, new Lord of River Ussh, was aware that his Chosen lady had a temper. No one would think it to look at her. She was blandly blonde, sweet-featured, with big, soft blue eyes and a gentle smile. But, in fact, one of his most cherished memories was the sight of her confronting her father, eyes flashing and cheeks afire with a fury of determination.
Prince Velden of Grib had forbidden his daughter to marry a mere younger son. Prince Velden had changed his mind. Norian in a rage was about as dainty as an exploding furnace.
And she had been smoldering ever since they’d left Dragon’s Rest.
Edrel had been waiting fifteen days now for the blast. Nothing. At length he understood: she was not one to vent her anger at any but its true object. On the morning of the sixty-fourth day of Winter, that object became visible over the crest of a low hill: Goddess Keep.
The troop they had started with had been augmented during their ride through Grib. Those unable to come in time to Prince Elsen’s summons now joined his sister and her new husband. It was therefore a respectable army—seventy-one mounted warriors, over a hundred archers, and at least that many brawny farmers carrying wickedly sharp scythes—that marched through the morning mist.
Edrel thought his wife would ride faster now, grimly intent on a chat with those who had compelled her crippled brother to this journey. Norian surprised him. She slowed her mare to a walk, regarded Edrel with a frown, and said something completely irrelevant.
“Your hair’s gone white. Did you know that?” She pointed to his right temple. “Just a few threads, but I swear there are more every day.”
He ran a hand reflexively back through his hair and shrugged. “Just a coincidence. It runs in the family.”
Norian shook her head, braids like pale rivers of gold across her shoulders. “It’s something else the Chief Steward of Goddess Keep will pay for, along with every measure my brother had to ride—and the rest of us, too.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” he said as their horses ambled down the hill. “Let’s see how Elsen is doing first, get his ideas and impressions. We ought to know everything before we say anything.”
Norian considered, then nodded. “Yes. Besides, it’s this Torien person who should be admitted to our presence, not we to his.” At the expression on his face, she began to laugh. “There are uses to being born a princess, love!”
“I know.” He grinned back. “I spent years curing Amiel—he started out an obnoxious little beast, you know.”
“It’s not a disease, knowing what your rights are,” she complained. “And you ought to learn a bit of it. You’re athri of River Ussh now.”
“And you’re my lady,” he said firmly. “Which means that until we do summon Torien to explain himself, I’ll do the talking. No,” he added, raising a hand half to warn her, half to placate her, “a Princess of Grib you may be, but I learned politics at Dragon’s Rest, where lessons are slightly more subtle than your father’s. You can carve up Torien at your leisure once I’ve found out what I need to know.” He paused, grinning again as fair brows drew together over her nose. “Just please don’t sharpen your tongue on me for practice!”
“Oh, very well. But keep those Sunrunners out of my way.”
He said nothing in reply. He couldn’t. The awkward village of tents and lean-tos lay before them, hollow and empty as a drained winecup. Mist slunk low and furtive, like cats stalking field mice.
“Did the Vellant’im attack? No,” Norian answered her own questions “there aren’t any bodies, and no smoke to mean they’ve been burned.”
“I’m not sure what this is, but I’m damned sure I don’t like it.”
He led the way through the silent sprawl, his stallion’s hooves shredding the thin mist like silken lace veils. Pots still simmered on fires. Items lay scattered about as if abruptly abandoned—a child’s toy here, a water bucket there. Outside one tent a box of razors and scissors and brushes had overturned near a rickety stool, as if a barber had been interrupted in a morning’s work.
Edrel reached for his battle helm. “Norian. Get back.”
They hadn’t been married long, but they’d been married long enough for her to know he did not give orders on whim. She reined her horse around and cantered away.
Breathing no easier, he rode toward the closed gates of Goddess Keep. His army formed up around him, eight across and forty deep, mounted soldiers in front.
“My lord?” whispered their elected commander, son of a minor athri from near the Grib-Meadowlord border. “Do we attack?”
How in Hells should I know? There’s not a sound coming from the place, not a single sign of life. There may not be anybody in there to fight.
“Not yet. Let’s see what’s going on in there first.”
As he guided his horse up the rise, someone within the keep cried out. A child, calling in panic for his mother. Edrel flinched. One little boy left alive of all the hundreds—no, thousands, by the look of that village—at Goddess Keep?
Another voice, loud and strong, shouted angrily. Edrel waited for the man to finish, then stood in his stirrups and yelled up to the walls.
“Open! Open to the Princess Norian of Grib!”
There, he thought, momentarily amused, she’d have great fun teasing him later for his quickness in learning the uses of her rank.
Silence again. Several faces appeared above the walls, and in due course the gates were unbarred and pushed open.
Edrel simply gaped. The great courtyard was packed. Men, women, children, Sunrunners and not, were crammed like sides of meat in a coldroom after a hunt meant to feed a castle all winter. A narrow path opened for him, straight to the main stairs, where a curious scene presented itself.
A woman stood on the bottom step, her long black hair spilling down the back of her white cloak. A row of angry faradh’im spread behind and above her at the doors. With defiant shoulders and proud head she confronted the throng, one arm flung out to point at Edrel.
“You see? The Goddess heard me! I begged her to come to our defense against the Vellant’im, and she has provided a whole army! And it was my work, not these cowardly prating Sunrunners’! Mine!”
Edrel didn’t know what it was he’d stumbled into, but nothing here convinced him to put up his sword. He cursed under his breath as his wife nudged her mare through the crowd to his side. Norian was flushed and furious, and every whit the princess.
“Where is my brother?” she demanded of the Sunrunners. “I’ve come to see Prince Elsen of Grib, and I will see him now!”
There were nine faradh’im lined up before the tall doors. In the middle was a tall man of about forty winters, dark-skin and hair and eyes proclaiming him Fironese. At his right was a woman several years younger, whose delicate moonlight-and-midnight beauty did nothing to distract from the righteous rage in her gray eyes. Instinct told Edrel that these were the pair to deal with. There were four more men—one of them resembling a respectable-sized tree, and one of them very much older than the rest and deeply troubled in a way different from the others—and three women, of whom two were quite young. All were undoubtedly formidable enough in their calling, but, with Andry gone, the two in the middle held the power here.
So these are the devr’im, Edrel thought. Lords and Ladies of light, as Andry would have it. Who’s this woman in front of them, and what has she done that the little gray-eyed one looks ready to kill her?
The Fironese took a half-step forward. “Princess Norian? Then you would be Edrel of River Ussh. I am Torien, Chief Steward of Goddess Keep. This lady is my wife, Jolan. Please be assured that Prince Elsen is receiving the best of care from our physicians. He—“
“Is he injured? What happened?” Norian asked anxiously.
“Nothing, my lady. No battles. His leg was troubling him, but is healing.”
The woman beside him—Jolan—spoke up. “You’ll want to see him at once, of course. Your people may rest outside the keep.”
“Arrayed to defend us against the Vellant’im,” interrupted the white-cloaked one who had claimed the Goddess’ favor.
“I see no threat here,” Edrel said. “Do you expect one soon? Is that the reason for this in-gathering of—“
“This does not concern you,” Jolan replied sharply. “It is a matter for faradh’im.”
Torien gestured. “Antoun, please escort the princess and her husband to her brother’s chamber.”
“Go along, my lady,” Edrel told Norian. “I’ll be there shortly.”
She searched his gaze for an instant, aware that no one else must see her hesitation. Edrel gave her a tiny smile and a nod. He might need her authority as a prince’s daughter— but she needed to see her brother. She dismounted and tossed her reins to a nearby Sunrunner, who looked startled at this demotion to groom.
Norian climbed the stairs; the older man met her halfway, bowing slightly as he placed a hand lightly at her elbow. “Your grace,” he said, “I talk with Prince Elsen often, and he will be very glad to see you.”
Edrel thought he heard something beneath that. But although Norian gave Antoun a gracious enough nod, her attention was for Torien.
“You are the one who authorized the summons?”
“I am, your grace.”
“I’ll speak with you later.”
Jolan turned to stone, only her furious eyes alive. Norian ignored all of them—especially Jolan, though Edrel didn’t know how one ignored one person in particular when ignoring a crowd in general—and accompanied Antoun inside.
Not knowing what he had interrupted, besides some transgression on the part of the white-cloaked woman, Edrel explored the anger and tension around him and decided it would be best to break it—if he could.
“I don’t mind saying, Lord Torien,” he began pleasantly, “that my troops could do with a hot drink. Any chance of it?”
The usages of hospitality were the last thing on Torien’s mind. Jolan frowned more deeply.
“It would be best to remove yourself from the courtyard for the time being, my lord,” she said. “Things of importance are being done here in which you have no part. Your soldiers will have to wait.”
Edrel felt thousands of eyes on him and didn’t much like it. Did Pol feel this way when he was on display at a Rialla, and everyone looked to him for solutions to impossible problems? Well, first he had to discover what the trouble was.
Nothing if not direct, Edrel asked, “What things?”
“I have done what no one else dared to do,” said a voice at his knee. He glanced down. The accused woman had abandoned the bottom step and now stood next to him. Her proud and lovely face was raised to him, but she truly spoke to the crowd. “I freely admit it, my lord. The Vellant’im hover offshore, preparing to attack us. I prayed to the Goddess in her grove nearby, and she answered me by sending you and your army. And now I am blamed for it, for—“
“For violating the circle and the spring, which are sacred to Sunrunners alone!” Man exclaimed. “You admit your sin without shame or contrition! Master Jayachin, you are judged—“
“Lady Jayachin,” she flung back, “athri of Goddess Keep by Lord Andry’s own order! None can judge me but him, or the High Prince!”
“In matters of the High Prince’s Writ, that would be true,” said Torien. “This is different. It is a sin against the Goddess.”
Edrel wanted no part of this. He wished he’d gone upstairs with Norian. He wished even more fervently that he’d arrived tomorrow. But he was the nearest thing to a representative Pol had here, and he knew his duty to his prince.
Taking a determined breath, he asked, “What exactly did you do?” It was not a question destined to find favor with the Sunrunners, but he needed knowledge and time to think up what to do with it.
“I will tell you, my lord,” Jayachin declaimed, moving away from him so she could be heard from one end of the courtyard to the other. She drew the white cloak around her, lifting her head so her voice would carry. Edrel had to admire her command; he thought Pol would, too.
“This morning at dawn I rose after a sleepless night, and in gazing at the first light of the Goddess’ Fire I suddenly knew what I must do. I walked alone to the circle of pine trees in the forest, on the cliffs where Sunrunners go when they wish to speak with the Goddess. It was cold, and the mist was everywhere, and many times I almost lost my way, but the Lady must have guided my steps, for I found myself facing the circle of mighty pines, with the small Water and rock cairn within.”
More substance and less art, if you please. Edrel shifted impatiently in his saddle. “And then?” he prompted.
She didn’t break verbal stride. “Even in the morning chill, I knew that I must not approach so sacred a place except as the Goddess made me, so I removed all my clothes. And I was no longer cold, for the sunlight came through the trees to warm me with the Goddess’ own Fire. I knelt beside the pond, and as I begged the gentle Lady for her help, I also begged her pardon for coming into this place that the Sunrunners say is only for them.”
Uh-oh, Edrel thought, appreciating the dig for what it was. He snatched a glance at Jolan. Here, too, he realized with a start, was a woman who would unleash her fury only on the one who had caused it.
Jayachin spread her arms wide, the white cloak unfolding. “At that moment, thirst came upon me, even though I had sipped a little wine before I left my tent. The Water before me looked soft and sweet, and my thirst increased—and I felt the Goddess guiding my hands into the shape of a cup, and I gathered Water in them, and drank.”
She had probably told some of this before, but evidently this part was new. The courtyard hissed with gasping breaths. Edrel, having spent years serving one of the three most powerful Sunrunners now living, knew all of it to be dramatic embellishment, if not downright lies. The faradh’im knew it, too. But the common folk did not.
Jolan’s words were shards of ice. “For this alone you deserve punishment.”
Jayachin whirled, white cloak and long black hair flying. “For daring the grove, and the Water? Why? I was sent there by the Goddess herself, I firmly believe it! And after I had drunk of the sweet Water, I beseeched the Lady for help—as none of you have done that anyone can tell! And now look— here is that help, come in response to my prayers!” She pointed at Edrel once more, a wild gesture that made his horse’s ears lay back. “An army has come, and we will be defended against the barbarians who have raped our lands and made us homeless! The Goddess heard me, and has saved us!”
“You’re notfaradhi,” Torien said calmly. But Edrel, feel- ing the turn of the crowd’s mood in favor of Jayachin, heard an undercurrent of fear in his voice. “You are not chosen of the Goddess. The circle is forbidden to you. The Water is forbidden to you. The Goddess cannot speak to you as she does to us.”
“I never said she spoke,” Jayachin retorted. “Not in words. The presence of Lord Edrel with his army is answer of another kind!”
