When Ostvel woke, Camigwen was kneeling beside him, smiling as she held out a clay mug of steaming taze.
How lovely she was—the laughing tilt of her black eyes, the soft dark sheen of her skin, the warm length of her hair knotted carelessly at her nape. And so young ... and he so old now, the hand that reached for her knot-veined and shaking. He had lived more than half his life without her, and grown old.
Then he remembered. “Camig-gina.”
He didn’t know how much his face had revealed, but the stammer brought instant understanding and regret to the woman’s eyes. “Forgive me. I didn’t think. I should have realized—“
“It’s all right.” He gulped taze around the lump in his throat.
“We let you sleep late,” Camigina said after a moment. “They’re barely stirring in Chiana’s camp.”
He nodded. She made another little gesture of apology and left him alone.
The morning was spectacularly bright, as if the sun had confused the eightieth dawn of Winter with the same day in Summer. All around Wine-stem Pass light fairly blazed. Flowers, poking their heads up from the soggy soil, decided it would be churlish not to bloom in response. Animals left shelters to forage, insects buzzed happily by, and birds sang their hearts out.
All that energy pained Ostvel’s eyes.
By midmotmtvg Chiana still hadn’t emerged from the damned ravine. Ostvel’s little army had been in hiding on either side of the meadow since the previous afternoon. For all the new sunshine, it was still chilly and damp. They’d dared no cookfires, brewing taze one cup at a time over well-shielded fingerflames. The diarmadh ‘im would risk no more than this, knowing what their kind were capable of seeing, and how. Ostvel didn’t need magical reasons for prohibiting fires. A column of smoke was a column of smoke, no matter how one chose to look at it. But their words of caution set him to wondering how they had lasted so long if the only senses they relied on were their weirding ones.
It was those senses, however, that would fight this battle. Camigina had been most specific. The sorcerers with Chiana and Rinhoel were their ancient enemies, with blood-claims going back a hundred years before Ostvel was born. He agreed to leave the fight to the diarmadh’im—not wanting to risk a single one of his three hundred soldiers on the worthless Chiana and Rinhoel—but the gleam in their eyes worried him. Hungry wolves tracking coveted deer for fifty measures would have softer eyes.
The sorcerers were grouped to one side of the meadow, as close as they could get to the mouth of the pass without leaving effective cover. The budding trees never even rustled. If, among the thick stand of thin trunks, there were a few more shadows than usual, they seemed only bushes in early leaf.
The regular troops were farther back, just as hidden, but not as silent. They didn’t have to be. Chiana, Rinhoel, their guards, the diarmadh’im—somebody was supposed to see them. There was an invisible line stretching all the way across the dewy grass, half a measure to the trees opposite Ostvel’s own hiding place. That line would not be crossed by anyone who came out of Wine-stem Pass. The half-full mark on the cup, he would have called it, had the place been set upright with the hollow stem widening upward into the goblet of meadow. But the glass lay on its side, with half its bowl made only of sky.
Which thought brought him naturally to the Desert, where it seemed his elder daughter had acquired a dragon, and thence to Feruche, where almost all the rest of his family were. Atesen and Dannar, Riyan and Ruala and Maara and a new baby coming—and him hundreds of measures away, unable to do a thing in their defense. Thank the Goddess that
Milar at least was safe and snug at Castle Crag. He wondered when and if he could say the same for the rest.
Safe he himself could not be, not with half an army of diarmadh’im coming through that bottleneck sooner or later. Snug was only a wistful memory. He’d take out every instant of worry and discomfort on Chiana’s pride. He was too damned old for this.
He could hear Alasen’s voice: “Yes, my lord. Old, decrepit, indolent, selfish, set in your ways, and all the rest. I know the whole list by heart. Now, come to bed and let me make a liar of you.”
Andry was at Feruche.
The thought sidled into his mind, smirking. He kicked it out. Just in time, too, for a trickle was draining now from the stem of the glass: riders wearing the proud green of Meadowlord that Chiana and Rinhoel had defiled.
Twenty, thirty—Where did they get so many horses?— moved forward into the brilliant chill morning. There was no attack by the defending sorcerers. Ostvel’s stomach churned with the suspicion and then the near-certainty of betrayal. Camigwen ‘s eyes in a stranger’s face—Goddess, what a fool I am! More riders came, wearing brown or dark blue cloaks. Forty of them, fifty—and still the sorcerers did nothing.
The order to charge had come up from his lungs to the back of his throat when a rider tumbled to the grass. And another. And a dozen more, cloaks spreading like broken wings.
Then someone began screaming, and did not stop.
It was like his first sight of dragons: knowing they were real, not believing in theIacr of them until he saw them in all their fierce power, soaring across Desert sky. He’d known Sunrunners most of his life; he’d seen what they could do. But he’d never seen anything like this. Never heard of it, never imagined it—and, like the first sight of dragons, barely believed it.
Many fell. Many others screamed. Whatever the diarmadh’im were doing, it was selective. Of the hundred or so in the meadow, only about half now lay in moist grass. But they were silent as death, and as still. The rest howled their terror, cloaks flying as they dug heels into equally terrified horses.
Ostvel had drawn perhaps ten breaths since the first rider went down. Now he climbed into the saddle to show himself
SKY BOWL
415 to his troops, bellowing with all the air in his lungs, “Azhrei!”
