ISy means of heroic effort, a safe-conduct through Vellanti lines, and a little horse-stealing, Birioc made excellent time back to Cunaxa. On the way down to Swalekeep he’d come through the Great Veresch Mountains of Princemarch. But on the way back, a token given him by Lord Varek—a tiny silver dragon with enameled green wings—enabled him to cut across the Vere Hills and through the Desert. The only potential danger had been a distant sight of troops riding west to Stronghold. A red-and-orange banner floating on the slight breeze like a flame proclaimed them under the command of Lord Maarken of Whitecliff; Birioc fled to a convenient rocky dune and huddled there until nightfall. It cost him half a day and a bellyful of regret that his escort was too small to dare a raid, but soon, he promised himself. Very soon.
On reaching Cunaxa, he did not go to his father at Castle Pine. He rode straight to his own manor of Catchwater, where his Merida uncles waited. After reporting success, he slept from sundown of one day to noon of the next and rose to find that an army of over three hundred had been assembled almost overnight.
“Riders have gone to the other holdings,” said his eldest uncle as Birioc wolfed a meal of cooked grains, venison, and wine. “And to Castle Pine, to empty the armory. Miyon will have no choice but to join us.”
“I hope somebody explained to him that I’m to be made his heir—in writing, with all his seals.”
Urstra shrugged. “If not at once, then certainly after Tuath is taken. He may suspect that your half-brothers will die of Cunaxan and not Desert steel, but once they are dead, what can he do?”
“You don’t understand my father. Now that we’re grown, the only hold he has over us is the fact that he hasn’t named his heir. He thinks we’ll behave ourselves because of it. I may end up being the only one left, but unless he sticks to the law and does it properly, I won’t be secure.”
“Rohan’s law!” Urstra spat. “Who will dare argue with the acclamation you’ll receive as the victor of Tuath and Tiglath?”
“My half-sister Meiglan’s children at Dragon’s Rest, that’s who. Or, rather, people on their behalf. And don’t tell me it won’t matter because Pol will be dead—he’s got plenty of powerful kinsmen who’ll go to war for them. I want it done legally. I want to be named Miyon’s heir.”
Urstra shrugged. “Very well. Are you finished? We cannot march until...” He rubbed the scar on his chin meaningfully.
Birioc dressed in the brown and yellow of his mother’s people. In front of the Merida warriors assembled he stripped off shirt and tunic and extended his arms straight out to his sides. In one fist was a sword; in the other, a handful of Desert sand. He welcomed the sting of the ritual glass knife and the drip of blood onto his bare chest, and especially the roar of his name that rose from more than three hundred throats.
But what he expected to hear next was not forthcoming. As he mounted a fine Radzyn warhorse to lead his people to victory at Tuath, he cast a dark glance at his uncles. Urstra correctly interpreted the look.
“We’ll wait for Miyon’s legal choosing—as you desired,” he said with a tiny smile. “Then we’ll see if the circle fits.”
Birioc clamped his teeth shut over a sharp answer and nodded. His own fault, he told himself angrily, that the ancient crown did not rest on his brow today. Rohan’s damned laws had affected even Merida ways of thinking.
Sionell could hear her brother’s cold fury even though the words had been filtered through two faradh’im. Jahnavi intended to slaughter every last one of the Merida host now riding for Tuath, and if Tallain wanted in on the action he’d better hurry. Jahnavi wouldn’t wait for him.
“Will you go, my lord?” the Sunranner asked after finishing the report.
“Certainly. I wouldn’t miss it.” Turning to Sionell, he added, “Your little brother inherited your mother’s temper.”
“He’s not so little anymore, Tallain.”
“I’m reminded every time we cross swords in the practice yard.” He smiled, but his eyes were shadowy. “Vamanis, is there an accurate count of Merida yet?”
“I’ll ask, my lord.”
While he worked, Tallain drummed his fingers on the wooden balcony railing, intricately carved and painted in Tiglath’s blue and yellow. Crystal finials glittered in brilliant sunlight that did not, unfortunately, shine on Stronghold. Haze obscured the keep. He and Jahnavi were on their own, with no chance of advice from Rohan or Chay. But he trusted his instincts and his training at their hands.
“Three hundred, my lord, with half that number setting out from Castle Pine. They can’t all be Merida, can they? Lord Walvis wiped out most of them thirty years ago.”
“Thirty years is time enough to breed an army. Well, well. Four hundred fifty. Jahnavi’s got less than a third of that—but he also has Tuath’s walls.”
“He won’t settle for a siege,” Sionell said quietly. “I know him. He’ll lead the charge himself.”
Tallain nodded. “Downhill, tomorrow morning, with the sun glaring in the enemy’s eyes. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Do you mind if I worry just a little?” she asked tartly.
“As long as it’s just a little. Vamanis, my compliments to my wife’s brother and a promise to be there with my hundred and fifty tomorrow morning.”
When the Sunrunner left them, they lingered on the roof, gazing out at their city. Tiglath had prospered under Tallain’s rule and that of his late father, Eltanin. Flatboats plied the shallow cove that was the Desert’s only northern harbor, enabling Dorval’s great merchant ships to anchor out in safe waters while trade goods were brought to them. The Cunaxans paid dearly for the privilege of shipping this way rather than by caravan through the Veresch. With this wealth, Tallain and Sionell had indulged themselves—not with expensive trinkets, but with schools, a scriptorium, an infirmary, and modern drainage and refuse systems. The last were at SionelPs insistence, for she had a sensitive nose.
