In a castle crammed with people, Pol spent the entire day alone. Not that it had been difficult to arrange. Not for the High Prince. All he’d done was give orders to Kierun and Dannar, and they had done their duty as his squires. If anyone attempted to see him, he never knew about it. Neither did he care. ,„..,_
Enduring his own company was trial enough. Besides, he wasn’t really alone. For he spent the day in the clutter and quiet of the Attic, sometimes pacing, sometimes working, sometimes sprawled in a chair, but always in view of the Shadowcatcher.
Now it was night. Curtains shut out the light of moons and stars. A candle burned with steel-and-flint fire in his hand, flametip flickering with his shallow breaths. Feruche all around him had been locked out, forgotten. His own face stared at him: sun-gilt hair raked back from lean bones and sunken eyes and a pulse throbbing too quickly at his temple. He’d taken the mirror down this afternoon, propping it in a cushioned chair so that his face was even with the mirror face. Meeting as equals? No. If this man was what Pol knew he must be, he had no equal now living.
Other candles rested in silver holders on tables flanking the chair, waiting for other Fire. Fitted into the mirror’s frame were seven jewels, also waiting for light, still dark with his blood. .
Each gem had been freed of its setting and secured in its proper position in the frame. The prongs, half-hidden in the stems of six silver apples, had mostly been fashioned for larger stones, but he bent them gently into place, three for each. The diamond, raised above the center of the arc, nestled within a sprig of silver leaves.
His own amethyst of Princemarch was first in the spectrum, to his left. Then the sapphire that had been Andrade’s, provided in all innocence by Chadrie. Sioned’s emerald was next. Not an innocent stone, that one—nor the amethyst, nor the garnet. They fit their prongs perfectly. He gazed at the emerald that had left Sioned’s finger only once before since Rohan put it there. Beside it was Rohan’s own deep golden topaz.
Without the two rings of his two princedoms, his hands felt naked.
The garnet, colored the dark orange of angry fire, was Ru-ala’s. She’d searched her jewel box this morning, and though the design of the rarely worn necklet argued for great age, she could not say who had owned it before her. He wasn’t sure of this gem, but he had no alternatives.
The ruby completing the spectrum was from another of Andrade’s rings, given to Tobin and set into her formal coronet to honor her aunt and her husband’s colors. The diamond that surmounted the whole—Andrade’s as well—now was Chay’s, taken from its silver earring found in the same coffer as the coronet.
If Pol was right—if Meath had been right—then within these inert rocks was power stored and augmented down generations.
His, now. If he was right. If Meath had been right. If Sioned’s emerald was not some freak of long-lost sorcery.
She had sent the ring to him early this morning. Dannar had delivered it, wrapped in a piece of green velvet that concealed what it was, along with a one-sentence note: Andry will be with Maarken tonight while you work.
Of all the people he didn’t want to see, his mother topped the list.
Andry still didn’t know the truth about the mirror, much less that Pol planned to use it. The sorcerers at Feruche did—all of them. And most of the Sunrunners as well. His presence alone in this room all day was signal enough, but there was something else to indicate it, like a faint wind he couldn’t quite feel or a tentative scent he couldn’t quite smell. In the same vague way, he could sense their power within the keep, and with them the hundreds upon hundreds of other lives for which he was responsible.
High Prince. Sunrunner. Sorcerer.
I understand, Father. When it’s necessary, I must become the battlefield.
He searched his own eyes in the mirror. All the striving all the uncertainty, all the rebellion and rage—gone.
It’s not just my duty, my responsibility. It is my right.
No light but a single candle—and when he blew it out, even that was gone.
Replaced by a muted pulsing rainbow.
The blood in his body and the blood on the stones beat in sharp, identical rhythm. Faint sparks flashed from each gem, never quite touching, growing fiercer with every failure. He could almost feel them yearn for completion, his own body throbbing in time to the heartbeat of the stones.
He called Fire and the candles on either side of the mirror flared to life. Gemlights leapt for each other, embraced like lovers in a blur of purple-blue-green-yellow-orange-red. A fragmented rainbow spun into a brilliant arch of multicolored Fire that burned all his blood from the jewels—and the diamond ignited. Power subsumed and blanched all the colors of the other jewels into a pure, stark, shining white.
Suddenly his right hand jerked involuntarily toward the mirror. For all that it was unblooded, the moonstone ring— his first, only, and unofficial Sunrunner’s ring—burned deep in its milky center with a tiny white Fire. He stripped k from his finger, both hands shaking, and set it before one of the candles. Andrade’s moonstone glowed nearly as bright as the flame.
“Fire wakens me.”
A soft voice. Quiet, resonant.
Alive.
Black eyes looked at him from a sad, proud face. A changed face. Not frozen anymore. Alive.
Behind the man was a room. Ordinary: a parchment-strewn desk, a chair pushed back from it on the large flowered rug, scrolls piled on a small table. Tapestry curtains were drawn shut. Candles were lit on either side of the man, picking out fine silver embroidery on a black tunic, the sparkle of a plain gold ring on a lean dark hand. That had moved, rising to brush raven-wing hair back from one ear, where a small silver circle pierced the lobe.
“Who has called Fire, and set the selej around my head?”
“My Name is Pol,” he replied, not quite of his own will.
