Prince Zehava regained consciousness on the morning of the third day. He was too experienced a warrior not to know within moments of waking that his wounds were mortal. Andrade, seated at his bedside while Milar closed her eyes for some needed rest, saw in the black eyes that he knew was dying.
“So,” he breathed, one eyebrow cocked almost rakishly. “The dragon-slayer has been dragon-slain. Better this way, Andrade, than of a sickness or by an enemy’s sword.”
“As you say, Zehava. If there’s pain, tell me. I can ease it.”
“No, no pain. Not for me, at least.” He closed his eyes again and nodded. “It’s a good potion that numbs the wounds while leaving the mind clear. My thanks, Andrade. But I doubt you have anything to ease Mila’s pain.”
“Not even time heals a woman who loses a man like you, Zehava.”
He looked up, surprised. A smile danced across his face for an instant. But what he said was, “I want to see my son.”
“I’ll send for him.”
“Alone. Do you hear me, Andrade? Alone.”
Rohan was there quickly, dark circles beneath his eyes and strain tightening his features. Andrade lingered long enough to see him sit and take his father’s hand, then left them alone.
Rohan pressed the cold fingers between his own. “I’m here, Father.”
Zehava’s hand curled around his. “There are things I must tell you. Will you listen to me at last?”
“I’ve always listened.”
“And then gone your own way. Well, I won’t be here to listen to much longer, so pay attention.” Zehava licked his lips and made a face. “It won’t be the dragon claws through my guts that will kill me. I’ll die of thirst and starvation. Get me something to drink.”
Rohan took a square of white silk soaked in water and pressed it to his father’s lips. It was all that was allowed; anything Zehava swallowed would only make the pain worse. Andrade had ordered that nothing be given the prince but her own concoctions, which would kill the pain before they caused it.
Zehava sucked at the moisture, grimaced again, and closed his eyes. “Never trust anyone, Rohan. Especially not the Merida, and most especially not the High Prince. The first will slink into the Desert to attack when you least expect it—and the second would like to.”
“Actually,” Rohan replied, “the Merida will probably try to test me next spring. I thought it might be interesting to fight them for a while, then buy them off. Oh, I know it’s risky,” he admitted, seeing his father’s eyes widen in outrage. “They’ll purchase weapons and support that won’t make it any easier to crush them when they grow arrogant enough to attack in full force. But if they can’t defeat us after I hand them the money to do it with—and they won’t, I promise—their sources will dry up. Still, I’m afraid that I’ll have to spend a great deal of money to lure them into doing what I want them to.”
“Buy them off! Of all the—P’JBut then he gave a short cough of laughter. “As if I have anything to say about it now! My pride would never have permitted it. But I have to trust you, don’t I, Rohan? Laugh for me when they’re beaten back.”
“I will.”
Zehava nodded and changed the subject. “You’ll need a wife soon.”
Rohan smiled slightly. “I promise she’ll be pretty, and you’ll have handsome grandchildren.”
Zehava grinned his appreciation, teeth flashing whitely in his black beard that seemed to have acquired gray streaks very suddenly. “Pretty or not, treat your wife as you would a dragon. Prepare yourself carefully to meet
_r. and approach with respect and admiration. Always preserve her pride by letting her show her strength—and then educate her as to exactly who her master is.”
Rohan thought of the face in the flames and said nothing.
“The promises of a prince die with him,” Zehava went on, shifting slightly in the bed. “You’ll have to see to the holdings soon. Send Chay to the lesser ones as your deputy, but go yourself to the greater. They must feel your hand as they have felt mine. Don’t try to buy them off.”
“No. I won’t.”
“I wish I could have seen your wife,” he fretted. “Make sure she’s not too beautiful. A beautiful woman is her own temptation. She’ll think more of herself than of you. The only exception I ever met was your mother.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Your real wealth is in your children, Rohan.” The fierce black gaze slid away to a corner of the room. “Mine has been.”
Rohan’s eyes stung at the rare words of tenderness. “Is it?” he asked, his throat tight. “I’m not the son you wanted. You would have done better with someone like Chay.”
“I would have known him better,” Zehava acknowledged. “I don’t know you very well, do I? And I fear for you because of it. I’m leaving you a strong princedom built by four generations. Hold onto it, Rohan.”
“My ways aren’t yours, Father. But I promise I’ll keep what’s ours.”
“Yours now,” Zehava said gruffly. “I give all to you alone. Remember that. Not a grain of sand or a breath of wind over the dunes is anyone’s but yours. You’ll have your battles to keep them, I wish I could see those, too.” He paused, looked up, and gave his son a tiny smite. “I never told you how proud I was, did I? My scholarly fool of a son in common trooper’s harness, covered in Merida blood. ...”
“You didn’t tell me, but I knew.”
“You’ll have to become a better liar,” Zehava observed wryly.
“Not with those I love,” Rohan replied firmly.
“Do you?”
He held tighter to his father’s hand. “Yes. I never really knew you, either. And I’m sorry for it. But I do love you.”
Sunlight crept a finger’s width across the bed before the old prince spoke again. “A pity we never really talked before now.”
“But we are talking, and that’s what’s important.” Rohan tried to believe it, tried to forget all the years when one approached the other and found only incomprehension.
“If you have daughters—and I hope you will, for there’s no delight in a man’s life like a daughter—“ He coughed and again Rohan gave him the square of damp silk. Zehava nodded his thanks and continued, “Indulge your daughters as shamefully as I’ve done with Tobin. It’s a husband’s duty to tame a woman, not her father’s.”
Rohan chuckled. “Chay hasn’t had much luck that I can see!”
Zehava grinned at him. “Remember that with your own wife! Don’t break her spirit, but let her know who’s master in your bed. Have you ever had a woman?”
Rohan cursed himself for blushing. “I’m not entirely ignorant.”
“A nice, evasive answer. You’ve a talent for them. I wish I could meet the girl who’ll make a man of you. But remember to make a woman of her at the same time. Your woman.”
Again he thought of the grave, earnest face framed in fire-gold hair, and said nothing.
“Be tender of your mother’s feelings, but don’t let her meddle. Your wife will be princess here, and you mustn’t let Milar trod the girl underfoot.”
“I’m sure Mother will understand.”
“Your mother understands nothing except that I’m dying.”
“She loves you so much,” Rohan whispered. “I hope I’m as lucky in my wife.”
Zehava sighed quietly. “Take my ashes to Rivenrock and blow them in the face of that damned grandsire who killed me.”
“I’ll do better than that,” Rohan promised. “I’ll mingle his ashes with yours and let the winds take them the length and breadth of the Desert.”
The black eyes gleamed. “If you aren’t the most perverse son a man ever had! Yes, do that. I’d like that. Two old dragons.”
“Exactly,” Rohan replied with a smile, amazed and grateful that his father had not questioned his ability to kill the dragon.
“Let me sleep for a while, and then send your mother to me. She’ll need you, Rohan. Tobin has Chay, and you’ll have your duties. But Mila won’t have anyone.” He sank deeper into the pillows. “Poor Mila. My poor darling . . .” He paused for a moment, then repeated, “You’ll have your duties. It’s good that you’ll go through them alone. That’s a cruel thing, but necessary. You’ll have to stand alone, my son. Do it proudly. Not even your wife can share it all. Find someone who understands that.”
Rohan hesitated, then decided to tell him. “I’ve already found a wife.”
Zehava struggled for a moment to sit up, eyes blazing, then collapsed back into the pillows with a grunt. Rohan didn’t fuss over him, knowing it would only irritate him. “Who is she?” the old prince demanded. “What’s her name?”
“Sioned,” he murmured.
“Does your mother know?”
“No one knows except Andrade.”
Another short laugh escaped his lips. “Andrade, eh? Well. The family witch. Don’t let her trap you. She’s sly and does as she pleases for her own reasons.”
“I know. I’ve learned a few things from her over the years.” He grinned down at his father.
Zehava choked again on laughter, forcing himself to calm down as a spasm of pain hit him. “Oh, by the Storm Devil, I wish I could see the prince you’ll make! I never knew you before, Rohan. Promise me you’ll talk to your own sons more than I talked to you.”
He could think of no reply, so he merely nodded. Then he bent and pressed his lips to his father’s hand in token of homage and love. Before the stinging in his eyes could become tears, he said, “Rest now. I’ll send Mother to you in a little while.” Then he left the chamber.
At his own suite he dismissed his squire and stood before the open windows, looking down at his mother’s gardens below. He’d done what he’d promised himself he’d do: ease his father’s worries so he could die in peace. Zehava no longer feared for his son or his lands. It would be a long time before his son stopped-fearing for himself.
Stronghold was hushed, and would remain so until Zehava was dead and his pyre extinguished. Rohan felt he was living in a silent shadow-world, alone and not quite real. The only reality was in fire—the dying blaze of his father’s life, the flames that would engulf Zehava’s remains, the light in the Flametower that would be quenched and then relit, and the face he had seen framed in burning red-gold hair. Himself a wraith wrapped in shadows, he could think of those fires but not be lit by them. Flames would make him prince, husband, and—he hoped—lover. But right now they had no power to illumine those future selves.
He listened to the quiet and watched the patterns of shadow play over the trees below. He should be thinking of the time when his own light would kindle and spread across the Desert with a very different blaze than his father’s. He should be thinking about his bride’s arrival, his mother’s anguish, his sister’s and nephews’ inheritances from Zehava. The hundred details of death and the million more of life ongoing should be occupying his mind. But Rohan inhabited the shadows of Stronghold, waiting for the fire.
Legend had it that long ago when the world was very young, the first Sunrunners had learned from the Goddess how to weave light. Fire, pleased to be the source of their weavings, struck bargains with her brothers Earth and Air so that faradh’im might work their magic unmolested. But their sister Water proved recalcitrant, being
Fire’s natural enemy; though she could not interfere with Sunrunners gliding over her on light, she proved remarkably resourceful when they attempted to cross her in person. Placid Earth did not much care what happened above her, being constantly busy with his own concerns, but whimsical Air sometimes gave Water a little help, blowing up fearful gusts whenever a faradhi was foolish enough to sail on the open sea. Help or not, Water enjoyed herself every time a Sunrunner so much as rowed across a stream.
Thus the ten Sunrunners in Sioned’s bridal party looked in dismay at the wide expanse of the Faolain River and gulped. Camigwen reined in her horse, staring at the rushing river. “I am not looking forward to this,” she stated.
Ostvel laughed at her. “It’s only one little river.”
“Little?”
“We went a hundred measures out of our way to avoid the wider crossings,” he reminded her.
