor, and the two men slowly walked to the window, with Daemonar still a couple of steps behind them.
“This one?” Lucivar asked quietly.
Daemon nodded. “Storm passed, so it might not respond.”
“Did you hear what the window said?” Daemonar asked.
“I heard,” Lucivar replied. He curled his right hand into a fist and raised it so that the Ebon-gray Jewel in his ring pointed at the window. Then he drew in a breath and let out an Eyrien battle cry enhanced by enough Craft to rattle all the windows in that part of the Hall.
The sensation of dark power, sluggish yet slithery, before the voices in the window roared in answer to Lucivar’s battle cry. Then . . .
Nothing.
Daemonar breathed out a sigh of relief. “Is it gone?”
“No,” Lucivar said darkly. “It isn’t gone. It moved.” He turned and looked at his son.
Daemon looked at Daemonar.
Daemonar took a step back and raised his hands. “I didn’t do it. Any of it.”
Lucivar stared at him a little too long before looking at Daemon. “The pup doesn’t have that kind of skill, and there’s nothing in that spell that felt like the Green.”
“But it definitely moved from this window to . . . where?” Daemon asked.
“Good question, old son. And a question you need answered in a hurry.”
“Mother Night,” Daemon said quietly.
“Yeah. You need more help than I can give you, so you know what you have to do.”
Daemon sighed.
“My advice? Start with piss and vinegar. Let Jaenelle and Karla work to calm you down.”
Daemon looked at Lucivar. “You don’t know that this has anything to do with them.”
“With those voices?” Lucivar laughed. “Hell’s fire, Bastard, are you that naive?”
As they went back to Daemon’s suite, Daemonar wondered what Sadi would have said to Lucivar if he hadn’t remembered there was a youngster with them.
He was pretty sure he would have learned some interesting new words.
* * *
* * *
As soon as Daemon caught the Black Winds and headed for Ebon Askavi, Lucivar headed for the butler’s pantry, which was Beale’s domain. Maids and footmen were stirring now. So were the youngsters who were apprenticing under Mrs. Beale, may the Darkness have mercy on them.
Barely a month into this arrangement of the Hall becoming a training ground for promising witches, Warlords, and Warlord Princes of all kinds of professions—including Queens, Black Widows, and Healers who might be targets for Blood with malevolent ambitions—and he and Daemon were looking at challenges. Well, Daemon was looking at challenges. He was there to watch his brother’s back—and to make sure that this arrangement didn’t undermine Daemon’s sanity.
He found Beale and Mrs. Beale in the butler’s pantry, along with Helene, the Hall’s head housekeeper, reviewing the tasks and assignments for the day.