This is a very dangerous woman, Edrel told himself. And she had put him in an impossible position. If he took her side, which Torien’s pompous edicts and Jolan’s pious mouthings tempted him to do, he would be undermining the authority of Goddess Keep and all Sunrunners—not to mention aiding and abetting what he knew to be a lie. But if he asserted that his arrival was only a fortuitous coincidence, he would be allying himself with this new idea that faradh ‘im were set apart by more than their ability to weave light. What had Torien said? Chosen of the Goddess? He didn’t like the sound of that at all. After so many years with Pol, he had no awe of Sunrunners and scant regard for Lord Andry and his innovations. Who spoke for the Lady? Who could speak to her? Who would judge whether a Sunrunner told the truth about it? And just what was a “sin,” anyway? Yes, a very dangerous woman, with dangerous ideas. Jolan obviously thought so, too. And Edrel saw in her frost-gray eyes that she did indeed intend to punish Jayachin. Perhaps even to kill her.
Torien was speaking again. “Lord Edrel has come here— safely, thank the Goddess—after a long journey from Dragon’s Rest that began many days ago.”
“Yes,” Jayachin agreed. “But he arrived today.” Jolan was having none of this petty nattering over what to her was an irrelevancy. “And if he had ridden a little faster, he would have come last night, before your sin! That is the issue here, and the judgment is clear. By your own unrepentant admission, you have entered the sacred circle. You are notfaradhi. Your words are lies. The Goddess did not listen to you, she did not even notice you—except in anger that you dared a place that is for her chosen Sunrunners alone.” She paused—no stranger to dramatic effect either, Edrel noted—and used her sharpest blade. “Otherwise why would a Sunrunner, a devri of Lord Andry’s own choosing, be warned and go to the circle this morning to discover you there, and raise the alarm when she witnessed your sin?”
The young woman flanking Jolan called out, “I saw you by the dawn’s light! I woke early with a feeling of dread in my heart and went to the forest to ease my fear by consulting the Goddess!”
“And all of you know what happened after,” Jolan continued. “Linis came running back to Goddess Keep. Deniker and Nialdan returned with her, and found Master Jayachin coming from that sacred place, ready and willing to tell everyone of her sin.”
Edrel could almost hear Pol’s snort of disgust. If it was a sin to take a walk in the forest, everyone was guilty but those who lived in the Desert. As for Linis’ “dread,” that had the same smell as Jayachin’s supposed thirst.
He cleared his throat. Jolan shot a look of icy daggers at him. “Lord Torien,” he said deliberately, further infuriating her, “I understand that she did something offensive. Surely she meant no harm by it.”
“Do you expect me to apologize?” Jayachin exclaimed. “I won’t! I acted in accordance with the charge Lord Andry himself put upon me—to guard the safety of the people outside the walls, whose athri he made me!”
She had claimed the authority of the Goddess, and now she was claiming Andry’s. Edrel felt as if he stood between a Merida with a poisoned glass knife on one side and a Vellanti with a hungry sword on the other. Support Jayachin and her lies to keep the Sunrunners in line, or take the Sunrunners’ part in their self-righteous arrogance—and their lies—to curtail Jayachin’s blatant ambitions?
In the end, he didn’t have to make the choice. Torien raised both hands, his rings glittering, and his voice rang out in the morning chill.
“This woman admits and even boasts of entering the tree-circle and drinking of the Water there. She claims that the Goddess answered her pleas, using Lord Edrel’s appearance here as ‘proof of the truth of her words. She claims the sanction of the Lord of Goddess Keep and of the Goddess herself.
“But what she has really done is lied. The Goddess heard nothing from her, and saw only the sin of her entry into a place sacred to the Goddess and her chosen faradh’im, and I warned one of us with feelings of fear and misgiving. Lord
Edrel came here today by the Lady’s gracious guidance—not at this woman’s command. This woman has no standing at Goddess Keep, which is in my guardianship in Lord Andry’s absence.
“The only truth here is her sin. She has defiled the tree-circle and its Water. She has thus defiled the Goddess’ chosen Sunrunners, and the Goddess’ intention that they alone should come to the circle.
“And for sin against the Goddess, the punishment is clear.”
Edrel had thought himself ready for it. Death had been in Jolan’s eyes from the beginning. But he had thought a sword, or perhaps Sunrunner’s Fire, would be their weapon, and was preparing himself to leap from his horse and snatch the woman to relative safety. Whoever he sided with, whatever she had done, she didn’t deserve to die.
But he had forgotten what the devr’im had done here that had so enraged Prince Tilal, the wall of horror that had surrounded Goddess Keep.
It could surround a single person, too.. Nothing changed from one heartbeat to the next. Torien, arms still upraised, did not move. The men and women around him on the top step did not even close their eyes. Jayachin screamed.
Edrel’s horse leaped as if lightning had exploded in his hooves. The stallion bucked and lunged away from Jayachin, nearly trampling a girl who was slow in getting out of the way. Edrel clamped his knees tight, fighting to control the terrified animal. He felt a little of it himself as his horse skittered to the other side to avoid a small boy who broke free and ran for Jayachin. “Mamal Don’t hurt Mama—“
People pressed back, crying out, hollowing the courtyard where the white cloak had crumpled to the ground. Jayachin was on her knees with her arms wrapped around her head, shrieking. Her son had collapsed in a small, writhing heap an arm’s length from her.
The stallion reared. Edrel was nearly unseated. He yanked the reins and the horse came down on all fours, immediately leaping, slamming into someone else. When he hit the cobbles again, he kicked out with his hind hooves. Edrel was tossed forward, out of the saddle, and the last thing he knew was Jayachin’s scream following him down into darkness.
“I blame myself,” Antoun said dully, staring down at his beringed hands. “I knew what was in her mind to do. I should have stayed. I might have stopped it from happening.”
“How?” Edrel resisted the impulse to rub at a bruise on his shoulder. Norian was finally convinced that he would live, but it had taken most of the morning to do it. He had been unconscious only for a few moments—only for as long as it had taken Jayachin’s heart to give out from the extremity of her terror. He had been groggy for some while after, but, aside from a cut on his head and a few aches, was perfectly fit.
Now they sat in Elsen’s chamber, a snug and even luxurious guest room directly above the library, with a view through two narrow windows of the southern cliffs and the sea. The weather was typical of Goddess Keep in winter: early fog giving way reluctantly to stubborn sun. Clouds massed out to sea like Vellanti ships gathering for war. It would rain tonight, perhaps even this afternoon, but in this room the threatening chill was warded off by a seascape tapestry on one wall and a good-sized fire. Elsen’s bed was set before the hearth, a book-laden table beside it. Antoun had drawn up chairs for himself and Edrel, while Norian sat cross-legged at the foot of her brother’s bed. It was a pose that brought back memories for both of them, of long days when, bedridden, he had taught his little sister to read. She had remarked on it earlier, while they all pretended to eat.
But now they spoke of other things, in quiet voices though not in whispers. Antoun had reassured them that no one would think anything of their sharing the noon meal with him, and even less of his joining them. He looked in on the prince rather often, and as Norian’s commanded guide and a devri, no one would suspect him of disloyalty. For as they talked, a thing left unspoken became clear to all: that they were conspirators.
Elsen set his winecup aside and hitched himself a little straighter in bed. Addressing the Sunrunner, he said, “My friend, you are no more to blame than Edrel. If either of you had interfered, Jolan might have killed you, too. For ‘sin,’ “ he finished bitterly.
“That’s something I don’t understand yet, but we’ll leave it for later,” Norian said. “I want to know precisely what happened and why.”
“Precisely?” Antoun shrugged, gray eyes bleak as a mourning cloak. “I don’t doubt that some of Jayachin’s story was true. She tried various schemes for provoking a battle— shaming Torien into it, into killing the Vellant’im at a distance. She also tried to worm her way into residence within the keep. Nothing worked, so she violated tradition by entering the circle.”
“She had plenty to say to me when I arrived,” Elsen put in. “Enough to make me suspicious of what these Sunrunners might have in mind—which could be just what they did to Prince Tilal’s army.”
“They won’t do it to ours,” Edrel growled.
“That’s why I’m glad my new little brother is here,” the prince smiled. “With me laid up in bed, they could issue any order they liked in my name. But now thsy have you to contend with, a man knighted by the High Prince, and lord of a great holding in his own right.” He patted his sister’s hand where it rested on his arm. “You’ve done very well by all of us, Norian.”
“It wasn’t my intention to do well by anybody but me,” she replied, amused. “But it does seem I have excellent judgment.”
“I’ll remind you that you said that, someday when you’re ranting at me for one thing or another,” grinned Edrel. “New big brother, you’re my witness.”
“Rant? I would never have such bad taste! That knock on the head must’ve addled your wits.”
“Long enough to miss what really happened after,” he answered grimly. “I suppose they took Jayachin for burning, but what about her little boy?”
“As it happens, you’re wrong,” Antoun told him. “They took her body to the cliffs and threw it into the sea.”
“Unburned?” Norian looked sick.
“ ‘As she liked Water so much,’ Jolan said, ‘Water and its creatures shall have her.’ I don’t know about the boy. Someone probably took him back outside when the rest of them left.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes. “Ah, Goddess, why didn’t she go home to Waes when she could?”
Elsen looked surprised. “In Waes she was just another merchant. Here, she was an athri. We ought to find out about the child, though. Whoever takes guardianship of him takes control of whatever wealth the family left, too.” He shifted again, and Norian was instantly ready with pillows. “No, I’m fine. My rump gets sore, that’s all. One thing I’ll give these Sunrunner physicians, they’re healing my bad leg for me. It hurts less now than ever before in my life. And they say I’ll be able to walk on it without pain, maybe even without a limp.”
“The only thing I’ve found in their favor thus far,” Norian said. “If it’s true—and I beg the Goddess that it is.”
“True enough, my lady.” Antoun smiled. “I’ve heard them discuss him, as I’ve told Prince Elsen before. They’re quite excited, actually. He’s a real challenge. All they ever get to treat here are cuts and scrapes and the occasional broken bone—and the inevitable winter colds, of course.”
“They made quick enough work of my cracked head,” Edrel admitted. “I’m curious about the faradhi girl—Linis? How did she happen to go out to the tree-circle this morning?”
“Oh, that.” Antoun poured himself more taze. “My lady? No? It’s a little strong for some, I know. Linis is pregnant, or so she hopes. She and Martiel have discovered each other as woman and man, not just as devr’im. She went this morning to consult the Mothertree. That simple.”
“But revised by other needs into that story about waking up filled with dread.” Edrel declined the offer of taze. “You Sunrunners are nothing if not creative in your thinking, and quick with it, too.”
Elsen frowned. “Don’t class Antoun with them. I’ve said he can be trusted.”
“But you didn’t say why,” the graying faradhi reminded him.
“That’s yours to tell, my friend.”
“So it is. And I’ll tell it now, so there’s no misunderstanding.” Settling himself with hands folded, he began, “I was here at Goddess Keep, twenty-two winters old and four rings to my hands, when Lady Andrade commanded Sioned to the Desert. Meath, Hildreth, and I are the only ones left of those who went with her. And a journey and a half it was, too,” he added with a reminiscent smile. “Of us three, Meath went to Graypearl, Hildreth eventually came to rest with Pol and his dragons, and I stayed here. When Andry became Lord of
Goddess Keep, many of us who had learned our craft from Lady Andrade grew impatient and angry—as Hildreth did— and asked to leave, either to be court Sunrunners or to ride the princedoms—as Hildreth did.”
“But you stayed,” Norian said.
Antoun nodded. “I stayed. Not because I agreed with Andry’s changes and ambitions, but because Sioned asked me to.”
Edrel felt his jaw hang open and quickly shut it. Every so often at Dragon’s Rest he’d heard Pol wonder aloud— sometimes irritably—just how Sioned got her information about Goddess Keep and what went on mere. Now he knew. This aging, plain-faced, clever Sunrunner, friend of her youth, was her source.
And Lord Andry didn’t have a clue. “I haven’t seen her in, oh, it must be twenty years now,” Antoun mused. “But of course I can see her, and she me, whenever we choose. And we do talk quite often on sunlight.” All at once he laughed, and they all had a glimpse of the young man he had once been. “I can tell you it was the shock of my life when Andry made me one of his devr’im!”
“Was the High Princess—um—able to appreciate the irony, then?” Elsen ventured.
The faradhi sobered at once. “She knows now, of course. But when it happened...”
“Rohan,” Elsen murmured. “Yes.”
Norian paused a moment before asking, “You’re loyal to Sioned, not Andry?”
“To Lady Andrade,” he corrected. “To her teachings, and those of Lord Urival. During his last years here he helped me escape Andry’s notice, mainly by telling me to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut whenever Andry changed something. Don’t mistake me, I’m not arguing with everything he’s done. The physicians, for instance.” He nodded at Elsen. “There have been good things that have come of his rule here. But others ... this idea of sins against the Goddess...” He sighed. “No. My loyalty is to Andrade, and to her hope that Goddess Keep and High Prince would clasp hands, not raise fists.”
