Twilight's Dawn

Winds, Daemon aimed the Coach at the estate that was a couple of miles from a village on the border of Little Terreille. He didn’t intend to announce his presence until he was right on top of the problem, but since the District Queen who ruled this village didn’t live here, he reached for the males in her home village and let his voice thunder a message through a psychic spear thread: *Get here. Now. *
    Once he landed the Coach and let his Black power roll over the land, they would know where to find him—and they would do everything they could to accommodate him, because they, and their Queen, wouldn’t want him looking in their direction. Not when his temper had turned cold and he was riding the killing edge.
    The door to the driver’s compartment slid open. Jaenelle said, “We need to find Beron and Sylvia. Mikal should be safe with Tildee.”
    *I will find Beron,* Ladvarian said. *I can run faster, and I can smell him, even if he is hiding.*
    Daemon didn’t argue, since the dog was right. He wrapped the Coach in a Black sight shield as they approached the estate.
    “Front door?” he asked, glancing back as Surreal moved up to join them. Both women now wore trousers, boots, and body-hugging tops that wouldn’t get in the way of fighting or healing.
    “Front door,” Jaenelle agreed.
    “I’m not sensing anyone in the front lower rooms,” Surreal said. “There are clusters of people in the upper rooms. We should go in fast and quiet.”
    “Agreed,” Jaenelle said. “These people haven’t lived around kindred. They have no reason to think Tildee sent a message that could have reached us so fast. If Sylvia and Beron are being held, no one will be expecting us. Not this soon.”
    Daemon landed on the drive, using Craft to create a blanket of air so that the Coach silently came to rest just above the gravel.
    As soon as the Coach settled, Ladvarian passed through the door and disappeared.
    *Sylvia,* Daemon called on a psychic thread. *Sylvia!*
    No response of any kind, not even a weak effort of someone sick or injured. *Beron?*
    Barely a flicker, but he thought there was some response.
    Daemon stepped out of the Coach, then waited for Jaenelle and Surreal. The three of them moved up to the front door together, then passed through it one by one. Daemon took the lead while Surreal guarded their backs. As he headed up the stairs, probing and searching, Ladvarian shouted, * Jaenelle! *
    Daemon leaped up the remaining stairs, moving fast to stay ahead of Jaenelle, following the sounds of barking and shouting. He burst into the room, a Black shield fanned out in front of him to protect the women behind him.
    A huddle of people—several adults and the boy, Haeze. A Healer cringed near a narrow bed, her eyes on Ladvarian. The Sceltie floated on air above the bed, snapping and snarling to keep the woman away from Beron, who lay in the bed, bloody and too still.
    Jaenelle rushed over to the bed. Surreal remained by the door, a knife in her hand. Ladvarian continued snarling at the Healer. And Daemon, riding the killing edge, watched everyone in the room as he assessed the stink of the adults’ psychic scents. Fear, desperation, and a petty satisfaction that it wasn’t their boy lying wounded in the bed. And something more that he couldn’t identify—yet.
    “You whoring bitch.”
    Planting one knee on air, Jaenelle threw herself across the bed, grabbed the Healer’s Jewel, and channeled a blast of power through cold rage.
    Surreal yelped in surprise. Other people screamed, and the Healer shrieked as Jaenelle shattered the woman’s Jewels, both ranking Jewel and Birthright, breaking her back to basic Craft. Windows shattered. The walls of the room cracked in patterns that made Daemon think a violent lightning storm had been etched on the plaster.
    He felt as if the Winds had turned into a funnel of speed and power that would sweep away anything in its path, and he was standing at the edge of that fury.
    Then the power and fury were gone, reclaimed by the witch who had unleashed it.
    Jaenelle opened her hand. The shattered pieces of the Healer’s Jewel fell to the floor, completely empty of power. Pushing against air, Jaenelle returned to the other side of the bed.
    “Lady?” Daemon asked sharply.
    “She was destroying Beron’s vocal cords under the guise of healing his throat,” Jaenelle snarled.
    He didn’t ask how she knew or if she was certain the harm was deliberate. Jaenelle wouldn’t have