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Arils was subtle only as a sailor. He had coaxed and cajoled his ships through miserable seas and vicious battles, coming at times within a fingerspan of disaster but always slipping free. He had skill as a sailor, and even grace. As a prince, however, and a warrior, he was simple,, direct, and lethal.
Laric, listening to Arlis’ ideas and contemplating his friend’s probable effect on his princedom, decided he had something else in mind for Snowcoves.
In the late afternoon of the sixty-fifth day of Winter, Arlis ordered his ships into harbor at Snowcoves with every soldier on board lined up in full battle gear—and full view of the town. The setting sun behind them made the sails loom like dark, uplifted wings. The light suddenly sliced a wicked glint through the gloom: the polished steel tip of a single arrow shot from the flagship, quenched in a wooden pole. It was taken down by trembling hands (so Rohannon reported, trembling himself with the need for a stronger dose of dranath) and the attached letter read aloud to the astonished and growing crowd.
To the good and loyal people of Snowcoves, from Laric of Firon, your prince, greetings.
(“I have to assume they’re innocent,” he’d said as they worked out the wording over the noon meal. “If they think they’ll be punished, they’ll be too afraid to do anything. I’ll sort out the blameless from the guilty later.”)
I understand that recently, to your shock and dismay, the peace of Firon has been compromised by the illegal and injurious actions of the traitor Yarin, formerly athri of Snowcoves and, to my regret and my dear wife’s shame, my own brother-by-marriage. I know that this treachery was not your design. I know that the castle which hitherto protected your lives and property is now occupied by servants of the usurper. I know that those who attempted to resist are now imprisoned within the castle. I know that Yarin has seized Balarat and even now threatens the life of my young son, Prince Tirel. I know also that troops are hidden in various ships in the harbor, waiting their chance to take up arms against me.
(“In other words,” Arlis grinned, “you know everything! And what you don’t know, they’ll assume you’ll know, and deal with it anyway. Brilliant, Laric!”)
(“I try,” the prince replied modestly.)
Good people of Snowcoves, this cannot but be as intolerable to you as it is to me.
Prince Arlis of Kierst-Isel, my cousin and stalwart friend, who has had much more experience in matters of war than I, having lately destroyed many ships of the Vellanti fleet in battle on Brochwell Bay, believes that a fight is necessary to remedy this situation.
(“Do pardon my making you out a bloodthirsty savage who can’t wait to start lopping off heads.”)
(“My dear cousin, I don’t mind in the least. What a lovely reputation I’m getting! I can hear the bards now, singing my prowess. Besides, you’re the one who has to rule here afterward, not me.”)
But I am of different mind, for although he may know the ways of war, I know the ways of the people of
Snowcoves and of Firon. Our way, yours and mine, is peace.
I know that by dawn tomorrow, my belief in you will be demonstrated, and my princely cousin will receive an education.
Laric
Clouds blew up after the letter was delivered, so Rohannon could not have seen what was happening even if he’d been in any shape to look. At dawn, Arlis and Laric went up on deck, leaving the Sunrunner in abject misery below..
“I am ready to be educated,” Arlis announced.
“There is your lesson,” Laric replied, and pointed to the banner flying over the keep: a red seashell on a black field, edged in gold.
It turned out to be true. The people of Snowcoves, whether or not they had participated, resisted, approved, or bewailed Yarin’s treachery, had remedied the intolerable situation. There had been some fighting within the walls of the keep, until those imprisoned in the stables charged the doors and joined the fray. But there had been no blood spilled in the town at all. As for the soldiers on board the ships—they were dead enough. The vessels had been cut loose from their moorings by night after holds were nailed shut and hulls hacked open below the waterline.
As he sailed in, Laric lifted a palm to acknowledge the welcoming cheers of a populace which, if not precisely loyal to their last collective breath, was smart enough to do the necessary for self-preservation.
“Listen to them, Arlis. You’d think I’d come to shower them in gold coins.”
“Enjoy it. Their relief is genuine—and so is mine.”
Laric replied lightly, “And so will poor Rohannon’s be, after he’s gotten some sleep!”
“I’m serious,” Arlis insisted. “I’d be yelling your praises with them if you’d let me. You’re the only one of us to defeat the enemy without a scratch to any of his people. I wish I could say the same.”
“It was mostly your idea. And they did all the real work.”
“Don’t be so damned modest I only suggested that we sail in and let them know our strength. The letter was your doing—the perfect use of power without using it at all. Ro-han would’ve loved it.” He was quiet a moment as they came alongside masts rising like drowned, denuded trees. “Of course, whoever did that work will need three days to thaw out. Hell of a season for a swim.”
Laric peered over the side. “I must remember to have the harbor dredged come spring. It’s cold as a meat locker down there now, but when things warm up the corpses will rot and kill the lobsters.”
It was Sioned’s favor to Arlis that his brother Saumer was not present for Tilal’s ship-sinking festivities on the Faolain. He had asked that Saumer be protected—not an easy thing to impose on a seventeen-year-old youth eager to prove himself yet again at the warrior’s craft. But she managed it. Saumer was asked (not precisely ordered, but who dared disobey the Sunrunner High Princess?) to stay at Lowland and do what he could to secure it—not from any further incursions of Vellant’im, but from the results of his own entrance. The collapse of the moat had flooded the underground tunnel with a noxious, possibly disease-bearing muck. Somehow the castle must be protected from it, and the moat repaired.
Just how to accomplish this was left to any imagination fertile enough to devise a plan. The stench proved inspirational.
Karanaya, with fine disdain for back-breaking work she wouldn’t have to do, said that the only course was to bail out the whole mess by hand. Johlarian agreed with the bailing, but thought some sort of pump could be arranged. Saumer had no opinion at all except that he resented missing the action downriver. Various of his soldiers and Lowland’s citizens proposed other plans: wait for the spring sunshine to dry it; cut drainage channels; fill the passage with rubble to mix with the mud and eventually form a kind of cement; or give up entirely and move to what shelter was left at Faolain Riverport. It was Mirsath’s outrageous proposal that finally solved their problem.
“You’re faradh’im,” he said to Johlarian and Saumer. “Use Fire.”
They stared at him as if he was out of his mind.
“We can’t build a fire of the regular kind,” he added a bit testily. “We couldn’t control it. The whole keep might go up. But if you concentrate enough heat down there, it’ll turn into an oven, and—“
“I’m a Sunrunner, not a baker!” Johlarian exclaimed.
“For the next few days, you’re a baker,” Mirsath told him.
For the next few days, he was a baker. So was Saumer.
At first the effort was ludicrous—half a moat’s worth of slush would not evaporate on command. But after the second evening, it was seen that the level of water had gone down appreciably. They kept at it, wringing with sweat as foul-smelling steam billowed up the access stairs. Every window and door at Lowland was flung open to let it escape. Karanaya, who had elected to wait out events in a tent set up in the burned fields, reported that the keep looked like a gigantic double boiler bursting at the seams.
It worked. It took them five days of constant Fire, but it worked. Johlarian and Saumer took turns keeping it stoked, pausing only to eat a little and sleep less. The flames burned white-hot noon to midnight and midnight to noon. Down below, iron fixtures melted and stone walls turned black, but the water gave over sovereignty to Fire.
Both Sunrunners collapsed for a full day when it was done. When they woke, late in the afternoon of the sixty-sixth day of Winter, it was to Karanaya’s news that Prince Tilal had sent a courier to tell of his victory in the south. He had not, however, remembered to return her pearls.
The people of Faolain Lowland could now work on repairing the moat—and, if Mirsath chose, the underground passage—without fear of disease or further landfalls, for mud had been baked into brick. His duty to his hosts done, his commission from the High Princess fulfilled, Saumer left at dawn the next morning, ostensibly to reclaim the Tears of the Dragon and deliver them to Karanaya. What he really wanted was to get out of there as fast as his horse could carry him while clouds obscured the sun and no more orders could come from Sioned.
