The next morning—only two more until the cloak must be finished—Meiglan decided the Father of Winds might be a sympathetic character after all. A brisk breeze blew sand in all directions, giving her an excuse to stay inside. Last night had shown her how precarious was her hold on composure; she didn’t want to risk seeing anyone, least of all the High Warlord. She never thought that Pol might be using the sunlight, frantic to see her.
About midmorning, a Vellanti entered without asking permission. White-clad against the white walls of the tent, his hair and beard and eyes were all the blacker by contrast. A stark man, all angles and anger, he extended a thin roll of parchment by his fingertips, too fastidious to touch a woman.
Meiglan accepted it, untied the broad ribbon—Radzyn red and white, with Desert blue edgings—and made a show of inspecting the quality. The ribbon already indicated that the page was from Tobin’s own desk, and she used only the finest.
“I see you remembered to stuff a few rolls in your pocket as you ran out of Radzyn,” Meiglan said. “This belongs to Princess Tobin.”
White teeth gritted behind the black beard. “Women not write. It is law.”
The sight of a mere woman wielding pen and ink would not be one of the more fulfilling moments of his life. Meiglan smiled, genuinely amused, oddly relaxed. Only the
High Warlord, it seemed, could unsettle her. The thought was both comforting and worrisome.
“No women,” he emphasized. “Only priests.”
Oh—so this was a priest. All the others in white must be, too. She wondered what it was they did besides write and steal Tobin’s bedsheets for clothing. Rerolling the page, she heard the soft, dry crackle that meant it had been improperly stored. Good parchment ought to be nearly as silent as fine silk.
Silk...
The priest deposited a pen and inkpot on the empty second chair.
“I need a knife, in case I make a mistake,” Meiglan said. When he frowned, she sighed patiently and explained as if to a child, “To scrape the ink clean.”
“No knife.”
“This is a very important letter. A precise letter. Mistakes will cause your High Warlord to be thought of as an illiterate fool.” The word was too big for him; she added irritably, “As if he has no written words!”
“No knife.”
Well, it didn’t really matter. The parchment would tear. The edge would be ragged, but she could probably nip it clean enough with her teeth.
Meiglan shrugged. “Very well. Leave me, I have to concentrate.” Another word he didn’t own. “To think. Isn’t that something you do very often, priest?”
The priest took a pace nearer, caught himself, and hissed, “On the day, I will silence your tongue myself!” He turned on his heel, and strode away.
No question about it, twitching these people was exciting—but it left her shaking at her own temerity. By rights she ought to be cowering in terror. These people had killed thousands; she had watched Valeda and Thanys die with her own eyes; they were planning to kill her and Pol and everyone else they could lay hands on.
But that was the kernel of it: she didn’t believe in their power. She believed in Pol’s. She had no delusions of immortality. She knew she could die. She simply didn’t believe that she would.
When her hands no longer shook, she knelt on the rug before the second chair, using it as a desk. Smoothing the parchment out onto the seat, she nodded at its size—quite adequate for her purposes. She turned a third of it back, then changed her mind and made the fold smaller. After all, he thought she was terribly clever.
She took a long time about tearing it, until she realized she could say that she had spoiled the first part and, lacking a knife, had to get rid of it in the only way available. But she would only say that if he asked. Tucking the piece away in the folds of the cloak, she uncapped the inkpot, dipped the pen, and began to write.
Two mornings later, the parchment would be flung by a Vellanti warrior at a Dorvali on scouting patrol near Radzyn. By noon it would reach Tilal, where he lay fuming and helpless in bed. His blank bewilderment at the letter’s colossal arrogance soon gave way to fury that a High Princess should be forced to write such things. Then he inspected the words themselves—wavery, badly spelled, nothing at all like the beautifully written missives that sometimes came to Gemma at Athmyr. Poor Meiglan—she must be half out of her mind with terror, sick with the humiliation of writing this incredible document. He debated about telling Pol, finally deciding it would be kinder not to. So Pol never knew about the letter at all.
“I still don’t understand why they don’t know about Pol,” Riyan said to his wife across their double desk. “I mean, shouldn’t they?”