His soldiers didn’t need him. They chased down those who tried to escape—or those who had lost control of their horses; they killed every man and woman they caught. Though this was war, Ostvel decided grimly, it was not a battle. The slaughter of fifty soldiers by three hundred could not be called “battle.”
He watched as every single rider who had come through the pass died. The sorcerers he assumed, were taking care of the rest. He had no part in it. He was waiting for his prizes to appear.
He heard them before he saw them. Rather, he heard Chiana. She was trying to control a pretty Kadari mare who was of a mind to escape the appalling noise of her rider’s shrieks. If Chiana would only shut up, Ostvel thought, and stop heaving up and down like that as she sucked in air, the horse would quiet.
Rinhoel caught up to her and grabbed the reins. They were now well away from everyone else—beautifully, perfectly alone. And no one came after them. So much for their loyal allies. Rinhoel stood in his stirrups, a fine target if that had been Ostvel’s intent, sword raised to protect his darling mama.
Ostvel signaled to the twenty he’d chosen as a personal guard—not for himself, but for their graces of Meadowlord— and galloped forward.
“Good morning!” he shouted cheerfully. “Lovely day, isn’t it? I bring you the High Prince’s invitation to attend him at Feruche!”
Chiana saw him and let out her shrillest cry yet. Ostvel slowed his horse to a walk, gesturing to one of the guards.
“Do something about Rinhoel’s sword before he hurts himself with it.” To the furious princeling, he continued, “Well? Shall you accept the invitation? I strongly suggest that you do, by the way. Who knows, after his grace annihilates the Vellant’im, he may be in a forgiving mood.” He grinned.
Chiana spat at him. Travel did not agree with her. She wore tattered clothes, her boots were caked in mud, her auburn hair tangled its way out of its pins, and she looked nearer sixty than forty.
“Then again,” Ostvel added, “maybe not.”
By the time he had escorted them back to his own camp— such as it was, but made cheerier by the fires they could now light—it was all over. Ostvel gave orders for a huge pyre and kept Chiana and Rinhoel close enough to watch the construction. He was delighted to discover that although there were wounded, not one of his own people would lie on that pyre tonight. All of Chiana’s would—and the ninety-nine men and women who had been caught with their spells unwoven.
More sobering was the word sent by Camigina through one of the diarmadh’im that nearly fifty of their own had died. Ostvel ordered a second pyre, unwilling to soil the ashes of friends by mingling them with those of traitors. For he did count them as friends now. They had proven their loyalty—or at least their hatred for those they considered outlaws among their own kind. Trust would have to wait a bit longer, but it was with genuine pleasure that Ostvel welcomed Camigina to his campfire and the kettle of wine warming on it.
“Drink—it’s the best from Chiana’s cellars.” He ladled it out himself into a clay cup, smiling. “It’s hot, mind. Don’t burn your tongue.”
When Camigina had sipped and given a long, satisfied sigh, Ostvel indicated the blanket spread near him and sat down. She did, too, folding herself into a brown-and-blue huddle beside the fire’s warmth.
After a moment she looked up. “They were smart. They mixed their own in with the regular guards—the ones wearing Meadowlord’s green. I apologize for not anticipating it. We hadn’t meant for any of your people to fight at all.”
“Little harm to them. Cuts and bruises.” He drank from his own cup. “You went after the diarmadh ‘im only, then.”
“It was judged the best plan. Some of them rallied against us for a time.”
“I heard. I’m sorry you lost so many.”
“It was good to fight in the open,” she mused. “We don’t, you know, and haven’t since Merisel’s day. Tell me, what will you do with Roelstra’s get?”
“That’s for the High Prince to decide. May I ask you to come with me to Feruche? He’ll want to thank you personally.”
“Most gracious. We will consider it.” She drank deep, the wine cool enough now for a long draught. “Oh, that is good!
Teachers never mention how much such a thing takes out of you, do they?”
Ostvel set his cup down and stripped off his gloves to warm his hands over the fire. “Would it be tactless of me to ask exactly what it was?”
She arched a brow. “You are Camigwen’s Chosen. You may ask anything. It was not the ros’salath, if that’s what you mean. It doesn’t even have a name. Sunrunners needn’t fear it. Diarmadhi to diarmadhi only, and dangerous at the best of times. Unless the surprise is total, as it was today.” She hunched her shoulders a little, adding, “It felt very good indeed, and I think that’s the greatest danger of all.”
“High Prince Rohan would have understood perfectly.”
“And his son?”
“With all that’s happened in this war, I’m sure he’s beginning to. I’m very sure he’ll want to do something about your situation.”
She frowned. “My—?”
“You don’t have to hide what you are anymore. Not in Princemarch, not in Meadowlord, not anywhere.” It wasn’t his secret to tell, so he didn’t, but he said the next best thing. “Camigwen’s son is one of his dearest friends. He knows what Riyan is. It’s time to bring all of you out of the shadows.”
“I don’t know. It’s been so long ... perhaps we wouldn’t...” She shook herself and smiled. “Old habits. We’ll consider that, too. Thank you.”
“—demand to see Ostvel at once! Do you hear me, you stupid lout? Obey me! I am the ruling Prince of Meadowlord!” Camigina glanced over her shoulder, murmuring, “Think again, boy.”
Ostvel sighed and stood. “Excuse me. I have a small matter to deal with.”
