Kohan squinted into the Desert sky, watching his circling hawk. All at once the bird plummeted to the rough scrub of the Vere Hills. Rohan held his breath. A few moments later the hawk soared upward, a greentail clutched in her talons. She spiraled on a thermal, then swooped down to deposit the plump bird neatly at Rohan’s feet. When she balanced on his arm again, he whistled appreciatively; she replied with a grating coo of affection.
“She’s flirting with you again,” Sioned observed.
“I have that effect on ladies of taste and perception.” He fed the bird a morsel of raw meat, whistled the flight command again, and flung her smoothly into the air. The hawk flew off to seek her own dinner.
Sioned sat down on a rock. “I assume that means Avaly of Rezeld would’ve had more luck if she’d batted her lashes?”
“So that’s what’s been bothering you all day.” Unhooking the water skin from his belt, he took a swig and offered her some.
“It was embarrassing to watch.” She drank and stoppered the skin.
“All I could think about was getting her off her knees and out of my sight as fast as possible.”
“Why did she wait nine years? It couldn’t have taken that long to think up that tale about her father’s being under a diarmadhi spell like Chiana.”
“Her proposed husband evidently inspired her. He wants the holding and the title along with her highborn blood. That’s the only dowry a merchant that wealthy would care about.”
“Well, he can’t have them. Morlen was just waiting for a chance to betray you and Pol, and I see no reason to reward his daughter for it. And anyway, how could she think of marrying a man who forced her to that performance?”
“Sioned! Wouldn’t you plead on your knees for me?”
“With my aching joints? Certainly not.”
He grinned down at her. “Well, I suppose you are getting old and crippled and decrepit.”
“Half a season your senior, young fellow, and don’t you forget it!” She wagged a finger at him, laughing.
He caught her hand and was about to pull her up into his arms when a screech and a feather-rush warned him. He turned just in time to extend his right arm to his hawk, who dug her talons into protective leather and preened.
“Jealous, too,” Sioned remarked. “Goddess, doesn’t she look pleased with herself!”
They walked back through the late afternoon haze to Stronghold, entering by the grotto passage—once secret, but not anymore. Sioned lingered by the waterfall to bathe her face and arms while Rohan returned his hawk to the mews. This autumn, her thirty-ninth in the Desert, was the hottest she could recall. She and Rohan had avoided summer completely this year by indulging in a lengthy journey through Syr before going up to Dragon’s Rest for the Rialla. She’d shown him her childhood home of River Run, taken a side trip into the Catha Hills to investigate the dragons’ winter lairs, and stopped in at High Kirat to visit her nephew Prince Kostas and his family. Many times they’d left their small retinue behind and slept in the open, hunted or hawked as fancy dictated, and forgotten for days at a time that there were titles and responsibilities attached to their names.
But having escaped the summer heat, they returned after the Rialla to find their princedom had taken on all the soothing qualities of a smelting furnace. The sun blazed, the dunes burned with shimmer-visions, and heat clung to every stone. Rohan shrugged off the brutal climate, being Desert born and bred, but even though she’d spent two-thirds of her life here, Sioned felt the heat more as she grew older.
She settled on a mossy rock and hauled off her t>oots. Gasping with the shock as she plunged her feet into cool water, she closed her eyes and tried to dream herself back at River Run. No use. If Avaly hadn’t arrived yesterday with her foredoomed plea, she could have been at Radzyn by now, enjoying its crisp sea breezes, visiting Maarken and Hollis at Whitecliff—
“Don’t get too comfortable,” advised Rohan from behind her. “We’ve just been graced with an emissary from Prince Velden of Grib.”
“Damn it, what’s wrong with these people? Why couldn’t they have talked to us at the Rialla?”
“Doubtless they had their reasons.”
“Whatever they are, I don’t like them.”
“Come on, High Princess—we played all summer. Time to get back to work.”
She kicked water at him across the little pool. “I don’t want to.”
“Now you sound like Jihan.”
“Well, you have to admit people make things difficult. You can hardly pretend to be reluctant with your power when they’re always handing you chances to use it.”
“Pretend?” He frowned.
“Demanding that you use it, actually. At least Pol’s honest about it. He loves to fix things and makes no pretense of—“
“Just be grateful that someone still finds it worthwhile to consult us old folks,” he drawled.
