“Let’s go back to the Keep in Kaeleer,” Saetan said. “We’ll wash up, have something to eat before I retire, and you can ask me about whatever you’d originally come here to ask.”

The library door opened before they reached it. A Warlord who served the Keep in Terreille nodded to them and said, “High Lord, a Warlord Prince has arrived.”

“His name?” Saetan asked.

“He wouldn’t offer it,” the Warlord replied. “And he wouldn’t say which Territory he’s from. He says he’s looking for someone, and he insists on talking to ‘someone in authority.’ ”

“Does he?” Saetan said softly. “How foolish of him. Put our guest in one of the receiving rooms. I’ll be with him shortly.”

“Yes, High Lord.”

The Warlord’s look of gleeful anticipation told Saetan how deeply the idiot had offended those who served the Keep by not following the basic courtesies. Fools who tried to withhold their names when asking to speak with someone here were usually given as much as they’d offered—which was nothing.

When the Warlord left, Saetan turned and touched Daemon’s arm. “Why don’t you go back to Kaeleer and ask for a meal. I’ll talk to this unknown Prince and join you when I’m done. I doubt this will take more than a few minutes.”

The air around them chilled—a warning that a violent temper was turning cold, cold, cold.

“If you’re going to talk to anyone from Terreille, you should have someone watching your back,” Daemon said too softly.

He wasn’t sure if he should feel flattered or insulted by his son’s desire to protect, but he decided it was best to keep his own temper out of this conversation—especially now that Daemon’s temper had turned lethal. “Have you forgotten that I’m a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince and do know how to defend myself?”

One sweep of those golden eyes that were now glazed and sleepy. One pointed look at his left hand—which was missing the little finger.

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Daemon crooned.

A shiver went down Saetan’s spine.

The boyish posturing was gone. Even their relationship as father and son was gone. The man before him was a Warlord Prince of equal rank, who was standing one step away from the killing edge. A Warlord Prince the Blood in Terreille had called the Sadist. A man who was capable of doing anything if provoked the wrong way.

And that, more than anything else, was reason enough to get Daemon out of Terreille.

“Would you have told Lucivar he had to have someone guarding his back?” Saetan asked.

“I wouldn’t have needed to,” Daemon replied. “He would have known I’d stand with him.”

This isn’t a fight, Saetan thought.But he caught,too late,the undercurrent that had been hiding beneath the boyish posturing.