Silence; a thoughtful frown. “I do not know this Name. Your father was—?”
He swallowed, remembering how Thassalante had formally identified himself. “I am the son of High Prince Rohan, son of Zehava, son of Zagroy, son of—“
“I know none of these. Who was your mother?”
Sioned.
“lanthe,” he replied. “Daughter of Roelstra, son of Rinhoel, son of Roelstan.” But that was not where the diarmadhi blood flowed. “lanthe,” Pol said again. “Lallante’s daughter.”
Dark eyes closed tight, in pain. And something else, something deeper than pain. Pol waited, watching the struggle with unknown emotions visible in the tensing of the thin face.
“So,” came the whispering voice, “She who trapped me now has freed me.”
Questions tumbled in Pol’s mind. But black eyes opened again and he forgot them all.
“This is a Name I know. Now I will give you mine: Rosseyn. Son of no one,” he added, the faintest of smiles curling one corner of his mouth. “My line began with me. I am glad to see it did not end with me, my son.”
Pol felt the shock flinch through the muscles of his face. Rosseyn’s smile lit his eyes now, singularly sweet, still sad.
“You are of my blood. Perhaps you’ll forgive me for it one day. I will tell you how I know. This was all very cleverly done. Only someone of my blood, and Gerik’s, and Merisel’s, all three—and both faradhi and diarmadhi—can use this mirror. No one ever dreamed it would happen, so they thought themselves safe—and me safely here—for all time.” Rosseyn paused. “But I sense a difference in the selej. Some of the gems are not ours.”
“Y-yours?”
Heavy lashes half-hooded his eyes, as if he listened to the colors of the jewels. “Ah—the emerald, the amethyst, and the garnet. Those I know. The others are powerful in varying degrees, but those three belonged to us.”
Pol cleared his throat. “To you and Lord Gerik—and Lady Merisel?”
“The amethyst was his,” Rosseyn murmured, his gaze soft- ening. “I gave it to him myself, for the color of his eyes in sunlight. The garnet, they gave to me—for the color of my eyes in rage, they said!” He smiled wider, remembering.
“Then—the emerald was hers.”
“For the color of her eyes in firelight.” He paused. “They never dreamed that someone of our blood, all three, would ever blood jewels we had blooded, all three. So you see I know what you are, even if I did not know your Name. It seems,” he added almost whimsically, “that it has been a very long time.”
Pol didn’t answer the implied question by telling him how long.
“But now you are here, son of my blood and hers and his. Tell me why.”
“I_I need your help. The Vellant’im—“
Rosseyn’s black eyes flashed. “They dared come here?”
“They attacked in Autumn. Thousands have died—burned in their cottages and castles, slain in battle. My father—“ He stopped, steadied himself. “My father died. I am High Prince. Five days from now my wife will stand as their victim in a ritual they believe will free the dragons from my influence—“
It sounded insane. But this man understood. “Azhrei?” he asked suddenly.
Pol nodded. “Yes.”
“Gerik would be pleased,” Rosseyn said, eyeing Pol thoughtfully. Before the obvious question could be asked, he went on, “I know the rest. She has no sons—they count as virgin any woman who has borne no male child. She will be their white sacrifice. And when they have destroyed you and all your people, they will claim the white crown from the Isulk’im.”
“The Isulk’im? I don’t underst—“
“This you see above me now, created by Earth and Fire, is the true selej. There is another, a symbol, to wear. It was given to the Isulk’im in trust, to hide in the Long Sand.” Rosseyn frowned. “Tell me, have they the Tears?”
Sickness rose in his throat. “By now, yes.”
“Unfortunate. No white sacrifice may be offered without the black pearls.”
Meggie—oh, Goddess, I’ve done all this, it’s my fault! Sent you back to Dragon’s Rest, away from me and right into their hands—gave them the Tears—
“None of it will matter, of course,” Rosseyn went on. “Not even Gerik could command dragons as the Vellant’im believed. This ritual murder is meaningless. Her death will be for nothing but their ignorance and superstitions.”
“Then tell me what to do!” he begged. “Tell me—show me—“
“How to kill them?” Rosseyn shook his head, black hair shining in the light of the selej that reached into the mirror and surrounded him like a silken veil. “If so much has been lost, as Merisel hoped, then it is not for me to help you find it again.”
Pol took a step forward, as if he could touch this man, shake him into sharing the urgency. “They’re going to kill her! I need what you know! I can feel the power in this mirror—Goddess, it’s seething! Show me how to use it!”
“No.”
Pol cried out his frustration. The Fire on either side of the mirror jumped and shimmered in response.
With gentleness and with compassion, Rosseyn said, “That isn’t what you want. To kill again, to kill with your gifts—no, that’s not what you want”
The face of his ancestor was nothing like his own face. Rosseyn’s eyes were black, his bones thinner, like delicate knives beneath dark skin. But Pol saw in that face a weariness of killing that found answer in his own heart as surely as the jewels of the selej had answered each other with light.
“I’m sick of killing,” Pol whispered in a kind of defeat. “I’m good at it. Too good. I’ve enjoyed it. But it makes me the same as they are—“ ‘
“—and you have realized that despite everything, they are the same as you. It’s not an easy thing to admit. Or to describe, even to yourself. But I do understand, my son.”
