When she showed no sign of winding down, he ordered Andulvar to remain in his room, put an Ebon-gray shield around the front room, and handed Marian one of the sparring sticks to let her vent some of that temper by using him as an opponent.
Rage seemed to sharpen her skill because she almost managed to hit him a couple of times. Under other circumstances, he would have been pleased about that and praised the skill. Now he just let her whack at him until the muscles in her arms shook so much she couldn’t lift the sparring stick.
Not being a fool, he wasn’t careless about approaching her—and didn’t breathe easy until he pulled the sparring stick out of her hands and vanished both.
He could deal with rage, but it ripped him when she started to cry.
“Shh, sweetheart, shh. It will be all right.” He wrapped his arms around her.
“Our boy, Lucivar. She threatened to do that to our boy.”
“Daemonar is smart and he’s trained.”
“So were you at his age, and Prythian and her bitches still managed to put one of those things on you.”
Nothing he could say to that, so he just held her and waited for the storm to pass. Once she’d stopped crying and quieted enough to sniffle into a handkerchief, he said, “I think I understand now why Andulvar, the previous Demon Prince, stayed as long as he did after he became demon-dead.”
Marian wiped the tears off her face and tucked the handkerchief into the pocket of her skirt. “He stayed to keep Saetan company, to help him maintain his balance.”
“That was part of it.” Lucivar ran a hand down her long black hair, noticing there were a few strands of silver now. “But I think he stayed because someone needed to remember why the war between Terreille and Kaeleer had been fought, and why so many died.
“When I first came to the Shadow Realm and met the boyos who were living at the Hall, none of them had heard of a Ring of Obedience. A Ring of Honor, yes. That was a prize only worn by a man who served in a Queen’s First Circle. Yes, she could use it to control every aspect of their lives, but why would she? And any Queen who did want that much control didn’t have a court for long. What they couldn’t see was how the use of a Ring of Honor might have been corrupted, step by step, until it was turned into a Ring of Obedience. None of them knew that, had considered that, until I came to Kaeleer and told them about what was done in Terreillean courts.
“For the short-lived races, the purge that removed Dorothea and Hekatah SaDiablo’s taint from the Realms was something that happened long ago. It’s history, a story. But we remember. For us it’s the past, yes, but not history, not something that happened to someone else in another time. We knew the court; we knew the Queen. And while none of us knew all the choices Jaenelle had made, our children have grown up safe because of those choices.”
“If you send Orian back to Terreille, aren’t you making her someone else’s problem?”
“Maybe, as Jillian put it, it’s just a stay of execution. Or maybe Orian will find a way to be a good Queen.”
“What are you going to say to Endar and Alanar?”
“The truth. I’ll give them a choice of going with Dorian and Orian. I doubt they will, but I’ll give them that choice. And then I’ll talk to the Eyriens who live around Riada. Rothvar and Zaranar will take my decision to the rest of them.”
“Do you want something to eat?”
Lucivar gave her a light kiss. “Not right now.”
He dropped the Ebon-gray shield around the room and used a psychic thread to tap his younger son, giving the boy permission to leave his room.
Then he sent a summons to Endar and Alanar to meet him in the communal eyrie.
He wasn’t surprised to find Rothvar waiting for him. And he wasn’t surprised to find Nurian, the Eyrien Healer and Jillian’s sister, waiting with his second-in-command. After all, Rothvar was her husband and the father of her children, so she would have guessed that a Healer might be needed for . . . whatever.
Rothvar shrugged. “The Ebon-gray thunders through the valley, and there’s an Ebon-gray shield around Dorian’s eyrie, locking everyone in—and keeping everyone out. And your boy is nowhere to be found in Ebon Rih. Smells like trouble to me.”
Lucivar sighed. “Yeah.”
Marian had felt the Ebon-gray too. That was one of the reasons she’d been pissed off at him for making her wait to find out what was going on.
He watched Endar and Alanar hesitate in the doorway before walking into the communal eyrie. “Let’s get this done.”
Daemonar dropped from the Winds at one of Amdarh’s official landing webs and informed the guards on duty that he was in the city to visit his uncle. He could have dropped from the Winds anywhere a Green thread ran over the city, but it was a necessary courtesy to use an official landing web and inform the Queen’s guards when a Warlord Prince arrived in a city that wasn’t his own. When a male of his caste ignored that courtesy, the guards tended to respond with weapons drawn.
As soon as the guards waved him on, he flew to the family’s town house and landed lightly on the sidewalk. He’d spent the journey from Ebon Rih to Amdarh wondering how to explain enough to get the permission he wanted to go to that school without explaining too much.
He had a feeling that the sun would shine in Hell before Uncle Daemon let him get away with not explaining everything.
So be it.
He bounded up the steps and knocked on the door, then smiled at the butler. “Good morning, Helton.”
“Prince Yaslana.” Standing aside to let him enter, Helton closed the front door too carefully.
Daemonar felt his shoulders tighten and itched to call in his war blade.
“Prince Sadi told us to expect you, but he didn’t give any instructions to have a room made up for you,” Helton said quietly.
That wasn’t good. “Maybe he hasn’t decided which side of the town house I’ll be staying in.”
“Perhaps.” Helton didn’t look convinced. “The Prince is waiting for you in his study.”
He wasn’t in trouble. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Then again, his father and uncle were strong enough to communicate over long distances using Ebon-gray and Black psychic threads, so the Darkness only knew what Uncle Daemon already knew. Which made leaving out anything in his explanation even more precarious.
When he entered the study, he found his uncle sitting in the chair behind the blackwood desk, hands loosely folded with the forefingers lightly resting against his chin.
“So,” Daemon said. “You’re thinking of attending the same private school as Titian.”
“I’d like to further my education, which is something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”
“Not getting enough instruction at the Keep?”
“Different instructors bring different things to the table. You’ve told me that more than once. And spending time with men my own age who are also from a long-lived race would be another kind of seasoning.”
This was going well. His arguments were sound. And there had been no mention of why his father had shoved him out of Ebon Rih so fast. Daemonar felt a trickle of relief—until Uncle Daemon rose, came around the desk, and settled gracefully in the other visitors’ chair.
“Now,” the Prince said in a voice that wrapped sensuality around threat. “You can tell me the real reason you want to go to that school, or we can have a pleasant visit for a few days before I escort you back to Ebon Rih.”
Shit. Everything he’d said was the truth, and he wasn’t going to be the one to tell Daemon Sadi about Orian’s threat to use a Ring of Obedience. But . . .
“There is something wrong with Jaenelle Saetien.” He’d meant to ease into his concern about his cousin, not club his uncle with words.