“I’m glad the Dorvali left yesterday,” Tallain said suddenly. “Chadric’s restlessness was beginning to worry me.”
“Do you think he would have gone with you to fight?”
“I would’ve had to find some tactful way of preventing him. He still can’t accept that there was nothing else he could do except leave Graypearl. Or that LudhiPs only choice was to stay behind.”
Sionell looked up in surprise. “You mean he’s ashamed? That’s absurd! Nobody could have stopped them.”
“Meath seemed to think he could have. Or should have. Or something.” Tallain sighed. “The Goddess was good to me when she made me neither Sunrunner nor prince. I like life simple.”
“If going to help Jahnavi break Merida heads is your notion of ‘simple,’ spare me anything complex.”
Tallain pulled her to him. “War is simple, compared to rule. But being prince or faradhi—I don’t envy Pol, who’s both.”
“He’s fool enough to thrive on it.” She rubbed her cheek against his tunic. “I’ll miss you.”
“It’ll only be a few days. Rohan says he avoids wars because he hates not sleeping in his own bed with his wife. I know what he means.”
“And on such selfishness, the fate of princedoms turns! All right then, a few days. Send them back to Cunaxa where they belong.”
“No, love,” Tallain said gently. “They must die. All of them. And then—orders or no—I’m going to Stronghold with all the troops that can be spared from protecting the north. Rohan’s going to need everyone.”
Sionell was silent for a moment. “Send Jahnavi. He’s my brother and I love him, but he’s young and impulsive, as you said. Yours is the cooler head. He can follow orders, but I’d rather trust the defense of the north to you.”
“Once the Merida are crushed, regular patrols will suffice here.” He gave her a quizzical smile. “Or is it that you don’t like not sleeping next to me?”
“You, who come to bed with frozen feet I’m supposed to warm?”
“It’ll only be a few days,” he said again, bending to kiss her lips. “A little longer at Stronghold. If Kostas heads east soon to retake the Faolain, they’ll be caught between.”
“If.” She shook off the bleakness and smiled. “Very well, go save Stronghold single-handed. I promise not to gloat too much. It’s unseemly.”
Andry woke in his own bed. How he had come to be there was a total mystery solved only when Valeda crept in, saw he was conscious, and sat beside him on the bed, holding his hand.
“Tibaza came back all sea-wet and sandy. That was three mornings ago. We searched the coastline and found you and Rusina toward noon. You’ve been lying here half-dead ever since.”
Andry nodded, then regretted it as the movement set up a pounding in his head. “Goddess!” he breathed. “Give me something for this—“
She gave him a cup of drugged wine. He drank, sank back, and shut his eyes.
“We found Oclel, too,” she murmured. “He and Rusina burned together last night.”
“You should have waited.”
“We couldn’t. Oclel... had already been partially burned, but what remained had been lying in the forest for too long.”
The wine threatened to come up again. Andry gulped it back down. He made brief, bitter work of what had happened, and finished with, “What about the Vellant’im?”
“The dead at the cave we gave to the sea. One of the others died this morning. The other is still alive, but—“
“Keep him so,” Andry ordered grimly.
Her hand tightened on his. “I’ll do my best. You should sleep now, Andry.”
“Later. Who knows about this?”
“No one outside these walls.”
“See that it stays that way. Bring the prisoner to me for questioning.”
“He won’t answer. He was trampled by half a dozen horses. Torien tried to get sense out of him, with Jolan translating. It was no use.”
“Then all he’s good for is executing. Tomorrow, Valeda,” he said as the wine started to muddle his tongue. “Tomorrow assemble everyone ... outside the walls ... Sunrunners and common.”
“Yes, of course. Tomorrow or the next day. Sleep now, my Lord.”
It was a long climb up spiral stairs to the top of the Flametower, but from there one could see halfway across the Long Sand—or at least as far as the small Vellanti encampment halfway to Rivenrock. Kazander found the view breathtaking and said so. Chayla merely shrugged.
“Sometimes I’ve seen the Sunrise Water from here. You should come up when there’s no overcast.”
“But only by night,” he said, wiping his brow. “We use the fire as a beacon, but I never considered that it turns this room into an oven.”
Staring out at the little enclave of tents, sweat trickling down her back from the heat behind her, she was quiet for a time. Kazander respected her silence; for all that he chattered in the most outrageous language most of the time, with her he held his tongue unless he had something important to say.
He and Pol had come back with their souvenirs, Sethric with his, and Lord Maarken with plenty more. But they knew only a little more about the Vellant’im because of them—mainly that some of the older warriors carried little dragons of wood, ceramic, or enameled metal, possibly further tokens of valor or rank. Rohan now had a collection of twenty-seven, all different, all exquisite. The enigmatic beasts stretched their wings on his desk; Chayla had caught him staring at them this morning. As if they could speak to him the way Azhdeen spoke to Pol, she thought. As if they could tell him how to defeat this puzzling enemy.
Chayla watched them go about their business within their outpost: polishing swords, readying the evening meal, exercising their horses—Grandsir Cfaay’s horses, she reminded herself. How long would it be before the main army arrived from Radzyn and Remagev? It was Walvis’ opinion that the deadfalls set into the latter had convinced them that it was a place worth thorough investigation, which would take time. The longer the better; once the levies from Tuath and Tiglath arrived, they would have a fighting chance.
