Done.
Meiglan had finished the last stitches just before dawn, just before the last of the candles guttered out. Her eyes would barely focus, and her back was one great knot of pain. But the cloak was done.
She lifted both hands from the neatly folded silk in her lap, watching with a remote sort of interest as her fingers curled in a slow spasm that warped the bones. Eventually it hurt so much that she tried the usual remedy—flattening her palms against each other, then bending the fingers back to stretch muscles. After a time the cramp passed, and her hands dropped to her lap again.
She stared down at them, lax and helpless atop silk so sleek that it rippled like water. She could no longer feel the texture. The constant rub of material and thread and needle had chafed her palms raw and swollen her fingertips.
She supposed she ought to lie down and rest until he came for the cloak, or wash and dress in fresh clothes, or inspect her work one last time. But she was too exhausted to do any of those things. Besides, she simply didn’t care.
The High Warlord might or might not find what she meant him to find. If Pol saw what was meant for him, he might not understand. There was nothing she could do about any of that now. The cloak was finished.
If the High Warlord did discover what was sewn inside, she must seem frightened. She couldn’t seem to summon up much real fear anymore. She remembered feeling it, like the mercifully vague recollections of childbirth. But fear took so much energy.
Not that she felt especially brave. Courage was doing what you were afraid to do. Thus if she didn’t feel afraid, she couldn’t be courageous. All she felt was tired.
But she knew how to pretend. She had acted everything from a daughter’s affection to a highborn’s political cunning to a High Princess’ power. Fear was something she’d always pretended not to feel. Still, she ought to be good at it. She ought to be absolutely brilliant.
Her right forefinger, practically imprinted with the shape of the needle, traced the initial capital of Pol’s name without feeling it. She wondered without curiosity if he would understand what she had written. Perhaps; he was clever. Perhaps not; he didn’t expect her to be clever. Perhaps it didn’t matter. There was little of importance that she’d been able to work into the cloak. No really vital information. Nothing that would change anything. Sewing the cloak had given her something to do. All her efforts of mind and body, all her tenacious thinking and cramped muscles, all of it was well-nigh meaningless. Not that she could bring herself to care.
Not even that she knew she was going to die.
Two priests had come by last night. In disjointed sentences and nearly incomprehensible accents, they had told her that she would be moved to their holy precincts. She would be purified in body, if not spirit. She had finished her bleeding and would be given water to wash and white clothes to wear. She would drink no wine and eat no meat. Only white things would pass her lips: milk, certain vegetables and roots, and flowers brought from the Vellanti Islands and carefully nurtured for this purpose. She had a moment of inner hilarity at that—how they must have struggled to keep the plants alive in the Desert!—but nothing showed on her face. They went on to tell her that if she willfully became impure, the ritual purification would not be to her liking. Then they described what would make her impure: any bruise, cut, scrape, or other damage to her skin; any food that was not white; touching or being touched by any man; seeing or being seen by any man who was not a priest; witnessing the rising or setting of the sun, or the moons and stars at any time; touching anything that a priest had not purified; reading; writing; wearing trousers instead of the robes they would provide; uncovering in the presence of any man her hair, her arms, her face...
They droned on in their harsh, guttural voices. Meiglan decided that if even a quarter of this was regularly inflicted on Vellanti women, they would be better off dead. She stopped listening and kept stitching. Then they described the ritual purification. Last night it had produced a twinge of fear. This morning it moved her not at all, except in wonder of their logic. A woman who had borne no sons was presumably defective in some way, and “purifying” her might make some sense. But a woman who had borne no sons was still virgin to their way of thinking, a worthy sacrifice to their god—after she had been purified for having borne no sons, which was the reason she was pure enough to sacrifice in the first place.
Doubtless they found it logical. Or perhaps not—there was no logic in a belief that dragons died and rebirthed themselves in Fire. Everyone knew they didn’t. But “know” and “believe” were sometimes as different as day and night. Meiglan knew she was going to die. She simply didn’t believe it.
She must have dozed a little in her chair, for the next thing she knew was his voice outside, giving some command to the guards. Righting herself with an effort, she settled more firmly on the cushion—under which were the pen and inkpot the priest had forgotten to retrieve.
His shadow filled the doorway, morning sunlight glancing off the jewels hanging from his earlobe and the golden cuffs that covered each forearm. He was splendid and powerful, and the sight of him hurt her eyes. “Is it finished? The cloak?”
