He’d unnerved her. Might as well shake her the rest of the way. “Your firstborn caught the scent of moon’s blood this evening.”
She tried to pull away from him. He managed to open his hand and release her.
“No.” She shook her head. “No.”
“Yeah. Seemed better to tell you instead of letting you stumble into that change of attitude in the morning.”
“But . . . he’ll start fussing.”
“Yes, he will.” Lucivar gave her that lazy, arrogant smile. “And because you snapped at me at dinner and scared him, you’ll have to let him fuss in order to reassure him that you’re all right otherwise.” Not giving her time to chew on that, he said, “Do you know of any reason why I couldn’t use a clean handkerchief just because it has a stain?”
She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Hell’s fire, Lucivar. You’re the Warlord Prince of Askavi. You can’t be pulling out a stained handkerchief in front of the Province Queens!”
Had to be a female thing. But just in case it wasn’t, he was not going to put the question to Daemon. “Okay. I just wondered.” He gave her a light kiss and extinguished the candle-light. “Go to sleep, Marian.”
“Is there something I should know about a stained handkerchief?”
He closed his eyes. “Not a thing. Go to sleep.”
“What kind of stain?”
“A no-kind of stain.”
“Are you sure?”
“Woman, will you let me sleep?” Exasperated, he created a ball of witchlight and floated it above the bed in order to glare at her—and caught her smiling at him.
FIVE
The next morning, Lucivar left his eyrie while the children were having breakfast. Lord Endar’s household wouldn’t be up and about earlier than his, but he had a quick stop to make before he confronted Dorian and her daughter.
He flew down to Riada and knocked on the door of the Queen’s residence at an hour of the day that should have had her court bristling at the interruption in their Lady’s private time.
She’d been expecting him, had even anticipated what he’d come to ask—or officially request, since she ruled Riada but was under his hand. He listened to her proposal and agreed with how she wanted to approach a problem that involved Eyriens but would have a serious impact on the Rihland people for generations if the problem wasn’t corrected now. Then he flew to Endar’s eyrie to deliver the terms by which a young Queen would be allowed to continue residing in Askavi.
Endar and Dorian’s son, Alanar, answered the door. Lucivar figured the only reason the boy still held half a pastry in one hand was that he already had so much food crammed in his mouth, he couldn’t fit another crumb in and still breathe.
“Prz,” Alanar said, adding a quick bow to help with the meaning of the sound.
“Chew,” Lucivar said. “Swallow. Then you can fly. If you hit a pocket of air with your mouth stuffed like that, you’ll choke.” Or spew it out, creating a very unpleasant sort of rain for the people below him.
The boy eased past him and went outside.
Shaking his head and wondering how often his own boys stuffed themselves that way when he wasn’t home and they weren’t under Marian’s watchful eyes, Lucivar closed the door and stepped farther into the eyrie’s front room. Unlike the front room in his home, which was uncluttered because he used it as a workout space in bad weather, this one held benches and tables—an arrangement that suggested a waiting area for people requesting an audience.
There were privileges to being a Queen, just as there were privileges attached to being a Warlord Prince. But those privileges came with a price, and if the price wasn’t paid . . .
Endar hurried toward him. “Prince? Did we have a meeting?”
“No, we didn’t. I’m here to speak to Ladies Dorian and Orian. You should stay and hear this so that you know the lines that are being drawn.”
Endar’s brown skin took on a gray hue. “Lines?”
Having come from Askavi Terreille, Endar would have heard the stories about how—and why—Lucivar had earned the reputation of being volatile and savage. And Endar had seen what happened here in Ebon Rih when Lucivar had stood alone on a killing field against the followers of another Warlord Prince. That the Demon Prince was in his home so early in the morning talking about drawing lines would be enough to frighten any sane man.
“Your wife and daughter, Lord Endar.”
“They’re still—”
“Now.”
He knew Endar had sent the message on a psychic thread. He knew the man had conveyed the urgency of the command. But it seemed Orian—or her mother—decided to keep him waiting as a way to test the status of a Queen against the power and temper of the Warlord Prince who ruled the land where they lived.
Endar was sweating by the time woman and girl made their appearance. Lucivar just waited.
“Prince Yaslana,” Dorian said, “how unexpected.”
Meaning, How rude of you to show up so early.
Lucivar waited.
“But it’s a delightful surprise,” Orian added.
The disrespectful undertone in her voice scraped at his temper and made it hard for him to remember that she and Daemonar were the same age, which meant the girl was riding the rough air and long years of adolescent emotions. But that disrespectful undertone being directed toward an Ebon-gray Warlord Prince also made it easy for him to remember what it had been like when the Queens in Terreille had thought they could get away with anything just because they were Queens.
Lucivar waited, assessing the females as members of the Eyrien community—and as adversaries. He kept his temper leashed, but when he finally spoke, his voice was sharp enough to sting—a tone every Eyrien warrior who worked for him recognized as a warning that, if challenged, his temper wouldn’t stay leashed, and his response would be brutal and bloody. “When I say now, I don’t mean after you’re done primping—or until you’ve delayed long enough to test me.”
The look in Dorian’s eyes confirmed that that was exactly what she’d been trying to do—test how far he would yield because her daughter was a Queen. The look of anticipation in Orian’s eyes made him wonder if the girl had been tainted to the point that she was already beyond saving. But he remembered the bright-eyed toddler she had been, and he wasn’t willing to give up on her, although he didn’t think she would thank him for the restrictions he was about to place on her life—or the indelicate ways he was prepared to assure her obedience.
If the only way to shake her out of whatever belief was taking root was to scare the shit out of her now, so be it. “When I say now, I mean now, and you will do well to remember that in the future. I am the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih. I am the Demon Prince of Askavi. For the sake of every other person living in Askavi, and especially here in Ebon Rih, whether they are landen or Blood, I will not allow you to test me again.”
“If this is about Titian being . . . ,” Orian began.
“It’s not about Titian. Not anymore. The wounds you inflicted will heal or scar as they will, and there is nothing you can do about that.” He stared at her until she squirmed. “This is about you, Orian, and what kind of Queen you will be. This is about whether or not you will survive. If you follow the path you seem to be on right now, of thinking that a Queen can do and be anything she pleases, then you won’t be looking at forming a court when you come of age. At best, you’ll be looking at exile or, more likely, execution. If you are what your behavior of the past few days suggests you are, then I will be meeting you on a killing field—and I will destroy you in order to protect everyone else.”