Ruala gave a shrug. “They know all the bloodlines, it seems. But how could they know about lanthe?”
“Hmm. You’d think they’d be able to sense what Pol is, though, and be mad with curiosity over how it’s possible.”
She set aside the kitchen inventory and sighed. “I can’t think about any of this. All I can think about is that mirror. Lord Rosseyn! All those years it hung in the entry at Skybowl, and we never knew anything!”
“And all the years before that, when it belonged to my mother’s family and they never knew what they had.” He paused and grimaced. “Or maybe they did at one time, and sort of forgot to mention it after a while.”
“But you’d think someone of sorcerer’s blood would have called Fire around it, and seen him.”
He spread his arms wide, let them fall to his thighs with twin slaps. “You would’ve thought someone would bump into a dragon on sunlight long before this, too. But nobody did. Speaking of which, what are we going to do with the dragons when it comes time for the battle at Skybowl?”
“Do with them?” Ruala chuckled low in her throat. “What makes you think any of us could persuade any of them to do anything?”
“I meant we’ll have to get them out of the way. Once the fighting starts, they might all do what Azhdeen did and the Vellant’im would kill every one of them.”
“Fine,” she agreed readily. “You go right ahead and tell that big brute Sadalian to fly away somewhere. Let me know how it turns out.”
“He’s not a ‘brute,’ “ Riyan protested.
“He’s absolutely huge and every time you talk with him your head aches for a whole day.”
“Your Azhly isn’t exactly pocket-sized. And I’ve seen you wince often enough after a chat with him.” Rising, he went to the window and watched the wind swirl sand around the outer walls—a southerly wind that couldn’t find its way into the keep to strip new buds off the trees. He hadn’t even noticed that all the dead leaves were long gone and shoots were poking through the garden beds. “It’s almost Spring,” he mused. “Last year at this time—“
“Don’t,” Ruala said softly.
He nodded. “It’s just that it sneaked up on me. Feels like all this has been going on forever.”
“Yes. But it won’t. We’ll be free of them and able to live in peace.”
“But nothing will ever be the same.” Someone entered the gardens down below; he reminded himself to have the gate hinges oiled. A dark, lanky young man Riyan barely recognized as Isriam of Einar wandered the paths so sightlessly that several times he nearly collided with a bush or tree. Ruala joined Riyan, seeing his interest, and leaned against his shoulder.
“Pol must’ve told him,” she said. “I hope he was kind about it.”
“Who better to tell Isriam that he isn’t who he always thought he was?”
“Personally, I’d be glad to find out I wasn’t Sabriam’s son. I never did like that man.”
“Neither, it seems, did Isaura.”
“It might be a good idea for Isriam to go down to Skybowl with Maarken this afternoon,” Ruala said thoughtfully.
“Give him something to do to take his mind off it? I’ll mention it.”
Word had come several days ago that Sabriam had divorced his wife and disowned his son for being no true son of his at all. The Sunrunner at Einar had been unable to say what reaction had been at Fessada; Pol had wanted to wait to tell Isriam until Prince Pirro decided whether he would accept the youth as his grandson, fathered by Camanto. But Pirro’s Sunrunner was silent, and Pol had chosen to talk with Isriam now, before anyone could let word slip.
“If he’s made a Prince of Fessenden, Arnisaya’s not going to be happy,” Riyan commented. “I’m sure she counts on her little boy’s being Pirro’s heir.”
“With herself as regent, of course. Well, I suppose it all depends on how threatened Pirro feels. Pol isn’t happy about his denying Laric passage through Fessenden. If Isriam becomes the heir, maybe Pol won’t be so quick to carve up parts of the princedom as a lesson.”
“His hands are pretty much tied about Grib and Gilad, too. Amiel’s helping Tilal, and Elsen is at Goddess Keep doing the best he can, so Pol can’t punish their fathers too harshly for being cowards.” Riyan turned from gazing down at the aimless, disconsolate figure far below. “I’m glad I won’t have to make that decision.”