Sioned sighed. “A good thing, too, or I’d arrived at Stronghold not fit to speak with.”
When Ostvel laughed again, Cami chided, “Oh, stop it! You don’t know what it’s like to look at that river and know you’re going to be deathly ill!”
“Ah, but you don’t know what it’s like to set sail to Kierst-Isel, the sun overhead and the wind at your back, sails tight and deck swaying beneath your feet—“
“Ostvel, pleasel” Sioned begged.
He winked at her. “You’re definitely going to the right country,” he teased, then tossed his reins to Cami and swung down off his horse. “Here, hold onto these while I bargain with the riverman for a decent passage fee.”
Camigwen gave the water another nervous glance and muttered, “Why don’t they just build a bridge?”
“Too easy,” Sioned answered with another sigh. “Ostvel says he’ll send us across first and leave the baggage for last. Nice of him to give us some time to recover.”
“And there’s this monster to cross again on the way back,” Cami moaned. “I might stay with you in the Desert forever! Just look at that flimsy raft!”
“It doesn’t look so bad,” Sioned replied, trying to sound confident but not at all sure herself about the manner of their crossing. She dismounted, wanting nice, firm ground beneath her feet for as long as possible, and helped Meath organize the line of horses to be loaded. All the faradh’im were already green beneath their tans.
When Ostvel returned with the riverman, Cami demanded of the latter, “Why isn’t there a bridge?”
“Across this water, lady? How do you propose we span that?” He pointed proudly to the river. “She swells up in the spring like a pregnant doe to the very walls of my house. My grandsir, now, he lashed together a bridge one autumn, and it worked fine until the spring when the Lady River decided she didn’t like it and swept the bridge away—and my grandsir with it.”
“Oh,” Cami said, peering at the deceptively smooth surface of the water. “Well, she doesn’t look too angry now,” she added.
“See that little ripple halfway across?” He indicated a spot where sunlight glanced off a pulsing bulge in the water. “The current there runs faster than the best-blooded horses Lord Chaynal of Radzyn Keep ever bred. I took his lordship across some years ago and he told me that himself!”
Sioned ached to ask questions about Lord Chaynal, whom she knew to be the prince’s brother-by-marriage. But she held her tongue, for it would not be seemly for a future princess to be caught gossiping.
“Never fear, ladies,” the riverman finished cheerfully. “Eldskon is what my mother named me, the way all good folk have names that mean something in the old way of speaking, and it’s a good name in my trade for it means ‘soft passage.’ And that’s what I promise you,” he ended with a flourish.
“Goddess, I hope so,” Camigwen muttered.
The raft was big enough to hold twelve loosely hobbled horses tethered to its railing, stout tree trunks lashed together with wrist-thick ropes. But the instant Sioned set foot onto the flat wooden planks, her stomach fluttered and her eyes ached with the beginnings of the usual faradhi reaction to water. She swallowed hard. This was only the shallows, where the raft floated gently in calm water without any currents. Reminding herself that she had her dignity to maintain, she vowed to stay stone-faced and in possession of her breakfast.
It was problematic whether the horses or the Sunrunners regarded the river ahead with greater trepidation. The raft surged forward, guided by two huge cables anchored on the opposite shore. Ostvel kept his eyes on the horses, Eldskon on the heavy iron rings through which the cables were threaded. The raft used the river’s own speed for the crossing, the cables angled downriver to take full advantage of the currents. There was a similar crossing upstream angled for east-west travelers. Sioned had carefully examined the arrangements and while her rational mind told her the system was sound, her senses froze as the raft bumped into a current and she realized she was entrusting her life to a few planks, some rails, and a couple of woven cables. The notion was not reassuring to her stomach.
Camigwen was huddled on her knees, grasping the lower rails with both hands. Sioned was the only other faradhi still upright. The horses shifted nervously and whinnied to their fellows back on the western shore as the raft swayed and bumped as the main current caught it. Sioned managed to keep her feet, but as they hit the bulge of fast water in midriver she could no longer keep her breakfast. Clinging to the rails, she bent over and was inelegantly sick.
A little while later she was vaguely aware of someone carrying her onto dry land. She was placed on a warm, sunny patch of grass and heard someone say in an amused voice that she would feel better soon. She wanted to tell him he was a damned liar, but hadn’t the strength. It was a mistake to open her eyes; the sunlight hit her like a sword to the skull. Croaking out a feeble curse, she fainted.
Shouts roused her. Sitting up blearily, she clutched at her head with both hands and gulped down nausea, wondering dully why her stomach thought there was anything left to rid itself of. The sunlight stabbed into her eyes again, but at least that was bearable. What was not was the confusion of her vision. The horses tied up nearby were very big, then very small, then fogged as if the winter mists of Goddess Keep had descended around them. The riverbank receded into the far distance, then snapped back so suddenly she put her hands to ward it off. Sioned was vastly tempted to lie back and be miserable for a few days, as it appeared she was actually going to live through this. She hoped the prince would appreciate it.
But someone was still shouting, and despite the confounding of her senses she forced herself to rise to her knees. She squinted, trying to bring the raft into focus. Halfway across the river, it seemed halfway across the world.
And the horses that should have been on it were gone.
“Sweet Goddess,” she breathed. Downstream she glimpsed the terrified animals trying hopelessly to fight the current. Her own cream-colored mare submerged and did not reappear. Sioned unwisely attempted to stand, failed, and furiously tried again. This time she gained her feet and dug her nails into her palms. Staggering to the riverbank, she fell; the icy shock of the water and cut of stones into her knees and hands combined to clear her head. She gulped down water, choked, and lifted her head to the river.
She saw at once what had happened. The cables on the opposite shore had broken, and upon their snapping the raft was at the river’s mercy. The lurch had sent the horses against the rails, their weight breaking the wood. The cables on this side were the only reason the raft had not hurtled downstream, for those on board hung on tight, trying to pull the raft to safety. Sioned cried out as she looked around to the moorings. The cables, straining against the four massive posts that anchored them, had began to fray.
Sioned pushed herself upright and stumbled over to where Mardeem lay face down on the grass. She rolled him over and slapped him, yelling his name, then hauled him by the ankles down to the river. She repeated this treatment on Meath and Antoun, and the snow-cold water did its work.
“Mardeem!” Sioned cried, and he winced at the sound of her voice. “Wake the others, quickly! Antoun, Meath, get up and come with me. Hurry!”
She tugged the two men to their feet and led them to the cables, where they wrapped their hands around the taut cords and began to pull. The work of three people against the surging river was hopeless, and Sioned knew it. Pain tore through her shoulder muscles and she grunted with effort, hearing Mardeem’s chanted curses just behind her. Part of her wanted to laugh hysterically, for he was as poetic in his oaths as he was in his songs.
Eldskon and Ostvel lashed the cables around the iron ring, for to pull would be to negate Sioned’s plan. More hands were helping now. She looked around and saw Camigwen bringing two horses. Ostvel yelled encouragement as the ropes were secured on saddles, and with the added power the raft began to move more surely to the bank. But as the distance narrowed, Sioned saw that the ring was pulling free of the splintering boards around it. Those on board grabbed hold of the cables to ease the strain.
At last the river let go of the raft and it was hauled into the shallows. Its shaken occupants leaped off as faradh’im collapsed like felled trees. Sioned had no memory of toppling over into the sand, nor of being carried once more to soft, warm grass. It was past midday before she knew anything at all, and her first sensations were decidedly pleasant. She lay wrapped in a blanket of shadows and sunlight, and there was a taste of fresh mossberries on her lips, sweet and spicy. She sighed luxuriously, turning her head to look at the smiling blue eyes she knew would be watching her, framed in sunsilk hair.
“Well,” said a voice nearby. “It’s nice of you to wake up so we can thank you, Sioned.”
Disappointment pierced her. This was not the voice she had thought to hear. Memory rushed back and she opened her eyes, propping herself on her elbows to peer up at Ostvel. In the next instant every muscle in her body seemed to twist, and she sank back onto the grass with her lower lip caught between her teeth. The prince would not appreciate giving welcome to a cripple.
“Stay there. Everything’s all right now—or at least mostly all right.” Ostvel held a cup to her lips. “Have some water. It’s a thimbleful compared to what I would have swallowed if you and Cami hadn’t thought so fast. I’m in your debt, Sioned.”
The water tasted of mossberries, and regret sliced through her again. “What happened?” she mumbled.
“Nothing that makes tragic hearing, except for the loss of the horses. The twenty of us are all safe on this side. But we only have twelve mounts left. A somewhat unequal balance, one might say.”
She sat up again, stretched carefully, and winced. “So twelve of us will have to go on. The rest can stay here with our friend of the ‘soft crossing,’ “ she said with a faint smile. “I hope he thinks seriously about building a bridge.”
“I doubt he can think at all just now. He’s incoherent with terror of what Andrade would have done to him if he’d lost us—or what he believes the almighty Lady would do.” Ostvel sat back on his heels and shrugged. “He’s not our problem though, You are.”
“Me?”
“Sioned, I can’t take you to Stronghold with only eleven in attendance. You’re going to be a princess!”
“A princess without a wedding dress,” she reminded him. “AH my things were on the other horses. Ostvel, we have to go on as we are. She told me to be there in six days.”
“You’re supposed to arrive in a state befitting the bride of a prince,” he said stubbornly, his kind, rugged face furrowed with concern.
She smiled fondly. “I’ll be lucky to arrive at all, at this rate. How’s Cami doing?”
“Still insensible, poor darling. I’m amazed she was able to get up, let alone think of the horses. I’m amazed any of you moved as fast as you did. We owe you Sunrunners our lives.”
“Remember that the next time you tease us about crossing water.” Sioned ran her hands back through her damp hair. “We’re losing the day, Ostvel. Prop Cami on her horse. Tie her to the saddle if you must, but we have to get moving.”
Camigwen recovered enough to sit her horse without the measures Sioned suggested, and fretted for the rest of the afternoon about the loss of Sioned’s clothes and consequence. No amount of reassurance could convince her that Sioned did not much care. In truth, she was relieved to be going to Stronghold in simplicity rather than in state. She wasn’t a princess yet, and still couldn’t quite make herself believe she would be.
By the time they stopped for the night, everyone was exhausted. Muscles accustomed to riding were not used to hauling on cables, and muffled groans were heard as the twelve dismounted. They spent the night on a farm belonging to Palevna’s maternal uncle, but the faradh’im were unable to do full justice to his wife’s splendid cooking and after dinner dragged themselves out to the barn to collapse onto blankets in the soft hay.
