Saetan circled the room, looking for something he could safely shred. “You’re damn right you scared me.”

She fluffed her hair and watched him. When he returned to the desk, she performed a respectful, feminine curtsy. “My apologies, High Lord. My apologies, Prince Yaslana.”

Andulvar grunted. “If I’m going to teach you to fly, I might as well teach you how to use the sticks, bow, and knife.”

Jaenelle’s eyes sparkled. “Sceron is teaching me the crossbow, and Chaosti is showing me how to use a knife,” she volunteered.

“All the more reason you should learn Eyrien weapons as well,” Andulvar said, smiling grimly.

When she was gone, Saetan looked at Andulvar with concern. “I trust you’ll take into account her age and gender.”

“I’m going to work her ass off, SaDiablo. If I’m going to train her, and it seems I have no choice, I’ll train her as an Eyrien warrior should be trained.” He grinned maliciously. “Besides, Prothvar will love being her opponent when she learns the sticks.”

Once Andulvar was gone, Saetan settled into his chair behind the blackwood desk, unlocked one of the drawers, and pulled out a sheet of expensive white parchment half filled with his elegant script. He added three names to the growing list: Katrine, Sceron, Chaosti.

With the parchment safely locked away again, Saetan leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. That list disturbed him because he didn’t know what it meant. Children, yes. Friends, certainly. But all from Kaeleer. She must be gone for hours at a time in order to travel those distances, even on the Black Wind. What did her family think about her disappearances? What did they say? She never talked about Chaillot, her home, her family. She evaded every question he asked, no matter how he phrased it. What was she afraid of?

Saetan stared at nothing for a long time. Then he sent a thought on an Ebon-gray spear thread, male to male. *Teach her well, Andulvar. Teach her well.*

5 / Hell

Saetan left the small apartment adjoining his private study, vigorously toweling his hair. His nostrils immediately flared and the line between his eyebrows deepened as he stared at the study door.

Harpies had a distinctive psychic scent, and this one, patiently waiting for him to acknowledge her presence, made him uneasy.

Returning to the bedroom, he dressed swiftly but carefully. When he was seated behind the blackwood desk, he released the physical and psychic locks on the door and waited.

Her silent, gliding walk brought her swiftly to the desk. She was a slender woman with fair skin, oversized blue eyes, delicately pointed ears, and long, fine, silver-blond hair. She was dressed in a forest-green tunic and pants with a brown leather belt and soft, calf-high boots. Attached to the belt was an empty sheath. She wore no Jewels, and the wound across her throat was testimony to how she had died. She studied him, as he studied her.

The tension built in the room.