He marched east at the head of the army of Syr, which now seemed to consider him its prince as well as its commander. In truth, he had to keep reminding himself that these were not his people and he was only delivering them to Prince Daniv. When Mirsath sent him off with the parting gift of a pennant in Kierst-Isel’s yellow and scarlet, he waited until he was out of sight of the keep before ordering it rolled up and tucked away. It was only .a little flag, nowhere near the size of Kostas’ turquoise banner that led the march, but it embarrassed him.
Still, for all intents and purposes, these were his people. He had fought beside them at Catha Heights, led them to River Run where they’d stood vigil together at Kostas’ pyre, and taken them all the way to Faolain Lowland. Now they would follow him into the Desert.
At noon, with the river long behind them and its rich green farmland fading to scrub that heralded the endless sand beyond, Saumer asked Havadi to call formation. The captain did so and the army of Syr—sadly depleted since Catha Heights—gathered to hear him. He pointed to the distant golden haze.
“That’s where we’re bound next. The Desert. Skybowl, where Prince Daniv will lead you against the Vellant’im in a battle that will be sung about when your great-grandchildren are great-grandparents. It’ll be a long march, but as dreary as the Desert is, there’s one absolutely beautiful thing about it. The blessing of the Goddess on your good prince, for summoning us where we can march in dry boots!”
At about the same time that the shouts of Syr’s troops for Syr’s prince were soothing Saunter’s conscience, Riyan’s was bothering him not at all. The Lord of Goddess Keep technically commanded the loyalty of all Sunranners, before even their princes. But while Riyan’s prince did occupy second place with him, it was not because Riyan was first and foremost Andry’s man. He was his wife’s.
So he had no trouble doing something about Andry on the afternoon of Ruala’s return to Feruche.
After five long days, Ruala was finally back from Elktrap Manor. She had no sooner embraced and kissed Riyan than she whispered in his ear, “Meet me in the Attic as soon as possible. But do something about Andry first.”
It was afternoon, and the children’s daily lessons were over, so that excuse was unavailable. But as Ruala deserted him for a quick wash upstairs, he saw Evarin limping across the courtyard from the infirmary and had an idea.
“Lord Evarin!” he called out, approaching with a friendly smile. “How are you today?”
“Walking,” Evarin answered with a cross between a grin and a good-natured grimace. “Can I be of service, my lord?”
“Now you mention it, yes. There are some wounded down in the garrison below the castle—are you up to a short ride down and back?” He lowered his voice to confidential tones. “And could you take Chayla with you? She’s working much too hard, climbing down there and back—if she hears your opinion on their progress, she’ll be easier in her mind about them and take a little more time to heal her own hurts.”
Evarin was nodding intently. “From what I’ve seen, my lord, she’s a physician bom and takes no one’s word but her own. Still, it’s worth a try. She’s thinking of everyone else so as not to have to think of herself.”
“That’s how I see it, too,” Riyan agreed. Then, as if an afterthought, “You know, Andry might need the same medicine. It would do him good to get outside the castle walls for a while.”
“May I say that you wouldn’t have made a bad physician yourself, my lord?” Evarin smiled. “If I mention Lady Chayla, he’ll be sure to come. He’s very fond of her.”
Andry thus conveniently disposed of for the remainder of the afternoon, Riyan wandered his castle, casually extending invitations to several who had an interest in the mirror, and at last made his way up to the Attic.
Ruala had waited for his arrival to start. Pol and Meath had taken the mirror from the wall and were propping it against a chair, with a table on either side arrayed with candles.
“Andry’s down at the garrison with Evarin and Chayla,” Riyan said as he took his seat at the head of the table. “With luck, they’ll be gone until dinnertime.”
“Then let’s hear what Ruala found out,” Pol said. “Is this all right? Can everyone see?”
They could. The mirror was in full view of everyone— Sioned, Meath, and Pol sat on one side of the table, with Ruala at one end and Riyan at the other.
“I read everything I could find about mirrors,” Ruala began. “It wasn’t much, actually. I’d hoped for more, but...” Scanning her notes briefly, she paused for a sip of wine. “There were four different types of mirror, each very difficult to make. It involved spells and calling Fire at different times for different reasons—none of which are detailed in anything I read. The first kind of mirror was called kenida, which means ‘glass voice.’ It was used when there was no light to work with, not even the stars. One large mirror was made, and smaller pieces cut from it—hand mirrors for a dressing table, pocket mirrors about the size of a palm. The pieces were tuned to their users and whoever made the original mirror. If someone who owned a shard died, the mirror and the rest of the shards continued to function. But if the maker died, every piece became useless.”
“That’s a relief,” Sioned remarked wryly. “I was beginning to wonder if the next time I glanced into my pocket mirror, the thing would talk back to me!”
“It wouldn’t, though, because you’re not diarmadhi,” Riyan said.
“Not necessarily,” Ruala told him. “Of the four kinds, this is one of two that could be used by Sunrunners. If they knew the proper spells to make the mirror—or to tune one of the shards.’
Pol had been taking his own notes. “I’d say that probably only the most powerful would have them,” he said. “And ‘powerful’ is usually interchangeable with ‘important,’ which would be the leaders and their essential commanders. However, I think we can assume that Mother’s right. There couldn’t be any such mirrors still functioning. The people who made them are all dead. Go on, Ruala. The second kind—?”
“I think that’s what Mireva used on Chiana.” She hesitated. “I don’t mind telling you that going through those scrolls gave me the strangest feeling. It’s been so long since I read them, and my sister and I weren’t much interested anyway. But in spite of really needing to know about mirrors now, the scrolls are still like stories told to children at bedtime. I don’t half believe most of it, any more than I did when I was ten.”
“At ten, you’re excused by youth,” Sioned observed. “At your age, by adult skepticism.”
“Maybe,” she replied with a shrug. “Anyway, this second mirror is called the kazniradi.”
Pol glanced up in mid-scribble. “ ‘Long window knowledge’? Kind of clumsy.”
“Very, until you understand what it was. The kazniradi was a portable window. Some had names—Glass-trap and Ice Window were the most famous.”
“I don’t much like the sound of that.”
“And with good reason.” Ruala ran a finger down the parchment page to find her place again. “They were cast for general power, not a particular person. Anybody could use them. When the proper conjuring spell was worked, you could see whatever was within range of the mirror. They tended to be rather large and beautifully framed for display in useful places—main halls, meeting rooms, audience chambers, bathrooms—“
“Excuse me—bathrooms?”
Ruala laughed at Meath’s involuntary question. “We may assume a certain prurient interest...”
Meath grinned back. “Oh, Goddess—Morwenna would have loved it! She’d make a list a measure long of men she wanted to watch lolling naked in the tub!”
“Two measures,” Sioned corrected straight-faced.
Pol chuckled, too, recalling the Sunrunner’s cheerfully lascivious nature. Before leaving Goddess Keep, her favorite duty had been the man-making night—no duty at all for her, but lusty delight. He hoped he wasn’t blushing; he had received the benefits of her tutelage himself.
And he refused to be distracted by speculating on what Sionell had thought of the results.
“Anyway,” Ruala was saying, “the trick was getting the mirror to where you needed a distant window to be. If someone wanted to lug it along for you, fine. There’d be plenty of people who’d agree to having a kazniradi around so the sorcerers could see what was going on. But if someone was given the mirror unawares, a spell of suggestion or even compulsion was set so the mirror would be taken along. That’s why I think this is the sort used on Chiana. Of all the things she took with her to Rezeld from Swalekeep in 728, that triple-mirror from her dressing table made no sense at all.”
“How was it used?” Pol asked. “And did you say that anybody could use one?”
“No, sorry. I should have said ‘any sorcerer.’ You called Fire, then conjured an image of the mirror itself so that Fire reflected in its image. It was kind of complicated.”
He frowned. “Didn’t any of the scrolls include the proper spells and hew to work them?”