“Just think,” Ostvel said brightly, gray eyes dancing, “we’ll have to go back across the Faolain on our way home again!”
Camigwen glared at him. “Think again,” she said darkly. “I’ll have Mardeem sing a bridge into being if I must, but I’m not going to cross that water on anything but my own two feet.” She threw her arms around her Chosen and buried her face in the curve of his neck. “I almost lost you to that damned river!”
Sioned watched him soothe her, and smiled. Goddess blessing was surely on this pair. Her smile faded as she realized that when they married, she herself would be far away, unable to join in the celebrations.
And her own wedding? She could neither visualize it nor believe in it. The man, yes—she could see him in every color of the sky and every gleam of sunlight. But the prince was a stranger. Who was he? Was there a mind to match those beautiful, brilliant eyes?
She lay awake long after the others slept, and stared up at the stars through loft doors left open to the soft night. Such clear, sweet light; to ride that would be feat indeed. If it could be done, then even on nights when the moons did not rise one could still go where there was need by dancing down those pale, fiery trails of light. But it was forbidden to Sunrunners, the glow of the stars. Perhaps the protection of the Goddess did not extend to those faraway pinpoints of light. The Fire of sun and moons was under her blessing, but what of the stars? They threw whispery shadows over the meadows and mountains, mysterious and dreamy. What colors were hidden within them? Sioned, with six rings circling her fingers, was capable of riding both sun and moons. She counted those rings in the starlight, four gold and two silver, plain circles that at Goddess Keep did not set her apart but which out in the world marked as her different. She remembered what it had been like at River Run during her childhood, when her sister-by-marriage had eyed her askance and whispered about her to her brother Davvi. In her maturity, Sioned could think of Lady Wisla with something approaching gratitude, for if she had not been so eager to be sole mistress of the Holdings and their wealth, Sioned would never have been sent to Goddess Keep.
And she would not be riding now to become the wife of a prince.
Why was Andrade doing this? she wondered. The last trained faradhi to marry into the important nobility had been Sioned’s grandmother, who, though not a highborn herself, had married a prince of Kierst. Their daughter had married Sioned and Davvi’s father, having shown no signs of the gifts. Younger sons and daughters of high-borns sometimes become Sunrunners, but usually they stayed untrained despite evidence of talent, marrying rather than coming to Goddess Keep for instruction. A prince or lord wearing faradhi rings was unheard of. Sioned did not interest herself overmuch in the affairs of the princedoms, but she knew enough to understand that a Sunrunner prince would be perceived as a threat. But there was a very good chance that one of her children woufd be just that. Though Princess Milar did not possess the gifts, they had been known to skip several generations before showing up again.
All at once Sioned realized that the son she bore to the prince would rule after him. She cursed her stupidity in not having considered it earlier, for being so wrapped up in her thoughts of him that she had not thought about children at all. And she knew what Andrade wanted of her at last: a faradhi prince ruling the Desert, using all the power of his position and his gifts to—to do what? That was what she could not understand. Or, rather, she hoped she did not understand.
Prince Zehava died before dawn on the sixth day, his * family attending him. He had drifted in and out of awareness all the previous day and night, oncoming death dulling his mind and slurring his speech. But he died without pain, and without fear for the future of the son who became ruling prince when Zehava breathed his last. Ignoring the tradition that forbade him the death chamber, Rohan was with his father when he died. Milar closed her husband’s eyes; Tobin ran her fingers gently over his forehead to smooth out the lines of stress. Rohan bent and kissed his father, then turned and left the death chamber.
Andrade waited a little while, then went after him. He was where she knew he’d be: in the Flametower, helping the servants build the fire high enough to shine out over the Desert and inform Zehava’s people of his passing. The blaze would be seen from distant hills where other fires would be lit in a chain of light that by nightfall would extend the length and breadth of the princedom.
Moisture had become an unpleasant trickle down her spine and between her breasts before Rohan had satisfied himself that the fire was sufficiently bright. She was not in the best of moods anyway, and the heat worsened her temper. Though never deeply attached to Zehava, she had appreciated him and knew the world to be poorer for his death. But now she had a new prince to deal with, and as they left the inferno behind, her voice was perhaps sharper than it should have been.
“Not a single preparation has been made for Sioned’s arrival. Why are you denying your bride her proper honors? I refuse to have the girl slink in here like a common guest, and not a very important one at that!”
“Peace, Andrade,” Rohan said tiredly. “It’s been a long night, and I have a longer day ahead of me.”
“You’ll answer me before it grows any longer, boy!”
A glittering gaze met hers, fierce as a dragon on the hunt. “The girl is coming to my keep. Andrade, not yours. Her welcome or lack of it will be arranged as / dictate.”
“Rohan!”
But he was off down the stairs, supple limbs setting a pace her older bones could not match. She spat a series of oaths that would have shocked even those who knew her best, then went to her rooms for a fruitless try at sleep.
The signal fire burned throughout the day, but Rohan was not at Stronghold to feel the heat melt slowly down through the keep. At daybreak he rode from the courtyards through the tunnel cut into solid rock down to the desert. With Chaynal at his side and his guards commander Maeta supervising nine more soldiers, he rode toward Rivenrock Canyon.
The sun rose, broiling the air, small updrafts brushing at his clothes and his horse’s mane. Rohan’s fair hair soon darkened with sweat and the thin gray silk of his tunic clung in damp patches to his chest and back. He told himself the salt sting in his eyes was sweat and that the hollow in his body was only the growling of an empty stomach. Over forty measures passed in silence. The sweltering air kept all animals in their shelters with barely enough energy to whimper their complaints to each other. A few birds were aloft on their way somewhere else, as birds always were in the Desert. Sometimes there came the soft shussh of shifting sand or a snort as one of the horses cleared its nostrils. But none of the men or women spoke for a long, tense time.
Finally Chay, who had let his horse lag behind Rohan’s to give the young man some privacy, caught up to him again. They rode ahead of the troops, out of earshot even in the profuund stillness. Rohan glanced around at him. “Yes?” he prompted.
“You’ve never hunted a dragon before. It’s past mating now, and he’ll be even more vicious.” proomed Father “
“Rohan, I wish you’d let me—“
“No. This dragon is mine.”
Chay glanced away. “As you wish, my prince,” he said stiffly.
“No! Chay, don’t—I never want that from you!”
The cry from the heart softened Chaynal. “I’ll have to call you that around the others, you know. But we’ll stay to each other as we’ve always been, if that’s what you want.”
Rohan nodded his gratitude. “I need that, Chay. I’m going to need your help.”
“You have it. You don’t need to ask.” Chay shrugged his shoulders against the heat. “I can almost hear the Merida getting ready. They’ll have seen the fires by evening and know Zehava’s dead. There’ll be trouble, Rohan.”
“I have a few ideas,” the young prince responded. “And not just for them.”
“Roelstra?” Chay guessed, and saw confirmation in the set of Rohan’s jaw. “You’d better be in one hell of a secure position before the Rialla.”
“I’ll be in what he’ll think is an untenable position. He’ll like that. He’ll think I’m ready to grab whatever support I can get, even from him. And support will come in the form of one of his doubtlessly charming daughters as my wife.”
“But Tobin said that Andrade—“
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“You’re going to disobey the Lady of Goddess Keep?” Chay whistled softly between his teeth.
“I’m scared to death, if you must know,” he confessed. “She loomed over Tobin and me like a she-dragon when we were little, and the feeling lingers a bit. But I’m going to live my own life, not her version of it. And that’s why I’m going to need your support, especially at the Rialla.”
“I’ll do whatever you want, of course. But do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes,” Rohan said flatly. “I’m going to build a princedom that doesn’t depend on rny sword. Father said the promises of a prince die with him. Not this prince, Chay!
When I die, my sons will inherit peace, not just the absence of war for a few seasons or years while enemies think up new ways to attack.” He paused for Chay’s reaction, and when none was forthcoming remarked, “You’re not being very enthusiastic.”
“It’s a fine idea,” Chaynal said carefully. “But I don’t think it’s very practical.”
“I’ll make it work. You’ll see.”
Rivenrock rose up before them. The reddish striations in the stone might have been dried blood, dragon or human. Rohan drew rein, contemplating the mouth of the canyon with its great spire.
“He’s still here.” Rohan pointed to dark patches of plants. “See the bittersweet along the cliff? He’s been cropping it to keep up his strength, because he’s not done mating. Usually it grows back almost overnight, but this is eaten right down to the ground.”
“It doesn’t take a dragon six days to mate his females,” Chay protested.
“Father wounded him badly. Can’t you sense that he’s still back there in the canyon?”
Chay saw and heard nothing, and said so. Rohan only smiled. All at once a shriek echoed off the canyon walls, its force clattering loose stones down to the gully. “He’s here,” Rohan repeated, and rode forward. Half a measure into the canyon he dismounted and unsheathed his sword, gesturing for Chaynal to do the same. “Maeta,” he said to the commander, “Keep everyone else back. You’re here to help me drag this monster home, and that’s all. Chay, come with me.”
“Your grace,” Maeta began, her eyes narrowing with worry—black eyes like Zehava’s, whose kinswoman she may or may not have been depending on which family rumor one believed. Rohan gave her a long look and she subsided with an obedient nod.
Rohan and Chaynal climbed the narrow shelf that passed for a trail along the canyon wall. The acrid odor of dragon mating was in the air. Caves lined the cliffs, many of them walled up by females who had already laid their eggs within. Eight caves on the opposite side of the canyon were sealed, and Rohan wondered how many young dragons curled within shells there, baking in ovenlike heat to maturity. Dragons, with broad and graceful wings for flight, long throats for calling to each other on the wind—and deadly talons that ripped flesh to shreds. Rohan had to think of the dragons as killers today, not as the soaring, beautiful creatures that had enchanted him from childhood.
He had been certain that the grandsire would still be here. Zehava had crippled the dragon and slowed him up in attending to his females. Two caves were still open on the opposite wall, and the shifting of pebbles within told him there were she-dragons inside, waiting impatiently for their lord. An unmated female, too heavy with eggs to fly, died quickly; crumbled skeletons of those who had attempted flight littered the gully below. Rohan had ridden out here often, collecting talons, teeth, and the odd wing- or thigh-bone for study. He knew how the skeletons fit together and how the muscles lay along them, and how the whole became an animal of rare beauty—at least to him. But now he was going to kill a dragon, finish the work his father had begun before he started work of his own.