“Look at it this way—he won’t have any trouble at all over Meadowlord. In fact, he’ll enjoy himself tremendously. That should make up for any frustration over Grib and Gilad and Fessenden.”
“You know, I don’t think he will enjoy it,” Riyan said, brushing back a stray lock of her night-black hair. “Taking isn’t half as much fun as giving. I just hope he doesn’t decide to give me anything. I’ve got my hands full with three keeps as it is. Although I’m not sure how much of Skybowl is going to be left when this is over.”
“Don’t worry,” Ruala soothed with a wicked little grin. “It’s his battle—we’ll make him pay for the damages!”
“I still don’t like it,” Hollis said.
Maarken repressed a sigh. They’d been through this a dozen times. Two dozen. She would never like it and they both knew it. But they both also knew it had to be done.
“I’ll be with her every step of the way,” he reminded her again. “With a troop of fifty for military protection and Meath for other kinds if I get busy, we’ll be just fine.”
“I know, I know—stop repeating yourself,” she snapped irritably. Settling his cloak on his shoulders, she went on, “And it’s only two days there, and Chayla has to go because she’s the best physician we can spare—and in order to get over her fears. Or so Sioned keeps trying to convince me. Everybody will be perfectly safe the whole time—or so you’ve been trying to convince me.” She picked up his swordbelt, but when he reached for it held it back. “I’m a little unclear on why you have to go,” she finished pointedly.
“Because she’s my daughter.”
“Besides that. There’s something else, Maarken, I know there is.” She grasped his left arm. “And it has to do with this, doesn’t it?”
“Do I have to say it?” he burst out. “Do I have to use words of one syllable to make you understand? It must be seen that I can still lead.”
“Nobody doubts it but you!”
“I’m the Battle Commander. My place is with the army.” He snatched the swordbelt from her hand. “There’s a battle coming, Hollis. They have to know before it that I’m still capable—“
“—of arming yourself with one hand? Oh, give that here before- you drop it.” She slid the belt around his waist and buckled it, then turned for the sword that lay on a table. All at once she gripped the polished wood with both hands, bright head bending, body quivering.
Maarken went to her, touched her shoulder. “Hollis ... please, my darling, you mustn’t. It’ll be all right. Just tell me you understand.”
“I have to, don’t I?” she mumbled.
“Sioned is right about Chayla—I don’t like admitting it my more than you do, but she is. Have you noticed how she flinches back from every man who isn’t family? She keeps seeing the Vellant’im who stole her from us. I can’t do any- iing about that. But I can help her do her work—it’s impor- nt to her, Hollis. Being a physician is what she is, and
Rislyn needs her help—so she can’t let herself be afraid. Evarin can’t go anywhere, his leg is still healing. Rislyn doesn’t know him, anyway.”
“You can stop now—I’ve heard all this.” She still wouldn’t look at him.
“Besides,” he went on, “there’s Kazander.”
That brought her head up. “What do you mean?”
“She’ll want to see him,” Maarken replied steadily.
“It’s cruel, Maarken. There’s no hope in it. He has to know that.”
“Of course he does. They both do.”
“Then why—?”
“Because this will all be over soon. He’ll return to his wives and his children, she’ll become a Sunrunner and a physician, and that will be the end of it. Let them have what they can. It’s little enough. They both know this is all there can ever be.”
She swallowed hard. “It’s so damned sad,” she whispered.
Picking up the sword, he held it out to her. “I’m late. I have to go.”
She slid the sheath into the heavy loop on the belt, made certain it was secure, and reached up to fasten the clasps of his cloak. “All right, I understand,” she said grudgingly. “Does that make you feel better?”
“No more than it does you.” He leaned down to kiss her lips. “We’ll be back in four days.”
Arm-in-arm they started for the antechamber. Hollis suddenly pulled up short, a shiver touching her. Maarken opened his mouth to ask, then didn’t have to: their reflection looked back at them from the full-length mirror mounted to one side of the door.
“I can’t see Lord Rosseyn’s face,” Hollis whispered. “We’re Sunrunners, we’re safe from mirrors. But I can hardly swallow a meal in that room these days—and I never see a mirror now without being scared.”