After a time Edrel got to his feet and went to the windows. The sea was a deep gray-green, painted by the wind with whitecaps like miniature shifting mountains peaked in i_ snow. The Vellanti ships were to the north, hovering in Brochwell Bay, waiting for they alone knew what. He couldn’t even imagine them, although they had been described to him several times. Dragons plying the waves, wings outspread, carrying death on their backs.
Not turning, he said, “Fists will be raised here, you know. From what little I’ve heard, they’ve had more than enough chances to land and take Goddess Keep, as they failed to do the last time. You Sunrunners can’t burn them in their ships because their ships don’t burn. The oath not to kill with your gifts doesn’t seem to apply anymore. You’ll protect Goddess Keep—and, presumably, the people outside the walls—if they land and attack. But they haven’t.” He swung around. “Antoun, what in all Hells are they waiting for?”
The bright noon sunlight seized Andry’s mind so powerfully that he stumbled against his brother’s shoulder. Maarken caught him, said something Andry didn’t hear. The voice in his mind and the colors swirling around him obliterated all other awareness.
Andry, thank the Goddess I found you! Listen carefully— there’s not much time. Meiglan and I are being taken to Stronghold. She’s all right, shocky, but all right. I’m wearing her face. We’ll be safe so long as nobody sees me asleep or while I’m Sunrunning. I don’t know yet what they want of her—as soon as I can, I’ll find out and tell you. But I need to know what you want them to know. Quickly, Andry—they let us have some privacy for a wash, but we ‘II have to go back soon.
He didn’t even have to think about it; he and Maarken and Sionell had just been discussing that very subject. Skybowl. Whatever happens, convince them to go to Skybowl.
Why?
I saw it. The Goddess showed me that one more castle will fall. It has to be Skybowl. For military reasons, Maarken and Pol agree, though they don’t know about the vision. Say whatever you think will persuade the Vellant’im, but turn their minds to Skybowl.
I’ll try. And I’ll tell Meiglan.
He tried to catch his breath after the lightning exchange.
Valeda, you said you’re shape-changed to Meiglan? Why? What happened?
The Isulki and that young Gribain tried to free her. I think they got away with the little girl, I’m not sure. But I couldn’t escape. So I threw my rings away—better that and wear someone else’s face for a while, than have them wear my rings in their beards.
Goddess! his mind began to reel again. You’re not injured? Meiglan?
Unhurt. So far. I’ll speak to you when I can—perhaps by the moons, I don’t know. But don’t try to reach me. I tried this spell a few times on my way here, and found out that I can’t do any other work while caught in it.
Valeda, be careful. Here, let me show you my brother and his wife. If you can’t find me, try for them. He built their patterns, first Maarken and then Hollis, with elegant speed and skill, and sensed her fix them in her mind.
Thank you. Now I don’t feel so alone. She paused and he felt her colors tremble. Andry, I’m frightened. These people, I don’t know what they want, what they’ll do with us—
Abrupt silence.
Valeda! he cried into it. But the light had cleared of her colors. She was gone. He swayed against his brother, gasping.
“Andry? Are you back with us? Sionell, get him some water—“
“I’m fine,” he managed, and leaned against Maarken’s strong shoulder.
“No, you’re not. What happened?”
“It—it was Valeda. She’s with Meiglan—wearing her face—they’re being taken to Stronghold. We have to find Pol—“
“Not just yet.” Maarken half-carried him to a mounting block and made him sit down. “Ell? Where’s that water? Oh—thanks. Drink,” he commanded, spilling chill liquid down Andry’s throat. “Again? All right. Deep breaths now. Easy.”
The courtyard of Feruche came into focus around him again. His brother’s worried face, Sionell nearby, servants eyeing him askance. The great Lord of Goddess Keep, shaking and weak as if he’d never felt the touch of sunlight before. Andry straightened his spine and cleared his throat of fear.
“I’m all right”
“You’re such a rotten liar,” Maarken observed, smiling crookedly. “Drink some more water, calm down, and tell us what you heard.”
Lord of Goddess Keep or no, it was a relief to do what his big brother told him. He sipped more water, waited for his racing heartbeats to slow, and drew in a breath.
“There was a rescue attempt. They seem to have gotten away with Rislyn, but not Meiglan. Valeda was caught, too. We all know what the Vellant’im do to Sunrunners, so she shape-changed into Meiglan. Evidently it’s working so far. But it’ll fade when she sleeps, and she can’t work anything else while working the spell.”
“Shape-changed?” Sionell whispered. Andry looked up, and saw equal astonishment in Maarken’s eyes.
“It’s something some of us have learned how to do,” he explained. “I’ve used it myself on occasion.”
Maarken chewed his lip. “At least the Vellant’im will be confused for a while as to which of them is really Meiglan. I don’t want to think what will happen if Valeda slips.”
“She won’t,” Andry said. “She knows what she’s doing.” I hope. Pushing himself to his feet, he continued, “We’ll have to tell Pol, and warn Jeni down at Skybowl that Kazander is on his way, with Rislyn if we’re lucky. Oh— Skybowl. I told Valeda to convince the Vellant’im to march there.”
Sionell folded her arms. “Don’t you think you should consult Riyan before you give away his castle?”
It was what they had been arguing about before Valeda’s precipitous Sunrunning. Maarken said, “We’ve explained why it’s the best place to fight them. We can sneak a whole army in and they won’t be any the wiser until we land on them like a dragon on a stray lamb.”
Andry stayed silent, the castles globes whirling in his memory. One more must fall. It must not be Feruche or Goddess Keep or any of the others. Skybowl was his choice. Thank the Goddess that Maarken and Pol agreed with him— even if they didn’t know what the castle’s ultimate fate would be.
Sionell gave an annoyed shrug. “I’ll go find Sioned so she can warn Jeni.”
“Do that,” Maarken agreed, and as she returned to the keep his glance seconded Andry’s own thought: she didn’t want to be anywhere near Pol when he found out what had happened. Andry didn’t blame her.
Sioned was duly informed, and the afternoon lessons for Sunrunner children left to Meath. Sionell returned to her own room, there to sit at the window with one of Jahnev’s shirts to mend, taking only a few stitches before she flung the garment to the floor.
It seemed forever since she’d felt anything for herself. For others, yes: for Chayla, Sioned, Maarken and Hollis, Chay and Tobin, Meiglan and Rislyn and Jihan. Each name in her mind brought its measure of horror, fear, pity, anguish. But apart from loving her children and grieving that they had lost their father, she dared risk none of her own emotions.
She wasn’t really avoiding Pol. For one thing, it wasn’t possible. He was everywhere at Feruche. Her own duties— the wounded, the Tuathis and Tiglathis, her children—took her in a fairly restricted round, but he was likely to appear around any corner. She couldn’t afford to let the sight of him affect her, and so she allowed nothing to affect her.
It was easy during the days. Other people demanded her time, her thoughts, her feelings. It was even easy at night, when she fell into bed too tired to think or feel. The bad time was morning, when she half-woke and turned to reach for a familiar, comforting body.
The worst of it was that she never knew which of them she sought.
One man she would never see again; the other, all too visible. One of them her own husband, the other Meiglan’s.
What kind of person was she that she had done this to herself, to Meiglan?
To Pol?
No. Whatever had been done, he was responsible for his part in it. Enough that she should bear guilt for Meiglan. For herself. For Tallain...
It wasn’t loving Pol that she feared. She didn’t want to know what she felt for him, because it might turn out to be hate. But even that would be bearable compared to the other thing lurking inside her. Because what truly frightened her was the anger.
Not at him. At Tallain. For leaving her. For sending her away by means of a trick and a betrayal, sending her away to be safe, while he fought and died.
How could he have done that to her, knowing how much she loved him?
How could he have left her alone with this madness that had caused her to do what she had done seven nights ago?
She could hate Pol—and herself—because they both deserved it. But her anger was directed at Tallain. It shamed her, this rage that cut into her vitals, at times so deep she could scarcely breathe. It edged her voice in broken glass and made her want to shatter everything from the wine goblets on the dinner table to the arrogance in Pol’s eyes.
She knew it was wrong and wicked and appallingly selfish. If Tallain was here, she would have begged his forgiveness on her knees. Worst of all was knowing he would only stare, lift her up into his arms, and tell her in honest anguish never to kneel to him again.
But he was not here. Damn him for not being here.
She wanted to cry. Couldn’t, of course. She’d never had any practice in a loved and sheltered childhood, so she’d never learned how. Oh, once or twice in frustration and hurt over Pol’s indifference, but no more than that. Surely this terrible Autumn and Winter should have taught her how. All the losses, all the defeats, all the deaths. Her brother Jahnavi, his wife Rabisa, their daughter Siona. Lyela. Rohan, Tallain... Surely all those she had lost deserved their tribute.
The tears that burned in her eyes now and would not fall were not of grief or even of rage. She thought of Meiglan— gentle, innocent, betrayed Meiglan—and was bitterly ashamed.
But not even for Meiglan could she weep.
What kind of person was she, that she could do these things and feel these things and not cry?
When Andry and Maarken left his chamber, Pol sank onto the pillowed seat of the window embrasure and put his face in his hands.
Rislyn. Safe. Probably, anyway. Soon she would be at Skybowl, with Feylin’s skills to cure the sickness Jihan had sensed, and Audrite’s soft voice to soothe her terrors. Rislyn would be safe.
Meiglan...
Sionell...
The one name brought with it the other nowadays. And each brought with it a fist to crush his heart.
He had faced down enemy princes’ schemes, his father’s wrath, his own half-brother’s sorcery. He had stood in the sand with his dragon at his back and faced a Vellanti army.
He could not bring himself to face SionelL
He knew he should talk to her. Quietly, in private, where they would not be interrupted. Women talked out their emotions, vented their hurts and angers with words. Most women. His mother did; Tobin did. Meiglan—never. He would have thought Sionell the type who expressed herself as impulse took her; if it included a fist to his jaw ... well, he was prepared for that. Would have welcomed it. Anything but this terrible silence.
Was she sparing him, or herself?
She had been kind the other night, when his mother had slipped into the past. She had been brutal several nights before, revealing to the others who and what he was. And between times she had been silent.
It might never have happened. They might never have made love. He was beginning to think that for her, love had had no more to do with it than when a mare allowed a stud to mount her.
No. She loved him. She must love him. No woman was capable of such passion without loving the man she gave it to.
Used it against?
Oh, Goddess, why wouldn’t she talk to him? Scream, rant, rave, knock him out, run him through, tear his heart out with words she knew very well how to use like Chayla’s surgical knives—
Anything but this terrible silence.
But as often as he resolved to break it, equally often he knew he could not. He was too afraid that breaking it would break his heart.
And Meiglan? What about Meiglan?
Soon she would be near Stronghold, and the Vellanti High Warlord would have her guarded as the prize she was. Thank the Goddess for Valeda and her strange shape-changing spell. Perhaps she could take some of the brunt of it from Meiglan. For there would be questions, and demands, and angry words.
Meiglan...
Sionell.
His wife, his mistress. Goddess, what a horrible thought. Was he turning into his grandfather? How many mistresses had Roelstra acquired in his fifty years? Or his blood-mother—now, there was a woman who didn’t waste a moment in bedding whatever man she wanted. Four sons by four different men, and who knew how many lovers between.
Pol had already made a good start, before his marriage. He remembered them all—he wasn’t that much of a churl— and there had been quite a few. From Graypearl to Stronghold to most of the manors and keeps in Princemarch and the Desert, on visits to Syr and Waes, and at Dragon’s Rest before Meiglan—
Was he turning into his grandfather?
Sionell as his mistress? The very concept nauseated him.
But what would he do once Meggie returned to him, if he still loved Sionell with this helpless gnawing ache?
He wanted the past back. He wanted his father and his placid life at Dragon’s Rest and his friends and family all around him and his own turn at being High Prince a hundred years away.
No going back. The past was as dead as Rohan, as Tallain. As dead as, sometimes at dawn when he hadn’t slept and the fresh new sunlight pierced his eyes, Pol wanted to be.
No going back. They were dead and he was alive. High Prince. All of it was his responsibility. His to solve.
Meiglan.
Sionell.
Goddess help him, he loved them both.
Idalian had been lying flat on his back in bed, staring up at the blackness of the ceiling, since nightfall. And black it was in his chamber: curtains drawn, candles snuffed, hearthfire quenched. Black was an appropriate color. It fit his mood, his hopes, his anger, the night outside, and that strange boy Aldiar’s eyes and hair. Idalian was sick and tired of black. Well aware that if he tried to do something about it he might just be courting the eternal blackness of death, he thought it all over one last time.
“All right, that’s it,” he muttered, and rolled out of bed.
He’d lived in this chamber for years. He didn’t need light to dress by. He didn’t stumble over furniture or rug nap as he took up sword and knife. Knives; Aldiar’s had developed a wobbly grip that Idalian had offered to fix. And fixed it now was, as good as ever. Sharper than usual as well. He slid it into his boot top, pulled his trouser hem down to hide it, and snatched up his cloak.