That silenced her. She followed him back through the gardens and upstairs, gnawing over his implication. It was amusing to tease each other about oncoming old age— especially when neither believed the other had aged at all— but at times they were forcibly reminded that the years were indeed accumulating.
The knowledge had sneaked up on them at first. Perhaps it had started at the Rialla of 731, Pol’s first as husband and father as well as prince. He had spoken for Princemarch before, of course, but with his new family had come new awarenesses. The terms he gained, independent of anything Rohan won for the Desert, were highly advantageous and gave subtle hints about his plans for his daughters’ future. Rohan and Sioned had congratulated themselves on their success—after all, they had taught Pol everything he knew.
But more leisurely reflection, and repetition of the experience in 734 and again this very summer, had shown them a hard truth. While the princes still looked to them, they also looked to Pol. The next High Prince.
Rohan and Sioned had given him the world in which he exercised his share of the family cunning. The peace they’d established had lasted with only minor lapses since 704.
They’d founded a school for physicians and a scriptorium. Specific borders agreed to by all princes ensured that no more wars were fought over a few square measures of land. Arts and sciences thrived. Interwoven trade made the princedoms economically dependent on each other. Most importantly, Rohan had nudged the other rulers into standardizing much of the legal code. Over the years this had come to be known as the High Prince’s Writ, and it would be his most lasting achievement. It was more than any other High Prince had done before him, more than anyone else could have hoped to do in a lifetime—even if anyone else had been the dreamer Rohan was. But because he did have dreams, leavened with vast patience and ruthless practicality, there was so much more that he wanted to accomplish.
It was a proud thing to watch Pol fulfill their hopes. And Meiglan had surprised them all with her adjustments to her role as his wife. Though she would never be the kind of High Princess Sioned was, she had grown into her own sort of wisdom. People didn’t confide in Meiglan, or consult her about matters of state. They merely did not guard their tongues around her. It was an opportunity not open to Sioned, whose intelligence was well known and often feared. She learned more from what people didn’t tell her than from what they did. But Meiglan was so quiet, so unobtrusive, that most of the time one forgot she was there. What she reported was colored by her personal prejudices—she loathed Pirro of Fessenden, for instance, and was terrified of Ghiana. But she had learned to weed out what was important and present it with an eye to Pol’s needs. Her methods differed from Sioned’s, but she got the job done.
This past Rialla Rohan and Sioned had mostly watched the young couple’s work, giving private advice here and there. It was time for them to move into the background; eventually Pol and Meiglan would take their places. The other princes must accustom themselves to the next generation. Eminently practical—but a little depressing.
Sioned wondered if Zehava had experienced the same thing when Rohan had been the one young and strong and full of impatient energy. She understood Pol’s eagerness— the young dragon exhilarated by the strength of his wings. Perhaps Zehava had watched with the same smile she saw sometimes on Rohan’s face, a look of pride and rueful regret.
She sat at her dressing table, brushing out her hair, watching him covertly in the mirror. The hot misted light of sunset drifting through open windows turned his hair as gold as it had been in his youth. Looking at him as he shrugged out of his sweat-stained shirt, it was impossible to convince herself that this coming winter would be his sixty-first. That it would be forty years next spring since she’d first seen him on the road to Stronghold, bloodied and exhausted after killing the dragon that had killed his father. That they were not just growing older, but growing old. That not only had she never fallen out of love with him, but had, in fact, fallen in love with him all over again many times—most recently this very summer.
Preposterous. The product of an overactive imagination that insisted on picturing him at River Run, enchanted with the greenness, lazing back in flower-strewn grass, making love to her in a hayloft, racing for shelter during a sudden thundershower. Or at Dragon’s Rest: long walks in the forest or through Pol’s beloved gardens, nights on their own in Meiglan’s little hillside cottage, a memorable evening when she took him on a tasting tour of the wine cellar she’d personally assembled for their son.
Yet there had been reminders of age, too, most obviously in the form of twin seven-year-old granddaughters. Rohan didn’t look like a grandsire. But Jihan had not only half his name but his blue eyes as well, and the cleft in Rislyn’s dainty chin could have come from no one else. He gleefully indulged them with endless games of dragon slaying, and earned the supreme accolade that Grandsir was much better at it than Papa. Jihan usually won; she was the dominant twin, running riot around the palace, trailing mischief in her wake. Rislyn was quieter, gentler, more like her shy mother. Everyone adored Jihan, but everyone’s favorite was Rislyn.
