Whatever words Andry had planned while on the road, however he had thought he might greet his family—and they him—after the horrors of the Autumn and Winter, all of it fled and none of it mattered when he saw his brother.
Maarken strode eagerly across the courtyard, arms held wide. For a moment Andry thought it was a trick of the twilight, that half-empty left sleeve. Then he glimpsed the white bandage and cried out.
“It’s all right, Andry,” Maarken whispered as they embraced. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt and it’s healing well. I’m even starting to get used to it.”
He could say nothing but his brother’s name, almost a moan of rage and pain. Why hadn’t Sionell warned him?
The second shock came when Tobin hobbled across the cobblestones. Sunlight observation had distanced the reality. Andry looked down at the slurred ruin of his mother’s beautiful face, heard her voice stumble over the two easy syllables of his name, and wanted to weep. He bent quickly to hold her, to hide his face and his anguish.
When he glanced up, his father was standing nearby. Chay was old now. This was his seventieth winter and there was no denying it. Even in muted dusk, the lines and gray hair and the strain of war showed painfully clear. As Maarken supported Tobin, Andry blindly sought his father’s arms. There was strength in them still, but he was trembling.
“Andry. I’m glad you’re home,” Chay said simply.
He hung on as hard as he could, until he was sure he could face them all again without tears in his eyes. Drawing away, he caught sight of Pol in the great doorway of the castle. In some strange way, this was the worst of all. He’d coolly prepared himself to face his cousin, but the triple blows of his brother’s maimed arm, his mother’s infirmity, and his father’s age unbalanced him. Pol’s wife and child had been seized by the enemy. Andry had seen it happen. Pity—stronger than anything he had intended to feel—took him by surprise.
Odder still, Pol made it easy on him. It was the High Prince who descended the steps of Feruche, hands outstretched, to say, “You are well come, my Lord.”
“Thank you, your grace,” replied the Lord of Goddess Keep.
But somehow, by the time their fingers clasped and held, they were only Pol and Andry again. Each felt it, acknowledged it with a single glance, and let the other go.
“There’s a lot to be said,” Pol murmured. “But it can wait until you’ve rested. Tobren and Hollis are getting your old room ready for you.”
His “old room,” when he had only been in this castle once before in his life. But it was the room Sorin had made for him, everything in it selected with him in mind. Andry nodded, appreciating the subtle inclusion of him as part of the family.
“There is a lot to tell,” he answered, adding wryly, “I’ll try to sleep fast. Or maybe Chayla has something to keep me awake while we talk. I’m told she’s getting to be quite the physi—“ He broke off at the stricken look in Pol’s eyes.
“Andry, the Vellant’im have her.”
Something else Sionell had neglected to mention. “When? What’s being done? Have you looked for her on sunl—oh, Hells, of course you have.”
“Maarken can tell you on the way upstairs. Go on, you’re exhausted.” He began to move away.
“Pol.” Andry waited until his cousin had faced him again. “About Meiglan—“
He shook his head violently. Raking back sun-bleached hair with an unsteady hand, he rasped, “No. Later. You can tell me later.”
Andry and Maarken stayed silent by mutual consent on the climb upstairs. Tobren was waiting in his rooms, and burst into tears when she saw him. He held her and sopthed her with paternal murmurings, but was grateful when Hollis took her down to dinner. The brothers were left alone.
“Just so you know, I’ll tell you how this happened,” Maarken said, holding up his left arm. “But I don’t want to hear anything more about it. Ever.”
Andry sank into his bath and nodded.
Maarken settled on the tiled edge of the tub, speaking in crisp, dispassionate tones. “It was at Skybowl. Pol and I were back-to-back, the way Father taught us. I don’t know if the Vellanti got lucky or I got careless, but—“ He shrugged. “Pol killed him. Then he cauterized my arm with Sunrunner’s Fire—probably saved my life, according to Feylin. Instead of bleeding to death, I lost hardly any blood at all.”
“I see,” Andry replied numbly.
Maarken’s voice changed then, took on a shading of bewilderment. “It really doesn’t hurt—except when I think it’s there. That happens with this kind of injury, I’m told. But it’s odd, because it feels familiar, in a way.”
“Kind of like the way you felt after you lost Jahni, the way I felt when Sorin died.”
“Yes,” Maarken said, relieved at being understood as few others could understand him. “It’s losing part of yourself. They say the connection is much stronger with identical twins, and none of us are, but I can’t imagine it could be any worse than it was for you and me. When I think of Rohannon and Chayla—“ His voice nearly broke on his daughter’s name.
Andry said quickly, “Is Rohannon all right? Where is-he?”
“With Arlis. Safe enough for now. Chayla—“ Maarken’s jaw tightened. “That’s what I regret about my hand. I want it back to kill them with.”
He scrubbed intently at a foot so he wouldn’t have to look at his brother. “This is the last time we’ll speak of it, Maarken. You’re still you. Still a Sunrunner.”
“That’s the other thing—and the strangest, really. Even when I don’t feel the hand still there, I sense my rings. As if they’re—I don’t know, as if the power was somehow in them, not in me.”
“It’s special gold. Lady Merisel’s work, or so the stories have it. I’ve seen Torien cast them, the way Urival taught him to do. But it’s her power in the gold. Just because they’re gone doesn’t mean—“
“Yes, well, I can still work,” Maarken said. “Losing her rings didn’t affect Sioned, after all. But it’s a weird sensation all the same.” He handed over a green glass bottle of liquid soap. “Anyway, I’m not sure how much you know of where things stand, so I’ll tell you all of it. If something comes up that you know more about than I do—“
“I’ll interrupt as rudely as I ever did.” Andry smiled up at him from under a headful of lather.
“As rudely as you just did!” Maarken’s right hand suddenly rumpled his soapy hair. “Goddess, Andry, it’s good to have you here. Between the Lord of Goddess Keep and the Azhrei, we can’t help but win.”
“Is that what Pol’s calling himself now?” He kept the edge from his voice.
“Reluctantly. The Vellant’im use it all the time. They seem to think he’s some kind of evil influence on the dragons, and—Hells, it’s going to be hard to get this in order.”
“Tell it any way you like, but tell it!”
When Hollis opened the bathroom door, clean clothes folded over her arm, Maarken was still talking and Andry was still in the tub.
“You idiot, get out of there at once! The water must be stone cold.”
Both men started. Maarken nearly lost his balance and had to brace himself on the sink to keep from tumbling into the bath. Andry grabbed a washing cloth and spread it strategically.
Hollis snorted and threw a towel in his face. “If you must be so silly, try hiding behind this instead of that little rag. You’re made like your brother.”
“Hollis!” Andry exclaimed, crimson-faced.
“I brought you something to eat. Dinner’s long since over,” Hollis went on, placing a pile of shirt, tunic, and trousers on a shelf. “In fact, the moons have almost set. Sioned wants to talk to you before she starts work for the night. If she does. The sky’s clear over the Desert, but there may be clouds blowing over the hills.”
“Work?” Andry echoed. He stood, draping the towel modestly around his hips.
“The rest of us take turns searching on other light,” Maarken explained.
They were all silent while Andry used a second towel to dry off. Maarken started to help him with his tunic, then looked sourly at his left arm and gave the garment to Hollis.
“I can do it myself,” Andry protested.
“Yes, he’s quite grown up now, isn’t he?” Maarken said with an attempt at a grin. “Feeds himself, talks in whole sentences—“
Distracting humor; Andry recognized it with an unexpected pang. Rohan. I almost expect him to be waiting downstairs...
He made an effort. “And I even remembered to wash behind my ears.”
“Clever child!” Hollis’ smile was a very bad fit on her worry-drawn face. “Come along and show me how well you can use a spoon, little brother.”
Andry tugged the tunic into place. “Whatever happened to the dignity of my ancestry and position?” He kept on with the game as he followed them into the bedchamber. “I’m thirty-eight, not five!”
Hollis produced a comb from the dressing table. “It’s the hair. Grow some gray like the rest of us.”
“Oh, but I have.” Glancing to the door as light shifted there, he saw Tobren’s small face peeking in. “And here’s one of the reasons. Come in, heartling. Papa’s clean and proper now, he won’t ruin your pretty dress with the dirt of four princedoms—or is it five? I’ve lost track!”
He held her on his knee while he and Maarken devoured soup, bread, cheese, and wine. Tobren nestled against his shoulder, touching his cheek every so often as if to reassure herself that he was real.
“She’s been taking good care of her grandmother, haven’t you, love?” Hollis said. “And her grandsir, too, even though he thinks he doesn’t need it.”
“Now, there’s a task,” Andry smiled at his daughter.
Tobren eyed him narrowly. “Are you going to frown like he does when I let him and Granda Tobin sleep late in the morning?”
“Probably.”
She gave a sigh, and he laughed.
“Papa? I know you’re busy, but—“ She squirmed a little on his knee. “I have to talk to you, please,” she blurted out.
“Right now, if you like.” When blue eyes the same color and cant as his own flickered to Maarken and then Hollis, he added, “But tomorrow morning might be better. We’ll have breakfast together, just you and I. Will that suit?”
She nodded and jumped off his lap. “I have to say good night to Granda. You won’t go away before tomorrow morning, will you Papa?”
“Of course I won’t, sweetheart,” he replied, hiding dismay as he realized how distant a father he’d been. He loved all his children, and they knew it. Tobren’s assumption that she must make an appointment to see him, and her worry that he would leave without telling her, stung him.
