CHAPTER TWO

The playful predawn breeze that had awakened Tal-lain by sifting sand onto his face now seemed determined to snatch the map from across his knees. He spared an inner sigh for his desk back at Tiglath — and the clay impressions of his children’s handprints that he used as parchmentweights — and shifted around on his rock, back to the wind. Riyan stood at his shoulder, intent on the drawing of the Northern Desert.

“They’re taking their ease on the plain below Tuath,” Tallain mused. “If we cut around and approach from Cunaxa, we can cut off any reinforcements.”

“Yes, but if we should happen upon those reinforcements, we’ll be trapped between. There’s nothing left of Tuath for them to live off or in, so they’ll be looking for those other troops with their supplies. “ Riyan studied the map. “Instead of drawing them north to fight us, why not coax them south?”

“To Tiglath?” Tallain growled. “Of course not! I should’ve said southwest. To Stony Thorns.”

After a moment’s thought, Tallain smiled. “Riyan, I think we’re going to have a quarrel. Yes, and the louder the better. Then you’re going to march off in a huff, and I’m going to come after you — because it’s obvious that I don’t have enough troops to face the combined Merida and Cunaxan hosts. You’ll head for Stony Thorns, I’ll follow — “

“ — and we’ll stage a lovely brawl!” Riyan clapped him on the shoulder. “But what if they don’t come to see what’s going on?”

Tallain looked up, his face all innocence. “It’s only twenty measures. And who could resist pouncing on an army that’s fighting itself?”

“With lots of noise and fuss,” Riyan added, starting to grin.

“While the rest of our people drive them right into the rocks.”

“That’s rather sneaky.”

“I knew you’d like it. Now, as for the argument that starts it alt—you’ll disagree with me about tactics, and—“

He stopped abruptly, with the distinct impression that Riyan was no longer listening. As indeed he was not; the dark eyes had glazed over, losing all their bronze and golden glintings. Even with the clearing morning sun full on his dark Fironese skin, he had gone ash-pale. Tallain gestured away an approaching soldier who might have disturbed the Sunrunning.

All at once Riyan cried out. “No—Goddess, no!”

Tallain sprang to his feet, the map forgotten on the sand, and grabbed his friend to keep him upright. Riyan gasped for air, sense returning to his eyes.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and clutched Tallain’s forearms, unable to speak. Rage, fear, grief—Tallain marked the passage of each across the stricken face.

“Rohan,” he gasped, “it’s Rohan. He’s dead.”

Tallain wrenched away and took two steps—all that his knees would permit—across the bright sand. The glare hurt his eyes. He fixed his gaze on the faraway russet stones and dull green trees that marked the Cu-naxan border. The image blurred, and he blinked, and it blurred again.

Finally he swung around. “Riyan, we have a great deal of work to do.” He felt his lips curve in a thin, cold smile. “And we will do it very thoroughly.”

“Tallain—“

“Very thoroughly,” he repeated, and Riyan understood.

The ritual that observed the passing of a High Prince also served to commemorate all others who had died since he was proclaimed. Tradition held that their spirits—peasant or mighty lord, enemy or beloved friend— were privileged to gather at his pyre and greet him on the wind that scattered his ashes across the sky.

This was the last vestige of a barbarian past when every princedom’s ritual included the slaughter of as many people as the High Prince had seen years of rule. It was not thought seemly that his death should be a solitary one. It was yet another tradition that Lady Merisel was credited with abolishing.

Curiously enough, lore had always held that a Lord or Lady of Goddess Keep died alone.

Roelstra’s death had come late in 704, thirty-nine winters after his accession. The wind that had carried his ashes skyward was crowded indeed—and much of it had been his doing. Plague had come during his rule, and he had held back the dranath that cured it until certain of his enemies were dead. The war that he started, and that ended with his death beneath a dome of starfire, had claimed hundreds upon hundreds more lives.

Rohan, with seven fewer years as High Prince, would receive smaller but gentler welcome on the wind. The spirits of those dead during his rule would not come demanding to know why.

But this time a High Prince’s death did not mark the end of a war. Rather, there was the knowledge that those recently dead in that war, and drawn to Stronghold as Rohan’s body slowly burned, would not be the last to die this year, or the next. Theirs were the spirits who would wait for Pol.

