Having finally coaxed his daughter of his soul into restless sleep, Saetan crossed the room and took her place beside the second son of his blood. He was exhausted, eyes and limbs aching, his shoulder wet with Jaenelle's tears.

He looked down at Lucivar, silent. If he didn't know, he would have thought his son was laid out for burial. But at least he was better than he had been.

Mother Night. It had been like a nightmare, Andulvar's summons, urgent and simple, *I found your son. Come quickly.* He had gone, and quickly, met Andulvar and Prothvar halfway to Jaenelle's cottage. The grim expressions on their faces should have told him enough – it took a lot to surprise a warrior as seasoned as those two – but they didn't.

Nothing could have prepared him for the shattered ruins of his youngest son's body, wings tattered and broken. He could barely even see his son in that, and laid his hand on Lucivar's forehead, feeling the heat that would devour him, and looked at his Ebon Grey – how proud he should have had the chance to be, to have such a son! – and winced at the dull color. Empty. Drained.

There would not even be a chance to be demon-dead. And Saetan did not have the heart to make him continue like this. Not his son.

And then Jaenelle had given him hope.

He reached out and smoothed some sweat-soaked hair off Lucivar's forehead. When had he grown so much? There was the picture that Jaenelle had given him, but that showed nothing. And certainly none of this. Not the way his forehead was already lined, not the scars that must have laid skin open to the bone. Not the stubborn, bull-headed way his mouth lay when relaxed, that Saetan remembered from a much younger child: but I want to. Why can't I? It's not dangerous.

He wanted to be angry. Being angry would have been easier, but he was too tired for it.

Lucivar stirred, very slightly, and made a small sound. Saetan looked at his closed eyes and wondered how many secrets his son would want to hide from him. Too many, no doubt, in misguided shame and inherited pride that he would feel the need to bear alone. How could a father let his son endure all that must have happened alone? How could a father press his son to speak of it?

When Lucivar was born, after Luthvian quailed away, fearing his threat, he had laid a hand on Lucivar's forehead to name him. Lucivar had opened his eyes that moment and looked at Saetan with all the defiance in the world, even so young.

Saetan laid his hand on his son's forehead now, but his eyes did not open, although perhaps the defiance was simply in living. The healing was still far from over.

And yet Lucivar stirred again, under his hand, with a murmur and a snarl as deadly as it was quiet. Saetan pulled back.

But if he could wait, he might have his son back yet, and still have the chance to know him.

No, that was wrong. Dorothea had taken both his sons from him, and he would never have them back as they should be again. He pulled the blankets up over the scars on Lucivar's chest. His son might hate him, for abandoning him, or if not for that whatever he had been told through the years when he should have been learning Protocol. Even if he woke and lived, Lucivar might want nothing to do with him.

Saetan stood up jerkily and took a few steps away from the bed.

He sent a spear thread to Andulvar. His friend could do this, keep this watch, better than Saetan could. Just this time. He needed to go back to the keep, to his study, and weave a Black Widow's Tangled Web of pain and revenge for the woman who had stolen his sons and broken them beyond even Jaenelle's repair.

They could be everything he had always wanted them to be, and still they would not be the same boys they should have been. Lucivar would not, anyway. Perhaps he would never find Daemon at all. He looked over at his son and watched his chest rise and fall, and wished he could mend everything that had gone wrong.

Lucivar stirred, making a small sound that might have been of pain. Remembered pain, but pain nonetheless. Saetan hesitated.

Will you ignore him just because you are afraid?

He crossed back to his son and sat down. The only song he could remember was an old lullaby, so he hummed that, watching Lucivar's face. The knot in his heart eased a little as his son settled. But only a little.

At least he was still alive, Saetan thought. At least he hadn't lost his wings.

Beside the secrets hidden in the lines on his son's forehead, that thought was bleak and little comfort.