They even said that Rislyn looked very like Sioned.
Gentle fingers clasped her shoulders, and she gave a start. “I didn’t mean that, you know,” Rohan said. “About being old.”
“I know you didn’t, but it’s true.” She met his gaze in the irror. “Though it’s hard to believe, looking at you. You’ve mirror gone all silvery instead of golden—that’s the only difference.”
“Liar. My bones creak and my right shoulder aches in the cold and my arms aren’t long enough to hold parchments where I can read them.”
“And last night all you could do in bed was sleep.”
He grinned. “Well, I do seem to have a soft spot for elderly ladies.”
“My dear decrepit azhrei, right now I haven’t the slightest interest in your soft spots.”
Quite some time later, he stretched and dug his toes into the cool silk of bunched sheets at the end of the bed. Using a strand of Sioned’s long hair to tickle her shoulder, he whispered, “I think I saw it that time.”
“Hmm?” she asked drowsily. “Saw what?”
“The colors.”
She quivered with silent laughter. “Now we have the truth at last. He only makes love to the Sunrunner witch for the sake of intellectual curiosity.”
“Certainly,” he agreed. “You should never have told me what you see. I’ve been trying to catch a glimpse ever since.”
“And did you?”
“Why don’t we try it again and I’ll let you know?”
The Gribains were growing impatient by the time Rohan and Sioned finally came downstairs for dinner in the Great Hall. Casual pleasantries were the order of conversation; the Gribains were firmly steered away from any formal discussion during the meal. Rohan knew why they were here. According to his habit, he had made no decision and would not until one presented itself. Though open discussion was prevented by Sioned’s tact and Rohan’s sporadic deafness whenever the subject was hinted at, he had not counted on the artless innocence of the squire who was serving at dinner.
Isriam was the only child of Sabriam of Einar and Isaura of Meadowlord, Prince Halian’s niece. With his family connections and the wealth of his father’s city, one day Isriam would be an important man. At sixteen he was a dark-ey^d, dark-haired, gawky adolescent possessed of not the slightest hint of subtlety. Rohan kept telling himself the boy would grow out of his awkwardness, but despaired of ever teaching him how to keep his every thought from his face and his every idea from spilling over into speech. As he served taze and cakes to the high table, Isriam asked, “Will your grace desire the Summer Room made ready for a conference with the Gribain ambassadors this evening?”
This was the perfect opening, and the courtier who had been sent by Prince Velden took advantage of it with practiced smoothness. “It is extremely wise of your grace to wish this unhappy matter settled as quickly as possible. We will, of course, make ourselves available to your grace immediately after dinner.”
Rohan considered answering Isriam in the negative, then chided himself. He had spent most of the spring and all summer at play. He planned a trip to Radzyn in a few days that would extend the holiday well into autumn. He really ought to do a little work and earn the privilege of being bowed to and gossiped about behind his back. Deciding to give in, he replied with a smile, “That’s very kind of you, Master Eschur. The journey from Grib is a tiring one. But if it suits, then yes, we’ll meet in a little while.”
“As your grace wishes,” Eschur said with a slight bow. Rohan reflected that his name suited him; eyes with a “wolfs sight” he truly had,-yellowish and sharp. The High Prince did not anticipate a fun evening.
He was right. With Sioned at his side and Isriam attending them—one could only hope he would learn something— Rohan listened as the Gribains presented their prince’s views. The problem outlined to him was a reminder that whatever he had accomplished by way of codifying laws, he hadn’t thought of everything. Not by any means.
The difficulty was one of inheritance. An Ossetian younger brother had married the heiress of a neighboring athri in Grib. It was agreed all around that the young man would forswear his allegiance to Prince Tilal and commit himself instead to Prince Velden. The athri had died this spring and the daughter and her husband had inherited. But the elder brother had recently suffered a serious head injury; he recognized no one and was subject to intermittent fits of violence. His heartbroken brother had reluctantly ordered him confined for his own safety and that of his people.