“Very small,” she agreed, and helped herself to more wine.
As he approached the circle of guards hemming Rinhoel and his mother, Chiana’s voice rose loud enough to address the whole princedom. “How dare you hold us prisoner as if we were common thieves!”
Two soldiers stood aside so Ostvel could see and be seen. Wrists loosely bound, otherwise untouched, mother and son were spitting venom. Ostvel wondered how, by the sweet green eyes of the Goddess, this woman could be Naydra’s sister—and how either of these prizes could be related to
Pol.
“How about uncommon murderers?” he asked.
Chiana gasped in outrage. “Peasant! Liar!”
“Butcher,” Rinhoel added.
Ostvel remembered the dead who were dead because of these vipers. Rialt, with his blithe good humor; Mevita of the sharp and witty tongue; gentle Cluthine; the stalwart strength of Kerluthan. He even remembered Kalian, the Parchment Prince, inoffensive and ineffectual. Aurar, also killed by one or the other of this pair, Ostvel could very well do without. But they were murderers many times over—not even counting the battle fought because of their treachery, in which so many more had died.
“Be glad I’m too tired to get angry,” Ostvel said. “If I had the energy, I’d slit your throats myself.”
“You don’t dare lay a finger on us!” Chiana raised her mirror-scarred fists. “Remove these ropes at once! I want horses and a guard to take us home!”
“Whose home?” Ostvel asked. “Yours—or mine?”
.Chiana spluttered.
“If the latter,” he went on, “I don’t recall having invited you. If the former—I take leave to inform you that Swalekeep and all Meadowlord now belong to the High Prince. So you see, you have no home to go to. I’d take Pol up on a room and a roof at Feruche. You’re not likely to get any other offers.”
The soldiers were openly laughing now. Rinhoel seemed to have misplaced his powers of speech entirely, but Chiana sucked in a breath, eyes flashing. Odd, Ostvel mused, how they were mottled like a lizard’s scales.
“You fool! Don’t you understand? We were used! These foul, scheming sorcerers—we were innocent pawns, used by them to—“
“Oh, do shut up,” Ostvel sighed. “You sang that song nine years ago, and it was out of tune then.”
Rinhoel lunged for him, and was shoved back by a Castle Crag regular who looked as if he wanted to do a lot more than shove.
“The High Prince and I are both musically inclined,” Ostvel continued, liking the turn of phrase, “and we know a dead string when we hear it.”
Unhappily, Rinhoel had found breath and words. “You’ve become their creature! They’re using you! Sorcery was done here today!”
“When Lord Andry finds out he’ll have you executed!” Chiana flung at him. “He’s wanted an excuse to get rid of you for eighteen years! He’ll take his revenge at last—and he’ll take Alasen, too!”
Ostvel went very still. He had stopped being jealous the night his wife had agreed to become his wife. He knew he shouldn’t react, unless with laughter. But this bitch had dared speak Alasen’s name. All other crimes were not his to punish; that was the High Prince’s privilege. But this was too much.
He slapped Chiana across the face, so hard that she spun halfway around before she fell. Rinhoel gave a roar of fury and struggled toward him again, and this time it took three men to hold him back.
Ostvel couldn’t remember ever having raised a hand to a woman in his life—except this woman’s sister. And lanthe, he had killed.
Chiana gasped with pain and helpless rage. Blood ran from her nose; he hoped he’d broken it.
“That’s a good place for you,” he said. “In the mud, where you belong.”
Back at his own fire, he sat and drank a full cup even though the wine nearly blistered his mouth. Camigina stayed silent while he drank, but as he poured another cup she said, “Now you know how it was for us.”
His palm still stung a little; a satisfying pain. “Yes. I think so. It felt very good—and no regrets.”
After a time, she said, “Light makes shadows. We all cast them. We’d be foolish to believe otherwise. But that one.—“ She tilted her chin over her shoulder. “She darkens those near her. She was a shadow before the sun ever touched her.”
“I don’t know that it ever did,” he replied thoughtfully. “From the moment she was born... Her father Named her appropriately, it turns out.”
“ Treason.’ Yes.” Setting her cup on one of the rocks that made the fire pit, she pushed herself to her feet. “I must see to my people, your grace.”
He looked up with a weary smile. “My dear lady! Kin or not to my Camigwen, if you call me that just once more—!”
“Get used to it,” she advised.
While Ostvel waited for Chiana and Rinhoel, Maarken waited for Chadric and Audrite, muttering his mental list as he donned clothes, cloak, and sword. He knew he’d forgotten something. Before any journey, his mother invariably stopped at Radzyn’s gates to send a servant back upstairs for whatever had slipped her mind. But his concerns were more important than a gown, a gift, or a book, and he’d look a proper shattershell riding back up the slope of Skybowl to mention arms or tactics.
The selection of the courier to Stronghold had been made last night—a delicate matter of some contention. Daniv attempted to assert his rank as ruling Prince of Syr. This of course disqualified him.
“Yes, you’re Prince of Syr—the only one we’ve got!” Audrite scolded. “I know you’re still young, but try not to be so silly!”
Draza of Grand Veresch considered himself perfect for the task. Maarken told him to consider his wife and two children.
“Besides, it has to be someone who knows the Desert,”
Maarken added.
