by Anne Bishop
They moved out in two fighting formations, flying hard and fast until each group caught the Wind that could accommodate all of them.
Falonar stayed on the mountain overlooking Doun. He’d catch up to them easily enough, and be back in his eyrie when the news came from the north.
There were only four people in The Tavern, but it felt much too crowded, and the air felt too stuffy to breathe. Slipping into her coat, Surreal released the Gray lock on the door, stepped outside, and studied Riada’s main street.
Nothing moved. Not a horse, not a cart, not a person. Not even a dog. The village was locked down. Lady Shayne hadn’t hesitated when Surreal had given that order—and hadn’t asked why she was giving the order on Yaslana’s behalf instead of Falonar. And wasn’t that interesting?
*Sadi?* she called on a psychic thread.
*Something wrong?* he asked.
*No, it’s quiet—Wait.* She saw the Eyriens arrowing toward Riada. Fighting formations. That couldn’t be good.
Holding the psychic link open between them, she wrapped herself in a Gray shield and stepped to the edge of the sidewalk. Being the only person in sight, she wouldn’t be hard to spot.
They came in fast, then backwinged and landed half a block from where she stood. Rothvar and Zaranar led the formations. They were the ones who approached her, along with Hallevar and Kohlvar. The others called in crossbows or war blades and watched the buildings and the sky.
“The village is locked down?” Rothvar asked. “Why?”
“Where is the Healer and her sister? Endar’s family?” Zaranar asked.
She spotted Falonar gliding toward them, backwinging with too little concern considering how tense the other men were. She waited until he joined the four men who seemed to be the unofficial leaders of the group.
“There is trouble in the north,” Surreal said. “There’s a chance it’s going to spill over onto Riada. So we’ve prepared the village and alerted the Queen and her Master of the Guard. Nurian, Jillian, and Endar’s family are with Marian.”
“Yaslana?” Hallevar asked.
She looked straight at Falonar. “He’s gone north to deal with the problem.” You hadn’t figured the Queen would lock down the village, putting everyone on alert, did you, sugar? And as sure as the sun doesn’t shine in Hell, you weren’t expecting anyone from Lucivar’s family to be anticipating a fight here.
“When did he leave?” “We were just farting over Doun with that flyover. Why didn’t he call us?” “Who did he have with him?” “Who’s guarding his eyrie?”
A jumble of voices since all four men were asking the same questions, throwing the words at her.
Thunder rolled down the mountain, a warning of temper that silenced all of them.
“Prince Sadi is guarding the eyrie,” Surreal said. “Yaslana will have to answer the rest of your questions when he returns.”
The door behind her opened. Rainier stepped out, followed by Merry and Briggs. Not bothering to swear at them for leaving the shielded building, she put a Gray shield around the three of them and said, *Stay put.*
“Have they heard from Lucivar?” Merry asked.
“No,” Surreal said, watching the Eyriens. All the Warlords were angry. If there was trouble in the north, they shouldn’t have been pissing around with a flyover. Maybe they wouldn’t have followed Lucivar north, but they would have formed a guard to watch over Doun and Riada.
Nothing that was done today made sense if there was real trouble.
She’d barely finished that thought when an Eyrien came winging in from the opposite direction—from the north.
He stumbled as he landed. Bloody face, bloody clothes.
*He’s the same one who came this morning to fetch Lucivar,* Merry told her.
Surreal felt the cold rage twining down the link she still had with Sadi. Shit shit shit. She should have broken the link when she had a chance. If she cut him off now, he’d be down here among the Eyriens looking for answers, and he wouldn’t be concerned about who, if anyone, survived that little chat.
“He’s dead!” the young Warlord cried as he stumbled toward them. “Yaslana is dead!”
“No!” Hallevar roared. “There’s nothing in this valley strong enough to bring down the Ebon-gray!”
*Except his brother,* Surreal sent. The snarl that came back to her was full of hot anger, not cold rage. Thank the Darkness for that.
“Where?” Rothvar shouted as Zaranar said, “Are you sure?”