He climbed faster. It was not recommended to scramble up a cliffside with a naked sword in one’s hand, but he didn’t dare sheathe it in case the dragon surprised him. Even the instant or two it would take to draw his sword might mean his life or Chay’s. Risky enough to send rocks clattering down the walls as they climbed, but he hoped the dragon would think it only the sound of the stone ovens settling into place for the summer.
At last they reached the cavern he’d spotted from below. After catching his breath, he told Chay to find a good place to hide.
“Rohan, will you forgive me if I tell you you’re out of your mind? This is all very good sport, but I’d feel much better if I knew what we were doing.”
“Take a look at this cave. It’s walled up, the eggs laid and the she-dragon gone. Now,, if you were the sire and you’d been through hell to mate this year, and you saw two puny creatures about to attack the fruits of your labors—“
Chay snorted with laughter. “You are out of your mind. All right, what do you want me to do?”
“Nothing much, unless I’m killed. If I am—run like hell. And tell Mother to forgive me.”
“If she knew about this, she’d kill you herself and save the dragon the trouble.” Chay shook his head, then went to the far end of the ledge where a sizable pile of rocks provided adequate cover.
Rohan wiped sweat from his forehead and turned to study the opposite wall where empty caves gaped tauntingly. From which would the dragon emerge? Or was he in a cave on this side? Instinct said not. Rohan refused to contemplate the insanity of this undertaking and slid behind an outcropping of rock to wait. The ledge was about a man-height wide and about twice that long— plenty of room for him to maneuver, but difficult for a dragon. Rohan hoped so, anyway.
The shadows were shortening toward noon when the dragon limped out of a cave opposite Rohan’s perch. Replete after a morning of wholehearted attention to one of his ladies, he yawned widely and stretched first one hind leg, then the other. Rohan heard Chay’s muffled laughter nearby. It really was rather funny to see this randy old grandsire of a beast grown sleepy with his sexual exertions. But Rohan lost all impulse toward mirth when he noted the many rents in the dragon’s hide that still oozed blood. As the great wings unfolded to prepare for flight, Rohan also saw how stiffly the dragon moved. There was a large splotch of congealed blood on the underside of one wing, and a smaller patch on a flank. Rohan gathered himself and stepped out into the sunlight, calling a derisive challenge to the dragon that had killed his father.
Because the sun was over Rohan’s shoulder and his position was higher up this side of the canyon, the dragon had to squint to see him. In other circumstances that would have been funny, too, watching the great baleful eyes narrow as they sought out the call’s source. Rohan sent a prayer of thanks to the Goddess for arranging things thus; the dragon would have to beat his injured wings strongly to bring himself up to Rohan’s position.
Between his wounds and his excesses of mating, the dragon was so exhausted that the effort would be immense.
Exhilaration flushed through him as the wings stroked once, twice, unsure of their strength. The dragon grunted in annoyance and pain, then lurched into the air. For an instant his ability to fly was in doubt. But with three powerful beats of his wings he was airborne—and heading straight for Rohan.
The prince gulped down terror, brought up his sword, and held his ground. The dragon loomed over him, sunlight glaring off his golden hide. Jaws parted, revealing broken teeth, and Rohan felt the heat of the dragon’s breath in his face. He had a sudden mental image of his own head being swallowed into that gaping throat. He had never been so close to a dragon before, and what he wanted most of all was to hide until the terrible beast flew away.
Instead he leaped to one side, slashing his sword down with all his strength. By the span of his own fingers he missed getting sliced in half by dragon jaws. The beast howled as he slammed into the ledge, one wing bent up against his body and blood welling where Rohan had chopped at it. As he tried to extend the wing again, bones cracked like blasts of lightning across the sky. Balance and flight gone, the dragon clawed at the cliffs edge with his hind legs, forelegs scrabbling the air in an attempt to gain purchase—preferably around Rohan.
Looking into those reddened, infuriated eyes, Rohan felt his own blood boil. This was the enemy. Something very old and fierce welled up in him and he hacked at the nearest foreleg, laughing as the dragon screamed. One wing stroked frantically, the other useless. Rohan plunged his blade into the long, writhing neck. Gore spurted out as he withdrew the sword and he stabbed it in again. The dragon’s head lashed back with an agonized bellow, then fell forward. Rohan hefted his sword a last time and sank it into the dragon’s eye.
There was a hot, ripping sensation down his arm as he lunged out of the way. The sword that had been so light only an instant before now seemed impossibly heavy as he tried to pull it from the eye socket, where it had caught against the jutting browbone. Rohan cried aloud with the effort and the sudden burning in his shoulder. The dragon’s head was flung toward the sky, the sword still protruding from the bloody hole that had been his eye. He clawed at the rocks, found no hold. His wing swept back and forth, instinct demanding flight, tail thrashing against the canyon wall. The dying dragon gave a last terrible shriek and slid down the cliff, his great frame crashing onto the ragged stones below.
Rohan glanced down at his arm, where a talon had scored flesh and muscle. He judged it a minor wound as he wiped it clean, not knowing which was his own blood and which was the dragon’s. He wondered with vague interest if the tales about dragon’s blood being poisonous were true.
All at once there was no warmth. The sun had no heat, the air turned to frigid water through which he moved with painful slowness. The searing breeze froze sweat on his body and congealed smears of blood into ice. He looked over the ledge at the dragon he had killed. Sick, swaying, he staggered back from the brink, fell to his knees, and vomited.
Canyon and sky were still spinning around him when he felt cool water dribbling onto his face. He shook his head irritably and groaned. “Bite down on this,” Chay’s voice instructed, and Rohan gagged on something bitterly salty that made him want to retch again. He swallowed convulsively and made himself sit up. “Give it a moment to work,” Chay said. The small wafer of herbs and salt reached his stomach like a goblet of strong wine before breakfast. His arm began to hurt in earnest, and he winced.
Chay sat back on his heels. “For a while there I thought I’d have to sail for the Far Islands and never come back. Tobin wouldn’t have let me live past telling her you were dead. But you killed him, Rohan—Goddess, how you killed him! It was beautiful! Everyone saw it, too. Your first dragon.”
“First and last. Never again, Chay. I don’t want to do that ever again.”
He accepted his friend’s help in getting to his feet.
They started slowly down the rocky path, sliding uncertainly on loose rocks. Rohan’s knees worked, just barely. Maeta had their horses ready when they reached bottom, and Chay spent some moments calming the frantic Akkal, who had never been riderless at a dragon hunt before. Then he joined Rohan and the others beside the massive corpse.
It took all Rohan’s remaining strength to yank his sword from the dragon’s eye. He took off his tunic and used it to wipe the blade clean, instructing Maeta to take just the talons and teeth for now. “We’ll send someone out for the rest of him tomorrow.”
“Yes, my lord.” Maeta bowed low. She had taught him archery, horsemanship, played with him during his childhood, concealed his escapades from his parents. And now she bowed to him.
Rohan drained half a waterskin down his throat, wishing it was brandy. Chay helped him wash some of the blood from his face and chest, exclaiming in surprise at the long talon mark from right shoulder to to elbow. The wound was cleansed, bound with the remains of Rohan’s tunic, and the prince held himself from flinching at his brother-by-marriage’s rough, expert handling.
All at once there was a low rumble in the canyon: sinister, terrifying. He whirled around, one hand on his sword. The others stopped their work and froze, staring into the empty gorge. The sound thickened, intensified, a dozen different notes and all eerie enough to set the hair rising on Rohan’s nape.
“They’re -mourning him,” Chay said, breaking the terrible thrall of dragon voices. “Hurry it up and let’s go home.”
The wailing rose and fell as they worked. The she-dragons grieved for their dead just as Rohan and his family would grieve tomorrow night when they set the torch to Zehava’s pyre. At last the talons and teeth were all in large velvet pouches, clattering soft percussion to the requiem music that followed Rohan and his people out into the Desert. He shivered in the blazing sunlight and silently repeated his vow. Never again.
Sioned drew and stood in her stirrups as she caught sight of the riders. Their goal was the same as hers: the cleft in the Vere Hills where Stronghold crouched between the cliffs. She glimpsed the sheen of afternoon sunlight off fair hair and felt all the color drain from her face.
“Him?” Ostvel murmured at her side.
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Oh, Goddess!” Camigwen exclaimed. “Be quick, Sioned—wash your face, and here’s my comb—hurry!”
“Leave her be, Cami,” Ostvel said. “What man can expect a woman to come through the Desert looking as if she’d just stepped from her own chambers?”
Sioned told himself the world was full of fair-haired men. She sat down in her saddle and tightened her grip on the reins, trying to calm her ragged breathing. The party’s sober gray mourning clothes told her that someone had died, someone important. But the prince wore no shirt or tunic at all. A swath of silk was wound around his right arm, and as the riders neared Sioned saw it was a hastily made bandage, soaked in blood.
“I hope we won’t have to wait long. It’s damned hot out here,” Ostvel remarked with casual understatement. “Arrange yourselves around Lady Sioned.”
The title made her start in surprise, but Ostvel had achieved the desired effect. The others formed a semicircle around her as if they were a guard of honor and she already a princess. Sunlight wavered across the sand as the riders approached, and Sioned wished futilely she had followed Cami’s advice. She glanced down at her brown riding clothes, thought of the untidy knot of the braid at her nape, regretted her lack of a wash. At least he would see the worst of her first, she thought, resigned. After this, she could only improve.
The riders paused atop a dune and the blond man rode ahead, a taller, darker figure at his side. The face of her Fire-conjure appeared before Sioned in the flesh. As for the rest of him—of middle height but in elegant proportion that made him seem taller, with shoulders pulled straight despite his obvious exhaustion. They were good shoulders, strong and broad. His chest was smooth, lean muscles under golden skin shining with sweat and streaked with dried blood.
He reined in and nodded greeting. “Welcome, my lady.”
She inclined her head. “Thank you, my lord.” Her voice worked. Amazing.
“May I have the honor of presenting my sister’s husband? Lord Chaynal of Radzyn Keep.”
She looked into a pair of compelling gray eyes set deep into a tanned face. “My lord,” she acknowledged with a slightly less formal nod. He was, she supposed, quite devastatingly handsome. His intense interest in her was just this side of embarrassing, and a corner of his mouth curved in a small, wry smile.
“I am indeed honored, my lady,” he said, and bent his head to her.
Sioned remembered civility and gestured to the friends flanking her on either side. “My lord, may I make my companions known to you? Ostvel, Second Steward of Goddess Keep, and the Sunrunner Camigwen. These others are my friends as well.”
