TWO
Lucivar landed at the communal eyrie and swore as his
right ankle sang with pain. He loved his son. He really did. But
this morning he didn’t love the little beast quite so
much.
He didn’t think about
the aches and pains that came from broken bones or other wounds. No
Eyrien did. They were a part of life, a part of being a warrior.
And considering the life he’d led during the seventeen hundred
years he’d survived in Terreille, he had fewer aches and pains than
most men his age. But having that ankle hurt today pissed him
off.
He didn’t shield the
bone in his own eyrie. It needed to work without that brace made of
power, especially since the bones didn’t actually need that brace. Shielding at all was mostly
caution on his part. He’d seen enough men go down in a fight
because an enemy knew about previous injuries and aimed blows at
the weak spots. No one outside his family had known the extent of
his injuries—until last night when he’d allowed Rainier to be shown
the truth. No one knew his weak spots. In truth, he didn’t have
any. Jaenelle was an excellent Healer, and the bones and muscles
she’d repaired ten years ago might ache a bit quicker than they had
a century ago, but they were whole and healthy.
Regardless of being
whole and healthy, having a pot slammed into his ankle still hurt
like a wicked bitch. Which he would have avoided if Marian hadn’t
suddenly gotten sick and begun eliminating food from both ends. So
he’d been focused on her and not on the boy.
Just a stomach upset
that was going around the village, Nurian had said when she checked
Marian and gave him bottles of the tonic she and the Healers in
Riada had been making nonstop since yesterday. Marian would be fine
by tomorrow. Which meant Daemonar would probably be puking all over
the bed tonight.
He could do with
fewer thrills in his life. Especially today. But for the next
couple of hours, his father was looking after his wife and boy, and
he could focus his attention on Surreal and Rainier. Jaenelle had
given him the boundaries—and some very specific things each of them
shouldn’t do—but deciding how to work those bodies to best
advantage was up to him. So he needed to be here today to take them
through careful moves, assessing muscles to help Surreal and
Rainier become as healthy as they could be.
In a couple of days,
he could turn the workouts over to Hallevar. But he couldn’t give
anyone else command today because there was something else he
needed to assess.
He stopped for a
moment and put a protective shield around the bones of both ankles.
Then he walked into the communal eyrie.
The front room was
big enough for weapons practice and was also used for occasional
social events. This morning the eighteen adult Eyrien males who
lived around Riada were waiting for him, including Falonar, his
second-in-command; Hallevar, the arms master and fighting
instructor who had been one of his own teachers; Kohlvar, who was a
weapons maker; Zaranar and Rothvar, who were trained guards and
good fighters; Endar, who served as a guard but wasn’t really
suited to be one; and Tamnar, a youth Hallevar had brought with him
to the service fairs to get the young Warlord out of
Terreille.
Not a lot of men to
guard close to half of Ebon Rih, but when two of those men were
Warlord Princes—and one of those Warlord Princes wore Ebon-gray
Jewels—nineteen men were quite sufficient to take care of any
problems around Riada and Doun that couldn’t be handled by the
courts of Lady Shayne and Lady Alyss.
Of course, when there
were only nineteen men, there wasn’t much of a buffer when two of
them scraped against each other’s tempers. It was no secret that he
and Falonar had never liked each other, but they had worked well
together these past two years—until recently, anyway. Something had
changed in Falonar over the past few weeks—or maybe the excitement
of settling in a new place had worn off, and Lucivar was now
getting a more accurate look at the man Falonar had
become.
He spotted Surreal
and Rainier standing off to the side just as Falonar turned to see
who had come in.
“The weather is
fine,” Falonar said. “We should be working outside.”
Publicly criticizing
or challenging every order he gave was one of the things that had
changed in Falonar’s behavior in the past few weeks. Nothing wrong
with the second-in-command challenging an order in private, but
these pissing contests in front of the other men had to
stop.
“Well, today we’re
working inside,” Lucivar replied mildly, knowing the mildness would
sting Falonar’s pride in a way responding with temper couldn’t,
because, in a situation like this, temper was given only to an
equal.
“Only the weak need
to work inside on a day like this,” Falonar said, putting more bite
in his voice even as his face flushed at being spoken to as if he
were a boy.
Lucivar studied the
other Warlord Prince. The tone of that last remark almost sounded
like a challenge. Almost. Falonar had aristo arrogance on top of
Eyrien arrogance, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew Sapphire couldn’t
survive a fight with Ebon-gray.