“That bastard was expecting this,” Rainier whispered in her ear.
She looked at Falonar and swore.
Rainier was right. The other Eyriens were angry, upset, outraged. But Falonar stood there, looking stiff and accepting.
“I don’t believe it,” Rothvar said. “I’ve seen Yaslana fight. You look me in the eyes and say it again.”
“I saw it!” the young Warlord shouted. “Lucivar Yaslana is—”
Surreal threw her arms over her head as the Warlord’s body exploded with such force the pebbles of bone against her shield sounded like hail against a window. Behind her, Merry screamed, and Rainier and Briggs both cried out in shock.
A moment later, she felt that Ebon-gray presence and looked down the street.
He was covered in blood that ran from his half-opened wings and dripped from the war blade. She’d seen that glazed look when he’d fought in the spooky house. She eased back enough to shelter Merry.
“I told you nothing could bring him down!” Hallevar yelled.
Shouts and cheers as Lucivar walked toward the Eyriens, although how they could see him through the red rain clouding the street was beyond her. It settled faster than it should have, given the amount of power that had been punched into that fool, as if a hand were pressing it down.
*Surreal?* Daemon asked.
*He’s alive, I think—and very pissed off.”
*You think?*
*He’s covered in so much blood it’s hard to tell.* Shit. Shouldn’t have told Daemon that.
Lucivar stared at Falonar, who seemed frozen.
Rothvar, however, took a step forward. “How may we be of service, Prince?” he asked Lucivar. “Is there any cleanup that needs to be done in the north?”
Lucivar continued to stare at Falonar. “No cleanup. This prick was the last enemy on the killing field.”
“What about the Eyriens who fought with you?” Zaranar asked. “Do any of them need help?”
“There weren’t any.”
Stunned silence.
“None?” Hallevar finally said.
“None,” Lucivar said.
Surreal didn’t like the flat sound of Lucivar’s voice. It wasn’t Lucivar.
He turned his head and looked at her. “Are you well?”
That’s the question I’d like to ask you. “Yes, I’m well. What can I do for you, Yaslana?”
“Inform the Queen that the trouble has been dealt with. She can release the village from lockdown. Where is my brother?”
Don’t you know? “At your eyrie.”
Lucivar focused on Rothvar and Zaranar. “Take your formations and do a sweep over Riada and its landen villages.”
They nodded, but Hallevar said, “I’ve been out doing flyovers around Doun all morning. I’d appreciate a chance to thaw out these old bones.”
Old bones, my ass, Surreal thought, watching Hallevar, Kohlvar, Tamnar, and Endar leave the formations and come up beside her. If the Gray was going out to report to Riada’s Queen, there would be sufficient warriors to take her place guarding The Tavern.
“Falonar,” Lucivar said too softly. “With me. Now.” Spreading his wings, he launched himself skyward and headed for Falonar’s eyrie.
Falonar didn’t look at any of them, said nothing to any of them. He hesitated a moment, then followed Lucivar.
*Sadi?* Surreal called.
No answer. Sometime during the past few moments he had quietly broken the link between them. She had a sick, shivery feeling it
was because he didn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking.
Lucivar waited in the front room of Falonar’s eyrie. He just stared at the other Warlord Prince, saying nothing.
“They’re all dead?” Falonar finally asked, keeping his mind blank of all thoughts—and disappointment.
“While I was going over that field, making sure I finished the kill on every one of those bastards, I kept thinking about how you used to benefit from schemes you had no part of—at least on the surface,” Lucivar said.
“You finished the kill on all of them? Why? Were you afraid they would make the transition to demon-dead and remain a threat?”
“You fool. I was afraid of what would happen to the rest of the Eyriens if one of those bastards made the transition and ended up having a chat with my father,” Lucivar snapped. “I’m not interested in any explanation or justification for why they were on that field, standing against me. They told me the Blood’s code of honor doesn’t apply to a half-breed bastard, and that’s all I needed to know. But my father might see things differently, and I don’t want him to have a reason to start thinking about a purge.”