“You are all most welcome to my lands,” the prince said, and Sioned’s body went nerveless. His lands, not his father’s. They were in mourning gray for the old prince, and that meant that she would be marrying not an heir but a ruler in his own right. He was still speaking, and she attended desperately to his words. “It’s fortunate that my business concluded in time for me escort you to Stronghold. Lady Andrade will be pleased to see you safely arrived.”
“I look forward to talking with her,” Sioned heard herself say.
Lord ChaynaPs eyes said, I’ll just bet you do, and the corner of his mouth lifted a little higher. But the prince’s face was perfectly calm as he said, “My lady, will you do me the favor of a few moments’ private conversation?”
Before she could answer he swung down off his horse and she remembered at the last instant to let him lift her from her saddle. His fingers closed around her waist and she blushed, hoping her sunburn would hide the rush of color. If it was this way with layers of clothes between them, how would it be when skin touched skin? Sioned stared at the toes of her boots as she walked, struggling for control, and as they moved away from the others she risked a glance at him. Her eyes were on a level with his lips. She wondered what his smile was like and let her gaze travel down to where a pulse beat rapidly in his throat. Realizing he was as tense as she, Sioned relaxed a little.
“Your business looks to have been dangerous,” she said in an astonishingly composed voice. “It’s not your own blood, I trust?”
“No. A dragon’s. He drew only a little of mine.” He spoke almost absently, his gaze fixed on the hills.
Sioned resolved to keep her mouth shut unless he asked her a direct question. Many more strides were paced off across the white-gold sand before he stopped, faced her, and spoke in a rush. “You know why you’re here, and so do I. Andrade expects us to marry.”
“Andrade expects many things,” Sioned answered.
“Further,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “she expects it to happen soon. But it can’t. Not yet.” He looked into her eyes. His were very blue, with circles of black around the outside of the irises. “Please believe me when I tell you that I will marry you and no other woman. I knew it from the moment Andrade conjured your face in the Fire. But there are things I must do before we can marry. Some of them may hurt you, and for that I’m sorry—but my father is dead, I’m ruling prince, and what a prince must do a man often regrets.”
Sioned was deprived of the powers of speech by this extraordinary recital. She simply stared at him.
“I must show everyone what manner of prince I intend to be,” he went on. “I’ll explain it all to you once there’s time, and I’m hoping you’re the kind of woman who can understand such things. If not, you’ll have to learn,” he said bluntly. “But I wouldn’t do them if they weren’t necessary for our life together. I want to live in peace, not at the point of a sword. Do you understand?”
She was still incapable of speaking, but for a different reason now.
“It’ll start for us when we arrive at Stronghold. I’ve killed the dragon that killed my father, you see.” A thin flush mounted his cheeks. “None of them thought I could.”
“Whyever not?” The words popped out of her mouth before she could think, but she found them entirely natural. Who would believe this man incapable of doing whatever he chose to do?
The blue eyes narrowed with suspicion, but then a smile stole across his face and transformed it. She nearly caught her breath. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re not flattering me, I can tell that. You must always speak the truth to me, Sioned.”
The sound of her name on his lips was her undoing, but she had no intention of allowing him to know it. Instead she hung onto her pride, made an effort, and smiled back. “I will, if you promise me the same.” So much depended on his answer and his ability to keep that promise.
“I will my lady. My word on it.” He touched her arm and quickly let go, startled. Touched by Fire, she thought, seeing it at last in his eyes.
“Tell me how I am to behave,” she said. “We should go back to the others and we won’t have the chance to talk until later, if at all.”
“You know castle life, I see,” he observed. “We won’t have time for ourselves unless we arrange it—and I will arrange it. But I can’t give any definite sign that I intend to marry you, and you’ll find no bridal welcome at Stronghold. I’m sorry. If it was only the two of us, I’d give you—“ He broke off and color again stained his cheeks. “But we’re not private people and we never can be. Are you sure you want that kind of life?”
She hesitated, then shrugged and decided to tell the truth as she had promised. “When I was sixteen years old, I saw your face in the Fire. Lady Andrade told me then that I could change the vision if I wished. I never wanted to change it—and I never will.”
He seemed caught between a dozen conflicting emotions, as speechless now as she had been earlier. She smiled at him.
“Silly, isn’t it?” she said with another little shrug.
He swallowed, cleared his throat, and managed, “No sillier than what happened to me when Andrade showed me your face in the flames.”
To cover the emotion, she asked again, “How should I behave? Shall I pout, bear it bravely, or act as if I haven’t a thought in my head about anything at all, let alone marrying you?”
“You’d never be able to sustain that role for long,” he said with a sudden grin, then sobered. “But have you thought about it? Marrying me, I mean.”
Impulsively she dared the Fire by touching his cheek. The shock of it went through them both and she snatched her fingers away. Yet burned into her fingertips was the feel of his skin, the moistness of his sweat, the faint stubble of unshaven beard. “Answer enough?” she whispered.
“You feel it, too,” he whispered, shaken. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you—that it could happen for me the way it did for my sister and Chay. I have to marry, I’ve always known that, and I was hoping for a pretty enough woman with at least half a brain—but looking at you—“ He drew in a breath and shook his head. “I can’t expect you to understand what I’m trying to say when I’m not sure I understand it myself.”
“Oh, I understand,” she said almost ruefully. “It’s a shock to find your emotions can tell your mind to go rot, isn’t it?”
He smiled again. “Exactly. But that’s how I have to behave, as if I haven’t made up my mind about you.” He touched her shoulder and they stared at each other in silence before he removed his hand. “That kind of thing can’t happen too often, especially not in public. I’ll never be able to play my part, otherwise.”
“Perhaps I should pretend to be unsure, as well. Would that fit your plan?”
“Yes,” he decided at once. “Perfectly. Act as if you’re uncertain about marriage to me as both a man and a prince. It’ll leave you some pride, at least,” he added with a grimace. “I’ll make it up to you, Sioned, once we’re married. But that can’t happen until after the Riella at Waes. I’ll explain everything when we can talk alone. But we have to go back now.”
“I can feel them watching us,” she agreed. As they started back, she said, “I was frightened on the journey here. I’m not anymore.”
“I was scared, too, that Andrade’s Fire had lied. I’ve been in the shadows these last days—all my life, it seems now. But I thank the Goddess she’s sent me a Sunrunner.”
“I think we’d do better to thank Andrade,” Sioned replied mischievously.
“Stop looking at me like that or we’ll never be able to pull this off!”
She schooled her face into solemn lines. “Better?”
“Much. But I can still see things in your eyes. Are they in mine, too?”
Casting him a sidelong glance, she said, “If they weren’t, I’d do everything in my powers to put them there, Rohan.”
It was the first time she had ever spoken his name aloud, to anyone. He looked away and muttered, “This isn’t going to be easy.”
“No.”
“I’ll send word by my squire—he’s twelve, with black hair and freckles, and his name’s Walvis. You’ll like him.” He paused. “Sioned?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“The dragon today—that was nothing. You are everything.”
She did not dare reply. But as he lifted her into her saddle and the Fire sped through her again, she looked into his eyes and felt all apprehension vanish. She rode to Stronghold between Ostvel and Camigwen, dazed and happy and not minding at all that no welcome had been prepared for her, that her position was very nearly impossible, and that a difficult role had been assigned her with only the sketchiest of explanations from a man she didn’t even know, a dangerous man who could do such things to her. As he rode home with his tokens of a dragon slain he did not look at her, not even after they were in the huge inner courtyard of the keep. There was no sign from him that he was aware of her existence. But she knew. She knew. They both did.
It took all afternoon, a cool bath, and a visit from Lady Andrade to restore Sioned to sanity.
She effaced herself during the welcome given Rohan, standing apart with Camigwen and Ostvel. The latter had sent her escort to find the Sunrunners already at Stronghold and ask them what was going on. Sioned heard him give the order and was vaguely annoyed; Rohan would let everyone know what they ought to know. They ought to trust him, as she did.
His people not only trusted him, they obviously adored him, Their fondness he would have won as a child, and she suspected he had confirmed their respect today by killing the dragon. Of wariness or strict formality in his royal presence, there was no sign. Sioned was grateful for that. A court strangled by etiquette or silent through terror of the master’s wrath would have indicated very unpleasant things about its ruler.
“Do you have any idea who these people are?” Cami whispered at last.
“I think so,” Sioned answered. “The blonde lady who’s been crying must be Princess Milar.”
“Oh, wonderful—what powers of observation!” Cami said impatiently. “Anyone with eyes could see she’s twin to Andrade—speaking of whom, she didn’t look very happy when she went by us just now.”
Sioned pretended she hadn’t heard the remark. “The black-haired woman must be Lord ChaynaPs wife.”
“Who else but a wife would scold a husband so?” Ostvel asked wryly, but beneath his light tone was a nervousness Camigwen shared and Sioned did not.
Princess Tobin was indeed giving her husband the rough side of her tongue. She had not been told about the hunt and was raging at him in full view of everyone. The servants unsuccessfully hid smiles and winks at some of the language that passed her lovely lips; her temper seemed to be a known commodity and when it was not directed at any of them they could enjoy it. Lord Chaynal endured his wife’s blistering comments about his probable lifespan and undoubted ancestry while he uncinched his saddle and checked his stallion’s hooves for stray stones. Then, having discharged his duties to his horse, he turned his full attention on his wife. Taking one long braid in each hand, he pulled her to him and shut her up with a kiss.
Two small boys came running into the courtyard, dodging horses, grooms, and castle servants. They clamored to be shown the spoils of the dragon hunt immediately. Their gray eyes proclaimed them to be Lord ChaynaFs sons, and Sioned smiled as he released his breathless wife and swept the twins up for a fond hug.
Rohan was the center of his mother’s and aunt’s attention, bearing patiently with the former’s anxious inquiries about his well-being and the latter’s glowering countenance. When the family began to move toward the stairs leading up to the main hall of the keep, Ostvel looked around in complete bewilderment. “Sioned—nobody’s even welcomed you!”
“There won’t be a welcome for me, not in the way you’re thinking,” she said, following the prince with her gaze.
Camigwen stared. “What? How dare he!”
“Please, Cami! His father is dead. We can’t expect—“
“I can and do expect!” she retorted.
“Cami—not now,” Sioned told her.
Lady Andrade separated from the others at the foot of the steps and approached Sioned, grim-faced. “You made decent time getting here.”
“We came as quickly as we could,” Sioned answered.
After a withering glance up and down her travel-stained clothing, Andrade said, “So I see. Go upstairs. Urival will see to your comfort, since no one else has any rime for you. I’ll expect you ready to receive me before nightfall, Sioned.” And with that she stalked away.
