The Queen's Price

TWENTY-TWO

Helene, Holt, Nadene, Raine, and Beale were waiting for Lucivar in the great hall. One look at the panic barely concealed behind their stoic expressions told him everything he needed to know.

“Prince Sadi has business in Scelt and will be gone for a couple more days. I will be here.”

Still panicky but definitely relieved. Hell’s fire.

Well, he’d start with the simple and work his way up to what he hoped hadn’t reached deadly.

“Helene, Lady Grizande and Prince Jaalan will have a room in the square across from the High Lord’s suite. Would you escort her there and make sure she has everything she needs? Also, talk to Tarl about setting up something for the kitten’s toilet. He’ll need something nearby while he’s young.”

Helene smiled and said, “This way.”

Grizande hesitated.

“Go on,” Lucivar said. “Get settled in.” Before the girl took a step, he resumed going down his list. “Prince Raine, you will be assisting Prince Sadi in teaching Lady Grizande to read, write, and speak the common tongue. Give her an hour to get settled; then go over to talk to her. Grizande, you show him the books Sadi gave you to help you get started. Being a teacher by profession, Prince Raine will have helpful suggestions.”

Raine stared at him, wide-eyed, before regaining some composure. “I’ll be happy to help in whatever way I can.”

“Good.” Lucivar turned to the other three children. “Daemonar, you’re on a two-day rest.”

“But . . . ,” Daemonar began.

“If you don’t understand why, I will explain it to you later.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Zoey and Titian. You go get settled in. When Prince Raine meets with Grizande, he will also let you know what to study for tomorrow’s lessons.”

“Besides survival?” Raine muttered almost under his breath.

Lucivar ignored the mutter. “Go.”

They hustled out of the great hall, leaving him with Holt, Nadene, and Beale.

Nadene next. “Anyone end up being gutted, having broken bones, or being skinned because they tangled with Surreal?”

More wide eyes. “No,” Nadene replied. “Would she do that? The skinning part?”

Daemon would kill him flatter than dead if the resident Healer bolted, but although Nadene had grown up in a town near one of the family estates and had heard about the SaDiablo family, she hadn’t dealt with any of them until now, and she needed to understand the temper behind Surreal’s Gray power.

“Well, Surreal and her mother skinned her sire while he was still alive, and then fed him to the hounds of Hell. So I know she’s done it at least once.” He gave Nadene that smile that always meant trouble. “Then again, so have I.”

She turned and walked away. He took it as a promising sign that she headed into the Hall rather than out the front door. But just in case . . .

He waited until she was out of hearing range before saying to Beale, “If she starts packing her trunks, I need to know.”

“Neither you nor Surreal are in residence that often,” Holt said. “She’s comfortable enough around Prince Sadi, so I think she’ll stay.”

Lucivar blew out a breath. “Where is Surreal?”

Hesitation. That flicker of panic.

“She’s out on the back lawn with the young Ladies,” Beale finally said. “The young gentlemen are on the terrace. They seem unwilling to attract her notice.”

“We’re not sure what inflamed Surreal’s temper, but I think Lady Dinah said or did something to provoke her,” Holt said. “She ordered all the girls out on the lawn . . .” He looked at Beale.

“Where she has been testing the girls’ shields to the breaking point,” Beale finished. “She has not yet drained her Gray.”

Lucivar nodded in understanding. Red against Gray would be an ugly fight, and Red would lose. Once Surreal had to drop back to her Green Birthright Jewel, Beale could wrap her in Red shields and contain her while he sent out a call for reinforcements. Until then, the prudent thing to do was wait unless it became clear that her intention was to kill one or more of the girls.

“I’ll deal with her.” Rather than travel through the Hall’s endless corridors, he walked out the front door, spread his wings, and flew over the Hall to reach the back lawn. When he landed, he noticed two huddles of girls being guarded—or penned—by Liath. They’d each used most of the reservoir of power in their Jewel and looked frightened and exhausted but unhurt.

He looked at the boys huddled on the terrace. The four Warlord Princes had the toes of their shoes just beyond the flagstones, but that was as far as they’d gone. Well, none of them wore a darker Jewel yet, so he could understand their reluctance to tangle with the Gray.

He settled on the Warlord Prince who would be the next dominant after Daemonar. “You are?”

“Raeth, sir.”

“Report.”