For a moment, Falonar couldn’t breathe. “He would do that?”
“You stupid son of a whoring bitch,” Lucivar roared. “What did you think you’d gain by this maneuver? A title? Think again. The Keep decides who rules in this valley. You would have been allowed to stand as the ruler of the Eyriens, but you wouldn’t have been given control of Ebon Rih. You and the people you ruled would have to make a living out of what you could grow and hunt on the mountains.”
“No,” Falonar said. “That’s not the way it is.”
“That is the way it is! Your little scheme killed off most of the Eyriens in Ebon Rih today. Every man who would have served you is gone. But do you know what would have happened if they had succeeded in killing me? You wouldn’t have become the leader of the Eyriens, because there would be no Eyriens. When I was taken from him, my father told Prythian that when I died, the Eyrien race would die with me. The whole damn race, Falonar. Here and in Terreille. Everyone.”
“It can’t be done!” Falonar said. “He couldn’t do it.”
“It can—and he has.”
Falonar staggered back until he could brace a hand against a wall.
“The people from the Zuulaman Islands killed one of his sons,” Lucivar said. “An infant.”
“There’s no such place as Zuulaman,” Falonar whispered.
“Which is why Prythian knew it wasn’t a bluff—because there were a handful of the demon-dead who did remember Zuulaman and knew Saetan could—and would—do exactly what he said.”
“But now . . .”
Lucivar shook his head. “That death spell is still in place. He won’t revoke it—and after today, he’ll have more reason to reinforce it.”
He didn’t tell Falonar about the spell he’d asked Jaenelle to add to Saetan’s. She had obliged him, up to a point.
If Lucivar Yaslana died on a killing field, or by anyone’s hand, Saetan’s death spell would take the Eyrien race, sparing no one but Lucivar’s wife and children. But if Lucivar died of natural causes in the fullness of his years, Saetan’s spell would be absorbed by Jaenelle’s, and the Eyrien race would survive.
“If you die, we all die? Then what were you doing on that killing field?” Falonar cried. “On any field?”
“I’m not going to live in a cage for the benefit of a people who want nothing to do with me,” Lucivar said. “I’ll take my chances, and you’ll have to take them right along with me. But not in Ebon Rih. You’re confined to your eyrie until I can find a court that will take you.”
“If you believe I was behind the attempt to kill you, why don’t you execute me?”
The Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih studied him, then smiled a lazy, arrogant smile. “You’re not worth the effort.”
Lucivar walked out—and an Ebon-gray shield locked around Falonar’s eyrie.
Lucivar landed lightly on the edge of the courtyard in front of his eyrie. It was his home, and his family was inside, but until Daemon released the Black shield around the eyrie and eased back from the killing edge, he didn’t dare come any closer.
The door opened, and Daemon stepped out. Those gold eyes, glazed and murderously sleepy, examined him from head to toe.
“Hell’s fire, Prick,” Daemon said, moving closer. “You reek.” His gold eyes warmed and his expression changed to puzzlement as he watched blood and gore drip into the snow. “How did so much red rain penetrate your shields?”
“I let it.”
“Why?”
Lucivar opened his wings quickly. The air around him turned a misty red as the rain was pushed through all the small holes he’d left in the Red shields. “Looking at me, do you have any doubt about where I’ve been or what I did?”
Daemon stared at him a moment longer. Then he sighed. “You can’t come in the eyrie until you get cleaned up. You’ll terrify the children.”
He couldn’t deny the truth of that. “I know. I’m going to the Keep. It has a special area for this kind of cleanup. But I wanted to make sure everyone here was safe.”
The door opened again and Marian rushed out. Daemon reached for her, but she dodged around him and threw her arms around Lucivar’s neck, pressing herself fully against him.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt?” Marian cried. “Oh, Lucivar! I was so worried about you.”
“Marian . . .” Lucivar put his hands on her waist and tried to ease her away from him, certain that she hadn’t looked at him. When she tightened her hold and came close to strangling him, he gave up and put his arms round her. “Sweetheart, I’m all right. Sore muscles and bruises. Nothing more. I swear by the Jewels, those are the worst of it.”