“Someone highborn,” Walvis said, “with an impressive title to spout at them—and whom Meiglan recognizes so identity can be confirmed.”
Feylin snapped, “I do hope you’re not suggesting yourself!”
“They wouldn’t believe me,” he sighed glumly. “I’m Lord of Remagev, and they already came calling to my place.”
Neither Kazander nor Sethric could sit a saddle yet, let alone ride across half the Desert twice. Though the former could have made the Vellant’im believe the moons were made of goat cheese, and the latter swore he could lie six ways to Snowcoves in a good cause, they were thanked and told to go heal.
Laroshin volunteered out of duty. He was not highborn, however, and his real duty was to protect a lady who needed him. Visian offered and was refused for the same reasons. Maarken, Battle Commander of the Desert, was obviously impossible. Jeni opened her mouth and closed it again without saying anything when Sethric glowered at her.
All at once Isriam got to his feet.
“Send me,” he said simply.
Maarken nodded at once. Audrite handed over the master-work of treason she had concocted the night before, along with the text of his speech to the High Warlord and a map.
Isriam and Daniv, friends since the start of their fostering at Stronghold, drew to one side of the hall with Visian and Walvis to discuss horses, routes, water holes, and provisions. Maarken reminded himself to do something really nasty to Pirro in payment for Isriam’s emotional torment.
Any of the others could have performed the task of courier just as well, but none had better reasons. Isriam’s diffidence was not characteristic of him. He’d been very quiet since Pol’s news that Sabriam had disinherited him and Pirro had not acknowledged him. Highborn he was—higher than anyone had thought, as the grandson of a Prince of Fessenden as well as old Prince Clutha of Meadowlord—but the revelation had mortified him. He saw himself as unwanted, unneeded, next to nothing, with no right to assert himself. But he also knew he was the perfect, expendable choice.
Maarken had seen Isriam’s dark eyes burn with the need to prove himself to himself. He understood that very well; it had undoubtedly been in his own eyes the day Rohan had given him the garnet ring on the middle finger of his right hand. His first Sunrunner ring—though unofficial, with a gold one from Andrade added later; his first confirmation that he would not go the neutral way of most Sunrunners. His gifts would be used in the service of his prince.
So the courier had been chosen and that part of the plan set. In a little while Maarken would lead his people back to Feruche. The castle would- be empty in two days’ time, at which point Ruala would take possession. The High Warlord would come, welcomed with a wary smile and vehement castigation of Pol’s rule.
And poor Meiglan would have a decent roof over her head again.
She would be incredulous at Riyan and Ruala’s treachery, deny it to the skies, not believe it for an instant—but doubts would gnaw at her and until this was resolved she’d feel herself utterly abandoned. Maarken regretted her anguish, but that was war.
And he had forgotten something about the war. Damn it, what?
Chadric and Audrite entered his rooms, and he was grateful for the interruption of futile worries that wouldn’t settle into specific thoughts. “Everything’s ready?” he asked.
“Not quite yet,” Audrite said.
Chadric frowned at her. “I thought you said packing began before dawn.”
“It did. But what we can’t take with us has to be hidden in the cellars. Or do you want all the best furniture splintered for firewood and knives dug into the rest? Not to mention what they’ll do to the rugs and tapestries.”
Maarken bit his lip. They had all heard by now what state Radzyn was in; he didn’t dare think about his own Whitecliff. However— “Don’t strip the place bare,” he had to say. “Skybowl is a lived-in castle, not a derelict cottage.”
Audrite sighed tolerantly. “Are there any other obvious facts you’d care to point out as if they were vital military secrets?”
He grinned. “Sorry. What I need to ask you isn’t obvious—in fact, it’s perfectly obscure. Pol rousted me out of bed with the first sunlight to ask about it. I know you left Graypearl in one Hell of a hurry. But did you happen to bring along a certain sapphire earring?”
Chadric arched both brows. “I was wearing it. I always do. I always have, since my father gave it to me shortly before he died.” He lifted the fringe of graying hair from his ear. An unfaceted sapphire the size of a dried bean, and just as dented, pierced the lobe.
“Pol would like to borrow it, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Chadric agreed readily, removing it. “How offended would you be if I asked why?”
“As offended as I am that he didn’t tell me.”
“Hmph,” he grunted. “I thought we taught that boy better manners.”
Maarken unhooked the pendant gray agate from his own ear—a present from Hollis—and slid it in a trouser pocket. “Audrite, can you help me put this on? I hope it’s all right that I wear it,” he added as she rose to comply. “I know only you and Prince Lleyn ever have, but—“
Chadric shook his head. “And Lady Andrade. It was a gift from Urival after she died, one of the stones from her rings.” Blue eyes brightened with sudden speculation. “Oho!”
Audrite’s reaction nearly made her drop the earring. Maarken steadied her and told Chadric, “It doesn’t really explain why, but it’s a hint. I promise I’ll let you know through Jeni when I find out all of it.”
“Only if Pol thinks we ought to know,” Audrite cautioned. “There—that’s got it.” She stepped back. “Maarken—“
“Yes?”
“There are other gems from her rings still around.”
“The amber is in my wedding necklet,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever see it again—we left it behind at Whitecliff.”
“But there are others,” she insisted. “Your mother has the ruby, doesn’t she? And your father got the diamond.”
Searching her eyes, he asked, “What is it you’re trying to say?”
