Surreal swore silently when she realized the dance was a waltz. Better for the rest of the people in the room—certainly safer for them—but a misery for her. Still, she smiled at the women who looked at her with envy and greed and ambition and let her smile say: Look at that beautiful face, that body. Listen to that voice so deep and dark and luxurious, and imagine what it’s like when he comes to your bed and whispers all the things he’ll do to you. You may look but never touch, because he’s mine. I won the prize, and I’m going to keep him.

“Another hour should be enough to fulfill our official obligations, don’t you think?” Daemon asked as they moved with the other dancers.

“It’s up to you.” She gave his face a quick study when he looked past her. “You all right, Sadi?”

“I have a headache.”

“That’s usually the woman’s excuse.” She wanted to kick herself when he looked at her, confused. “The clash of perfumes is making my head a bit achy too.”

Maybe he wouldn’t want to sleep with her tonight. Did she want that when this need for him was building again?

She’d loved him for decades—centuries, even—and had never thought she could have him as a lover. Had never expected to be Daemon Sadi’s wife.

Lately, as she tried to endure this game he was playing, she didn’t know if she loved him or hated him. Sometimes she wondered what would happen if hate became the dominant emotion. After all, when she’d lived in Terreille, she had been a very good assassin and sex had always been the best bait.

 

* * *

 

* * *

Karla studied the crystal chalice. It had been shattered twice and expertly repaired.

More than repaired. It had been healed with a skill that no longer existed in the Realms. Oh, the seams between the individual pieces were still visible, were, in fact, filled with a hairline of power that didn’t come from anything as simple as the Black.

“It can no longer hold what it was meant to hold. Not completely.”

Karla looked over her shoulder and watched Tersa walk into her web of dreams and visions. She turned back to the chalice. “If it shatters . . .”

“He will fall into the Twisted Kingdom beyond reach,” Tersa said. “The Black gone mad will bring terror to the Realms.”

“Will bring war.”

Daemon Sadi, raging and insane, against armies of Warlords and Warlord Princes. And leading those armies . . .

“The winged boy will not turn against his brother,” Tersa said. “Even if the boy falls, the winged boy will stand with him.”

“Then may the Darkness have mercy on the living,” Karla replied. “And the dead.” Lucivar and Daemon at war with the rest of Kaeleer. The cost would be staggering. “There must be something we can do.”

“Pain will lance the wound, but the blade isn’t sharp enough yet.”

Tersa walked around the chalice, then studied the four leashes that were wrapped around posts at one end and secured to the chalice’s stem at the other. She pointed to something at the base of the chalice.

Karla looked closely to find the pinprick hole. As she watched, a tiny bead of Black power oozed out of the hole, hung for a moment, then fell on one of the leashes. Thank the Darkness it wasn’t the leash braided with chain, but two of the other choices wouldn’t be much better.

As she watched, the bead moved down the leash to the post. Or what should have been the post. What had been the post when she’d seen it in another vision not that long ago.

Now that post looked bloated, and the leash, instead of giving Sadi some measure of control, was being covered, like a tree might grow over a wire wrapped around its trunk. Except the spillage, the excess . . .

“He’s fighting to survive,” Tersa said.

“I told him he was holding on too tight. I told him to relax his hold on that leash.” But when she’d said that in a dream, she hadn’t seen this. Hadn’t realized he was channeling Black power he couldn’t hold and transforming it into more sexual heat than anyone could want or need.

“He doesn’t know.” That realization staggered her. “He thinks he’s still holding the leash, that the sexual heat that surrounds him is the same as it’s always been.”

“Yes,” Tersa agreed.

Karla went back to studying the chalice. “Mother Night, he can no longer survive what he is. The only way for him to get through this is if he could somehow dilute the Black power that is an essential part of who and what he is so that he wouldn’t stand so deep in the abyss.” She looked at the mad Black Widow who was Daemon’s mother. “Could he do that?”

“No,” Tersa replied.

“Is there anyone who could do that?”

They looked at each other.

“Until he’s the one who asks for help, there will be no answer,” Tersa said softly.

“Even if he asks, how can he get an answer from someone who doesn’t exist anymore?”

It disturbed her that Tersa didn’t reply. Made her wonder again if, in her madness, Tersa knew something the rest of them didn’t know.

“Could you tell Surreal?” she asked.

“The girl sees the warning signs but does not trust herself or the boy enough to speak. She has chosen not to listen.”

“Can’t you tell Daemon?”

“Tell him what? That madness will break him, and the price will be the destruction of Kaeleer? Should I tell him this when there is nothing he can do to stop it or change it? Even his physical death won’t stop this. Only one thing can stop this.”

“For the pain to become so great that he asks for the impossible.”

“Yes.”

“And Surreal? This will leave deep wounds in her too.”

“Yes. But she could ask for help, for guidance, for counsel—and has not.”

The air shimmered. The vision faded.

 

* * *

 

* * *

Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful!

Karla poured a glass of yarbarah and drank it cold.

These weren’t typical dreams and visions. She didn’t usually interact with other people, didn’t have these conversations.

Then again, the two individuals who had invaded the past two visions were also Black Widows, and one was broken and always lived in the Twisted Kingdom, and the other was starting to break and slide into madness.

According to Tersa, telling Daemon would be pointless, but maybe that just depended on who did the telling.