The garment was heavy Cunaxan wool, black as the rest of his clothing. The color might as well help him, after depressing him all Autumn and Winter. He’d debated on white so he could vanish into the snow, but decided he could just as easily become a rock and fool any watchers that way. Besides, after he got past the fields around Balarat, it would be mostly forest all the way to Snowcoves. Forests draped in white, of course, but better to be a shadow.
Black helped, too, getting through the castle hall to Tirel’s rooms. There was no guard; where would the young prince go? How could he escape? Idalian thanked Yarin for his overconfidence and abruptly damned his own when a servant went by at the intersection not thirty paces away. Idalian melted against a stone wall, holding his breath. Safe. He opened the door of Tirel’s chambers and slipped noiselessly inside.
Pausing to watch the child sleep for a moment, he had yet another ache of doubt. No use in it; if they stayed, Tirel was dead one way or another. When the attack came, he would be killed if Prince Laric lost, or killed the instant Prince Laric looked to be winning. Idalian had no choice.
And if they both died out there in the winter snows? Trying to get through this country in this season on horseback was foolhardy enough. Idalian proposed to do it on foot—at least until he could beg, borrow, or buy a horse. He shouldered misgivings aside. No use in them. He’d made up his mind.
By the light of the bedside candle, he gathered black clothes—easy enough, as it was Firon’s color and Tirel had plenty of shirts, tunics, and trousers to turn him into a shadow, too. Idalian chose the heaviest wool, and with his belt-knife cut the Fironese badge—a red shell on a black field outlined in silver—from a tunic. Placing the clothes at the foot of the bed, he bent over Tirel and whispered his name.
The boy grunted irritably and turned over, snuggling deeper into the blankets. Idalian’s throat tightened when he saw that the pillow was damp; Tirel had cried himself to sleep, too proud to call for him.
“Tirel. Wake up now. Come on.” He put a hand on the thin shoulder.
He started awake, flinging back the covers with a soft cry. “No!”
“It’s only me,” Idalian murmured hastily. “Tirel?”
Sinking back into the froth of pillows, he knuckled his eyes. “I thought it was Uncle Yarin.”
Come to kill him in the middle of the night, when there were no witnesses. Idalian cursed himself for not continuing the habit of their seclusion for “disease,” when he’d slept outside in the antechamber. Tirel had had no bad dreams then.
“No, just me,” he said again, smiling for the boy’s sake. “How would you like to get out of here?”
Tirel bounced up onto his knees on the mattress. “Really? You’re not fooling with me, are you, Idalian?”
“No, I’m not fooling. We’re leaving tonight. It’s midnight, the moons are down, and I’ve had enough of this. Well? Want to come with me?”
“Do I!”
“Put these on, then. And be quiet about it.” He gestured to the clothes. Tirel pounced. Idalian suddenly took his shoulders in both hands and looked down into the bright gray eyes. “Listen to me first. You must do everything I say, without question or argument. If I tell you to run, run until I say stop. If I tell you to be still, turn to stone until I say it’s all right to move again. This isn’t a game, Tirel. It’s our lives.”
The child nodded solemnly. “I understand. I won’t even talk unless you say I can. Promise.”
“Thank you, my prince. Now, put your clothes on and let’s get out of here.”
The nightshirt was off and the undertunic was on before Tirel asked, “How are we going to do it?”
“Just do as I tell you to.” He hesitated. “And if we’re caught—“
“We won’t be.”
“If we are, tell them I said I’d hurt you if you didn’t come along with me quietly.”
“Idalian!”
“No arguments, remember?” He held out the black wool shirt. “Put this on and hurry up.”
The boy was silent until his boots were on and he stood ready to go. “Idalian?” he asked in a small voice.
“Yes?”
“Shouldn’t we do something with the pillows? Make it look like I’m still in bed?”
“Do you honestly think it would do any good?”
Tirel sighed. “No. If somebody came in it’d be to talk to me, not to see if I’m asleep. I’m sorry. I won’t ask any more dumb questions.”
“It wasn’t dumb. But I’ve thought about all of this. Trust me.
Nodding, he pulled his hood up to shield his face. “Let’s go.”
There were a few tense moments on the way downstairs, glimpsing servants and Lord Yarin’s guards here and there.
But it was very late, and nobody was looking for a pair of black-cloaked shadows in the hallways and stairwells. Idalian stopped in a side corridor near the kitchen and leaned down to whisper in Tirel’s ear.
“I’m going to go get us something to eat on the way. Stay here.”
“No! Don’t leave me all alone.” Tirel clutched at his arm, gray eyes wide. Reluctantly, Idalian nodded, and they sneaked down the stone floor to the kitchen entrance.
No one was about, except for a boy about Tirel’s age who shared the space before the hearth with a few cats. All were sleeping soundly, curled up together near the warmth of the low fire. No meat roasted overnight on spits, so no one would come in to turn or baste or otherwise interrupt Ida-lian’s foraging. Quickly, efficiently, having planned this out in his head, too, he took an empty grain-sack from the hook near the pantry door and filled it with fresh loaves, fistfuls of dried fruit, a small jar of honey, a sizable wedge of cheese, and dumped a container of candies in for good measure. He knew his charge’s love for sweets. Finished, he turned to smile success at Tirel and found himself face-to-face with Nolly.
The cook’s eyes were as round as her moon-round face. Idalian knew her for a sympathetic friend, but he couldn’t help a defiant glare. She looked from him to the sack to the prince, bit her lips between her teeth, and nodded. Gesturing for him to follow, she tiptoed past the slumbering kitchen boy, heading for the garden door. She opened it, glanced around, and beckoned them to her.
“Hurry,” she breathed. “This way’s safe. Take the path to the gate, go right ten paces, and slip through the chink in the fence where rabbits got in last summer. You’ll both fit.”
He hadn’t planned on that route, but now saw that it was better than going through the pleasure gardens. The herb and vegetable beds, swathed in snow, were closer to the postern gate he intended to use, and would avoid the courtyard entirely.
Tirel stood trembling in the doorway—unafraid, eager, like a hawk anticipating free flight. Idalian put a hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you, Nolly,” he whispered. “Prince Laric will hear of this.”
“It’s best to get the boy out of this castle. I only wish you’d told me so I could have something ready for you. Goddess keep you both, and send you safe to our true prince at Snowcoves.”
Tirel looked up, his hood falling back. “My father is there?”
“By the time you arrive, my lord, he will be. I heard Lady Vallaina’s maid gossiping with the second steward, all aflutter with the prospect of a siege here. Thank the Goddess, you’ll be safe with your father.”
Idalian drew in a breath of cold midnight and grasped Tirel’s gloved fingers. “Take care, Nolly.”
It was a short run to the fence, a tight squeeze for him through it, and six quick paces across the slushy path between the stables to his left and the courtyard to his right. He had a bad few moments just inside die postern turret when heavy footsteps overhead warned him a guard was climbing the spiral wooden steps to the upper wall. Idalian waited until the sound faded, then slid open the bolt of the outer door.
“Ready?”
Tirel’s nod was felt more than seen, and more emphatic with urgency than fear. Idalian knew there would be another difficult stretch between the gate and the nearby trees. If the guards happened to look down...
He gathered himself, hoisted the sack of provisions over his shoulder, and got a tight grip on the boy’s hand.
“All right. Run!”
Back inside the kitchen, Nolly’s plump figure and round, kindly face were nowhere to be seen. Instead, someone young and thin and angular gave a deep sigh, raked black hair out of slanting black eyes, and muttered, “At last!”
At dawn Feylin and Walvis were rousted out of bed by Daniv, who burst into their chamber at full cry.
“Hurry—wake up, please, my lady! Come quickly, they’re hurt!”
Feylin jumped out of bed and grabbed a robe. “Who and how bad?”
Walvis, groggy after spending half the night walking the walls with Chadric, raised up on his elbows and blinked at the young man. “Vellant’im—? What—?”
“Sethric and Kazander,” Daniv said, rummaging in a wardrobe for something for Walvis to put on, as if he was a lowly page instead of the Prince of Syr. “And Princess Rislyn—she’s very sick, my lady, Jeni’s frightened. She sent me up here for you. She says you must hurry.”
“Done,” Feylin said, knotting her loose hair around itself to keep it out of the way. She slid her feet into low shoes and swooped down to pick up her coffer of medicines. “Walvis, I’ll need Audrite. Come on, Daniv, don’t just stand there.”
On their way downstairs, she questioned Daniv about the wounds. He didn’t know much, only that they were plentiful and some of them serious. Outside, in the blue-gray dawn’s light thin as milk skimmed of cream, she had to stop and catch her breath. Of all those who had gone with Sethric and those who had been with Kazander, not more than twenty remained. All needed help getting down from their horses, limping or half-delirious with fevered wounds or too sodden with exhaustion to walk unaided.
Jeni called out to her. Daniv was right; the girl was badly frightened, her voice high and thin. She knelt on the cobbles with Rislyn in her arms. Sethric wavered on his feet nearby, supported by a black-clad Isulki whose own stance was none too steady. Feylin looked him over swiftly, found nothing worse than a few rents in his clothing, and sighed with relief that here was at least one who wouldn’t need her skills. He squinted into her face, obviously trying to find something familiar about this wild-haired woman in nightgown and robe.
“Go on, get cleaned up before you fall over,” she told him. His whole face relaxed then; he had recognized her voice. “I’ll take care of Sethric.”
“My lady,” he rasped, “Lord Kazander—“
“I’ll see to him, too. Go on.” She prodded him out of the way. “Daniv, get your shoulder in there for him to lean on. That’s right.” Sethric’s curly head drooped with weariness, his spine with despair.
“ ‘M all right,” he mumbled when Feylin bent to inspect the leather strip tied around his leg.
“Oh, of course you are,” she told him, careful to keep her voice sharp and sarcastic. If she altered her usual pattern and spoke as gently as her worry, wanted her to do, he would know something was wrong. And it was. She pried off the makeshift bandage and set her jaw. The slash across the back of his thigh, open and still oozing blood, cut deep enough to sever muscles damned near to the bone. Unstitched for a day and a half, it would have to stay that way and heal from the inside out; she couldn’t draw the edges together into a natural dressing without doing more damage than the long ride had already caused. She didn’t want to think what it must have been like for him, weak with blood-loss, clinging to the saddle, one leg dangling useless and crudely bandaged. Goddess only knew what the strain had done to the muscles. With luck and care, he would heal, but the scar would be thick and heavy, without suppleness, and probably give him a lifelong limp.
Twenty winters old, with his whole life ahead of him, Feylin thought. Goddess, what is this war doing to these children?
At least Sethric was still alive. Not like her own son. Not like Jahnavi. Or Tallain. Or Tilal’s boy, Rihani.
“Daniv, get him up to bed. Clean the wound, Jeni—you know what to do, you’ve watched me and done it before yourself. Look lively now. Give Rislyn to me.” When Sethric looked at her all muddle-eyed, Feylin snapped, “Are you trying to bleed to death? Go on!”
“K-Kazander,” he managed, before swaying to one side. Daniv caught him. Feylin swept Rislyn up into her arms. Jeni, white to the lips, rose and between them the two young people half-carried Sethric into the keep.
Feylin immediately felt Rislyn’s convulsive shivers. Her skin was dry, water-starved, giving off waves of heat like a shimmer-vision on the Long Sand. At Feruche the children had come down with silk-eye. Feylin had lost her granddaughter Siona to it, another child sacrificed to this damned bloody war. But this was different. It might have started as the familiar childhood disease, but had become something else.
She held the little girl in one arm against her hip and with the other hand tried to turn her head from side to side. Rislyn moaned feebly. Feylin called out for Audrite, frightened now. Rigidity in the neck muscles, high fever, spasming tremors, heart shaking within the small body—
“Audrite!” she cried again, and a moment later the prin- cess was at her side. Disheveled, barefoot, wearing a cloak too short for her over her nightgown, looking twenty years younger than her age, Audrite gave a soft exclamation at the sight of Rislyn.
“Take her upstairs. Wash her down with cool water—but first get some milk into her. Goat, sheep, mare, it doesn’t matter what kind. All the milk she’ll take. Hurry.”
She transferred the child to Audrite’s arms. Rislyn whimpered as her head was moved, cradled by a gentle hand to the long, loose hair at the princess’ neck. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Later,” Feylin said. “Do as I say. At once.”
She turned, not wanting to watch them go, not thinking what she might have to tell Pol about his daughter. But what she saw next was the worst of all.
Kazander.
She knelt where they had placed him atop blankets on the stones. Wrappings went all the way around his chest, but the bulk of the bandage was at his back. She eased him half onto his side. Middle ribs, right side—not the heart, Goddess be thanked—but by the sound of his breathing his lung had collapsed. And the blood at his mouth—Bright blood, the brightest in the whole body.
He was awake. Incredibly, through the pain and an impossible ride and with only one lung working, he was awake and aware. He even smiled.
“You foolish boy,” Feylin chided, a lump in her throat. “Look at all the trouble you’ve put me to.” Over her shoulder she called, “I need a litter!”
“Lady,” he said with no voice at all.