She started crying. “I’m sorry I was so bitchy about your ribs. You did it to help Surreal, and I shouldn’t have been angry with you.”
“You were right to be bitchy about the ribs,” he said. “It was a dumb thing to do, and I deserved getting jabbed for it.”
“Oh. Well, maybe a little.” Sniffling, she eased back and he let her go. She wrinkled her nose. “Lucivar . . .” Then she looked down at her own clothes and swayed.
“Marian!”
Lucivar made a grab for her, but Daemon caught her as she stumbled back, her eyes glassy with shock.
“He’s all right, darling,” Daemon crooned. “Lucivar is all right. A man gets messy in that kind of fight.”
You don’t, Lucivar thought. Which was actually more terrifying? To see a man walk off a killing field covered in the carnage made by his own hand, or to see the man who had created that carnage walk off the field pristine?
A different image, a different message. He knew which one he found more frightening.
“I’ll go with him to the Keep,” Daemon crooned. “Help him get cleaned up. Why don’t you go back inside through the side door? You’ll be able to change clothes and wash up. I’ll take care of Lucivar.”
Marian lifted a hand but didn’t touch the dark, wet stains on the front of her tunic. “Yes. These clothes need to soak.” She focused on Lucivar again.
“I’ll take care of him,” Daemon said firmly. He led her to the gate that opened on her garden, which had access to the side door closest to the laundry room.
Lucivar waited until Marian was inside and Daemon returned. “Soothing spell?”
Daemon nodded. “I thought it best if she didn’t think too much about what was on those clothes—and why.”
He agreed with that. “Come on. I’d rather give this report only once—but I’m going to say this here and now. This isn’t your territory, Bastard, and while I appreciate you being here to protect my family, whatever happens to the people in this valley is my decision, not yours.”
“Of course,” Daemon said. “I never thought otherwise.”
He knew his brother too well to trust the words.
“Shall we go?” Daemon asked.
They ro
de the Ebon-gray Wind to the Keep, dropping to the landing web closest to the courtyard with the shower. Lucivar wrapped another shield around himself to avoid dripping gore through the corridors. He suspected that what lived within the walls and shadows would welcome the blood and bits of meat, but he didn’t want to excite their hunting instincts, so he took the shortest route.
He pushed open a door and stepped into the courtyard.
“Hell’s fire,” Daemon said. “You’re going to shower outside? In the winter?”
“Show some balls. It’s not so bad.” A few minutes ago, he wouldn’t have noticed. Now he was starting to feel the cold and wanted to get cleaned up enough to go home and soak in the heated pool for an hour or two.
“If you show your balls in this weather, you’ll freeze them off,” Daemon growled as he studied what looked like a jumble of pipes over a round area with drains that flowed directly down the mountain. “Is there any reason why I can’t put a warming spell around this area?”
His body ached. His teeth began to chatter. “None.”
If he hadn’t been so tired—and, more to the point, feeling hollowed out—he would have thought of that himself.
“Mother Night.”
Turning at the sound of his father’s voice, Lucivar saw the shock in Saetan’s eyes before the High Lord locked away all feelings.
*Do I really look that bad?* he asked Daemon.
*Prick, you have no idea how bad you look,* Daemon said grimly.
Damn. He should have warned Saetan, should have told him he wasn’t hurt before arriving at the Keep. It hadn’t occurred to him that Andulvar and Prothvar must have looked like this the day they became demon-dead. Having won that battle, they had walked off the killing field, but they no longer walked among the living.
“There’s nothing wrong with him that a good scrubbing and a hot meal won’t fix,” Daemon said with enough bite to make Lucivar snarl in response.
But the bite and snarl were exactly what Saetan needed to relax. He called in a porcelain dish and used Craft to float it over to Lucivar. “I’ll cleanse your Jewels for you.”
“I can—”
*Let him do it,* Daemon said. *Just in case we find anything under all that blood that you don’t want him to see.*
