It amounted to the same thing.

He took a few more steps toward his quarry. The Blood moved aside, giving him a clear path.

“Before she left the living Realms, the Queen of Ebon Askavi signed a document that put all of Askavi under my hand,” Lucivar said, using Craft to make his voice thunder through the building. “She told me I wasn’t required to become the Warlord Prince of Askavi, that I could allow the District Queens and the Province Queens above them independent rule, unless the time came when they permitted Terreillean practices to encroach on the Blood here. Looking the other way when reputations are ruined and honor soiled because some bitch thinks it’s fun to damage other people’s lives as long as she suffers no consequences? That’s how the destruction of the Blood begins. Some of your ancestors fled from Terreille in order to escape those kinds of games, and those games are what I pledged to fight against when I came to Kaeleer. They are what I will always fight against, even if that means turning every Rihland city into a killing field and slaughtering every Rihland aristo in Askavi.”

The stink of fear filled the room as the aristos looked at him, then looked at the Sadist, and recognized living weapons that were harnessed to a single purpose.

“As of today, I don’t care if the person is male or female. I don’t care how aristo their family bloodline is or who they can claim in their family line—or if they are the least powerful person in a village. I do not care. Any transaction between individuals or families that ends with a reputation at risk or honor being questioned or someone being harmed in any way will be investigated by the court of the Queen who rules that village, and monthly reports will be sent to the Province Queens for review. If I hear of any attempt to hide an impropriety, the Province Queens will answer to me, and from now on, the price for looking the other way will be steep. But tonight, as warning and lesson, I’ll start with you.”

Lucivar raised his war blade and pointed it at Lady Blyte, the bitch whose behavior had started Lord Dillon—and him—down this path. “All the Queens in Askavi will be given the names of the men you played by promising a handfast in exchange for them becoming your lover. You owe those men a debt because you then claimed ignorance of the promises you made and allowed your father to damage the reputation of those men to the point of them being considered prey for other women who had no honorable intentions. The Rihlander Queens will make reparation by seeing that those men are given a position in a court and sufficient income to support themselves, or they will make arrangements for those men to work at an honest trade—and they will guarantee on their Jewels that they will stop any further attempts to use the past as a hammer against those men’s efforts to restore their reputations and honor. The Rihlander Queens will do this for the men who are still among the living. There was one who was so filled with despair after dealing with this Lady that he found death preferable to remaining among the living.

“And you, you smug bitch. Do you think I’ll let you walk away from this without paying what you owe?”

That was exactly what she believed. He saw it in her eyes. He also saw a keen hatred for him because he had exposed her and made her behavior a public humiliation.

“Everything has a price,” he said, letting his voice go quiet so that everyone strained to hear. “And you are the lesson of what it will cost anyone who plays Terreillean games in my Territory.”

Rising out of the depths of the abyss like an Ebon-gray arrow of fury, Lucivar struck Blyte with power to shatter her Jewels, breaking her back to basic Craft. She screamed as the Jewels in her pendant and ring shattered and fell to the floor.

“You have been stripped of your power,” Lucivar said. “You will always be a Blood female, but you are no longer a witch and will no longer be addressed by the title of Lady. Your debt to the men you harmed has been paid.”

He turned and walked toward the doorway where his brother waited. He didn’t need to see Daemon focus on something behind him. He felt the anger rushing toward him.

“You bastard!” Blyte’s father cried, brandishing a decorative knife.

If it had been nothing more than the knife, which couldn’t get past his shields, he might have let the man go with nothing more than a slap. But the Warlord unleashed a blast of power in a way that made Lucivar wonder if the young man who had died really had taken his own life.

Everything that made him a Warlord Prince responded to that lash of power. Lucivar pivoted, using Craft to extend the length of the war blade as he met the Warlord’s eyes.

The war blade sang through muscle, humbled bone.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. For a moment, it looked like the blade hadn’t sliced anything but the man’s jacket as some of the fabric fluttered to the floor. Then blood spilled from the man’s waist, his legs buckled, and the top half of the man slid off and struck the floor. Using Craft to stand on air just above the red lake rapidly forming on the ballroom floor, Lucivar looked at the stunned crowd. “Does anyone else need a lesson?”

No answer except more screams from Blyte, but he doubted her distress had anything to do with the loss of her father and more to do with finally being punished for her own actions.

Turning toward the doorway once again, Lucivar saw Chaosti walk in with two young Rihlander men.

Daemon smiled a cold, cruel smile. Not the Sadist now. This was the High Lord of Hell.

٭You can’t leave him here to make the transition to demon-dead,٭ the High Lord said. ٭He won’t go to Hell on his own, as he should, not after you made his family’s deceits so public. Besides, one of those men deserved a chance to see the debt paid.٭ He looked at the two Warlords who carried out the upper half of the girl’s father.

Lucivar waited for Chaosti and Daemon to follow the demon-dead Warlords out of the room. Then he turned back one last time and looked at the Rihland aristos. “Every attempt to bring Terreille’s ways into Kaeleer will be met with slaughter. Spread the word that I’ll be calling on the Province Queens soon to have a little chat.”

He walked away, knowing there would be more slaughter before they believed he had drawn the line—knowing some courts would be torn apart for tacitly supporting the cruelty that had destroyed the Blood in Terreille. Knowing that, after tonight, most of the Blood in Askavi would call him the Demon Prince.

Everything had a price.

FORTY

Lucivar hadn’t appreciated how much fury had been festering under the surface of some Rihland towns and cities until several places exploded in savage fighting, as if his breaking that one bitch had been a flame dropped on tinder, freeing that fury to blaze through Askavi. The Blood in those places didn’t want his help. The Warlord Princes in those places didn’t want his Eyrien warriors coming in to settle anything. They would talk to him when the fighting was done.

For two days, he stayed at the Keep with Daemon, listening to reports as Rothvar and his other men rode the Winds throughout Askavi to get a feel for what was happening in the Rihland cities. Some Provinces were untouched by fighting. Lucivar found it grimly amusing that Daemon’s prediction had been right about the Queens who ruled those Provinces. They were the first to show up at the Keep to talk to him, bringing documents to prove they had been drawing the same line all along and that any smear on someone’s honor or reputation was something that person had deserved.