“Don’t know what started it, but Lady Surreal has been testing the girls’ shields,” Raeth said. “At least, that’s what it looks like she’s doing. But she’s been shattering their shields and draining their Jewels to one drop away from the breaking point.”

Not that different from what had happened during that disastrous house party when Delora tried to kill Zoey.

“Divide up your men to stand as escorts for five groups of girls.” Lucivar pointed. “Start with the two groups Liath has under control. Get them back to their own rooms and tell them to stay in their rooms until I summon them. Tell them that’s an order, not a request. Disobedience will be considered a challenge, and they will face me—and if that happens, they should be ready to die.”

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.

She glanced at her bed and wondered if he had come expecting her to oblige, even if she hadn’t had her Virgin Night yet.

“I need your help,” Daemonar said, heading to a small table with two matching chairs. “Where is Jaalan?”

“Outside with Bossy Stern Teeth and a female bossy named Allis.”

He grinned. “They’re called Scelties.” His grin faded. “Calling them bossies instead of the proper name is . . .”

“Unkind,” she finished. “Scelties. I will remember.”

“I know you will.”

He called in a tray that held a greater variety of foods than she’d ever seen at one time. Fruits in a bowl. Cheeses on a cold-spelled dish. Sandwiches full of thinly sliced meats. A pot of coffee and a pitcher of water. Different kinds of bready sweets?

“You haven’t met Mrs. Beale yet,” Daemonar said. “She’s an excellent cook, but she’s a bit scary. Okay, sometimes a lot scary, even if she only wears a Yellow Jewel. Anyway, if I don’t eat enough of this food, she’ll be insulted—and all of this is to keep me from starving while I’m resting before the evening meal.”

Grizande stared at him. This much food before a meal?

He nodded as if she’d said something. “Help me eat enough of this so I won’t get into trouble.”

Once they were seated at the small table, she wasn’t sure what to choose. Daemonar picked up half of a meat sandwich and took a big bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Sighed with pleasure.

Feeling brave, she took the other half of the sandwich. “Good,” she said after the first bite.

“There are some apprentice cooks and a few assistant cooks.” Daemonar cut a couple of slices off one of the cheeses, then took a slice, leaving the other for her. “There is an auxiliary kitchen across from the High Lord’s suite. There’s usually someone on duty there to give you a bowl of soup or stew or make you a sandwich. Apprentices are cooks in training, so the food they make is edible but not always up to Mrs. Beale’s standards.”

“Feed lower ranks?” Orphans were often allowed to eat what no one else wanted.

“If you mean the students, yes.” Daemonar selected another sandwich. “When they’re hungry, boys will eat just about anything. And anyone who works at the Hall is welcome to get some food when they’re taking a break from their tasks.”

She wondered if he would let her keep some of the fruits and sweets to eat later. Right now, she had another priority.

Could she trust him with this secret? The Sisters of the Hourglass had been as vehement about her making use of this as they had been about her keeping this a secret—and yet there had been a false note in their concern for her, as if this protection against Warlord Princes came at a cost the Black Widows wouldn’t share with her.

Because the cost might be too high? Or because the Warlord Princes who knew the Queen who was more than a Queen would understand too much about this secret?

One way to find out.

Taking the mug, she filled it partway with water, then used Craft to heat the water until it began to steam.

“Something you need?” Daemonar asked.

Grizande called in a jar full of coarsely ground leaves. After filling a tea ball with leaves, she set the ball in the steaming water—and looked at him. “Special tea. Quiets heat.”

“Quiets . . . I don’t understand.”

She didn’t have words for this, not in the language he knew. “Warlord Princes. Strong.” She made a hand gesture to convey something about the nature of his caste. He must have understood enough, because his eyes widened.

“Virile?” he suggested.

She wasn’t sure that was the word she’d intended, but it would do. “Dark Jewels much sex heat. Sometimes too much. Males need virile, need heat to find mate, make children. After, females drink tea, not feel heat so much.”

He stared at the mug, stared at the jar. Finally he stared at her. “The Tigre have found a way for women to quiet their reaction to a Warlord Prince’s sexual heat?”

She nodded. “Some Tigre know. Hourglass secret.”

He pushed back from the table. “Come on. We need to talk to my father.”

He reached for the jar of leaves for her special tea. She vanished it before his hand touched it—before he thought to vanish it and keep it from her.