He’d never thought to hear another masculine voice call him that, now that his father was dead. But hearing it from Rosseyn was a little like hearing it from Rohan. There was comfort in the claiming; tenderness, and pride.
Pol gestured helplessly. “I don’t want any more deaths. But they’re forcing me into it ...” —into doing the only thing I can do: use what I really am. Sunrunner and Sorcerer.
He bit his lips between his teeth. How much more of his father’s wisdom would crystallize for him too late?
“This mirror was originally of my making,” Rosseyn said abruptly. “I will tell you how you may use it.” The resonant voice assumed a lecturing tone. “The Vellanti mind is essentially simple and direct. The more subtle among them—but you need not concern yourself with those, I think. Your goal must be to show them they cannot hope to win.”
Gathering himself, Pol replied, “We’re already using legends against them—“
Brows arched. “Indeed? How?”
“Broken white pottery as dragon teeth—we might have to do a massive conjuring, but just sowing the sand should frighten them enough.”
Rosseyn laughed low in this throat. “Lovely! What else?”
“We’ll dip our arrows in a red paste that burns skin from bones.”
“Dragon blood? I like this more and more.”
Pol was unable to keep an answering grin from his face. “I thought about trying to convince my dragon to breathe fire, but only hatchlings do that. He’d be mortally insulted!”
Black eyes widened. “You have a dragon?”
“Well, Azhdeen has me, to be more precise.”
He shook his head in wonderment. “Gerik always said—ah, but he’d be proud to claim you, Azhrei!”
“Did he have—?” Pol ventured.
“In his youth.” Rosseyn hesitated. “Should I ask how long it has been since my youth?”
Pol was astonished by the vulnerability. Before he could think what to say, Rosseyn sighed.
“No, I don’t think so. Your face says it’s been longer than I care to know. Very well, then—if you’re ready, I will tell you how this mirror works.”
Pol’s eyes flickered to the glowing, pulsing white light of the gemstones. The power of them did seethe, hungry and barely controlled.
Rosseyn understood that, too. “Take as long as you like to decide. I’m good at waiting—I’ve had plenty of practice.”
He flushed. “I’m sorry. It’s just—the mirror—“
“I am trapped. You will not be. I promise you, my son. Do you have that much trust left in you, to believe in me?”
As a child trusts a father; as a young man trusts an older, wiser one; as a prince trusts a valued counselor—as a sorcerer trusts one of his own blood, his own kind.
“Yes,” Pol said quietly. “Show me what to do, my lord.”
Although Pol thought him safely out of the way in Maarken’s chambers, Andry did not spend the evening there. He spent it with Alasen.
He presented himself at her door with her five fellow students of the faradhi arts, none of them over the age of twelve. Alasen recovered instantly from surprise and invited them in. She sent a page downstairs for apple cider while her guests made themselves comfortable on the carpet before the hearth.
With Tobren snuggled in the crook of his arm, and Jihan, Maara, Antalya, and Meig completing the circle, Andry began talking of noteworthy Sunrunners and their deeds. Alasen settled herself close to the fire, stirring cider in a copper pot, and listened to the tale of Ardanala of Fessenden, riding through a four-day snowstorm to warn a castle of impending attack. He had a gift, did Andry, and one she had never suspected; though she’d heard the story many times, Ardanala’s peril took on an immediacy not entirely the result of Alasen’s identifying it with her own recent journey.
He spoke next about Talath of Sandeia, who’d set beacon Fires on water for two days and nights, guiding home a Dorvali fishing fleet blown hopelessly out to sea by a gale. While the hearthflames burned low, Andry told of a Sunrunner whose name no one knew, braving the sea itself to take the newborn heir of Einar safely away from treacherous kinfolk who would have murdered him.
Alasen knew why he spoke of such people. He was helping the children to think of Meath as one of those faradh’im, noble of heart, resolute of purpose, willing to risk mind and life for others. They had lost their kindest friend and teacher. These stories might help them understand why.
She appreciated his tact in not mentioning anything to do with sorcerers; Maara was diarmadhi, after all. She and Tobren and Antalya listened in rapt fascination to the authoritative version of stories they knew only as bardsong. Meig perked up at the exciting parts (wild rides, sword fights) and fidgeted at any description of political wrangling, however simplified for children’s minds. Only Jihan kept herself dis- tant, staring into her clay cup of cider, her golden hair falling forward to hide her face.
“One last story,” Andry said, setting down his empty cup. “Time was when a Sunrunner was commanded to a certain place by the Lady of Goddess Keep.”
“Which one?” Meig asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Tobren replied. “When the Lord or Lady commands, faradh ‘im obey.”
“Mostly,” said Andry with a smile. “Anyhow, this Sunrunner and some of her friends traveled for many long days through the beautiful spring countryside. Then they came to the Faolain River. There was no bridge, just a raft that ran on thick ropes to the other side. Now, because it was Spring, the Faolain ran high with meltwater from the Veresch. The raft couldn’t carry everyone at once, so they sent some of the group over with the horses and pulled the raft back to the western shore to fetch the rest. Well, you can imagine how the Sunranners felt at being on a flimsy little raft in the middle of a great big river.”
