To His Highness Prince Rohan, Lord of All the Desert and Ruler of the Long Sand, loyal greetings; and to His Lady the Princess Sioned, the same.
May it please Your Highness to know that the survey and census ordered six years ago at Your Highness’ accession has now been completed. Detailed statistics are appended for Your Grace’s further study, but presented on these pages is a brief analysis prepared in secret by my own hand and after long discussion with Lord Farid of Skybowl.
The dragons are in danger. Normal attrition due to disease, old age, accident, and mating battle kept the population fairly constant, even considering the decimations of the Hatching Hunts. The killing of mating sires was more seriously detrimental, but the dragons managed to survive.
But then three years ago the Plague came, and the results to the dragon population have been catastrophic.
In the year 698, the year of Your Grace’s accession, 309 dragons were counted in flight from their Desert caves to various wintering grounds, as reported by persons assigned to count them throughout the other princedoms. There were 6 mating sires, 80 mature females, and 220 immature dragons, including the first-flight hatchlings of that year. The summer before the Plague, 234 dragons were in flight over the Veresch. But this spring, the most reliable reports place the number of dragons at 37: 5 mating sires and 32 mature females.
The potential for disaster is obvious. Your Grace can readily deduce that neither the hunt for mating sires nor the Hatching Hunt must take place this year. The 2 or 3 sires who survive mating battle must be allowed to mate with their females, and every dragon emerging from the caves must be allowed to fly. Otherwise, Your Grace’s children, may they be born strong and wise, will never know what a dragon is.
A regional analysis of the dragon population is appended. It is the only copy, the original compilation of information having been burned, with Lord Farid as witness. His Lordship and I are the only ones who share knowledge of the impending disaster.
I would add one thing further, a thought that has occurred to me but for which I have no real proof. It is only a feeling, but it is a strong one. I believe that after the Plague losses at Rivenrock Canyon three years ago, the dragons will shun that place this year and seek others without the terrible memories. Dragons avoid mountain-tops where one of their number fell to his death; there are tales in the high country of such things. If they are as intelligent as I believe them to be, and as sensitive, they will also avoid the place where so many of them died of Plague. Again, it is only a feeling, but I think that very soon we shall see the truth of it.
Therefore, as they will not mate in Rivenrock this year, they will find some other place—perhaps far from Your Grace’s careful guardianship. May I humbly suggest that Your Grace issue an edict banning the slaying of dragons for this year—and for all years to come. The alternative is to see dragons no more in the Desert.
Lord Farid and I respectfully submit our conclusions to Your Highness’ notice, with every faith that your wisdom will find a solution and that dragons will once again fill Desert skies.
All homage and wishes for the continued health and happiness of Your Royal Highnesses.
Feylin of Skybowl
Rohan leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. His gaze strayed from the parchments on the desk to the tall, wide-open windows of his private study. Stronghold was secure and serene in the spring twilight, its stone gentled by a rosy-gold light from the setting sun The scents erf new flowers and fresh grass drifted up from the gardens; he could even smell the grotto waterfall, swollen by spring runoff from the distant hills. The annual renewal of beauty here was justification of the peace he had worked so hard to create, and its seduction was nearly overwhelming. In the last six years there had been so few times when he could truly enjoy his home.
Delivery of Feylin’s troublesome message had come with another stack of parchments, and Rohan eyed the pile with a grimace. The Rialla would happen this year, the first since his portrayal of imbecile prince—an option no longer available to him—and his vassals had presented their requests with almost indecent haste. He could not in good conscience “forget” about them until late summer, and he certainly could not ignore the news from Skybowl. But Goddess, how he wanted to, just for a little while.
A wry smile crossed his face as he reflected on the truth that a prince with too much leisure was a prince who was not doing his job. Even in the good years there were a million things to be done and decided and overseen. And in the bad years, like the year of the Plague—
So many dead. So much lost. Crushing the Merida in the plains outside Tiglath that first spring of his rule had demonstrated his strength, but there had been no fighting the silent, stealthy disease. The power of a prince with an army at his back had been impotent against the enemy that invaded the body and took away breath, sanity, and life in hopeless progression.
It had come with the flight of dragons three years ago, and at first had been blamed on the great beasts themselves. As Plague and panic spread throughout the princedoms, demands had come for Rohan to eradicate the dragons once and for all. But then the dragons had started dying, too.