“Grizande,” Daemonar said quietly. “You know something we don’t. This could help my mother. Please.”

Help Marian mother? Maybe. And yet the false note in the Sisters’ concern for her troubled her—more for Marian mother’s sake than for her own.

Daemonar sat in the chair, waiting for her to decide.

If she was going to be in a room with Ebon-gray . . . Although being in a Coach with Ebon-gray and Black hadn’t bothered her. She’d noticed their heat, but it hadn’t bothered her. Still, she’d learned to be cautious in order to survive. “Drink tea first. Not waste.”

He nodded.

She drank the tea and felt . . . veiled, as if all her senses had been dimmed somehow. The Sisters of the Hourglass had told her that was how she should feel after drinking the tea. Their words had sounded true, but now she wondered about something else.

Marian mother wore Purple Dusk. If she didn’t know about the special tea, how had she survived living with Ebon-gray?

Surreal hadn’t wanted to talk to Lucivar about whatever had set her off to the point where she’d drained the reservoirs of power of the Birthright Jewels of the resident Queens and their female followers. Lucivar didn’t care if she talked to him or not, but it was better for everyone at the Hall if he escorted her to her suite in the family wing, where she planned to enjoy a solitary dinner.

He, on the other hand, would be eating in the large dining room tonight, with the instructors and anyone else who was capable of coming to the table.

He and Surreal had almost reached the square he still thought of as the Queen’s square when Daemonar turned a corner and spotted him. Grizande trailed behind his boy, looking uncertain.

Fortunately for his first-born, Daemonar looked relieved to see him instead of apprehensive.

“Father, we need to talk to you,” Daemonar said. “You should hear this too, Auntie Surreal.”

“That might not be a good idea today,” Surreal replied.

“You should hear this. We can talk in my room.”

Daemonar backtracked a few steps to his room. He opened the door, then waited for the others to enter before he walked in—and locked the door.

“Grizande needs to tell you about a special tea the Tigre make,” Daemonar said.

Grizande didn’t look eager to tell him anything. “All right. I’m listening.”

It wasn’t just the struggle of explaining something with her limited vocabulary in the common tongue. Fear came close to choking her as she tried to explain something secret. Something . . . forbidden? But every time the girl stumbled, Daemonar filled in the words until she could continue.

A tea that could quiet the impact of sexual heat, dull it enough for a woman to live with a man like him? Make it possible for him to be home more days without overwhelming Marian?

Grizande called in her jar of special leaves. Surreal reached for the jar. Lucivar stopped her from touching it. Her life—and Daemon’s—might have been different if she’d had a tea that could quiet even some of Daemon’s mature sexual heat, but people had been taking things from this girl for a long time, and he wasn’t going to let that happen here.

“Do you know what’s in the tea?” Lucivar asked.

“Hourglass made list. Say only show to Black Widows to make more tea.”

He wasn’t a Black Widow, so he waited. Grizande needed to decide for herself if she would trust him.

Finally she called in a sheet of paper and held it out to him.

Yes, it was a list of herbs or leaves or whatever else had gone into the tea. But it was in the language of the Tigre. Of course it was.

He handed the paper back to her. “Can you make two copies of that list for me? And are you willing to give me two doses of that tea?”

Grizande hesitated, then nodded. Daemonar suddenly held two small white bowls, no doubt called in from the auxiliary kitchen. The girl poured two generous portions of the tea into the bowls—more than two doses, he suspected. Then she vanished the jar while she avoided looking at Surreal.

Aware of Surreal’s churning emotions, Lucivar leaned forward, held his hands over the bowls, and vanished them.

“Thank you,” he said.

“I drink, maybe okay,” Grizande said in a rush. “No others drink until Queen say okay.”

In other words, Witch might know something about the tea the rest of them didn’t. “I will ask the Lady for her wisdom concerning the tea.”

Grizande sighed with relief.

Daemonar cocked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the square of rooms across the corridor. “We were enjoying some nibbles Mrs. Beale provided when Grizande told me about her tea.”

Lucivar eyed his son and considered the message under the words. Yes, Daemonar was right. The girl had risked enough by offering information about the tea and needed her own kind of rest. “I appreciate you delaying your enjoyment of the nibbles in order to tell me about this. Once you fortify yourselves, I would like those copies of the list.”