But all at once he knew, and felt sick. This was what had been nagging him—not some thing he was forgetting, but this particular thing he didn’t want to acknowledge. Andrade’s jewels, in Andrade’s rings—but not really hers. They had been sized over and over again to fit each successive Lady or Lord of Goddess Keep. Who knew but that they dated back to Lady Merisel’s day?
Andry had chosen to wear all new rings, the first indication of the changes he would make in Sunrunner tradition.
Was Pol gathering the ancient gems to make new rings— for himself?
High Prince, Sorcerer, Sunrunner—
“I’m probably wrong.” Audrite’s eyes said something else. “Pol isn’t that foolish, or that ambitious.”
Chadric had not yet made the connection, “Would you please tell me what you’re talking about? Or will I have to read it in the history books, or hear it sung by a bard?”
“Books.” Maarken seized on the word as a bulwark against intolerable ideas. Instantly he knew that this was what he’d forgotten. “Audrite, of everything you take out of here, make sure Feylin’s dragon book is in your own hands.”
“I’m not a fool, either,” Audrite reminded him. “Time you left, my dear. It’s a long ride back to Feruche.”
Chayla had told Kazander the same thing last evening.
And it’s a ride you won’t be taking until the New Year. Your Isulk’im can hide you perfectly well in the hills when the Vellant’im get here. Oh, stop looking furious, it only wastes energy you need to heal.”
Like Feylin, she marveled that Kazander wasn’t dead. As she mounted up in the bright morning sunshine and made sure her traveling kit of medicines was lashed securely behind her saddle, she wondered if there might be time for her to slip upstairs for one more look at his wound, just to make sure he was—
No. She’d said her farewells last night, crisp and clean. Laroshin rode on one side of her, Meath with Rislyn in his lap on the other, the Sunrunner and the soldier’s sword ready to protect her. Chayla smiled at her little cousin, happy for this one thing to be purely and simply glad about. Lir’reia waited near the lake, and no one doubted mat the dragon would follow them all the way to Feruche to take care of her new possession.
Chayla’s own watchful swordsman rode his black Radzyn mare through the gates just ahead of her. Visian’s new title of “lord” had been confirmed with relish by Kazander, even as he charged his brother-by-marriage yet again to become a hundred swords if anything or anyone dared threaten her. She sighed to herself. If she had been tall, sturdily built, and vividly colored, like Sionell or Feylin or Audrite, they wouldn’t hover around her, anxious lest she blink too forcefully and lose an eyelash.
As on the ride down, Lord Draza ted the way. Chayla saw her father’s sun-streaked brown head several rows of riders up from her; he was in close conversation with Isriam. The young man would leave them at the bottom of the road and gallop for some featureless speck of sand to meet Tilal’s courier. The pearls would be handed over, Isriam would gallop north again, and appear to come down to Stronghold from Skybowl to deliver them and the letter.
Perhaps she had lost her sense of humor, but the trick that amused the others so much that amusement seemed their whole reason for it didn’t strike her as funny at all. On the one side was practicality: getting everyone out and getting the Vellant’im in. As a physician, she appreciated the tidiness of reverse surgery that would excise healthy flesh to let disease flourish. But on the other side were the shameful words in that letter, and the shocking notion behind it. Whatever a prince’s failings, no one ever summarily negated the established order and kicked him out. History was replete with wars to oust the corrupt, the rapacious, or the simply foolish—and assassinations aplenty, too. But an athri’s uni- lateral decision to cancel all oaths of fealty as a legal remedy for redress of grievances—unthinkable.
The Prince and Princess of Dorval had highly original minds. Scant comfort to hear Chadric laugh that his father would have clapped him on the back for his cleverness with one hand while slapping him senseless for his temerity with the other.
Just outside the gates, the road curved on its way toward the crater’s summit, and it wasn’t that much of a turn of her head to look back at the keep. Sure enough, Kazander was there at his windows. His face, paled by sickness, was divided in thirds by thick black brows and the sweeping black mustache. She’d see him again at Feruche, and then at the celebrations after the victory, and then he’d be gone.
Better so. She wasn’t the girl he’d seized onto his knee at Remagev; she didn’t think he was that man anymore, laughing and wild and brimming over with song. There’d been so many things between then and now. Too many.
She was older now. She knew more about herself. So she understood why it hurt to see Jeni and Sethric on the wall above the gatehouse, she tucked under his arm as they waved good-bye.
The pair on the walls watched until the last riders vanished. Then Jeni leaned her head on Sethric’s shoulder and sighed.
“I’ll be glad to leave—to see my mother and Dannar again,” she said. “But I’ll be sorry, too. I’m not sure Skybowl will survive this.”
“If Lord Chaynal at his age can rebuild Radzyn, your brother can rebuild Skybowl.”
“Yes. Of course. But it won’t be the same.”
“Nothing is, not from one moment to the next.” He held her closer. “Not even love, when you think about it. If you’re lucky, the way we are, it gets better each day.” He paused. “Do you think your mother will like me?”
“Are you worried?” She smiled up at him.
“Some. And about what your father will say.” He shifted uncomfortably on his sore leg. “But it’s not as if I’m stealing you away from them immediately, so maybe they’ll get used to the idea in time.”