She lifted it from her lap with both hands. He came to her, boot heels digging into the carpet, and unfurled the mass of silk. Just as she’d known he would, just as she’d hoped. First the whole of it, inspected front and back; then the plackets of embroidered blue; at last the hem, where she had stitched her tribute to Pol. He let the rest of it pool at his feet as he slid the words through his hands, reading silently, lips moving.
“ ‘Shining eyes,’ “ he sneered. “ ‘Ritual fire’—‘Dragon seeking prey’—‘cloaked in tightness’—‘dead at his feet’— bah! What list of his great deeds? What battles, what kill- ings, what enemies?” He shook the cloak at her. “And what of his death? Where is his death in these words?”
So tired. “You didn’t honestly expect me to put that in, did you?”
“I ordered.” He frowned down at her, crushing the silk in both hands.
“I’m his wife,” she said simply.
“Kir’reia!” he accused, and walked to the open tent flap to get a closer look at the stitching. “ ‘Beloved of Meiglan,’ “ he jeered over his shoulder. “A woman who gave him no sons!”
She waited, absently massaging her sore right hand with her left. Perhaps the words would occupy his mind to the exclusion of the material they were written on. Perhaps they would make him so angry that he would rip the cloak to shreds and thereby discover everything. Distantly curious, not really involved, Meiglan rubbed her weary fingers and waited.
But he only folded the cloak again, neatly, with the front plackets meeting down the center. Returning to her side, he sat down and smoothed the silk with long, battle-scarred fingers.
“The priests take you at sunset. This tent will move to their place, and the bed» but no chairs. No washing. No other clothes.”
“Yes—nothing that isn’t white. I’ve been informed.”
Taking the cloak by its neck, he flung it out again so it spread across his knees and spilled onto the rug. “This,” he said, pointing to the embroidery on the back. “What is it?”
“You must have seen it before, on my husband’s banner.”
“But what meaning?”
“The dragon is obvious. The scroll in its talons stands for the law.”
“And this?” He stroked the outline at the dragon’s feet.
“My own addition. It’s this cloak.”
Black eyes searched hers. “Clever Meiglan,” he muttered, and slowly gathered the silk onto his lap. He never looked away from her face as he felt along the blue plackets, rubbed them between his fingers, and finally smiled.
When he drew his knife, she remembered fear.
He slit a dozen stitches. Slid his fingers within. Slipped out a piece of parchment, closely written on both sides.
“Clever Meiglan,” he said once more, and began to read.
She closed her eyes.
“Six hundred horses—yes, that is so,” he commented. A moment later: “The number is wrong in warriors not mounted.” Another pause. “Yes, all of warrior age are here—no more will come if he kills us now.”
Suddenly he grabbed her wrist. She stared at him, at the knife he held before her eyes, and terror was no pretense.
“If I mark you,” he said softly, lowering the knife to the back of her palm, “the priests would not take you. I keep you. As mine. To take you home and put sons into you, clever Meiglan. Strong sons.” Cold steel rested feather-light on her skin. “Do I mark you, Kir’reia?”
Someone gasped; someone frightened. Someone brave marked him instead, with a palm cracking across his cheek.
The High Warlord laughed and let her go. Rising, he heaped the cloak at her feet and crumpled the parchment in his fist. “Make it whole, for him to die in,” he said, and strode from the tent.
A guard replaced him immediately, to watch as she repaired the broken stitches. She did so numbly, not daring to think or feel. When she finished, the guard took the cloak away and tied the tent flap closed.
Meiglan stumbled to the cot and buried her face in the pillow. He had found it. He had done as she’d begged the Goddess to make him do. She ought to feel triumphant at the trick she’d played on him, she ought to be laughing into the silken pillow. Not weeping.
Maarken was not especially concerned about day-to-day commands on the ride down to Skybowl. That was the sort of thing he could do in his sleep; he didn’t have to prove his competence to anybody. So he told young Isriam of Einar—or, rather, no longer of Einar but not yet of Fessenden—to see to making camp and getting everyone started again in the morning. To Draza of Grand Veresch went the duties of organizing scouts, sentries, and the general order of the journey, and leading the hundred soldiers. This left Maarken free to enjoy the ride, his daughter’s company, and a little project of his own.