With the steadying of the light as it slid across the continent, Sunrunners staggered back from the news that Stronghold was in flames and the High Prince was dead. And many wondered just how long those ghosts would have to wait before gathering on the wind summoned to honor the next High Prince.

At Fessada, where the Ussh River broke in twain, an angry young woman stood in a chamber watching her husband inspect the mourning gray laid out on their bed. Arnisaya had been born at Gilad Seahold, and was a Princess of Fessenden through marriage to its ruler’s younger son. Edirne was occupied in choosing among four tunics, all equally fine. She could almost hear the silent debate as he decided which would best become him while indicating grief for the High Prince. Not too much grief, of course, but what was proper for a prince. As he flicked invisible specks of dust from the clothing, Arni-saya’s fingers clenched around a large glass bowl.

Edirne glanced at her disinterestedly. “It wouldn’t kill me, only shatter.”

“Dragon’s teeth would shatter against that stone skull of yours!” She seized the bowl in both hands and crashed it deliberately to the floor. Shards flew in all directions like spatters of orange paint.

“Control your temper, Arnisaya,” her husband advised.

“When will you start behaving like a man instead of a gelding?” she hissed. “My brother Segelin and his family are dead at Seahold—unavenged! The enemy sails Broch-well Bay as if it were their private lake. Half the Desert is lost, most of Gilad, much of Syr—and all you can do is worry which tunic to wear!”

He considered them again. “Is your own gown in order? Is it the correct shade of gray? We don’t wish it said we lack respect for the late High Prince.”

Arnisaya nearly shrieked in her frustration and fury. “What does it take to shame you into—“

“Into a fight that has nothing to do with me?” He picked through the jewels in a small coffer, holding various rings and earrings up to the sunlight. “You heard my father’s judgment. There is nothing in any treaty that compels us to defend anyone against an invader unknown to us. If one of the other princedoms had attacked Syr or Dorval or the Desert, then honor would have—“

“Honor! A squiggle of ink on parchment to you, a sound you learned to make but not understand!”

“—dictated that we come to the aid of the wronged princedom,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “We are under no obligation to anyone.”

“My brother is dead!”

“Yes. And it’s a good thing he paid the final installment on your dowry at the Rialla this year.”

This time she aimed a silver wine cup right at his head. He brushed it away as if it were an annoying insect.

“Understand something, Arnisaya,” he said quietly and in his taut, long-nosed face was a cold warning. “My father chose me to rule after him, even though my brother Camanto is the elder. And after me will come our son Lenig. This war is nothing we need concern ourselves with. Nothing is going to interfere with the order of things in Fessenden—not war, not alliance, not anything.” He paused long enough to settle on an unusual dark moonstone earring to complete his ensemble. “But I would remind you, wife, that the succession is now assured.”

She sucked in a breath and her high color paled. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“No? As you’ve pointed out, Segelin is dead. There is no one to side with you, should I decide on divorce— which you make more attractive with every one of your tantrums. I’m beginning to wonder why I Chose a hawk, when a sparrow would have suited me just as well.”

Arnisaya fled the room before she grabbed something really fatal and killed him with it. In the chill marble hallways of Fessada she slammed blindly into someone whose arms caught her fast.

“Let go of me, damn you!”

“Peace, dear sister.” Camanto steadied her, in no hurry to loosen his embrace. “You’re quite astonishing when you’re furious, you know. Pity my brother doesn’t have eyes to see it.”

“Damn him!” She raked her tumbled hair back from her face. “He’s a coward and a fool! No wonder your father wants him to be the next Prince of Fessenden— they’re exactly alike!”

“So you’ve discovered that, have you?” He grinned, looking like a lean, blond wolf.

“What can he hope to gain by staying neutral? Pol will chew him up and spit him out—and I don’t like to think what the Vellant’im will do.”

“On the contrary,” Camanto said, leading her to an antechamber where they could be private. “My esteemed father has firm legal basis for his actions—“

“For the lack of them!” she hissed.

“Granted. But Pol is as stupid about adhering to the law as Rohan ever was. As for the Vellant’im—“ He shrugged. “They want the Desert. Now they have most of it. My father will make some sort of arrangement.”

“You’re as craven as he is! You’re worse than Edirne!”

“Oh, no.” Camanto laughed and tilted her face up with one finger beneath her chin. His brown eyes were bright and bitter. “No, sweet sister. I have neither my father’s cowardice nor my brother’s icy blood. I have ... intentions.”