By the time the first huge, stinking corpse had been discovered in the sand without a battle wound on it, Rohan had been too desperate to worry about dragon deaths. His mother had been one of the first at Stronghold to contract the Plague, and the first to die. The disease swelled the lungs and burned the flesh from agonized bones; fever raged unchecked no matter what cures were tried. Violent purging, coma, and death followed. Princess Milar’s struggles had lasted for twelve horrible days. Others had survived a little longer, but of every ten persons at Stronghold, four fell sick—and all of these died.
Word filtered in from other courts and holdings, com-•municated byfaradh’im who often used their last strength to weave the terrible news through the sunlight. Princes Seldeen, Durriken, and Vissarion; Lords Daar, Kuteyn, Dalinor, Bethoc, and Reze; wives and sons and daughters and countless retainers—all dead. Andrade herself sent the sorrowful news that Mardeem of the pure golden voice had succumbed at Goddess Keep along with scores of others. No castle, manor, or cottage was immune, with the exceptions of the isolated Merida in their wilderness and the islands of Dorval and Kierst-Isel. Prince Lleyn had forbidden his harbors to all ships, and Volog and Saumer had wisely followed his example. Indeed, in the latter case the Plague proved a perverse sort of blessing. Deprived of outside sustenance, the two antagonists were forced to cooperate with each other so their people did not starve.
Then the miracle happened. In midsummer, word flashed on the sunlight that a cure had been found. An infusion of a little-known herb, combined with more standard remedies, reduced the fever and stopped the purging, which gave the victims a chance at life.
Rohan’s fingers clenched around the arms of his chair and he consciously relaxed them. Memory of that time could still send fury pounding through his blood. The herb had been dranath. Roelstra, controlling its source in the Veresch, controlled its dispersal. Not openly, of course, for that would have brought all the other princes raging across his borders, High Prince or no High Prince. He had doled out the precious herb through his merchants, and made a colossal profit trading on desperation.
Rohan’s gaze went to the tapestry map hanging from gold rods on the far wall. A bitter smile lifted the corner of his mouth. Roelstra’s slowness in providing the drug had rid the High Prince of several opponents and weakened many princedoms. The map was a chilling reminder of how many rulers had died and how vulnerable their lands now were. Rohan knew in his bones that Roelstra had purposely held back shipments of dranath to Gilad, which had lost its most powerful athri as well as its ruling prince. In the cities of Einar and Waes, the holdings of Snowcoves, Kadar Water, and Catha Heights, death had claimed lords who had not been sympathetic to the High Prince.
Weakening the structure of power had been an unexpected bonus for Roelstra; all he needed to do was delay providing dranath until word came that those he wanted dead were dead. To the obscene amounts of money in his treasury he had added opportunities for mischief in too many places. It afforded Rohan little pleasure that the scheme had not worked in the Desert—but only through the Goddess’ gracious blessing.
Rohan had emptied his coffers and the drug had seeped through to Radzyn port, where Chaynal had sent out riders on his swiftest horses to distribute the life-saving dranath. Too late to keep death from claiming Milar, Camigwen, and Chay’s son Jahni, still it had come in time to spare countless others.
And then the dragons had started dying, and there was no more money left to buy dranath, and who would be fool enough to want to save the dragons?
Lord Farid had sent word from Skybowl that healthy dragons had been sighted in his hills. Rohan journeyed there. Together he and Farid had come up with the idea of lacing the bittersweet plants on the cliffs with dranath as a preventative. It was the only hope they had. Yet there was no drug to spare, and large amounts were necessary if even these few dragons were to be saved. Rohan had faced the unsavory choice of either demanding every coin his vassals possessed or striking a bargain with Roelstra.
A soft knock at the door turned the prince’s head. “Yes, come in,” he called, and a moment later was looking at Walvis’ disapproving face. “I know, I know,” Rohan said before his former squire could speak. “I the noon meal and I’m about to be late for dinner, and my lady wife will have me roasted with her own Fire.” He smiled and pushed himself to his feet, gathering up the loose pages of Feylin’s report.
“She wouldn’t waste her energy, my lord,” Walvis said severely. “There’s not enough flesh on you to interest even a starving dragon.”