With Laroshin—abandoning his usual self-effacing silence, he’d flatly informed Pol he would be Princess
Rislyn’s personal escort—Maarken spent the whole of the first day happily plotting maneuvers. The troop was made up of veterans from Radzyn and Stronghold, some of the surviving students from Walvis’ training school at Remagev, and thirty soldiers from Tiglath offered by Sionell—though it was Jahnev who made the formal offering. His mother was scrupulous about showing their people that, although only seven winters old, he had taken his father’s place legally, if not militarily. Jahnev’s chagrin at being too young to lead them had nearly been the demise of his dignity and Maarken’s carefully straight face.
He and Laroshin had spent plenty of time with Chay recently, proposing and refining various tactics for Pol’s consideration. This trip would give them the opportunity to practice one or two of these maneuvers, most notably something he called Dragon Wings. On the second afternoon out from Feruche, after telling Chay la and Meath to get out of the way (with ten soldiers to whisk them to safety if things got out of hand or the Vellant’im appeared), Maarken gave the signal for practice to begin.
Laroshin, at the head of the Remagev contingent, swept around the main force at the same time Maarken led the Tiglathis in the opposite direction. Then they swung around and charged. The “wings” of twenty riders each folded in, pushing die remaining fifty against themselves. Draza, warned that something would be tried but not knowing what, responded by dividing his troop in half, giving one to Isriam and leading the other himself—the first section riding ahead, the other wheeling smartly to retreat and regroup. Maarken found himself galloping through empty Desert, right past Laroshin and fortunately not into him. The four contingents paused, turned, and sat their horses staring at each other. Maarken burst out laughing.
“Why is it so funny?” Chayla complained to Meath as they watched from atop a sand dune. “It didn’t work.”
“Lord Draza’s a smart boy,” the Sunrunner replied. “And Swalekeep taught him how to think fast and give orders even faster. So much for ‘Dragon Wings.’ I think we’d better rename it ‘Torn Cloak.’ “
“Father will have to think up something else.”
“No, he just can’t use it against their mounted troops. I have an idea it’d work rather nicely against those on foot. The Vellant’im aren’t as quick as Draza, when it comes to it.
And just imagine all that horseflesh and all those swords thundering down your throat.” He unstoppered his water skin and drank, then offered it to her. “While your father amuses himself playing soldiers, would you care to learn a little Sunrunning?” Chayla nearly dropped the skin. “Me? Now?”
“I see no one else around here who has either the capability—your pardon, ladies and gentlemen,” he added to the ten guards, who only shrugged or grinned. “Or the need,” he finished more seriously.
Chayla drank, returned the water, and stared at her gloved hands on the reins. “I should have learned a long time ago.”
“Not really. You’re about the right age to begin,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her.
“I mean that I could have—“
“—been the vexation of your parents, like Jihan?” Meath smiled. “I doubt it. I’m told you can call Fire. Let’s see you do it for me now. A fingerflame will do.”
She obliged, letting it hover in the air between them. “More?”
“That’ll do. Interesting colors.”
Peering at the flame—gold with tinges of red and orange, like any other—Chayla asked, “Is it? Does that mean something?”
“Not that. You. I can read your colors as you work. Here, let me show you.” And around the tiny Fire he conjured the pattern that was Chayla, two sorts of green with blue and red woven through it. “Jihan can do this without even thinking about it. I’m not that talented. But that’s you all the same. Emerald is a good color for a healer.”
“The other green doesn’t shine as much,” she said critically. “It’s almost opaque.”
“We classify it as jade. You should see Sioned’s colors sometime, with black onyx so thick you’d swear you could touch it.”
“Can I?” Her fingers ventured toward the pattern.
Meath watched her trace the curves and angles in the air. The guards were uninterested, scanning the dunes for possible threats as Maarken sorted out his army. But one of them, a young man wearing Radzyn’s silver sword badge, stared intently at what to him should have been empty air.
Meath noted his face and reminded himself to find out his name. But he had no time to spare for other potential Sunrunners right now. This one needed all his attention.
Maarken rode up, still grinning. “Did you see that? Pitiful! Absolutely pitiful!” He paused as he caught sight of the colors. “Are you doing that, Meath, or is she?”
“I am.” He let them vanish, and Chayla extinguished the fingerflame. “But she knows them now, well enough to answer another Sunrunner.” He smiled as the girl’s blue eyes rounded. “This afternoon I’ll show you one or two other little tricks.”
