Queen of the Darkness

smoothly, "may I present Lord Hobart? He, too, has reasons to want to see Jaenelle Angelline subdued."
    "Not just Jaenelle Angelline," Hobart growled.
    "Oh?" Kartane said, pushing his anger aside as his interest in Hobart sharpened.
    "Lord Hobart had controlled the Territory of Glacia for several years," Jorval said. "When his niece became the Territory Queen—"
    "The ungrateful bitch EXILED me!" Hobart shouted.
    "And you want to regain control," Kartane said, starting to lose interest.
    Then Jorval added, "Lady Karla is a close friend of Jaenelle's."
    Kartane randomly selected food from the dishes offered as he nibbled on that bit of information. There was nothing he would have liked better right then than to hurt a close friend of the bitch. "I may be able to help. My mother is the High Priestess of Hayll."
    Not only didn't Hobart look sufficiently impressed, he looked distinctly uneasy. He cleared his throat. "It's a generous offer, Lord Kartane. A very generous offer, but..."
    "But you're already receiving some assistance from the Dark Priestess," Kartane guessed. When Hobart paled, he crossed two fingers and held them up. "Perhaps you're not aware that my mother and the Dark Priestess are like that."
    Hobart swallowed hard. Jorval merely drank his wine and watched them out of dark eyes filled with sly glee.
    "I see," Hobart finally said. "In that case, your help is most welcome."
----
    Chapter Nine
    1 / Kaeleer
    Andulvar settled into a chair in front of Saetan's blackwood desk. "Karla says you've been in here sulking for the past two hours, ever since you got a message from Lady Zhara."
    Saetan gave his longtime friend his iciest stare. "I. Am. Not. Sulking."
    "All right." Andulvar waited. "Then what are you doing?"
    Saetan leaned back in his chair. "Answer me this: if I were to run away from home, is there anywhere in any of the Realms I could go and not be found?"
    Andulvar scratched his chin. "Well, if you wanted to hide from the Dhemlan Queens or the coven, there are quite a few places you could go to ground. If you wanted to hide from your male offspring, there are a few places in the Dark Realm that would take even Mephis a while to think of. But if Jaenelle was looking for you..."
    "Which is precisely why I'm still sitting here." Saetan rubbed his forehead and sighed. "Zhara has summoned me to Amdarh to take care of a problem for her."
    Andulvar frowned. "Lucivar's in Amdarh, isn't he? If Zhara needs help from a male stronger than the ones who serve in her court, why didn't she ask him?"
    Saetan narrowed his golden eyes and let the words fall like precisely dropped stones. "Lucivar is in Amdarh with Jaenelle."
    The silence thickened into a solid curtain.
    "Ah," Andulvar finally said. "Well, Daemon—"
    "Is in Amdarh with Lucivar and Jaenelle."
    "Mother Night," Andulvar muttered, then added warily,
    "What did Zhara say?" Saetan picked up the message and read in a funereal voice, " 'Your children are having a wonderful time. Come
    and get them.' "
----
    2 / Kaeleer
    Daemon braced his head in his hands and closed his eyes.
    "Mother Night," Lucivar said, enunciating very carefully.
    "I've never been this drunk," Daemon moaned quietly.
    Lucivar stared at him with bloodshot eyes. "Sure you have."
    "Maybe a couple of times in the stupid phase of my youth, but not since I've worn the Black. My body burns it up too fast to get drunk."
    "Not this time," Lucivar said, then added after a long, possibly thoughtful, pause, "I've been this drunk."
    "Really? When?"
    "Last time I went on a crawl with Jaenelle. Big mistake. Should have remembered it. Would have, too, if I'd been sober when I did remember it."
    After a minute's painful effort, Daemon gave up trying to decipher that comment and found something else to think about. "I've never been thrown out of a city before."
    "Sure you have," Lucivar said in a hearty voice that made them both whimper.
    Daemon shook his head and realized his error a bit too late. Even when he managed to stop, the room continued moving back and forth, and what was left of his brain sloshed noisily inside his skull. He swallowed carefully. "I've been thrown out of courts and wasn't allowed back into the city because that was the Queen's territory, but that's different."
    "It’s all right," Lucivar said. "In a few weeks, Zhara will welcome you with open arms."
    "She didn't seem like a foolish woman. Why would she do that?"
    "Because we provide a restraining influence on Jaenelle."
    "We