Rohan shrugged and locked the report away in a coffer. Replacing the key on a long chain around his neck, he stretched widely and went over to the windows. Walvis joined him. At the age of seventeen, Walvis’ freckles now competed for notice with a proud stubble of beard. Elevated last winter from squire to knight, he had begged to be allowed to stay on at Stronghold and serve Rohan in whatever capacity the prince desired. Rohan had been more than glad to keep him. Walvis was learning the ins and cuts of stewardship from Ostvel these days, and the -Tutine duties of squire had been delegated to another y. Sioned’s nephew Tilal. Lord Dawi had been only too happv to claim blood-bond with the powerful prince his sister had so unexpectedly married, and several times his wife had attempted to invite herself to Stronghold. Sioned had resisted the invasion, knowing Lady Wisla would ask favors that Rohan, loving and honoring Sioned, would not refuse. At last she had come up with the perfect solution: she would take her youngest .nephew into her household. It was part of a squire’s training to be completely separated from his family until he was knighted, and Sioned was thus neatly freed from any further importunities. Her sister-by-marriage had been faint with the honor of having her son educated in a prince’s suite, and stayed happily, at River Run, boasting to everyone she knew,
Shouts came from the gardens below, and Rohan saw Tilal come running along a path, tripping over a cloak much too large for him. Racing after him with a wooden sword in his hand was Ostvel’s boy, Riyan. Tilal went down with a realistic flutter of wings as Riyan wielded his sword against the “dragon.” Both boys rolled on the grass, laughing uproariously.
Rohan smiled, but his heart was aching as he recalled other boys, just five years old like Riyan, who’d crowed with delight while slaying another dragon. Maarken alone had gone last year to Prince Lleyn for his training as a squire, for Jahni had died of the Plague.
“Tilal’s turning into a fine lad,” Walvis observed. “When I think of what a beast he was when he came here—! I never would have believed that one of my lady’s blood could be so awful!”
It had taken time, and the back of Walvis’ hand on more than one occasion, to cure Tilal of a tendency to lord it over the other squires. By now he knew his duties and his place, and no longer traded on his relationship to Sioned. That they were close kin was obvious; they had the same green eyes and fair skin, though Tilal had his mother’s dark hair. The combination was striking, and even at ten winters old he had been well on the way to an obnoxious conceit. Walvis had cured him of that, too, over the last two years.
“Getting him away from his mother was the making of him,” Walvis continued. “Is it true she’ll be at the Rialla this year?”
“To catch sight of her precious darling? I’ve heard it rumored.”
“My lady isn’t going to be happy about that.”
Rohan hid sudden laughter. Much of Walvis’ conversation for the last six years had revolved around Sioned, and it had never been very difficult to discern why. Rohan could appreciate the feeling. He himself had loved her from the first moment he saw her. The squire-turned-knight fondly believed his worship of her to be a secret, and Sioned was perfection in her dealings with him. She was playful at times in the manner of a woman with a younger brother, and in public treated him with grave courtesy as a full-grown man, never as a little boy. When Rohan teased her about her adoring young champion, she replied serenely that she was only making sure that the woman Walvis truly fell in love with had a wonderful husband. Had she made mock of his feelings or tried to change them, he might have come to resent women. He was entirely content to adore and serve his prince’s lady. “He’ll grow out of it the minute he sees some pretty girl his own age,” she had told Rohan. “I must confess I’ll miss my squire, but—what do you want to bet the girl will be a redhead? And that he’ll name his first daughter after me?”
Rohan was wise enough not to take the bet.
Tilal and Riyan had picked themselves up by now, still giggling. Sensing that they were being watched, they waved up at Rohan and Walvis. Riyan, dark like his mother and with her remarkable eyes, jumped up and down and called excitedly, “Play dragons again, prince!”
“Again? I was your dragon the other day all afternoon long, and you killed me at least ten times! Even a dragon needs some rest. And you seern to have found another who’s much better at it than I am.”
“Prince!” the child demanded, certain of indulgence. “Come down and play dragons!”
Walvis drew breath to call down a reprimand, but Rohan placed a restraining hand on his arm. “I’d much rather play dragons than read all those reports,” he murmured wistfully.
“You haven’t had your dinner yet, my lord. And my lady won’t thank me for letting you exhaust yourself with those two whirlwinds again.”
