Daemon was about to tell her what he knew about the poison when he looked down at his blood-soaked sleeve. Memories of being soaked in Jaenelle’s blood rushed at him. He ripped off the jacket, then the shirt. Khary took them and handed him a wet cloth.

As he scrubbed the blood off his skin, Jaenelle said, “There were two poisons used. I don’t know one of them.”

Handing the cloth back to Khary, Daemon moved to the bed. “One of them comes from a plant that only grows in southern Hayll.”

Jaenelle looked up, her eyes blank and iced. “Do you know an antidote?” she asked with an odd calm that scared him.

“Yes. But the herbs I have are several years old. I don’t know if they’ll still be potent enough.”

“I can make them potent enough. Make the antidote, Daemon.”

“What about the other poison?” he asked as he started clearing a work space on the bedside table.

“It’s witchblood.”

A chill went through him. Witchblood only grew where a witch had been violently killed—or where she had been buried. Used as a poison, it was virulent and deadly—and usually undetectable.

“You can detect it?” Daemon asked cautiously.

“I can recognize witchblood in any of its forms,” Jaenelle replied in her midnight voice.

Another memory rushed at him. Jaenelle staring at the bed of witchblood she had planted in an alcove on the Angelline estate. Did you know that if you sing to them correctly, they’ll tell you the names of the ones who have gone?

Even dried into a poison, did the plants tell Witch the names of the ones who were gone?

Locking away the memories, along with his heart, Daemon concentrated on making the antidote.

“Maeve,” Jaenelle said, “get some basic plasters ready. We’ll have to draw out some of the poison. Morghann, I want you to leave the room. Don’t come back for any reason until I tell you.”

“But—”

Jaenelle just looked at her.

Morghann hurried out of the room.

“May I stay?” Khary asked quietly. “You three will be involved in the healing. You’ll need a free pair of hands to fetch things.”

“This won’t be easy, Lord Khardeen,” Jaenelle said.

Khary paled a little. “She’s my Sister, too.”

Jaenelle nodded her consent, then leaned over the bed and said so softly Daemon was sure he was the only one close enough to hear, “Arms or legs, Karla?”

The answer, if she got one, was private—Sister to Sister. But it began a healing so gruesome he desperately hoped he would never witness anything like it again.

12 / Kaeleer

Kaelas listened to the sounds coming from the room and snarled silently. The Green-Jeweled Eyrien Warlord Prince was mating with the pale female, the young Priestess. Her cries disturbed him. They were not like the sounds the Lady made with Daemon. There was fear and pain in these sounds.