“I hope it scares Pol, too,” Maarken said grimly. “Have you heard? He’s taking lessons in sorcery.”
Six hundred horse, two hundred foot, one hundred priests in white to conduct ritual at Skybowl eighty-ninth day of Winter.
Meiglan frowned at the scrap of parchment. Precious little of this would help Pol. She must know more. What did the ritual involve? Why Skybowl? (Well, that hardly mattered. Pol wanted them there anyhow; it was convenient that they wanted the same location.) But the ritual itself—Sioned was powerful and imaginative. She might be able to foul their ceremony in some manner, or use it to mean the opposite of whatever the Vellant’im intended.
His voice outside made her thrust the parchment beneath the chair cushion. She rose smoothly to her feet, capping the inkpot and sliding it and the pen into her pocket. When he took his first step within the tent, making the candles flicker, she was seated as usual, the cloak in her lap, her needle busy and precise. “Done?”
“Not quite.”
He bent to snatch up the bulk of it from the rug. As he read the words he snorted. “Lies. Sword and Fire will not help him live.” Sliding the silk through his hands, he came to the place she was working on. “Write that his last breath will taste of fear and knowledge and my sword.”
“There isn’t room.”
“’Make room!”
She shrugged and took the silk back into her lap. He paced to the bed, then the washing stand to rinse his fingers. His back to her, he said, “In two days you belong to the priests.”
“After I finish the cloak, you mean?”
“Yes. After. You will be—eh, what is your word?— cleansed. Washed of sin. Seen to be unmarked and perfect. Mo thing not perfect may be offered.” Turning, he watched her fingers move mindlessly, automatically. “I will not see you again until the day.”
“What will they do to me?” she whispered. “You know.” He paused. “You, mother of no sons, mother ?f dragons reborn.”
Meiglan’s hands stilled. Dragons? What did they have to jo with— Forcing herself to speak took everything she had—and the
“song memory of Pol’s face. “Are you sure they’ll get it ght?”
“It is written. The princess of highest blood who has : ven no man life will cleanse the dragons of all taint.
Diarmadh’im will have no more power than puling girl-children. Dragons will tear their flesh, and feast on their bones, answer no more to the Azhrei’s call.”
Information. This was information. She seized on it, clung to it. Even though he was informing her of how she would die.
“You carry no son,” he went on. “You bled four days ago. You will be cleansed of that, and all else, by priests.” He hesitated. “I will not see you again before the day.”
“It sounds as if you’ve thought of everything,” she managed. “Will I be killed with glass, silver, gold, or steel?”
For the first time in her experience of him he looked unsure. It had been an arrow shot with eyes closed, but it had worked.
“The priests decide.”
“It makes a difference, you know.”
“Then you will say what difference.”
She tucked the corners of her mouth into what felt like a ghastly smile.
“You will say!” he snapped. “If not to me, then to priests!” He leaned over her, his breath hot on her cheeks. “They need not harm to learn. They will know, and you will be unmarked still. You will say, Kir’feia.”
Her arrow dwindled to an insignificant dart, a pinprick. Glass, silver, gold, steel? Which? Glass was the Merida weapon—but this was a ritual murder, not an assassination. Silver? Gold? The Veilant’im already knew that steel killed Sunrunners. But if she was to be rescued, and if Pol was there, steel would kill him if he was using his power, and he would have to in order to get close enough, any of the Sunrunners would—
“Gold,” she blurted. “It must be gold.”
He straightened up and nodded. “Gold. It is honorable. And—“ One fingertip brushed over her hair. “—fitting.” He kicked the cloak out of his way as he went to the tent flap. “Two days,” he flung over his shoulder, and left.
Meiglan felt herself begin to shake again. But she didn’t cry. Tears would leave marks on the silk.
Honorable, fitting—and a waste. The High Warlord walked without seeing the mass of his army, or the Desert beyond the camp, or the endless blue sky. He saw Stronghold. The Flametower rose as proud as ever, but with its fire quenched. No one feared to enter the castle now. The dragons were all dead.