Reaching into her medical chest, she said, “What I’m going to do to you will hurt like all Hells—not that you don’t deserve it for being so silly. I’ll be sticking a tube right in the same spot the blade went in and then I’ll expand your lung again so you can get air enough to tell me how beautiful I am, you honey-tongued liar. But for now I want you to get this past those cactus spines on your upper lip.” She slipped a tiny pill past the blood and his teeth, and watched as he labored to swallow. “Don’t worry. It’ll dissolve on its own. You don’t have to choke it down.” She had seen enough of such wounds this year to know he had already swallowed enough blood to choke a dragon.
Two guards arrived with a litter. She helped them slide
Kazander’s limp body onto it, talking all the while, watching as the drug took effect and his eyelids drifted closed.
“You really are the most impossible man,” she told him as she walked beside the litter toward the keep. “What am I going to do with you? Here I was all set to give in and run away with you, and off you gallop on some mad chase through half the Veresch. I don’t know what ails your wits, but a good swift kick in the head wouldn’t come amiss. Or, considering where you keep your brains, a boot in the ass would work much better.” She paused. He was drowsing now, the pain gone. Only then did she allow herself to smooth back his hair. “You sleep, dearest,” she whispered. “I’ll take care of everything.”
By midmorning she had reinflated his lung, cheeked on Rislyn, made sure Sethric was in bed where he should be, and tended all the other wounded. Only then did she realize she was still in her nightgown—and with blood all over it, too, and even in her hair. Wearily, she started back to her rooms for decent clothes.
Her husband came toward her down the stairs. She didn’t know why it happened, why the mere sight of him suddenly collapsed every defense she had. But everything fell in on her then. Jahnavi. Tallain. Siona. Rohan. Kazander and Sethric and Rislyn and poor Meiglan and all of it, all of it.
And in the rubble of her thoughts one thing remained intact: it might have been Walvis, it so easily could have been him—
Silently, he held out his arms. She clung to him and sobbed until she had no tears left.
Sethric emerged from sleep with a feeling of drowsy contentment. Warm and clean, he floated on some silky-soft cloud that wrapped all his bones and muscles in a hazy glow. He didn’t want to move ever again.
But he had to move. He must hurry. Back to Skybowl— never mind the pain, the cramps in his hands around the reins, the knotted leather around his thigh (was it time again to loosen it so blood could flow and he wouldn’t lose the whole leg—no, they couldn’t stop, they must go on) and what about Kazander and Rislyn and—
“Jeni!”
But there was no sound. He couldn’t move. The muffled sleepy glow snuggled in around him. He struggled against it, and all he managed to do was slit his eyelids open.
Jeni. No mistaking the sun-streaked brown hair cascading down her back, the graceful curves of waist and hip revealed by the belted green-velvet robe. But there was a hand smoothing that hair, and an arm circling that waist, and she was trembling as she huddled into someone’s comforting embrace.
The head bending gently to hers lifted. Sethric blinked, meeting Daniv’s intense turquoise eyes. So that’s how it is, he thought; she’s decided, and it’s not me. Well, who could blame her? Daniv was strong and intelligent, handsome and brave. Though not even seventeen, he had proved himself in battle and under siege, and had been squire to High Prince Rohan, He had all the makings of a fine man and a wise Prince of Syr. A loving husband. Sethric saw the needing way Jeni held him. They’ll be happy. Good to each other. I’m glad.
And the rotten thing about it was that he was glad—in a bittersweet sort of way. Anger would be more appropriate, wouldn’t it?
Daniv’s brows had met over his nose in a puzzled frown. Then his mouth stretched from one side of his face to the other in an irrepressible grin. He turned Jeni around by the shoulders. There were anguished shadows ki gray eyes that went wide as she looked at Sethric. Daniv gave her a little push toward the bed—and she stumbled, sat down abruptly as if her knees couldn’t hold her, and clasped Sethric’s hands as if she would never let them go.
He stared from one to the other of them, bewildered. Daniv was still smiling, and in fact looked vastly pleased with himself, as if he’d just done something very clever. Jeni looked ready to cry. The young prince backed away to the chamber door, his watchful anticipation changing to exasperated impatience.
“Go on, you idiot!” Daniv exclaimed at last, opening the door and sliding halfway through before delivering his parting shot. “Kiss her!”
The door slammed.
Jeni flinched.
Sethric gaped, not understanding at all. Then comprehension flooded in, brighter than the noonday sun.
Jeni kissed him.
They were brought into the Vellanti camp, escorted on foot through the sand to the tent of the High Warlord. Trembling; clenching teeth to keep back whimpers of fear; holding each other’s hand for support, if not comfort, for of comfort there was none.
Stronghold bulked still behind its natural walls of rock. The Flametower rose as proud as ever. Blackened now, scarred by Fire—yet somehow undefeated. Unpossessed. Sioned had seen to that. She had burned every stone and stick and stitch of it. Still, Rohan’s Fire was gone, as dead as he was. Only the Goddess knew whether or not Pol would ever light his own flames to burn across the Desert night.
Earlier in the day, the two women had been allowed a few moments’ privacy to wash away some of the dirt and stink of the road. The cursory daubing with torn cloth soaked in water from a skin only made each long for a real bath. Oddly enough, it was this murmured confidence from one to the other that put each by way of liking her double. For it struck them both as incredibly silly after all that had happened, wanting to loll in a bath in the middle of the enemy camp. They’d returned to their horses feeling better, a state that lasted only until they reached the Vellanti enclave outside Stronghold. There, wrists free at last, they stumbled on foot through heavy sand, watched by what seemed thousands of black eyes above black, gold-speckled beards. Fingers sweat-moist and shaking, each woman tried in her own way not to be afraid.
Meiglan—the real one—remembered dragons, and how she had always hidden her terror of them from Pol. If only she thought of this High Warlord as one more dragon, she would be all right. The fear was the same. She couldn’t help feeling it, but she could hide it. She could. She must.
The other Meiglan remembered Lady Andrade. She had known and feared the formidable old woman half her life. Born in 700 at Goddess Keep of two Sunrunners dead in the next year’s Plague, she’d had her skills tested and her first rings bestowed by Lady Andrade, shaking almost as much as she did now. But she’d hidden it, as they all had.
Walking toward the large silken tent, the two Meiglans kept their composure by thinking of their separate dragons.
“It’s Lord Chaynal’s, from Radzyn,” one of them whispered.
“I recognize the colors,” the other murmured, and pressed her companion’s fingers. They had managed a few words now and again since last night, and enough after Valeda’s Sunrunning to share the essential information about Skybowl. But there was so much of the one that the other didn’t know. They’d decided to dole out what was necessary to keep these people guessing, but knew they must rely on silence as much as they could without endangering each other.
All the world seemed unnaturally bright, with the clear, piercing sunshine of a crisp winter day. But not even the breeze could disguise the stench of too many men and too many horses who had stayed in one place too long. As they made their way through the center of the camp to that large sky-blue wool tent, a silence fell around them so that the only sounds were the shussh of the slight wind and the echoing rasp of thek steps in the sand.
The tent flap was pushed aside for them, and they entered. A tall, lean-limbed man sat with his back to them at a carved fruitwood desk, like any merchant or athri or prince tending his affairs. But the desk, the chair he sat in, the silver pen he dipped into a fat red jar of ink, the parchment—all of it, down to the rugs on the floor and the sheets on the cot— belonged to Andry’s father. All except for the singed pages of a book stacked inside a half-burned leather cover by the man’s elbow. Barely visible in gold leaf on the spine were enough letters to tell them what it was and who it belonged to: Lady Feylin’s book on dragons.
The two women exchanged glances. Both had heard the story of how at Remagev all but the legends had cunningly been burned to terrify the Vellant’im when they found the book. Again, Sioned’s doing. But as the pen was replaced in its stand and the long frame unfolded from the chair and turned to face them, neither woman thought this was the kind of man to be terrified by anything.
Perhaps they had expected him te be striding about his camp like the conqueror he had come here to be, snarling commands and ordering vicious punishment for the slightest infraction of warrior discipline. Perhaps they had thought he would be fierce, or fiercely ugly, with a thousand gold tokens in his beard and eyes even a dragon—or Lady
Andrade—would cringe to meet directly. Whatever they might have anticipated, it was not this darkly elegant man, no older than forty-five winters, whose black eyes held both sharp interest and sardonic merriment and whose face was as clean of whiskers as on the day of his birth.
“Welcome,” he said in their own language, his voice deep and sonorous. “High Princesses,” he added wryly, looking from one Meiglan to the other with no hint of anger. Then he gestured and spoke a single word that one woman understood and the other didn’t. The guards bowed and left the tent. “Please sit,” their host invited, indicating two chairs near the desk. “A long ride tires. Sit and rest. Wine for your thirst?”
Neither woman spoke or moved.
The High Warlord smiled, revealing a shining set of large, straight, white teeth. “Lady—and Lady,” he said, evidently relishing the irony, “a princess sits in the presence even of enemies. I ask, please.”
When they remained standing, he shrugged and turned the desk chair around to take his ease. He had made himself utterly at home in this stolen splendor, as if he had owned it always—and yet it was like a fine cloak he could discard at will without missing it at all.
“Two High Princesses,” he mused, still smiling. “One real, one not. My choice, clear as mud.” Leaning forward, he propped his elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely between them, and scrutinized each face in turn. “One faradhi, one not.”
One pair of dark brown eyes stared straight over his head, unflinching. The second pair glanced wildly about the tent, as if seeking escape. The High Warlord watched, plainly fascinated. Then he rocked back in the chair and began to laugh softly.
“Two Kir’reia’imr he chuckled. “My wish, given by the Father of Wind and Rain! He laughs, so I laugh also. My asking was not—ah, what word?—precise? Yes.” He wagged a finger at them, sleeve falling back from a broad, shining armband. “Have care in wishes, Lady—and Lady. I forgot to wish for one with firegold hair and one of dawn-cloud. Kir’reia Sioned, Kir’reia Meiglan.” He grinned widely, enjoying the joke his god had played on him for not being specific. “Now—two of one!”
The women shifted closer together. At last one of them quavered, “Wh-what do you want from us?”
Still he laughed.
The other, voice equally tremulous, said, “If any harm comes to us, the High Prince, my lord and husband, will slaughter you and your people, every one.”
“Let us go,” pleaded the first. “Leave our lands in peace.”
And the other cried, “Goddess, why don’t you listen? Haven’t you killed enough?”
His laughter stopped. Again he sat forward, hands fisted now on muscular thighs. “Enough? What is ‘enough’? What payment for your evil? I tell you ‘enough’ is not yet, will not be until all are dead!”
They glanced at each other, well and truly frightened now.
“I will tell you how it was,” he continued in a low, lethal voice. “Islands under swords, warriors killed, women raped, children dead. Herds slaughtered, so people starved. Crops burned, so people starved. Fishing boats sunk, so people starved. For a hundred thousands of days, we remember. For such evil, no numbers of killings can be enough.”
They traded looks again, and one of them said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. A hundred thousand days?”
Rising, he stood an arm’s length from them, black fire in his eyes. “Your evil! Yours! No peace until you starve and die as we did! Until the Azhrei and all his lands and people starve and die!”
“That’s insane! You can’t mean this war is because of something that happened almost three hundred years ago, that we had nothing to do with!”
“That,” he whispered to her, their faces a breath apart, “is why we come—to remind you. You forgot us. But we remember. Your evil. Your magic. Our deaths. A hundred thousands of days.”
“But it wasn’t us!” the other woman exclaimed.
He glanced at her. “You do not remember. But you will. All names that were lost to your evil will be spoken. And remembered.” He stepped back. “Before he dies, the Azhrei will know. Before I kill him and his evil magic for the Dragon, he will know. He will speak all lost names before I slice out his faradhi tongue, and he will see the truth before I carve out his Goddess-green, Goddess-blue eyes.”
“No!” she screamed. “No!”
Instantly he drew a knife from his belt and plunged it into the other’s heart. She gasped, falling to her knees, hands clasped around the hilt embedded in her chest. And a terrible thing happened, that made the second Meiglan scream again. Delicate features became stronger, sterner; the cloud of curling fair hair turned to longer, thicker waves; eyes paled from brown to blue-gray.
Meiglan knelt and yanked the knife from Valeda’s breast. But removing the iron, deadly as poison to faradh’im, ended only one kind of pain. Blood soaked Valeda’s hands, leaked between her fingers that clutched the wound as if trying to hold her life in. She looked up at Meiglan, infinite agony and infinite pity in her eyes.
“I’m—sorry,” she managed.
Meiglan plucked helplessly at her sleeve, touched the face that was no longer a mirror, whispered, “No, you can’t— please don’t—“
Valeda coughed blood. “My daughter,” she said, slumping. “Chayly—and ... Andry ... tell...”
“Yes,” Meiglan said, “yes, I’ll tell them, anything you like—oh, please—“
“... that I’m ... s-sorry ... and ... love them ... oh, Goddess,” she whimpered, and folded around herself, and died.