“I can,” muttered Talya, and Alasen recalled something about a boat ride on Skybowl’s lake, and how befuddled Tallain and Sionell had been to discover they’d hatched a Sunrunner.
“Me, too,” Alasen admitted, hiding a smile; the tale sounded very familiar.
“It’s no fun,” Andry agreed. “The ones who crossed first collapsed on the riverbank, sick and dizzy, not even knowing where they were. But as the raft started across a second time, the river grabbed it and wouldn’t let go.” His voice lowered to a swift whisper. “The raft shook and lurched in a powerful current, for Water had sensed the presence of Sunranners and wanted to claim them for its own. The ropes began to fray—and all at once one of them snapped!
“The Sunrunner on the opposite shore, the one the Lady had commanded to come to the faraway castle, saw the danger to her friends. She knew she was their only hope of reaching safety, but she hadn’t yet recovered from being on Water. Still, somehow she crawled over to her other friends and shook them awake. One of them was a tall, strong young Sunrunner—the kind who has to bend his head when he goes through doors, and go through sideways as well, because his shoulders are so wide. He straggled to stand up, and when he had his footing—more or less—he waded out into the river to grab the only remaining rope. That rope was all that kept the raft from whirling downriver in the torrent.”
Andry paused. “Well, together the two Sunranners got hold of the slippery rope and hauled with all their might. They tied the end to a horse, so they could use its strength to pull the raft safely across the wild river. They were still water-sick, remember, and for a while they didn’t know if up was down or backward was forward. If they made the slightest mistake, the rope might snap or even drag them into the river. But after a long, long time, they succeeded.”
Gentle-hearted Antalya gave a relieved sigh.
“That’s the way they all felt, too,” Andry agreed. “Of course, after everyone was safe, everyone simply fell over! When they could think again without the very thoughts in their heads making them dizzy, they turned to their two Sunrunner friends and thanked them for their lives.”
Not quite how it happened, Alasen thought, aware that another young man had been there—how she wished she’d known Ostvel in his youth!—-but the telling served very well for what Andry said next.
“Do you know what? All of us should give thanks, as well. For among those Sunranners at the Faolain River were—“ He smiled at Maara. “Lord Ostvel and Lady Camigwen—your grandparents.” She blinked in surprise, but Andry was already looking down at his daughter. “Andrev’s grandmother was there, too.”
“She was?” Tobren was as startled as Maara.
“She was. So I’m very grateful that she survived and had Andrev’s mother—and you should be glad, too, even if you and your brother do have the occasional disagreement,” he teased. “And because Maara’s grandfather is now Princess Alasen’s husband, she’s grateful to those Sunranners as well.”
“Indeed I am,” Alasen chuckled.
“What about us?” Meig wanted to know. “What about Talya and me?”
“Well,” Andry said, “think about this, Meig. If things had happened differently at the Faolain, all that followed would have changed. Maybe your grandparents might never even have met!”
Alasen bit back another grin, thinking Meig’s snort an expression of his understandable inability to imagine circum- stances that negated his own existence. But she had underestimated him.
“That’s silly. People do what they’re s’posed to, so things happen right.”
It was as succinct a summary of Rohan’s philosophy as she had ever heard.
Andry didn’t know quite what to make of the boy, either. His brows quirked in reply to her look, and he cleared his throat. “Ummm ... anyway, by now all of you should know who those two brave Sunrunners were.”
Jihan roused at last. “My granda and—and Meath.”
“Yes. Sioned and Meath,” Andry said softly. “To borrow Meig’s words, they did what they were supposed to do. Just as everyone else tries to do what’s right, so things can happen the way they’re supposed to.”
Rohan’s philosophy from Andry’s lips was even more startling. Alasen fairly itched to ask him how he would have ended the lesson if Meig hadn’t spoken.
“But why did Meath have to die?” Jihan exclaimed suddenly. She sprang to her feet, knocking over the empty cider jug. “It’s not fair! He wasn’t supposed to die! And what about Grandsir Rohan? And—“
She was about to cry out other names—people she knew, friends and kin—names like Rihani and Kostas, Jahnavi and Rialt and Mevita. And if Tallain was mentioned around his children, Alasen knew that all of Andry’s careful, gentle words would be for nothing.
“I know it’s not fair, darling,” Alasen said. “It hurts to lose people we love. But do you think Meath would have run away from helping those he loved?”
“There are wicked people in the world, Jihan,” Andry continued. “People who do terrible things. It’s not fair when good people are hurt trying to stop them—but if good people didn’t fight, then the wicked ones would be able to do as they pleased.” He hesitated. “I don’t understand it either. Nobody does, I think. All I know is that we have to do what we can. What we feel is right.”
Jihan trembled. Tears she was too proud to shed glistened in her blue eyes: dark-circled beneath, and too big in a face that was too thin. Alasen reached out, ready to soothe her as she did her own children. But Jihan shied back.
“You could’ve stopped it,” she accused Andry. “You knew about the war before it started. I heard your own father say that you knew! Why didn’t you stop it? You’re the one who should be dead! I wish you were!”
“Jihan!” Alasen started to her feet.
“I hate all of you!” she cried, and fled.
Maara rose at once, giving Andry a glance of apology, and followed without a word. The two adults looked at each other helplessly.
Meig leaned over to pat Andry’s arm. “Don’t mind Jihan. She says bad things all the time.”