As if they had ever been alive, he thought acidly. Stupid priests. Stupid, self-righteous, superstitious fools.
And yet he was just as much the fool. He should have left more warriors at Radzyn. They would have been some use there, instead of lolling about the camp waiting for the march on Skybowl. But he’d wanted all available clans here to terrify the enemy. To swell his own pride.
Unable in fairness to blame the priests for the loss of the keep, unable to accuse them of cowardice in the hearing of the warriors, who believed in the priests’ words, he could only blame himself. How could soft white priests be expected to fight? They had not dared to blame him, of course—but it had been his mistake, and knowledge of it had gleamed furtively in their eyes.
And so he must give up the Kir’reia to them, many days before he’d planned. They had lost Radzyn, yet he must give them her. They had abandoned their duty to keep the harbor safe, yet he must allow them charge of her.
By the Father of Wind and Rain, how he hated priests.
She would be safe enough. They would be even more careful of her than he had been. After the initial inspection to assure themselves that she was without flaw, none of them would touch her on pain of death. He had only touched her rarely. The priests would not even be tempted.
But he had been. He had been.
There would be no more sitting near her. No more speak-:ng to her in hope of hearing her speak. No more scenting ner skin—ah, she kept herself so clean, even in this filthy and. He had denied her a real bath because the thought of er pale nakedness all polished with water would have maddened every soldier in the camp. He could not have protected her—not even the priests could have protected her then.
She was exquisite, and so exquisitely different from Vellanti women, with her fragile bones and her cloud of golden hair, and her skin the color of milky dawn tinged with gold and roses. She sat serene amid the silken clutter of hat accursed cloak, slender, clever fingers always moving, •-ipple, clever mind always working. He never knew what she was thinking. Her huge dark eyes were guileless as a child’s one instant and cunning as a wolf’s the next. Her voice was always soft, even when she was angry. Her body, tucked small and neat into her chair, was a body to dance in. She was more beautiful than any woman had ever been— and despite his taunts he knew very well why the Azhrei did not put her aside, or add more wives to his bed.
Damn the Azhrei for making her his wife. She was a woman worth the honoring, a prize fit for the offering. But what a hideous, senseless waste her death would be.
Glancing around as a breeze nipped at his hair like a playful stallion, he discovered it was full night and he was nearly at Stronghold. If he turned back now, they would wonder why he had walked so far to no purpose. He had no purpose, of course. Only distance between himself and her, between himself and the priests who would take her as their reward for fleeing Radzyn.
He strode forward, through the tunnel and into the first courtyard. He had given the duty of standing guard in case of stray dragons—what idiocy—to ten youthful warriors with courage to prove, who would not shy in fright from a stray shadow. Two of them came to meet him, bowing.
“That trough,” he said, pointing. “Take it to the priests.”
They knew better than to react. The stone trough was hip-high and as long as a man was tall, and must weigh more than four horses could drag. But he had ordered it, and it would be done.
A petty use of his power, he told himself in disgust, completely unworthy of him. Had the priests made him as impotent as they?
No. He would prove otherwise. He was the High Warlord of the Vellant’im, he would destroy the enemy who had destroyed the Islands. He was mighty. He had killed so many that he needn’t bother displaying his kills in his beard. His slightest word was obeyed instantly.
And, surrounded by priests who would not be tempted— who did not know how to be tempted—the Kir’reia would have her bath.
The snowstorm jeered at the village of Pimanost, clearing for half a morning before renewing its fury, brooding for half the night before striking out in blasts of wind that felled a score of unprotected pines. Five days of this had scraped tempers raw and turned Laric into a pacing, muttering madman. But no one dared raise his voice in the lodge. They were all painfully aware of Rohannon’s voice up in the loft, and that in the last two days his cries had grown feeble.
Aldiar came down the ladder every so often to stretch his legs while Rohannon slept. He said little beyond “No change, my lords.” Once or twice Arlis attempted to go up and help. Aldiar discouraged him with a few words, and finally forbade him with a single look. Amazing, the power in those black diarmadhi eyes set in that thin Fironese face.