When she had kissed him and departed, Hollis said quietly, “I can tell you what she wants to talk about. Sioned and Meath began giving the children lessons today. Faradhi lessons.”
“So?” Andry poured taze. “It’s for the best, you know. And they’re both entirely competent as teachers. Excellent, in fact, if Pol is any indication.”
“Don’t start, please,” she begged. “I can’t bear it.”
“I’m sorry.”
She bit her lip, then burst out, “It’s just—it almost kills me to hear you talk about each other. You both have the same note in your voice—“
“Out of tune?” he suggested. “Hollis, I promise you I’ll make the effort. I’m not a churl. Neither am I Pol’s enemy. Whatever conflicts he and I might have are meaningless compared to this war.”
“But don’t you see, that’s what I’m afraid of! You’re going to have to work together and we all know—“
“We may surprise you,” he replied. Bringing her hand to his lips, he placed a gentle kiss on her palm. “For you, dearest lady, I will try.”
His brother growled, “Stop trying to seduce my wife,” and again they were all glad of the chance to smile.
But when Maarken went to tell Sioned that Andry would soon join her, Hollis stared Andry straight in the eye and said, “It’s not for my sake. It’s for his. He loves you both. He’s loyal to you both. As your brother and a Sunrunner, as Pol’s cousin and Battle Commander. Please don’t make him choose between you.”
Andry searched her eyes. At last he said, “I wish that just once, just for one day, someone would love me the way you love my brother.”
When Andry entered Sioned’s rooms, she gave him a quick embrace, then stepped back and said, “Out, the rest of you. Go on.”
Hollis, Maarken, Riyan, and Chay all opened their mouths to protest at the same time. Ruala, wiser than they, simply turned for the door, tugging her husband along with her. The others shrugged and followed.
Andry’s brows arched. “You must tell me sometime how you do that.”
Sioned grinned wearily. “I’m still a High Princess. Besides, I’m old.”
“You? Never.”
“For the rest of my life, my dear. Come sit down. I’ve wine and taze—“
“Thanks, but either would put me right to sleep.” He took the chair opposite hers at the hearth. “Sioned, before anything else—“
“Please don’t,” she murmured, fingers wrapped around a cup of hot taze.
“I want you to know how we honored him at Goddess Keep that night.”
“Antoun told me on sunlight. He and I have known each other a long time. I thank you for what you said in Rohan’s memory, but I don’t want to talk about him, Andry. It hurts too much.”
“Forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive.” She stared into the flames for a moment, banishing memory of other Fire.
Andry began, “I should tell you what happened with Meiglan.”
“Alasen saw most of it. That can wait. We have things to do, you and I. Now. Tonight. Pve been looking on starlight, but there’s nothing. I should have thought of this when we first learned she was missing, but—“ She shrugged. “I’m as stupid as the next person. My only defense is that it’s not something we Sunrunners use often and I’m not very good at it. Pol might be able to do this, but he’s in no state to make the attempt.” She glanced up with a sardonic smile.
“Seems perfectly calm and rational, doesn’t he? If a trifle abrupt. He’s treading a sword edge, Andry, slicing himself with every step. Frankly, I don’t think he’s capable of what I have in mind. But you are.”
Rising, she went to the table by the windows and returned with a wide, polished silver bowl half-full of water and a surgeon’s knife.
“Chayla’s,” she said.
Comprehension gleamed in his eyes. “You’re going to find her with a Star Scroll spell.”
“No, you are.”
He frowned. “Why not one of the others?”
“Maarken? Hollis?” Shaking her head, she set the bowl and knife on a low stool and hitched her chair closer to his. “They’re on the same edge Pol is. Your mother’s not strong enough, your daughter is untrained, and why should I use Meath with his six rings when I have the Lord of Goddess Keep with ten?”
“What about you?”
“As I said, I’m not much good at it.” She hesitated, then decided to tell him the truth. “And it has to be your work.”
Andry pursed his lips. “I can see where it would benefit me, to be the one to find her. But why should you make the effort for my sake?”
“It benefits the Lord of Goddess Keep,” she corrected. “Chayla’s uncle doesn’t matter. It’s what you are that means something right now, not who.”
“It must be seen that I use my power on everyone’s behalf,” he interpreted.
“Seen by the Vellant’im,” she agreed. “And by Pol.” She smiled as startlement scrawled across his face. “Do you know what he keeps telling me? How much he needs me. But not as his mother. He needs the Sunrunner High Princess. Well, that dear lady is every bit a manipulative witch. She has to be. If you’re the one to lead us to Chayla, then in spite of what he may feel for you personally, he’ll have to acknowledge you’re on his side and he needs you. It might be that once he gets that past his craw, you two will be able to work together as you ought.”
“As long as I don’t rub his nose in it,” Andry said. “You trust me not to?”
“I trust that you love your home and family more than you love your own pride,” she answered forthrightly. “I’ll allow you yours. Let Pol have his. That’s all I ask.”
“There’s more, though. You learned from Andrade, there must be more.”
“We both learned from Andrade—and very well, too, I’d say. Wouldn’t you?” Sioned smiled briefly. “Rohan used to tell me that the difference between him and her was that although he used people, too, it was only to do what they would have done themselves anyway. What their own instincts would have led them to if only they’d thought of it first.”
“As you’re doing with me tonight. I like Rohan’s way better.” He smiled back. “What’s the rest of it, Sioned?”
“All right, yes. There’s something else.” She leaned forward, fingers tightly laced. “When it comes time—and don’t ask what I mean, I’m not sure myself—you’re going to have to give over control to him.” She saw Andry’s shoulders stiffen. “He’s High Prince,” she insisted. “Unless you want to be, and I know damned well you don’t, it must be his work. By doing what I hope you’ll do tonight, he won’t just take your gifts and use them—and he could, you know. He saw me do it at Stronghold. He’s a quick learner. But for his own sake, he can’t be allowed to do that. He must treat you with the respect you deserve.”
“Allowing us both our pride?” Andry leaned back in his chair and crossed long legs. “Very well, then, I’ll be just as honest with you. This elaborate emotional game isn’t necessary. I promised Hollis that Pol and I won’t carve each other up into little pieces. We’d be killing my brother.”
Her turn to be startled, knowing she shouldn’t be. As their love for Sorin had kept them civil to each other for so long, now their love for Maarken would do the same.
“Andry.” She held the bowl out to him. “Find her.”
His rings clicked softly against the silver as he cradled it in his hands. Sioned held the thin, curving surgical knife between two fingers, hoping not to leave too great a trace of herself, and slid it into the water. It very nearly vanished on the wide, flat bottom of the bowl.
Actually, she had lied some. Pol was perfectly capable of this—and, as it was a diarmadhi spell, he would be better at it than Andry. The rest, however, was true. She understood her husband’s son and her husband’s nephew as if they had both been born of her own body and blood.
Still, she wondered what Andry was going to say when he found out who and what Pol really was. Cami’s mirror made that discovery certain. Ah, well; worry about it when it happens, she told herself.
“I’m not getting anything.” Andry’s brows nearly met over his nose with the ferocity of his scowl. “Damn it, I’ve done this before—“
She thought for a moment, then suggested, “Too many other kinds of light? I shut the curtains to moons and stars, but maybe the hearth is distracting you.”
He glanced at the flames and winced. “You may have something there. It hurts my eyes.” After a slight pause, he said, “It’s not just fire, is it?”
“We’re a little short on trees to burn.” Obligingly, she doused the Fires of her making, from the candle branch near the bed to the hearth. A reflexive, wary glance at her hand in the darkness showed her no emerald glow pulsing in precise rhythm to her heartbeat. That was something she would prefer not to explain to anyone until she could explain it to herself.
But there was a glistening in the room now, coming from the bowl in Andry’s hands. He had called Fire into the Water, and it lit her heart to pity for his tired face.
“There, that’s got it,” he murmured. “Much better. Now to focus on Chayla through her knife—“
All at once his body shuddered convulsively and he cried out. The Fire vanished from between his hands. Sioned relit the hearth instantly. Andry was shaking, sweat standing out on his forehead and upper lip.
Sioned snatched the bowl from him and put it on the rug. Quickly she poured wine and made him drink, then smoothed his hair and waited for sense to return to his eyes.
“Goddess,” he whispered as color seeped back into his face. “I’ve never felt anything like that in all my life.”
“What was it? Is Chayla in pain?”
“No—it was that damned knife.” He looked up, a rueful twist to his mouth. “I know it should be something used often by the person you’re looking for, but couldn’t you have chosen an earring or a button? That thing’s brutal, Sioned.”
She sat down very hard in her chair. “Andry—it never even occurred to me.”
“Me, either.” He stared into the bowl at his feet. “It was the oddest feeling. Pain, as if the knife had cut into me, but—I don’t know, gentleness, perhaps. Compassion. And a determination to heal, polished by knowledge...” He trailed off, embarrassed.
“The things Chayla feels when she uses it? Yes, I see.”
Gingerly he dipped thumb and forefinger into the bowl, lifting the knife by its handle. “If that’s what’s in her mind and heart when she works, I wonder she can’t cure people by just touching them. Evarin will either be ecstatic to find another bred-in-the-bone physician, or else insanely jealous.”
“He’ll get over it,” she said impatiently. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
He nodded, turning the knife this way and that to watch Fire play on steel. “Remind me to gloss this spell in the margin of the Star Scroll. ‘Never, ever use anything with an edge or a point.’ You’d better note it in your copy.”