“Tricks!” Maarken snorted. “Andrade would have your rings for that!”
“So would Uncle Andry,” Chayla said shrewdly. “Father, can’t you stop him from trying to get me to Goddess Keep? It’s flattering, of course, but I’m tired of telling him I’m a physician first and a Sunrunner second.”
“Positive of it since the day you were born,” Maarken said.
“If you’ll both excuse me for a while, I should justify the rings Andrade gave me,” Meath said. “I’ll let Jeni know where we are, then look in on Andrev at Radzyn.”
“He’s never seen it before, has he?” Chayla asked. “And he won’t be seeing it at its best, either.”
“If I know Princess Iliena—and I do—she’ll have it scrubbed from cellars to battlements to get rid of the Vellanti stink.” He withdrew to work.
“Has Andry been pestering you?” Maarken asked his daughter.
“A little. Things about my being family as well as faradhi.” She shrugged. “I think he’s using Master Evarin to tempt me to Goddess Keep.” When Maarken’s eyes widened, she laughed. “Not like that! We talk medicine, not moonlight!”
Embarrassed, he growled, “Well, all right, then. Keep it that way.”
Chayla made a face at him, then said seriously, “I think I’d like to go to Gilad and study—after Whitecliff and Radzyn are put to rights, I mean. Or do you think I should stay with Sioned wherever she decides to live, and learn Sunrunning first?”
“I hadn’t considered it,” he admitted. “I’ve never thought of her anywhere but at Stronghold.”
She frowned. “Can it be rebuilt?”
“Yes. But I don’t know if Pol will want to.” He chewed his lip for a moment. “Rohan always meant things to shift to Dragon’s Rest as the High Prince’s residence. I suppose he thought Stronghold would go to whichever of Pol’s daughters wanted it—or maybe even you.”
“I don’t think Jihan would give up one stone of it— burned to a crisp or not. And anyway, I don’t have any claim on Stronghold.”
“You’re Zehava’s great-granddaughter, just as Jihan and Rislyn are. If you Choose a man without a holding of his own—and you can Choose anyone, I’m rich enough to provide ten dowries—then if Jihan or Rislyn don’t want it, you might consider living there.”
Her face went very still. “I’m not going to get married. I don’t want a husband or ch-children.” To cover the slight stammer, she hurried on, “Really, Father, I’ve got too much to do. And it’s not as if there’s nobody but me to continue the bloodline. There’s Rohannon, and Jihan and Rislyn, and all of Andry’s children—“
“Let’s see how you feel when you’re twenty, or twenty-five,” he said, aware that he, too, was talking quickly to cover a nervousness he didn’t really understand. “At Riall’im or the school in Gilad you’ll have your pick of fine young men. And if it comes to it, I’ll build you a castle somewhere myself. Nothing so grand as Feruche, mind you. But I promise it won’t overlook the sea!”
When she smiled—as he had hoped she would—Maarken had the sensation of stepping back from a cliff. He wished Hollis was here; she would know what to say, how to comfort.
He found another change of subject as he squinted down at the troops, who had rearranged themselves into formation and waited for his word to ride on. With a glance at Meath, he said, “He’d better get back soon. I’d like to make another fifty measures before dark.”
“We could get to Skybowl by dark if we pushed a little.” She eyed him. “Or do you have something else you want to try along the way?”
“Caught,” Maarken acknowledged cheerfully, and Chayla laughed—her old self again. Thank the Goddess.
Meath blinked and cleared his throat. “I took too long, didn’t I—sorry.”
Maarken shook his head and lifted a hand to signal resumption of the journey. “How’s Tilal?”
“Healing nicely—and with all the gracious good humor of a wolf with a sore paw. They’ve made a good start in getting Radzyn put back together. Andrev says Ludhil and Amiel are all for marching up to Stronghold. I told them if they left Tilal behind, he’d make them pay for it at Riall’im until they’re all in their dotage.”
They started down to catch up with the troops. “And at Skybowl?” Chayla asked. “How’s Rislyn?”
Meath sobered. “Jeni says she still sleeps quite a lot— recovering from the illness. Feylin’s with her almost constantly. When she wakes up ... well, she’s not as frightened as she was. Jeni thinks she doesn’t realize yet what’s happened to her. She thinks it’s only temporary.” He sighed. “In a way, it is. Sioned’s right, the world doesn’t have to be completely dark for her.”