“Why is she so angry?” Camigwen complained as they crossed the courtyard. “We haven’t done anything wrong!”
“If anyone’s in the wrong, it’s the prince,” Ostvel said. “What sort of welcome is this for his bride?”
“I don’t want to hear anything more about it!” Sioned exclaimed. “And don’t talk about me as if I’m his betrothed, because I’m not—and I don’t even know if I want to be!”
She regretted the shock and hurt in their faces. They cared only for her honor and happiness; they loved her. She hoped Rohan would give her leave to tell them why this charade was necessary—and she began her journey back to rationality with the thought that he had better provide her with an adequate explanation first.
Urival, Chief Steward of Goddess Keep, was in the banner-hung foyer, and called Sioned’s name as the three tried not to gape at the display of carpets, fine furniture, and carved wood around them. His smile was sympathetic as he came forward to greet them.
“You must have expected better greeting than this, but what with the old prince’s death before dawn this morning and this crazy dragon hunt of Rohan’s to kill the beast that killed his father. ...” He shrugged. “You couldn’t have chosen a worse time to arrive, Sioned.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She knew it had been the best possible time. No one would notice her in the press of events and she would be able to get a feel for the place and personalities of Stronghold.
“I’ve arranged for rooms, baths, and fresh clothes. Mourning gray,” he reminded them. “I had to guess at the sizes.”
Camigwen sighed. “That means I’ll be tripping over my hem and Sioned’s ankles will be showing. If only we hadn’t lost all our baggage in the river!”
“Now, that’s a story I want to hear,” Urival commented. “But for now I’d better tell you something about this place so you don’t get lost.” They started up the main staircase, a wonder of silky wooden banisters and thick blue carpeting. “To begin with, it’s huge. Five floors about the ground, one below for cold storage—or as cold as anything ever gets here—and the Hametower
98 Melanie Pawn is so high it’s said that some days you can see to the Sunrise Water. The fires are burning there now for Prince Zehava’s passing.”
“We saw as we rode in,” Ostvel said. “When is his ritual?”
“Tomorrow night. I don’t know if you’ll be expected to attend.”
“Of course Sioned will attend!” Camigwen bristled.
“As one of the faradh’im, nothing more,” Sioned told her firmly.
“But you’re going to be—“
“No!” She glared at her friend for the first time in their lives, and Cami’s dark skin flushed with the shock. “I’m not sure, I tell you. It may be I’ll accept him, and it may be that I won’t.” And after only a brief talk with Rohan she was ready to behave this way to friends of a lifetime. What had he done to her? She began to realize that he was a dangerous man indeed.
She tried to smile, to make amends. “Come, we’re all tired, and I didn’t mean to be so sharp with you. Urival, tell us more about Stronghold, please?”
His eyes were an unusual shade of golden brown, huge and beautiful below thick brows in a thin, angular face. She had never been able to hide anything successfully from those eyes before, and the expression in them now made her nervous. But he chose to oblige her with a recital of the rooms and wonders of the keep. They reached the second floor, turned down several long hallways, and entered what Urival described as the north wing. Windows were open along the gallery from floor to ceiling, and a riot of scents from the garden below filled the sun-heated corridor.
“This is all Princess Milar’s doing,” Urival explained. “The gardens used to be nothing but bare rock and sand. She planned the gardens, laid out the walks, and put that little stream in. There’s even a fountain on the family’s side of the building.”
Sioned looked down at the neat flowerbeds and trees through which a stream and paths of silvery gravel wove like threads in a tapestry. Stone benches were set here and there, and little arched bridges painted blue and
DRAGON PRINCE 99 white spanned the thin trickle of water. Water was the most precious of elements here in the Desert. It was real wealth to have enough for the pleasant folly of a stream and fountain. Folly? Where she had grown up, they worried about floods. It occurred to her that she was already beginning to think like one born to this land, and was troubled anew by Rohan’s influence over her.
“It’s beautiful,” Camigwen said. “Like a giant’s hand with a little garden in its hollow. But what do they do when they want to see the sky?”
“Oh, it’s not like Goddess Keep, where we’re fogbound so much of the winter,” Urival said. “If there was nothing but an open sky between you and the sea and barely a tall rock in all the Long Sand, you’d feel very secure in these cliffs.” He raked back his graying dark hair and smiled wryly. “Hurry along, children. Your baths are getting warm.”
“Warm?” Ostvel asked blankly.
“Only a fool would take a hot bath in an oven like this.”
Sioned was left alone in a chamber off her main room that, though small, was entirely adequate to her needs. The bath was ready, but for a time she was more interested in the tiny room that contained the tub. Cheerful blue and green tiles lined the floor, repeating the colors of the bedchamber. A large iron tub painted white rested in a carved wooden frame. Sink, shelving, towel racks— even the privy—were as dainty and elegant as the roses in a ceramic vase from Kierst beside the tub. Evidently Princess Milar had strong ideas about private comforts as well as public ones.
If this was the sort of room given an unimportant guest like herself, what must the rest of the keep be like? Sioned undressed and sank into the cool water, deciding Urival must have commanded one of the grander rooms for her. Luxuriating in the bath that soaked her tired body clean, she was glad he’d taken the trouble. But was she truly to become lady of this strange place?
She washed her hair and watched the strands float on the water, remembering something she knew and Rohan did not. From her would come his crown, the Fire of herself becoming the golden circlet across his orow. Yet it was he who would make her royal when he made her his wife. She recalled the dirty, exhausted young man she had met that afternoon, his quiet voice and his ability to ignite her senses, his mysterious plan that she had agreed to without thinking twice. He intended to use her, she thought suddenly. What kind of man used people so easily?
The answer came from a ruthlessly practical portion of her mind, the part untouched by Fire. He was a prince. She would be marrying power and lands and ambitions, not just a man. If he truly intended to marry her at all.
She rose from her bath and pulled the plug, noting how swiftly the water was sucked down — probably to flush out the middens, she thought, approving of the efficiency and cleanliness. During her childhood at River Run they had removed to a nearby manor for a time every summer so the filth could be cleaned from the garderobes. Again she realized how much water must be here, to waste it in keeping not just bodies but the castle clean.
After toweling dry, she went to the bedroom and dressed in the things left for her. The gown was a good fit, despite Cami’s apprehensions, and by far the prettiest thing she had ever worn. Sioned brushed and braided her hair, then draped a thin veil of silvery gray silk over her head, securing the material with a few plain pins. There was a full-length mirror set into one tiled wall, and as she considered herself in it she smiled. Rohan had seen the worst of her, but would never do so again if she could help it.
Sunset approached, but no knock sounded at her door. Sioned toyed with the idea of investigating the keep on her own, but chose to stay within her room and enjoy its comforts. River Run had been a pleasant enough place, and Goddess Keep was in some chambers the-epitome of elegant living. But the rooms given those who lived there were not half so large or lovely as the one Sioned was in now, and she explored it with interest. The bed was big enough for four people, decorated with a pile of plump pillows covered in blue and green silk. The hangings were not the thick wool from Gilad or Cunaxa usual in colder climates, but sewn of silk fine enough to see through and embroidered with tiny white flowers. The object was, of course, to keep insects out, not to keep warmth in. The floors were polished hardwood and bare but for a few rugs scattered casually around, and Sioned realized that never again would she wake in the morning and put her feet to a frozen stone floor. The same tiles used in the bathroom framed the mirror, the windows, and the doorways. The rest was white plaster over smoothed stone.
The outer door opened and Sioned jumped. But it was Camigwen, not Andrade, who looked around and nodded her satisfaction. “I knew it! This is grander than mine or Ostvel’s. I was sure Urival would give you something befitting your coming rank.”
Sioned let the reference pass. “It’s lovely, isn’t it? What’s yours like?”
“More or less the same, only not so large and with less furniture. And I have to share a bathroom. Now, when you meet Princess Milar, be sure to get her to offer you some silk for new gowns. She’ll probably mention it herself, but in case she doesn’t—“
“Cami, I won’t go begging—“
“You idiot, you’re going to own all this soon, and don’t start denying it again, either! I saw your eyes—and his!”
“You didn’t see anything.”
“And you made sure I didn’t hear anything, didn’t you? What went on out there between you?”
“That’s precisely what I’d like to know.” Lady Andrade’s voice from the doorway made both girls jump. “Camigwen, you will excuse us, I’m sure.”
Reluctance in every line of her, Cami left the room and closed the door behind her. Andrade was more stately than ever in the dark gray silk, her bright hair concealed by a matching veil. She looked Sioned over coolly as she sat down in a blue-cushioned chair by the windows.
“What do you think of the face in the Fire now?”
“I’m not sure I understand you, my Lady.” Sioned took the other chair without asking permission to sit in Andrade’s presence.
“My dear child, we both know you have an adequate supply of wits and a more than adequate portion of pride. Let’s have done with the usual and be honest with each other. Will you have him?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s young, rich, reasonably handsome, intelligent, and a prince. What do you find lacking? You told me once that you saw what he was by looking into his eyes.”
“They’re interesting eyes,” Sioned admitted. “But I think they hide a great many things.”
“What in the name of the Goddess did you two say to each other?” Andrade exclaimed.
Sioned discovered a perverse pleasure in frustrating the powerful Lady of Goddess Keep. “We agreed to wait,” she said quite truthfully.
“For how long?”
“He mentioned something about the Rialla.”
“What? He won’t have any time for that sort of thing at Waes! Every prince watching, Roelstra ready to—“ She burst out laughing. “Roelstra! Why, that miserable, cunning son of a dragon!”
Sioned stared, mystified. Her mind worked furiously as she thought of everything she had ever heard about the High Prince. Ruthless, sly, and manipulative—qualities Andrade possessed in abundance—Roelstra was Andrade’s enemy for reasons no one had ever been very clear about. He ruled Princemarch from Castle Crag, meddled in the affairs of most other princedoms—and was possessed of an embarrassment of daughters.
She sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. So that was what Rohan was about, was it?
“Good. You understand,” Andrade said, correctly reading Sioned’s grim little smile. “Do you trust him?”
After a brief hesitation, Sioned answered with complete honesty this time. “I’m not sure. When I’m with him, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but him. I’ll trust him if he gives me reason to.”
“Make him take you into his confidence, Sioned. Force his truth if you have to, then show yourself worthy of it—and make him do the same. Suspicion is all very well to whet a lover’s appetite, but it’s fatal between husband and wife.”