The High Warlord wiped his knife on Valeda’s cloak. Quite dispassionately, he said, “She spoke as a High Princess. You spoke as the Azhrefs wife.”
Meiglan looked up, stunned almost to senselessness. He loomed over her, black eyes very bright in his Desert-tanned face. Then, with amazing care, he bent and helped her to her feet.
“We honor wives. Not princesses.”
Arlis turned weary, red-rimmed eyes on Laric and said, “I’m going back by land if I have to walk every measure on my own two feet.”
The older man shrugged in rueful apology. The first thirteen days of their sail north had been simple enough, even pleasant—if one didn’t think too much about what they’d have to do once they reached Snowcoves. The ragged coastline was close on the west; to the east, south, and north, though Rohannon had kept careful watch, no Vellanti ships had appeared. Even as it grew colder, and the wind acquired icy teeth, clear weather and relatively smooth sailing had been their lot. Laric had warned Arlis about floes that would clog the sea, and gigantic mountains of ice as impassable as the high Veresch, but Arlis hadn’t believed him.
Now he did. After a day and night and half a day again of weaving his flagship on a perilous course, he believed, all right The other ships followed, captains gnawing their lips bloody just as Arlis had, squinting against the white sunlight glare by day and peering into eerie greenish-black glow by night. They trusted him to lead them safely through, but all of them—and their crews and the soldiers, too—knew what would happen to wooden hulls if a misjudgment brought them too close to one of those monstrous icebergs. Guessing which could be approached and which must be avoided was Laric’s work.
And he had done it very well. There remained only a cape to be rounded, and then the castle and town of Snowcoves would appear, nestled in a protected cove. Now it was Rohannon’s turn.
His supply of dranath had run out last night. He’d doled it out carefully, taking only what he hoped was enough to cure his seasickness, for Arlis didn’t need him as a Sunrunner. But these fourteen days had been hard going, especially whenever he thought of his father’s horror at what he’d done. Perhaps he had already become addicted. He thought not; his mother had been fed small doses of the drug for quite some time, and while her withdrawal from it had been agony, she had survived. Rohannon hadn’t taken as much as Hollis, or for as long. And at least he’d gotten some use out of it. But he kept hearing Maarken’s voice in his head, thick with fear.
Well, what was done was done. Soon he would be on land again. With the dranath wearing off now, and his stomach queasy, he longed for ground underfoot instead of planks— and perhaps at Snowcoves someone had stockpiled the herb against a day when the Plague might return, and he could borrow some, just a little, just enough to—
Rohannon listened to what he was thinking—no, what his body was urging, for it had nothing to do with his mind— and shuddered.
“Too cold for you, Desert-born?” Arlis asked, ruffling the boy’s hair fondly. “Well, I’ll tell you something. It’s too damned cold for anybody up here. Thirty-five days till the end of winter—you’d never know it, would you? I think my bones have turned to icicles.”
“Mine, too, my lord. We’re safe enough now, aren’t we?”
“Enough. At least my poor ship isn’t the needle anymore, with the others a string of thread, stitching our way through this.” Arlis gestured to the bleak seascape, where snow-shrouded ice-mountains floated in uncaring majesty. “Now all we have to do is weave Laric’s princedom back together. And to that end I need you to weave the sunlight for me.”
“At once, my lord.”
They were still out of sight of Snowcoves, not having sailed around the cape. It was too much to hope that no one knew they were coming, though; Rohannon had seen a diarmadhi ritual in the forest near Balarat, so it was taken for granted that eyes had watched their progress. But if the sorcerers thought Arlis and Laric helplessly limited to what their own eyes could see, they were mistaken.
What Rohannon saw now was a daylight version of what he’d watched on starlight fifteen nights ago. There had been no new snow since then. The streets were shoveled more or less clean, but perpetually running with meltwater. Rainy Swalekeep, built on mostly flat ground on the Faolain River, had perforce an excellent drainage system; in the Desert, nobody bothered. They didn’t worry about it at Snowcoves, either. Built on a slowly rising hill, the upper levels drained right down the streets to the docks and the sea. It made for slick, dangerous footing, but people mostly stayed on the sidewalks if they ventured from their homes.
And venture they did, despite the cold, during the scant time the sun shone these short winter days. All the shopping, visiting, moving of goods, and other daily commerce Rohannon had observed in other places—Radzyn Port, Einar, New Raetia, Zaldivar—was carried on as if this were a warm spring day. Children romped outdoors while parents gossiped in open doorways. Rohannon admired the hardiness of the people of Snowcoves and felt vaguely humiliated by his own reaction to the cold—until he realized these people would be as miserable in his native climate as he was in theirs.
Yarin’s flag flew over the keep in solitary arrogance. Laric’s should have been there, too. If anyone had protested, if anyone was nervous at their athri’s usurpation of their prince’s power, there was no sign of it on the streets of Snowcoves.
But within the keep itself, Rohannon saw much to intrigue him. The soldiers, all in Yarin’s colors of white and yellow, did not drill in anticipation of a fight. They merely trod off the paces of their watch without seeming at all interested in whether or not the castle required their guardianship. They sat about the courtyard, walked the walls, gamed with dice or chessboards, meandered through the gates on their way to or from town. It was very odd, and Rohannon said so when he returned to the ship.
“They must know we’re coming,” Arlis said, worrying a raw place on his upper lip where the cold had cracked the skin, “Damn! Are they so confident that they don’t need to mount a defense?”
Laric stood with his spine against a mast, arms folded, wind blowing thick brown hair back from his face. “How many did you count, Rohannon?”
“Only about fifty, my lord. But there are probably more within the keep, staying warm. Very few on the town streets at all.”
“And on the ships? Guarding the docks?”
“I didn’t think to look. Excuse me a moment.”
“Take your time,” Arlis said wryly.
A short while later Rohannon was nodding. “There are only a few people on the docks, my lord. But four of the ships ride low in the water and the sails aren’t wrapped and stowed the way we always do at Radzyn for winter harbor.”
“Ready to raise them, are they?” Arlis mused.
“Against their prince,” Laric added, his cheeks red with more than cold.
“I saw something else, my lords,” Rohannon said. “The holds are all open to the sunshine. From the size of the ships, and counting the ones within range of light, I’d say there are about fifty soldiers on each of those ships.”
“Where is Yarin getting these people?” Laric exclaimed. “Two hundred ready to sail, at least another hundred in the keep. By the Goddess, I’ll cut him to pieces with my own sword!”
They were beginning to get used to such vows from the bookish prince, so neither made any comment about it. What Arlis said was, “So they do know we’re coming. They’ve hidden themselves. Rohannon, did you see any beards in the lot of ‘em?”
“None, my lord. I would have said.”
“That you would. My apologies.” Arlis reached into a pocket for salve to rub on his bleeding lip. “All right, then. I want you to look for me once more, and this time into the castle windows if you can. Laric, is there any place Yarin might use as a prison?”
After a moment’s thought, he nodded. “Try the west side, a building that used to be a stable. The roof caved in from snow last winter. Yarin lost a lot of good horses that I bargained with Chay at this year’s Rialla to replace, the more fool I. The roof’s back on, but the horses were all moved to the older stable at the east gate. If I needed a jail, that’s where I’d put it.”
One last foray on sunlight, a lengthy one this time as Rohannon tried every window on the western wall. High and wide, placed to spare courtyard and castle the usual horsey smells, the windows were recessed to make arrow-shots more difficult (although it was only a stable, and in time of war empty of horses). But the angle was also wrong for the morning sun to penetrate. So Rohannon sought around the other side, approaching from the east after fixing the location in his mind.
He was very lucky. Two servants crossed the courtyard, staggering with the weight of a cauldron of porridge that swung between them. Another followed with a sack, presumably of bread. Guards who had formerly lazed about snapped to the alert, swords drawn, as the stable doors were unbolted and the food taken in. Rohannon found a gap in the slats of the projecting roof, slid down the thin shaft of sunlight, and hovered at head-height a handspan inside the open door.
He saw what Arlis had hoped he’d see: all the soldiers, servants, and townsfolk loyal to Prince Laric were stuffed into the stalls and tack rooms of the stable. He withdrew quickly and opened his eyes. He didn’t need to say anything, only nodded.
“Right,” Arlis muttered. “I’m betting that these shipboard troops aren’t really trained soldiers at all, but diarmadh’im siphoned down from the Veresch for the occasion and suited up in Yarin’s colors. Same for the ones inside the castle— though they may know a bit more about what to do with a sword.”
“Don’t underestimate mountain folk,” Laric cautioned. “I’ve seen them drop a wolf at two hundred paces with a single arrow.”
“I don’t doubt it. But a single arrow, cousin.” He smiled, then swore as his lip cracked again. “They’re independent, not given to the kind of discipline and concerted effort needed in a battle. If they’d been inclined to work together, we would’ve heard from them long before this. Our own troops, on the other hand, have been tested in battle and not found wanting.” He paused. “It’s your holding, of course, and I’ll be guided by your wishes. But I have an idea or three, if you’d like to hear them.”
All Sethric had done was kiss Jeni back. Nothing else. Weariness and weakness, he told himself, had nothing to do with it. How could it, when life seemed ready to explode within him at the touch of her mouth on his? No, it wasn’t his wound or the loss of blood or the long ride to Skybowl that made him keep his hands to himself (mostly). It was the thought of her parents, and her youth, and honor, and ... and...
But, oh, her lips were sweet, and her hair soft, and her fingers tender as they cradled his face, and her smile filled with shy wondering joy...
He was dreaming with his eyes wide open when she came into his room next morning. Feylin had already been by to look at his leg. Jeni brought breakfast for two. Seating herself on the bed, with the tray between them, she acted as if this was the habit of more years than either of them had been alive.
But they were only halfway through the meal when Walvis poked his head in. Apologizing for the interruption, he asked Jeni if she would do him the favor of apprising Pol of the news.
“Oh—I completely forgot! I was going to do that first thing!”
“I think you can be forgiven,” Walvis answered, casting Sethric an amused glance. “For myself, I don’t mind at all. I won the bet!” And he was back out the door before either could do anything more than blush.
Sethric watched Jeni perch comfortably in the window seat in full sunshine. For a few moments he indulged in more waking dreams, admiring the straight line of her back, the highlights in her hair, the pretty profile limned in white-gold. But as completely with him as she had been earlier, so now was she gone. Her body was present, her thoughts elsewhere.
He had never been exactly jealous of Daniv. Not of a friend. Nor even of that dragon of hers. But now he began to wonder about his own character—for he suddenly could not bear to have the sunlight take her away from him.
The High Prince’s caution repeated in his mind, words about getting used to her being a Sunrunner. But how in Hells would he know anything about it? In that marriage, Pol was the Sunrunner. He never had to watch while eyes that had gazed softly on him turned blind to his very existence. He never had to wait while mind spoke to mind in a manner forever beyond his understanding, using words he would never know unless he was told about them.
Sethric wanted to look away from her where she sat all aglow with morning sunlight. No, he didn’t want to—he wished he could look away. The sight of her was all he had left of her. Jeni—voice, smile, thoughts, feelings, all that was Lady Camigwen of Castle Crag—had left him.
But she was here. He had that much: the knowledge that with him was where she wanted to be. She would come back, and it would be to him. Not to Daniv or her dragon. To him.
By the time she sighed quietly and rose from the window seat, Sethric could smile and welcome her back to his side.
Jeni nestled close for a moment, there within the curve of his arm. Then she drew back slightly, her cheeks pink, her gray eyes straying to his mouth as she said, “I have to go talk to Walvis. I—“
Sethric nodded. “But you’ll come back.”
“Yes.” She seemed puzzled. “Of course.”
He kissed her to seal the bargain—not only with her, but with himself.
Morning lessons had just begun in the Attic when Sioned came in, smiling a smile that caused Meath to falter in midword. He looked quickly at Riyan, then at Andry. Neither understood the reason for that dangerous glitter in her eyes any more than he did. But though they were all three grown men, and Meath Sioned’s elder by four years, each struggled to hide automatic I don’t know what I did, but whatever it was, I’m sorry! expressions.
“Good morning!” Sioned greeted the children brightly. “And too pretty a morning it is to sit like lumps inside while these boring old men drone on. I’m declaring a holiday. Go on, out! Into the gardens, all of you!” She lowered her voice to a conspirator’s murmur. “And if you ask him very nicely, perhaps Meath can be persuaded to be your dragon.”
He cast her a sour glance. She replied with another sleek and lethal smile.
The children took instant advantage of the suggestion, tumbling from the room. When Andry and Riyan made as if to rise from their chairs at the table, Sioned spoke again.
“No. You stay.”
They sank back down.
Meath shut the door behind him, thanking the Goddess that he was well out of it.
Sioned got right down to it. “What do you know of a woman named Jayachin?”
Riyan frowned slightly. “Sounds familiar, but—“
“It should,” Andry said. “The Rialla of 719? Black hair, white skin—“
“Oh.”
Sioned tapped her fingers impatiently on the finials of a chair, then gripped them as if they were her temper. “What about her, Andry?”
