The love and concern he saw in her eyes almost broke him.

“Why, Daemon?” Witch asked. “Why did you do this?”

“I made a mistake.”

“And this was your way of punishing yourself for that mistake?”

He might have believed the mild tone of voice if thunder hadn’t rolled through the Misty Place, if the lightning of fury hadn’t flashed and sizzled over the chasm that held a web that spiraled down and down and down into the Darkness—a web that was the reservoir for the vast power Jaenelle Angelline had set aside when she had dreamed of having an extraordinary ordinary life.

“Show me,” Witch said.

“What?” He knew what she was asking; he just didn’t want to do it.

“Show me.” A Queen’s command.

“I can show you what happened as I remember it, felt it. Surreal’s feelings are very different.” Jaenelle was no longer his wife, but she was still his Queen. He flinched at the idea of sharing a memory of himself with another woman.

“Show me.”

She wouldn’t ask again. If he didn’t obey now, he would have to walk away from the Queen whose will was still his life.

Opening all of his inner barriers, he offered the memory of the night Surreal had walked into his bedroom and he’d thought, Mine. He offered every word, every touch, every taste, every sound. Then he offered the memory of the following morning when he’d realized Surreal feared him because of the way they had played the night before, even though staying had been her choice. Finally, the memory of Surreal telling him it would never happen again and to leash the damn heat.

He closed his inner barriers, and his mind, damaged as it was, was his own again.

“She kept saying I was playing with her, kept demanding that I leash the sexual heat and wouldn’t believe me when I said it was leashed.”

Witch sighed. “Well, Surreal is right in one way, and this is why she was very wrong in another way.”

She called in four brass rings and placed them on the altar. First, she arranged them in a row from smallest to largest. Then she nested the rings, making the difference in sizes apparent. The difference between the first and second brass ring was significant. So was the difference between the second and third. Not much difference between the third and fourth, but enough that the third fit into the fourth.

Witch pointed to the smallest ring. “Like other traits that are part of a Warlord Prince’s nature, the sexual heat begins to manifest at puberty.”

Oh, Hell’s fire. They would have to deal with Daemonar when the boy reached that age.

“When a Warlord Prince reaches the age when he makes the Offering to the Darkness and comes into his mature power, the sexual heat becomes more potent.” She pointed to the second ring, then went on to the third. “And then he reaches physical maturity, a man entering his prime.”

“Which is where I was when we were married. Which is where I am now.”

“Not quite.” She tapped the fourth ring. “A century ago, you were just coming into your prime. Your sexual heat hadn’t reached its peak yet. Now you are solidly in your prime, and I’m guessing the last phase of sexual heat happened right around the night you had invited Surreal to play, and by the following morning, it had settled into where it will be until you reach your autumn years, when it starts to decline.”

Horrified by the thought, he shook his head. “It can’t stay at this level.”

“It can—and will. But you’ll adjust, and so will the people around you.”

“Jaenelle, no. You don’t know the misery this has already caused.”

“Daemon,” she said gently. “This is part of who you are.”

“How am I supposed to cope with that?” Was Lucivar going through this too?

“For one thing, you’re going to stop hurting yourself. For another, you’re going to use that brilliant mind to recognize that every Warlord Prince goes through this. You’ve seen men go through this. Clearly it didn’t make much of an impression.”

“I would have noticed.”

“Really? Chaosti. Rainier. Aaron. Elan. You knew every one of them before he reached his prime and went through this last phase of the sexual heat. Every one of them, Daemon. You knew their wives or, in Rainier’s case, a woman he lived with for decades. The difference is the depth of power. Like so many other things about the Blood, the potency of the heat is connected to the power that flows through the veins.” She reached out and tapped the pendant that held his Black Jewel. “That little bit more that might go unnoticed in a Warlord Prince who wore a lighter Jewel is going to be felt by everyone who is dealing with the Black.”

Surreal would never want to endure that.

Witch vanished the four brass rings. “You went to Healers who couldn’t help you. Why didn’t you talk to someone else?”

“The only other man who wore the Black and went through this is gone,” he said bitterly.

“Yes, Saetan is gone, but there are two people at the Keep who knew him when he was your age. And there is a Black Widow who might have supplied some answers—”

“Oh, she was a lot of help. Cryptic dreams about the wiggle-waggle.”

“Which you ignored.”

She said it with a sweetness that made his balls want to tuck up inside his belly. Just in case.

“There is also a Warlord Prince currently residing at the Keep, at least some of the time. If you had bothered to talk to him, he would have recognized what was happening and why.” Witch looked back at the posts and the chalice on the altar. “You tried so hard to repress your sexual heat, you’ve actually done some damage to your heart and lungs. It may be centuries before you feel the effects, but what you’ve done here will extract a price.”

Daemon studied the posts and chalice. “The headaches won’t abate, will they?”

Silence. Finally, she looked at him. “Not while this remains as it is. I can try to fix what is broken.”

A broken vessel mended again. Did he want that? If he wanted to be there for Jaenelle Saetien while she grew up, there wasn’t a choice. “Will that relieve the pain?”

“That will depend on how much of the damage I can repair.” Witch hesitated. “Daemon, this healing will hurt.”

“Everything has a price. Do what you need to do.”

Pain washed over him, through him, became him. Beyond the pain, he was aware of nothing but her voice. Sometimes she sang cadences of healing Craft. Sometimes she swore at him viciously in several languages as she carefully broke through carapaces of pus and drained swellings created by his attempt to please Surreal and subdue the sexual heat.