“Fine,” Lucivar said
dismissively.“Hallevar,Tamnar, you’re in here with me. Falonar, you
can take the others out to play in the snow if that’s what you need
to do.”
Falonar’s gold eyes
blazed with anger. He shifted his weight into a fighting
stance.
The door opened, and
Jillian rushed in.
Both men turned
toward the girl who had shifted a little more toward being a woman
in the past few months.
“You’re supposed to
be in school,” Lucivar said at the same time Falonar said, “You’re
supposed to be home doing chores.”
Jillian lifted her
chin. “I want to be here. I can learn to fight, same as
Tamnar.”
“I forbid it,”
Falonar said.
“You what?” Surreal said, taking a step toward
Falonar.
All the Warlords
flinched at the cutting edge in her voice and took a step back,
indicating they wanted no part of this fight.
Lucivar swore
silently. Great. Fine. Wonderful. Just what he needed—Surreal being
pissed off at Falonar. Or more pissed off than usual. On the other
hand, if they took a couple of swings at each other, maybe that
would clear the air a bit.
Falonar rounded on
Surreal and said viciously, “Just because you want to grow a pair
of balls doesn’t mean I should permit an Eyrien girl to do the
same.”
“Growing a pair of
balls is easy,” Surreal snarled. “Growing a heart, that’s a lot
more difficult.”
“This is none of your
business,” Falonar shouted.
“And none of yours,”
she shouted back. “Just because you’re humping her
sister—”
“Surreal!” Rainier snapped.
“—doesn’t give you
the right to control Jillian’s life!”
“Damn right!” Lucivar
roared loudly enough to make everyone flinch. Even Surreal,
although she was the one who looked
ready to ram a knife between his ribs, which was a sharp reminder
that dealing with a Dea al Mon witch wasn’t the same as dealing
with an Eyrien witch. “If anyone gets to control someone’s life
around here, it’s me.” He pointed at
Jillian, then pointed to a corner of the room that was away from
the men. “You. Over there.” He pointed at Surreal, then pointed at
the other far corner. “You. Over there.”
Surreal bared her
teeth. Her right hand curled.
He wasn’t sure if
that was a habitual reaction when she was angry or if she was now
holding a sight-shielded stiletto.
“Witchling, if you
want to kiss dirt, I will let you have the first
punch.”
He waited, watching
her.
She stormed over to
the corner he’d indicated. Thank the Darkness for
that.
Lucivar turned to
Falonar and kept his voice low. “What in the name of Hell is wrong
with you? Did you wake up this morning and decide to piss off
everyone with tits?”
“She doesn’t belong
here,” Falonar said, keeping his voice just as low. “If we lived as
Eyriens should live, she wouldn’t have tried to be here. And we
wouldn’t have to tolerate outsiders among us.”
“Surreal is not an
outsider. She’s a member of my family.”
He saw the disgust in
Falonar’s eyes, the contempt, and almost heard the word Falonar
didn’t quite dare say. At least, not yet. Half-breed. For most Eyriens, family had to do with
having the proper bloodlines. Lucivar didn’t give a damn about
bloodlines. For him, family was about heart.
“If she was good
enough to sleep with, she’s good enough for everything else,” he
said too softly.
“Tell that to all the
men who paid her to spread her legs.”
He didn’t play by
anyone else’s rules, and since Falonar seemed to want him to start
a fight over the way Surreal used to earn a living, he wasn’t going
to oblige.
“Well,” Lucivar said
with a savage smile, “if that’s how you feel about her, I’ll have
her tally up your bill.”
As he walked away
from Falonar, he glanced at Surreal, decided she wouldn’t explode
in the next few minutes—at least, not at anyone but him—and went to
the corner where Jillian waited, looking scared and
defiant.
Resting one hand on
the wall, he spread his wings to give them some privacy. It
occurred to him that he could have created a sight shield and aural
shield around them—and he knew that he would seriously hurt any man
who cut off a young girl in that way from the watchful eyes of
other adults.
“Why aren’t you in
school?” he asked quietly.
“Because I want to be
here.” Her voice trembled, but she looked him in the
eyes.
Girl has balls, he thought. Of course, running tame
in his home might have something to do with it, since she watched
Daemonar and was used to being around him. But this was different,
and they both knew it.
“School is
important,” he said.
“So is
this.”
All kinds of messages
in those three words. And he hadn’t forgotten what he’d been told
about the attack on the Eyriens here two years ago. Hallevar had
made light of it at the time to spare the girl’s feelings, but
Jillian had killed her first man that day, putting an arrow in the
bastard’s heart. That had been the main reason he’d let her
continue an informal kind of training after it became clear that
the other women wanted no part of that training.