“What kind?” she asked warily.

“Certain things they wouldn’t approve.”

Arnisaya’s breath caught. “I’ll do everything I can to help.”

“You are the most impulsive woman I ever met,” he said with a smile, and after a moment added, “Have you also discovered—finally—that you married the wrong brother?”

*

At Dragon’s Rest, Prince Miyon of Cunaxa was hard put to master himself. Dead, finally dead! he kept telling himself, barely restraining laughter. Feeling his lips begin to curve, he dug the sharp prongs of a ring into his palm, the discomfort reminding him of the sobriety demanded by the occasion.

“What’s to become of us now?” he murmured, shaking his head.

Edrel of River Ussh, whose grief marked him as if it were years instead of only moments old, raised his eyes to the Sunrunner who had brought the news. “It’s certain? Absolutely certain?”

“Yes, my lord.” Hildreth twisted her rings. “Poor Sioned...”

Miyon recalled that the two women had grown up together at Goddess Keep. Hildreth misplaced her emotion, however; it was Pol who deserved pity.

Aware that they were looking to him for instructions, he repressed another grin and said, “You both know better than I how such rituals are arranged here. Please see to it. I wish to spend some time alone.”

He escaped to the gardens, found a secluded bench screened by shrubs and a willow tree, and rocked back and forth with silent laughter for some time. But not even glee at Rohan’s death could cancel his lingering fury at the trick his daughter had played on him. Had Meiglan still been here under his thumb, life would have been much simpler. Now he would have to choose his meal instead of nibbling from both ends of the loaf.

Could Pol withstand the invading Vellant’im? Indications were he could not. Radzyn, Remagev, Stronghold—the three shining jewels of the Desert were lost. And at the smoking ruins of Tuath Castle in the far north, Miyon’s own bastard son camped with his Merida brethren, soon to descend on coveted Tiglath. With its capture—and Birioc had damned well better not destroy it, or Miyon would have his head—Cunaxan steel could be shipped safely and swiftly to the Vellant’im. More importantly, Desert troops would be kept out of reach of that same precious steel, unable to rearm. He thought of the swords, shields, spears, and arrowheads stockpiled in his armories, and smiled. Birioc had bought himself into partnership with the Vellant’im with that treasure; Miyon intended to buy a princedom. Maybe two.

Not that he would forgive his future allies for gutting Stronghold. It was easier to believe Rohan dead than that seemingly eternal pile of stone gone. Now he would never ride through its gates and take possession of what was rightfully his. Well, he would think of that while the ritual was going on—it would put a properly somber look on his face.

And the mourning period would at least give him the chance to think. With Laric departed for Firon to reclaim his princedom from his wife’s treacherous brother, there was only Edrel left to deal with. And Evarin, the Master Physician from Goddess Keep. And Hildreth and her husband and sons.

There was much to be thought over, and several deaths to be planned.

*

At New Raetia, it was a bright, windswept morning, the sort of day that almost made Rohannon wish he could tolerate being in a boat. How wonderful to skim across water like a dragon on the wind. The closest he could come to it was Sunrunning, but his father had forbidden it until he truly knew how.

At least he didn’t have the faradhi seasickness as bad as his sister. Sometimes Chayla turned green just looking at the ocean from the windows of Radzyn. Rohannon smiled briefly at the memory, then turned away from the view of the restless water far below. It would be a very long time before he saw whitecaps off the shores of his home, or teased Chayla about her susceptibility, or walked the battlements of his ancestral keep again.

“Rohannon? Ah, here you are.” Prince Arlis grabbed for the folds of his cloak and wrapped the heavy wool more tightly around him. “What a wind! Not the contented sighs of a Storm God made happy last night in the Goddess’ arms!”

“I hope he blows the Vellanti fleet to the Far Islands and smashes them on the rocks.”

“Hmm. I wonder what—if anything—they believe in.” Arlis leaned his elbows on the stone and peered down to the harbor. “Rohannon, why did no one know my brother Saumer is faradhi!”

He’d been waiting for this question for quite some time now. “I have no idea, my lord. Was he sick on the voyage to Syr?”

“Yes, but so was everyone else who’d had dinner with him the night before. We assumed it was bad lobster.” Arlis shook his head. “Goddess, if we’d only known—“ He broke off abruptly.