“Walvis,” he said in exasperation, “if you and my wife don’t stop behaving like she-dragons with a single egg—do I look sickly and delicate to you? Or do you think I’m getting old? Decrepit and drooling at twenty-seven?” He snorted. Leaning out the window, he told the boys, “I have to play prince tonight. We’ll save dragons for tomorrow!”
Another voice came from down below, and Rohan grinned as Ostvel hurried into the gardens. “Riyan! Tilal! You know better than to make so much noise and trouble for your prince!” He shaded his eyes against the setting sun with one hand, squinting up at the window where Rohan stood. “I’m sorry, my lord. If there aren’t fifty eyes on them both, they disappear.” Ostvel clamped a hand on TilaPs shoulder as the boy began edging toward the gates.
“It’s all right,” Rohan said, careless of paternal discipline. “It’s good to see them having fun.”
“Well, no more dragons today, at any rate,” Ostvs ordered, and scooped his son into one arm. “Come alone Tilal. You’ll want to spend some time getting the gra^ stains out of my cloak, I’m sure.”
“But I have to serve at the high table tonight,” the boy began with a hopeful glance up at Rohan.
“And so you shall,” Ostvel agreed. “The cloak will be waiting for you.”
Rohan turned from the windows, keeping his smile in place to hide the child-hunger that rose in him. His sons should be down there, laughing and growing and playing dragons. His sons. . . . His eye lit on the reports and he made a quick decision. “I’m not going to play prince tonight, Walvis. I want a bath, my dinner, and my wife—in that order.”
The young.man grinned at him. “So now my lady takes third place to being clean and fed?”
“Unless she wants a dirty, bad-tempered husband, she does!”
Walvis went downstairs with the orders, and the household system Camigwen had created went smoothly into action. By the time Rohan was soaking in a tub, a copious supper for two was being prepared for delivery to their graces’ airy chambers. Like most persons for whom such establishments are formed, Rohan was unaware of its workings. He only knew that the few orders he ever had to give were carried out promptly, quietly, and with a minimum of fuss—and none of the former chamberlain’s hand-wringing.
Alone in the blue-and-white tiled bathroom, Rohan’s thoughts returned to his interrupted musings on the past. Acquiring the dranath had afforded him a sight of someone he had not thought to encounter again: Princess lanthe. Roelstra had been unable to resist the price Rohan had offered for the drug, and a detachment of troops had been dispatched to Feruche from the Veresch. Rohan and Farid had met the group halfway between lanthe’s castle and Skybowl, and bags of gold had been exchanged for bags of dranath. lanthe had watched from the saddle of a splendid white mare, lovelier than ever and unashamedly—even triumphantly—pregnant. She still had no legal husband, but Rohan suspected that the beautiful young man riding at her side was the baby’s father. Certainly his charms were sufficient to send lust raging through chaster hearts than lanthe’s. Rohan said nothing to her and met her gaze only once—and what he saw in her eyes had chilled him to his marrow.
How had he paid for this treasure of dranath that had saved dragon lives? How had he insured their survival and distributed even more of the drug to other princedoms without asking payment? Rohan luxuriated in cool bath water and shook his head in wry amusement, remembering his stark astonishment when Farid had casually shown him the gold.
For fifteen years, the athri of Skybowl had been melting dragon shells collected from long-abandoned caves in the hills. He had done it in secret and under Zehava’s orders, his’people loyal to their last breath as they brought forth the gold that had enabled Zehava to consolidate his power in the Desert. Everyone had always marveled at Skybowl’s prosperity, that rough holding without decent farmland or grazing, and Rohan had finally discovered the source of Farid’s complacency during good harvests and bad. Dragon gold. Zehava had forbidden the athri to tell Rohan of its existence, for he had wanted his son to become strong in his own right without having the prop of unlimited wealth from the very start of his reign.
“But why?” Rohan fumed as Farid told him this. “I, myself, found gold dust in a dragon’s cave years ago. I never had the time to pursue this discovery before now. Why keep it from me?”
Farid shrugged. “Do you remember when he tossed you into the lake when you were a little boy?”
“And now you’re pulling me out—just like before!”
“I would have told you eventually, once you’d found your feet as a prince. Your father didn’t want things to be easy for you.”