The inevitable results of battle reminded her of why she’d wanted to speak with Kazander in the first place. Abruptly, wanting to get it over with, she said, “Your man Hevlain. I’m sorry, my lord, but there wasn’t anything more we could do for him. He died this morning.”
His dark head bent for a moment, and then he nodded. “I will send his ashes to our family.”
“He was a cousin?”
“My mother’s brother’s wife’s sister’s son, and wed to my father’s father’s sister’s granddaughter.”
Chayla frowned, trying to puzzle out the relationship. “A cousin,” she said at last.
“In your terms, yes. But then, so are you and I, my lady.”
She glanced up. “Let me guess—your six-times greatgrandfather’s half-brother’s wife’s brother’s son married my five-times great-grandmother’s sister’s granddaughter!”
Kazander’s eyes glinted with humor. “Something like that. But we are kin, you know. Zehava acknowledged the relationship when my grandfather fought at his side against the Merida. I could even style myself athri, though I have no walls to be lord of. My holding is the Desert itself—but perhaps I do have walls.” His voice changed, became dreamy with thoughts of his home. “My walls are bright wool sewn with silver thread, and at their gates are chimes made of sand-jade so the Desert may speak to us, sing to us, warn us. My keep is made of silk woven of sunlight. Within are lamps that turn darkness to gold and roses, a light soft as dawn.”
“I’d like to see all that one day,” she said impulsively. “It sounds so free, Kazander—no walls, no responsibilities...”
“I would like you to know these things. The Desert you have never seen or heard, the heritage of our shared blood.”
It was suddenly cooler, as if the fire behind her had been gentled by the hand of the breeze that caressed her brow, her lips. She felt herself drifting like a feather on that breeze, although she was positive she had not moved except to close her eyes.
“Look,” Kazander said, breaking the spell. “Riders.”
She squinted into the haze. “Oh, Goddess—if the Vellant’im see them, they’re dead. Come on!”
Their timely warning saved the four men. Sethric led a mounted contingent down from Stronghold to the sand, which discouraged enemy interest in the new arrivals. The young Gribain was disappointed that there was no skirmish, but Meath—for that was who rode in, filthy and exhausted, with an escort of three Dorvali—thanked him profoundly.
“If you hadn’t outnumbered them so handily, they might have risked it. And I’m much too old for that sort of thing. You must be Lord Sethric—I’d heard you were at Remagev, and I recognize the Gribain curls,” he added with a tired smile and a glance at the young man’s riotous black hair. “I’ll express my gratitude more fully later, my lord, but for now I need to see—ah, Sioned, here you are!”
She was enveloped in his embrace and when he let her go, leaned up to kiss him. “Meath! It’s good to have you safe. Did Chadric make it to Skybowl all right?”
“As far as I know. If the sky clears tonight I’ll have a look.” He hugged her to him again. “Goddess blessing to you, too, Sunrunner. There’s a lot to tell, but I’m starving and I stink.”
He gave her the most important news on their way upstairs. “Tiglath’s walls have been fortified and all the levies are assembled. Tallain’s just waiting for word from Rohan to be on the march. I left Chadric about fifty measures from Skybowl—he ought to have arrived yesterday at the latest, even considering the trouble some of his people are giving him.”
“What trouble? Here’s your room—food first, or a bath?”
“Food!” he replied urgently; she laughed and gestured to a servant outside in the hall. Meath continued, “The trouble is that some of the merchants regret the wealth they’ve lost more than they’re grateful for the “lives they’ve still got. Audrite deals with them mostly, but every so often they get to Chadric and it nearly crushes him, that he failed to protect them.”
“Idiots. When I can talk to Riyan, I’ll tell him to mention that the High Prince is a generous man who sympathizes with their losses. Will that shut them up, do you think?”
“It’s worth a try. They’re scared, of course, and utterly lost away from the sea. Which I was glad enough to leave behind me.”
“I’ll just bet. I hope you have clothes in your saddlebags. I don’t have anything big enough to fit you.” She surveyed him critically. “Or maybe I do. You’re thinner.”
“Not for long.” And he pounced on the tray brought in by a page. While he ate, Sioned readied his bath. That the High
Princess should be doing this herself rather than having a servant do it held a significance that finally got through to Meath, once his stomach stopped growling. Washing down a meat pasty with a hearty swallow of wine, he stopped eating long enough to ask, “What is it, Sioned?”
“What’s what?”
His turn to take stock of her, and what he saw worried him. She, too, was thinner, and her firegoid hair was streaked with white. New lines had appeared around her eyes and across her brow; her skin, not as fragile as most redheads’, was pallid beneath the Desert’s sun-glossing. And her eyes were darker, older with the attempt to hide pain and fear.
He’d last seen her in person four years ago. Though Meath fervently avoided the crossing to Radzyn, Rohan had marked his thirty-fifth year as ruling prince with an elaborate celebration that included as many friends and relations as possible. The gown Sioned wore at the banquet, green and gold sewn with hundreds of tiny crystals that shimmered with her every movement, had been Meath’s doing, as had Rohan’s dark blue tunic and silvery shirt. He had asked Meath to choose Sioned’s silk himself and keep it a secret; she had given him a similar commission in equal secrecy, and he’d had a good laugh when each discovered the other’s trick. How beautiful they had been, Sioned sparkling like a sun-misted forest, Rohan her perfect foil—crowned and jew-eted and requiring neither, mated in all things, as matched as lovers’ clasped hands.
