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It didn't matter, she told herself, feeling despair rise up before she choked it down again. She was alive, and she was living in Kaeleer, the Shadow Realm most people had thought nothing more than a myth until a few years ago. She didn't have to go back to Terreille, didn't have to trust her life to the whims of male temper.
Not as much, anyway.
Luthvian had also made it very clear that anything that displeased her would also displease her son, the Warlord Prince who ruled Ebon Rih.
Marian understood the threat. What had been done to her in Terreille
would be a slap on the wrist compared to what an enraged Warlord Prince who wore Ebon-gray Jewels could do to her.
She carefully spread her wings as far as she could until she felt her back muscles pull. Gritting her teeth, she counted to five, then slowly closed her wings and waited a few seconds before beginning the exercise again.
She would find other work…payingwork…and she would work hard and save and one day have that place of her own. And she would soar again, riding thermals over land that was more beautiful than anything she'd ever seen back home. She would…
"Did you hem that dress?" Luthvian's voice stabbed out of the dark.
Marian winced, wondering how long the Black Widow Healer had been watching her. Reminding herself that she had nowhere else to go…yet…she turned. "As I explained, Lady Luthvian, I can't hem the dress until you have the time for a fitting so that I can make sure the length is correct."
"I told you how much to take it up."
Her younger sisters had said the same thing to her in the same sneering voice…and complained bitterly to their mother when the hem fell too long or too short because they insisted she should be able to hem something without wastingtheir time.
"Nevertheless," Marian said, fighting to keep her voice respectful, "I would feel more confident about the length if I pin the dress while you're wearing it."
The silence that followed made Marian uneasy. A Black Widow was too dangerous a witch to antagonize, and Luthvian could do far more than hurt her body.
"They don't work. You know that, don't you?" Luthvian said.
"I don't understand." A ball of fear settled in her belly.
"The wings. They were damaged too severely.You'll never fly again."
The fear sharpened into pain. "No. Lady Angelline said…"
"Jaenelle is a decent Healer, but she has little knowledge or experience when it comes to Eyriens. I have both. And I'm telling you those are only for display now. You'll never fly again. If you try, you'll only end up damaging your back so badly you won't be able to work enough to
earn your keep, andthen where will you be?" Luthvian's voice softened. "You'd be better off having them removed. If they're gone, you won't be tempted to do something that would cripple you."
No,Marian thought as tears filled her eyes.No!
"I can do it for you." Luthvian's voice was quiet and persuasive. "In a month, you won't remember what it felt like to have them."
"No!"
Luthvian's voice turned cold. "Please yourself. But if you do something that makes you useless, don't expect to remainhere!'
She didn't hear Luthvian walk away, but she heard the kitchen door close. She stayed outside for a long time, hunched over to try to ease the pain that twisted her up inside.
She'd hoped being in Kaeleer meant a promise at a new life, a better life. But nothing had changed for the better. If anything, the life ahead of her was worse than the one she'd left behind.
FIVE
Lucivar glided toward the courtyard in front of his eyrie, glad to be home. He'd spent the past week visiting the villages in Ebon Rih, meeting with the Queens who ruled the Rihlander Blood villages of Doun and Agio, and talking to the council members who ran the larger landen villages. The non-Blood Rihlanders were afraid of him…with good reason. The Blood might be a minority among any race, but the power that lived within them made them the rulers and guardians of the Realms. For the most part, the Blood ignored the Ian-dens and the landens kept away from the Blood. Reminding village council members that they were now answerable to an Ebon-gray Warlord Prince wasn't going to make them sleep easy for a while.
Hell's fire. It didn't makehim sleep easy. He'd spent most of his life ignoring or defying anyone's claim of authority over him. Now hewas the authority who was going to draw the line and stand against anyone in his territory who dared step over it.
He wasn't sure he liked being on that side of the line, but he'd adjust to the formality directed at him from the Queens' courts in Doun and Agio. At least in Riada, which was the closest village to Ebon Askavi and was also his "home" village, the informal respect the villagers had shown him since he'd arrived in Kaeleer hadn't changed. Not much, anyway. There was a proprietary interest in him now. What he did affected all of them.
Which made him wonder why Merry had looked so uneasy when he'd stopped by The Tavern to see what she was serving that night that he could take home with him.
"A dinner for two, Prince Yaslana?" Merry had asked.
"Or one hungry man," he'd replied, grinning.
Why hadn't she smiled back when she'd prepared the basket of food for him?
As he landed lightly on the flagstone courtyard, he sent a thought out on a psychic spear thread. *Tassle?*
*Yas.*
The wolf sounded sulky, almost edgy.
*What's wrong?*
A pause. Then, *I don't like that female. I don't want to be friends.*
Lucivar felt his temper unsheath as he studied the front door of his home. An Ebon-gray shield formed a finger-length above his skin, an instinctive response to walking into a situation where it was safer to guard against a potential attack. The fact that he was reacting that way before entering his home honed his temper until the slightest push would have him riding the killing edge.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside. The female psychic scent hit him the moment he crossed the threshold. He knew that scent. Loathed the young witch it belonged to.
Roxie.
She'd been one of Luthvian's students when he'd first come to Kaeleer…a Rihlander witch from Doun whose family was aristo enough that she thought she could do anything she pleased. She used lovers the way other women used handkerchiefs. She soiled them, then tossed them aside. But from the first day she'd met him, her goal had been to corner him and force him into bedding her. The bitch had never understood that if shehad managed to corner him, bedding her would have been the last thing on his mind.
And now she was here. In his home.
He moved silently until he reached his bedroom door. The wide corridor reeked of her.