“It’s at Stronghold.”
Andry frowned. “Burned?”
“No. But they won’t find it. The Star Scroll isn’t something one keeps out on a shelf. Besides,” she added with a shrug, bending to retrieve the bowl, “what could they do with it? They can’t use it. There’s no danger to us if it’s found. Not like Feylin’s dragon book.”
“Actually, they’re rather the same. You obviously meant them to use her book or you wouldn’t have been so artistic at Remagev—oh, of course I heard about that!” He smiled briefly. “You burned what you didn’t want them to see—the truth. For all its vagaries, there’s truth in the Star Scroll, too. And your copy is a clear one, without Lady Merisel’s little confusions.”
“What’s your point?” she asked curiously. “There’s not a spark of power in the lot of them. They can’t use the Star Scroll.”
“Let’s say that there’s a field bare one day and covered in grass the next. You don’t find it remarkable because you know that seeds in the ground sprouted overnight. But if you knew nothing about seeds or the way things grow, the sudden appearance of grass would be magic.”
Sioned frowned into the bowl on her knees. “Well ... yes, I see what you mean. Finding out that there are spells and recipes and so forth behind what we do, that it isn’t the hand of the Goddess working through us—“
“Never explain a mystery when keeping it a mystery is to your benefit.”
She nodded agreement, disliking it on principle but admitting she’d put it into practice quite a few times. “Andrade would appreciate that. And she’d probably blister my ears for not thinking this through better. I’m sorry, Andry. When I tried to find something Chayla uses that’s the essence of her, I naturally chose one of her instruments.”
“The stronger the association, the more powerful the pull.”
“Then you saw her?” she asked eagerly. “You found her?”
“The pain shook me up for a moment. Evarin will tell you I got a good knock on the head in the battle and I admit it scrambled my wits for a time. But what I saw is coming back.” He closed his eyes, fist clenched around the handle of Chayla’s knife as he concentrated. Voice soft, almost muffled, he began, “Dark. Thin starlight. Walking beneath trees, off the road, under cover. Hands free. Head bent, starshine on her hair...” He paused, frowning. “Men watching her. One in particular—twice her size, something in his face I don’t like...”
“What about the terrain? Give me something I can use.”
“Curve of the road around a gigantic pine ... sheer drop just beyond where it clings to the cliff ... cave half-hidden in the trees on the slope above. Faint light there. Horses tethered nearby. Four—no, five.” He was silent a moment; Sioned held her breath. Then he opened his eyes. “That’s all. Just the cave and the tree. I’m sorry.”
“That might be enough,” she mused. “Ruala and Riyan know this part of the Veresch—and if they can’t identify it, their hunt master might.” Leaning back, she cradled the bowl in her hands and considered for a time. “They haven’t tied her up. They let her out for fresh air and exercise. They’re not monsters.”
Andry reached for the winecup, saying bitterly, “They want her alive and healthy to hold for ransom.”
Something else to worry about when it happened. “Let’s think about when they can travel. Not by sunlight, not by moonlight—why not by starlight? If they know about Sunrunners, they know we don’t use it.”
“Most of us, anyway.”
“Most of us. But back to the point. When can they move? Only when there are clouds that blot out any kind of light.”
Andry nodded slowly. “I’ve good reason to know the weather’s been miserable. How much looking have you been able to do, and can you calculate how far they might have gotten during the time you haven’t been looking?”
“Always assuming they need to eat and sleep like the rest of us, and which direction they’re going—“
Andry’s brows arched. “South, of course,”
“Would they?” she challenged. “That’s the first place we’d search.”
“Where else would they go except to their High Warlord?”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that. The question is how they’ll get to him...” She gnawed her lip. “Someone here must be able to recognize that tree and cave combination.”
“And then?” he asked softly. “How do we get her back without risking her life?”
She decided not to tell him about Kazander. “That’s for military minds.”
“Which lets me out.” Andry sipped at his wine. “I wish I’d paid more attention to your brother when I was his squire.”
“Davvi? Good Goddess, he was no more a warrior than you are. Oh, Kostas did very well in the field, but not because his father taught him much beyond what happened in 704.” She shook her head sadly. “Rohan hoped none of you would have to study war.”
“Maybe if we had, we’d be doing better now. Speaking of study, I hear you and Meath are holding classes.”
With perfect calm, Sioned replied, “Yes, we are.”
His lips quivered with amusement. “Did you think I’d come roaring in here to forbid it? Sioned! Why should I make a fool of myself condemning something that’s not only a practical necessity, but that you’d go on doing with or without my permission? It’s much wiser to condone it. And I trust you won’t mind if I give my official approval by doing some teaching myself ?”
“I wish you would,” she said honestly. “But watch out for Jihan. I think we’ve convinced her to hush up and listen, but that child’s silences make me nervous. You never know what’s going on behind them.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” Rising, he placed the knife and winecup on the side table and stretched from toes to fingertips. “That bath did me a lot of good—nothing cracks when
I move,” he observed, though he rubbed at his sore shoulder as he spoke. “Shall I go talk to Pol now, or wait for tomorrow? Frankly, I’ve got the grandsire dragon of all headaches.”
“That’s one reason this sort of thing isn’t done too often. Go to bed. Your Master Physician won’t thank me for giving you a strain like this when you’ve had a bad bump on the head.”
“I really ought to go see Pol,” he said, his eyes solemn.
“He can wait until you’re feeling up to it.” She paused. “It was you who killed Miyon, wasn’t it ... Master Sorindal?”
“I didn’t think Alasen would remember the name.”
“She did—and the unfamiliar face that went with it. For a while afterward she thought you were part of Miyon’s ambush, until she remembered what you called yourself. ‘Sorin’s shadow.’ “
“I can feel him here,” Andry replied softly, glancing around the chamber. “Does anyone else?”
“All of us, all the time.” She watched him in silence for a moment. Then, because unexpected questions often brought interesting answers, she said, “I’m not up on shape-changing. Is it difficult?”
Andry was a past master at the verbal parry. Even with a throbbing head, no sleep, and the rigors of a desperate ride behind him, all he did was smile and say, “Not when you’ve practiced as much as I have the last thirty days. I think you’d find it intriguing.”
She ruffled her own hair. “Not that I need much disguise these days. Half the servants at Skybowl and Feruche didn’t even recognize me when I arrived.”
He inspected her, a little smile dancing across his lips. “You know, I rather like it. You look younger.”
“Looking and being aren’t even in speaking distance of each other,” she assured him. “Go to your bed, Andry. Sleep well.”
“Good night.”
When he was gone, she reached into a pocket and pulled out a small glinting bit of silver, an earring set with carved white sand-jade. She had searched Meiglan’s room earlier but found nothing that was strongly enough hers to use. She had brought little with her from Dragon’s Rest, still less on the flight from Stronghold, and packed almost all of it for the journey home. Only a lace scarf was left behind, and a horn comb used while she was here. But the lace had spent too much time in the weaver’s hands, and Meiglan had probably used the comb on the girls’ hair. Sioned would search again. If she found something, and if Pol could settle enough to work ... well, they’d see.
As for the earring—she would use that herself, later, to find Kazander.
She had lied some about her own talents with this spell, too.
It was said that the Isulk’im could hide in the wind. Tonight it was true. Twenty-one lean black shadows on black Radzyn horses galloped down a mountain road, the wind-roar in the trees muffling even the thunder of their hoofbeats.
Very suddenly, Kazander reined in. The rest stopped instantly. He turned his face to the sky, where clouds drew swift veils across the stars. Fine tremors shook his body and his eyes turned blank and blind.
In every mind was the same thought: Ros’eltan. The Black Warrior, to whom the Goddess spoke on the wind.
In Kazander’s mind was Sioned.
Steady yourself, my lord. It’s sheer luck that I found you. Every one of you is a shadow in the darkness. Don’t try to reply—you’re not a Sunrunner and this isn’t a Sunrunner spell. Just listen. Chayla is being held forty-five measures from the crossroads ahead of you. Near a place where the cliff road curves around a giant pine, there’s a cave almost directly opposite the tree. Ruala recognized it and was very specific. Chayla may still be there tomorrow night—they don’t dare travel when there’s light for us to work with. But if she’s not, she won’t be far and traces should be there to follow. Bring her back to us, Kazander. May the gentle Mother of Dragons shelter you beneath her wings.
Then she was gone.
He turned to his fellows, trembling now not with shock but with eagerness. A quick glance at the sky told him there wasn’t much of the night left; even if he pushed his men and horses to the breaking, it would be well past daybreak before they reached the tree and the cave.
“Find us a place to sleep,” he ordered Visian. “We reclaim the lady tomorrow night. Our wise and powerful High Princess has shown me the way.”
None of them thought he referred to Meiglan.
Until she saw the glint of eyes in the firelight, Chayla thought they were all asleep. He had set a guard outside, of course—pacing footfalls counting off the moments of the night. Four and a pause, four and a pause, maddening as the drip of a water-clock in an otherwise silent room.
He was watching again. The others had stared—at her blonde hair, her blue eyes, her pale skin. He watched.