Rohannon understood. As Rohan’s one-time squire, Arlis’ loyalties did not lie at Goddess Keep. But with Saumer turning out to have the gift ... it was the same decision his own parents had thus far avoided: whether or not to send Rohannon and Chayla to Andry for training.

“Well, it’s done,” Arlis said. “Or perhaps I ought to say it wasn’t done.”

“If he wants, he can be taught the way Sioned taught my grandmother Tobin.”

“I can’t see Saumer returning to the schoolroom,” Arlis pointed out wryly. “Anybody’s schoolroom, not even Sioned’s. Have you thought what you’ll do when it comes to it?”

Rohannon shrugged. “I’m not sure. I can learn it all from my parents—and Sioned, of course—but there’s a lot about being a Sunrunner that they say can only be taught at Goddess Keep. I—“ Rohannon—

Father? He was wrapped in light and gentleness and familiar colors.

Goddess blessing to you, my dear son. I’m glad to find you safe.

Why wouldn’t I be? Father, what’s wrong? There is no easy way to tell this. Rohannon, there’s been hard battle here. Stronghold is empty and burning. Don’t worry about your mother and sister—they’re on their way to Feruche with your grandmother. And you? You’re not hurt? A few scratches. But Rohan ... Rohan is dead. “No!”

His scream shattered the weaving. Arlis threw an arm around his shoulders to hold him upright, calling his name. It was so cold. The wind cut through him and iced his bones.

Rohannon! Maarken steadied him. Don’t ever do that again!

Father—no, it’s not true—

I wish almost anything else were true but this. I can’t stay, my son. Tell Arlis, and—and do honor to your kinsman. You were Named for him, and he loved you well. Remember that.

*

At Summer River in Grib, Prince Velden said to his court Sunrunner, “We shall do all that is proper, naturally. But without ostentation.”

“Meaning, my lord?”

“What do you think it means?” he snapped. “The enemy is camped not ten measures away. Thus far, they’ve let us alone. If they see a display of fuss and bother they’ll wonder why—and undoubtedly find out. What would it do to their spirits to learn that the High Prince is dead and they’ve won a great victory in the Desert? How long would it be before they decide to match that victory here?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way, my lord.”

Of course you hadn’t. You don’t think at all unless Andry tells you how. I never liked Andrade, but at least she sent me Sunrunners who knew how to use their brains.

Aloud, he said, “We will observe the ritual with all respect and honor, but quietly.”

The Sunrunner departed. Velden frowned, reminded that in Andrade’s day faradh’im had bowed to princes, a small point but a telling one. Things had changed since the days of his youth, and not for the better.

He shrugged off his annoyance and wished he could also shrug off his only son and heir, who limped into the oratory gripping his cane as if it were a sword. Elsen’s right leg had been shattered in a childhood accident; he had never been sent away to be fostered as a squire or even been more than a few measures from Summer

River, for if walking was uncomfortable, riding was an agony. A lifetime of intermittent pain showed in Elsen’s face, in the constant tension of his thin mouth and the strain around his eyes.

Velden was well aware that the last thing under the Goddess’ sunshine Elsen wanted to do was become a ruling prince. He had hoped that his daughter Norian would marry a man worthy of being named heir, but she had thrown herself away on that nothing Edrel of River Ussh. So Elsen, not his sister, would rule Grib one day. At least he’d had sense enough to wed a woman who not only adored him in spite of his handicap, but who knew what was what when it came to ruling. Selante was Cabar of Gilad’s daughter and had more between her ears than the scribblings from musty old books that filled Elsen’s head.

Yet it seemed that his placid son was now moved to something very like anger. Belatedly, Velden recalled that it had been Rohan who had sent volumes on every subject imaginable to a crippled little boy he had never even met, and long letters had been exchanged for most of Elsen’s life.

“Why haven’t the orders been given?” Elsen demanded. “By now everyone should be in mourning, and the fires lit, and—“

Velden detailed his reasoning, as he had done with the Sunrunner. But though grudging acceptance gradually showed in Elsen’s pale eyes, the long jaw set stubbornly halfway through the explanation.

“This still doesn’t make clear why you’ve held back our soldiers from the fighting. At least send them to Catha Heights, to join with the Syrene army—“

“Under the command of two squires? How effective do you think this ‘army’ will be now that Kostas is dead?”

“Rihani and Saumer are his kinsmen. His people will follow them. Ours will follow you.”

