Queen of the Darkness

interesting." Then he sobered. "Daemon played the same game with you."
    "Yes, he did. But sometimes the best way to fool an enemy is to convince a friend."
    "Your mother said almost the same thing to me once— after she punched me."
    "Really?" Surreal smiled. "It must run in the family."
    He decided it was better not to ask her to clarify that.
    Baffled, Daemon waited for whatever announcement Draca was going to make. Not that it mattered. He would have to slip away to Amdarh in the next few days, talk to that jeweler, Banard, about designing a wedding ring for Jaenelle. He'd gotten her some earrings there for Winsol and had liked what he'd seen of the man's work.
    Her birthday would be coming up soon. Would she mind having a wedding on her birthday? Well, maybe he would. He didn't really want to share the celebration of their wedding day with anything else. But they could have it soon after that. She would still be tired, still be recovering from this spell, but they could find a quiet place for the honeymoon. It didn't matter where.
    Where was she? Maybe she was already in her room, recovering. Maybe that's what Draca was going to tell them—that Jaenelle had prevented the war, that Kaeleer was safe. As soon as this announcement was over, he'd slip up to her room and snuggle in next to her. Well, he'd take a bath first. He wasn't exactly smelling his best at the moment.
    Where was she?
    Then he looked at Lorn and felt a flicker of uneasiness.
    No. They had saved her. The triangle had saved her. She'd expended so much of herself, had risen so far out of herself she'd been plummeting back down, but they had stopped the fall. They had stopped the fall.
    Lucivar came up beside him, close enough to brush shoulders with him. Saetan stepped up on his other side with Surreal close by.
    Draca picked something up from the Throne's seat, hesitated, then turned to face them.
    Daemon froze.
    She was holding Jaenelle's scepter. But the metal was all twisted, and the two Ebony Jewels were shattered. Not just drained. Shattered. So was the spiral horn.
    "The Queen of Ebon Asskavi iss gone," Draca said quietly. "The Dark Court no longer existss."
    Someone began screaming. A scream full of panic, rage, denial, pain.
    It wasn't until Lucivar and Saetan grabbed him and held him back that he realized the person who was screaming was himself.
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    16 / Kaeleer
    "What was the point of it?" Gabrielle demanded angrily while the tears fell unheeded. "What was the point of offering the memories if they weren't going to do any good?"
    Surreal raked her fingers through her hair and decided smacking someone probably wasn't going to help much. Well, it would make her feel better. Thank the Darkness she and Uncle Saetan had been able to heavily sedate Daemon. He couldn't have tolerated any of this right now.
    She would have liked to have found out more about this memory thing, but she was more intrigued by the fact that Tersa seemed too calm and undisturbed—and also a little angry. It would take someone mucking up something very important to make Tersa angry.
    "Yes, Tersa," Karla said testily, "what was the point?"
    "Blood is the memory's river. And the Blood shall sing to the Blood," Tersa replied.
    Gabrielle said something succinct and obscene.
    "Shut up, Gabrielle," Surreal snapped.
    Tersa was sitting on the long table in front of the couch, next to a pile of wooden building blocks. Surreal crouched down beside her. "What were the memories for?" she asked quietly.
    Tersa brushed her tangled hair away from her face. "To feed the web of dreams. It was no longer complete. It had lived, it had grown."
    "But she's gone!" Morghann wailed.
    "The Queen is gone," Tersa said with some heat. "Is that all she was to you?"
    "No," Karla said. "She was Jaenelle. That was enough."
    "Exactly," Tersa said. "It is still enough."
    Surreal jolted, hardly daring to hope. She touched Tersa's hand, waited until she was sure she had the woman's attention. "The Queen is gone, but Jaenelle isn't?"
    Tersa hesitated. "It's too soon to know. But the triangle kept the dream from returning to the Darkness, and now the kindred are fighting to hold the dream to the flesh."
    That brought protests from Gabrielle and Karla.
    "Wait a minute," Gabrielle said, glancing at Karla, who nodded. "If Jaenelle is hurt and needs a Healer, she should have us."
    "No," Tersa said, her anger breaking free. "She should not have you. You could not look at what was done to that flesh and