She shifted against the stone wall behind her, trying to find a place where rocks didn’t jab into her spine. She was as far from them as she could get, as close to the fresh air as he would allow, unable to bear the stink of them. Distance from their odor, however, also meant distance from the only source of heat. After four nights of this, one would think she would stop being so silly. She was cold. She needed the warmth of the fire. It occurred to her that this was a stupid time to develop a squeamish nose—she who had been up to her elbows in blood, and sliced into putrefying flesh without a grimace.
What was happening to her was real now. All the time, not just in spurts. The cold was a fact, and her weariness, and trying to keep down the food they gave her. The bread was pungent with mold, the meat so highly spiced to disguise its age that tears streamed from her eyes as she gagged it down. It humiliated her to think they might believe she was crying. She supposed she was lucky they shared their rations with her at all.
Cold, exhaustion, stomach cramps, and the smell of their unwashed bodies. Those things were real. Sunlight was not; she hadn’t seen any. Logical. They feared faradh’im, and so moved only when there was cloud cover, and even then kept beneath the trees. If the sun or moons threatened, they built shelters of branches or found caves. Tonight, with the wind blowing hard, Chayla assumed there were no clouds—but they did not travel under starlight, either.
She didn’t know how far they were from Ivalia Meadow. The first two days had been real only in sharp jolts like pricks of a knife, and now that she thought back on them she knew what a fool she had been to succumb to shock. She was a physician, she knew the symptoms, she should have recognized them and dragged herself out of stunned lethargy.
But she hadn’t, and now hadn’t the vaguest idea of where she was. Twenty, fifty, a hundred measures in any direction from the meadow.
Not that knowing her location would have done her any good.
She wasn’t afraid of him—of any of them. They hadn’t touched her, had been almost polite. They gave her food and water, let her walk off her saddle-stiffness, allowed her decent privacy to attend to her physical needs.
That was the only time he didn’t watch her.
The others only looked, fascinated by her strangeness. He was the one who searched beyond the color of her eyes to what might be found within. He was doing it now—catching her gaze, trying to reach into her. She bore it as long as she could, then turned her head away.
The guard came in quickly, nearly treading on her feet, and said something she didn’t understand. On the other side of the small fire, he sat up, the blanket crumpling around him. Flames danced off the golden tokens in his beard. A question was asked, answered, and he stood and kicked his companions awake. A harsh order was given and they hurried out into the night.
Chayla scooted to the mouth of the cave. Fire-dazzled eyes saw nothing, but she heard horses, voices. Not even an instant’s hope heartened her; they spoke the old language, or their version of it. Whoever these new arrivals were, they had not come to help her.
Levering her chilled body upright, she took a few bold steps outside. A hard hand grasped her wrist—the first time any of them had touched her since she had been seized in the meadow.
“Let go of me,” she said without fear, and tried to shake him off.
But she was hauled down the slope to the road. Someone had lit a torch, and by its light she saw a score of riders on her grandfather’s finest horses. Even after so long, the sight of that still made her angry. Goddess, how it made her angry.
She was released, and stood rubbing her wrist. She found him with her eyes, glared at him. He paid no attention.
“Faradh ‘reia,” he said in triumph to another tall, bearded man on a gray stallion, and then a word she didn’t understand. “Brenac.”
The rider leaned down, peering at Chayla. She wanted to spit in his face when he began to laugh.
“Princess?” he mocked, and the others of his party chortled in response. A gesture brought forward another rider, leading a dainty mare. “Kir’reia!” he announced.
The cloaked figure astride the mare looked up dully. The child in her arms stirred. Chayla nearly strangled trying not to gasp her recognition.
But Meiglan had seen her in the windblown torchlight. Her eyes were black wells of terror. “Chayla?” she breathed. “Oh, Goddess—no—“
“Chayla?”
This time when he stared at her, it was with narrowed eyes. He repeated her name, then those of her father and grandfather.
“Faradhi!” the mounted leader growled, and spat. All the rest of them did the same. “No princess!” He flung an arm toward Meiglan, who flinched, then struck his own chest in pride of ownership. “Kir’reia tir!”
There ensued a discussion Chayla didn’t even try to follow. Meiglan’s cloak had shifted with her movement; one sight of Rislyn’s face told Chayla that the little girl was ill.
“Shut up, all of you!” she snapped, starting toward Meiglan’s horse. “They need my help, I’m a physician—“
He closed his fingers around her shoulder tightly enough to break bones. “No princess!” he growled accusingly.
The newcomers all laughed. Their leader said something else, and they rode away. Chayla struggled, hearing Meiglan cry out her name. Then her voice was lost in the sound of galloping hoofbeats and laughter on the night wind.
Chayla was dragged back up to the cave. “No! Turn me loose! What are they going to do with her? Where are they taking her? You’re nothing but cowards, all of you, preying on women and children—“
He flung her down before the fire and loomed over her. “No princess,” he said once more.
“No! I’m not a princess, damn you! But my father is the Battle Commander of the Desert and my kinsman is the High Prince, and they’ll kill you!”
The words were brave and ridiculous, and she knew them for what they were: the sound of her own voice to fling against sudden fear.
He paced the short distance to the rear wall and spun around, thrusting out an accusing finger. “Diarmadhi?”
Her answer was immediate and vehement. “Certainly not!”
Incredibly, he looked disappointed. She wanted to slice out her own tongue. She should have claimed to be a sorcerer. They shouted the word in battle, they were allied with the Merida, everyone said they were on the side of the diarmadh’im even though they worked no spells. She could have used her Sunrunner gifts, done something else they would consider magical—
Except that she knew nothing beyond how to call a tiny fingerflame. “Light to see by, that’s all I need,” she’d told her mother. “The rest can wait until I can be a Sunrunner as well as a physician. I don’t have time right now.”
Oh, Goddess, why had she never found the time?
He was pacing again. Short, sharp steps, boot heels digging into the rocky floor. His finger suddenly stabbed into her face. She flinched back.
“Faradh ‘reia!”
“No! I’m not a princess! And I’m notfaradhi, either! Do you see any rings, idiot?” She held up both hands, infuriated to see them tremble. Clenching her fingers, she repeated, “I am not a Sunrunner!” And felt, stupidly enough, that in denying what she was, she had betrayed her parents and her heritage and even her Uncle Andry.
He spat on the ground. Just when she thought he would stalk out in disgust, he stopped, firelight seeping wickedly into smiling black eyes.
Terror, lurking for four days at the edges of her soul, found her then, seized her by the heart and mind and claimed her for its own.
“No princess ... no diarmadhi ... no faradh ‘reia,” he murmured, and his fingertips stroked a dirty path down her cheek.
It was real now. All of it. Hideous and unrelenting and real.
Sioned found Pol in his bedchamber. He had cramped his long body into a window embrasure, knees to chin, hair glinting by feeble candleglow.
“You look like seven kinds of Hell,” she told him. “No,” he muttered. “Only three.”
“Meiglan, Rislyn, and Chayla,” she supplied. “I would have thought there’d be four.” He winced. She hesitated, then said, “Waiting for the clouds to clear,
I take it.”
“They haven’t. Not where it was important to look.”
She didn’t order him to bed. Sleep wasn’t something anyone was familiar with these days. Standing beside him, she rested a hand on his shoulder and felt him shy as if touch hurt.
“Kazander will find Chayla tomorrow night,” she said quietly, and when his head jerked up in surprise, told him what she and Andry had done.
Hope blazed in his face. “Then Meiglan—“
“Perhaps. I came to look through these rooms again. Did she leave anything behind that we can use?”
He searched the chamber with his eyes. “No. Nothing. I would have noticed it by now. There’s nothing left of her here...” Resting his forehead against his drawn-up knees, a shuddering breath sighed out of him. “I should have—“
“No, you shouldn’t,” she interrupted. “They took her for a reason. If it’s to lure you out of Feruche to a battle you’d lose along with your life, then they’ll be disappointed. Meiglan and Rislyn won’t be harmed, Pol. Didn’t you hear what Alasen said? That Miyon was adamant about it.”
“Miyon is dead. What happens when they’re taken to the High Warlord? I’ve got to do something, Mother, I can’t just sit here and—Goddess, what are they doing to my wife, my daughter—“
“Stop it,” she commanded, fingers clawing into his shoulder. “Nothing will happen to them. It’s you they want. You’ve said it yourself, Azhrei,”
“But you can’t risk me—and Meiglan and Rislyn are expendable!” He lurched to his feet, nearly knocking her down. “You never cared about Meggie, never wanted me to Choose her—“
Sioned remained silent as the accusations went on. It was not her he railed against; it was himself, and the new emotions that made mockery of that Choice. Meiglan on one side, Sionell on the other, and Pol snared between, paralyzed by guilt. Sioned thanked the Goddess he was paralyzed. Tak- ing action now, when he could not think and all his emotions were dangerous, would be fatal.
A fire iron was seized like a sword, wielded viciously against the dying hearth. Sioned waited him out. When he set the poker back into place, it rattled with the shaking of his hand.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was subdued. “None of that was fair, or true.”
She said nothing.
“I don’t know what to do, Mother.” He spoke to the dim flames. “I can’t ride out to find them if I don’t know where they are. Walvis has sent people out from Skybowl to search. Everyone who can is looking for them when there’s light enough. Ruala came close to being shadow-lost last night, did you know that? I’m doing all I can think to do and it’s not enough. They have my wife, my little girl. What they really want is me. That’s what I have to give them.”
“On their terms? The sacrificial prince?”
“If necessary.”
“Don’t be a fool!” she exclaimed, her voice rough with fear.