“You have to remember that basically these were textbooks. People studied them to learn about mirrors or history or dranath or whatever—but the specifics were given word-of-mouth only. Riyan says it’s the same at Goddess Keep. The dangerous things aren’t written down.”
“Pol!” Sioned rapped her knuckles on the table. “Stop counting all the mirrors you’ve ever seen for future experiments. You wouldn’t know what to do with them and you’d probably end up frying your brains.” To Ruala she said, “You were about to tell us about the third mirror?”
“Uh—yes. This is the other one Sunrunners can use. I remember that one because it had such an evocative name: Shadowcaster. Dalaaji in the old language. When you called Fire, it showed you various people when you spoke their names, and whether they were diarmadhi, faradhi, halflings, or without power at all.”
“The aleva?” Sioned asked.
Ruala nodded. “The colors that some of us can see if we try very hard, and others can’t see however they try—but Jinan sees with no effort at all.”
“Interesting,” she said mildly.
“The mirror sounds rather useless to me,” Meath said. “But doubtless one of you clever, devious minds will understand its purpose.”
“Thank you.” Sioned winked at him. “I can tell you right off why it was a good thing to have. Suppose you have a great many enemies. Suppose some of them you knew to be gifted, but others you weren’t so sure about. This was a sure way of telling who could cut you down with a spell and who couldn’t, despite any claims to power.”
“Yes,” Pol agreed. “But it would also be good for culling those of impure blood. Like Sunrunner rings burning on a diarmadhi’s fingers when sorcery is worked nearby. That was Lady Merisel’s warning. This kind of mirror would be another.”
“Andry had a dalaaji,” Sioned murmured.
“What?”
“He found it on one of his little purifying raids into Princemarch. Took it back with him to Goddess Keep and for all I know called out every name in the genealogy of all thirteen princedoms.” She met Pol’s gaze levelly. “So don’t assume he doesn’t know about you, although he couldn’t have the slightest idea how it happened.”
Meath was shaking his head. “With that and the warning of the rings, he could purge where he chose.”
“Not anymore. He smashed it. I don’t know how or why.”
“Your informant wasn’t specific?” Pol asked.
She gave him the little smile she used when he became irritable over her eyes-and-ears at Goddess Keep. “No. He—or she—knows a great deal, but not everything. Still, i the mirror no longer exists.” She poured herself a cup of wine. “What was the fourth mirror, Ruala?”
For a moment she didn’t say anything, merely stared down at the parchment. Riyan half-rose from his end of the table, a worried frown on his face.
“Are you all right? It’s a long ride from Elktrap, especially in your condition—we can go on with this later if you want to rest.”
“No, love, I’m fine. Really.” She glanced up briefly. “It’s just that I remembered this one the moment I saw the name again. I’d deliberately forgotten because it’s so horrible. It was called daltaya. Shadowcatcher.”
All of them cast furtive glances at the mirror propped against the chair nearby. Whose shadow was caught inside?
Ruala continued in a dull voice, “I copied the whole entry on it—the only one I found in all Grandfather’s books. It scared the diarmadh’im, too. There were no notes and no instructions. Only the mirror’s name and this.” She read aloud.
Unless you have cast a mirror yourself, or know its origins from the first grain of sand that made the glass to the last featherweight of silver or gold that made the frame, never call Fire within its sight. Only faradh’im are safe with any mirror. Your diarmadhi blood is your weakness, most of all with the daltaya. You will not die—and that is the horror of it. Shadowcaught, you cannot die.
Pol shivered. “Then the face inside it—“
“Is the shadow of someone who once lived?” Riyan gulped. “I can’t believe—Goddess, it’s not possible!”
“Can’t believe, or won’t?” his wife asked softly.
“Either. Both. You’re right, it is horrible. Besides, how would they do it? Catch someone’s shadow—“
“How would they make any of the others?” Pol challenged. “Our good friends the Fironese crystallers may have whole books devoted to the subject that they haven’t used since the diarmadh’im ruled, books they’ve forgotten they even have. Now that Laric has taken Snowcoves back, I may ask him to conduct a search.”
“No,” Sioned commanded. “Not unless it’s to find such books and burn them.”
He stared at her. “But—the knowledge—“
“You regret not knowing such horrors?” she snapped. “All those really creative ways by which persons of power can murder each other?”
“Of course not! But it’s not the mirrors. It’s not power that’s intrinsically evil—as you and Father kept telling me most of my life! What I regret is that so much knowledge has been lost. Look at Lady Merisel’s Star Scroll—or her histories, for that matter. Think of all we can learn! There’s so much that she knew and we don’t.”
“I hardly count the demise of deadly mirrors and spells as a loss.”
“You’re deliberately misunderstanding me.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “If you want deliberate, how about what Merisel did? Why bury those scrolls? If no one knew how to work such spells, no one could work them. She was trying to ensure peace—or at least the more usual forms of war and death.”
“Yet she wrote them down,” he shot back. “Not even she could swallow losing all of it forever.”
“Oh, yes, she wrote them down—and put them in code! That way, only the truly dedicated powerful would have the patience to figure it out. And somebody that dedicated—“
“—would be that much more dangerous,” he finished, annoyed but willing to concede the point. “All right, all right. But I wonder more and more often whether one should be more admiring of or appalled by that woman.”
“Wise and long-sighted, or a meddling and vicious tyrant?” Sioned lifted one shoulder as if shrugging off a cloak. “Probably much of both, like the rest of us.”
“You’re too modest,” Meath said-softly, and she glared at him.
Ruala brought them back to the subject. “If this mirror is indeed a Shadowcatcher, and I feel certain that it is, then whoever’s inside it must have been a deadly enemy of the diarmadh’im. Which is insane, because these mirrors were fashioned by sorcerers against other sorcerers. Sunrunners can’t use them, and can’t be caught in them.”
Riyan’s eyes flickered to the mirror. “So this man, whoever he is, can be nothing other than diarmadhi?”
His wife nodded. “I may be reaching a bit, but I think we may be able to call up the face of one of the most important sorcerers who ever lived. And I’d go even further than that.
I’d say he was a traitor to them, and allied with Lady Merisel.”
“Ruala, my dear, you are reaching,” Sioned told her. “We’re not even really sure when it was made.”
“Oji, but we are,” Meath said.
Everyone turned to him. He rose and slowly approached the empty mirror.
“I was the one who dug up the Star Scroll and the histories—and never think that at times I wish I hadn’t. At the old Sunrunner keep on Dorval where I found them, a level below the oratory tiles, there were plenty of carved decorations still clear enough to trace.”
He touched the silver frame delicately. “I had a little talk with Princess Naydra a few days ago. She says Ostvel is as bewildered by this thing as we are. But he also says that it was never set in any other frame, that this is the original as far as he knows. And he’s right—because I saw this pattern in at least five places at the old keep.
“Three were of stone, and at one time arched over doorways. One was small, and cast in silver, broken on the floor as the lintels were. There were bits of glass where I found it, so it must’ve been a mirror at one time. Princess Audrite had the silver fixed and used it to frame the little plaque at the entrance to the rebuilt oratory at Graypearl. Sort of a dedication, to mark our renewed consecration of the calendar, she said at the time.”
He paused, then finished, “The fifth was on the floor tiles of the chamber where I found the scrolls.”
“Meath—“ Pol began.
“Hush,” said his mother.
The Sunrunner stood before the mirror. Starting at the left where the surmounting curve began, he traced it with one finger to where the pattern finished on the other side of the mirror.
“All along here, the same order of leaves and apples intertwined. It was done in color, glazing work as fine ^s anything I’ve ever seen. Each tile fit together as if there were no seams. After I cleaned them they glowed, even after so many years. At intervals—here, and here,” he pointed to the frame, “there were jewels—not real ones, of course, but bits of glass in colors of ruby and sapphire and emerald and so on.”