“Yes, sir.” Daemonar stood. The girl leaped to her feet, anxious to get out of the room.

Lucivar sat back, looking easy, but he had a skintight Ebon-gray shield protecting him from whatever response Surreal would have to this revelation.

“Did she know?” Surreal finally asked. “Did Witch know there was a way . . .” Her hands curled into fists.

Hearing the bite and bitterness in her voice, he tightened the leash on his temper. “You’re not the only one who has had a hard time dealing with the sexual heat. If Jaenelle had known about this, she would have said something—if not for your sake, then for Marian’s.”

Unless Witch knew something about that tea and had a reason to keep silent.

Surreal raked her fingers through her hair. “Dinah is going to be a problem. The other Queens seem solid enough—and sensible enough—but she . . .”

A change of subject? “What did she say that pissed you off so much?”

She bared her teeth in a vicious smile as she turned to look directly at him. “If Dinah had been invited to the house party, she would have dealt with Delora and wouldn’t have succumbed to a little inconvenience the way Zoey did.” She stopped smiling. “What the little bitch didn’t actually say but implied was how grateful Daemon would be for how she’d taken charge—and how he would show his gratitude. Of course, everyone was so enthralled—or appalled—at her assertions that no one noticed me until I stood directly behind her.”

“And that’s when you gave all the girls a taste of what the fight would have been like.”

Surreal nodded.

“Your assessment and recommendation is to send Dinah home. Anyone else?”

“None of the Black Widows or Healers are among her followers. I think that pisses her off. Her friends are potentially strong witches, yes, but not necessarily influential. Without Dinah’s presence they might settle down here.” She blew out a breath. “I was hard on Zoey’s friends, and they didn’t deserve it. Interesting, though, that those five girls didn’t shield individually. Well, they did—you would have kicked their asses if they hadn’t—but they layered shields around their group. Two sets from darkest to lightest. Kathlene and her friends saw what Zoey’s friends were doing and tried to do the same. They weren’t quite as successful, but if any of the boyos had thrown themselves into the fight, I might have had trouble breaking all those shields. The rest of them didn’t believe they could be stripped of power and left vulnerable that fast. They were wrong.”

“Well, I know what I’ll be working on with them.”

Surreal batted her eyelashes at him. “Are you going to help those boys grow some balls?”

He snorted a laugh. “Yeah, that too. Although Raeth did a good job of carrying out the orders I gave and dividing his men for the task.”

“As good as Liath?” she asked.

“Oh, Hell’s fire, no. That Sceltie could have run rings around those boys when he was still a puppy. They aren’t close to his fighting and herding skills.”

She shifted in her chair. “Let’s swap. We both want to know about that tea, so I’ll go to Ebon Askavi and ask Witch while you stay here and herd the children. I can get a room at The Tavern or stay at your eyrie to keep an eye on things until you get back.”

“You usually avoid the Keep.”

“Tangled feelings. But I’d like to know about this tea, and I’d rather have this meeting while Sadi is in Scelt.”

“All right.” Lucivar thought for a moment. “You might be dealing with just Witch by the time you reach the Keep. Karla will be discussing Virgin Nights with Jillian this evening.” And may the Darkness have mercy on me.

“Karla? Why? I’m making the arrangements for Jillian.”

“Why? Because my brother had the bright idea to have Jillian talk to the witch who dealt with me on her Virgin Night.”

She just stared at him.

“You go on. I’ll stay here—and we’ll see who’s left at the Hall when Daemon returns.”

“You were less scary when you were just killing people.”

“Same could be said about you.”

Surreal laughed. “All right, sugar. We’ll both do what we do.”

She left Daemonar’s room. Lucivar stayed. Standing at the glass doors that opened to the balcony, he let his Red power quietly flow beneath the courtyard and the rooms.

Holt. Raine. Weston.

He let his Red power flow through the rest of the Hall. Plenty of people here he didn’t know, but there was an odd . . . something . . . that felt familiar.

Daemonar returned and handed him two copies of the list of ingredients for the special tea.

Vanishing them, Lucivar asked, “Is someone missing?”

“Weston wanted an introduction since Grizande is going to be living in the same square as Zoey,” Daemonar replied, not actually answering the question.

“Makes sense. Who’s missing?”

Daemonar sighed. “Weston said Lord Morris resigned this morning. Morris wasn’t sure about staying after Liath told us about biting off a man’s ball . . .”