Arlis had never felt so trapped in his life. His world had contracted to the lodge and fifty paces around it. Everything else was a white Hell. What the locals called breaks in the storm were to him nearly indistinguishable from its worst furies. He battled his way outside several times a day to check on his troops and horses, returning exhausted but still restless.
His companions were no help. Tirel could be amused by playing chess only so long, and grew fretful. Idalian reviewed events and Yarin’s probable troop strengths until the others could recite the information in their sleep. Laric paced endlessly, the bare floorboards creaking with every step, and asked military questions Arlis couldn’t possibly answer. Balarat wasn’t his castle.
The elderfolk attended their prince at dinner. Conversation was awkward, occasionally interrupted by Rohannon’s Aeakening groans. At such times Idalian would glare up at :he loft, and Tirel would be stricken silent, and Laric would make a visible effort to resume talking. Arlis drank.
Four young villagers came every night after dinner to trace the noble group with lutes and singing. Arlis, who had never heard Fironese hill music before and hoped he never would again, applauded dutifully even when the noise stung his ears. By the fourth afternoon he was actually lookinging to the evening concert. It gave him an excellent ex- cuse to stay silent while he got drunk. Their favorite song was about a crystaller who made his lifework the imitation of all the different forms of snow and ice, and finally gave up in despair at trying to out-create the glassy or frosted beauty around him. There really were forty-six distinct kinds of frozen water, and a verse for each. And if he had to listen to them one more time, he would slit the singers’ throats so they never inflicted it on anyone else again. But at least it drowned out the terrible sounds from the loft.
On the morning of the seventy-sixth day of Winter, as the storm gathered breath for what the elderfolk promised would be its last assault, there was no music to cover the scream that shook the rafters. Arlis scrambled up the ladder, Aldiar’s permission or not. What he saw in the sullen shadows of the hearthfire below made his heart stop in his chest.
Rohannon looked a full silkweight thinner. His cheeks were sunken and gray, his eyes hollowed in dark bruises of pain. He was tied to the bed—wrists and ankles and hips—by thick ropes of wool blanket. Rank sweat poured off him, soaking bedclothes he’d ripped in his agonies. He shook so hard that the cot and even the planks beneath Arlis’s feet shook with him.
“Gentle Goddess,” the prince breathed. “Aldiar—help him!”
The young man glanced around, nearly as hollow-eyed as Rohannon. “I’ve done all I know.”
Arlis went to the bed, seizing Rohannon’s shoulders as he arched up from the bed, pressing the boy back down before he tore the restraints loose—or tore his arms from their sockets. “Help him, damn you!”
“His body is almost drained now, and the hunger is at its worst. He has to get through this on his own.”
Arlis struggled to keep Rohannon down. All at once the bucking body went limp and a pitiful whimper parted his lips. Blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. “He’s bleeding!”
Aldiar slipped a piece of wood between Rohannon’s jaws—polished free of splinters, already imprinted with the marks of his teeth. “He’s only bitten his tongue or his cheek.” Sitting back on his heels, he drooped as if strength was nothing more than a memory. “He’ll live or he’ll die. There’s nothing more to be done for him.”
He glared at the sorcerer across Rohannon’s shivering body. “His mother didn’t die!”
“His mother was used to less. His mother was older. His mother took twenty or thirty days to cleanse herself of it.” Aldiar’s head lifted slowly, and the shifting light showed Arlis the swollen bruise on his chin. “If I give him some- thing to make him sleep, his heart will fail and he’ll die. If I give him dranath, we’ll have to start all over. He won’t survive this a second time. Now or not at all, my lord.”
Arlis smoothed Rohannon’s sweat-dark hair. “It’s my fault,” he whispered. “I needed a Sunrunner. I did this to him. I’m the one who should be in danger of my life right now. Not him. It was my fault.”
“No. His. He knew about dranath. He’s not the first to believe himself stronger than it is. Not the first to find out otherwise.”
“He’s barely breathing.”
Aldiar leaned forward, placing a hand on the thin bare chest to feel the blood-pulse at its source.
