Heir to the Shadows

been able to explain rationally to myself, I agreed to try to breed with a Black Widow in order to bring a strong, dark bloodline back into the long-lived races. Dorothea was the Hayllian Hourglass's choice but not mine." He hesitated. "Have you ever met Tersa?"
    "Yes."
    "An extraordinarily gifted witch. Dorothea would never have become the force she is in Terreille if Tersa had survived her Virgin Night. Tersa was my choice. And Tersa became pregnant."
    With Daemon. Had Daemon ever known, ever guessed?
    "A couple of weeks later, she asked me to see a friend through her Virgin Night, a young Black Widow with strong potential who, if I refused, would end up broken and shattered. I was still capable of performing the service, and I wouldn't have refused Tersa anything within reason. Everyone was willing to accommodate Tersa at that point.
    No one wanted her to become distressed enough to miscarry since there would be no second chances.
    "A few weeks after I saw Luthvian through her Virgin Night, she told me she was pregnant with my child. There was an empty house on the estate, about a mile from the Hall. I insisted she and Tersa live there instead of with Dorothea's court. Tersa wasn't much older than Luthvian, but she understood a great deal more, especially about Guardians. She was content with the companionship I offered. Luthvian was more high-strung and had discovered the pleasure of the bed. She craved sex. For a while, I could still provide the kind of intimacy she wanted. By the time I couldn't, she had lost interest. But after she healed from the birthing, the hunger returned. By then, I could satisfy her in other ways but not the way she craved.
    "Between the fights about raising you in Dhemlan, as she wanted, or raising you in Askavi, where I believed you needed to be, and my sexual inability, our relationship became strained to the point that, when she was spoon-fed half-truths about Guardians, she chose to believe them.
    "Dorothea timed her schemes well. With Prythian's help, I lost both of you. Within a day, I lost both of you."
    Not Luthvian. Daemon.
    A sigh shuddered out of Saetan. "Lucivar, for what it's worth, I've never regretted your existence. I've regretted the pain you've endured, but not you. And I'm very glad you survived."
    Unable to think of anything to say, Lucivar nodded.
    Saetan hesitated. "Would you tell me something, if you can?"
    Lucivar knew what Saetan was going to ask. He wasn't sure what he thought about the man who had sired him, but for this moment at least, he could look beyond the titles and the power and see a man asking about one of his children.
    He closed his eyes, and said, "He's in the Twisted Kingdom."
    Saetan lay on the couch in his study, desperately glad to be alone.
    Everything has a price.
    He just hadn't expected the price to be so high.
    Regrets were useless. And guilt was useless. A Warlord Prince's first duty was to his Queen. But Daemon . . .
    Shards of memories floated through him, pricking his heart.
    Tersa ripely pregnant, holding his hand against her belly.
    Luthvian's constant circle of anger and sexual hunger.
    Daemon sitting in his lap while he read a bedtime story.
    Lucivar fluttering around the room, laughing gleefully while just staying out of his reach.
    Jaenelle turning his study upside down the first time he tried to show her how to use Craft to retrieve her shoes.
    Tersa's madness. Luthvian's fury.
    Lucivar lying on the bed in the cabin, his body torn apart.
    Daemon, lying on Cassandra's Altar, his mind so terribly fragile.
    Jaenelle rising out of the abyss after two heartbreaking years.
    Fragments. Like Daemon's mind.
    Which explained why, during the careful searches he had made over the past two years, he hadn't been able to find this son who was like a mirror. He'd been looking in the wrong place.
    A regret slipped in, as useless as any other.
    He might be able to find Daemon, but the one person who could have brought Daemon out of the Twisted Kingdom without question was Jaenelle. And Jaenelle was the one person who couldn't know what he intended to do.
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
    1 / Kaeleer
    Waiting for dinner, Saetan's stomach tightened another notch.
    Jaenelle had been home for a week, helping Lucivar adjust to the family—and helping the family adjust to Lucivar—when a pointed letter from the Dark Council arrived, reminding her that she had not finished her visit to Little Terreille.
    He still didn't understand Lucivar's cryptic remark, "Knees or