He shrugged. “A merchant from Waes, now living outside Goddess Keep.”
“Wrong.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Not living. Dead. Yesterday—by means of the ros’salath.”
For just a moment his muscles tensed, as if he’d spring to his feet and challenge her physically. She watched him consciously relax and lean back. “I have always,” he said lightly, “admired your sources of information. Better than mine, in this instance.”
“You don’t use the stars much,” she retorted. “It’s a prejudice you might consider overcoming.”
“Thank you for the advice.”
Riyan shifted as if to stand and go. Sioned spared him a single glance. He subsided. “I’m sorry she’s dead. You’ve known since last night?”
“Since the last stars before morning. I don’t get much sleep these days.”
“No, indeed,” Andry commented, still unruffled. “The Goddess has but two eyes. High Princess Sioned has—how many is it? Dozens? Hundreds?”
“Thousands, for all you’ll ever know of them.” She glared across the width of the table at him. “Would you like to hear about it?”
He made an idle gesture. “Of course.”
“She went to the tree-circle. She was seen there. Brought back. Subjected to what your Chief Steward and his wife would probably term a trial. Condemned—and then murdered.”
“Executed,” Andry corrected.
“Murdered,” she repeated. “For something called a ‘sin.’ By a spell forbidden—“
“—except in defense of Goddess Keep,” he interrupted. “Torien and Man have my complete confidence. Considering what she did, they’d have no choice but to condemn her. They have the authority to—“
“To kill her by driving her mad? Dear Goddess, Andry, what have you made the Sunrunners into but murderers?”
He met her gaze, head tilting upward, a little smile teasing his lips. “And are your colors clean of blood, Sioned?”
“That’s enough,” Riyan snapped. “Andry, ask your people what happened. Wait until he knows the specifics, Sioned, before you condemn.” Fisting one hand on the table, he said fiercely, “This is my castle and I won’t have it made a battlefield—especially between faradh “im!”
Sioned opened her mouth, closed it again. “You’re right. I ask your pardon, my lord.”
She meant it, but she also meant it to make him uncomfortable. She used titles on her own athr’im only on formal occasions or when she wished to remind certain of them that she had changed their wrapping cloths back when they were squalling infants.
Riyan met her stare for stare, then rose. He went to the door and opened it, standing beside it in silent and obvious invitation to get out.
Sioned left first. She didn’t much care if Andry thought her emphasizing her precedence or if he thought her fleeing from further contention. She sought the battlements and the sunshine, on the Desert side of the keep where she would hear no children laughing in the gardens and no soldiers drilling in the courtyard. Leaning a shoulder against a high stone crenellation—solid for defense, yet delicately balanced for beauty—she gave up fighting the wind’s playful tousling of her hair and stared at the Long Sand.
Confronting Andry had been a mistake. She’d known that even as she stormed up the stairs. But after hearing Antoun’s horrifying account of Jayachin’s death, imagining what it must have been like, realizing what Andry had done in creating his devr’im—
“I wouldn’t have done it if you’d been here to stop me,” she murmured. “If I’d said nothing, he wouldn’t know to tell Torien to keep alert for a spy. Oh, I can hear you saying that— --ow. When it’s too late. But I couldn’t be silent, can you un- derstand that? A working of madness, used to kill—and for what? A ‘sin.’ Not even Antoun could reatly explain that one.
“And what have I done to him, you’d ask. No, you never did. He offered to be used. Not during Andrade’s time— although I found out a thing or two back then as well, that she didn’t think I knew. But since then ... we both used him. He wasn’t doing anything he wouldn’t have chosen to do on his own. That was always your justification, wasn’t it? Only now he’s in danger. Him and Edrel and Norian and poor crippled Elsen, riding to Goddess Keep’s defense when they need no defending except from themselves.
“That’s why I had to confront Andry. I had to. He doesn’t see it. But you always knew, didn’t you? Power once used is easier to use again. And again. Until using it becomes its own justification, and not using it is impossible. But he’ll never understand that.
“Does Pol? He did once. He was scared into it, nine years ago, fighting his half-brother. But this is different. This war is different. Using power is not only possible and justified, it’s essential, and not just to save his own life. What will he do with it? With that mirror, if Ruala finds out at Elktrap how to use it ... with his diarmadhi heritage...” She glanced down at her clenched fist. “And with this, if it turns out to be a thing of power...”
The emerald was just an emerald, gleaming in the sunshine just as it always had. But in darkness it glowed and pulsed in precise rhythm with her heartbeats. Blooded, like a sword.
“I’ve killed,” she whispered to the sands far below, to the sky above and the wind between. “With my gifts, my power, I’ve killed. I’ve been blooded—my colors, the way Andry said. No more killing. I don’t want any more death to come of my kind of power—or Pol’s, or Andry’s.” She sighed. “Is it only that I’m old? Is that why I’m so sick of death, because I’m afraid of my own?”
With both hands she scraped the tangled curls back from her face, held her head between her hands as she stared up at the bright blue sky.
“You know, I don’t much like being alive without you,” she said.
Andry nearly bumped into a cloud on his way to Goddess Keep. Pausing, he cursed himself roundly for behaving like a four-ringed Sunrunner who barely knew how to weave light. Anger made for haste, and haste made for carelessness, and if he didn’t watch it he would become shadow-lost—and then what would become of them all?
Detouring around the cloud, he was halfway across Grib when something tugged him back toward Feruche. That made him even angrier. But the insistent colors would not go away, so he returned—and found that the presumption and the colors were his elder son’s.
Annoyance vanished instantly. Andrev? What’s wrong? Where are you?
Everything’s all right, Father, I’m sorry if I startled you. We ‘re on the way to Radzyn—only we have to go slow so we don’t get there before Prince Amiel and Prince Ludhil sail in from Dorval.
From—? What’s going on? Why didn’t Tilal do what he was told?
He said Prince Ludhil would be furious if he wasn ‘t in on the kill, what with being trapped up in the hills all this time, so Prince Amiel took one of the ships to Graypearl. They thought he was friendly! It was beautiful! He sailed right in and Prince Ludhil came down with all his fighters and the Vellant’im were smashed between!
Andry tried to envision it—a dragon ship unloading arrows instead of bearded warriors; a sudden attack from the rear while the docks swarmed in confusion; the two forces pinching the Vellant’im like a dragon’s talons. Sounds risky—but beautiful, you’re right! Serious casualties?
Not as many as we were afraid of. They’d already sent most of the troops at Graypearl across to Radzyn. I guess they’ll go up to Stronghold from there.
Only Tilal plans to stop them.
Yes. Prince Amiel and Prince Ludhil are loading their own people on board ship right now. I’m to keep an eye on them to make sure we all get to Radzyn at the same time.
You’ve done good Sunrunner service, then.
The boy’s colors glowed. It’s my duty, Father, nothing more, he said, as expected. Then: But it’s wonderful to be in the middle of it! Not the fighting, Prince Tilal won’t let me, but to be able to watch everything, and know I’m the only ne who can report back, that I’m my lord’s eyes—
So you like being a Gunrunner, do you? Andry asked, amused. Well, you should. It’s what you were born to do.
It feels that way, Andrev admitted shyly. And born to a sword is what Princess Iliena looks like, can you believe it? I saw her this morning, fighting right alongside her husband!
He tried to picture the forty-year-old mother of two arrayed in armor, her dark Fironese—diarmadhi—face nearly hidden behind a helm. Of all the women he could see in the pose, Iliena was among the very last But people did what was necessary, he supposed. And one couldn’t fault her courage.
Then something occurred to him. Did they fight back? Against a woman, I mean. And all the other women in Ludhil’s group.
Yes. No such luck as Rohannon had on Kierst-Isel, Father. By the way, is he all right? Where is he?
In Firon by now, I should imagine. Goddess, all the reports from all over the continent—it’s a wonder I can keep track of where I am! I assume you ‘re also here for news, so I’ll give it to you. Chayla was found—but you knew that, didn’t you?
Yes. Prince Tilal told me to ask about Princess Meiglan.
They still have her. But we got Rislyn back. She’s at Skybowl now. They’re undoubtedly taking Meiglan to Stronghold, so be careful what you do there. A wrong move and they could kill her.
Tilal says that if we work it right, he’ll march up from Radzyn with Amiel and Ludhil, you can come from the north, and we can smash them outside Stronghold.
No. At Skybowl. It must be Skybowl. He had the impression of mental fidgeting. It’s my decision, and Pol’s. Tilal can push them north all he likes, but the final battle must happen at Skybowl.
I’ll tell him. But I don’t know if he’ll do it that way. He’s been a little strange lately. After his son died, it was like he didn’t see or hear anything. He just sat with Princess Danladifor days. Then we started to march again, and now sometimes it’s like he has a fever. He said yesterday he’d like to line up all the Vellant’im and kill them one by one with his own sword, but so they’d die as slowly as Rihani did.
I understand. Others feel the same. And I know how I’d feel if anything ever happened to you. But the Goddess will keep you safe. There’s work for you to do far beyond being Prince Trial’s Sunrunner squire. And now I think you’d better go back. All this weaving of light has tired you.
Not very much,
This is your father you’re talking to, my lad, and the Lord of Goddess Keep knows weary colors when he sees them. Go on. I’ll tell the others what you’ve told me, and come to you tomorrow with further orders for Tilal And tell him I said to take good care of you.
Oh, he does. Too good. I never get to do anything really interesting. Well, except the Sunrunning, of course, but just once I’d like to stick my sword into a Vellanti. For Brenlis, and Oclel and Rusina.
I ... understand, Andry said again. But leave the swords to the soldiers. And consider this: that by doing what only you can do, you ‘re helping more than anyone with a sword.
I guess so. You take care of yourself, too, Father.
I hear and obey, my lord Sunrunner.
Laughter echoed down the light. Andry relaxed back in his chair, smiling. It had taken Andrev’s defiance and his own anger to do it, but somehow they were closer now than they had ever been. It was the gift of faradh’im to each other, this communion. The gift of the Goddess.
He spent a few moments resting, breathing in the scents of turned earth and a few stubborn flowers in the kitchen garden, letting the sun warm him. Gradually his pleasant mood faded, for he had yet to do what he had come out here to do. Gathering himself, he once again spun sunshine in the direction of Goddess Keep.
“I think that finishes it. Anything else?”
Odd, Man thought, how the same words can be so different. Andry had said on sunlight what Torien now said aloud to the devr’im, but Torien’s genuinely concerned inquiry was a world away from Andry’s impatience.
The upper balcony emptied of everyone but Jolan and her husband. Such good little peasants, she told herself, hearing and obeying the orders of the great Lord of Goddess Keep. Do this, do that, keep an eye on Edrel and Norian, too bad about Jayachin, you did the right thing — patting us on the head like kittens who’ve caught their first mouse.
“Jolan?”
She shrugged Torien’s arm from her shoulders. “He should be here.”
“He has duties to his family in the Desert.”
“His duty is to us!”
“As ours is to him,” Torien reminded her.
She laid her hands flat on the balustrade stones, glaring down at the gleam of silver and gold on her fingers. “We’d follow him on sunlight or on foot or any other way he asked, just for the asking. But he doesn’t ask, Torien. He doesn’t want us to follow. Why did he create us, out of his vision of this war, if not to follow and support him?”
Standing beside her, watching the bustle in the encampment below the keep, he neither touched her nor spoke for a long while. At last, with a weariness that alarmed her, he said, “I feel very much alone. Not in my heart—you’re always there, love, Goddess be thanked for it. It’s in my mind, in the part of me that’s a Sunrunner. I’ve yoked and shackled the diarmadhi in me ever since I found but about it. But when the Sunrunner is silent, sometimes I hear the sorcerer whispering.”
“No, you’re wrong,” Jolan protested, taking his arm in both hands. “I hear the same thing and there’s no diarmadhi blood in me at all. It’s not disloyalty to Sunrunners or to Andry—it’s being abandoned like this. He should be here!”
“His vision is larger than ours. We see only Goddess Keep. He sees—“
“—the chance to beat Pol.”
“It might have begun that way,” Torien admitted. “I don’t think that’s very important to him now.”
“Maybe I’d feel better if it was,” she muttered.
“You’re not make any sense, dearling.”
Oh no? she thought, and did not say out loud. At least if he was behaving as the Lord of Goddess Keep, I’d know he still gave a damn about us. He’s become Chay and Tobin’s son again, a son of the Desert. A lord of the Desert. And all we good little peasants can do is wait for him to find time for us.
“I feel alone, too,” she told her husband.
Torien encircled her with both strong arms. “But not in your heart?” he murmured into her hair.
“Never,” she replied. “I’d follow Andry wherever he asked—but only if you were there with me.”
“But didn’t she tell you what we ought to do?”
Antoun shook his head. “My lady, you must not expect too much just yet. The High Princess has her own difficulties. I’m sure that once she consults with her son, she’ll contact me again with advice.”