Turning to face them, he finished, “The identical pattern. It doesn’t appear anywhere at Goddess Keep—which
Merisel built and ruled for who knows how long. Granted, I haven’t traveled as extensively as some of you, but I’ve never seen the pattern anywhere else, nor heard of it, nor found it on anything made since the Sunrunners left Dorval. That’s why I nearly fell over when I got a good look at this frame—and why I know it’s the original, and dates from those times, and means something.”
There was a brief silence as they all gazed at the mirror with renewed awe—and more than a little horror. Ruala said it for them.
“To think ... that a shadow was caught inside ... hundreds of years ago ... and he’s been there ever since...”
“I still don’t believe it,” Riyan said, but much less certainly now.
“Meath.” Sioned’s voice was hushed. “You said it means something. What?”
“I don’t know.” He came back to his seat and would not look at the mirror again. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“If only he could speak,” Pol mused. “If he’s really inside that Shadowcatcher, he might be able to tell us—“
“What he knows about killing?” Sioned asked sharply.
“No,” he answered. “How to set him free.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN i
Parchments were piled in five groups of varying heights on Ostvel’s desk: fix-it-now, this-can-wait, taken-care-of, too-depressing-to-contemplate, and don’t-make-me-laugh. A sixth collection, just delivered, waited on a chair nearby: not-yet-sorted. It was twice as tall as any of the others. Ostvel glared at it. Had he been a Sunrunner, the whole stack would have ignited. Bat he wasn’t, so it didn’t, and that meant he had to do something about it.
Since just after dawn he’d been doing things about the mess Meadowlord was in. He’d damned well had enough for one day—and the creak of his muscles as he pushed himself out of the chair agreed.
A spectacular sunset drew him to the balcony. The sky had been misted all afternoon, not an honest cloud to be seen. Now a yellowish glow seeped through trees etched black against a white-gold sky. He watched, expecting brassy brightness to intensify through orange to red. But the heavens surprised him. Delicate pink washed over the haze, deepening to rose and finally to vivid purple thinly veined in gold and blue, like some exotic marble ceiling. With the first star, a breeze blew up. All the misty clouds vanished and the sky was abruptly alive with stars.
He rather pitied Sunrunners, for they tended to look at light as either usable or too risky to weave, forgetting to appreciate its diverse beauty. Then again, they also saw colors he never could in patterns he would never comprehend. Still, he supposed it was the old story about describing a rainbow to someone blind from birth. He didn’t really miss something he’d never known.
Caught outside without a cloak, Ostvel shivered. He lingered long enough to see torches lit in me gardens and lanterns at intervals along the low wall. Then he went back indoors, casting another sour glance at the desk.
“Too old to fight, too young to shove this on someone else’s shoulders,” he muttered. Goddess, what it was to have a sense of duty.
Few crops had been planted in the south this year, even where the Vellant’im had never set foot. Much of the populace of Gilad, Syr, Ossetia, and Grib had taken refuge within their lords’ or princes’ keeps. Most of the rest were too frightened to go out into the fields. Without winter crops, there would be no food come spring. Ostvel was enough of a farmer to know that the land would be the richer for a respite from the plow, but that wouldn’t feed hungry mouths.
War and famine were brothers who were never separated. The second followed in the wake of the first as the moons chased each other across the night sky. But not this time. He had sworn it, as his last gift to Rohan. No one would starve this time.
So he had done his best to make of Meadowlord a vast breadbasket. Once Pol drove the enemy out, Ostvel would be ready with caravans of carts, fleets of barges, anything that would carry food to where it was needed. And he wouldn’t even charge the other princes for the privilege of eating.
He told himself he should be feeling very noble these days. His efforts would feed thousands; he had put Chiana’s treasury to good use; he had calmed most of Meadowlord; he’d done his duty by these people and his prince.
All he really felt was tired. And lonely. He missed his own castle. He missed his children. He missed his wife.
Sinking back into the desk chair, he opened the top drawer and pulled out a velvet pouch. He smiled a little as a dozen translucent milk-white moonstones tumbled into his palm. Chosen from Chiana’s extensive hoard of loose gems, they would be set into bracelets for his wife and daughters. He might as well get something out of this besides backaches and eyestrain. Of course, there were many who expected him to plunder all Meadowlord for his own gain. This honestly puzzled him. He would do no such thing—and not be- cause of any special morality or honor. He simply had no personal interest in wealth. To Ostvel, private money existed for only one purpose: to buy pretty things for his girls.
Goddess, but he missed Atesen.
“My lord? Why are you working in the dark?”
He straightened and rose as Princess Naydra entered the chamber. “Oh, I’m only sitting around feeling sorry for myself,” he told her with a smile. He reached for the tinderbox on the desk.
Naydra gestured. Every candle in the room lit, one after the other, from wall sconces to the branch on the desk.
Ostvel laughed. “Been practicing, have you, my lady?”
“It’s easier than it was,” she admitted. She sat in a chair near the hearth, where a fire was kept going all day for warmth. Budding trees and hesitant flowers had hinted recently at spring, but the wind was still cold.
Ostvel joined her after placing another log on the fire. “How is Palila?”
He had asked the same question the last thirty evenings. Naydra’s reply was always the same: a sad shake of her head.
“She does what she’s told—sleeps, eats, bathes, dresses— but she says nothing. Oh—she did react a little this afternoon when Polev showed her his drawing of a dragon. But it was only for an instant.”
“It’ll take time.” He said that every evening, too. “By the way, I got another request for an audience from one of Kalian’s daughters today—I can never tell them apart, can you? I put her off. I wanted to ask if you know what her problem is before I receive her. The last time, whichever it was of them wasted half a morning with complaints.”
The princess looked annoyed. “I’ve told them not to bother you! It’s probably just more of the same. You have more important things to do than listen to them moan.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with them. They’re leading the same lives they always led. And they don’t have to contend with Chiana. For that alone they ought to be singing my praises.”
“I suppose it has something to do with the illegality of your authority here,” Naydra mused. “Perhaps they think they ought to be running things.”
“If they want to, they’re welcome.” Suddenly he grinned.
“All those three know about food supplies is that when they want food, it’s supplied!”
“They’d starve before they’d peel an apple with their own dainty haads.” Naydra leaned forward to warm her hands at the fire. “My lord, I, too, had a request for an audience today.”
“Who from?”
Not looking at him, she replied, “They didn’t ask for me. They asked for the Diarmadh’reia.”
Ostvel sucked in a breath. “Did they, now? What did you tell them?”
“I had the page say that I would consult you.”
“Where are these people? How many came? Where from?”
Naydra got to her feet. “With your permission, we can find that out together. They refused to leave, it seems, and have been waiting since late afternoon.”
“Then let’s see what they want.”
She arched a graying brow. “Please don’t take this amiss, my lord, but—you’ve been working a long day.”
“Well, I’m tired, but this has woken me up quite nicely, and—oh.” He saw her gaze indicate his wrinkled shirt and scuffed boots. “Give me a little while, then, to make myself presentable. Where should we receive them? You’re a princess, you know about such things.”
“The Green Harvest Room would do. It’s large, but not oppressive.”
As opposed to what? he thought as he went up a flight of stairs to his chamber. The huge hanging lamp that gave the Green Harvest Room its name was a monument to Chiana’s always intriguing taste: hundreds of silver tendrils flared wildly around pendant green crystal globs evidently intended to look like grapes. The thing was bigger than a canopied bed. When fully lit, it hurt his eyes. Still, he supposed Naydra was right. The grand audience chamber was even worse, with its square measure of garish carpet—he swore the Giladans commissioned to weave it must have been color-blind or heavily bribed—and walls painted with an improbable stag-hunting scene, featuring Chiana in properly sylvan garb.
Ahead of him he saw Polev kicking his way sullenly up the staircase, and paused to call to the child. “Come help me get dressed. I have to look important to greet some visitors, and I don’t have a squire to advise me.”
