The climb was long, cold, and lonely
The climb was long, cold, and lonely. But every so often were those little signs, little reminders of her, even after he'd left the Twisted Kingdom. And when he reached the surface, it was those that gave him the courage to open his eyes and rise from the half-dream he'd been living in as he began to heal, even despite the fear and the pain and the persistent sense of loss.
So months after he stepped out of the Twisted Kingdom, Daemon opened his eyes and woke into the real world.
The psychic scent was wrong. He noticed that before he could remember the name attached to the Lady who was demolishing a piece of toast in the corner of the room. Lifting himself on his elbows, he found his voice with only the slightest effort. "Surreal?"
Her head snapped around in a moment, dropping the toast and half-rising, but then she relaxed, as much as she ever did. "You're…" a pause. Daemon almost flinched from the words she didn't say: sane, whole and felt the fragility within belie them both. "…awake," she settled on.
"Where's Jaenelle?"
Surreal shook her head. "I haven't seen her."
He felt the cold anger and grief smooth out all the wrinkles within him as Surreal confirmed his worst fears. And then he noticed the brace on her wrist, holding it straight, as if it'd been broken. His voice smoothed out in flat calm without being conscious of it. "What happened to your wrist?"
She flushed bright red and tugged off the brace quickly, waving her hand at him. "Nothing. See? It's fine. Promise."
Daemon just looked at her and finally Surreal looked down. "I broke it. A few months ago."
Sorting through the vague, fuzzy memories of the past few months, he happened upon one and flinched back from it, understanding her evasion without looking too closely. Looking around for a shirt and jacket, he found one on the back of a chair and tugged it on, too distracted to notice the way Surreal was looking at him, thinking of everything he'd have to do before leaving this place. "This is my island?"
"You're not going anywhere."
Daemon turned his head and looked at her. She glanced down but didn't give. "Jaenelle made me promise not to let you go anywhere until you're healed."
"I am healed," flatly. He ignored the reference to Jaenelle.
"No, you're not." Her voice was strangely calm and assured. When had Surreal taken that tone with him? "Your mind's still fragile." She didn't respond to the other statement, so she didn't disagree.
The reminder set his teeth on edge and he answered too smoothly. "My mind is fine."
"You're not nearly strong enough, then. Or have you forgotten that there are those out there who want you dead?"
Daemon's thoughts flicked one way and he jerked them back. Lucivar. "Lucivar's dead." The rest, he could handle.
"I wasn't just talking about him," Surreal said, and stood up in the corner of his eye. "Demon-dead can still kill you."
The room swayed oddly and Daemon had to sit down. He put his head in his hands. "I can't wait here forever. Neither can you."
"I'm not going to."
He jerked his head up and stared at her, his voice almost a purr. "What?"
She shifted, a little awkwardly, and he sensed the automatic movement into a position to defend herself. That bothered him, a little. "I'm not going to stay here. I have business to take care of."
"Yes? And so do I."
It was that little frown again he remembered from when she'd been little more than waist high, stubborn, challenging. "You can't. You don't have a mark of safe passage to-" She snapped her mouth shut. "And you don't know where to start looking."
Daemon's looked up at her and smiled a cold smile. "No, I know where to find what I'm looking for." Because while he didn't remember everything, he remembered just enough.
She shivered and he leaned back, pushing back the vague nausea and weakness hovering around him. Surreal regained her footing quickly, though.
"What do you have to do?"
"I'm going to find Manny. Then I'm going to buy my way into Kaeleer."
"What do you want there?" Carefully, almost as though tense and waiting to deny him. Daemon tensed himself, too aware that with that inner fragility taking on Surreal would be a dangerous business.
Flatly, refusing to let his voice give anything away, he told the truth. Or part of it. "Anywhere's better than Terreille as far as I'm concerned."
A pause. "Daemon, if I stay here, will you promise not to go anywhere? At least for a month or two?"
Daemon shot a look at her, but there was nothing in her eyes but concern and maybe the slightest touch of fear. Reluctantly, he nodded at last, because he could feel exhaustion weighing on his shoulders like a ton of bricks. It was a small sacrifice to pay. He'd waited for years. One or two more months wouldn't make a difference to a Queen already dead. His stomach clenched and he lay back on the bed, closing his eyes.
"Sadi?" A note of worry and he heard her start to move.
"I need to sleep. Can you go somewhere else?" Coolly. He didn't want her there, just in case he dreamed.
"Yeah. Sure." She came over and gave him one of her Surreal-looks. "But if I come back here in the morning and you're gone, I'm going to be pissed."
"I promised, didn't I?" His mind felt fragmented and vague, blurry, like little pieces of glass shifted against each other and didn't quite fit. A hesitation, as though she wanted to say something more, but then she was gone.
Daemon leaned his head back and allowed himself to think. Lucivar was dead, and so was Jaenelle. There was one man left alive, however, and it was him that Daemon's thoughts, like vultures around a dying animal, kept circling back to.
You are my instrument.
His heart ached for Lucivar, even for the bitterness that his brother had wounded him as he had. His heart broke for Jaenelle. But he had enough left to feel the keen and cold edge of anger for the man who'd manipulated him into destroying the only Queen he was meant to serve. His heart lurched sideways.
He hadn't told Surreal the whole truth; or even really, half of it. Because he knew her too well.
Fighting hands trying to drag him down. Swimming up through thick, tarlike darkness as they whispered horribly intimate words in his ear. Butchering whore. Too familiar voices. Voices he knew. Words lie, blood doesn't. A hiss, soft and deadly, and then that powerful, smooth voice, so like and unlike his own.
You are my instrument.
A silent scream and his head broke the surface as he fought his way free of the tangling hands. Lucivar stood there, wings spread, watching him with horribly blank golden eyes, the glorious wings, his arrogant Eyrien brother's pride and freedom, tattered, broken, torn, blood trickling from one corner of his mouth. Daemon stretched out a hand to him, desperate, half-pleading. "No, no, Lucivar, it wasn't me."
But that was a lie. And Lucivar said nothing, nothing, nothing, because he was dead and there was nothing left to say. The Darkness had swallowed the words that might have been.
Daemon jerked upright, tangled in sweaty sheets and panting, feeling overheated, confined, trapped. Standing, he went to the window and opened it, letting the sea breeze play across his skin. It didn't comfort him.
Restless, knowing that to sleep would only bring more of the dreams, he went to the mahogany desk and sat down, calling in a quill and a piece of parchment, and began to write a letter. Halfway through, he tore it up and leaned back, tapping his left ring finger against the wood. The second part of his revenge would have to wait, but there was something he could still do, even confined here, fragile. The pieces of glass in a crystal chalice that had been precariously repaired shimmered and shifted, grating against each other. He would not sit idly by.
Witchblood curled around her shining golden hair, growing up around her, blood-red blooms black-tipped unfolding into the Darkness.
He shook the image away savagely, the wind off the water whispering around him. The hair rose on his arms, light goosebumps prickling. You are my instrument.
He stood and went to the piano in one corner of the room, sitting down and laying his hands on the keyboard, beginning to play a waltz, a familiar dance he'd played often before, and that he'd danced to, once, so very long ago, with a young, sapphire eyed witch.
Daemon played on, swallowing the bitterness.