“Do you think...” Arlis swallowed hard. “Will he die?”
“I don’t know.”
Crouching beside the cot, Arlis took one of the boy’s hands. Not even a ring to mark him as faradhi. Yet no faradhi had ever done so much, risked so much, in serving any Lady or Lord of Goddess Keep.
Rohannon breathed. Slowly. Arlis listened, watched, as if every breath might be the last. Aldiar’s head had bent once more, hand resting lightly over Rohannon’s heart. They stayed like that, as if carved of stone, for a very long time.
Suddenly Aldiar’s hand lifted, fisted, slammed down on Rohannon’s chest. Arlis cried out and grabbed the sorcerer’s wrist. “
“Let me go! His heart stopped!”
“What are you—“
“Let me go or he will die!”
Arlis flinched back. Aldiar pounded a second time, a third, hard enough to crack ribs.
“Blow air into his mouth!” he ordered, voice breaking, hoarse and frantic. “Fill his lungs!”
Rohannon’s lips were blue. Arlis took the stick away, pinched his jaws open, and blew a long breath down his throat. He understood now; it was like helping someone half-drowned. But he had never seen anyone do what rk diarmadhi did, never heard of keeping up a rhythmic over the heart.
“Don’t you dare die! Breathe!”
Rohannon spasmed and gasped in air. Aldiar slapped Ari» away and pushed with both hands just below the nt>>
“Come on! You’ve been doing it all your life! You stupid Sunrunner, did you forget how?”
“You can stop.” Arlis reached for the boy’s shoulder. “He’s breathing.”
Aldiar’s own breath came in a sudden sob. He hovered over Rohannon for a moment, staring at the rise and fall of his chest. Then he slumped against the cot with his hand on folded arms. Arlis nearly did the same. He was sodden with sweat and his hands trembled as he unknotted the blankets.
“He’ll be all right now?”
Aldiar glanced up, bewilderment twitching at his brows. An instant later his eyes closed and he slid to the floor. Arlis levered himself up onto his knees and peered over Rohannon at him. Sprawled on the wooden planks, eyes closed, he looked more like a ten-year-old child than a sorcerer who had just saved a Sunrunner’s life.
Thassalante closed the Attic door behind him. Pol barely heard the sorcerer leave.
“What is it you know and he doesn’t?” he asked the face in the mirror. “I can see it in your eyes.”
So late that the moons had long since nestled down to sleep; so late that the whole castle was silent; so late that the candles on either side of the mirror had burned nearly to the sockets.
“Would you tell me if you could? How this happened, why, when? What I can do now to free you? To free myself and all my people? Would you speak if you could?”
Lord Rosseyn gazed down at him. Wild waves of black hair swept back from thin, intense features and eyes as black as pitch.
“What did you do that she trapped you there? Did you understand what was happening to you? Could you have stopped it—any more than I can stop what’s happening now?”
Pol took a step closer, bracing his hands against the mantlepiece. His head tilted back and he stared straight up into those eyes.
“I need what you know. I need the power you knew how to use.”
For all its remote sorrow, it was a beautiful face: the face of a prince, a bard, or a madman. Perhaps all three.
“You owe it to me, damn it! The Vellant’im came here for vengeance on you and your kind!”
The face remained as it was: proud, severe, beautiful. Silent.
Pol bent his head to one outstretched arm. “No,” he said more softly. “Our kind. Yours and mine, my could-be ancestor. Is that who Lallante’s family came from? The child of the woman who did this to you? If that’s so, her viciousness bred true. She’d approve of my blood-mother.”
The hearthflames were too hot. He pushed himself upright and backed away from the mirror.
“What can I do?” he whispered. “Wait? Learn what I can? They’ll come to Skybowl, I know that. I’ll be there, with everything I have. The killing will start again and won’t stop until the sand is soaked in blood. Meiglan’s blood. They’ll kill her if I don’t yield. And if I yield, they’ll kill everyone else. All the Sunrunners. All the sorcerers. Everyone.”
