He watched the color drain out of every boy’s face when they realized he was serious.
When they realized that the stories about him weren’t stories.
“Yes, sir,” Raeth said, and swallowed hard.
Leaving Raeth to sort out the other males, Lucivar wrapped himself in two Ebon-gray shields as he strode over the lawn. He closed in on Surreal as a girl’s shield exploded and the girl fell to the ground. Not broken, but seriously drained of power.
All of them had been drained.
Surreal swung a club against the last remaining shield. It exploded like the others, the young Queen’s Jewel drained of power. Not the strongest girl, but the one who had been kept for last so that she had to watch the rest of them go down, knowing she had no hope of surviving this kind of attack.
Lucivar let out a sharp whistle.
Surreal spun. By the time she faced him, the club had been exchanged for her crossbow, which was aimed just above his belt.
“Threaten, threaten, blah blah blah,” he said—and watched the wild look in her gold-green eyes become wilder. “We’re done here. If you need to work off more temper, take a knife to a straw dummy until you rip it apart. Or you can spar with me until you’re tired enough to hit the ground and not get back up. Your choice.”
“Take a piss in the wind, Lucivar,” Surreal snarled.
“Your choice,” he repeated.
“If that little bitch makes a play for Sadi, I will rip off her skin.”
“Understood. I will let the High Lord know.”
“And the next one who says or implies that girls who were broken must have done something to deserve it will forfeit her tongue.”
And there was one reason for her fury against all these girls—even the ones who had said nothing. “You going to use a knife for that?”
“Unlike your way of ripping it out?”
Lucivar gave her a lazy, arrogant smile. “Yeah.”
Surreal vanished her crossbow. “I’ll use a dull knife so I have to hack at it.” She walked away from the Hall.
Lucivar watched her until he felt confident that she wouldn’t turn back and attack. Then he looked at the boys Raeth had assigned to lead the two groups of girls Liath had already separated from the herd. Raeth, along with Liath and the rest of the boys, headed toward him. He waited until they could hear him. Then he focused on the remaining girls.
“Lesson and warning,” he said. “Whether you’re allowed to remain at the Hall for your training or are sent home, this is the only warning you’ll receive. The next time any of you play the bitch and come at one of us in any way for any reason, we will eliminate the threat.” He stared at the young Queen who, he suspected, was the cause of all of this. “And if you’re thinking of making a play for Sadi, either as a lover or as his Queen? May the Darkness have mercy on you, because he’ll respond by breaking you apart, piece by piece—and you will thank him when he allows you to die.”
Lucivar looked over all of them. Based on experience, he would recommend sending home a couple more girls besides that Queen. It might be the only way to keep them alive long enough for them to mature out of the bitch stage.
“Not everyone is suited to serve in every court. If you don’t fit with the rest of the individuals who also serve, you don’t belong. You don’t have to be good friends with everyone else in a court, but you have to be able to work together, have to be able to be courteous to each other. Some Queens will ignore backbiting and whispered slurs if those things are done by their favorites. Good Queens will not. Probably best if I don’t know exactly what was said, since I have a feeling my response would be similar to Surreal’s. Just know, here and now, that if you cross some lines there is no going back, even if you’re just being mouthy. A young Eyrien Queen living in Ebon Rih crossed one of those lines a few months ago. She was banished from Askavi and sent back to Terreille. She wasn’t there very long before she enraged some Eyrien warriors by playing the bitch. I was told her execution was savage even by Eyrien standards.” He breathed out slowly. “You all have until Sadi returns to decide if you’re going to continue to cause trouble or if you’re going to make an effort to grow up and meet the expectations of this house.”
Lucivar turned to Raeth. “Get them all back to their rooms. Let them walk.”
Raeth eyed the girls, then leaned in. “Some of them don’t look like they can walk that far.”
“Then let them crawl.”
He watched the boy’s eyes widen. And he wondered where Raeth would draw a line between obeying and helping someone even if there was a price.
He’d have to find out if these boys had learned to air walk yet or float an object—including a person—on air to move it easily. If they didn’t know how, he’d spend the next couple of days teaching them.
He’d let things settle for a day before deciding what to teach the girls that Surreal hadn’t already taught them.
Grizande explored the room she’d been given—the room once occupied by the Tigre Queen who had served in the Dark Court. The bedding and curtains were fairly new, but the furniture carried the feel of age, and all of it had carvings and decorations that were traditional to the Tigre people. A dressing table with a mirror. Aristo females used such things, not a witch who had been moved from one small village to another and hadn’t been taught anything that wasn’t useful for her survival. But she didn’t want to shame the Prince who had granted her sanctuary in the place where the Queen who was more than a Queen had lived, so she would need to learn some female things and try to fit in with the other girls.
Helene offered a practical kindness more like the Sisters of the Hourglass than Marian mother. At least it seemed that way. Perhaps affection was reserved for girls who worked for her. Either way, the woman had taken time to show her the room and the bathroom she should use. She introduced the maids who took care of this square of rooms. She introduced a Warlord named Tarl, the head gardener. He in turn introduced some men who worked under his command—men she would see working in the courtyard that provided open ground for these rooms—and then showed her a large shallow box that held a mixture of sand and dirt where Jaalan should make his poops.
While she waited for the other man who would be her teacher, she thought about why Helene and then Tarl had introduced her to so many of their people, and she realized they wanted her to know these were people she should expect to see working in and around the space that was, in its own way, her home territory now. They were not threats.
Now all she had to do was learn to tolerate the presence of a Queen who could claim the same home territory.
The man who knocked on her door was a Prince named Raine. A teacher who said he was from the Territory of Dharo but had come to Dhemlan to teach because he wanted to learn about different peoples.
She showed Raine the books the Prince had given her and the book of empty lined paper. He asked her questions about the Tigre way of teaching but didn’t ask why a witch who wore Birthright Sapphire hadn’t been taught to read the common tongue and had limited ability to speak it. He wondered; she could see the questions in his eyes. But he didn’t ask.
He didn’t stay long, but the weight of how much she needed to learn while she was allowed to stay here felt crushing.
She was looking around the room, not sure what she should do, when someone else knocked on her door.
Strange custom to intrude on a private den. Or was she the only one who was expected to surrender privacy, because she was an outsider?
Except this visitor was welcome, if unexpected.
“You not resting,” Grizande said, stepping back to let Daemonar enter her room.