He made a game of it—deliberately choosing a red shirt, purple tunic, and green wool trousers—to see Polev’s face wrinkle up in consternation. He tried to spend some time with the boy each day, at first for Rialt’s and Mevita’s sake but soon for Polev’s own. He was a funny little thing, quickwitted and affectionate, though initially shy of the great Lord of Castle Crag. As Polev’s half sister Mistrin had been with Ostvel and Alasen for three years, Ostvel had claimed a foster-kinship that pleased the child. He understood that his parents had gone away and would not be coming back, but Ostvel wondered sometimes if he really believed it. At not quite five years old, who could say whether or not a child comprehended death?
“How about the orange shirt, then?” he asked, and Polev made another face. “Goodness, but you’re a picky squire! I’ll leave it all to you while I go have a wash, or we’ll be here all night before you think I’m pretty enough to receive guests.”
“Who’s coming?” Polev asked as he rummaged through Kalian’s clothes. Ostvel didn’t much like wearing a dead man’s garments—they didn’t fit very well, for one thing, and were too luxurious for his tastes—but his riding leathers were too plain. “Is it Prince Tilal? Or somebody from the Vellant’im?”
“No, Prince Tilal is in the south,” Ostvel said from the bathroom, “and the Vellant’im are a thousand measures away. I don’t exactly know who it is.”
“Can I come, too?”
“I think you’d be very bored.”
“I’m already bored!”
Ostvel scrubbed himself dry with a towel, pausing to sigh softly at the gray hairs that now vastly outnumbered the brown on his chest. Sixty-four winters. Goddess, what an age.
“Is this all right?” Polev appeared in the doorway, holding a blue shirt in one hand and a violet tunic in the other.
“Fine.” He smiled at the boy in the mirror. “Did you know those are Castle Crag’s colors?”
Polev nodded. “My sister made a cloak for my wooden knight with blue inside and purple outside. Can I go to Castle Crag and see Mistrin? Please?”
“Not just yet.”
“Why not? That’s where everybody else is going.”
“Are they?” Ostvel asked idly, rubbing his chin and deciding the morning’s shave would do.
“Palila told me.”
His fingers froze in mid-rub. Finding the boy in the mirror again, he asked as casually as he could, “Is that what she said?”
“She doesn’t talk to anybody else. They watch her. If anybody watched me like that, I wouldn’t talk either.”
He reminded himself to discuss this with Naydra, and said, “It does seem rather rude. What else did she tell you?”
“She heard her mother and Rinhoel fighting about where to go. He said Dragon’s Rest and she said Castle Crag. But Prince Pol would kick them out of Dragon’s Rest and your soldiers wouldn’t let them into Castle Crag, right?”
“Right.”
“I don’t like Chiana,” Polev stated. “She wasn’t nice to Mama. And she was glad when Prince Pol’s father died. She didn’t smile or anything, but I could tell. I don’t like Rinhoel, either.”
“There is very little about them to like,” Ostvel agreed. “Well, let’s get me properly dressed, squire, and then you’re off to bed. No, no arguments, now. If you’re good and go to sleep when you’re supposed to, then tomorrow I’ll take you into town with me to the shops.”
Polev eyed him. “I’d rather ride my pony.”
“Riding it is, then.”
It was considered bad form to bribe children, but Ostvel had always found it highly effective—depending, of course, on the bribe.
A short while later, Ostvel was seated in a large chair, Naydra at his side, waiting for the delegation to be announced. Every third candle in the great hanging monstrosity was lit, dripping white light spangled with green down onto the grapevine pattern of another enormous carpet. I Ostvel agreed with Alasen: every rug at Swalekeep should ‘ be picked apart and the wool returned to its original owners, except that no self-respecting sheep would wear such awful colors.
But as their guests arrived and accorded him bows almost ‘ as deep as the ones they gave Lallanie’s eldest daughter, he forgot about his surroundings.
Of the nine, four were men and five were women. They ranged in age from about twenty to over seventy, and in coloring from fairest blond to darkest Fironese. Their clothes were plain brown and blue and tan wool, but all wore some sort of pendant jewel dangling from the right earlobe— everything from emerald to moonstone, each different. A few seemed to be related, and the young woman who spoke in response to Ostvel’s nod might have bee» his first wife’s sister.
“Our duty to the Diarmadh’reia,” she said in a voice with crisp edges and oddly liquid vowels. “And to the Chosen of my kinswoman, Camigwen.”
“Kin—“ He broke off and cleared his throat. “Welcome. On behalf of the High Prince, and the Princess Naydra, and in memory of my late wife, welcome.”
“I share more than the look of her,” came the reply, with an acknowledging smile for his startlement. The nose was a little too long, and the mouth a little too wide, and Cami’s sharp intelligence was in this woman a brittle wariness, but the resemblance was still enough to shake his heart. “I share a part of her Naming. Mine is Camigina. I have the honor to speak for my people. May I proceed?”
“Please. And please sit down,” Naydra invited with a graceful gesture. “May we offer you some refreshment? Hot taze, perhaps?”
“Thank you, we have no thirst.”
Ostvel knew by the phrasing that the common language was not the first one she had learned. He wondered where she grew up that was so isolated that people still used the old tongue for everyday matters.
The nine arranged a half-circle of chairs, Camigina in the middle. She settled the folds of her dark blue skirt to hide mud-stained boots and folded her hands in her lap. Heavy lashes drooped over black eyes as she began to speak—no, to chant.
“These are the generations by which I claim kinship. Camigwen was the daughter of Camlen who was my grandmother’s sister, both daughters of Rossan, son of Rosmeril, daughter of Rezev, son of Haldric, son of Merisen, daughter of Merith, daughter of Aleron, son of Ruala, daughter of Rosmeril, daughter of Rualyn, son of Lord Rosseyn.”
After the sixth name Ostvel was lost—until he heard the name “Ruala.” The name of Riyan’s wife, whom they knew to be diarmadhi. He was barely over that shock when the final name was pronounced, in a tone of sorrow different from the regular cadence of the others. Lord Rosseyn, who had been friend to Lord Gerik and Lady Merisel?
Lord Rosseyn, a sorcerer?
Riyan’s—and possibly Ruala’s—ancestor?
Camigina wasn’t finished. Eyes still closed, she chanted, “And these are the generations of the Diarmadh’reia. Lallante, daughter of—“
“No,” Naydra interrupted. “Thank you, but you must understand something at the outset. I am honored by your regard for me, but it is not a title I wish. Nor do I desire to hear my—generations.”
Camigina opened her eyes. “As you wish, your grace. But the fact remains that you are the last of your line. Your sister lanthe’s sons are dead. Your sisters Pandsala and Lenala died childless. Please believe that we mourned with you the death of your own son many years ago. He was precious to us, as you are. For as the last, you are the Diarmadh’reia, and we are yours to command for the good of all our people.”
It hovered in Ostvel’s mind that if anyone could claim that title’s masculine version, it was Pol. Son of lanthe, grandson of Lallante, descendant of—of whom? Rosseyn again?
This was water deeper than he wanted to dip a toe in—let alone go swimming.
“May I ask why you are here?” he interposed.
“There have always been those of the diarmadh’im who scheme for the return of power squandered and lost those generations ago. They were the ones who used her grace’s line, or tried to. Mireva, of bitter memory, who was regrettably your grace’s own kinswoman, escaped our watchfulness until it was too late. We give thanks to your Goddess, to the Father of Wind and Rain, and to the Nameless One that Prince Pol was strong enough to defeat them. And,” she added with a nod to Ostvel, “that your own son, whom I am proud to name kinsman, had a hand in their defeat.”
“Then—you oppose this faction,” Naydra murmured.
“Branig spoke to you of us, your grace?” Camigina asked.
“Very little. Enough to make me curious.”
“Enough to gain our entrance to your presence tonight,” she interpreted with another of those smiles that wrung
Ostvel’s heart. “Branig was the brother of Perchaya.” She indicated a fair-haired girl three chairs down from her.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Naydra said. “Your brother was a brave and noble young man.”