Antalya nodded. “She didn’t mean it, my Lord. She’s worried about her mother and Rislyn.”
But Tobren was staring up at her father with wide eyes. “Papa—is it true? Did you know?”
“Some of it.” He bit his lip. “I saw ships, and battles—but I didn’t know that Rohan or Meath or—“
Alasen’s heart went very still. She had seen Andry’s face like this only once before—haunted, desperate, loathing his gift as a curse. He’d stood on the banks of the Faolain and raised a tempest atop the water, hating what he was because she was afraid of what he was.
She had run from him then, terrified, rejecting him and her own unwanted power. She was older now. Experience had taught her compassion; Ostvel had taught her how to give. She had never seen anyone more in need than Andry was right now.
Meig astonished her again, this time with ruthless logic. “Jihan’s stupid. You’re just one person, even if you are Lord of Goddess Keep. There’s lots more of them than there are of you.”
Andry drew in a steadying breath and nodded. “That’s true, Meig. But it doesn’t make it any easier.”
A little while later, after they put the three children to bed, they stood together in the quiet hallway. Alasen touched Andry’s arm. He still wore that haunted look, and it ached inside her as if the pain was her own.
“Even if you did know, Meig is right.”
“Yes, but it’s humbling to be reminded of my deficiencies by someone who’s still reading Nibbles the Mouse and Thimble the Cat” he replied sardonically.
“Andry, that boy would make short work of Hoeloth’s Fourth Treatise and point out the inaccuracies besides.”
She succeeded in making him smile. As they started for the stairs, Andry asked, “Does Sionell know what she’s rais- ing? I mean, Talya’s a sweet little thing and quite gifted, and from what I’ve seen of Jahnev, he’s a copy of his father. But Meig—!”
“At least tonight you didn’t bore him. I didn’t see him yawn once, in spite of its being so late.”
“Very reassuring.” They descended to a landing before he said, “Someone should go check on Jinan. I can’t.”
“No. But Maara’s probably calmed her down by now. They’re good friends. Jinan really didn’t mean it, Andry. Too much has happened for a seven-year-old to understand.”
“Oh, she understands, all right. She knows exactly what’s going on. She just doesn’t know why.” He stopped on the step below her and turned to look up into her face. “Alasen—do you?”
“I’m not sure,” she temporized. “Tell me.”
“The dreams—I’d wake up suffocating. All the death and fire and destruction—“ His eyes glazed over in the torchlight. “I couldn’t stop it, no. But I tried to do something— yet how do I know that by changing certain things, I didn’t cause worse to happen?”
“Andry—“
“Not even Brenlis saw it,” he went on, not hearing her. “She—she knew things, saw them before they happened. She saw herself near her parents’ home, then word came that her brother was ill, and she left Goddess Keep—“ He choked suddenly. “She was the first Sunrunner they killed.”
Whoever Brenlis had been, Andry had loved her very deeply. Alasen heard it in his broken voice, and grieved for him.
“I saw Radzyn in flames, and that didn’t happen. I bought its safety—perhaps with her life, though the Goddess told me not. She said the price was my belief. I don’t know. I can’t be sure of anything, no matter what the dreams and visions show me—“
Eighteen years ago Alasen had run from his pain and his power. Everything he was saying now frightened her just as it had then. But this time she cradled his face between her hands and spoke softly, as if to a hurt child. “Hush. It wasn’t your fault, Andry.”
His eyes sharpened to shards of blue ice. “How do you know? How does anyone know? There’s truth in what Jihan said—I did know what would happen, I might have been able to stop it if I’d done something else, something different—“
“Andry, didn’t you hear what you told the children? We all do what we feel we must. We are what we are, no more and no less. We try to do what we believe to be right—“
“You did,” he whispered, and she flinched. He held her wrists gently, keeping her hands at his face. “And it was right. I know that now. It was a long time before I understood—“ His lashes lowered, making silken shadows over his cheekbones. “Just tell me you don’t hate me, Alasen.”
“Hate you?” she echoed incredulously.
“I’ve been wanting to say that for so long. I could never seem to find—“
“Andry, how could you ever think that?”
His shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “Forgive me, then. For being wrong all those years ago. Forgive me, Alasen.”
“Don’t you dare use those words te me ever again!”
His head lifted. He caught and held her gaze. The boy she had hurt long ago had vanished; the man who looked up at her now was—a man. Below the spill of brown hair, threaded with gray now, was a strong and compelling face. The blue eyes were almost the color of his uncle Rohan’s, and the passionate mouth reminded her of Chay, and the fine high forehead was like Tobin’s. But the wild, warm softening of his face as he looked up at her was all Andry’s own.
A man’s look, a man’s face—a man’s hard, lean body pressing closer to her. The boy she had loved and feared was half a lifetime gone.
Alasen froze. Andry turned his head slightly, never relinquishing her eyes, and brushed his lips against her palm. The kiss burned. She winced a little, her icy skin reacting to the touch of his Fire. Torchlight behind and below struck gemfire from his rings and the jeweled cuffs circling his wrists.
Sunrunner. Lord of Goddess Keep. Not the Andry she had known, cared for, run from. Half a lifetime gone—a life spent using the power she’d fled.
