Queen of the Darkness

that had started falling an hour earlier was more of a drizzle that only managed to smear the dirt that covered everything rather than a downpour that would wash it away.
    This is Kaeleer? she thought bleakly. This is the Shadow Realm that so many were so desperate to reach? Oh, it was probably unfair to judge an entire Realm by ground that had been scraped bare by the hundreds of people who had waited there, hoping to be chosen for a service contract. But she knew that, no matter what else she saw, this is what she would always picture whenever someone mentioned Kaeleer.
    She felt someone approach, but didn't turn when her daughter, Leland, joined her at the window.
    "Why would Wilhelmina have wanted to come to this place?" Leland murmured. "I'll be glad when we can leave here."
    "You don't have to stay, Leland. Especially now that Vania and Nyselle have so graciously insisted on accompanying me."
    "They didn't come with us out of loyalty," Leland said quietly but bitterly. "They just wanted a chance to see the Shadow Realm and knew they might not get in any other way."
    Alexandra clenched her teeth while the truth of Leland's remark gnawed at her. Vania and Nyselle, the two Province Queens who grudgingly had accompanied her to Hayll, had become sickening in their solicitousness as soon as she announced she was going to Kaeleer to look for Wilhelmina. So they and their Consorts had come with her, along with Philip and Leland and a five-man escort. Four of the escorts had come with her from Chaillot. The other one, chosen by Dorothea SaDiablo, had been "borrowed" from one of Dorothea's pet Queens in another Territory. The man made her skin crawl, but Dorothea had assured her that he would be able to slip Wilhelmina away from her "captors" and deliver her to another loyal group of males already in position in Kaeleer.
    It pains me to say it, Dorothea had said, but if you can free only one of your granddaughters from the High Lord's control, it must be Jaenelle. She is the danger to Terreille.
    Alexandra didn't believe for a moment that Jaenelle was anything more than a stalking-horse being used to hide whoever—or whatever—was the real threat to Terreille. But, sweet Darkness, she hoped she wouldn't have to make a choice between Wilhelmina and Jaenelle—because she knew in her heart which child would be left behind.
    "Besides," Leland added softly, "I need to stay. She was always such a strange child, but Jaenelle was ... is ... my daughter. To think she's been under that monster's control all this time..." Leland shuddered. "There's no telling what he's done to her."
    And no way to tell what had been done to her in Briarwood. Had she really been mentally fragile or had that place made her so? No, she decided firmly. Jaenelle's stays at Briarwood might have weakened an already fragile stability, but the child's eccentricities had been the reason why she had decided to send the girl to Briarwood in the first place.
    "What are we going to do?" Leland asked quietly.
    Alexandra looked over her shoulder at the other people restlessly waiting for her decision. Philip, whose self-control had broken several times while he'd given her Lord Jorval's information, would go with her, not only because he had married Leland, but also because he genuinely cared for Wilhelmina and Jaenelle. Vania and Nyselle would go in order to see more of Kaeleer than this dirty piece of barren ground. The Consorts and escorts would follow the Queens out of duty. Would curiosity and duty be enough against something like the High Lord?
    It didn't matter. She would take whatever help she could get.
    As she turned back to the window, she said, "Prince Alexander, please arrange passage on a Coach as soon as possible. We're going to SaDiablo Hall."
----
    5 / Kaeleer
    Certain that he had more muscle aches than muscles, Daemon slowly made his way to the great hall where, Beale had informed him, the High Lord was waiting.
    Never again. Never never never. He should have remembered what "I'll start you off easy" meant, should have remembered that other kinds of exercise didn't prepare the body for Eyrien weapons drills. Oh, if he wanted to be fair—and he had no intention of being fair in the foreseeable future—Lucivar had started him with the basic warmup drills. But even moving at the practice pace, when you had Lucivar as a working partner, you worked.
    Then he opened a door at the far end of the great hall and forgot about his aching muscles when