Perchaya whispered her thanks, staring down at her hands.
“We keep watch,” Camigina went on. “We have not enough eyes to see in all places at all times, but certain people require observing. Chiana was one. There are others it would not be safe to name to you now. Forgive me for this silence, but we have known nothing but wariness and fear for so many generations that even now, in the presence of the Diarmadh’reia and Camigwen’s Chosen, we must be cautious.”
“I would say,” Ostvel remarked, “that you’ve done everyone great service over those generations. The High Prince will want to thank you for it. You know, I’m sure, that he is opposed to persecution of diarmadh’im, despite the events of nine years ago.”
“We know this, and are grateful. But still we are cautious. You do not know the risk.” Camigina brooded for a moment, then glanced to either side. The other eight nodded as if giving permission. “After Lady Merisel’s time, when we still fought because we had always fought, even though against Sunrunners we must always lose the fight, we contended against each other. It has endured that long, yes, the differences between Mireva’s people and ours. Differences that led to many deaths. You outside the circle of burning stones never knew. Our battles were not as yours, with sword and knife. Our battles were of the mind. The gifts. Perhaps even the soul—or, no, for the soul of what we once were. Still, we kept each other in check, until Mireva. That was a mistake. The marriage of Lallante to Roelstra was their mistake— saving your presence, your grace,” she added to Naydra.
“But why now?” Ostvel asked. “Why are you here?”
“Because the Princess Alasen on her recent travel said Diarmadh’reia” Another smile, wry this time. “Your wife is a subtle woman, your grace.”
He noted the error in his title but pushed it aside as unimportant. “So you’ve come to offer ... ?”
“What help is needful.” She bit her lip and a yearning look came into her tip-tilted eyes.
“How may we help you?” Naydra asked, reacting to it.
“It is not for us to ask anything of the Diarmadh’reia.”
“Then ask it of me,” Ostvel said. “I speak for the High Prince.” Who’s in a much better position to grant favors, seeing as how if you knew about him, you’d call him the Diarmadh’rei. Goddess, Sioned is going to have a fit.
Camigina shook her head. “Not of you, your grace. For it is you who hold what once we built.”
It was the second time she’d mistaken his status, and the second time he ignored it. “Castle Crag,” he murmured. “You want Castle Crag.”
“Not for ourselves,” one of the men protested in the slurring accents of the mid-Veresch. “We wish only to see it again, to walk there freely. You don’t understand. It is Mireva’s line who want it for their own again. That’s why there was Lallante. They desire to walk there as princes. They will try to take it however they can.”
Ostvel looked at Naydra. “Sound familiar?”
She clenched her fingers in her gown. “Chiana may be on her way there now.”
“We saw no sign of it,” Camigina assured him. “But if it is possible—indeed, even if it seems impossible—she will try to take it. She will be their tool again, as she was before. And she will no more know it this time than she did the last. She will take it unless she is taken first.”
He’d come into this room half-inclined to give orders for a march on his own castle. Now he was positive of it. Right up the Faolain—she won’t leave Rezeld until she’s sure no help will arrive—but if Camigina’s right, help will arrive, and damned soon. I can cut her off, make sure she doesn ‘t get within a hundred measures—but against an army of sorcerers? Because that’s what she’ll have, even though she won’t know it.
He got to his feet. “My lady, you have told me exactly what I needed to know. My troops and I will set out by tomorrow noon.” He spared an internal wince for what long days in the saddle would do to his aging bones.
Camigina rose as well, and the other eight with her. “We will be ready.”
Ostvel blinked. “You—?”
“Shall we allow you to encounter them unprotected?” ,
“I’m going, too,” Naydra said. I
“Princess—“ Ostvel began. ‘
“It is settled,” Camigina announced, reminding him even more forcibly of his first wife. “More will join us along the way, once we send out word on the stars. You will have enough and more than enough to counter them, your grace.”
If there was a flaw in his character, he reflected wryly, it was that he rarely—if ever—said no to the women around him. He smiled at Camigina. “I thank you for the dignity, but I’m nothing grander than a ‘my lord.’ “
Perchaya glanced up in surprise. Then she smiled shyly at him. “Didn’t you know? You will rule many long years as a prince before you die.”
“Oh, no,” he said firmly. “Not a chance.”
Camigina gave a low chuckle. “Heed her, your grace. She is that rarest of all of us, diarmadhi or faradhi. She is urkazria—in your speech, a lady with long sight.”
“I don’t doubt her gifts,” he replied politely. “But I’m not going to be a prince. Pol wouldn’t dare.”
Perchaya only shrugged and smiled.
A tent had been brought from Radzyn for Meiglan’s comfort, a pretty little folly of white silk that Chay and Tobin used when they wanted to spend a few nights away from home. Ten paces across, with a bed, washing stand, two chairs, and a beautiful standing brass lamp arranged on a Cunaxan rug that formed the floor, it was a haven of privacy only at night. By day, the sounds of the camp intruded and she could always see the shadows cast by the guards marching round and round the tent.
They had also brought clothing—Tobin’s, for they were much of a size. A gown or two, shirts, trousers, boots, night-wear; the High Warlord seemed intent on making her feel herself his guest instead of his captive. For two days now he had come by morning and evening to inquire after her comfort as sincerely as she would have done had he been given rooms at Dragon’s Rest.
She said nothing. She could not put out of her mind—and must not, lest she become unwary—the sight of his dagger in Valeria’s breast and the feel of Valeda’s blood on her own hands.
There was nothing to do. Nothing to be done. She spent the days curled on the bed or in one of the chairs with Valeda’s cloak wrapped around her, gaze numbly tracing the brilliant red flowers on the carpet. She was caught in a par- alyzed balance among terrors: for Rislyn, for Pol, for herself. She could do nothing about any of it. Vaguely, she wondered why anger sparked in her at this helplessness. Surely her years with her father should have accustomed her to the feeling.
But between then and now had come her marriage, and being a princess, and the examples of Sioned and Tobin and Sionell and all the rest. She was not a child anymore. She was the High Princess. Had she not ordered executions and seen them carried out? Did she not have power?
She had none. Not here. Only the name he called her kept her safe. Kir’reia. It wasn’t even her true title, it sounded harsh and alien to her ears. She was the High Princess. But not here.
They had just taken away her evening meal—thin slices of fresh venison in a sauce too spicy for her tongue—when the High Warlord’s voice asked permission to enter. She said nothing. He parted the tent flap and for once he did not look concerned for her well-being.
“Outside, Kir’reia”
Meiglan pushed herself up from her chair, knees trembling. Was he going to kill her now? If so, she told herself, straightening her spine and lifting her head, she would die as the High Princess.
He held the white silk aside for her. She stepped from the tent into the cool night air, where the cookfires could not compete with the brilliance of the Desert stars. Nor could the sharp odors of food overwhelm the smell of blood.
“My lady...” Thanys whispered. She lay on sand soaked dark with her blood.
Meiglan fell to her knees. “No—oh, Goddess, no!”
Thanys’ lips moved, and Meiglan leaned down to hear. “Rislyn ... safe. Skybowl.” She coughed, a sickening gurgle deep in her throat. “I s-saw...”
“Saw?”
The woman’s fading eyes sought the stars. Meiglan understood. Diarmadhi.
“Thanys? No, you mustn’t—please, not you, too!”
The head cradled in her hands lolled, and the eyes swallowed all light into darkness. Meiglan watched the only kind memories of her childhood die.
“Butcher!” she screamed. “Murdering son of a whore!” Utterly beside herself, she lunged for him. He caught her i easily by the waist, but she twisted and shrieked her rage, shredding her nails on his clean-shaven cheeks, pounding her fists into his face.
“Forgive me,” he murmured, and slapped her.
Stunned but still conscious, she felt him lift her and carry her back into the tent. He placed her on the bed, covered her with Valeda’s cloak, and stood over her for a moment.