He leaned up, drawing her gently down with his fingers circling her wrists. She felt heat wash over her: his need. His mouth was a breath away from hers, and she could not look away from his eyes.
“Is this something else you must do, my Lord?”
The spell of his eyes shattered around them, and she stumbled slightly. Freeing her wrists, she groped at the banister for support.
“Alasen—“ Her name was a low moan of anguish. It moved her not at all. “Alasen,” he said again, and even when she saw the shadow of a heart-wounded boy return to his face, she simply looked at him, silent and angry.
A moment later he was gone, his boot heels a rapid clatter down the stairs.
“My lord, it was exactly as I will tell you. He is a tall man, even when seated. His hair is pale and his skin gold with the sun. His hands are the hands of a scribe, not a warrior—not a scar on his fingers, not a nail broken. He was dressed as a prince in gold and silver, brighter than torches, without color but for his eyes and rings. His eyes change from green to blue and back again, showing the two separate and distinct demons within him—not one, as is customary with his kind. These demons take turns looking out from his eyes.”
And how, thought the High Warlord, would you know what is “customary” for a prince, a warrior, or even a man—let alone the Azhrei?
“His rings are of gold. One is a golden stone circled by emeralds, cut and faceted so that the light is captured and made dizzy before it is allowed to escape in flashes of fire. One is a purple stone so dark that light cannot escape, with another golden stone at its side. The third is as if he stole a fragment of the moons and captured it to wear on his hand.”
Very pretty. Very poetic, thought the High Warlord, forbidding himself to shift impatiently from one foot to the other. The spring dawn was warm, the sun strong; he would be sweating by noon. All praise to the Father of Winds that he would not have to linger in this miserable land until summer—a season certain to kill man and beast with suffocating regularity.
The priest went on after moistening his dry throat with a sip of water. “He rose from his chair then, and became taller still. He has the shoulders of a quarry slave, the thighs of a horsemaster, the chest of—“
I know the man is strong in battle, thought the High War- lord. If this fool goes on stating the obvious much longer... “And his face?” he interrupted.
Jolted summarily out of the eloquent rhythm planned on the long ride, the priest took a moment to advance his speech to the appropriate place. “Carved of rock. Though its color is gold, it is not a malleable face, in the way gold is soft and pliant. His nose is straight and sharp as a sword blade. His lips are as a slash of blood across a sacrificial throat.”
And I suppose he has excellent teeth, as well, thought the High Warlord. Is this idiot frightened of him or in love with him?
He listened with half his attention to the rest of it. The encounter had proceeded much along the lines he’d anticipated— taking into account the priest’s self-aggrandizing eloquence and slicing away a good two-thirds of the reported speechmaking. All priests were liars, anyhow.
The cloak had been delivered, the Azhrei had mouthed defiance, the priest had replied with smug superiority, and all was as it should be.
Yet there were aspects of the tale that intrigued him. The Lord of Goddess Keep, for instance. What was he doing at Feruche? The cousins shared no tender regard for each other, that much had been known to him for years. If they had overcome their differences and worked together, their combined strengths might be a problem. But that sword had two edges—for if Lord Andry was not at Goddess Keep, then Goddess Keep’s defenses would be easier to breach. If, during the precisely timed battles, Lord Andry abandoned the Azhrei to bolster Sunrunner efforts far away, then the Azhrei would be the weaker. And it was far from certain that the two men would indeed set aside their mutual distrust and function as a single power.
The other item that caught his attention was, oddly enough, one of the priest’s fanciful interpretations. Two demons looking out from the AzhreCs blue-green eyes, eh? His desire to have his wife back unharmed, and his desire to see the High Warlord dead and all his armies with him—those were the demons, and they were at war within him. And that was a very good thing. The first would urge him to caution; the second, to recklessness.
A very good thing. Fighting Lord Andry, fighting himself—and about to fight the vassal who owned Feruche, by the sound of it. The Azhrei would be so worn out by all his other battles that he would have little left for the real one. That had been the plan all along: to isolate, to batter, to back him into a comer until he had no choices left. He must come out and fight now, with everything he had—against everything the Vellant’im had.
Which did not include magic, but which did include something the High Warlord put more faith in: the faith of his warriors in their sacred war, and their faith in him.
Yes, all was as it should be—but for one thing.
“Why is it,” the High Warlord asked all at once, interrupting an assessment of Lord Riyan’s disaffection, “that you return alone?”
The priest had been waiting for this one, all the while hoping he could flood the morning air with so many words that this uncomfortable matter might be overlooked. He should have known better. But he did have an answer, plain and ungilded, and the truth.
“My lord, you know of the rivalry between the Clan of the Silver Oar and the Clan of the Stone Sail. Until now, this has been put aside. But on the journey, two young warriors, barely blooded, disagreed—“ as those two Clans are accustomed to do over how to lace up a boot, thought the High Warlord, frowning.
“—and although I was able to settle it in peace, as is your order and the wish of all righteous men, the settling stopped our progress for half a day. Thus we did not pass Skybowl at the anticipated time.” The priest shrugged and spread his , hands, filthy white tunic sprinkling a little sand with the movement. “I do not know how they knew, but they knew.”
“And so Silver Oar and Stone Sail are all dead.”
“Regrettably, my lord, this is true. But I endured, and triumphed.”