Frowning, Norian tapped a finger against the spine of a shelved book. Her brother had sent her down to select another volume for him to read, knowing that Antoun was usually in the library during the early afternoon. It would not do for any of them to be seen overmuch in his company, especially as he was one of the devr’im. He would either be questioned for information about their discussions, in which case he would have to lie even more than usual, or someone might question why he was so often in attendance on the Gribain prince, his sister, and her husband. They would have to be very careful and very clever to keep most of their encounters “accidental.”
Norian didn’t much like having to wait on Sioned’s convenience, and said so. The Sunrunner arched a brow at her.
“What choice do we have, my lady? We could provoke a conflict with the Vellant’im, and see hundreds killed—and not just by them, but as Jayachin died. You and your husband could withdraw to prevent your troops’ being used in that fashion, but moving your brother risks the healing of his leg. No, we must do as High Prince Rohan always did, wait, and see how events shape themselves. When the time for action comes, we will know it.”
“I don’t enjoy feeling helpless, Antoun,” she said.
“No more than anyone. But have patience. The Vellant’im are waiting for something, too. I don’t know what, but perhaps that’s something Sioned can find out for us so we may plan accordingly.”
“And if she can’t? If she’s just as ignorant as we are by the time they finally attack?”
Antoun said nothing for a moment. Then he climbed a stepladder, making a great deal of noise. Norian stared up at him as if he’d gone mad.
“My students ask me the damnedest—your pardon, princess—but the damnedest questions sometimes, which send me to the most obscure volumes—which are invariably in a place where I must risk life and limb to reach—ah! Look out!”
He purposely spilled a few books from an upper shelf. Norian jumped out of the way.
“Will you be so kind, your grace, as to help me pick those up?”
Norian finally caught on. “Oh, of course.” She knelt and he clambered down to crouch beside her, complaining about his age and infirmities.
“If there’s anything to learn, Sioned will find it out,” he whispered. ‘Trust her. I have, for all the forty-five years I’ve known her.”
And with that Norian had to be content, for just as Antoun again began his imprecations against his over-inquisitive students, a boy of about sixteen came around a corner of the shelves and said, “Everyone all right? Oh, Princess Norian. The very person I came to fetch.”
Antoun frowned up at him. “Kov! Did you grow up all alone on a mountaintop in the Veresch, then, with no one to teach you manners? You do not ‘fetch’ a princess!”
The boy turned pink to his earlobes. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—“
“It’s all right, Kov,” Norian said, rising with a heavy book in her hands.
“Begging your grace’s pardon, and mindful of your grace’s generosity, but it isn’t all right.” Antoun pushed himself to his feet. “Not everyone becomes a Court Sunrunner, but we all learn how to be polite. The first thing you do, Kov, is bow to her grace. Then you ask her pardon for imposing yourself on her. Then you introduce yourself. Then you say that so-and-so wishes to know if she would be so kind as to spare a few moments. Go on, say it.”
Kov gave an abrupt, awkward bow. Staring at his ringless hands, he stammered, “Your g-grace, excuse me for interrupting. My name is Kov, and I was sent b—by Lady Ulwis to ask if you and your husb—I mean, if your grace and Lord Edrel would honor her and her husband by dining with them tonight.” He looked anxiously up at Antoun.
The old Sunrunner smiled with perfect benevolence. “Excellent. All the proper forms observed. The bow could use a little work. But I know you’ve never addressed a princess before in your life.”
Norian almost missed her cue—a quick glance—so intent was she on watching Kov’s reaction. But the boy found nothing unusual about such wholehearted approval following so closely on the heels of such irritable severity; evidently it was Antoun’s habit.
“Yes, very prettily done,” Norian said, smiling. “My father’s pages rarely do it so well. Please tell Lady Ulwis that we’d be glad to accept her invitation, and thank her for it, please.”
Antoun snorted. “Never heard a princess say ‘please’ to you before either, have you? That’s manners, Kov. Remember them. Run along with you now.” As he gave another bow, Antoun smiled again. “Very good!”
When Kov was gone, the Sunrunner leaned wearily against the bookshelves. “A recent arrival, who’s become Ulwis’ pet. I hope she doesn’t have his man-making night— he’s so cow-eyed over her he’d see through the spell in a moment.”
“His what? I don’t understand.”
“Never mind. Just be careful around him. He pops up all over the place on errands for Ulwis or Deniker, and repeats everything he hears to them.”
“What are they like?”
“Deniker comes from Gilad Seahold. But don’t count on any righteous anger at its destruction that could be turned to Pol’s advantage. He’s Andry’s to his toenails. Ulwis is another matter. She had a son by Andry—and didn’t want to. In love with Deniker, you see, but too proud to say it. She ignores young Joscev—and wrongly, for he’s a likely lad.”
“So she has a grudge? Will it be useful?”
“No,” he said flatly. “You don’t understand the kind of loyalty they give Andry as Lord of Goddess Keep. But another thing about Ulwis—she’s Cunaxan, and Merida stock, although she’ll deny it to her dying breath. If you want to end an uncomfortable conversation, bring up this puzzling connection between the Vellant’im and the Merida. It won’t make her love you, but it’ll turn the talk quick enough.”
“But why do they want to dine with us?”
He shrugged. “Man wants to sound you out. Her actions of the other day didn’t exactly meet with your approval, so she assigned Deniker and Ulwis to do the work for her.”
“It’s all so obvious, once you explain it.” Norian clutched the big leather-bound volume to her chest. “Antoun ... I understand court intrigues, but—“
“You’re shocked to find it goes on at Goddess Keep?”
“A little. I always thought—I mean, I’ve always been told that things are different here.”
“So much for the purity of our calling.” He smiled, but she was like her brother in that her sense of humor was nearly inoperative when she was upset. “Don’t worry. Edrel will do just fine. He was Pol’s squire, with the opportunity to watch him—and Sioned and Rohan as well. And they were better at it than anybody. Even Lady Andrade used to say so.”
She frowned. This was an aspect of her new husband’s position that she hadn’t considered before. Norian had grown up a princess—but Edrel had grown to manhood at the court of the High Prince.
Except for the honor of it, and the importance of the connection, she wasn’t completely certain this was a desirable kind of training. So she was not comforted when Antoun finished, “If he’s listened to even half of what he’s heard over the years, he’ll know how to handle Ulwis and Deniker.”
Following Draza’s example in describing the Battle of Swalekeep, that evening Andry refought that morning’s events at Graypearl using the Attic table as a battle map. He had to do some guesswork, of course, but was pretty sure he had the basics right. And until Ludhil and Amiel told their version in person, Andry’s would have to serve.
Odd to think that soon now—in ten days, perhaps twenty—the two princes would indeed have a chance to give a firsthand account. They would land at Radzyn tomorrow or the day after, with Tilal attacking from the east, and if all went well would march for Stronghold and push the enemy up toward Skybowl. And then let the Vellant’im call on the sorcerers for help as they were ground between two armies like grain in a mill.
Ten days, fifteen, twenty—it had become difficult to remember a time when the war was not being fought. It was nearly impossible to conceive of its being over. But it would be, and before winter’s end.
“I make it twelve days,” Chay said. “Two to clean out Radzyn, two more to rest. Three to march to Stronghold. We may have a problem there. If the High Warlord refuses to budge—“
Maarken shrugged. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that they move. We’ll figure that out later. I’d call it four days.to Stronghold, Father, Radzyn will be a hard fight and they’ll want to take it slow.”
“All right, four days. Add another four to push them up to Skybowl, a day for the usual insults and feints, and one more for the battle.”
“Fourteen days until all this is over?” Riyan shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“No more do I,” Andry agreed. “A lot can happen in a single day—as we’ve seen over and over since Autumn—let alone in fourteen.”
“We’ll plan on that anyway, and revise as necessary.” Chay drained one goblet of wine and poured himself another. “Sioned? You haven’t had much to say about this.”
“Is my opinion something you need to hear?”
The acidic comment gathered all their attention. Pol took stock of her pose—relaxed, casual, completely deceptive.
“I think you intend to tell us anyway,” he said.
“Oh, it’s not much. Only this. What are the Vellant’im waiting for?”
She rose, distributed a smile all around, and walked out.
“Goddess, but I hate it when she does that,” Chay remarked. “Picked it up from Rohan.” He gave a long sigh. “Very well, my ladies, my lords, and my prince. Any of you care to try an answer to that?”
Hollis looked down at her half-finished dinner. “I think it’s another way of asking what it is they want.”
“And as they haven’t been considerate enough to tell us,” said Sionell, “we’re still where we were to begin with.”
“Not quite.” Maarken reached for the taze pitcher, stopped, and made an annoyed sound. “Damn it! I’m going to put a bell on it, I swear, to keep me from doing stupid things like that!”
Sionell poured for him. After nodding his thanks, Maarken continued, “We know they’re here partly because of the dragons. We heard what they yelled when they came for Pol. And didn’t Visian say that he threw Birioc’s head at the High Warlord outside Rivenrock? So they’re investigating dragons. It’s got something to do with them.”
“They attacked the rivers and Kierst-Isel to prevent any- one from coming to our aid,” Riyan said. “That part of it’s over. Anyone who’s going to help is already in the field. The rest are sitting tight like the cowards they are.”
Hollis glanced up. “And now Tilal says the Vellant’im will converge on Stronghold. That must be why the High Warlord is waiting. He needs the rest of his forces before he can move.”
“Perhaps,” Andry mused. “But what about the ships off Goddess Keep? Personally, and I admit I’m prejudiced, I think that’s what Sioned was talking about. What are they waiting for?” He picked up the fork he’d used to represent a line of Vellanti ships in harbor and speared a cube of cheese. “They’ve timed everything rather carefully, don’t you think?”
Draza spoke up for the first time. “Not everything, my Lord. They couldn’t know how long it would take to march on Swalekeep—or that they would lose.”
“Forgive me for saying it,” Chay murmured, “but Swalekeep didn’t matter. Nor Kierst-Isel, nor Waes, nor anyplace else.”
Pol nodded. “If they’d really wanted New Raetia, for instance, if it had been essential, they would have kept at it until they won. But they didn’t.”
“And Goddess Keep?” Sionell asked suddenly. “Did they change their minds?”
“Not at all,” Andry said. “Lady Merisel’s histories speak of Sunrunner armies—or at least of Sunrunners in arms along with regular troops. I think we were meant to be bottled up, the way Roelstra trapped Lady Andrade in 704.”
“And because they’re back at Goddess Keep, that’s a clue that something big is about to happen?” Chay nodded, paused for a sip of wine, and continued, “All these other things were to keep everyone else busy. Nothing truly mattered but the Desert.”
“And not even all of it, Father,” Maarken said, sitting straighten ‘They were herding us to Stronghold. They didn’t even bother with Tuath themselves, but let the Merida take it. And they turned around and went back to Radzyn once they knew they wouldn’t be able to take Tiglath. But Tiglath wasn’t important.”
Sionell stiffened. “Then it was for nothing?”
“No—Goddess, no!” Maarken exclaimed. “If Tallain hadn’t stopped them, they would’ve trapped us here at
Feruche and we’d never get the chance to meet them at Skybowl! Sionell, I never meant—“
She gestured helplessly. “Forgive me. It’s just—“
“Skybowl,” Pol interrupted. He stood, began to pace, nervous energy crackling along his muscles. “We won’t have to lure them. We won’t have to intercept them before they can march on Feruche.”
“Explain yourself,” Chay snapped.
“Radzyn was taken but not destroyed—too useful as headquarters. They followed us to Remagev—herding us, as Maarken says. But they didn’t destroy that, either. Stronghold—Mother did that. But what did they want? What were they after? Look, we’ve never even heard of these people, we don’t know who they are. Lady Merisel never mentions them in her scrolls—does she? Andry?”
The Lord of Goddess Keep shook his head.
“All right, then.” Pol found himself in front of the mirror. He turned to avoid looking at it, even though no spell of light had called forth that strange, compelling face. “She did write about Sunrunner armies. One of the first places the Vellant’im went was Goddess Keep, to destroy you if they could. They didn’t, so they left—but now they’ve returned, and they’re waiting for whatever it is the High Warlord is going to do. They must be afraid of what you might do when the time comes—things that haven’t been done in fifteen or sixteen generations, since Merisel’s time.”
He paused, trying to control the fever of ideas. “I’m muddling this. Does anybody see what I’m getting at? All of our Desert castles are old, but none predates Skybowl. They didn’t really want Stronghold, except that that’s where Father was. He’s dead—so they came after me. The Azhrei. They could’ve followed us up here. They didn’t. They don’t care about Feruche. It’s Sorin’s creation, too new to have any history. But Skybowl is the single most identifiable keep anywhere. It’s a place of dragons, even more than Stronghold. Threadsilver Canyon is where they used to mate.”
“And?” Chay prompted when Pol stopped for breath.
“We don’t have to worry about getting them north. They’ll march on Skybowl whatever we do. Hells, they already did! And they’ll go back, with everything they’ve got this time.”
“Why?”
Of them all, only Sionell was not caught up in the flood of his words. “Why?” she demanded again.
Pulling in a deep breath, he replied, “Because Skybowl is where the dragon gold is.”