“You won’t be stealing anything. We don’t marry out of our family. Other people marry into it. You’ll see—Pol will give you a holding in Princemarch or the Desert, and when we’re ready to be married, that’s where we’ll live.”
She sounded very complacent about it. He undertook not to resent the power of her powerful relations. But pride compelled him to say, “It may be that my uncle or my cousin will find something for me in Gilad, you know.”
“Then we’ll have two homes.” Smiling, unworried, she slid both arms around him, tilting her head back. “Two, a hundred, none at all—what does it matter?”
“We have each other?” He grinned. “That was the general idea,” she purred. He kissed her, wondering if her mouth would ever be anything less than irresistible. Goddess, he hoped not. No other girl had ever tasted the way Jeni tasted. Fit in his arms the way she fit. Dug her fingers into his back with innocent passion—that had better ease off now or her father would come after him with a naked sword and finish what the Vellant’im had begun.
Sethric had only just drawn reluctantly back when a great shout went up from the courtyard behind them. With Jeni’s help, he hobbled through the gatehouse door and out to the balcony. Every horse left in the stables was being saddled, every man or woman who could hold a sword was arming for battle.
“What in all Hells—?” Sethric’s gaze skimmed over the chaos and widened as he caught sight of a familiar figure tottering against a wall. “Kazander! What are you doing out of bed?” The korrus pointed southeast. “Vellant’im!”
Draza, in the lead as the company rode north, didn’t see the cloud of sand. Neither did Maarken, or Meath, or Chayla, or even the watchful Laroshin. It was Visian, Isulki-alert to every nuance of the Desert, who sensed them first along his nerves. He peered into the distance, saw a telltale smudge just poking up over the horizon, and bellowed the alarm.
Laroshin snatched Rislyn from Meath’s arms and kicked his horse to an all-out gallop. Maarken and Draza shouted orders and the company split in thirds: one to protect, two to fight. Isriam, already past a rise of dunes to the east, halted for only a few breaths. He was one man, one sword. He might make a difference in a battle—but the task he had been assigned might make all the difference in the world. He clamped long legs around the ribs of the fastest stallion at Skybowl, leaned over the glossy russet neck, and rode as if all Hells were after him.
Sethric swung up into the saddle, unable to hide a wince but keeping the groan of pain imprisoned between his teeth. He had to fumble to fit his foot into the stirrup, the injured leg balking. He’d get no strength out of it, no help for balance. But he’d manage.
When he could speak again without his voice shaking, he shouted to a passing groom. “Here, girl! Get rne a sword!”
“Sethric—no!” Jeni clung to his knee. “If you do this—“
“Don’t say it,” he warned. “Just—don’t.” The sword was in his hand. No belt, no scabbard, just plain sheened steel. “Let go, Jeni.”
He pried her hands loose, dared to kiss one of them, and rode through the gates to join Walvis and Daniv and everyone at Feruche who could sit a saddle and hold a sword.
Maarken called Meath forward on sunlight, explaining what he wanted to know that he didn’t have time to check for himself. Then, while his old friend worked, he struggled to knot his reins one-handed. They must be loose enough to keep the stallion’s head free but not drag on the ground and trip him. He swore luridly, wanting his other hand back, but eventually succeeded and stuffed the loose ends under the saddle blanket. He drew his sword and was ready for battle by the time Meath rode up beside him.
“Two of their divisions of forty-five each, both under the High Warlord’s flag,” Meath reported. “We outnumber them, but just barely. They’re riding in rows five abreast at a fast canter. I don’t think they’ve spotted us yet—no swords out.”
He thought for a moment. “Sand Dance, I think. Yes. How far?”
“Just over five measures. The one out in front wears white, by the way. No sword, and flops about in the saddle like a sack of sand.”
“Sounds like some kind of ceremonial leader. Excellent? Off you go, Meath. This is no place for afaradhi.”
A broad grin was the reply. “And what are you, then?”
“You know what I mean, damn it! Get out of here! And take Chayla with you!”
“Visian’s seen to it, so that excuse is gone. I’ve got a sword, Maarken. I may be old, but I can still use it.”
“Meath—“
“Are you going to argue or kill Vellant’im? I’ll go tell Draza where and what and how many.” He galloped off.
“Stubborn Sunrunner!” Maarken signaled his horse with his heels and his troops with his sword. They’d played at this only two days ago, on the way here; now they would not be playing.
As two thirds of his army moved out to meet the enemy, Maarken admitted deep inside himself that he was afraid. Better to acknowledge it head-on than have it sneak up behind his back. So he gripped his fear tight in his missing hand, gripped his sword in the one he still had, and rode into battle.
Ninety of them, Draza learned from the Sunrunner with relief and regret. Lovely to have it an even match; lovelier to kill as many as he could of these accursed savages now so there’d be that many fewer to fight later on. He wouldn’t have minded another fifty or sixty at all. He knew what an adamant line of cavalry could do. He brought his group up alongside Maarken’s—twenty across now, a deep and solid swath of galloping hooves and unsheathed swords—and rose dangerously in his stirrups to wave his readiness. For Swalekeep, he thought as he settled back down, for all the good men and women he’d lost there, and for Kerluthan and his widow, and for his own wife and son and daughter at Grand Veresch, so he could go home to them soon.