There was little of that regal elegance about her now. It wasn’t the clothes—she could look more of a princess in riding leathers than any other woman in full court dress. It as the way she moved, the way she held her shoulders, the flow of her usual swift grace. Meath was afraid he would see Rohan in a similar state. When Sioned stayed silent, he guessed that Rohan was the primary cause of her concern.
“I’ve known you too long,” he said. “Rohan, too. What’s bothering you about him?”
She perched on the large bed and hugged a pillow to her chest. “It’s not him—or not just him. It’s Pol. They barely speak to each other.”
“Why? They’ve always thought almost alike on just about—“
“Not on this. Not when it comes to war.”
”Tell me,” he said. “I—“
He cursed under his breath as the page knocked on the door for permission to take the tray. Sioned encouraged Meath to take his time in the bath and send word when he was ready to see Rohan and the others. Then she escaped him. He didn’t know if she was sorry or relieved that the opportunity to talk had passed; he did know that it was unlike her to walk up to a thing and then back away. Sioned was a woman who dealt with difficulties by slamming her head against them until they collapsed. He had never seen her frightened of them before.
But in the time it took to tell his news to Rohan as Pol, Chay, Walvis, and Feylin listened, he began to understand why she was afraid. There was a chill in the Summer Room, and it emanated from the High Prince and his heir. Meath was disgusted with them both.
He said as much to Maarken later in the grotto. “Proud, arrogant, stubborn, willful, stone-headed—“ He silenced himself with a long pull at a wineskin, and glared at the thin trickle of the waterfall.
“Accurate, if redundant,” Maarken commented.
Meath stretched saddle soreness from his legs and scrunched down against a rock dry-furred with moss. “This is the only privacy left at Stronghold, isn’t it?”
“Just about—except for a bath. But so many strangers are here who don’t know their way around that Hollis was almost surprised in the tub the other day. Stronghold was built to hold an army, but my grandmother changed a lot of it over the years. We’ve had to pack people in like silk bolts in a crate. Pass the wine.”
Meath obliged. “Skybowl won’t be much better. At least here there aren’t any weeping merchants.”
“They’ll settle down, once they’re assured Rohan will compensate them.”
He accepted the wineskin back, drank, and glanced around the grotto. He’d never seen Stronghold in winter, and it was somehow more bleak even than in the heat of high summer. Not until spring snowmelt would the waterfall and Princess Milar’s fountain run again, or the mosses plump out pillow-soft, or the poor thirsty roses and grasses and fruit trees awaken.
“Have they been at each other’s throats yet?” Meath asked suddenly.
Maarfcen knew his meaning. “Not publicly. But when it comes to a battle here, I’m afraid it’ll all be out in the open. Pol wants to use sorcery the way Andry did. To kill. He never took the oath and won’t now. I think he respects us for keeping our vows, but he’s also contemptuous and a little angry.”
“He never knew the discipline of Goddess Keep, as we did. The only discipline he knows is his own. He’s a good man, he’s got a conscience. But I can understand how hard this has hit him.”
“His failure at Radzyn most of all. It rankles that Andry succeeded at Goddess Keep.” Maarken sighed. “I wish I knew where it was they parted. They were friends when they were little.”
“Does it matter when it happened? The number of years don’t count when the jealousy runs that deep. It can happen in an instant and last a lifetime.”
Maarken stared up at the cloud-shadowed moons. “That’s what scares me. And it can’t be like that, Meath. We can’t afford it.”
“But they both want things their own way.”
“Rohan’s the only one who can hold them both in check. Andry swore to him, not to Pol, about the ros’salath. Not to use it except in defense of Goddess Keep.” Maarken paused then shrugged again. “The last few days I’ve wondered what’s holding Rohan together.”
“Sioned.”
Maarken shook his head. “I’ve lost count of how many directions she’s being pulled in. There’s Rohan, and Pol, and her Sunrunner training, and her knowledge of the Star Scroll, and being furious with Andry even while she still cares about him.”
“Chay says your mother is the only one of you he’ll talk to.”
“So far. I think he’d accept Hollis, possibly me, if we ever get some sun again. Goddess! Never in my life have I been so conscious of the sky—or how vulnerable we Sunrunners are.” He gestured to the moons that glowed behind the haze. “Look at them. They’re up there—I can see them, feel them, almost smell them. But they might as well not exist for all the use they are right now. Always before, you just waited for the next day or the next night, or the one after. Nothing was so argent that it couldn’t keep. But this—this is maddening.”
“Clouds don’t last forever.”
“Not here. But it’s almost winter. The whole Veresch, Goddess Keep, Kierst-Isel, all those places are blocked off most of the season. And Cunaxa—Goddess, I wish I knew what in all Hells was happening in Cunaxa!”
“It’ll still be there in a few days, when the sun comes back.”
“Yes—but how much of it will have spilled over onto our lands?” He reached for the wine again. “The Vellant’im have some kind of connection with the Merida. We have no idea what it might be. Through sorcery, perhaps. But nobody really knows. It’d be nice to know who it is I’m righting.”
“Would you like a list?”
