Saetan walked to the door and opened it. “Lucivar is downstairs if there is anything you want to say to him. If not, he’ll finish his drink and go home.”
Rainier waited until Saetan left before he scanned the room. Spotting the cane on the floor by his bed, he used Craft to float it over to him. Then he made his careful way downstairs.
Lucivar was sitting at a table, alone, drinking a glass of ale.
Since no one had noticed him yet, Rainier stood at the bottom of the stairs and observed the people. Mostly men, but a few women were there too, enjoying a drink and some gossip. Frequent glances at Lucivar, and more than one person shifting as if about to join him. But a word from Briggs or a light touch from Merry deflected that person, letting people know the Prince wanted solitude.
You don’t know what it’s like. That was what he’d said. Like the rest of the boyos and the coven, he’d met Lucivar after the Eyrien had come to SaDiablo Hall with Jaenelle. A strong, powerful Warlord Prince in his prime, Yaslana dominated a room just by walking into it. Yaslana dominated a killing field just by walking onto it. How could he reconcile the predator who moved with such lethal grace and the torn, broken body that had healed against all odds?
Rainier limped across the room. Merry moved to intercept him. After a quick glance at Lucivar, she let him pass and brought a glass of white wine to the table.
Lucivar studied him, then said quietly, “My right ankle hurts like a wicked bitch when I work it too hard, and I’ve got a few weather bones, as the old men call them. Small price to pay for having so much of me remade.”
Rainier sipped his wine, not sure what to say or ask.
“The ankle does just fine with everyday living, even chasing after the little beast,” Lucivar said. “But I’ve learned how to put a shield around the bone when I’m sparring or in a real fight. Since I’m shielded anyway when I’m on a field, it can’t be detected.”
“It’s a weakness an adversary could exploit,” Rainier said.
Lucivar gave him that lazy, arrogant smile. “If the adversary lived long enough.” The smile faded. “When I came out of that healing sleep, Jaenelle told me there would be no second chances. She’d used up everything I could give her—and everything she could give me—to rebuild my wings and heal the rest of me. If I did what she told me to do, my body would be whole and sound. If I pushed muscles that were still rebuilding themselves and damaged them, the damage would be permanent.” He drained his glass of ale. “You’ve had more than one second chance, Rainier, and now you’ve run out of chances. If you’d followed her instructions in the beginning, you would have had a weather bone and muscles that would ache when you worked them too hard. But that leg would have held up for you, even dancing. Now you’ve lost some of that, maybe a lot of that, because you damaged bone and muscles that were trying to heal.”
So by trying to prove I wasn’t a cripple and didn’t need anyone’s pity, I turned myself into a cripple. The bitterness of that truth burned his belly.
“You’re a man with a damaged leg,” Lucivar said. “That doesn’t make you less of a Warlord Prince—unless you choose to cripple that too.”
Lucivar pushed his chair back and stood. He raised a hand in farewell. Briggs, who was behind the bar, nodded and mirrored the gesture.
“I’ll see you and Surreal tomorrow morning at full light,” Lucivar said.
“What time is that?” Rainier asked.
“Your leg’s injured, not your head. Figure it out.”
Rainier watched Lucivar walk out of The Tavern.
Merry came up to the table. “Want something to eat? I’ve got some stew left and a hearty soup.”
He started to refuse, then realized he was hungry. “A bowl of soup would be welcome.”
She brought the soup, along with a small loaf of sweet-and-spice bread and soft cheese. He ate slowly, savoring the flavors. While he ate, he watched the people, especially Merry and Briggs.
He wasn’t whole. Might never be whole. Other men had faced that same truth and rebuilt their lives around the strengths they still had and the work they could do.
People had died in Jenkell’s damn spooky house. Children had died in that house because he hadn’t been skilled enough or strong enough to protect them. Was damaging his leg under the guise of helping it get stronger some kind of self-punishment for that failure to protect and defend?
No one else blamed him for the ones he couldn’t save. Maybe it was time to stop blaming himself.
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.