They slammed into the astonished Vellant’im, who barely had time to draw their swords. As a dragonsire sidled across the sand, talons raking the sky and mighty wings displayed, so was the enemy forced to dance out of the way of the onslaught, but with no elegance and less power. The first charge killed many and unhorsed more. Maarken and Draza rode through, wheeled their army around, paused for proper order that was worth the time, and hit the disorganized foe again from the rear.
Or would have, if half the remaining Vellant’im hadn’t simply scattered in all directions. The collapse of enemy ranks made the skirmish take longer than it should have. Pity, Draza thought as he chased down a fleeing warrior, that they didn’t have sense to recognize the inevitable, and hold still and die. In the torrent of sand and swords and horses, Maarken lost sight of the white-garbed rider. Ah, well—someone would find him. But as he broke free of the mess and scanned the area, he scowled. Surely more of their own were here than there should be. If those guarding Rislyn and Chayla had left their posts, he’d—
Good Goddess, was that Daniv, hacking away at a bearded head? And Sethric, tall and lopsided in his saddle, but killing as efficiently as anyone could wish? And that imbecile Walvis, riding down an escaping Vellanti with two of his Remagev guard at his side—
“Damn it all—we’ll end up getting confused and killing each other!” He urged his stallion to the top of a dune and roared dragon-loud for a regroup. He might as well have whispered; no one heard over the din. Fire would get their attention, but he’d learned back at Stronghold that conjuring anywhere near a battle was foolhardy.
Yet fool he was, or madman, to ride at a full gallop with an unsheathed sword in one hand—the only hand he still possessed. Others saw him thunder past, and later they would admire his horsemanship and marvel at his trust in his mount. Their immediate concern was to abandon or dispatch current opponents and hurry to join their Battle Commander as he raced to protect his daughter.
Laroshin was already measures away, Rislyn tucked safely to his chest. The soldiers assigned to guard Chayla would not leave even when she ordered them to. So she had deliberately held back from top speed. Her father might need these troops—and her skills as a physician as well.
But now thirty Vellant’im were riding straight for her, and she turned to stone.
“Go on!” Visian cried. “We’ll hold them here!” He leaned over and grabbed reins, yanking her mare forward. “My Lady, please!”
She stared at the dark Isulki face. Stone broke and walled-up terror gushed from her lips in a terrible shriek. Him—black, eyes black hair he wasn’t dead he had returned to take her again shut her away in the dark again suffocate her claw at her rape her again—
Maarken slowed his horse, seeing the banner of his daughter’s golden hair whipping behind her with the wind of a wild gallop. Visian followed her. So did the Vellant’im.
And so did a cluster of Isulki warriors, summoned by some ilent and arcane understanding, angling to intercept the enemy.
The clash of it was enough to rend the rock below the sand. Howling, screaming, shattering, hideous noise—over within ten heartbeats.
Maarken slowed to a canter, then a trot. He sheathed his sword. He reined in, flung a leg over the saddle, and slipped to the ground beside a pile of bodies.
Fifteen, twenty—twenty-seven bearded faces. Fifteen just as dark, but clean-shaven. The horses had escaped. Thrifty, canny Isulk’im, to spare horses rather than themselves.
Kazander had been spared nothing. Maarken knelt beside him, touched his face. Not spared the violent rupture of his previous wound—blood bubbled at his lips with every breath, bright red blood, the brightest in the body. Not spared the sword that had ripped open half his shoulder. Not spared death. Not this time.
Black eyes opened, saw him. A smile lifted the corners of the passionate mouth. “Mighty Battle Commander ... unworthy servant ... begs pardon f-for—“ He coughed, very lightly. Without strength.
“It’s all right,” Maarken said. “She’s safe.”
“Ah.” Softly, on a sigh.
Not long now. He glanced up, hoping for Kazander’s sake that Chayla would be here, hoping for her sake that she wouldn’t.
“She’s coming,” he lied, for there was no sign of the girl. “Just a little while, my friend. You can wait that long.”
“Regret ... I cannot...” The undamaged shoulder lifted in a little shrug. “Not even for ... my Zabreneva...”
“Your—oh. I see.” The secret Name, the one whispered to a new wife when she graced her husband’s sleeping silks for the first time. Golden dawnfire.
“... pardon,” Kazander was saying, so lov^ that Maarken must lean down to hear. “Yours ... hers...”
Maarken shook his head. “No. Not needed. I understand.”
Another small, surprisingly sweet smile. “Great Lord ... thank you-...” Then he drew in as much air as his blood-filled lungs would hold—and used it to sing. Only a few words, something about a white crown, and with more breath than voice, and with the light dying in his eyes.
Most curious. He no longer seemed to have a body. For a time he’d been able to feel his arms still, but his legs had vanished in a flash of pain the instant he’d fallen from his horse and now the rest of him was disappearing. There was a heart beating somewhere, and he supposed it was his own. The neck, too—it ached from the cramped position he was in, and from which he could not move. But he discovered that with monumental effort he could shift his head and dislodge the flies that swarmed indiscriminately around dead I and dying alike.
I The sun rose high and hot, very hot for late Winter. The ‘ flies returned, concentrating on a spot over his right eye, soft-crawly on his skin when they wandered from the gash in his skull. He moved again and they went away.
He could see the bulk of Skybowl’s crater now, dark rust and gold beneath a darkening sky and clouds that would never bring rain. Not to the Desert. He would enjoy a little rain. He was so very thirsty.