He didn’t hear her. “They’re savages,” he said to the fire. “Barbarians. If I offer myself, if my death would satisfy them so we’d be left in peace—“
“It wouldn’t. You know it wouldn’t.” She shook her head, still surprised not to feel the weight of her hair, to feel instead the swift tousle of it around her cheeks and neck. “We don’t have any evidence that it would. We don’t even know who these people are!”
“Don’t we? What about their battle cry?” He turned suddenly to face her, his body like a rope yanked taut. “Mother—what if I reveal myself as diarmadhi? What if I claim to be something besides the Azhrei?”
“Andry would love that, wouldn’t he!” she snapped. “Not to mention all the people who believe with him that sorcerers are evil! What would you do, Pol, proclaim yourself rightful ruler of the Vellant’im, a prince of savages? Even if you succeed in taming them, who would accept a High Prince to whom the enemy bows down in homage instead of in defeat?”
For a moment he looked as if he might argue. But then all the tense energy drained out of him and he bent his head. “You’re right, of course.”
Sioned’s knees went a little weak with relief. She sat on the window seat and folded trembling hands in her lap. “I understand, Pol. You’re looking for anything that will get Meiglan and Rislyn back. But you can’t offer yourself in their places, and you can’t make some wild claim that might or might not work.”
“Then tell me how, High Princess.”
“I don’t know,” she replied, damning her helplessness.
“That’s not the answer I need to hear.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
He began to pace, but not with the usual supple quickness. Each step was heavy, almost hobbled. “So we wait like Father always did, and see what solution presents itself? This isn’t politics, Mother, it isn’t someone’s scheme of power. These are the lives of my wife and child! I won’t be pushed until the only way out is of Vellanti making!”
She bent her head. There was nothing more to say and they both knew it. After a time Pol stopped pacing and looked down at her.
“You were up all last night, and now most of this one,” he said colorlessly. “Go get some rest.”
Sioned pushed herself to her feet. At the door she paused with her fingers on the dragon’s head handle. “Pol, this “is about power. They didn’t take your wife. They took the High Princess.”
“She’s not like you,” he answered in a muffled voice. “She’s too—“
“Gentle? Sheltered? Not like your ruthless mother—either of them?” she snapped. “Meiglan ordered her own kinsmen executed without blinking an eye. The action of a High Princess—brutal and necessary. Just like me. One of the few real privileges of the position and its power is to do what you have to in order to make the world the way you want it to be.”
“Oh, and I can do that by waiting for other people to force me into actions I never chose?” He laughed bitterly.
“You can do it by not acting before you know what will come of it! Let’s say they made a ritual sacrifice of you— let’s even say they were satisfied and sailed back where they came from! Who would be High Prince then? Andry? He’s got the bloodline and he’s got Goddess Keep and all the Sunrunners behind him. Is his world of rituals and sins the one you want to make for your children?” She flung open the door. “You just think about that for a time, High Prince!”
Jihan’ began screaming sometime after midnight. It was dawn before Pol soothed her back to sleep.
Her cries still echoed in Pol’s ears as he climbed wearily to the battlements—like his father, seeking a dragon’s perch. His dragon curled in the sand far below him, not appreciating this change in position. Usually it was Azhdeen who looked down on Pol.
There was light enough to weave, to communicate. Pol didn’t use it. How could he ask the dragon to fly the morning sky, searching for Meiglan and Rislyn—who were with those who would kill Azhdeen and call themselves glorified?
Yes, I’d risk even you if I thought it would do any good, he thought, watching the tentative sunrise shine on golden hide. I doubt you’d understand. Hatchling dragons are lost all the time. As for females—if one leaves, there are always others—
He balked at that thought and shook his head at the injustice. No, because Meiglan and Rislyn are part of me, you’d want them back as much as I.
“But there’s nothing I can do,” he said aloud. Just to hear someone say it. Frustration choked him, but he forced himself to repeat it. “Nothing!”
They were searching every way they knew, everywhere they could think to look. But the Vellant’im weren’t stupid. They knew to stay out of usable light. They knew their safety was in darkness and clouds.
Azhdeen roared, wings spreading wide. Even without a connection between them, the dragon was sensing emotions that confused him. Pol hesitated a moment too long in turning for the stairwell— rage—fire—kill—talonrip—bastards—bloodclaw—fury— Meiglan—rendflesh—swordthrust—Rislyn—hatchling—avenge defend KfLL-
The dragon’s shriek deafened him. He was lying on his side on the stones, twisted, his hip and shoulder bruised. He pushed himself upright, gulping air, sick to his stomach as he realized how easily he could have tumbled over the ramparts to the Desert below.
Azhdeen was skybora, still bellowing his fury—and Pol’s. A primal emotion; familiar. Of human guilt and fear and pain, he understood nothing. Pol sat there in mute bewilderment, bereft of the rage that had kept him functioning. In the clear soft light of dawn, he sat there on the cold stones and cried.
There was a point beyond which the brain refused to sustain its connection to the body. Chayla had seen it happen a hundred times. Pain simply stopped registering as the mind sought protective oblivion from the unbearable. Chayla had watched for it, knowing she could set broken bones, clean the worst wounds, ply suturing needles as necessary without worrying about the patient’s agony. But once the mind reawakened, pain returned tenfold, as if avenging itself for the denial. Capable physicians gave pain-killing drugs before that happened.
She didn’t remember when her mind had abandoned her body. But there was no soothing, numbing potion to ease the rejoining—although memory efficiently provided the names of several suitable to her need, according to a purely professional evaluation of her injuries.
The inventory was not all that bad, really. No broken bones, though the ribs were badly bruised. There were more bruises and some torn muscles along back and shoulders. Weals on breasts and thighs. A cut lip that had nearly stopped bleeding. A mild throbbing at the back of her head where it had struck the ground hard. Not much blood there. Not much blood at all, except—except—
She shied away from the specific pain that had called her mind back into its battered shell of a body. The physician calmly noted what had been done and gave assurances that it would heal. But Chayla could not acknowledge what the pain meant.
A cold breeze wrapped around her naked skin. She wished it was water, enough to wash away the filth, enough to float forever in silken cleanness. She remembered how in childhood at Whitecliff even the sight of the sea from her windows made her queasy. Now she wanted to plunge herself into endless water and have a Sunrunner’s honest excuse to vomit.
She forced herself to sit up, push matted hair from her face, open her eyes. The fire had gone out, and she was alone. Morning seeped through the green weaving of trees at the mouth of the cave. She drew on her clothes, wrenched muscles protesting every movement. Her shirt and tunic and trousers weren’t even torn. Why should they be? He weighed at least twice what she did, and was three times as strong.
Her clothes stank of him. Her skin felt of him. Her mouth tasted of him and her own blood. There was no part of her body that did not bear his imprint.
She didn’t want to wash in an ocean of water, she wanted to drown in it.
Sliding along the wall to the entrance, she peered out at what little she could see of the world. A thin forest of evergreens, a road below, a great sentinel pine, a canyon wall beyond, western crags painted by dawnfire.
Had she expected the world to change? That the sun would hide in shared shame, the sky wrap itself in mourning gray, the rocks bleed in sympathy?
Was this what awaited Meiglan?
She drew back into the shadows as two of the Vellant’im strolled by. One of them was him.
“No reia, no diarmadhi, no faradhi,” he said, ticking off the words on his fingers, and laughed as he finished with, “No brenac!”
Dully, she waited for the meaning to come to her. It took a long time. When it did, she bit her lip and shuddered.
Woman-child, he’d said. Virgin.
Oh, Goddess.
My father will kill you—and my grandfather will tear apart what’s left and feed it to the carrion crows.
She told herself she had enough Fire to kill him. To kill them all. She was a Sunrunner. Her parents were both powerful Sunrunners. Her uncle was the Lord of Goddess Keep himself. She could do it.
She searched for rage enough to lend her strength. All she found was numb weariness. The time for it had come and gone. Killing would not undo what had been done to her last night, again and again and—
No. I won’t remember. I won’t!
The physician remarked that once more her mind was choosing to abandon her flesh—not from pain this time, but from loathing. She curled against the rock wall and closed her eyes, willing her brain and body to separate.
It was very hard. There were so many bruises, so many memories in her flesh that moaned of their hurt, like feverish children crying for their mother. Her mind rejected them. Their whimperings slowly faded away. The last thing she thought before she thought nothing more was that perhaps, if she was very lucky, she would never have to listen to them again, never have to fit herself back inside her body again at all.
CHAPTER FOUR rrince Tilal held a debate with himself all the way from High Kirat to the mouth of the Faolain: sneak up on the Vellant’im or march in as if he owned the place? (Well, his nephew Daniv did own the western bank of it.)
The victory at Swalekeep argued the direct approach. Surely word had spread; mere sight of Ossetia’s dark green banner with its golden wheat sheaf ought to scare the enemy witless. He was well aware, however, that he owed that triumph not to superior numbers or his own skills as a commander, but to a ruby-eyed dragon token stolen from the enemy’s ally, Prince Rinhoel.
Tilal was still weighing probabilities thirty measures from the sea. He must decide soon. Now. If only the sky would clear and allow Andrev to scout ahead for him. Riders searched as far forward as they dared. No one was sure where or whether the Vellant’im lingered along the river. Burned farms and unharvested fields offered nothing to live on, but Riverport might still be garrisoned and the enemy seemed able to supply themselves with food and drink out of thin air.