Maarken snorted. “You mean, add Chiana to it? That’s another thing that makes me half insane. We all know damned well she’s bedded down with the enemy. Rialt is in Swalekeep and we can’t reach him to confirm it. Tilal and Ostvel could march on her from Waes—but you know Rohan. He’ll want proof. I’m not so sure Kostas will adhere to the same morals, though, and that might be all for the best. And now I’m talking like Pol—abandoning everything that makes us civilized for the sake of fighting these barbarians as barbarians.”
“Oh, it’s just that you’re not drunk enough yet. Have some more wine.”
“No, thanks. I’ll have to go stick my head into a trough and chew a pemric seed before I go up to Hollis.” He heaved himself to his feet and tossed the wineskin down to Meath. “Here. Enjoy. It’s almost the last of the Syrene gold.”
“Go away,” Meath said, waving him off. “I was depressed before I got here, and now I’m beginning to wish I’d stayed on Dorval.”
Maarken gave him a tired smile and left him. Meath settled back to savor the Syrene vintage in peace when light footsteps crunched the gravel path. Glancing up, he instantly recognized the gleam of fair hair going silver, and nodded thoughtfully to himself. Yes, Rohan was due to be next. He only hoped he could have a night’s sleep before Pol’s turn came.
“Any of that left?” said the High Prince as he sat lightly on the dry moss.
“Some.” Meath gave over the wineskin and conjured a fingerflame to see by. Not that Rohan’s face revealed much, except when he was tired, but Meath usually needed all the clues he could get to this man. Friendship only went so far; even Chay complained that Rohan was always at least a half-step ahead of him and rarely waited for him to catch up.
But tonight Rohan was weary indeed, or he wouldn’t have been so blunt. “I’m glad you’re here, Meath. Nobody else can talk sense into Pol. Maybe you can.”
“Maarken’s told me. Actually, I’m not surprised that you and Pol disagree. But it’s gone too far, hasn’t it?”
“Much.” Raking one hand back through his hair, Rohan met his gaze and in the flicker of Fire Meath saw anguish in his eyes. “I was outnumbered at Radzyn. I had to fight at Remagev. I lost. So I gave up Remagev too, and trusted it and the Desert to do my work for me.”
Meath heard the repetition of /—as if there had been no one else there, as if Rohan had fought this war alone.
“Meath, I can’t and won’t give up Stronghold. It’s not just sentiment or stubbornness. It’s symbolism—for if Stronghold falls, my power is gone, the power Pol says I’m frightened of using.”
Meath blinked. “Frightened? You?”
“Oh, yes.” A chill smile touched his lips. “There’s much about me my son doesn’t understand, but he knows that much. If I lose Stronghold—the High Prince who couldn’t even hang onto his own castle? My authority vanishes if Stronghold falls. And after this is over, I’d have to build from the ground up again. I did it once—I don’t know that I have patience or strength to do it again. You tell me Tallain has rebuilt the wall his father left in rubble. That was a symbol, too.”
“I know,” the Sunrunner said quietly. “Walls stronger than mere stone.”
“Yes. But the walls I made are useless now. So you see I have to fight and I have to win. There’s no other choice.”
“And you’re tempted to let Pol try the ros’salath. The sorcerer’s wall.”
“Tempted? More than I can say. It’s not my oath. And he’s pointed out it’s not his, either.” There was a slight pause. “Would you do it if I ordered it?”
The crisp, brutal simplicity of the question shook him to his bones. All at once he understood Maarken’s deepest fear: obey the prince he loved or his Sunrunner vows? Use what he was in defense of his world and thereby betray what he was, or do nothing and watch that world destroyed?
Rohan was smiling again, without bitterness. “I thought as much. Forgive me. I won’t ask again, Meath.”
“No—Rohan, it’s just—I need a little time to think.”
“Seductive, isn’t it? Forswear yourself, do something wrong to gain a thing you know to be good. I’ve done it before, and I’m not going to ask it of anyone else. I know how it feels.”
“But you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” Meath asked slowly. “Betray what you are so that we don’t have to.”
“If necessary.” Rohan plucked a bit of moss, crumbled it between his palms. “That’s an interesting word, you know. I must do necessary things—and I could, with the power I still have. But it’s sliding through my fingers like wind. Like time. I’ve had hints of it at the Riall’im, watching Pol grow into leadership, sitting back and letting him practice being High Prince. He’s good at it, Meath—but I’m afraid that there are things in him that will make him good at other kinds of power, too. Roelstra’s kind.”
“Don’t be shadow-fearing like a one-ringed Sunrunner.”
“My father enjoyed war. He loved the challenge of it, physical and mental. He was very good at it. Maybe it’s for the best that Pol shows the same signs. Maybe he’s what we need—someone who knows what’s necessary and just does it.”
Meath had never felt so helpless. The ways of princely power were beyond him. He’d witnessed it most of his life and even participated in a few maneuvers, but always as a piece on the board moved by others. He had never understood the movers themselves, never explored their duties and guilts and processes of thought. But now Rohan was telling him things he would have wagered not even Sioned had heard. As if he had answers. As if he could help.
The smile returned—a little wider, apologetic. “And there you sit, wondering, ‘Why in the name of the Mother of Dragons is he telling me these things?’ I’d tell you that, too, if I had any idea.” He exhaled a long breath and shrugged again. “Perhaps because you know most of my secrets, and have none of your own. I trust you because of that, Meath. And it’s funny, because it doesn’t usually work that way.”