“Easy?” Rohan echoed in amazement. “With the Mer-ida and Roelstra and the dragons—not to mention all those damned princesses—easy!”
Farid had laughed, and after a moment Rohan’s sense of humor triumphed over his outrage. Part of his mirth had been caused by the wonderful joke he would ptey i Roelstra, for instead of beggaring himself and his or making odious concessions to the High Prince, there was unlimited gold to fill his coffers even after the grotesque sum paid for the dranath. But there had been bitterness in his laughter as well, for Zehava, even knowing how necessary the dragons were, had gone on killing them. Rohan surmised that his father considered his warrior’s reputation to be of more importance than the survival of the dragons and that he had further assumed Rohan would, when he became prince, devise a way to preserve their numbers and therefore their output of gold.
A clever and ruthless man, Zehava—but he had reckoned without the Plague. Rohan shook his head again and got out of his bath. He let the air dry him and, wrapped in a thin silk robe, went into the bedchamber. The serenity of the rooms his mother had created for him and Sioned soothed him as always. Nothing that had been his parents’ remained but for the huge bed in which generations of princes had been conceived, had given their first cries, and had breathed their last. The rich, bright colors of Zehava’s day had been replaced by deep greens and blues that complimented Sioned’s fire-gold looks and Rohan’s blondness. Tables, chairs, and wardrobes of heavy dark wood had given way to lighter, more casually elegant furniture. He had rarely been comfortable in these rooms when his parents had inhabited them, and had been surprised at how quickly they had become his refuge. Here he and Sioned had loved each other through nights without end, shared secrets and plans and dreams for the future. And here, too, he had wept with her over the loss of their children.
The first time had been the winter after their marriage; the second, that next autumn. She carried each child just long enough to thicken her waist a little. Pregnant again the summer of the Plague, the disease had not robbed her of the child; the dranath had. The heavy dosage necessary to save her life had devastated her faradhi senses and come close to addicting her to the drug. Even in the ungifted, the required amount brought hallucina- tions as Rohan remembered only, too well from his own brief illness. He and Sioned had both survived; their child had not, and there had been no sign of another since.
Rohan sat down at a table spread with silk and silver and the Fironese crystal goblets Sioned had bought at the Fair six years ago. lanthe had spoiled that night for them, and Rohan’s brows knotted at thought of the princess. She had three fine sons by three different lovers, and had protected them and her castle against Plague by having anyone who showed signs of any illness thrown down the cliffs. Rohan could not entirely condemn her for that. He knew he would have done the same if there had been any chance of saving his mother or Camigwen or Jahni, sparing Sioned an instant’s suffering, or keeping their child alive within her body. He had himself executed seven people with his own sword when they were caught hoarding dranath to sell at staggering prices. But the law would say he had done justice where lanthe had done deliberate murder. Yet he could not condemn her. He understood.
A small whirlwind blew in through the outer door and forgot to close it behind him. Rohan gasped at the impact of Riyan’s small body against his chest and hugged back.
“Papa says for me to say I’m sorry,” the boy explained. “I’m sorry!”
“Apology accepted—if you’ll let me breathe!” Rohan laughed and settled Riyan onto one knee. Camigwen’s beautiful eyes looked at him from her son’s impish face, and Rohan hid another ache of loss behind a smile as Ostvel appeared in the doorway. “Don’t scold him. He only came to tell me he’s sorry.”
“And well he should be. Now he’s interrupted your dinner!” Ostvel lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender, grinning. “Sioned says start without her.”
“I already have.” He held Riyan out from him. “And if it’s time for my dinner, then it’s certainly time for you to be in bed, young sir. Take it as a royal command from your prince.”
The child sighed. “You’re much more fun as my dragon,” he complained.
“I’ve heard little boys say that before. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. Off to bed with you.” He set the boy on his feet and Riyan went to his father. Rohan had to glance away as the small fingers disappeared into Ostvel’s hand.
“My lord?”
He met his friend’s gaze, wearing another careful smile. Ostvel wasn’t fooled, but only his eyes spoke of his compassion. What he said aloud was, “Sioned also mentioned something about sneaking around in the dark.”
A genuine smile curved Rohan’s mouth. “Oh, did she, now?”
“Is it another game?” Riyan asked eagerly. “Can I play, too?”
Ostvel winked at Rohan. “When you’re older! Say good night to your prince.”