He worried the problem and his lower lip until both were raw. Slink in by night and slit throats? Surge over the coastal hills and slaughter them in open battle? Be bold or be sneaky? Challenge them or trick them?
But Tilal had seen too many of his people wounded and killed. As he wobbled between various plans, fighting them out in his mind and unable to accept even the most optimistic estimate of casualties, he learned something about war.
When a commander’s first concern became his army instead of victory, he was very likely to lose that army in defeat.
As it happened, the decision was taken from him. On the morning of the sixtieth day of Winter, the storm that had bellied up the river and provided cover for Saumer to enter Faolain Lowland drew its last wispy veils north. Andrev used the clear sunlight immediately, and within moments reported that a battle was already going on.
“There’s a lot of fighting onshore, my lord. But—you’ll never believe this—Prince AmiePs flag is raised on two of the five ships in the bay!”
“Amiel—?” Tilal swung around and stared southward as if he could see this marvel with his own eyes across the intervening measures. “Goddess help him! You’re right, Andrev. I don’t believe it!”
“The ships the Vellant’im still hold are going after the other two. They’re heading out to sea at a good clip.”
Tilal frowned. “Where do they think they’re going? Oh, never mind. I know you don’t know any more than I do. All right. As I understand it, his ‘army’ consists mainly of physicians. Young idiot! How in Hells did he take those ships?” Turning to Chaltyn, he said, “There’s no time for anything pretty. Fifteen measures at a hard gallop, and then hack our way through them.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“No, not very good at all. But at least we may surprise them.”
They did.
The fight was over by noon, with nothing elegant about it. Vellant’im gathered along the bay turned their backs to the sea and fought even as they were driven into the surf. Some of them died hip-deep in saltwater. But most of them did die. The beach was so soaked with blood that the sinuous tracery of driftwood and shells marking the wave line was obliterated for a full measure of its length.
Tilal learned three interesting things that afternoon when he and Amiel finally met over a belated meal along the rocky shore. First, Nyr was pregnant. Amiel announced this before anything else, and as if no one had ever accomplished such a thing before.
“Congratulations,” Tilal said politely. “I understand your enthusiasm, but perhaps we can discuss your dynastic tri- umph after you’ve told me what in all Hells you thought you were doing by stealing those ships.”
Amiel blinked. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“No. What you’ve said thus far is, ‘I’m glad to see you, my lord,’ ‘Thank you for your help, my lord,’ ‘I hope you weren’t injured, my lord,’ and ‘My lady wife is expecting a child, my lord.’ “ Tilal grinned. “Pull up a rock and sit down. You can tell me the rest of it now that the really important news is out. Andrev, some wine to toast the next prince or princess of Gilad. Oh, your pardon—Amiel, you don’t know Lord^Andrev, my Sunrunner and squire. It was his sighting of your little seaside party that brought us here at speed.”
“Lord Andry’s son?” Amiel’s hazel-brown eyes popped. He recovered himself in good order and nodded acknowledgment of Andrev’s bow. “I’ve your skills to thank, then, for sparing my people more hurts. I’m in your debt.”
“Not at all, your grace.”
“Where’s your lady, anyhow?” Tilal asked as he settled down to eat.
Amiel pointed. “See that hill? I told her to stay put until I came for her.” Then he sighed. “Which, of course, means she’ll be down here before Andrev has sliced the bread.”
The second piece of news held a great deal more fascination for Tilal. It seemed that after picking up troops from the beaches of the Pyrme and the mud of the Catha delta, the dragon ships had been anchored in Faolain Bay for several days to wait for all the remaining troops to march back downriver.
“I learned this from one of the physicians—a Fironese who can make himself understood without being suspected of anything but an odd accent. He talked to one of their sentries last night—“
Nyr arrived then, to be duly greeted and congratulated. She seated herself on a convenient rock, cushioned with a soft woolen blanket, and thanked Andrev with a lovely smile as he gave her food and drink. Amiel paused to admire her, then mentioned where he was in the story.
She smiled innocently. “Have you said yet how our physician got away with impersonating a Vellanti warrior?”
Amiel grinned. “To give this devious woman her due— seven days ago she ordered him to stop shaving.”
“I approve of devious women,” Tilal replied. “Beards aren’t too fashionable anymore, but they can be useful. Go on.”
“Well, he heard that they’d wait one more day for some clan or other—they organize themselves into kin groups which are further divided into sections of forty-five, according to which island they’re from and which of about fifty different warriors they claim as their primary ancestor, and—“
“One more day?” Tilal prompted.
“Huh? Oh—yes. So I knew that if we were going to steal the ships, we’d have to do it today.”
“Then the ones we pushed into the sea this morning—“
“—are mainly the ones who destroyed Riverport and marched up the Faolain. The ones from the Pyrme and the Catha are on those three ships we missed.” He frowned. “They’re chasing our two right now, aren’t they?”
“Andrev?”
The boy was silent for a time. Then he met Tilal’s gaze. “There’s a good wind, and they’re good sailors. They’ve passed the headland into the channel between Radzyn and Dorval, my lord. If Prince Amiel’s ships can lose them among the Small Islands...”
“Yes, but that leaves three ships full of the whoresons to land and march up to Stronghold.”
That was the third item, and the most momentous. The Fironese physician had learned that, according to the High Warlord’s vision—“That was the word he said the man used, my lord, a ‘vision’ and not a battle plan”—all surviving Vellant’im would soon be at Stronghold. To what purpose, the physician hadn’t dared ask for fear of giving himself away.
“How many to a ship?”
“About three hundred. The two we took were for the ones they’re expecting, and empty of all but the crew. So we simply stole a couple of longboats by night and—“
“Excellent,” Tilal interrupted, thinking that he’d have time to hear the whole story when the bards made it into a ballad. Until then, he had other things to do. “Andrev, how many ships are off Goddess Keep?”
“Seven. Prince Arlis sank the others in Brochwell Bay.”
“He did?” Nyr asked eagerly.
“When?” Amiel seconded. “How did it happen? We’ve been completely without news since we left Medawari.”
“I’ll tell you all of it soon,” Tilal promised. “Let’s call it ten ships of three hundred each, added to the troops at Radzyn and Stronghold—“
“And those on Graypearl, my lord,” Andrev reminded him.
“Goddess, yes, I’d forgotten. Well, when they leave, at least poor Ludhil can come down from the mountains and take his island back.” He did some rapid calculations—and had to pause for a bracing gulp of wine.
“Pol’s in trouble,” he said at last. “I make it at least three thousand, possibly more, all converging on Stronghold.”
“How many does he have at Feruche?” Nyr asked in a whisper.
“If he’s lucky, seven hundred.”
Amiel’s windburned face paled. But it was only a moment before he earned Tilal’s admiration by saying briskly, “You know, I haven’t been to the Desert in years. Nyr, my love, how do you fancy a look at Radzyn Keep?”
Andry had been talking almost without interruption for quite some time. His throat was dry as he said, “So I thought Miyon must be on his way here, to lie his way out of the implications of what he did. I didn’t realize what he was really up to until it happened.”
Pol shrugged and hooked a finger at Kierun, who immediately poured more taze. “You did what you could, Andry. And that was plenty, believe me. I ean’t tell you what a relief it is to be rid of him.”
Andry nodded his thanks to the squire. At the beginning of the conversation, the boy had eyed him the way a colt eyes a hungry dragon. Now, at nearly noon, when most of the tale was told, evidence that the Lord of Goddess Keep made mistakes like anyone else had obviously eased Kierun’s mind. Andry noted it with an inner smile.
“What I don’t understand, though,” he went on, “is why he didn’t go to Rezeld. I was convincing enough with Chiana and Rinhoel. Why didn’t Miyon join them as my Merida impersonation bade him do?”
“I suspect he saw something Chiana didn’t.” Pol tilted his chair back on two legs and propped one booted foot on the table. “Did your host at Swalekeep tell you how Tilal got the Vellant’im to march where he wanted them to?”
“He was a fine gossip, but tavernkeepers aren’t privy to military secrets.”
Pol delved a hand into a trouser pocket and produced a little green-glazed ceramic dragon. “This is from my father’s collection at Stronghold. Maarken found them on corpses after the skirmish he fought on his way from Remagev.” He tossed it to Andry, who sat a quarter of the way around the table. “They’re made of various materials. Gold and silver indicate someone important. Safe-conduct passes, essentially. You’re damned lucky Chiana and Rinhoel are fundamentally idiots. If they’d asked, and you hadn’t been able to show them one of these, they would have killed you.”
Andry turned the token in his fingers. “So Miyon knew I wasn’t who I said I was. I wonder why he didn’t try to kill me.”
“Presumably, you had a superior—of whichever faction—to report to. If you didn’t...” Pol shrugged.
“Why wasn’t I told about these?”
“Because no one could find you. Who knew you’d traipse around enemy-held countryside from Ossetia to Princemarch?” Pol was smiling, shaking his head. “Cousin, you’re the same breed of crazy I am. Probably why we don’t get along.”
Andry had to laugh. “At least you drag an army along in your wake. Me, I get stuck with a lame-legged physician. How’s Evarin feeling, by the way? I didn’t have time after breakfast with my daughter to look in on him.”
“Maarken played tyrannical Battle Commander and ordered him to stay put. His intent was to hobble around tending the wounded.”
“He’s better, then.” Andry paused. “Pol, I have to thank you for what you did for Maarken.”
