Twilight's Dawn

gotten sick and begun eliminating food from both ends. So he’d been focused on her and not on the boy.
    Just a stomach upset that was going around the village, Nurian had said when she checked Marian and gave him bottles of the tonic she and the Healers in Riada had been making nonstop since yesterday. Marian would be fine by tomorrow. Which meant Daemonar would probably be puking all over the bed tonight.
    He could do with fewer thrills in his life. Especially today. But for the next couple of hours, his father was looking after his wife and boy, and he could focus his attention on Surreal and Rainier. Jaenelle had given him the boundaries—and some very specific things each of them shouldn’t do—but deciding how to work those bodies to best advantage was up to him. So he needed to be here today to take them through careful moves, assessing muscles to help Surreal and Rainier become as healthy as they could be.
    In a couple of days, he could turn the workouts over to Hallevar. But he couldn’t give anyone else command today because there was something else he needed to assess.
    He stopped for a moment and put a protective shield around the bones of both ankles. Then he walked into the communal eyrie.
    The front room was big enough for weapons practice and was also used for occasional social events. This morning the eighteen adult Eyrien males who lived around Riada were waiting for him, including Falonar, his second-in-command; Hallevar, the arms master and fighting instructor who had been one of his own teachers; Kohlvar, who was a weapons maker; Zaranar and Rothvar, who were trained guards and good fighters; Endar, who served as a guard but wasn’t really suited to be one; and Tamnar, a youth Hallevar had brought with him to the service fairs to get the young Warlord out of Terreille.
    Not a lot of men to guard close to half of Ebon Rih, but when two of those men were Warlord Princes—and one of those Warlord Princes wore Ebon-gray Jewels—nineteen men were quite sufficient to take care of any problems around Riada and Doun that couldn’t be handled by the courts of Lady Shayne and Lady Alyss.
    Of course, when there were only nineteen men, there wasn’t much of a buffer when two of them scraped against each other’s tempers. It was no secret that he and Falonar had never liked each other, but they had worked well together these past two years—until recently, anyway. Something had changed in Falonar over the past few weeks—or maybe the excitement of settling in a new place had worn off, and Lucivar was now getting a more accurate look at the man Falonar had become.
    He spotted Surreal and Rainier standing off to the side just as Falonar turned to see who had come in.
    “The weather is fine,” Falonar said. “We should be working outside.”
    Publicly criticizing or challenging every order he gave was one of the things that had changed in Falonar’s behavior in the past few weeks. Nothing wrong with the second-in-command challenging an order in private, but these pissing contests in front of the other men had to stop.
    “Well, today we’re working inside,” Lucivar replied mildly, knowing the mildness would sting Falonar’s pride in a way responding with temper couldn’t, because, in a situation like this, temper was given only to an equal.
    “Only the weak need to work inside on a day like this,” Falonar said, putting more bite in his voice even as his face flushed at being spoken to as if he were a boy.
    Lucivar studied the other Warlord Prince. The tone of that last remark almost sounded like a challenge. Almost. Falonar had aristo arrogance on top of Eyrien arrogance, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew Sapphire couldn’t survive a fight with Ebon-gray.
    “Fine,” Lucivar said dismissively.“Hallevar,Tamnar, you’re in here with me. Falonar, you can take the others out to play in the snow if that’s what you need to do.”
    Falonar’s gold eyes blazed with anger. He shifted his weight into a fighting stance.
    The door opened, and Jillian rushed in.
    Both men turned toward the girl who had shifted a little more toward being a woman in the past few months.
    “You’re supposed to be in school,” Lucivar said at the same time Falonar said, “You’re supposed to be home doing chores.”
    Jillian lifted her chin. “I want to be here. I can learn to fight, same as Tamnar.”
    “I forbid it,” Falonar said.
    “You what ?” Surreal said, taking a step toward Falonar.
    All the