“Very comforting—for us,” Maarken observed quietly. “About as much as telling myself that because I’ve still got one arm, I shouldn’t regret the loss of the other too much.”
Meath looked stricken. “I didn’t—forgive me, I forgot—“
“But that’s what I want you to do: forget about this,” Maarken replied, gesturing with the stump of his left arm. “In time, I’ll bet most people forget Rislyn’s blind, too. Sioned was right. She has other eyes. She’s a Sunrunner.”
Meath had found Jeni walking the upper walls of Skybowl, obedient to Sioned’s order not to set foot outside the keep. At her side was Sethric, hobbling along with one arm across her shoulders, determined to exercise. After the brief pause for her conversation with Meath, they started off again, and Sethric mentioned something about going riding tomorrow.
“Don’t be an idiot, Sethric!”
“Lady Feylin says—“
“I don’t care what she says! Look at you—if I let go, you’ll fall over.”
“Then don’t let go,” he said with a smile, leaning down for a kiss.
She avoided his lips. “Don’t.”
He gave a one-shoulder shrug. Her concern was gratifying proof of her feelings for him, but she didn’t understand his reasons for pushing himself. A battle was coming, everyone knew it, and he was determined to be fit.
“I’ll be careful,” he said placatingly. “Just a couple of turns around the courtyard. If anything starts to hurt, I’ll stop.”
Her shoulders tensed. “Are you patronizing me?”
“It’s not as if I’ll be heading out at a gallop to meet Lord Maarken!”
“You would if you thought you could get away with it.”
He had to admit she was right. “You don’t see why, though, do you? I failed, Jeni. I have to make up for that.”
“You were wounded and couldn’t even stand on your own, but you brought Rislyn here safe—I don’t see how that’s a failure.”
“They still have the High Princess.”
Jeni slid out from under his arm and faced him. He balanced precariously with one hand on her shoulder, looking down into clear and angry gray eyes.
“That’s not your fault, and you’re a fool if you think it is! You’re lucky you escaped with your life—that you came away with Rislyn is more than anyone could have hoped! But you feel sorry for yourself because you didn’t complete the perfect portrait of Hero!”
“That’s not true!” he replied hotly. “It was my duty to try and—“
“—and you succeeded! Has Pol blamed you? Has anyone? Anyone but yourself, that is! Goddess, men are impossible!” She strode away from him and he had to brace himself against a nearby wall. “You’re not going to fight in whatever battle they’re planning! It’s not your duty to get yourself killed!”
This had ceased to be gratifying. Young as he was, Sethric understood that this meant more than her fear or his guilt.
“Camigwen.” Use of her full name made her whole body stiffen. “Do I begrudge you your dragon?”
She whirled, sun-streaked brown braids flying. “What does Lainian have to do with this?”
Young as he was, Jeni was younger. Carefully, he said, “Do I get angry that you’re a Sunrunner, and others like you will know your thoughts in ways I never can?”
“You’re not making any sense at all, Sethric, you—“
“A Sunrunner with a dragon is what you are. What you are is what I love.” He paused to gather words, propping himself more firmly against the stone, wishing he could go to her and touch her. “After this war is finished, you’ll want to earn your rings. When we’re both ready, if you haven’t found anybody you’d rather Choose, I want us to be married,”
She caught her breath; it was the first time that word had been used between them. He couldn’t tell whether it pleased her or not, and didn’t dare stop to find out.
“But during that time,” he continued as steadily as he could, “I’ll be in Grib. I’ll help my cousin Elsen keep the laws by riding the princedom, the way High Prince Rohan set up the Medr’im. I’ve thought about it quite a bit, and I think it’s something I’d be good at. It’s what I want to do, Jeni—what I intend to be. Will you begrudge me that?”
“But that’s different!” she cried. “I don’t have a choice about being a Sunrunner—“
“Your mother did.”
“She was afraid,” Jeni snapped. “I’m not. And we’ll leave my mother out of this, if you please!”
“What in Hells do you expect?” he exclaimed. “That I’ll sit on my ass at Summer River, waiting for you to learn how to be something I can’t? What happens if you decide you don’t want a man who can never share that with you? If you’re scared of losing me to this war—Goddess, Jeni, don’t you think I’m scared of losing you to the Sunrunners?”
“It’s not the same! You could die!”