Rosseyn went on watching him. He knew it was a trick of the mirror; the eyes never followed him around the room, and only seemed to meet his when he stood directly before the hearth. But the sensation of being watched was so strong.
“Did you buy lives with your freedom? Is that what’s waiting for me? No, if I give in I’ll only be the first. It won’t end with me. Did it end with you? The most powerful of all sorcerers—Thassalante says all the legends agreed on that. Could you have stopped her, and chose not to? Did you sacrifice yourself to stop the killing? Or was it all for nothing? Is that what’s in your face?”
He would never know. The mirror would never speak. He could stare up into that face for the rest of his life and nothing would happen. Nothing would change. Rosseyn would gaze out with sad, resigned eyes, and give no answers.
“Useless, isn’t it? You can’t help me. I’ve got to do it. Well, it’s not as if I’m alone. There’s Maarken and Chay and the armies here and at Radzyn. Andry, if I’m tactful enough to convince him or strong enough to take his power anyway. And that’s not to forget my mother...”
A deep, demanding bellow high above the castle turned his head to the shuttered windows. Azhdeen, Pol thought, with a rush of gratitude. He flung open the windows and conjured Fire in midair so the dragon could see him. Azhdeen circled, choosing his spot, and came to rest on a wall with his talons dug into the stone. He folded his wings tidily against his back and rumbled low in his throat, peering up at Pol.
“Coming, your magnificence!”
Late as it was, not everyone was startled out of sleep by Azhdeen’s roar. In Tobin and Chay’s bedchamber, candles illumined a large parchment drawing spread atop the quilt, upon which he made notes while she mused aloud. They both looked up at the dragon’s call.
“I thought it was time for a sentry to come by,” Chay remarked. “Jeni says the dragons hold a conference at Skybowl afterward, to share the news.” He shifted the parchment on the bed. “What were you saying about the kitchens?”
“Inconvenient,” she replied succinctly. “So when we repair the first floor, you want to move them?”
“No. Make a new great hall.”
He moaned. “Forty-eight years you’re mistress of Radzyn, and only now you tell me you don’t like it?”
Sionell heard Azhdeen, too. She even recognized his voice. It seemed she had recently grown an extra set of nerves that responded to anything having to do with Pol. In fact, at times she felt physically sick being near him.
Hitching her chair closer to her bedchamber fire, she concentrated on mending yet another of Meig’s shirts. How did the child manage to tear at least one seam each day? Simple, she told herself. He was growing out of his clothes. But coaxing him into hand-downs was impossible. She’d tried; he’d flatly refused. A real stickler for his appearance, was Meig—at least until he ran outside to play dragons.
Azhdeen and all the others absolutely enchanted him. He’d long since made the connection between being a Sunrunner and having a dragon to talk to, but he had none of Jihan’s impatience. Sionell had asked him about it yesterday.
“I suppose you want a dragon right now, too?”
Meig answered, “I can wait. Besides, my dragon’s not even born yet.”
It was hardly the first precocious thing he’d ever said, but it had taken her aback more than usual. Practically from birth, Meig had looked on the world with complete equanimity—never angry, rarely crying, always composed— and with a self-awareness that was positively uncanny sometimes.
Well, she wouldn’t have to worry about a dragon taking up residence at Tiglath for years yet. The next hatching would come in 740. No immature dragons had so far expressed interest in any humans, so she could tack on another three years. Still—a ten-year-old Sunrunner with a dragon? Meig would no doubt find it as normal and unremarkable as he did everything else. Something told Sionell that a dragon would be the least of her concerns with him.
She grinned, imagining her mother’s face when Meig finally got his dragon. Feylin was as fascinated by the great beasts as she was terrified of them. The sight of her grandson casually scratching a draconic jaw—Sionell chuckled in undaughterly glee. Feylin had written the dragon book partially in an attempt to overcome her fears with intellectual reasoning. But it had never been the legends that frightened her. Dragons were just too damned big, and never mind all that nonsense about teeth and talons and—
The shirt slid from Sionell’s suddenly loosened grasp. She stared sightlessly at the fire for some moments.
“Dragons,” she murmured. “Dragons. Oh, of course!”