“If your cousin Sethric were here instead of in the Desert, perhaps I would order it. But I’m too old.”

“And I am incapable,” Elsen finished for him without bitterness. “Sethric isn’t here, so you’re safe in suggesting it, aren’t you?”

“Hold your tongue,” Velden snapped, for his son had hit on the exact truth.

“I have, and for too long.” He limped to a chair and sat down to ease the ache in his leg. “I said nothing when you refused to send troops to Waes and kept our gates locked to those who fled that city. I said nothing when Radzyn fell, and Riverport and Graypearl and the rest. Even when Prince Tilal was nearby and could have been given our soldiers to lead—“

“Ossetia has always coveted Grib! Should I have made a gift of our army, our only means of protection—“

“Our best protection would be to help defeat the enemy! But instead you do as Cabar does, and hide behind Pirro of Fessenden’s pretty little point of treaty law!”

“That’s enough!”

“Selante is ashamed of her father. Norian is undoubtedly ashamed of you—her husband was Pol’s squire, and his sister and her family were killed at Gilad Seahold. Blood honor alone should compel you to—“

“You’ve turned the eloquence of your books to serve reality at last, I see,” Velden said in silken tones that should have warned his son. “So work your clever, educated mind around this. The Vellant’im chose to seize the waterways and nothing else in the south. Oh, they tried for Goddess Keep, and we all know what Andry did to them there. But five measures from the Pyrme, the Catha, and the Faolain, the land is untouched. They control our rivers because we can travel on them. And that is all they have done here.”

“Yes, but—“

“Yes, but why?” Velden leaned against the carved wooden column in the center of the oratory—an embellishment designed and installed by his father Vissarion shortly before he died of Plague in 701. Each of the thirty-six years since, Velden had ordered it freshly painted on the anniversary of the death. He wondered suddenly if Pol would undertake some similar remembrance from now on—if he lived to devise one.

“Why?” he repeated. “They wanted the Desert. They destroyed keeps here, but Radzyn and Remagev and Whitecliff still stand.”

“Stronghold and Tuath do not,” Elsen challenged.

“Sioned burned Stronghold herself. The Merida were responsible for Tuath. Don’t interrupt. Why should they want the Desert? What is it about sand and heat and the places where dragons mate that they feel they must possess?”

Elsen’s frown was scholarly now, anger having small power over him compared to an intellectual puzzle. Velden noted it with a grim inner smile.

“There are tales, of course—stories for children,” the young man said slowly. “Vellanur and I were reading one only a few nights ago.”

“He’s already reading? At not yet five winters?” Problems were momentarily forgotten in grandfatherly pride.

“Of course,” Elsen said impatiently. “Lady Feylin sent me copies of some of the old legends about dragons that she refutes in her book. As you say, Father, there’s nothing in the Desert but sand and heat and dragons. The first is worthless except for making glass. That they want to broil themselves to death in the Desert sun is ludicrous. So it has to be the dragons.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard most of the stories. Their blood has magical or poisonous properties, their gaze turns men to stone, they speak without words to their victims— preferably virgin princesses. Anyone who eats a dragon’s heart will understand the language of birds.” He smiled faintly. “Vellanur is of two minds about that. He’s not sure if the mess would be worth the result.”

“I quite agree,” Velden said, chuckling. “I doubt there’s any sauce that would make it palatable.”

“He is currently contemplating onion gravy,” Elsen reported with his slight smile, then sobered. “But no one is fool enough to believe such things in this day and age. Even if the Vellant’im did, why go seek out dragons that could paralyze with a glance? There’s only one thing that could tempt them. And that’s dragon gold.”

“A myth, like all the rest of it.”

“Of course—but let’s pretend that it’s true. Wouldn’t the Desert come under attack almost immediately? Prince Miyon springs to mind.”

“And me?” Velden asked acidly. “Don’t mistake me, my son. Grib is mine, and all its wealth—and that’s . enough for me. I’m not disposed to risking it all on a foolish legend.”

“But the Vellant’im might be doing just that.”

“Perhaps. But there’s another factor,” Velden mused, running a thumb over the gold leaf lavished on a carved wheatfield. “Sunrunners. Why was Goddess Keep attacked? It’s not on any river. It has no tactical advantage.”

