“Thank you, Prince.”
He couldn’t interpret the look in Sadi’s eyes when the Prince said, “Don’t give us a reason to regret this decision.”
Then Sadi was gone.
While he waited for the Eyrien who would escort him to his cousin’s house, Dillon read over the information about the six courts. For the first time in a long time, he felt hopeful about his future.
Jillian wasn’t sure what Prince Yaslana wanted her to say. She wasn’t sure if he knew what he wanted her to say.
“You want to send me away?”
The muscles in his jaw worked, and he didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Want to? No. But it has been suggested that you would benefit from experience outside of Ebon Rih.”
What did that mean? “Like a visit to Dhemlan?”
Yaslana winced. “That’s a bit far.”
Far? She accompanied Marian and the children whenever the hearth witch wanted to visit Amdarh to shop or see a play. The SaDiablo family had a town house there, and they all usually stayed in the side of the town house kept for guests.
“This would be more than a visit,” Yaslana said. “This would be a kind of apprenticeship in a court. Sadi made the inquiries and received consent. He can tell you more about it. If you’re interested. Not that you have to be interested. You’re young. But . . . something different for a while.”
Something different. Yes. Would Dillon have seemed so attractive if she hadn’t been looking for something different? But going away to somewhere that wasn’t home? Living among people she didn’t know? Exciting but . . .
“Could I bring a friend?” she asked.
Yaslana finally looked at her, and she had the feeling he was bracing himself because he knew what she was about to say.
“Who did you have in mind?”
When she told him, he swore softly, vigorously. Finally, he said, “It could take a few days, but I’ll see if it can be arranged.”
She watched him fly away and still wasn’t sure what he’d wanted her to say. She’d have to talk to Marian about finding someone to help with the children, and talk to Nurian, of course. But Yaslana wouldn’t have mentioned it at all if he didn’t believe she was ready to fly on her own. She was sure of that much.
THIRTY-NINE
Lucivar called in the double-buckle fighting belt that Eyriens wore in battle, then sheathed a fighting knife that was bigger, heavier, and a lot meaner than the hunting knife worn as standard dress. A palm-sized knife went into the sheath between the belt buckles. Two more knives were sheathed in the boots.
Chain mail settled over the light leather vest. Metal-studded leather gauntlets closed over wrists and forearms.
Last, he created two Ebon-gray shields—one skintight, the other barely a breath above his skin.
He looked at the other man in the room and nodded. “I’m ready.”
He wasn’t getting ready to attend some fancy aristo dance.
Lucivar Yaslana was getting ready for war.
Lucivar scanned the crowded room filled with bright dresses and too-bright voices. Finding the enemy, he called in his war blade and moved forward a couple of steps, then braced as the unleashed sexual heat that flowed in behind him washed over the crowd of aristo Blood, making them gasp, making them want, making them think that the heat promised hot pleasure when what it really promised was frigid pain.
He had come for war. The Sadist had come to play.
It amounted to the same thing.
He took a few more steps toward his quarry. The Blood moved aside, giving him a clear path.
“Before she left the living Realms, the Queen of Ebon Askavi signed a document that put all of Askavi under my hand,” Lucivar said, using Craft to make his voice thunder through the building. “She told me I wasn’t required to become the Warlord Prince of Askavi, that I could allow the District Queens and the Province Queens above them independent rule, unless the time came when they permitted Terreillean practices to encroach on the Blood here. Looking the other way when reputations are ruined and honor soiled because some bitch thinks it’s fun to damage other people’s lives as long as she suffers no consequences? That’s how the destruction of the Blood begins. Some of your ancestors fled from Terreille in order to escape those kinds of games, and those games are what I pledged to fight against when I came to Kaeleer. They are what I will always fight against, even if that means turning every Rihland city into a killing field and slaughtering every Rihland aristo in Askavi.”
The stink of fear filled the room as the aristos looked at him, then looked at the Sadist, and recognized living weapons that were harnessed to a single purpose.
“As of today, I don’t care if the person is male or female. I don’t care how aristo their family bloodline is or who they can claim in their family line—or if they are the least powerful person in a village. I do not care. Any transaction between individuals or families that ends with a reputation at risk or honor being questioned or someone being harmed in any way will be investigated by the court of the Queen who rules that village, and monthly reports will be sent to the Province Queens for review. If I hear of any attempt to hide an impropriety, the Province Queens will answer to me, and from now on, the price for looking the other way will be steep. But tonight, as warning and lesson, I’ll start with you.”
Lucivar raised his war blade and pointed it at Lady Blyte, the bitch whose behavior had started Lord Dillon—and him—down this path. “All the Queens in Askavi will be given the names of the men you played by promising a handfast in exchange for them becoming your lover. You owe those men a debt because you then claimed ignorance of the promises you made and allowed your father to damage the reputation of those men to the point of them being considered prey for other women who had no honorable intentions. The Rihlander Queens will make reparation by seeing that those men are given a position in a court and sufficient income to support themselves, or they will make arrangements for those men to work at an honest trade—and they will guarantee on their Jewels that they will stop any further attempts to use the past as a hammer against those men’s efforts to restore their reputations and honor. The Rihlander Queens will do this for the men who are still among the living. There was one who was so filled with despair after dealing with this Lady that he found death preferable to remaining among the living.
“And you, you smug bitch. Do you think I’ll let you walk away from this without paying what you owe?”
That was exactly what she believed. He saw it in her eyes. He also saw a keen hatred for him because he had exposed her and made her behavior a public humiliation.
“Everything has a price,” he said, letting his voice go quiet so that everyone strained to hear. “And you are the lesson of what it will cost anyone who plays Terreillean games in my Territory.”
Rising out of the depths of the abyss like an Ebon-gray arrow of fury, Lucivar struck Blyte with power to shatter her Jewels, breaking her back to basic Craft. She screamed as the Jewels in her pendant and ring shattered and fell to the floor.
“You have been stripped of your power,” Lucivar said. “You will always be a Blood female, but you are no longer a witch and will no longer be addressed by the title of Lady. Your debt to the men you harmed has been paid.”
He turned and walked toward the doorway where his brother waited. He didn’t need to see Daemon focus on something behind him. He felt the anger rushing toward him.
“You bastard!” Blyte’s father cried, brandishing a decorative knife.