Seven hundred years.
Seven hundred years of waiting, of enduring the lash and the pain and the constant humiliation. Seven hundred years of searching, watching the skies for a sign, casting out the desperate message to the Darkness: Are you there? Are you there? Seven hundred years of being held down and drugged and used for the pleasure of Dorothea's bitches, her puppet Queens, full only of avarice and lust and ambition, raping everything the Darkness was: the land, those who truly sang to its heart…Seven hundred years of yearning, of longing that was soul deep and deeper. Seven hundred years of fighting, of futile battles that he could win but a war that he had no choice but to lose, but that he had to struggle for because if he lost himself, if he lost the scraps of honor that a pleasure slave could maintain, he could never allow himself to serve her. Seven hundred years of dreaming of her, ofWitch, of a Queen he could be proud to serve, a Queen who would own him body and soul and for whom he would sacrifice everything, everything… Seven hundred years of hoping, hoping desperately that when he could serve her, she would not be ashamed of him – she would not look at him and see a dirty, half-breed slave – would see an Ebon-Gray Eyrien Warlord Prince who could be her protector, her right hand, even her slave, if necessary, but hers…he would belong to no one else.
Seven hundred years.
Seven hundred years of hating, despising the witches who kept him here, played their vile games with their weak minds, when he should be wandering, looking the world over for the Queen of the Darkness, the Lady that Tersa had promised. Seven hundred interminable years of needing, of waking at night shuddering with hungry desire that had nothing to do with the body and everything to do with the psychic scent that haunted him with its nearness and tantalized him with its distance. Seven hundred years of praying with everything he had, with every drop of blood shed in every painful punishment he was forced to endure: Come to me. Come to me. Seven hundred years of waiting for a witch, forWitch: for the Queen he could be proud to serve, the Lady he could be glad to love. Seven hundred years of playing the Sadist, of sinking so deeply into that role, into the mask that became reality that he could no longer remember what it was like to live without it…could no longer remember a time before he was Daemon thepleasure slave, when it had been just Daemon Sadi. Seven hundred years of prowling the ruins of the Terreille courts, tied to the leash of whatever puppet Queen owned him currently, watching the decay of society and the spread of Dorothea's foul corruption, always watching, always listening for her, for the psychic scent that drifted through his dreams…seven hundred years of believing that he was born to be her lover, that he would do anything just to serve her and love her as he'd never served anyone before, of believing that she would see past his shame and the years of soul-decaying agony and love him as well…he could not believe anything else.
Several thousand years.
Several thousand years of weaving, of hearing the dreams of kindred and witch and Warlord and weaving them all into the great web.
Several thousand years of weaving, of making web into dream again, and remaking dream into flesh.
Several hundred years of waiting for the time to be right, for the world to be ready…and several years more of the weaving of the dream-and-flesh to the world.
And now, at last, all was ripe.
Dreams could be made true flesh at last. She had come.
Witch was alive.