And, of course, your life is worth more than all those warriors put together, thought the High Warlord. The first thing I do when I get home is execute every priest—no, why wait that long? I’ll put them all on the same ship and make sure it sinks. And that, you cut-crotched coward, is my definition of triumph.
“It pleases me that you survived,” he said smoothly. “And performed your task so well. Now go. You have my thanks.”
The rare accolade made the priest blush like a girl. The
High Warlord stood alone for a time watching the white tents at the other side of the camp.
She was there. Comporting herself as a true princess, impressing even the priests with her dignity and pride. He had discovered the letter, and she must know she had no hope. Her courage in the face of despair was remarkable.
What a waste of a magnificent woman.
Will he value your life more than my death? thought the High Warlord. An interesting question. The answer should provide much entertainment.
She knew it was a dream because she could feel the weight of her hair spilling down her back, see it blowing firegold across her face as she laughed in the wind. Rohan was laughing, too, as young as she, playing “dragon” for Pol. The boy chased his father around and around the fountain at Stronghold, slipping on new spring grass and unsteady three-year-old legs, giggling as he waved a wooden spoon as a sword. Rohan wore the sleeveless gold silk cloak his mother had made for him, the one he wore when he rode off to Remagev before Pol was even born. He flung his arms out, his face bright with laughter, the gold silk billowing— becoming wings as he became a golden dragon with clear blue eyes. With a single perfect leap he took flight into the sky.
She called out to him, neither astonished nor frightened, only anxious that he wait for her, that he not leave her behind. But Pol was tugging her hand now; and in his fist was not the toy weapon but Rohan’s own princely sword.
That frightened her.
“Mama!”
She cried out her husband’s name as her son pulled her toward the grotto, toward the rent in the rocks where they could escape—for Stronghold was burning. The golden dragon spiraled high above for a moment, then vanished on the Desert wind.
“Mama—“
Sioned sat up straight, both hands clutching Pol’s arm. He gripped her shoulder with his free hand—No sword, she thought, thank the Goddess, no sword—
“Mama?” Pol said again. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and dug her fingers deep into her hair. No weight to it, no length, just a mass of ragged curls. Graying, she knew; she’d seen it, those few times she’d been able to look into a mirror.
“Just a dream,” she said, and cleared her throat.
Pol searched her eyes, then drew in a deep breath. “Mama—it worked.”
Worked? Oh—that mirror. “Did it?”
“Yes. I’m sorry about what I—“
Her mind had reordered itself; she knew what he was talking about. “No, you were right. I should have told you.”
“You know what I would’ve done.” He shrugged awkwardly and rose from his perch on the side of her bed. “Chayla left a message for when you woke up. She says everything is all right now. Maybe you know what that means. I don’t.”
“Nothing that need concern you. We talked night before last. She’s still upset about what happened to her.” How glad she was that he couldn’t read a lie in her face. Not that she’d told any; just not all of the truth. Rohan would have seen it. Pol would not. “Is Maarken better?”
“Much. Andry spent the evening with him and Hollis.” He paused, fingering the lacy cloth half-covering the bedside table. “It is Lord Rosseyn. The jewels form a kind of crown over his head—he called it the selej. Like in Kaz—the Isulki song. The white crown.”
Sioned tucked her knees under her chin, sheets and quilt and all. “He spoke to you?” She didn’t know why she wasn’t especially surprised.
“Half the night. The garnet Ruala gave me—it was his. The amethyst was Lord Gerik’s.” He met her eyes. “Your emerald belonged to Lady Merisel.”
And Tobin had said to her once, winking, that it had a magic all its own.
“I’m descended from all three of them. That’s why the selej worked for me.”
“What did he teach you, Pol?”
His shoulders shifted, settled uneasily. “As much as he thought I needed. He’s ... a lot like Father, in many ways. There’s no blood connection, but the wisdom is the same. Even though his is so much sadder than Father’s ever was.”
She hugged her legs to her chest and repeated softly, “What did he teach you, Pol?”
“Sorcery,” he replied, staring at nothingness. “Not the Star Scroll kind—that’s a child’s toy compared to the mirrors.”
“And what do you plan to do with it?”
“Keep my wife alive. Keep everyone alive. Don’t ask me how yet. I haven’t worked it out that far. But I can do it, Mother. With the mirror—and without Andry or any of the rest of you.” He looked at her again, a tiny smile hovering around his lips. “Will it help any to know how much that scares me?”
“You don’t have to do it all alone,” she murmured.
“How many times did you say that to Father?”
“Quite a few,” she admitted.
“I promise I won’t do anything without talking it over with you first.”
Once more she nodded, not telling him that she trusted his decisions—now—as much as she had trusted Rohan’s. Not telling him that she would not be here for him to talk to.
“You look as if you’ve been up all night, not just half of it,” she said.
“I got a little sleep around dawn.”
“Go get some more.”
His mouth quirked in a real smile. “Yes, Mother.”
“That’s what I like to hear—^meek and obedient.”
Bending over to kiss her cheek, he avowed, “I inherited it from you.”
Isriam knew he had a good chance of getting killed before he could deliver his message and the Tears of the Dragon. Even if he succeeded in his task as emissary, there was an equally good chance that he’d be killed after.
