She’d been wrong. Saetan had already planted his code of honor deep in the boys’ minds, and by the time she had realized that, it was too late to lead them down another path. Without knowing why, they had fought against anything that didn’t fit that code of honor until the fighting, and the pain and the punishment, had shaped them, too.

And now there was this girl child.

Five years ago, she’d sensed a strange, dark power on the cildru dyathe’s island. Ever since then, she’d been following whispered snippets of talk, leads that faded to nothing. The tangled webs she’d created had only shown her dark power in a female body, the kind of power that, if it were molded and channeled the right way, could easily control a Realm.

It had taken five years to discover that Saetan was training the child, which infuriated her. That girl should have been hers from the start, should have been an emotionally dependent tool that would have fulfilled all of her dreams and ambitions. With that kind of power at her disposal, nothing—and no one—could have stopped her.

But, again, she was too late.

If Saetan had been willing to share the girl, she might have reconsidered. Since he wasn’t willing, and she wasn’t going to let that child mature to become a threat to her plans, she was going to use the most brutal weapon she had at her disposal: Daemon Sadi.

He would have no love for his father. He could be offered ten years of controlled freedom—still held by the Ring, of course, but not required to serve in a court. Ten years—no, a hundred—not to kneel for any witch. What would eliminating one child be, a stranger fawned over by the very man who had abandoned him, compared with not having to serve? And if the half-breed were thrown in for good measure? Sadi had the strength to defy even the High Lord. He had the cunning and the cruelty to ensnare a child and destroy her. But how to get him close enough for an easy strike? She’d have to think about that. Somewhere to the far west of Hayll. She had tracked the girl as far as that, and then nothing…except that strange, impenetrable mist on that island.

Oh, how Saetan would twist, screaming, on the hook of his honor when Sadi destroyed his little pet.

Hekatah lowered her arms and smiled at the curtains hanging in shreds from the rod. She made a moue as she pulled a bit of fabric from a snag in one of her nails and hurried out of the parlor, eager to get away from the Hall and begin her little plan.

Saetan Black-locked his sitting room door before going to the corner table that held glasses and a decanter of yarbarah. A mocking smile twisted his lips when he noticed how badly his hands shook. Ignoring the yarbarah, he pulled a bottle of brandy out of the cupboard below, filled a glass, and drank deep, gasping at the unfamiliar burn. It had been centuries since he’d drunk straight alcohol. He settled into a chair, the brandy glass cradled in his trembling hands.