“Oh, yes,” Pol replied bitterly. “I did a lot. I didn’t see the bastard in time to prevent—“
“I used to watch you practice at swords, you know,” Andry interrupted. “You were only fourteen but already good. Maarken wouldn’t have had you at his back if you weren’t. You aren’t to blame for what he lost any more than I am for what you lost.”
Pol was quiet for a long time. Then he drained his cup and said, “Goddess, aren’t we tender of each other today? Sorry about this, thank you for that—does it make you as uneasy as it does me?”
“Yes,” he answered candidly. “But we haven’t gotten to the difficult parts yet, have we? We’ve stuck to what’s already, happened, the things we can’t change. We do share the same kind of insanity, cousin—neither of us crazy enough to fight over a bone that’s picked clean.”
“The meat lies elsewhere,” Pol agreed. Over his bent knee he regarded Andry with clear, blue-green eyes. “Well, shall we carve it—or each other?”
Andry took his irritation by the throat and strangled it. Calm and composed, he said, “I made a promise to Hollis, for Maarken’s sake. You’ll hear no dissent from the Lord of Goddess Keep unless what the High Prince plans would harm the Sunrunners.”
“For Maarken’s sake,” Pol agreed.
They regarded each other for a time in perfect understanding. Both knew how binding their promise was—and how fragile. They had been brought together by tragedies. They shared immediate common goals. But sooner or later one of them would make a chance remark, and all the old enmity would boil up again.
And if it came to the point where Andry’s power rivaled Pol’s—
“When I rode in,” Andry heard himself say, “I half-expected—and don’t hear this wrong—but I kept looking around for Rohan.”
Grief flickered in blue-green eyes. “So do I. They say ‘High Prince’ and I keep looking for my father. You were lucky, in a way, when you took over Goddess Keep. People have been calling you ‘my lord’ all your life.”
“Yes, but it was a year before I connected that note in their voices with the Lord of Goddess Keep, and still longer before I stopped listening for someone to say ‘Lady Andrade.’ “
Pol smiled—his father’s wry and charming smile, but without Rohan’s gentleness. “It’s Hell having to be a grown-up, isn’t it? Do you remember when we were children, and the only thing we worried about was whether we could get somebody clever to be our dragon? Which reminds me, whatever you do, don’t let Jihan cozen you into that, or anything else!”
“I hear from Tobren that she calls Fire rather enthusiastically.”
“Meath says he’ll teach her not to burn the castle down.”
“Perhaps a lesson from the Lord of Goddess Keep would help.”
Pol’s head tilted curiously. “You’d teach her? And the others?”
“You mean so far in advance of when tradition says they ought to learn?” Andry shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about that for several years. Why should we wait to show Sunrunner children what they are, what they can do and become? But there are very good arguments on both sides. If they learn young, they’re easy with what they are. They grow up knowing—the way you grew up knowing you were to be High Prince.”
“And now that I am, it’s not easy—but I understand what you mean.”
“Your mother is a case in point, about knowing she was a Sunrunner. She didn’t—or, rather, she knew but didn’t dare say anything. Her brother’s wife didn’t exactly appreciate the prospect of a Sunrunner in the family.”
“Yes, but my late Aunt Wisla’s appreciation of becoming Princess of Syr because of the family Sunrunner was truly profound,” Pol remarked, and all at once Andry understood what differenced him from Rohan: cynicism.
“Pol, how many children hide and deny what they are because they’re afraid? That weighs heavily in my mind, and it makes me want to find these people as young as possible. But—“
“But then there are the ones like my Jihan—power to spare and very little restraint in using it.” He paused while Kierun filled his cup again. “Doesn’t that argue for teaching them the ethic while they’re young?”
“Of course. But it’s a long process, you know, and forcing them to grow up too soon isn’t a wise move. I look at what this war has done to Tobren, how hard it is to make her laugh...” He shook his head. “Teach them early and impose Sunrunner discipline on them, or wait until they’ve formed their own discipline of their own choice? It’s an interesting problem.”
“And yours,” Pol said with obvious relief. “Let me know how you feel about it once you’ve spent some time teaching Jihan. I’m betting you’ll come down on the side of waiting.
A hatchling like that is a handful enough without adding Sunrunner training to it”
It was no time for Andry to reveal that he knew Jihan was no Sunrunner. In fact, he had every intention of teaching the child; the diarmadhi taint would be countered by proper faradhi disciplines, as it had been in Riyan and Torien and several others. The younger the better, as far as such people were concerned.
But he kept all of it from his face and eyes, and chuckled instead. “I admit the prospect of being knee-deep in precocious children is an appalling one. They’d bring the walls of Goddess Keep down around our ears.”
“Speaking of which—what do you think the Vellant’im are waiting for? I mean, their ships are just sitting off the coast, staring at the towers.”
Andry grunted. “I hope winter fog wraps them closer than a Giladan wool blanket and they all ram into each other and sink. Whatever they come up with, Torien can deal with it.”
“He knows how to work the ros ‘salath ?” There was nothing but honest curiosity in the question.
“Certainly.”
“I’d be interested in your opinion of what we did at Stronghold,” Pol continued. “Maarken told you some of it, I’m sure, but he wasn’t included in the working. Ask my mother. Between you, you should be able to figure out a way to use it more effectively.”
“We?”
“Me.” That smile again—but this time instead of cynicism there was the gleaming of a dragon’s teeth. “But you expected that, Andry.”
“Yes, I did.” He leaned forward, his ten rings and wrist cuffs shining as he flattened his palms on the table. It was like surcease from chronic pain to feel them against his flesh again. “I will do all I can, and that includes protecting my brother from anything you and I may disagree about. But I will not be ordered. And you expected that, Pol.”
“Certainly,” he echoed. “We understand each other, my Lord.”
“We do, your grace.”
On this note of not-quite-sweetest harmony, Meath entered the room without bothering to knock. His graying hair was windblown as a boy’s, his eyes alight and nearly hidden by the width of his grin.
“Your firstborn’s filial duty to you, my Lord,” he said to Andry, then turned to Pol. “Andrev has just told Hollis, who’s just told me, that there’s been a battle fought and a victory won at Faolain Bay. Prince Amiel took two Vellanti ships, and the other three turned tail and ran for the Small Islands. Prince Tilal’s cousinly compliments to the High Prince, and do you want him to start for Radzyn Keep now, or take care of the pestilence at Lowland first?”
Pol’s foot slipped off the table and his chair nearly toppled. “Radzyn?”
Andry had more immediate concerns. “Is Andrev all right?”
“Perfectly. Even if he weren’t, they’re with Prince Amiel’s little army of physicians. Twenty or thirty would swarm all over him if he even stubbed a toe. Well? What’s your pleasure, my prince?”
Having recovered himself, Pol was almost laughing. “By the Goddess, I’d forgotten how good good news can feel! My congratulations to Prince Tilal and Prince Amiel—who deserves to be taken over somebody’s knee. I thought I taught my squires to be more sensible than to risk their lives in silly adventures like stealing ships. Don’t you go getting any ideas, Kierun,” he added, wagging a finger in the boy’s direction.
“No, my lord.” Kierun’s mist-gray eyes brimmed with mischief. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Goddess, why am I afflicted with other men’s sons?” Pol moaned. “At this rate, I’ll have to sire a dozen of my own to avenge myself on their fathers!”
“Perhaps I should lend you my younger boy,” Andry drawled. “Joscev is only seven, but already the plague of the schoolroom.”
“The true family spirit, eh?” Meath grinned.
“Goddess help us,” Pol sighed. Then, more intensely, “Meath, have Tilal sit tight for a day or two, as unobtrusively as possible. I have something in mind that may spare giving those physicians something more to do. Tell him to camp on both sides of the river and wait.”
Andry frowned, trying to envision it. Then he smiled, almost fondly. “You’re going fishing and he’s the net.”
“Absolutely. The problem is to get the fish to swim in the right direction. But I think I know how. And I need you in order to do it. We’ll have a little talk with Johlarian at
Faolain Lowland. With the full force of the High Prince and the Lord of Goddess Keep behind the order, not even the acquisitive Lady Karanaya will refuse to give up her black pearls to the enemy.”
Andry sat forward. “The—what are they called? Tears of the Dragon? Why?”
“That’s what the Vellant’im are after. As I understand it, they used the sale of them to get into Riverport, fully expecting to reclaim them. But Karanaya rode off with all six, so they besieged Lowland. My mother scared them off with her Fire dragon, but now they’re back. And they still want those pearls.” He rose and began to pace. “There’s something very odd about them, Andry. Johlarian didn’t see it until I told him how to look—he’s competent at his work but not especially powerful. If Karanaya’s within sunlight, I want you to take a look at them and tell me what you see.”
“Odd in what way?”
“You’ll find out.” He swung around on his heel. “Meath, have Hollis convey all this to Andrev. Do it now, before Tilal gets restless and starts to move.”
The Sunrunner bowed slightly. “At once, my prince. But you know how disappointed young Saumer will be if there’s no battle at Lowland. There’s one other thing. Tilal believes the Vellant’im will gather soon at Stronghold. He estimates their probable numbers at three thousand.”
Andry gave a low whistle. “Thank you for not telling us that first!”
“It’s why he wants to go to Radzyn and take out as many as he can,” Meath explained. “But if he’s right—“
“Then in a short while the only people still in danger will be us,” Pol finished. “From Kierst-Isel to Dorval, everyone else will be free of them. That’s good. That’s very good.”