“Good night,” Riyan echoed dutifully. “Don’t forget about playing dragons.”
“I won’t forget. Sleep well.”
When the door had closed behind them, he resumed his dinner with an appetite that would have pleased Walvis, who, along with Sioned, waged a constant battle against Rohan’s tendency to work too much and eat too little. When the food was gone he lazed back in his chair, wineglass in hand. Obedient to the teasing promise they’d made, he and Sioned met every so often in the gardens late at night. Their household grinned, pretended not to notice, and strictly observed the rule that whenever the prince and princess disappeared, nothing short of the impending arrival of Roelstra’s armies was to disturb them. Such delicious foolishness was exactly what Rohan needed tonight, and when it was dark he took a full botjtle of wine and the glasses with him from the chamber.
Barefoot, clad only in a thin silk robe, he went down the privy stairs and made his way through the empty gardens to the grotto. Sioned was a whispering excitement all along his body, a cool breeze through his heart and mind. He stood before the waterfall and closed his eyes, sensing her presence an instant before her arms slid around his waist and her body pressed to his back. He savored the enchantment as her lips brushed his nape.
Her first words melted the spell of contentment. “You were shut away with those reports all afternoon. We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”
“It’s nothing that can’t wait.”
She let him go and he faced her. “Tell me, Rohan.”
He lifted the bottle and glasses ruefully. “And here I thought we were going to—“
“Oh, we will,” she assured him, and bound the promise with a kiss. “But I haven’t seen you all day. Come talk to me, beloved.”
They sat together on the soft moss, her head resting on his shoulder, the wine set aside for later. In her arms he had found joy, and in her love, strength. But perhaps the gift he cherished most was the solace of her mind. Most princes merely had wives; he had found in Sioned a princess worthy of the royal circlet he had given her.
He told her about the dragons, and as he held her he felt her reactions in her body. She could keep her expression as cool and neutral as Andrade, but just as his aunt’s drumming fingers could give away her mood, Rohan had only to touch Sioned’s hand to sense her real feelings. She was tense now, lithe muscles tightening.
“We’ll have to cancel the vassals this year,” she said when he’d finished. “Then there won’t be anyone to demand a Hatching Hunt.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Feylin is right about the dragons not coming here to Rivenrock, so there wouldn’t be any sport for them anyway. But we have to summon the vassals. This is the first Rialla in six years. We all need to have a good long talk, and the ones who’ve inherited since the Plague must pledge to us in front of the others.”
“Are you going to tell them about the dragon gold? They’ve been wondering where the dranath money came from, you know. When Farid was here last year he said that his people know where the gold comes from—“
“And haven’t breathed a word about it for twenty years,” he reminded her.
“Of course not. But those who don’t actually work the caves think it’s a mine like any other, without any connection to dragons. Maybe we should tell the vassals that.”
“I’m not concerned with them as much as I am with Roelstra.” Mention of the High Prince brought even greater tension, and he stroked her back soothingly. “Watchers have been sent to Skybowl—merchants, travelers, and so forth. They come away none the wiser. Farid’s a crafty old liar, bless him. But Roelstra’s had three years to puzzle out where I got so much gold so quickly. And I don’t believe that he believes I wanted the dragons saved only because I’m a sentimental idiot.”
“He can believe what he likes! As long as no one ever finds proof, what does it matter? Your father had the right idea. Let people think your wealth comes from the spoils of war.”
“Ah, but where does it come from? The Merida didn’t have two coins to make their purses jingle when we drove them north. And we had to spend a lot to replace the animals that died of the Plague.”
“We’ve been careful,” she protested. “We’re not extravagant people. We can say that regular trade has filled our coffers again.”
“And that I’m a miser!” He chuckled. “No, love. Trade isn’t regular again yet, that’s the point. We haven’t had time enough to get rich on that. Trade will be the focus this year, more than ever before. With so many princes and athr’im dead and so many youngsters in their places, power has shifted. I’m afraid it’s gone in Roelstra’s direction, not mine. I have to counter that, and my best weapon is dragon gold.”
“Buy them?” She said as if the words had a sour taste. “How can they lean toward him when you were the one who gave them dranath?”