With the elder brother incapable of rule, the younger was the heir. But this would leave the young man with two holdings in two different princedoms—with two sets of loyalties. Should the lands be combined under one princedom? If so, which? Should they be kept separate against the day when sons would be born to take one holding each? Or should the man inherit only his own father’s land, with the Gribain holding reverting to Prince Velden and being bestowed at his pleasure to someone else?
Tilal sent no emissary; nor had he come to Stronghold from Dragon’s Rest, where he and his wife Gemma lingered to see their daughter Sioneva settled in for a long visit. Tilal had merely conveyed to Sioned through Pol that whatever was decided would be fine with him. Rohan thanked the Goddess for providing him with at least one prince who trusted him completely. Of course, Tilal was Sioned’s nephew and had been Rohan’s squire. His faith in the High Prince was a very personal thing, not to be confused with the sometimes wary acquiescence of others.
Fifty years ago, the two princedoms would have mustered armies by now and tested each other’s commitment through a few skirmishes, consulting the High Prince only if neither force left the field—and the holding—to the other. Roelstra would have been called on to stop a war already half begun. This time no one had even considered battle. Rohan was being asked to settle a difficulty of law. But he did not congratulate himself yet on the happy progress of civilization. If the High Prince’s Writ could not provide a satisfactory solution, things could still degenerate into open conflict.
Still, at least they were talking about it instead of fighting. However often he accused himself of throwing words at a problem until it collapsed under their sheer weight, he was always reminded of something Chay had told him long ago: that those words were his armies, fighting battles without bloodshed, more effective than any swords or arrows. Rohan supposed this was true; he felt like a battleground often enough.
As anticipated, Velden wanted the property to revert to himself. This was couched in much flowery sympathy for the family and regret for not continuing a holding in the line that had held it so long. But the meaning was plain: Vetden wanted those valuable square measures, and he intended Rohan to take his side.
“We thank you for your statements,” Rohan said when they were finished. “We will, of course, consider them very carefully.”
Sioned coughed to hide what he knew was amusement at a speech she had heard a million times. Then she said, “I gather there is no objection to the young man’s qualifications?”
“None, your grace,” Eschur said. “He is honest, capable, and well-liked.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she replied warmly. “We must be careful that no insult is implied to his abilities. No matter what is decided, he will still be an athri and conscious of his honor as such.” She paused, frowning slightly. “If our cousin of Grib did have the giving of this holding, who do you think it would go to, Master Eschur? Just to satisfy my curiosity, you understand.”
Rohan wondered what she knew, or thought she knew. Eschur’s wolfish eyes narrowed in a flash of some powerful emotion and a corner of his mouth twitched downward. He said, “I am not sufficiently in Prince Velden’s confidence to know, your grace.”
Sioned smiled in sweet sympathy. “Ah, yes, we princes must have our little secrets, mustn’t we? How irritating it must be sometimes!”
“The ways of princes, your grace, are not to be questioned by mere common folk like myself.”
A proper answer, delivered with the proper humility, but the whole byplay told Rohan what Sioned had guessed: Eschur himself coveted the holding and the title that went with it. Crafty of Velden, sending a man who wanted the lands to argue for them. If he gained them for his prince, they would be his reward.
But Master Eschur had something else to say. “His grace has. however, instructed me to make known to your royal highnesses that he would appreciate a consultation with Lord Andry.”
Rohan kept startlement from his face. “To what purpose?”
“It is said that certain powerful faradh’im can see the future in a flame. Prince Velden considers that this might be a useful—“ Eschur’s yellow gaze strayed to Sioned: a mistake. The look in her eyes deprived him of the power of speech.
She asked very softly, “And did Lord Andry volunteer his personal services for this little experiment in oracle reading? Or will any Sunrunner do?”
He swallowed hard, rallied, and managed, “Lord Andry reacted favorably to the suggestion. I meant no offense, your grace.”
“We know precisely what you meant.”
There were levels to Sioned’s rage; Rohan had rarely seen this one. Tobin vented her wrath with the same vehemence whatever the weight of the matter. Sioned’s responses varied— and in her green eyes now was the lethal fury that paralyzed its object the way legend said a dragon’s gaze turned men to stone.
“Convenient to have a fortune-teller ready to hand, isn’t it?” she said in that same silken voice. Extending both her hands, the single great emerald flashing in bright candlelight, she added, “But perhaps we do not meet the current standard. Do you think our lack of Sunrunner’s rings disqualifies us?”