“We need to believe in each other,” Sioned murmured. She rose, giving Andrade a look of appeal. “Tell me it will come out all right. Please.”
“Oh, Sioned.” Andrade rose and framed the girl’s face with her fingers. “May you kindle Fire and never be burned by it. May the Air never send storms across your path. May that path across the Earth be a soft one, and the Water of your tears always taste sweet with joy.” Sioned’s eyes filled with tears as she received the ancient blessing, and the Lady smoothed the drops from her cheeks. “Only let him love you, and love him in return.”
Chaynal had swallowed a bellyful of questions all the way back to Stronghold. Rohan had been in no mood for conversation. When Tobin followed him into the bathroom demanding to be told everything, Chay could only shrug.
“If I knew anything, I’d share it. Wash my back?”
She stripped down to her undershift as he got into the tub, and wielded a scrub brush with such energy that he yelped. “Oh, don’t be such a baby. You’re as filthy as the boys after a day with the horses at home, and you smell worse. At least / know the girl’s name.”
“Which is?”
“Sioned. She’s going to marry Rohan.”
“Oh, I never would have guessed, not from the look on his face!”
“But he didn’t look at her once in the courtyard, and there’s no welcome for her. Chay, he didn’t even introduce her to Mother!” She started soaping his arm. “Tell me about the dragon.”
His brief synopsis was frequently interrupted by her exclamations. Chay finished with, “Don’t tell anybody he got sick afterward. It’s not exactly heroic, and won’t listen well in bardsong.”
She grinned back at him. “We’ll make sure it doesn’t get into the official version. Oh, Chay, how proud Father would have been!”
“It’s the last dragon he’ll ever kill, you know. Even if he hadn’t said as much out there, I saw it in his face.”
“I suspected as much. Turn around, love.”
He obliged, scooting around in the rub to face her. “Anyway, we rode back and damned if the girl didn’t show up like a shimmer- vision in the sand! He took her off for a talk. I couldn’t watch as much as I wanted because the dark girl — Cami-something, the one with the eyes — kept asking questions. I rather liked her young man. Good seat on a horse, and an air of authority, for all that he’s notfaradhi.” Chay closed his eyes as his wife rubbed soap across his chest, her fingers more caressing than efficient. “Oh, that’s good,” he murmured.
“Keep talking,” Tobin ordered.
“Well, it seems they lost some of the horses and all their baggage crossing the Faolain. I know that fording. It’s dangerous enough for most people, and I can imagine what those poor Sunrunners went through. The girl kept apologizing for their appearance. I think she expected them to make a grand entrance into Stronghold.”
“So did Andrade, and she’s not happy about it at all. Why won’t Rohan acknowledge Sioned?”
“I watched him with that dragon today,” Chay said slowly. “We’ve always known he’s clever, but I never saw anything like the way he tricked that dragon. He knew all its weaknesses and played them to his own advantage. I have the feeling it’s going to be like that from now on, Tobin. And none of us is going to be able to figure him out in advance.”
“He’s going to tell me everything I want to know,” she said firmly.
“I’d walk carefully if I were you. He’s not your little brother anymore.”
“He’ll always be my little brother, and Goddess help him if he forgets it!” She lathered his hair. “What happened next?”
Chay squeezed his eyes shut as soap dripped down his face. “Nobody said a word the whole way back. But Rohan wasn’t thinking about dragons, believe me.”
“Hmm.” Tobin dumped a pitcher of clean water over his head. “Finish it yourself. You know what happens every time I wash the rest of you.”
He smiled at her over his shoulder. “And things were getting interesting, too!”
Rohan’s bath was much less interesting, and much delayed. His mother stayed with him for quite some time, making him tell the entire story of the dragon-slaying twice while she ruthlessly cleansed and bound his wound. She then let him know precisely what variety of fool he was to do such a dangerous thing—before she suddenly started to cry.
Andrade appeared at last, ordered the princess to her own chambers, and wordlessly pointed to the bathroom door. Rohan balked.
“I washed you the morning you were born,” she reminded him tartly. “You put your fist in my eye then. Once is all you’re allowed, prince or no prince, so stop looking murderous. I want to talk to you in private.” She eyed the young squire, Walvis, who had attended her into the chamber. “Go on, child. I’m perfectly capable of handing him soap and towels.”
Walvis glanced uncertainly at Rohan, who nodded and told him, “Come back later. I have work for you.” The boy bowed and fled.
Rohan went into the bathroom, stripped—blushing as his aunt’s critical gaze ran over him—and slid into the cool water. The lecture began at once, as he had expected.
“I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but I’m not overly fond of intrigues not my own. Especially when the master of the plan is my own kinsman who won’t tell me what he’s up to.”
“Why do you think I’m up to anything?”
“Sweet innocence! You do it very well, Rohan, but don’t try it with me! Why didn’t you give that girl her proper welcome? Oh, not as your future princess, I’ll admit to a marginal understanding of that. But if Urival hadn’t seen to her comfort, she’d still be standing out in the courtyard!”
“I knew I could count on him.” Rohan scrubbed determinedly at a dirty foot.
“You did, eh? And are you counting on Sioned as well? She says very littte—your instructions, I assume— just that you both agreed to wait until the Rialla.” She snorted. “As if you needed all that time before you know each other, when you’ve already felt the Fire!”
“Have you ever felt it?” he asked suddenly.
“None of your damned concern,” she snapped.
Unsuccessful in his attempt to take the skirmish onto enemy ground, he decided to return to a subject that concerned him profoundly. “What else did she say?” he asked, his nerves tightening. If he could not trust her, then everything would be ruined.
“That you have interesting eyes,” Andrade replied in disgust.
Rohan hid a smile. “You haven’t really told me much about her-family.”
“I thought genealogy was Mila’s hobby, not yours. On her father’s side, Sioned descends from a prince of Syr whose younger son inherited the lands at River Run. Her maternal grandmother was a Sunrunner before Prince Sinar of Kierst winked at her and carried her away to his island. Her ancestry’s quite good enough for you.”
“You chose her for me, so I never doubted it,” Rohan said with deliberate sweetness. “What is it you think I’m planning?”
“Learn to be more subtle,” she said scornfully and he felt color sting his cheeks. “The part about the Rialla tells me a great deal, you know. I’m looking forward to watching you blink those big eyes of yours at Roelstra as you trick him into thinking you’re an imbecile.”
He laughed. “Slightly foolish and very young, but not a complete idiot, please!” He rose from the bath and wrapped a towel around his hips.
“Sioned also had things to say about parts of you other than your eyes,” Andrade drawled maliciously.
If she intended to make him blush, she succeeded admirably. He damned the curse of a fair complexion and glared at her. “I assume you’ll tell me what she said after you’ve finished embarrassing me.”
“Oh, no,” she chuckled. “You’ll have to find out for yourself.” She draped a towel around his head and rubbed his hair dry. “Make your plans as you wish. I’ll help, if you’ll trust me enough to let me. But you must promise me ...”
“What?” he asked warily, peering at her from under the towel.
“Marry her, Rohan. You’re both very dear to me,” she said, looking anywhere but at him. “And you’ll never find any woman more suited to you than Sioned.”
“And if I don’t promise?”
She laughed again. “Your body already has, at the very mention of her name.”
Rohan thought she hadn’t noticed, and was humiliated. But his sense of humor was still in working order, and he grinned. “What do you suggest? A longer tunic?”
“Or a nice, concealing cloak,” she answered wickedly.
Rohan waited, hidden among the trees near the grotto his mother had designed to be a refuge during the worst of the summer heat. Fruit trees had been brought at outrageous expense from Ossetia, Meadowlord, and Syr, transplanted with such loving care to Desert soil that not a single one had been lost in the shock. For ten years they had been pampered into lush maturity near the rock grotto where the spring that fed Stronghold splashed down into a small pool. He had loved playing here as a child, and had always found it a good place to sit and dream and listen to the water. He wanted to be the first to show it to Sioned.
Walvis had arranged everything. The squire had sidled up to him just after dinner with the breathless information, “My lord, your lady will attend you at midnight.” The boy’s term made Rohan smile; Walvis was no fool. He was of an age where romance between a prince and a pretty lady caught his imagination, and secret meetings late at night were exactly to his taste. Rohan knew what it was like to be Walvis’ age and a go-between, for he had been just eleven the year Chaynal had inherited Radzyn and arrived to pay homage to Zehava. Though he’d teased his sister mercilessly, he’d been thrilled to arrange encounters between her and the handsome young lord. He had liked and admired Chay at once; despite the ten years’ difference in their ages, Chay had never treated him like a child. Politic of him, Rohan thought now with fond amusement. One did not antagonize one’s future prince, let alone the brother of the woman one hoped to marry. But their friendship was based on more than canny self-interest, he knew. It had grown stronger over the years until Chay was one of the few people Rohan really trusted.
Much depended on whether he could trust Sioned. Much depended on Roelstra, too, whom he knew very well he could not trust. His whole scheme rested on the beliefs of two people—or, rather, on his ability to make two very different people believe two very different things.
Prince Zehava had ruled by his sword, demonstrating strength through victories over dragons and the Merida. High Prince Roelstra ruled by his wits, demonstrating strength through political and personal humiliation. Rohan intended to base his power on a little of both for the present—victory over the Merida after humiliating Roelstra at the Rialla—and eventually to work his way around to leadership through law. Sioned would bring him no alliance and no lands, but she brought something much more useful: the faradh’im. The Desert’s resident Sunrunner, Anthoula, was growing old, and Rohan intended to send her back to Goddess Keep with Andrade so she could live her remaining years untroubled by the Desert’s searing heat. Anthoula had taught him how the network of faradh’im worked and where their loyalties lay—not with the courts they served, but with Goddess Keep. They were forbidden to do battle except to protect their own lives, forbidden to take sides in any dispute, and most especially forbidden to use their powers to kill. With Andrade as Lady, however, the distinctions of nonparti-sanship had grown a little blurred, though she had thus far behaved with scrupulous impartility. She had been waiting for him to grow up so he could marry a Sunrunner.
But Sioned’s loyalty must be to him, not to Andrade. He refused to torment himself with doubts of his ability to win her mind as it seemed he had already won her body and, perhaps, her heart. A rueful laugh escaped him as he realized they had both been scorched by Fire. But he needed a princess, not just a wife.
He had long since surmised that Andrade had purposefully arranged the match between his parents. Milar had used Zehava’s wealth to embellish his home and their lives, adding to his prestige and his power by impressive display of its rewards. This, Rohan saw now, was the foundation for his own coming power. He was grateful for the benefits of his mother’s tireless work. But he needed more of a woman than someone to run his castle, bear his children, and order tapestries. He needed what Chay had found in Tobin: a woman to trust in and work with, who understood him and his ambitions. A faradhi princess would make him a very powerful man indeed. Andrade’s design, of course—but to what end?