Meath nodded. A man who knew one’s secrets could be trusted only if one knew his; each would have something to lose. But the usually perceptive High Prince was wrong. Meath did have one secret, kept close ever since the day Sioned returned from the tree circle near Goddess Keep, sixteen years old and newly a woman, with a vision of Fire and Water and her lifemate dazzling her green eyes.
At last Meath said slowly, “You know that in spite of Andrade, in spite of my vows, in spite of my service to Lleyn and then Chadric—in spite of everything else in my life, I am your man and always will be.”
“Mine, or Sioned’s?”
Meath wore only six rings, but he had practiced his craft for over forty years. The fingerflame held steady, betraying him no more than his face or voice. “Yours, Sioned’s, Pol’s—it’s all one and the same, isn’t it?”
“I hope so, my old friend. Goddess help us, I do hope so.”
Miyon of Cunaxa disliked having his only choice presented to him as his only choice. It reminded him of the years after his father died of Plague, when he had been prince but his advisers had ruled. It had taken him a very long time, but he had finally rid himself of all of them— ome executed by his own hand. The impulse to do the same to the Merida lord who stood in his presence chamber was almost overpowering.
So,” he said. “I am rousted out of bed at midnight to bear that the Merida are doing what they’ve been planning to do ever since they bred enough sons to form a respectable army. I note that neither you nor your own sons are at Catchwater, my lord.”
“My eldest will be leading the Castle Pine guard—as is his “ t as its commander. Your grace, our aim is identical to yours. We are fulfilling your ambitions as well as our own.”
“They not always been the same?”
“Tiilar, perhaps. We do have a major difference in who will rule at Stronghold, but doubtless that can be worked out later.” He stretched his lips in a smile.
“Will it matter so much, when all the Desert is ours at last?”
“Oh, little things like that matter a great deal. Little things like who is the ruling prince around here!” He rose from his chair, set on a raised dais, and towered over the Merida, who had the good sense to bend double. Miyon was not fooled, but a narrow thread of satisfaction stitched up his pride. “I trust you won’t mind too much if I refuse my official sanction for this war?”
The Merida’s head and shoulders snapped up so fast that Miyon wondered why his spine didn’t crack. “Your grace—?”
“I’ve been dealing with Rohan for many years now. His son is my daughter’s husband. His grandchildren—“ And here he smiled with real enjoyment. “—are my grandchildren. Poor innocent darlings, alone with their mother at Dragon’s Rest. I believe I’ll pay them a visit.”
Deprived of the powers of speech, the Merida could only stare. Miyon wondered if they had sent him this imbecile on purpose to irritate him into rash action.
“Yes, to Dragon’s Rest,” he continued pleasantly, “complaining all the while about my treacherous former allies’ unauthorized attacks on the Desert.” He wanned to his theme. “Demanding the support of my son-by-marriage in ridding my lands once and for all the Merida vermin.” He leaned forward, grinning now. “Depriving Dragon’s Rest of half its guard. Protecting my precious granddaughters myself— while the Vellanti army marches in.”
The Merida lord’s incoherence resolved itself into a long “Ahhh” of enlightenment and a slowly spreading smile.
“I see you understand me. Order my horses and escort. It’s a long way to Dragon’s Rest.”
“Your grace is wise beyond wisdom! Your grace has found the perfect—“
“Yes, yes, I know.”
“I am honored to serve your grace.” Hesitation, then: “May I humbly ask a boon? Lord Birioc is at this moment proving his worth and valor by leading our people—your people—to the walls of Tuath. By tomorrow night, he will be the victor. Although he isn’t the eldest of your grace’s four fine sons, he is certainly the most clever.”
“And he wants to be my heir, just like his brothers. Let him bring me the Desert, and then he may have the heir’s circlet. I’ll keep it safe for him, you may count on it.” Miyon laughed. “I just hope Rohan lives long enough to see a half-Merida proclaimed a prince!”
Disappointment could not compete with total shock.
“Gentle Goddess, man, don’t you think I knew? I inherited you assassins along with my princedom! If his mother wanted to conceal what she was, she shouldn’t have had the physician cut the cord with a glass knife. Oh, yes, I heard about that. Pity the sweet girl died before I could execute her for tricking me. But, you know, after I thought about it a while, I decided not to kill Birioc. A Merida son isn’t a bad thing to have. It rather binds you to me, doesn’t it?”
“Your grace’s perceptions—“
“—astound you. Yes, I know that, too. Remember, my lord, very little goes on in my princedom that I don’t know. And, as we agreed before, it’s the little things—like my future heir’s bloodlines—that matter. Prepare my escort. I leave at dawn for Dragon’s Rest.”
The Merida effaced himself and hurried from the chamber. Miyon sank into his chair again and stroked the carved armrests. It would be a bitch of a journey, but he had no choice. He had to get out of Cunaxa, separate himself from the Merida and their plots. Kin to the Vellant’im they might be, through some arcane connection, but he would not count them victorious until both Rohan and Pol were dead and Miyon saw them burned before his own eyes.