“I could say that they see the deaths, not the lives spared, and it would be true, I could say they suspect me of having hoarded the drug at the very beginning, and that, too, would be accurate from their point of view. But the real reason—“
“Is that Roelstra has influence with these young lord-lings who understand only one kind of power. His kind. We’ll have to educate them.”
“We shall. But I don’t plan to buy them.”
“Well, you’ll have to think up a reason why you won’t be out there killing a mating sire, you know. The vassals expect it.”
“I know,” he sighed. “People have such absurd notions about proof of a prince’s virility, thanks to my father.”
Her shoulders flinched and he cursed himself. “They certainly can’t prove it by me,” she whispered.
“Sioned—my father was forty years old before I was born. There’s time.”
She pulled out of his arms and faced him. “I’ve never carried a child very long. I haven’t been pregnant since the Plague. I’m not going to give you any children, Rohan, and we both know it.”
“Stop that. We’re both young and strong—“
“You need an heir.”
He drew in a deep breath. “If it comes to it, and it won’t, then Maarken is my choice. But you shouldn’t fret about it, Sioned.”
“How can I not? Rohan, I’ve studied the law. There’s nothing that says your heir must be the son of your wife—only the acknowledged son of your body.”
“Sioned!” He grasped her shoulders roughly. “What are you talking about?”
“I won’t give up my place as your wife and your princess, but you need an heir.”
He stared at her. “So you’d send some girl to my bed and then watch her swell with my child? Could you do that, Sioned?”
“I have your heart and your mind.”
“And my body. Always. Only you. Tell me you could never do that, Sioned.”
“I could,” she insisted, though tears sprang to her eyes.
“And after the child is born, what then? Would you send its mother away? Or keep her here and watch her take precedence over you as the mother of my son? Have you thought about this at all, you little fool? You’d make me into another Roelstra!”
“I have thought about it! Rohan, I can’t give you—“
“There’s nothing I want that you can’t give me. And one day we’ll give each other a son. Sioned, I wouldn’t want a child by any other woman. I couldn’t look at a i that didn’t have you in his face and his eyes.” He looked into those beautiful, doubting green eyes. “But can’t you see that it doesn’t matter to me? You’re enough. You’re more than I ever thought I’d have. Sioned, you are my life.”
And to prove it to her the only way he knew, he coaxed her down onto the moss and made love to her as the waterfall sang nearby. She wept a little, bittersweet tears tasting of her love for him and her despair that she was unable to bear a child. Afterward he rocked her against his chest, her hair a silken curtain over their bodies. When she lay quiet at last, he loosened his hold and raised himself on one elbow to look at her. Years of living in the Desert had burnished her fair skin to light gold and paled her hair a little, streaking it with blonde glints to make a finer setting for those eyes. Pride, surety of his love, and confidence in herself as a princess showed in every line of her face, as royal now as if she’d been born to it. Sioned had been a lovely girl, but maturity had transformed her into the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He traced the elegant curve of her shoulder with one finger and smiled tenderly.
“Besides which, woman, what makes you think I’d even be capable with someone else? I have an exclusive taste for long-legged redheads with green eyes.”
“Fool,” she accused.
“I know,” he agreed, pleased that she was willing to smile again. “That first summer—do you remember? I tried and tried to find a girl to go to bed with—stop laughing at me!” he chided as she giggled. “You were awful to me and you know it. Would you put me through that kind of humiliation again?”
“I just might. You’ve grown entirely too arrogant, my lord dragon prince.”
“Sioned, don’t you dare tickle me! Sioned!”
They ended up laughing, and Rohan was relieved that her moodiness had vanished. He opened the wine bottle and they drank from the Fironese goblets, listening to the waterfall and watching the stars. Yet part of him continued to worry. A son’s legitimacy was secondary to his existence—and his fitness to rule. It was entirely possible that a prince’s legitimate son would turn out a fool and his illegitimate one suited to inherit the responsibilities of a princedom. But Rohan could not imagine touching any woman other than his wife, much less begetting a bastard son.
Maarken would be his heir, if the need arose. If Chay and Tobin decided that their firstborn would be happier with only Radzyn as his share, then there were the two younger boys, Sorin and Andry. In any case, a prince of Zehava’s blood would rule over the Desert when Rohan was gone.
It was not until much later, when he and Sioned had gone upstairs at last, that he realized he had tacitly admitted he might not have any sons at all.