“Either way,” he told her bitterly. “Just to a different death.”
Tears sheened her eyes, but she was too proud to cry. “I hate being afraid for you,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do with this, how I’m supposed to behave, what I should say—oh, why did you have to tell me you love me? Why couldn’t you have waited?”
“Because I thought I was going to die,” he answered simply. “And I couldn’t leave you without letting you know.”
Jeni wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. If she turns away from me, he thought, then I really have lost her. ‘”Sethric—“
A sudden shadow swept away the sunlight. He glanced seeing the dragon pass overhead. Lainian settled on the dusky ground below and keened a demand that sent Jeni to walls. Sethric waited, biting his tongue. But she was leaning over the battlements, entirely absorbed in the dragon. Sethric might not have existed. She stood not two arm lengths from him, but she might as well have been atop the highest peak in the Veresch—or at Goddess Keep.
He judged the distance to the stairs, fairly certain he could make it that far. Climbing down them, however, was problematical. Maybe he could call for someone to help. All he lacked at this point was a three-flight fall to reopen his wound and bust a few ribs—and his stupid, stubborn skull.
Her arm slid around his waist. He looked down, startled. She was still looking over the walls at her dragon, not at him—but she was laughing softly. And suddenly he laughed, too, for Lainian was humming and crooning and rocking his head back and forth with what Sethric could swear was a ridiculously blissful expression in his eyes.
“You see?” Jeni said. “He likes you!”
“Looks that way.”
“He considers you to be his now, too, you know.” She slanted a glance up at him, the westerly sun glossing her face in gold. “Dragons are possessive. So it seems I’ll have to marry you to keep him happy.”
Sethric gulped, rallied, and said, “I owe him, then.”
Jeni laughed. “I promise I won’t mind having to share you with a dragon.”
No man in his right mind could have resisted that face or those eyes. Sethric leaned down to kiss her, and the dragon sang loudly enough to rattle the stones of Skybowl.
When Chay went upstairs, he found Tobin seated beside Pol in the moonlight, the dragon book in the young man’s lap. Neither spoke a word; they weren’t even moving except to breathe and blink. He stood staring at them for a few moments, then shrugged and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed.
Some time later he emerged, wearing a thigh-length nightshirt, his face freshly shaved (a habit formed early in their marriage to spare her delicate skin the abrasion of a day’s growth of beard), and his temper ready to ignite. The two sat exactly as before, silent and motionless, discussing Goddess knew what by the bright white light of the moons.
He was tempted. He knew better than to interrupt a Sunrunner at work, but oh, he was tempted. It was late, nearly midnight, and Pol ought to know better than to keep Tobin up when she needed rest. She was doing much better—walked with only one cane to aid her, spoke more clearly, and the damaged side of her face was even showing a little responsiveness. Tobren attended her except when at lessons, and had said only yesterday that Granda was getting stronger. Chay knew what that meant. Tobin would try to do more, and exhaust herself, and lose what ground she’d gained. Look at her over there, black eyes wide open—both of them, the way they hadn’t been since her illness— oblivious to everything around her. Even him.
From the day they’d first set eyes on each other, she had never not noticed him. Good Goddess, nearly fifty years. He remembered every day of them. They’d quarreled, laughed, struggled, made love, fought wars, ruled their vast holding, raised three boys to manhood, wept over a fourth who’d died too young, then wept over another son murdered in his prime. Looking at her now, he knew that they were both old—she coming up on sixty-seven winters, he on seventy. They were grandparents seven times over. Yet through all those fifty years they had never worn away the rough spots, never settled into a comfortable routine.
And never, ever been bored.
Chay wondered occasionally what it might be like to have a placid, agreeable wife—like Meiglan, for instance, or Alasen, or the way Betheyn would have been with Sorin, or even Sioned in her more peaceful moments. He couldn’t imagine it. Life without Tobin? Life without living.
He heard her laugh. Her eyes caught his and lit with excitement, and it was just the same as always. He forgot everything he’d been thinking, except that she was the most impossible woman who ever drew breath, and—Goddess help him—he adored her.
Pol was laughing, too. “Congratulate us, Chay! Tobin and Sionell and I are brilliant!”
“Congratulations,” he growled. “Now get out of my Ijed-chamber so I can get some sleep.”
“Don’t you want to hear it?”
“Tell me tomorrow. I’m tired and I’m going to bed.”