The Merida thought him trapped into countenancing the invasion and acknowledging Birioc as his heir. He was just as trapped into this trip to Dragon’s Rest. But once there, a gratifying array of options awaited. If the Vellant’im lost, Miyon was covered. If they won, he would deliver Dragon’s Rest into their hands. Whichever, he would siphon off some of Pol’s troops if he could, to retake Cunaxa for him as a good son-by-marriage ought. Should that fail, Miyon would still be in an excellent position. If Pol won, he would play loyal grandsire to the princesses and share the spoils (specifically, the obliteration of the cursed Merida). If Pol lost, Miyon would have Meiglan and her daughters and their claim to Princemarch under his thumb.
His only difficulty was deciding which he most wanted to lose this war: the Merida, who had been a dead weight around his neck all his reign, or Rohan and Pol. A pretty problem—and highly amusing to let the Merida think he favored them while he convinced Meiglan he was committed to Pol. He would choose which to betray once the smell of victory was in the wind for one side or the other. He would decide at leisure, safely ensconced at Dragon’s Rest.
Tallain arrived at Tuath Castle before dawn. But it seemed the sun had already risen, and not from the eastern sea. The red-gold glow came from the north. Tuath was in flames.
Only the memory of Sionell’s comment about his cooler head kept him from leading a charge over the last rocky hills. His scouts reported grim news: though the castle had not fallen and the gates were still secure, an unheard-of night assault had caught Jahnavi by surprise. Not sleeping —he had been up on the walls, fretting away the time until dawn when he would sweep out of his holding and attack. The battle was over and the Merida commanded the flat plain on three sides of the keep and it wasn’t even dawn.
Tallain swung down off his horse—Zadal, a golden Dragon’s Rest breed Pol had given him—and paced the stony defile while his troops waited him out. There wasn’t much time, and not nearly enough soldiers. The scouts had reported heavy casualties among the Tuathi in defense of their castle. Fully half Jahnavi’s warriors lay dead or dying in blood-soaked sand, being stripped of swords and other valuables. The scavenging Merida would be easy enough to slaughter. Tallain was looking forward to it. But if Tuath was well and truly ablaze in this climate that leached water from stone, his main task would not be fighting but rescue. And the Cunaxan regulars would arrive soon.
He sucked in a breath as raucous shouts signaled the start of the Merida celebration. Swinging around on his heel, he strode back to his small army.
“They’re congratulating themselves,” he said tightly. “Not for long.”
One of the women stroked the hilt of her sword thoughtfully. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but aren’t there more on the way? I’m all for butchering this herd, but we shouldn’t waste our edge.”
Before Tallain could answer, a man standing nearby cleared his throat. “Lord Jahnavi may take some persuading to give us charge of the main battle. The rest of you are too young to recall that time, but I was with Lord Walvis back in and the son is just like the father.”
Tallain snorted. “You don’t need to tell me about stubborn. I sleep with the daughter.”
Bracing laughter greeted this remark. Though Tallain had not intended to be funny, he grinned too. Swinging back up into the saddle, he stroked the sleek sweating neck of his horse and raised one arm high to urge his troops forward. They rode from the defile and around an outcropping of varicolored sandstone, readying themselves to sweep down onto the battlefield like dragons on a flock of sheep. A freshening gust from the north stung smoke into Tallain’s eyes and he tightened his hold on the reins as the stallion began to tremble.
“Just a little while,” he crooned softly, and an ear tipped in white swiveled back to listen. “Just be patient—“
The wind swept down on Tuath as if a living thing hungry for flames. The firestorm nearly blew the castle apart stone from stone. Tallain heard faraway screams as wooden buildings within the keep exploded into flame. Heat seared his face even at this distance; the roar of fire was unimaginable. Rising twice and thrice the height of a dragon above the walls, sheets of fire were flung toward the sky, ripped by the sudden wind. It was as if the Storm God had exhaled a burning breath, igniting the very stones.
The Merida fled as the gates burst apart and gushed fire. Frenzied animals darted forth; their backs ablaze, there was no escape in running. Horses thundered past, trailing manes and tails of flame like some faradhi conjuring. As the wind flared once more, the stench of charred flesh smote Tallain in the face and he nearly vomited.
Nothing could survive that Hell. The Merida who had caused it were out of his reach, galloping to join their Cunaxan fellows still on the march. He wiped his streaming eyes and tasted smoke on his tongue.
“We’ll—we’ll look for survivors,” he managed, and no one dared say the obvious: no one had survived. Tallain led his people slowly across the plain, detailing some to gather corpses for a pyre to honor them.
Tuath burned quickly. By midmoming there was no fuel sufficient to feed those ravening flames, and they wavered down below the line of the walls. By dusk Tallain could enter the smoking rain. Leaving his horse outside, he walked through the courtyard, heat rising up through the soles of his boots. He had no way of knowing if beneath the scorched litter of planks and stones were corpses he might recognize. No—he would see no familiar faces here. On the bodies lying free of the rubble there were no faces at all.
He heard a child crying and tore his way through the blackened remains of a stout wooden door, down a stone staircase to a wine cellar. The little girl lay trapped beneath a dead woman, protected by voluminous silk skirts from the smoke that had killed her savior. Tallain freed the child, who wept louder and threw a stranglehold around his neck.
“There may be others still alive,” Tallain said to the archers who had come with him. “Those familiar with Tuath can organize the search. But be careful—things are likely to collapse on top of you.” He stroked the girl’s dark hair, stinking and greasy with smoke. “It’s all right, little one. You’re safe now.”