“Has anyone tried to
hurt you, Jillian?”
She hesitated. “Not
here.”
Not here could explain why Nurian had made the
decision to take her younger sister and emigrate to
Kaeleer.
“Practice and
training are done in the morning,” Jillian said.
True enough, but this
morning just proved that being around the men wasn’t the right time
for Jillian’s training, not if Falonar was going to snap and snarl
the whole time the girl was with them.
He closed his wings
and lowered his hand. “You go on to school now. You tell the
teacher you’re late because I kept you. If she has a problem with
that, she can talk to me.”
“But . .
.”
“If you don’t give me
any sass about this, I will figure out how to work in some regular,
formal training for you.” Especially now, when the girl might be a
good working partner for both Surreal and Rainier.
Jillian’s shoulders
relaxed. She smiled shyly. “Yes, sir.”
He stepped aside and
watched her run out of the eyrie, her steps light. Then he walked
over to his next problem, who looked ready to tear out his throat
with her teeth.
With her black hair
and sun-kissed brown skin, Surreal looked like a beautiful woman
from Dhemlan or Hayll—until a man noticed the delicately pointed
ears. They were an indication, and warning, of her other bloodline.
Just as he had a dual heritage of Hayllian and Eyrien but was
Eyrien in every way that counted, Surreal was Dea al Mon, one of
the Children of the Wood. They were a fiercely private and feral
race who lived closer to the land than any other humans. And
because they seemed to be born knowing what to do with a knife,
they were deadly.
He wasn’t afraid of
Surreal—he was a Warlord Prince and his Jewels outranked hers—but
he never forgot the Dea al Mon side of her nature when he dealt
with her temper.
That didn’t mean he
wouldn’t give her a kick in the ass if she needed one.
He braced one hand
near Surreal’s head and, again, opened his wings and curved them to
provide some privacy.
“You dismissed her
because she doesn’t have balls,” Surreal said.
“That’s insulting,”
Lucivar said. “You should know me better than that.”
She stared at
him.
He blew out a breath.
“I sent her to school, which is where a girl her age
belongs.”
“And the training she
wants?”
“I’ll work that out
somehow, although you might not be as happy with your training
schedule because of it.”
The angry heat faded
from her gold-green eyes, replaced by reluctant
amusement.
“Now, I’ve got a wife
at home who started the day by puking and shitting herself. I
expect my son will start puking and shitting any minute, which I’m
sure will delight my father to no end. So we can do your training
assessment here or in the front room of my eyrie, where you’ll most
likely get to participate in today’s adventures.”
“Those are my
choices?”
“Yeah. Those are your
choices.”
“In that case,
sugar—”
“Go easy, now!”
Hallevar said sharply.
Lucivar’s head
whipped around toward the other men. He’d heard the clack of sparring sticks, but he hadn’t paid
attention to a usual sound when he had a Gray-Jeweled witch in
front of him brimming with anger.
Too late, he thought, seeing Falonar connect with
the sparring stick Rainier held and knowing how a man would step in
response to that move. He reached out with Craft as Rainier’s leg
gave out, intending to catch the man and stop the fall that would
cause more damage to already damaged muscle and bone. But his power
tangled with Sapphire power, fouling his and Falonar’s attempts to
stop the fall.
Rainier cried out in
pain as he hit the stone floor—and they all heard bone
snap.
“No!” Surreal screamed. She rushed over and dropped
to her knees beside Rainier at the same moment Lucivar reached
Falonar and shoved the Eyrien back a step—and wondered why the man
had a Sapphire shield around himself for what should have been a
slow warm-up.
“I tried to catch
him,” Falonar said, sounding regretful.
Except that
particular tone of regret made Lucivar think of the hunting camp
and the boys who had been hurt during training exercises. It was an
aristo tone that meant the boy who had done the harm wasn’t sorry
at all.
“What’s wrong with
you?” Lucivar shouted.
“Nothing is wrong
with me,” Falonar snapped. “I just
proved what you should have known—a cripple doesn’t have any place among Eyrien
warriors.”
Surreal threw herself
at Falonar, her scream of rage startling Lucivar enough that he put
a skintight Red shield around himself. He grabbed the back of her
shirt before she reached Falonar, and began a spin that would lift
her away from the other Eyrien.
She lashed out with
her right hand as she was lifted and tossed away from the
men.
Lucivar felt
Falonar’s Sapphire shield break under a punch of Surreal’s Gray
power as she lashed out. Saw the blood on the Eyrien’s left arm.