That would solve a couple of problems, he told himself sourly. His grandfather, Prince Pirro, needn’t acknowledge their relationship and his rights in Fessenden; the High Prince needn’t apply pressure to gain him those rights. It would even solve his own dilemma of the heart.
But Isriam, fast coming up on seventeen, squire to one High Prince and knighted by another, trained in statecraft by the first and in war by the second, had no intention of being butchered by a bunch of gold-decorated barbarians. He would fight for what was his and for what he wanted to be his.
So he extracted from his tunic a little golden dragon given by Prince Pol, and as Vellanti scouts thundered up to slaughter him, held the token dangling by its short chain.
It worked. They stopped dead, swords wavering and then sheathed. Isriam marveled at the power of discipline enforced by superstition, wished briefly that he was a Sunrunner with a real dragon flying guard duty overhead, and haughtily accepted escort toward the enemy camp.
Someone in white came to meet him on its outskirts. Isriam looked down at him from astride his tall Radzyn mount. Imitating Chiana at her worst as noted at the last Rialla, he said, “I am the Prince Isriam of Fessenden. I am sent by his noble highness the Lord Riyan of Skybowl and Elktrap and Feruche, to speak with the one you call High Warlord.”
The dark face below him darkened further. “You speak to holy priest. Now.”
“I will speak with the High Warlord and none other.”
There ensued a boring and fruitless debate, solved by the arrival of the only other unbearded man in a hundred square measures. He, too, rode a Radzyn horse. He was tall and even more impressive than Isriam would have guessed, his body built for battle, his face built for tyranny. He gestured the priest to silence and spent several moments taking Isriam’s measure.
“Good,” he said at last. “Left in the Azhrei’s army are only little boys.”
Isriam’s arrogant posture could not stiffen more, so his reaction showed only in the twitch of his jaw muscles.
“I am the High Warlord.”
“I am the Prince Isriam of Fessenden.” The young man pulled the rolled parchment from his tunic. The priest reached up a hand for it; Isriam let it drop to the sand.
This time a corner of the High Warlord’s mouth twitched. Isriam swore the sight of the priest bending to retrieve the letter amused him.
“I assume,” Isriam said silkily, “that you can read.”
The High Warlord didn’t even look at him. As he scanned the masterpiece of treason concocted over Riyan’s name, a brow quivered once or twice. But that was all.
At length his black eyes met Isriam’s. “Lies.”
“I will do you the favor of not reporting your insult,” was the cold reply. “As stated by the Lord of Skybowl, Elktrap, and Feruche, you are invited to make a treaty to end this war. The castle of Skybowl will be made available to you and your army while talks proceed.”
“Skybowl—“ exclaimed the priest.
As if he had not spoken, the High Warlord said, “There will be no talk. No treaty. Skybowl will surrender.”
Isriam had known this was coming. He shrugged. “If you refuse Lord Riyan’s offer to make peace, he will shut Skybowl tight. He has no wish to see his property ruined and burned.”
“By anyone?” Black eyes sparkled in the eerily shaven face. “You were a servant of the old Azhrei. Why do you betray his son?”
“I am a prince! I was his squire, not his servant.” Isriam composed himself and told his love for Rohan and Pol, his conscience, and especially his honor to shut up. “I am the grandson of the ruling Prince of Fessenden—and I’m sure you know that he has neither love nor help to give the new High Prince in this hopeless war. And it happens that I agree with Lord Riyan. The war must stop.” He paused, judging his moment, sternly keeping his glance from the priest. “As a sign of his sincerity he presents you with these. They are of some small value to you, I believe.”
The pearls he did not toss onto the sand. He opened the pouch and drew out the chain Karanaya had hung them on, so they appeared one by one in all their black-rainbowed beauty.
The priest reached up both trembling hands. Isriam saw this from a corner of his eye as he watched the High Warlord for reaction.
There was none. Only a few casual words: “Some small value, yes.”
He let the pearls drop back into the pouch. He tossed it over and the High Warlord caught it easily. The priest’s head turned with the arc of its flight, greed and awe scrawled in equal measure on his face.
“Very well,” said the High Warlord, the pearls enclosed in his fist. “You will say what trick took them from Prince Tilal—but later. I now write to Lord Riyan, accept his treaty. Come to my tent.”
“I would prefer to wait here.”
“We are now friends, Prince Isriam of Fessenden,” the man reminded him, his eyes laughing.
“We are no longer enemies,” he corrected.
“So. I ride to Skybowl, but no welcome.”
“That would be a wise assumption.”
The noon sun descended only a little before Isriam was galloping once more through the Desert. He urged his horse to put quick measures between the two of them and Stronghold, then finally slowed to a walk and mopped the sweat of heat and nerves from his face.
He’d done it. He’d told all the right lies and mixed them with enough truth to make them plausible. He’d succeeded and was alive to tell of it.
Taking a pull at his waterskin, he settled himself for the rest of the long ride to Skybowl. For just a moment he put his hand to his breastbone, where the Tears had been. In their place was a brief letter from the High Warlord and the golden dragon on its chain around his neck. Both felt as dangerous against his skin as those pearls.
Shaking himself free of all thoughts but those of his freedom, he touched his heels to his horse’s ribs and galloped on, while the Vellanti army broke camp twenty measures behind him.