Rohan had to admit that his actions in pursuit of his own ends would be incomprehensible to most. He would play the indecisive prince when the vassals arrived to do him homage, then next spring fight the Merida for a time before buying them off and sending them home rich and smug to plot his destruction. He wished them pleasant dreams of retaking Stronghold, for two or three springs hence he would show himself the true son of the dragon.
As for the Rialla—he smiled tightly and rubbed his fingers against the smooth silver bark of a tree. Roelstra would offer a daughter. Rohan would pretend to consider. The High Prince would sweeten things with treaties, and Rohan would make certain they were binding, not like the promises that had died with his father. He would lead Roelstra a wonderful dance, make him sign wonderful parchments, and all the while have a wonderful time pretending to decide between princesses. And then he would marry Sioned.
Rohan coolly reviewed possible reactions to his marriage, specifically to his not marrying one of Roelstra’s daughters. Prince Clutha of Meadowlord would probably have an apoplexy; his country was the traditional battleground between Princemarch and the Desert. The last war had been in the reign of Rohan’s grandfather Zagroy, who had wrested the Treaty of Linse from Roelstra’s ancestor, the agreement giving the Desert to his line for as long as the sands spawned fire. If Roelstra was angry enough—or could drum up support enough to “avenge” his rejected daughters—Clutha would be frantic to prevent another war across his landscape. He would, in brief, do Rohan’s work for him. But there was another place from which Roelstra might attack with the help of the Cunaxans and the Merida they sheltered. Rohan thought hungrily of Feruche Castle, set into the mountain pass just above the desert. Long a Merida holding, in exchange for assistance several years ago Zehava had promised the keep to Roelstra. It had been to the High Prince’s advantage to support Zehava in that final campaign against the Merida, for Feruche guarded the major trade route across the north. Fees for caravans’ safe passage were lucrative.
Rohan had seen Feruche at his one and only battle. Disguised as a common soldier, he had fought alongside the vassals’ recruits while his parents thought him snug at Stronghold. Afterward he had camped in the sand below the castle with his new companions, for to enter the keep with his father and Chay would have necessitated revealing his true identity. Feruche nestled into the mountains like a gemstone between a woman’s breasts. It would make a perfect summer residence, with its cool spires of pink and golden stone. He decided he’d give it to Sioned as a wedding present. If she fulfilled her part in his plans as well as he hoped, she would deserve the extravagant gift-All thoughts of her usefulness fled when he saw her coming toward him. Moonglow turned her to dark silver from the veil over her hair to the hem of her gown. He had seen her shape more clearly when she’d worn her riding leathers, of course, but there was something about the allure of shadows shifting down long thighs that made the breath catch in his throat. He told his body to leave him alone and called her name softly. Turning, not quite startled, she approached him with a shy smile.
“I’ve never met a man in secret in the middle of the night before. I could learn to like this!”
Rohan blessed her for saying the perfect thing. “I’ll arrange it every so often once we’re married. Although I don’t know what people would say if they knew their prince had to sneak around in the dark to spend a few private moments with his own wife!” He paused an instant, then went on, “After the way I behaved today, I’m surprised you’re even speaking to me. Sioned, have you thought about this?”
“I need to hear what it is, first,” she replied, not looking at him.
Rohan nodded, approving her caution. But part of him was disappointed that she was no longer so blindly trusting. Knowing this to be absurd—for it was reassuring proof that she could think as well as feel—he coaxed her over to a bench and when they were seated, side by side but not touching, he began.
“You know what happens at the Rialla. Everyone comes to arrange the next three years’ trade, settle disputes, and so on. There’s a huge fair as well, and races—Chay usually wins most of them and makes pots of money selling his horses.”
“The High Prince will be there, too—with his daughters,” Sioned purred.
“The eligible ones,” Rohan said, hiding a grin. “And that’s why you’re so important. When they think I’m indifferent to you and you to me—but with wounded pride on your part—they’ll talk. My sister picks up all sorts of useful information talking to the other women at the Rialla. And she’s an expert at passing along information my father and Chay want circulated. You’ll like Tobin,” he added.
“I like the way she treats her husband,” Sioned answered mischievously.
Rohan had a sudden vision of his bedroom turned into the kind of verbal battlefield he knew Chay’s sometimes became—and lost the image of an infuriated Sioned in the even more compelling picture of her between the sheets of his bed. He pulled in a long breath, managed a smile, and told her, “She’ll probably give you lessons, if I know her.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I wanted to emulate her,” Sioned answered earnestly. “I’d never yell at you in public, Rohan.” cr with a whimsical smile. “Don’t go --— -es my lady. You don’t know me
“But we can talk to each other and find out. I was afraid we wouldn’t have anything to say, that you’d be too serious or too proud to speak what was on your mind. Or that you wouldn’t have a mind to speak of.”
He nearly took her hand, but remembered what had happened earlier in the day. “I was worried about the same thing. You don’t know how glad I am to find you’re as clever as you are beautiful.”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re planning,” she reminded him.
“Oh.” She was the first woman he had ever met who didn’t preen or at least smile after a compliment. “Well, I’m not quite sure of all of it yet myself. Roelstra will be looking for a naive princeling and that’s just what I’ll present him with, while I pretend to look his daughters over.”
“To bait the hook,” she replied, nodding. “But I don’t suppose you do any fishing in the Desert!”
“Chay and I go sailing when I visit Radzyn. I’d offer you the same, but I’m told you faradh’im have a slight problem with water.”
She grimaced. “I’ve never been so sick in my life as when we crossed the Faolain. And now I’ll have to cross it twice more to get to Waes and back. Rohan, you had better be worth it!”
It was a challenge no man could let pass. His arm slid around her waist before he could consider the danger, and he drew her toward him. “I hope you’ll find reward enough, my lady,” he murmured. And, because a glimmer of caution remained, he pressed his lips to her temple rather than her mouth.
Touching her at all was a mistake. Her body was warm and slim and supple, seemingly lit from within by the same Fire that flashed along his own nerves. Her arms locked around him, her fingers tangling in his hair, and he felt her thigh trembling against his own, muscles leaping as his hand slid of its own will from her knee to her hip. Her fingers followed a similar path toward his groin and she turned her face to his, eyes and lips inviting more.
Rohan caught his breath and shuddered, and it nearly killed him to let her go. He got to his feet quickly, fists clenched. Sioned gave a little gasp of mingled surprise and dismay as he stared down at her.
“I’ve never touched a woman like that in my life,” he said roughly. “Sioned—it isn’t just being near you—hearing your name is enough!”
“Is it that way for you, too?” she breathed in wonder, then shook her head. “Rohan, how are we going to manage? It’s not even a day old between us. We don’t even know each other! I’ve never felt like this with any other man.”
In that instant he learned what jealousy was. He wanted to know the name of every man she had ever even looked at, whether they had touched her—and most especially where to find these men so he could kill them. What was the matter with him? She wasn’t his wife yet; he hadn’t even kissed her lips, let alone made love to her. But because he, too, could think as well as feel, he realized that if she was prey to the same jealousy that gripped him, he would have to be very careful during his charade with Roelstra’s daughters or there would be bruised princesses. He considered the brilliant green eyes and amended that; she would not be so gentle, would his Sioned.
“We knew from the first that this wouldn’t be easy,” he told her with a rueful smile. “I promise to keep my hands and my eyes to myself.”
“Ah, now there you are, making hasty promises,” she teased.
“Everyone will think you have some sort of disease if I never get within arm’s length of you!”
“I get hives when I eat marsh apples,” she said gravely, her dancing eyes belying the tone. “Shall I eat a few and turn lumpy and splotched? Would that make things easier?”
“Splotched if you must, Sioned, but not lumpy.” They laughed together and he exclaimed, “Do you know, I feel as if I’ve been married to you forever!”
• - -A me, either, Rohan,” she reminded !-‘^:~z ; ju’li find out I’m a—“
“Witch,” he finished for her. “I decided that when I saw you in the Fire. But I have a little magic of my own, you know. Come with me, I want to show you something.”
She walked with him deeper into the grotto toward the cliff walls. Giving him a sidelong glance, she said cautiously, “You must have something of the gift, you know. Your mother is Andrade’s sister.”
“What of it?” he asked in casual tones.
“Nothing.”
Rohan hid a frown. She knew as well as he did that Andrade wanted faradhi children from their marriage. Why couldn’t she trust him enough to tell him? He decided to talk more about his own plans—as much as he dared right now—and acknowledged that he didn’t yet entirely trust her, either.
“Roelstra will tempt me with treaties and agreements that I intend to make him sign before we get around to discussing his daughters. But I swear to you, Sioned, that after I’m through with the game, I’ll claim you in front of everyone.” He stopped walking and said, “Here—this is what I wanted to show you, before anyone else could.”
Trees parted around a silent pool for the long, pale waterfall that appeared from nowhere high above their heads. Flowering mosses and ferns softened the ragged rock, and moonlight turned the water to a ribbon of silver. This was the life of the castle, this precious water from the north. It ran underground, protected from the heat, then tumbled down to nourish this one hollow in the rock. Rohan glanced at Sioned’s eyes and suddenly knew what his ancestors must have felt when they had first discovered this gift of cool, sweet water in the Desert.
But when she spoke, it was not about the miracle before them. “Does my being faradhi make you uneasy?” she asked softly.
“No,” he answered honestly. “Why should it?”
“It will give your people pause, you know. A Sunrunner witch married to their prince, mistress of all this wealth, helping you rule the Desert.”-
“You’ll win them as quickly as you’ve won me,” he said quietly.
She glanced at him, then turned to the water. Lifting her hands, moonlight sparkling off her rings, she wove the silver moonrays into a conjuring over the pool. He saw his own face and hers, and a single burning red-gold strand that formed the circlets that were their crowns. After a moment the conjure faded and Sioned met his gaze once more.
“I had to do that to prove something to myself. I lost control of a Fire-conjure on the way here, and I’ve been afraid to try again. But I’m not afraid anymore, Rohan. It’s too soon for me to trust you. My brain keeps saying that, and I have to listen. But in every way that counts, I • do trust you.” She shrugged slightly. “I probably shouldn’t have said that, and I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but—“
Her kiss on his mouth was as swift and startling as heat lightning across the Desert sky. But before he could reach for her, she was gone.