That lack had caused many to forget what Sioned truly was: Sunrunner as well as High Princess. Eschur’s face turned white. “Your g-grace, I—“
“Or perhaps,” Sioned went on inexorably, “our training at Goddess Keep under Lady Andrade was so long ago that we are not fully conversant with the rituals now considered necessary by Lord Andry.”
Eschur gulped again and flung a look of appeal at Rohan.
“We suggest you withdraw your proposal,” the High Prince said mildly.
After several tries he stammered out, “I-^-I will so inform Prince Velden.” He and his companion departed the Summer Room with indecent haste.
Rohan gestured to the slack-jawed Isriam. Sioned saw it and snapped, “I don’t need any wine. I need a few moments in private with the Prince of Goddess Keep!”
“Drink it anyway.” When Isriam had provided full goblets for them both, Rohan waited until Sioned had downed a good half of hers and was seething in silence before saying, “I understand how you feel.”
“No, you don’t,” she stated flatly. “You’re not a Sunrunner.”
Aware that they ought not discuss this around Isriam, he turned from her and beckoned the squire forward. “Well? What do you think?” he asked.
“Me, my lord?” Isriam turned red and stared.
“You, my lord,” Rohan replied, wishing the boy would cease his imitation of an astonished lobster, all red face and blinking eyes. “You heard Master Eschur explain the problem. You know the circumstances. What is your opinion?” Isriam continued to gape, and Rohan sighed. Goddess help Einar if her future ruler didn’t learn to see people with his mind as well as his eyes.
Sioned had made the effort and recovered her balance by now. She entered into a conversation designed to instruct :r.e squire in statecraft—as well as to clarify the available Ttions. Rohan’s other purpose was to distract her from her ir.aer: that she knew it was clear in the glance she gave him xfore asking, “What do you think of Prince Velden’s claim, Isriam?”
“It sounds valid, my lady,” he ventured.
“It does indeed. Did you draw any conclusions from Master Eschur’s reply when I asked about who might revive the holding?”
Isriam’s brow furrowed. At length he said, “I—I’m not sure, my lady. But I think perhaps he knows who wants it, even if he doesn’t know who’ll get it.”
“Absolutely true. He does know who wants it. And so do I.”
“Really? Who?”
“He does. Think about it. If you had a case to present to the High Prince, who would you send to do it? Who would irgue most strongly?”
Isriam considered with an even mightier frown. Then delight broke across his face. “Master Eschur himself!”
Rohan felt like applauding. Instead he drawled, “If you are finished being brilliant...”
“Isriam and I are doing very nicely without you. Run and play while we solve all your problems.”
Emboldened by his success, Isriam actually grinned. Rohan chuckled; there might be hope for the boy after all.
“All right, then,” he said, “consider this. The two holdings lie on the coast and command a nice little harbor. The only reason no substantial town has grown up there before is that the place is held by two princes, not one. They do a minor shipping business, but most goods go to port at Waes—or Einar.” He let Isriam ruminate on this for a moment, and saw the dark eyes go wide. Sioned gave him a disgusted look that told him he was being unfair.
“My father wouldn’t half like it if the two combined and a port was built,” Isriam said worriedly.
“No, he wouldn’t. But I’m not Lord of Einar, I’m High Prince. More and easier trade is always profitable and therefore desirable. It’s part of my duty to foster such. So again I ask: what would you recommend?”
The boy looked miserably unhappy. “My lord ... I don’t think I’m able to say. I am my father’s son.”
Sioned took pity on him. “Isriam, that is exactly the right answer for you to give. It’s not your decision and you’re correct to remind his grace of that. As an athri, your duty is to look to your own interests first and foremost.”
Isriam’s brows knotted over his nose. “But—but still I have to think about what might happen to everyone else.”
Rohan was pleased. “That’s very wise of you. You’re fortunate. You can consider possibilities and choose the most personally advantageous with a clear conscience. I have to pick what’s best for everyone.”
Sioned added in dry tones, “His grace’s conscience does not bear close scrutiny, Isriam.”
A tentative smile curved the squire’s mouth, and Rohan laughed softly. “Which is why I’m going to delay a decision for a few days.”
