Hekatah jerked away from him, screaming.

While he had the chance, he used a little healing Craft to cleanse the wound and seal up the flesh enough to keep infection at bay.

Hekatah kept screaming. Dorothea rushed out of her cabin. Guards came running from every direction.

Finally the screaming stopped. He heard Hekatah scrabble for something on the ground, then slowly get to her feet. As she circled around him, he saw what the blast of power had done. Since her mouth had been clamped on the wound, the psychic fire had kept going after it cauterized the blood vessels. It had melted part of her jaw, grotesquely reshaping her face.

In one hand, she held his little finger. In the other, she held the knife. “You’re going to pay for that,” she said in a slurred voice.

“No,” Dorothea said, stepping forward. “You said yourself that we have to keep the damage to a minimum until Jaenelle is contained.”

Hekatah turned toward Dorothea. Saetan felt sure the sick revulsion on Dorothea’s face would drive Hekatah past any ability to think rationally.

“Until Jaenelle is contained,” Hekatah said with effort. “But…that doesn’t mean…he can’t pay.” Turning toward him, she raised her hand.

For the second time, the agony from the Ring of Obedience ripped through him. That was devastating enough. Hearing Lucivar’s pain-filled, but still enraged, war cry as Hekatah also punished the son for the deeds of the father produced an agony in him that cut far deeper.

21 / Kaeleer

Daemon wished Surreal hadn’t been around when Geoffrey brought the small, ornately carved box that had been delivered to the Keep in Terreille. He had suggested that, since the verbal message had said it was a “gift” for Jaenelle, Surreal’s presence wasn’t required. She had countered by saying she was family and had just as much right to know what was going on as he or Jaenelle did. Which, unfortunately, was true.

“Do you want me to open it?” he asked Jaenelle when she had just stood there staring at the box for several minutes.

“No,” she said too calmly. Using Craft, she flipped the lid off the box.

The three of them stared at the little finger nestled in a bed of silk—a little finger with a long, black-tinted nail.

“Well, sugar, I’d say that message is to the point,” Surreal said as she stared at Jaenelle. “How many more pieces do you need to get back before you do something? We’re running out of time!”

“Yes,” Jaenelle said. “It’s time.”