“Ball? Just one?”

“Just one. Anyway, it looked like Morris was going to stay. Then Auntie Surreal called in a whetstone at the breakfast table and started sharpening her knives. She kept looking at Morris and smiling. Weston said Morris threw his resignation at Beale as he bolted out the door.”

Lucivar ran his tongue over his teeth. “Your grandfather experienced a lot of instructors running out the door after spending an hour with Jaenelle and the coven. Looks like Daemon will face the same challenge. Eventually he’ll find people who won’t run.”

“I understand being rested after an assignment, but until Grizande makes some other friends . . .”

“Yeah, I know. I’m going to work with the rest of the children tomorrow. Pick one of Zoey’s friends to go with you and escort Grizande to the village. She’ll need more clothes than she has now. Practical garments for classes, and a couple of dresses since Daemon follows the family tradition of dressing for dinner.”

“Shopping?”

The boy sounded so pained, he wanted to laugh. “That’s your assignment for tomorrow. Deal with it.” He waited a beat. “Besides, the girl should know how to find other shops too.”

“Yeah.” Daemonar looked happier. “Yeah, she should know how to find some things on her own.” Then he looked uneasy. “Maybe I shouldn’t do that. She doesn’t have . . .”

Lucivar called in his wallet and removed some gold marks. “Daemon will figure out what to do for her, but this is a welcome gift from us so that she has some spending money. Any clothes she buys tomorrow? Tell the merchants to send the bills to the Hall. I will pay them if Daemon doesn’t.”

Daemonar fanned the marks. “A hundred gold marks?”

Lucivar vanished the wallet and studied his son. “Are you thinking too much or too little?”

“I don’t think Grizande has ever seen this much money.”

“Then ask Holt to exchange some of those marks for smaller denominations, along with some silver marks.” Lucivar probed the rooms in the square and confirmed they were still alone. “For Daemon, money meant freedom. Limited freedom, but even with all the restrictions put on him as a pleasure slave, he had a skill for making money, investing money, and making more. His clothes were outrageously expensive—and still are—but they were the sheath for his sharpest weapons. He would bribe Queens to look the other way when he disappeared for an evening and stayed at one of those flats he kept in order to have a little solitude, some needed peace. Money was a weapon, and he knew how to use it.

“I had nothing. A half-breed bastard in one of the Eyrien hunting camps, wearing discarded clothes and using cast-off weapons. Still fought everyone into the ground, but if I coveted anything when I was young, it was weapons that would fit my hand, that would hold an edge for a killing field. After I was sent away from Askavi because they couldn’t control me, even with a Ring of Obedience, I met this silky, court-trained, arrogant bastard named Daemon Sadi. I thought he was a prancing cock until I watched him crush a bitch with nothing but a seduction spell and words.

“We were with our respective owners, who were guests of that court. One morning he crossed my path, took my arm, and we walked out the doors. ‘No one will ask questions,’ he said. ‘No one will dare.’ I didn’t know then and I still don’t know what he did to make sure no one asked, but he was right about that. We went into the town, to the smithy. The blacksmith’s brother made weapons. Daemon said he wanted to buy the best blades available. What would I recommend?” Lucivar snorted softly. “Recommend? I thought he was taunting me, and I wanted to beat him bloody, but I reviewed the weapons available and chose the best. He paid for them—and then gave them to me.

“They were the first good weapons I’d ever owned. I still have one of the knives. I don’t use it anymore. It’s not the same quality as the weapons I have now, but I still have it.” Lucivar smiled. “His Queen left the next morning, and he was gone with her. But I found a leather wallet tucked in with my clothes. Ten thousand gold marks and an unsigned note that said, ‘Money is also a weapon. Use it well.’ I bought my first good Eyrien war blade with some of that money.”

Lucivar ran a hand over Daemonar’s hair. “Money as weapon. Money as freedom. Money as some measure of safety. I think Daemon’s mistake with Saetien was wanting her to have the reassurance that she had the means to reach safety and not understanding that she didn’t need it. She was already safe. Maybe too safe. Grizande needs to believe she is safe here, but she also needs to have the means to take care of herself and Jaalan.”

“Maybe I should take her to the weapons maker in Halaway and help her buy a good knife,” Daemonar said quietly.

“Yeah,” Lucivar replied. “Maybe you should.”