Back upstairs, he tried to hand her to one of his women soldiers but she would not be budged. Tallain shrugged and let her be. She was no weight at all—and it was a pathetic grace in the midst of this horror to feel her warm, living body against his chest, her soft breath against his neck.
“My lord? We’ve found them.”
Tallain froze. “Alive?”
“Lady Rabisa and the children, yes.”
“Jahnavi?” His voice caught on the name.
The man lowered his gaze to the ground.
Tallain pried the little girl’s arms from around his neck. She gave a piteous cry and reached for him as he gave her over to the soldier. “I’ll come back,” he promised absently, “don’t be afraid.”
The main tower was at the northernmost angle of Tuath. Winds bringing the sudden firestorm had come from that direction, and the flames had been blown away from the tower for the most part. The lower floors and all walls but the northern one were blackened, but the upper chambers were largely untouched. Gusts of fresh hot air off the Desert had kept the smoke away.
Jahnavi lay on his own bed, his wife and two small children keeping watch. He was covered to the neck by a silken quilt stitched in an alternating blue and orange pattern, Tuath’s colors, bordered with the blue and white of Remagev to which he had been heir. The strip of blue silk above his heart was matted to his body by blood. His face was pale and solemn, with a slight frown between his brows, as if trying to understand why he was lying here when there was a battle to be fought. Tallain swallowed hard. Sionell’s hair curled back from her brow just that way; had Jahnavi’s eyes been open, they would have been the same clear blue as hers.
Tallain knelt beside Rabisa and took her hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Rabisa, I’m so sorry—“
Black-haired and blue-eyed, she was a dainty little thing built along the same lines as Tobin. She gazed down at him dry-eyed, shifting her two-year-old son on her lap. “There’s not a mark on him, but for the Merida arrow,” she said softly. “I had them save it, to light the fire with. I’m glad you came to honor him, Tallain. He was so fond of you. He admires you so much.”
The switch in tenses from past to present unnerved him. Gently he said, “Rabisa, perhaps you’d like to come to Tiglath with me. Sionell will want to see you and the children.”
“Thank you, but no,” she replied calmly. “I must stay here. He’d want me to. And he’ll need me to help him arm when he rides out tomorrow.” She slid her son from her lap as if she had forgotten who h’e was, and went to a nearby chair where someone had left Jahnavi’s sword and battle harness.
A hand touched his shoulder. He glanced at it—livid with burns, trembling. Turning, he looked up at Tuath’s elderly chief steward. Tears had cut pale pathways through the soot on her cheeks.
“She’s been like this since they brought my lord home,” the woman whispered. “Sun and shadow.”
A north Desert phrase for the shock of any wound. Tallain nodded. “Get her and the children downstairs as soon as you can. The Cunaxans will be here any time now. We’ve got to hurry.”
“Poor hatchlings,” she said, gathering Jeren up into her arms. Siona, just four winters old, was staring at Tallain with huge gray eyes—Feylin’s eyes, his own son Jahnev’s eyes, ail smoke and silver.
Riyan, my old friend, he thought as he caressed Siona’s cheek in gentle reassurance, this will be the finish of the
Merida forever. You and I are going to make Cunaxa run red with blood.
“Gone?” roared Birioc, and lunged to his feet, nearly toppling his personal physician. “How can they be gone? Is Tuath not in flames?”
“It is,” his half-brother Duroth replied shortly. “If you’d rallied your Merida kin instead of counting yourself the victor too soon—“
“Don’t lecture me, boy,” Birioc warned.
“If you’d kept them in line instead of running away like a coward when that fire hit—“
“If you weren’t my brother, I’d show you why the Merida bear that name!”
“A touch of your ‘gentle glass,’ brother? You’re not Father’s heir yet. And may never be, after this disaster.”
“Tuath is mine.” He slapped the physician’s ministering hands away from his injured leg. “Get out!” he snarled, and the man fled the tent.
“Tuath is burning to foundation stones!” Duroth leaned forward. “And what’s more, clever brother, Tallain was here—and got away!”
The sting of the arrow in his leg was forgotten. “He’s a dead man.”
“A charming sentiment, succinctly expressed,” Duroth sneered. “I can’t wait to see you storming the walls of Tiglath. How many does Tallain have there? Two hundred? Three?”
“If he commands five thousand, we’ll still destroy him!” Birioc calmed himself with an effort. “Besides, little brother, those hundreds out there are my own from Castle Pine.”
“And what about Riyan, coming from Skybowl? Rohan might be a hunted dragon now, abandoning threatened caves. But the gathering of dragons to come—“ He gave a worried shake of the head. “I don’t like it, Birioc. You don’t corner someone like Rohan.”
“He’s old and feeble. Whatever courage he had is gone.” The half-Merida prince gestured Rohan away with a scornful hand. “He runs instead of fighting. We’ll be in Stronghold by winter’s end.”
“And what about Pol?”
“What about him?” Birioc grinned. “Oh, don’t worry— I’ll give him a very pretty burning. A courtesy between princes.”
Duroth shrugged. “You’d better hope your barbarian kin keep Rohan busy in the south. If Maarken is free to come after you—“
“Me? Don’t you mean ‘us’? You’re in this with me, Duroth, and Zanyr and Ezanto as well. Father might not have chosen among the four of us yet, but when he does—“ He bared his teeth in a smile. “Tallain is dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.” And neither do you, brother mine— you and Miyon’s other superfluous sons.