He actually sounded happy about it. Andry blinked. “It is?”
Pol gave him a smile. “Of course. It’s good for the other princedoms, obviously. It’s good for the High Prince and the Lord of Goddess Keep, too. Also obvious if you think about it a moment.”
Andry did, and decided he would have preferred a less life-threatening way to demonstrate his power.
“And it’s good for the rest of us because it’s very bad for the Vellant’im,” Pol went on, looking feral again. “They’ll all be in one place. We won’t have to go chasing them down to destroy them.”
Cautiously, Andry asked, “Has it not occurred to you that we might—“
“No,” the High Prince said fiercely. “It has not. And part of your job is to make sure it doesn’t occur to anyone else, either.” He flattened his hands on the table, three rings— topaz, amethyst, and moonstone—shining. “All right, then. We’ll work our trick at the Faolain if we can, then think about how to kill three thousand Vellant’im.”
“Goddess help us,” Andry added, meaning it.
“I think she will,” Pol told him. “She always struck me as the kind of lady who enjoys a good show. Meath, after you’ve seen Hollis, please find Maarken and Chay and have them come here. There’s work to do.”
By the time Johlarian finished speaking—firmly and without apology, as both Pol and Andry had instructed—Karanaya was livid.
“No! I won’t!”
Mirsath squared off against her in the sunlit courtyard. “You will, if I have to rip those damned things from around your neck!”
“They’re mine! I won’t give them over to that pack of savages!”
Saumer, whose female relations were generally even-tempered—or at least considered screeching beneath their dignity—frankly gaped.
“Give those pearls to the Vellant’im and they’ll leave us alone!” Mirsath shouted. “I should’ve made you do it long ago!”
“I’d like to see you try!”
Johlarian ventured, “My lady, it is the command of the High Prince and the Lord of—“
“I don’t care if the Goddess herself commanded it!” The black pearls shimmered with her rage.
“My lady,” Saumer said reasonably, “I’d much prefer to do battle with them and rid Lowland of their presence that way. But surely once they’ve been defeated, Prince Tilal will find the pearls and—“
“Pol made no mention of it,” she fumed. “Doesn’t he un- derstand that they’re all I have left? This was my father’s castle and it should be mine, but now it belongs to Mirsath. Idalian will have the rebuilding of Riverport as his lot, and I wish him joy of it. My family has nothing else to give me.”
“But your prince does,” Saumer pointed out.
“I may be a beggar, but I won’t take his charity!”
The young man turned to the Sunrunner in bewilderment. Johlarian only sighed and shrugged. Mirsath wasted no time trying to comprehend his cousin. He advanced on her with one hand outstretched.
She clutched the gems around her throat. “No!”
Johlarian lifted one hand suddenly. “Wait.” His eyes glazed over and Saumer felt a subtle tingle at the edges of his own thoughts. Goddess, to be able to do it so easily! War was currently very useful work, and he was good at it. But to be a Sunrunner...
At length Johlarian looked sternly at Karanaya. “The High Prince commands it. He watches us even now, and the Lord of Goddess Keep with him.”
“He spies on us!” she burst out. “That’s what comes of having a Sunrunner for a prince! Rohan would never—“
“Rohan would have asked,” Saumer blurted. “My brother Arlis knew him well, and from all he ever said about him, High Prince Rohan wouldn’t have ordered—“
“But Lady Andrade would.” Johlarian spoke from sure knowledge of that ruthless mind.
Mirsath shrugged impatiently. “I don’t care if it’s wrapped in silk or raw wool with thistles still in! You were given a command by your prince and Lord Andry. Hand them over!”
Pol leaned against the frame of the sunlit window he shared with Andry and blew out a long sigh. “I thought she’d never give them up.”
“Interesting woman,” his cousin remarked.
“You can say that—you’re not her prince,” Pol retorted. Then he sighed again. “I do her a disservice. She stood on the ramparts of Faolain Lowland and pretended to summon a dragon—didn’t even flinch when one appeared. Courage and stubbornness made her do it. Unfortunately, they also make her somewhat difficult.”
He rested his head against carved wood, watching Andry stare down at the kitchen garden. Servants were planting seeds. Pol thought this showed a remarkable optimism. Did they continue the usual seasonal progression in serene certainty of the harvest—or in defiant hope?
“Andry?”
“Mmm?” He didn’t glance around.
“You surprised me just now.”
“Really?” A tiny smile twitched the sensitive mouth.
“I thought you’d bargain your help for getting your son back.”
Andry said nothing.
“For Maarken’s sake, then?” Pol asked softly.
“Mainly Andrev’s,” he answered softly. “He’d never forgive me. Of course, I’II never forgive Tilal. But that’s unimportant, compared to my son’s pride.”
Pol moved away. “You’re welcome to sit in with your father and brother on the military part of it if you like. It’s your neck, too, after all.”
“So it is. But I don’t have any training in such things.”
“Nor I.” He slouched into a chair. “Oh, I’m all right once I’m in the middle of a battle, but the real work of planning it ... actually,” he confessed with a brief smile, “it bores me. All I ever do is tell them what’s going on, let them know my idea, and let them work out the specifics.”
“And while they do, you’ll go search for your wife and daughter.” Andry approached slowly. “They won’t be harmed, Pol.”
“I wish I could believe that. The Vellant’im have never taken hostages before. Why now? And why two women and a child?”
“Ransom. I’m told you’re the price.” He hesitated, and then said something shocking. “Would they settle for the Lord of Goddess Keep, do you think?”
It took Pol several moments to recover. Had he really so misjudged Andry all these years? Or was this a ploy for greater power? The noble Lord of Goddess Keep offering himself to the enemy’s wrath—only to work some magical scheme that would save himself and everyone else, too?
Switch identities, and there was his own rather nebulous plan.
“We really are far too much alike,” Pol said with an honest smile. “I appreciate the thought, Andry, but if either of us proposed to exchange ourselves for the captives, our beloved parents would take us over their collective knees.”
“And take turns blistering our asses?” Andry grinned back and shook his head, clean light gilding his brown hair. “No, too crude. Your mother and my brother would simply fry our colors for us on sunshine. Well, then, what else? Have you thought of using your dragon in some way?”
“Have Azhdeen fly over and scare the Vellant’im?” He shook his head. “They’re more likely to kill him. Dragons don’t scare them anymore.” But Meiglan was terrified of them, even of Azhdeen. His Meggie ... what were they doing to her and Rislyn?
“Those pearls,” Andry said abruptly. “I understand what you mean.”
Pol felt his thoughts being dragged in a new direction. He made an effort and caught up. “It’s no wonder they want them back—but why risk them at all?”
“Do they really know what they are?” Andry countered. When Pol frowned, he went on, “Mirsath and Karanaya don’t see it. Johlarian has to concentrate and know what to look for. Saumer spotted it at once. But there’s no evidence that any Vellanti has perceptions comparable to a Sunrunner’s—or a sorcerer’s.”
If you only knew. “The pearls are priceless in and of themselves. You saw how beautiful they are.”
“That has something to do with it, yes.”
Pol said nothing, knowing that his cousin wanted to be prompted and damned if he’d give him the satisfaction.
Andry gripped the finials of a dining-table chair. “You have the Star Scroll, but not the histories. Pearls are mentioned only once. Lady Merisel preferred diamonds and emeralds.” He smiled slightly. “Her description of what she wore to a victory banquet goes on for half a page. But there’s only one instance when she wore pearls—shaped like teardrops and glowing like black rainbows. They must be the same ones.”
“How many?”
“She didn’t say. Enough for earrings and a necklet, anyhow. She loved jewelry and always wore at least that much, and usually rings and bracelets and sometimes a circlet as well. She called it her one weakness—and I think it’s probably one reason Sunrunners wear rings.”
“Could be. When did she wear the pearls?”
“It’s part of what made me remember. She visited the Desert once—and only once, she hated the heat—and was entertained at Stronghold by a distant ancestor of ours. It was a Dragon Year. That’s what she said she came for. She’d never seen a dragon, so they rode out to Rivenrock to watch the hatchlings claw out of the caves.”
“But you think she had some other purpose for the visit?”
“She always did.” He snorted. “Hells, she could have given Andrade lessons. But I don’t know what she had in mind this time. She didn’t say, and I can’t connect anything that happened later to the Stronghold visit. Anyway, that night she wore the pearl earrings and necklet.”
“So they were hers,” Pol mused.
“And you’re wondering why I didn’t claim them myself, for Goddess Keep.”
Pol laughed softly. “Oh, cousin, this feels much more natural, doesn’t it? You’ve just repaid me for what I said about Andrev. No, I don’t wonder any such thing. First, the pearls are useful. You’ve as tidy a mind as anyone I’ve ever known, and if they gain us a castle’s safety and a few hundred captive Vellant’im, then they’ll have done their work. Second, it seems to me that Lady Merisel herself would be pleased by the trick. And third—“ He grinned. “—Tilal will get them back, you know. We can argue about who owns them then.”
The Lord of Goddess Keep offered brief laughter like a man paying a tax. “I wonder how much luck I’ll have prying them out of Lady Karanaya’s clutches.”
“It’ll be fun to watch you try.” Pol rose. “Let’s go see what’s keeping Chay and Maarken. If I can’t do anything myself, then I might as well exercise my privileges as High Prince and tell everybody else what to do.”