Then she tossed him out of the abyss.
The abrupt return to the physical world left him dizzy, his senses scrambled. That had to be why he thought he saw a tiny spiral horn in the centre of her forehead. That had to be why her ears looked delicately pointed, why she had a golden mane that looked like a cross between fur and human hair. That had to be why his heart felt as if it were beating frantically against someone's hand.
He closed his eyes, fighting the dizziness. When he opened them a moment later, all the changes in Jaenelle's appearance were gone, but there was still that odd feeling in his chest.
Gasping, he looked down as he felt fingers curl around his heart.
Jaenelle's hand was embedded in his chest. When she withdrew her hand, she would pull his heart out with it. No matter. It had been hers long before he'd ever met her. And it gave him an odd feeling of pride, remembering the frustration and delight he'd felt when he'd tried to teach her how to pass one solid object through another.
The fingers curled tighter.
Her eyes opened. They were fathomless sapphire pools that held no recognition, that held nothing but deep, inhuman rage.
Then she blinked. Her eyes clouded, hiding so many things. She blinked again and looked at him. "Saetan?" she said in a rusty voice.
His eyes filled with tears. "Witch-child," he whispered hoarsely.
He gasped when she moved her hand slightly.
She stared at his chest and frowned. "Oh." She slowly uncurled her fingers and withdrew her hand.
He expected her hand to be bloody, but it was clean. A quick internal check told him he would feel bruised for a few days, but she hadn't done any damage. He leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers.
"Witch-child," he whispered.
"Saetan? Are you crying?"
"Yes. No. I don't know."
"You should lie down. You feel kind of peaky."
Shifting his body until it was beside hers exhausted him. When she turned and snuggled against him, he wrapped his arms around her and held on. "I tried to reach you, witch-child," he murmured as he rested his cheek against her head.
"I know," she said sleepily. "I heard you sometimes, but I had to find all the pieces so I could put the crystal chalice back together."
"Did you put it back together?" he asked, hardly daring to breathe.
Jaenelle nodded. "Some of the pieces are cloudy and don't fit quite right yet." She paused. "Saetan? What happened?"
Dread filled him, and he didn't have the courage to answer that question honestly. What would she do if he told her what had happened? If she severed the link with her body and fled into the abyss again, he wasn't sure he would ever be able to convince her to return.
"You were hurt, sweetheart." His arms tightened around her. "But you're going to be fine. I'll help you. Nothing can hurt you, witch-child. You have to remember that. You're safe here."
Jaenelle frowned. "Where is here?"
"We're at the Keep. In Kaeleer."
"Oh." Her eyelids fluttered and closed.
Saetan squeezed her shoulder. Then he shook her. "Jaenelle? Jaenelle, no! Don't leave me. Please don't leave."
With effort, Jaenelle opened her eyes. "Leave? Oh, Saetan, I'm so tired. Do I really have to leave?"
He had to get control of himself. He had to stay calm so that she would feel safe. "You can stay here as long as you want."
"You'll stay, too?"
"I'll never leave you, witch-child. I swear it."
Jaenelle sighed. "You should get some sleep," she murmured.
Saetan listened to her deep, even breathing for a long time. He wanted to open his mind and reach for her, but he didn't need to. He could feel the difference in the body he still held.
So he reached out to Andulvar instead. "She's come back."
A long silence. "Truly?"
"Truly." And he would need his strength for the days ahead. "Tell the others. And tell Draca I'll take the cup of fresh blood now."
5 / Kaeleer
Guided by instinct and a nagging uneasiness, Saetan entered Jaenelle's bedroom at the Keep without knocking.
She stood in front of a large, freestanding mirror, staring at the naked body reflected there.
Saetan closed the door and limped toward her. While she'd been away from her body, there had still been just enough of a link so that she could eat and could be led on gentle walks that had kept her muscles from atrophying. There had still been enough of a link for her body to slowly answer the rhythm of its own seasons.
Blood females tended to reach puberty later than landens, and witches' bodies required even more time to prepare for the physical changes that separated a girl from a woman. Inhibited by her absence, Jaenelle's body hadn't started changing until after her fourteenth birthday. But while her body was still in the early stages of transformation, it no longer looked like a twelve-year-old's.
Saetan stopped a few feet behind her. Her sapphire eyes met his in the mirror, and he had to work to keep his expression neutral.
Those eyes. Clear and feral and dangerous before she slipped on the mask of humanity. And it was a mask. It wasn't like the dissembling she used to do as a child to keep the fact that she was Witch a secret. This was a deliberate effort simply to behuman. And that scared him.
"I should have told you," he said quietly. "I should have prepared you. But you've slept through most of the past four days, and I ..." His voice trailed off.
"How long?" she asked in a voice full of caverns and midnight.
He had to clear his throat before he could answer. "Two years. Actually, a little more than that. You'll be fifteen in a few weeks."
She said nothing, and he didn't know how to fill the silence.
Then she turned around to face him. "Do you want to have sex with this body?"
Blood. So much blood.
His gorge rose. Her mask fell away. And no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find Jaenelle in those sapphire eyes.
He had to give her an answer. He had to give her theright answer.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm your legal guardian now. Your adopted father, if you will. And fathers do not have sex with their daughters."
"Don't they?" she asked in a midnight whisper.
The floor disappeared under his feet. The room spun. He would have fallen if Jaenelle hadn't thrown her arms around his waist.
"Don't use Craft," he muttered through gritted teeth.
Too late. Jaenelle was already floating him to the couch. As he sank into it, she sat beside him and brushed her shoulder-length hair away from her neck. "You need fresh blood."