Heir to the Shadows

the edge of the village.
    "Cat, the Hall's in the other direction."
    When she didn't answer him, he tried to grab her arm. The shield around her was so cold it burned his hand.
    She passed the landing web and kept walking. He fell into step beside her, not sure what to say—not sure what he dared say.
    "Stubborn, snarly male," she muttered as tears filled her eyes. "I told you the chalice needed time to heal. I told you to go someplace safe. Why didn't you listen to me? Couldn't you obey just once!' She stopped walking.
    Lucivar watched her grief slowly transform into rage as she turned in the direction of the Hall.
    "Saetan," she said in a malevolent whisper. "You were there that night. You . . ."
    Lucivar didn't try to keep up with her when she ran back to the Hall. Instead, he sent a warning to Beale on a Red spear thread. Beale, in turn, informed him that the High Lord had just arrived.
    He hoped his father was prepared for this fight.
    3 / Kaeleer
    He felt her coming.
    Too nervous to sit, Saetan leaned against the front of his blackwood desk, his hands locked on the surface in a vise grip.
    He'd had two years to prepare for this, had spent countless hours trying to find the right phrases to explain the brutality that had almost destroyed her. But, somehow, he had never found the right time to tell her. Even after last
    night, when he realized the memories were trying to surface, he had delayed talking to her.
    Now the time had come. And he still wasn't prepared.
    He'd arrived home to find Beale fretting in the great hall, waiting to convey Lucivar's warning: "She remembers Daemon—and she's furious."
    He felt her enter the Hall and hoped he could now find a way to help her face those memories in the daylight instead of in her dreams.
    His study door blew off the hinges and shattered when it hit the opposite wall. Dark power ripped through the room, breaking the tables and tearing the couch and chairs apart.
    Fear hammered at him. But he also noted that she didn't harm the irreplaceable paintings and sculpture.
    Then she stepped into the room, and nothing could have prepared him for the cold rage focused directly at him.
    "Damn you." Her midnight voice sounded calm. It sounded deadly.
    She meant it. If the malevolence and loathing in her eyes was any indication of the depth of her rage, then he was truly damned.
    "You heartless bastard."
    His mind chattered frantically. He couldn't make a sound. He desperately hoped that her feelings for him would balance her fury—and knew they wouldn't, not with Daemon added to the balance.
    She walked toward him, flexing her fingers, drawing part of his attention to the dagger-sharp nails he now had reason to fear.
    "You used him. He was a friend, and you used him."
    Saetan gritted his teeth. "There was no choice."
    "There was a choice." She slashed open the chair in front of his desk. "THERE WAS A CHOICE!"
    His rising temper pushed the fear aside. "To lose you," he said roughly. "To stand back and let your body die and lose you. 1 didn't consider that a choice, Lady. Neither did Daemon."
    "You wouldn't have lost me if the body had died. I
    would have eventually put the crystal chalice back together and—"
    "You're Witch, and Witch doesn't become cildru dyathe. We would have lost you. Every part of you. He knew that."
    That stopped her for a moment.
    "I gave him all the strength I had. He went too deep into the abyss trying to reach you. When I tried to draw him back up, he fought me and the link between us snapped."

"He shattered his crystal chalice," Jaenelle said in a hollow voice. "He shattered his mind. I put it back together, but it was so terribly fragile. When he rose out of the abyss, anything could have damaged him. A harsh word would have been enough at that point."
    "I know," Saetan said cautiously. "I felt him."
    The cold rage filled her eyes again. "But you left him there, didn't you, Saetan?" she said too softly. "Briarwood's uncles had arrived at the Altar, and you left a defenseless man to face them."
    "He was supposed to go through the Gate," Saetan replied hotly. "I don't know why he didn't."
    "Of course you know." Her voice became a sepulchral croon. "We both know. If a timing spell wasn't put on the candles to snuff them out and close the Gate, then someone had to stay behind to close it. Naturally it was the Warlord Prince who was expected to stay."
    "He may have had other reasons to stay," Saetan said carefully.
    "Perhaps," she replied with equal