“Azhreia,” he murmured, smiling a little as he touched his scored cheek.
If she’d had any strength left, if the world had not spun around her in shades of white and red, she would have torn his eyes out.
He lit the lamp and left her then, leaving behind him the sound of a soft chuckle. Unable to move, she lay there and wept silently until her eyes were burning and no more tears would come.
It was a very long time before she could roll onto her side and sit up. Her fingers were damp and sticky. Blood. Oh, Goddess, when would there be no more blood? She tottered to her feet and went to the washing stand, immersing her hands in the tepid basin. Delicate red swirls imitated the most beautiful of Desert sunsets. She shut her eyes.
Valeda’s cloak, thrown around her own shoulders during the shape-changing, was en the rug. She picked it up, wrapped it around her once more, and wedged herself into a chair. Valeda was dead, and Thanys, and soon she would be, too. They were all going to die.
No. Not Rislyn. Thanys had said she was safe at Skybowl. The terrible constriction around Meiglan’s heart eased a little. Her daughter would be all right. Lady Feylin was at Skybowl, and Lady Feylin was so clever. Rislyn would be all right.
Until the High Warlord attacked Skybowl, and everyone died.
He had talked about the castle yesterday. She had said nothing. Now, suddenly, the word filled her mind. Skybowl. Pol had said—and Valeda had said—it must be Skybowl. That was where the battle must be fought, the battle that ended this horror once and for all. Skybowl.
But why? Of all the places on the continent, why that particular one?
Meiglan pulled the cloak tighter, dragging the hem up from the floor to tuck around her feet. She was alone, she had no one to help her, no one would come—Goddess, please, no one else must come here and die!—so she must think all of it through for herself. She had learned from the best. She had watched and listened and Sioned had even approved of her forays into politics and the great chess game princes played with each other.
It was nothing compared to this. But she was the High Princess now. She had better begin acting like it.
Skybowl. Dragons. Pol. Herself. Somehow they all fit together, by way of the High Warlord’s thinking.
She must learn why. Only he knew. None of the other Vellant’im could speak to her in her own language. He was her only source. She must learn why from him. She must—
Her fingers flinched away from an unexpected lump in the heavy cloak. Returning to it, she lifted the material closer to her face and by the soft glow of the standing lamp inspected it.
Vertical stitches were sewn at intervals intersecting the long horizontal one that hemmed the cloak. She explored the little pockets with her fingers. In each, stitched closed, separate so they wouldn’t rattle against each other, was a coin. She counted six, distributed all the way around, judging by their size that they were of generous denomination. There were six empty pockets as well; Valeda had used those coins to buy food or lodging on her journey.
Carefully, Meiglan picked at the stitches and took out all the coins. They were bright and chill in her palm, all gold. She had enough money here to buy—
To buy what? Her freedom?
Initially excited, Meiglan despaired once more. What could she possibly do with a few gold coins?
She put them in a pocket of her trousers, then thought better of it and slipped them into her bodice. They warmed with the warmth of her breasts. Secret still, hidden away—useless but oddly comforting, for they were the coins minted by Ro-han with Desert gold, with Dragon’s Rest pictured on one side and Stronghold on the other.
She picked up the cloak again, staring at the hem. Valeda had been clever in her hiding place.
Meiglan could be, too.
But instead of coins—
What?
Parchment. No, it would crackle. If it was found, they would kill her.
They were going to kill her anyway.
But if she succeeded, if she could send word to warn Pol once she found out from the High Warlord his reasons for Skybowl, and hide the letter in a cloak’s lining, and—
No, it was hopeless. She would need a reason to ask for parchment and ink, fabric and needle and thread. She could say that she needed something to keep her hands busy, like the dutiful wives the Vellant’im evidently admired; that might do for the sewing. But writing materials? Never.
Even if by some insane chance she did get her hands on all her needs, how would she get the finished cloak to Pol? And if it reached him, how could she expect him to know that there was something to look for?
As surely as Pol had been meant to be a prince, Meiglan had been meant from birth to be a pawn. She could not change that. Strength and brains and cunning belonged to the other pieces on the board. She supposed she was fortunate to have survived as long as she had. The Sunrunner Valeda had been clever with her coins, and died. Thanys had been diarmadhi, and died. Princes and warriors and even a dragon had died in this endless game of war.
Meiglan was a pawn, and pawns were always sacrificed. Somehow, she had simply been overlooked. Until now.
Pol was on his way across the courtyard to the stables, intending to ride down to the garrison and do—well, something. It was part of his job as High Prince to show himself, even if he was of no other particular use. His father had taught these people too well. Never do yourself what others can do better and faster for you. They attacked their tasks with fervor so that he didn’t have to. Goddess, what he would have given for just one knot to untie himself.
A knot that could be untied, he amended. There were plenty of the other kind available, and he could feel every one of them tightening around his throat.
Killing was so easy. Quick, clean, relatively little risk to a capable fighter—especially one whom his fellow warriors were determined to preserve at the cost of their own lives. What makes me so damned important? Pol asked himself, knowing the question for the absurdity it was. He wasn’t important at all. It was the High Prince who mattered. The Azhrei.
To Hells with all of it. A fast gallop into the Desert would clear his head. It had been his father’s happy capacity to turn problems over to those most able to solve them, and otherwise occupy himself until the time came for decisions. Pol needed physical action, physical escape.
“Don’t you dare speak to me that way!” came a shrill voice from just beyond the garden wall. “I’m a princess!”
Pol winced. He’d gone through the same stage at around age eleven or so, an exalted sense of his royal dignity turning him into an unbearable brat. Sionell had never allowed him to get away with it, he remembered with a faintly pained smile. Oh, Sionell ... why was I so blind?
But Jihan was different. This was not the foolish arrogance of a spoiled child; it was a terrified grasp for something familiar, something of substance to replace all that she had lost. Everything she knew was gone: her mother, her sister, her adored grandsir, her home, her safe and settled life. Her father had no time for her. No one did—except when they taught her about being a Sunrunner, and even then the lessons were not up to her expectations. Everyone had changed. Strained faces and sharp voices surrounded her, and she was at the mercy of whatever the adults decided to do with her. Take her from Dragon’s Rest, from Stronghold, from Skybowl, from Feruche—she must go and do whatever they told her. And to a proud, intelligent, willful child, this was intolerable. Scant wonder she seized on her royal status as the only thing that still made her special, that hadn’t changed.
Sighing, he abandoned his planned ride and started for the garden gate. The standard remedy would not work on Jihan. She didn’t really deserve it, anyway. She wasn’t being a brat simply because she could; she was hurt, scared, and alone.
His hand was on the latch when another voice, cool and even, stopped him. “Are you quite finished, Jihan?”
Andry? Pol stiffened.
“I’m a princess! Princess Jihan! You’re supposed to call me ‘your grace’.”
Knowing now whom she addressed, Pol was more tolerant of the manner of it. Still, the words reminded him uncomfortably of stories he’d heard about Chiana before she’d married poor stupid Halian—insisting on “your grace” even though Roelstra’s other bastard daughters were styled “my lady.” He’d worried that he was becoming like his grandsire. Was heredity really stronger than upbringing?
“I know you’re a princess,” replied Andry. “I’m Lord of Goddess Keep. So what?”
“What do you mean, ‘so what’?” she demanded.
“I mean that either or both of us could’ve been born in a hut in the high Veresch, and nobody but our families would ever have known our names, and what’s more, nobody would’ve cared. But you know what else?”
“What?” Jihan asked suspiciously.
“I’m very glad I was born to my parents. And I’m even glad your parents had you.” There was a grin in Andry’s voice now. “Otherwise who would I have to argue with over what a Sunrunner your age should know?”
Jihan started to laugh.
Pol stood on the other side of the wall, dumbfounded.
“All the really interesting people won’t fight with me,” Andry went on, sounding aggrieved. “Your grandmother, your father, my brother Maarken, my parents—and I could scarcely have a good fight with Meig, now could I?”
