Queen of the Darkness

"Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful."
    "I know." Daemon hesitated. "I'm buying time, Surreal. I have got to buy enough time and still get everyone out of here. In order to make Dorothea and Hekatah believe Marian and Daemonar were dead, Lucivar had to believe it."
    "Mother Night." Surreal rested her forehead on her knees. "What's worth paying a price like this?"
    "My Queen needs the time in order to save Kaeleer."
    "Oh, shit, Sadi." She looked up at him. "Tell me something. Even though you knew it was an illusion, how did you keep your stomach down afterward?"
    He swallowed hard. "I didn't."
    "You're mad," she muttered as she climbed to her feet.
    "I serve," he said sharply.
    Sometimes, for a male, it amounted to the same thing.
    "All right," she said as she hooked her hair behind her pointed ears. "What do you need me to do?"
    He hesitated, then started to hedge. "It's dangerous."
    "Daemon," she said patiently, "what do you need?" When he still didn't answer, she took a guess. "You want me to wander around the camp whimpering and looking like a woman who's been raped out of her mind and is now terrified of what will happen to her if she miscarries the child that was produced from that rape. Right?"
    "Yes," he said faintly.
    "And then what?"
    "Marian and Daemonar are at that shack. Slip out of camp tomorrow night, pick them up, and then go to the Keep. Don't stop, don't go anywhere else. Get to the Keep. You'll have to ride the Red Wind. The darker ones are unstable."
    "Un—Never mind, I don't want to know about that." She thought everything through carefully. Yes, she could play this out. A woman that broken would spend a lot of time hiding, so letting people get glimpses of her throughout the day would be enough—and would hide the fact that she had disappeared.
    Daemon reached for one of the balls of clay.
    "What's that for?" Surreal asked.
    "You would have fought for as long as you could," Daemon said, not looking at her. "You would look like you'd fought. After I create the illusion, you can carry this and—"
    "No." Surreal shrugged out of her jacket and started unbuttoning her shirt. "You can't play all of this out with illusions. Not if you want to convince Dorothea and Hekatah long enough to buy the time Jaenelle needs."
    His eyes turned hard yellow. "I'll give up a great deal for this, Surreal, but I'm not going to break my vow of fidelity."
    "I know," she replied quietly. "That's not what I meant."
    "Then what did you mean?" Daemon snapped.
    She took a deep breath to steady herself. "You have to make the bruises real."
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    4 / Kaeleer
    Calling in the bowl, Ladvarian placed it carefully on the chamber floor and watched the Arachnian Queen delicately touch the little bubbles now filled with blood and memories.
    *Is good,* the spider said with approval. *Good memories. Strong memories. As strong as kindred.*
    Ladvarian looked at the bowl that sat in front of the huge tangled web. There were still a lot of the kindred's gifts left in the bowl. It wasn't a fast thing the Weaver was doing.
    *You must rest,* the spider said as she selected a bubble from the humans' offerings and floated up to a thread in the web. *All kindred must rest. Must be strong when the time comes to anchor the dream to flesh.*
    *Will you have enough time to add all the memories?* Ladvarian asked respectfully.
    The Weaver of Dreams didn't reply for a long time. Then, *Enough. Just enough.*
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    5 / Terreille
    The whimpering wasn't all feigned.
    But, Hell's fire, Surreal thought as she wandered aimlessly around the camp, she hadn't expected to have to goad Daemon quite that much before he finally got down to business. And she'd understood that the anger behind his teeth and hands was because he'd had to touch a woman besides Jaenelle in a few intimate places. But, shit, he didn't have to bite her breast quite that hard.
    On the other hand, he had chosen his marks very carefully. Judging by the look in people's eyes when they saw her, the bruises were impressive, but none of them impeded movement or would freeze a muscle if she had to fight.
    The hardest part had been seeing the hatred in Saetan's eyes. She'd wanted to tell him. Oh, how she'd wanted to say something, anything, to get that look out of his eyes. And she might have if Daemon hadn't chosen that moment to glide by and make a devastatingly cutting remark. After that, throughout the rest of the morning, she had avoided the High Lord—and she hadn't