Rain seemed a very long time ago. Years and years, when he’d been young at Goddess Keep ... ah, how they’d all chafed at the sight of clouds, and rejoiced in the sunlight, using their strong young gifts to weave its skeins the length and breadth of the continent...
He squinted as a shadow passed over him. Oh, of course. The clouds weren’t clouds. Dragons. They swept the sky clean with their vast wings, racing down the wind as faradh’im raced down the sunlight.
He remembered learning how, and the sweet freedom of it. Like being a dragon, she’d said once ... she who had come into his life a scared and scrawny girl with a river of firegold hair. He remembered a million things, wondering suddenly if Rohan had done the same in the moments before he died.
But Rohan. had never seen her as she had been at Goddess Keep—hunched over books in the library, slogging through muddy spring fields, scribbling frantically in classrooms, laughing as he and she and Cami and Ostvel raided the kitchens for taze and cakes late at night. He sank deep into memories: watching as she called Fire for the first time; try- ing to guess which of the Sunrunner men would go to her M that night; swearing to himself that he would not be jealous. H Knowing by the strange intensity in her eyes the next day that she had seen things in Fire and Water that meant she would never see him.
His memories of her with Rohan began on a sweltering spring day in the Desert. She, pallid and taut with tension; he, shirtless, bloodied, fresh from killing the dragon that had killed his father; them together, wary and helpless in the grip of sudden Fire.
He remembered that he’d kissed her. Once. How odd that he’d almost forgotten that. He’d startled her—almost as much as himself—after Andrade joined her to Rohan in marriage, playfully bending her backward in his arms.
“I had to!” Laughing, teasing. “I’ve never kissed a princess before!”
And never had again. She had slept in his arms that horrible night of Rohan’s death, but he had not mistaken it for something it was not. Rohan had been everything to her. It was enough simply to hold her in her need.
One thing Rohan had never known was the vibrant touch of her colors. That was a shame. Through the years when he had seen her only on sunlight, there had been the warmth of her and the brightness when they spoke in faradhi ways. He was sorry that Rohan had never known that.
Her colors were all around him now, and he smiled. Deep greens and blues of the rich land she had been born in; shades of golden amber for the Desert that she had matte her life; and black, shining like the night sky ablaze with stars. He forgot the heat and his thirst, and lost himself in the glow of her and the memory she made for him.
He was a youth again, strong and vital, and she was a young girl trembling in his arms, and it was a time before Rohan was even a face in the flames. He touched his lips to hers and her slim body melted against him.
“Oh, my dear,” she whispered, tears in her green eyes. “My very dear—“
“Shh. Don’t cry.” He stroked her long firegold hair. “It’s all right. He won’t know.”
“I should have known. I should have seen—“
“I never meant you to.” He smiled. “It really is all right,
Sioned.”
“Forgive me. I do love you. And if things had been diff—“ He placed his fingers over her mouth. “Hush. It happened
I as it was meant to happen. You mustn’t regret anything, my love. I don’t. I am content.”
Her arms twined around his neck. “Kiss me again,” she pleaded. “Kiss me—“
He did, and again, and again.
Alasen said she’d gone back up to her rooms. Pol found her there, slumped in the window embrasure sunlight shining on her bent head. He hesitated before touching her shoulder, sick with the news he had to bring her.
“Mother.”
She looked up, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Meath is dead.”
No. Not Meath. Worse than hearing about Kazander, if it was true.
“He called to me on sunlight. I felt him die.” She paused, her throat working. “Gently. Very gently, Pol. I made sure of it.”
It wasn’t true. Not Meath, first teacher, cherished friend. Maarken had said nothing—
“I should have known,” Sioned whispered, rocking slowly back and forth. “I should have seen—Rohan would never have begrudged—“
“Mother—I don’t understand.”
“I do. That’s bad enough.” She straightened up. “Leave me, Pol. Please.”
He did, blindly. He didn’t seek the heights of Feruche this rime, but the maze garden, full of living things. Too much death. How much more? When would these latest deaths be-£in to hurt through the first drugged shock of grief? “
“Pol.”
He turned from staring at the pond. Sionell. Of course. Al- ays Sionell—his greatest grief, for it went back a lifetime. Sioned should have known? Sioned should have seen? “I can’t lose you, too,” he said in a strangled voice. He saw in her eyes that she knew about Kazander. Not yet ;t Meath. can’t,” he said again. “Not you.” Taking her hands, he d them to his lips. “Please,”
“Hush.” Her arms went around him, warm comfort. lush, Pol.”
He wanted to hold her so tightly that she became part of him, to wear her like armor against pain. She was strong enough to be his strength when his own ran out. Goddess, how he needed this woman, even more than he loved her.
With Meiglan he had remained himself, owning his heart and his breath and his eyes. He gave because he wished to give. But not with Sionell. She drew him without his volition. And what had he given her but guilt and a single night?
But she had come to him here, hadn’t she? Sensing his grief? Wanting to be with him, needing him—didn’t she? His strength, his breath, the end of all his paths. Caring for him, loving him in whatever way through all these years, even though he had given her nothing. And he had never known, never seen—
He understood his mother then. And Meath.
Drawing a breath that trembled in his throat, he pulled away from Sionell’s arms. “Forgive me.”
“Are you all right now?”
He nodded. Lying.