“He’s a pain,” Jihan agreed, “But, you know, you’re not so bad after all. I just don’t see why I can’t learn—“
“Do I tell you how to be a princess?”
“No—but you tell me how to be a Sunrunner. How not to be a Sunrunner,” she grumbled.
“Because I know how and you don’t. Not yet. You’re the one who wanted lessons, if I recall correctly.”
She paused only a moment before coaxing, “If you asked, I’d give you lessons on how to be a prince.”
“Thank you, no!” Andry laughed.
“Why not? Granda Sioned says you’ve already made yourself Prince of Goddess Keep, and Papa says—“
Pol opened the gate very quickly before Jihan could quote him. What had the child overheard? He was positive he didn’t want to find out. Pasting a smile on his face as he pretended surprise at catching sight of them, he sauntered over.
“Good afternoon, my lady, my Lord,” he said pleasantly, noting at once that Andry wasn’t fooled at all. “Isn’t it time for you to clean your room, Jihan?” Leaning down, he said as if he didn’t want Andry to hear, “That’s a roundabout way of telling you I want to talk to Lord Andry alone.”
She gave him a disgusted grimace. “Why didn’t you just say it, then?”
“Your father is giving you lessons in being a prince,” Andry said smoothly.
“That’s right,” Pol affirmed. “Now, if I wanted to be highhanded about it—instead of just clumsy—I’d order you upstairs and you’d complain and then I’d have to be nasty. This way, I’ve told you I want you to leave while at the same time giving you an excuse.”
“What if I don’t want to leave?” she challenged.
“Then I order you anyway,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s a tough job, being a prince.”
“But you don’t have to be nasty about it,” Jihan scolded.
“I quite agree. Therefore—I hope you remembered to tidy your room this morning, Jihan.” He grinned down at her.
She made a face, then said, “I did, but I’ll leave anyway. There! Are you happy now?”
“Completely.” He caught her up in his arms and gave her a kiss.
“Papa? Can I ask him something?”
“Let’s find out.” He turned to Andry. “My Lord, may she ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you have on somebody else’s face that day?”
Andry’s brows vanished into his hair. “I beg your pardon?”
“It didn’t fit.”
He cleared his throat, and Pol toyed .with the idea of sending his daughter to Goddess Keep for training, just for the sheer amusement of watching Andry try to keep up with her.
“Umm ... I suppose it didn’t. What did you see?”
“Your colors were all fuzzy, like they were trying to hide and couldn’t.”
Pol bit his lip at the expression on Andry’s face, then had pity on him. “She can see them if she tries. She’d just been telling Alasen about hers, so I’m told, when you happened by.”
“Oh.” Helplessly. Then, making a quick recovery, Andry said, “So you were already trying to see colors?”
Jihan nodded. Her forehead wrinkled a bit and her lips pursed, and then she said, “You’re very bright in the sunshine. All red and purple and gold.” i
“Stop showing off,” Pol chided, and hugged her before setting her down. “Go along with you now.”
Giving them a pert bend of the knees, she scampered to the gates and vanished. Andry blew out a long breath.
“How old did you say she was?”
Pol laughed. “I know what you mean. Does she give you much trouble at lessons?”
“Less than I expected, actually. It’s only the impatience. By the way, how does she do that? Did you teach her?”
“No. She just does it. Like calling Fire. Goddess help us when she learns the rest of it.”
“Mmm.” Andry gestured to the path away from the wall, and they began walking. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I rather thought you might have things you wanted to say to me,” Pol answered quietly.
“Oh. About being Prince of Goddess Keep, you mean.” He shrugged. “I know what Sioned thinks of me. She’s wrong, but I’ll never convince her with words.”
“Your actions haven’t been all that comforting. What happened with that Waesian merchant—“
“—was not my doing,” Andry interrupted. “Although I approve of Torien’s decision, never think I don’t. I knew the moment I met Jayachin she’d be dangerous.”
“Then why make her your athri?”
“Because of the very qualities that made her dangerous, of course. She was proud, ambitious, and clever. I don’t know any better recommendations for being a leader, and that’s what I needed at the time.”
Pol listened to the fine gravel crunch beneath his boots for a few moments, then said, “She stood between you and the people outside Goddess Keep the way you stand between common folk and the Goddess. An uncomfortable height, Andry. I’m surprised you don’t get nosebleeds.”
The Lord of Goddess Keep said nothing.
“If I understand you, then the idea is that only Sunrunners have the attention of the Goddess. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar.”
“Anyone who claims otherwise sins against the Goddess,” Andry said flatly.
“By questioning your exclusive right to the truth?”
Andry paused at the entrance to the maze. “Some years ago your mother sent me a young girl who turned out to have extraordinary gifts. She knew things days in advance of their occurrence. She was never wrong.” His fingers circled a wayward branch, drew it through like a veil through a ring. “But it was an odd sort of sight. Things that seemed trivial on first consideration—a birth, a riding accident, a vision of herself at her old home in Syr—but which turned out to have important implications. For instance, she saw Meig’s birth before it happened. I don’t know why. But mark it, he’ll have something important to do someday. It’ll be interesting to see what.”
He glanced up, saw Pol’s impatience, and let the branch go. “Back in Autumn she saw herself at her parents’ home. Word came that her brother was ill. She left, and on the journey heard about my mother. I thought that was why she’d had the seeing. I was wrong. What she saw was her last moment of life, I think, before the Vellant’im killed her. It was a warning that what I’d seen in dreams was about to happen. We just didn’t know how to heed it.”
“She had visions, and you had dreams,” Pol said. “What’s the point? That no one but Sunrunners can do so?”
“Have you ever heard of anyone else who could?” He gestured to the maze. “Do you know of anyone else who can thread sunlight to find their way to the Goddess? We’re special, Pol. You can’t deny it. We do stand between ordinary people and the Goddess. She put us there. Anyone who tries to usurp that place, especially with what we know to be lies, sins against the Goddess herself.”
Pol gaped at him. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
“I believe that what you’re doing is wrong! Can’t you see that? Once you put yourself above others, soon they’ll be praying to you, not the Goddess! Or is that what you want?”
“And your way is better?” Andry snapped. “You and Rohan—with Sioned’s able help, I might add—taking power that once belonged to the other princes and athr’im and gathering it into your own hands as High Prince? Soon they’ll be obeying you and no one else. And that, cousin, is what you want!”
“It’s not the same!” Pol cried. “How can you accuse my father of doing anything but for the good of all the princedoms? The laws that were different from one place to another, the mess trade was in, the petty wars—he never used his power for his own gain!”
“He didn’t, no.”
Andry let the implication hang there, dark as a blood-drenched knife.
Pol shook his head violently. Everyone thought that only their combined strengths could defeat the Vellant’im. But how could he join hands with a man who would make himself little less than a god?
Then he remembered something. Something to use against Andry.
“Do you remember Mireva?” he asked softly. “Do you remember that she told us we’d work together the day dragons sailed the sea like ships?”
Andry snorted. “Are you claiming the gift of sight for the diarmadh’im?”
“Sight, dreams, prophecy—call it whatever you like. Believe it or don’t, as you like. But mark this, cousin. You will work with me, fight beside me and not against me, and do as I tell you to do with your gifts at my command—or by the Goddess as she truly is—“
Breath hissed between Andry’s teeth. “You risk much, High Prince.”
“You risk more. Do you think you could oppose rne and win?”
“I don’t have to win. All I have to do is survive. It’s not me they’re after. It’s you.” Contempt curled his lips into a thin smile.
“Tempt me, Andry,” Pol murmured. “Right here, right now.”
The sunlight began to thicken with power—deep, bright, fatal.
Before it could coalesce and possibly—probably—destroy them both, it was shattered by a voice beloved by each, the one voice they would obey.
“Pol!” shouted Maarken. “Pol, come quickly! It’s Jihan!”