Shaking her head, Sioned confided, “He’s a cruel man. After a few days in this heat the Gribains will agree to anything he says, just to go home!”
Rohan dismissed the squire for the night and took his wife for a stroll in the gardens. The moons were down and the sky was alive with stars, their silvery light almost bright enough to read by.
“You handled Isriam very nicely,” Rohan commented.
“You certainly didn’t,” she scolded. “He’s not like Daniv or any of your other squires. He needs to be led—gently enough so his pride isn’t hurt, but firmly enough so he understands. He’s not unintelligent. Just young and shy.”
They came to his mother’s fountain, which trickled feebly as it always did at this time of year. When rain came to the northern hills and flowed down to swell the spring that was Stronghold’s life, the water would again play as Milar had intended, a joyous patter dancing to the rhythm of the wind.
Sioned bent to rinse her hands in the pool, then straightened. “You weren’t very subtle about diverting me from things too dangerous for Isriam to know,” she accused.
“He didn’t notice. I knew you would. I save subtlety for those who need or earn it.” Seating himself on the fountain’s tiled rim, he went on, “Not that you spared Eschur your talons, my love.”
She shrugged irritably. “You can’t understand,” she repeated. “You’re not a Sunrunner.”
“You’re right, I’m not. But I am the High Prince. I don’t like Andry’s interference any more than you do.”
She paced the summer-sere grass. “Prince I called him, and prince he’s trying to become—in function if not title. Prince of Concocted Mysteries! I would never have believed it of a son of Tobin and Chay!”
“Andrade had the making of the Sunrunner he became,” he reminded her. “Just like you.”
Sioned rounded on him. “And I took to princely rule like a sorcerer to dranath, is that it?”
“Partly. I think Lady Merisel had the right idea long ago—strongly discouraging trained Sunrunners from marrying princes or athr’im.”
“I wasn’t the first.”
“No. But your grandmother Siona was.”
“That only gave Andrade the idea. You were the great experiment.” i;One that failed,” he said lightly.
:’This is different, Rohan. Andrade’s ambitions were for vou, not for herself. And whatever your disagreements with her—caused mostly by me—“ She held up a hand to stop his interruption. “By me,” she repeated. “I’m the one who defied lier by becoming a princess first and a Sunrunner second. But you and she were always working toward the same thing. The power of the High Prince working together with the power of a faradhi. Andry, on the other hand, is ambitious for himself.”
“It infuriates you, doesn’t it?” he asked softly. “All the ceremony. The ritual.”
“Andrade would have cut the rings from her fingers before she’d countenance half of what he’s done ‘in the Name of the Goddess.’ “
Rohan stood and put his arm around her waist. He drew her along the paths to the grotto, speaking only when they stood beside the thin waterfall. “There isn’t a way to stop him. All we can do is live with it and hope most people have more sense than to believe in superstition.”
She kicked a loose rock into the pond. “He knows what’s seen in Fire and Water isn’t the destiny of princedoms, it’s personal. And it’s only what might be. Andrade always said that the future isn’t carved in stone—and even if it were, stone can be broken.”
“If it were a truly reliable skill, it would have become widespread long before this. This is the first time Andry’s suggested it. I think he knew all along that he wouldn’t have to do it. He just wanted to give the impression that he could.”
“That makes it even worse.”
He should have known what she would do next, but still was startled when a trickle of Fire crossed the pond, brilliant with color and sternly controlled. He had learned over the years to recognize the elusive response of his own faradhi blood when she worked this way; it was a fragile quiver deep within him, something he could never touch, never use.
She conjured what she had shown him a very long time ago, when they’d both been young and untried, when they’d felt the Fire but were unable to trust that it wouldn’t burn their hearts to ashes. Two faces appeared in Fire and Water, poignantly young and solemn, foreheads circled by thin gold crowns like living flame.
“I saw this first when I was barely sixteen,” Sioned murmured. “It’s what I’ve seen all my life.”
“You are my life,” he replied simply.
She rested her head on his shoulder and allowed the vision to fade. “Were we ever that young?”
“I thought we’d already agreed that we’re both elderly and decrepit.” He held her closer, burying his lips in her hair.
“Oh, yes ... I’d forgotten.”
“So,” he said, “had I.”