Felt the big knife that slid on his Red shield instead of slicing
him along the waist as Falonar responded with a counterattack.
Tossing Surreal aside, Lucivar continued the spin, calling in his
own fighting knife.
By the time he faced
Falonar, he was armed, he was balanced, and he was
ready.
The fury in Falonar’s
eyes was aimed right at him, but the man stepped back and lowered
his knife.
Lucivar glanced at
Falonar’s left arm. A deep slice through muscle, freely
bleeding.
“Surreal,” he said,
never taking his eyes off the other Warlord Prince, “go to the
Keep. Now.”
“I’ll go back to The
Tavern after—”
“Unless you want a
knife dance with me, you will do as you’re told,” he
snapped.
As he felt her stare
at his back, he’d never been more aware of how much of her temper
and inclinations came from her Dea al Mon heritage.
There were good
reasons why the Children of the Wood were feared by the other races
in Kaeleer.
She moved slowly,
circling around him and Falonar.
“Prince Falonar may have proved that a cripple has
no place among Eyriens, but I just proved he wouldn’t have survived
that demon-dead bastard any better than Rainier did.”
Mother Night, she’s riding the killing edge. The
wild look in her eyes wasn’t quite sane. That, more than anything
else, was why males didn’t want witches involved in physical
fighting. Females were a lot harder to control once they rose to
the killing edge.
“Go to the Keep,” he
said firmly. “I will deal with this.” And I’ll
hurt you if I have to.
The moment she walked
out of the communal eyrie and it was safe to move without provoking
an attack, Zaranar and Rothvar rushed over to Rainier.
Rothvar’s hand
hovered over Rainier’s leg. “Hell’s fire, there are healing spells
already holding those muscles and bone together.”
Lucivar backed away
from Falonar, who stood straight and proud despite the bleeding
arm.
“Get that arm
tended,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Falonar looked at the
wound that had come from the sight-shielded blade held by a furious
woman. “What is there to say?”
Plenty, Lucivar thought. “Get it
tended.”
He waited until
Falonar left before sending out a call on an Ebon-gray spear
thread. *Daemon!*
*Lucivar?*
*I need Jaenelle here
as a Healer. Now.*
*Who?*
*Rainier.*
*We’ll be
there.*
The link between them
snapped as Daemon shut him out. He didn’t take offense. He’d just
dumped a basket of problems in his brother’s lap, the most
dangerous being the Queen they both loved and still served—the
Queen who was also a Black Widow and a Healer. There wasn’t going
to be anything pleasant about being in a Coach with Jaenelle while
riding the Winds to Ebon Rih, not after telling her that Rainier
was the reason for the urgent call.
Vanishing his knife,
Lucivar looked at Rainier, who lay on the floor, his eyes closed,
his face tight with pain. Then he looked at the two Warlords. “Can
you get him to the Keep?”
They nodded. Using
Craft, they lifted Rainier and gently floated him out of the
eyrie.
Hallevar looked at
the rest of the Warlords, then jerked a thumb toward the
door.
The men bolted, no
doubt glad to be clear of the anger and whatever problems were
coming.
“Falonar is a
Sapphire-Jeweled Warlord Prince and your second-in-command,”
Hallevar said. “I trained you both when you were youngsters in the
hunting camps, and that gives me some leave to speak my mind, but a
Warlord Prince only tolerates so much of that.”
Lucivar just
waited.
“It started with
Falonar saying something about assessing Rainier’s skills, and
Rainier saying he thought it was best to wait for you. Guess that
didn’t sit well with Falonar because the next thing I knew, he
tossed a sparring stick to Rainier and started the moves. Once
you’re that far, the choice is counter the moves or get whacked. I
began watching close. You’d said the Dharo Warlord Prince had been
wounded in a fight and you had him here to heal and improve his
skills. I don’t think you said how bad the leg was. That’s not an
excuse, but I don’t think you actually said.”
“A war blade sliced
through the muscles of Rainier’s leg and halfway through the bone.
He was fighting a demon-dead Eyrien Warlord who had worn Jewels
stronger than Opal,” Lucivar said.
“Then Rainier never
had a chance.”
“No. He wasn’t
supposed to have a chance. He wasn’t supposed to survive. No one
who had been trapped in that spooky house was supposed to
survive.”
Hallevar sighed. “I
don’t know what’s wrong with Falonar lately, but I do know it’s
something to do with you.”
Lucivar echoed the
sigh. “Not surprising.”
“Not surprising,”
Hallevar agreed. “But I think you’d best find out
why.”