Tobin’s smile actually lifted both corners of her mouth— xtill lopsided, true, but more the smile he remembered. Cross old d-dragon,” she accused.
Pol slapped the book closed, stood, bent to kiss Tobin’s brow, and said, “Be sure to kick him tonight when he least expects it. Sleep well.”
When he was gone, Chay narrowed his eyes at his wife. “Do you walk or do I carry you?”
She snorted. “As if you could, feeble old fool—“
She finished with a yelp as he swept her up into his arms. When he had her settled in bed, he climbed in beside her and muttered, “Do something about the lights.”
Sunrunner’s Fire winked out on a pair of candle branches.
A little while later, he whispered, “Tobin?”
“Mmm?”
“What have you and that insane whelp of Rohan’s come up with?”
She snuggled up against his back and twined an arm around his chest. “Broken crockery,” she said succinctly.
He turned his head, and her face was a pale smiling oval in the moonlight. “What?”
“Thought you were t-tired.”
“Tobin—“
“Go to sleep.”
“Tobin!”
She laughed and kissed his neck, and would not explain.
Typical, he told himself, tucking her hand against his heart, and didn’t for a moment wish her any different than she had always been.
The next morning—the seventy-eighth of a seemingly endless Winter, as everyone would have agreed if asked— brought, among other things, a departure from a village in Firon and an arrival at a castle in the Desert.
Rohannon, weak but recovering, made it into the saddle by himself to prove he’d been right in declining Arlis’ offer to wait another day at Pimanost. The storm had blown itself out, and they must start for Balarat again—and they couldn’t leave him behind. Aldiar could function as lookout, but only Rohannon could be their Sunrunner. Only he could communicate with other faradh’im.
Rislyn, weak but recovering, responded to Meath’s voice with a shy smile that stung tears into his eyes.
Kazander, who admitted no weakness and insisted he had recovered completely, greeted Ghayla with a delighted smile that didn’t hide the pain-weariness in his eyes. His pleasure turned to outrage when she ordered him to undo his nightshirt so she could have a look at his wound. He pulled the sheets up to his chin; she told him not to be a bigger fool than the Goddess had made him and stop this silliness at once. To Visian’s amazement, Kazander meekly submitted.
In other places—at Goddess Keep, at Radzyn, at Feruche, and at the Vellanti encampment outside Stronghold—people stayed put and fretted as their differing circumstances dictated.
Elsen, also bedridden, breakfasted with his sister and her husband, and talked of anything but when and if the Vellant’im would attack. The Sunrunners, led by Torien and Man, stood on the ramparts and sang in the dawn, shivering in a fog that tucked around Goddess Keep like a blanket, smothering all faradhi communication for yet another day.
Tilal, defying the advice of a dozen knowledgeable physicians, got out of bed, took several turns around Chay’s and Tobin’s rooms, and promptly collapsed back onto the pillows in infuriated exhaustion. Princess Iliena gave him a look to wither grass and told him to behave or she’d tell Gemma on him.
Everyone at Feruche woke to yet another day of questions with no answers and problems with no solutions. Only Pol, Tobin, and Sionell met the morning with enthusiasm, and once Ruala understood why they asked what they asked, she laughed, too, and set herself and Maara and Jihan the task of gathering up every suitable piece of white pottery in the keep.
Meiglan, waking in the white tent to the sight of a white-robed priest setting white clothing on a stool, turned to her other side in bed and shut her eyes and refused to leave the cocoon of Tobin’s white silk sheets.
The High Warlord, awake since dawn, spent half the morning watching the northern Desert sky and the other half watching the priests’ white enclave.
Elsewhere, three groups of varying sizes moved at varying speeds to their planned destinations.
The first, made up of a priest who had deigned to act as courier and two clanmasters and their ninety warriors, headed due north at a quick canter, skirting the edge of the foothills, toward Feruche.
The second traveled slowly and amid constant complaints, due west through Princemarch’s mountain passes where snow had turned to slush in thin but stubborn sunshine.
The third journeyed due north on the Faolain River, blessing the strength of a wind that quickened their sails and made catching the second group a real possibility instead of just a hope.
None of the three would end their ventures in quite the manner they’d planned.
None of those who waited, worried, or worked; none of those who left safe haven, or reached it, or sought it, or sought to keep others from it—none of them would end the seemingly endless Winter in quite the manner they’d planned.