Daemon gasped as Dark Dancer jerked the reins free and raced down the path toward the field. Tears of grief pricked Daemon’s eyes. The horse might have a simpler mind, but the heart was just as big.

Daemon walked to the field, staring at its emptiness for a long moment before slowly making his way to the wide ditch at the far end.

Would it have been better not to have told him? To have left him waiting through the lonely days and weeks and months that would have followed? Or worse, to have promised to come back for him and not have been able to keep that promise?

No, Daemon thought as he reached the ditch. Jaenelle was Dancer’s Queen. He deserved the truth. He deserved the right to make a choice.

Daemon slid down the side of the deep, wide ditch. Dancer lay at the bottom, twisted and dying. Daemon sat beside him, gently putting the horse’s head in his lap. He stroked Dancer’s neck, murmuring words of sorrow in the Old Tongue.

Finish the kill. Dancer’s strength was ebbing. One narrow, searing probe into the horse’s mind would finish it. Daemon took a deep breath…and couldn’t do it.

If Hell was where the Blood’s dead walked when the body died but the Self was still too powerful to fade into the ever-night, did the kindred Jaenelle spoke of go there too? Was there a herd of demon-dead horses racing over a desolate landscape?

“Ah, Dancer,” Daemon murmured as he continued to stroke the horse’s neck. A mind link now wouldn’t help, but…

Daemon looked at his wrist. Blood. According to the legends, the demon-dead maintained their strength with blood from the living. That’s why blood offerings were made when someone petitioned the Dark Realm for help.

Daemon shifted slightly. Pushing up his right sleeve, he positioned his wrist over Dancer’s mouth. Gathering himself so that what he offered was the strongest he had to give, he nicked a vein with a long nail and watched his blood flow into Dancer’s mouth. Daemon counted to four before pressing his thumb to the wound and healing it with Craft.

All he could do now was wait with his four-footed Brother.

For a long time, while Dancer’s eyes glazed, nothing happened. Then something pricked at Daemon, made the land shift and shimmer. He no longer saw the ditch, no longer felt the cold and wet of the snow-covered ground. In front of him was a huge wrought-iron gate. Beyond it was lightning-filled mist. As he watched, the gate slowly opened with chilling silence. A faint sound came then, muffled, but drawing closer to the gate. Daemon watched Dancer race toward the gate, head high, mane and tail streaming out behind him. A moment later, the stallion was lost in the mist, and the gate swung shut.

Daemon looked down at the unblinking eyes. Gently setting the head on the ground, he climbed out of the ditch and wearily made his way back to the stable.