Elsen nodded. “These savages scream the old word for sorcerers—it translates as ‘Stone-burners.’ They use it as their battle cry, just as Lord Chaynal’s troops bellow out his name and that of Radzyn, and so on. But if they are sorcerers, as their attempt on Goddess Keep and their use of the term would indicate, why has no sorcery been used?”

“Perhaps they’re like Sunrunners, forbidden to use it to kill.” Velden shrugged. “And the most powerful Sunrunner now living—always excepting Andry, who holds the title and honors—is in the Desert.”

Elsen opened his mouth, shut it again, and finally managed, “Sioned? The enemy want Sioned? But why?”

“I’m not saying they do or don’t. I’m saying that they obviously know enough about the princedoms to know where and when and how to attack. It would be insanity to think they didn’t know about our politics and who rules what—and who is what.”

“Dragon gold and Sunrunners...” Suddenly Elsen’s face clouded over. “This can’t be news to them in the Desert. Rohan would have thought of all this.”

“Yes, he would. And look where it got him. Do you understand now why I won’t risk involvement in this war?” Frustrated as anger visibly grasped his son’s fine- drawn features again, Velden exclaimed, “Goddess in glory, we don’t even know who we’re fighting! We don’t know where they came from, let alone what they want!” Rising stiffly from his chair, Elsen leaned on his cane and asked, “And if you knew, Father, would you give it to them? Would you demand that Pol hand over dragons, or dragon gold—or Sioned?”

*

In Meadowlord, Ostvel had decided that his and Tilal’s combined forces would move slowly toward Swalekeep, giving Chiana every opportunity to invite them to establish a camp outside the walls. This was preferable to marching in like the attacking army they would have to become if she failed to respond as self-preservation must dictate. There was no Vellanti army near enough to defend Swalekeep, but he had every faith that soon there would be. And he didn’t want to waste his people’s blood on Swalekeep.

“Do you think Chiana would actually put up a fight?” Lord Kerluthan of River Ussh asked, not bothering to hide his eagerness for battle.

Ostvel shrugged. “I’d prefer to avoid the whole question. If we can get into Swalekeep peaceably, then we can draw Chiana’s claws. Rohan can deal with her betrayal later.” Seeing the honest regret in Kerluthan’s eyes, Ostvel snorted. “And no, you may not spare him the trouble by doing whatever it is you’re thinking about doing.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.” But a sudden predatory grin lit the athri’s face. “It’d be lovely, though, wouldn’t it?”

“Behave yourself,” the older man chided. Still, he was unable to repress a rather wistful sigh. Lovely indeed to be rid of Chiana by one “accident” or another... Then he shook himself. War was making him think like a barbarian. Rohan would be ashamed of him.

Besides, he would have need of his baser impulses for an enemy far more formidable than Chiana. If she did the smart thing and welcomed them, he could leave behind troops to secure Swalekeep and take the rest down the Pyrme. There he would meet up with the Syrene army now commanded by Rihani and Saumer. And at last they would start for the Desert, relieve the siege at Stronghold, and push the Vellant’im into the sea.

Tilal merely nodded and shrugged when asked his opinion of this plan. He had said nothing much since news of his brother Kostas’ death many days ago. Andrev saw to all his needs, a silent little blond shadow at his side every instant—except when the boy was Sunrunning. Ostvel, left with all the work on the journey to Swale-keep, could have used the squire’s help. But Andrev was sworn to Tilal, not to him. So he left them to themselves.

Camped for the night in a meadow halfway to Swale-keep, he was beginning to think Chiana a stupid woman after all. There had been no messenger, no scouts sighted at a distance, nothing. Every morning he received the same report from Kerluthan, and every morning he gave the same order: mount and ride for Swalekeep. But not too quickly. It was getting a trifle monotonous.

“What’s her problem?” he muttered when Kerluthan came with the same news yet again. “She must know that we at least suspect what she’s up to—though she can’t know we had proof at Catha Heights.”

“Maybe she thinks if she ignores us, we’ll just go away.” Kerluthan grinned all over his broad, craggy face.

“Hmph. Maybe she just thinks that we wouldn’t dare attack.”

“She’ll have to think again.”

“I like your spirit, Kerluthan, but if you must have action, ride afield today and bring down some deer for the cookpots. Regular camp rations are unsettling my stomach, and at my age, digestion is everything.” He broke off as Andrev darted on foot around four soldiers leading six horses and skidded to a stop in the dew-wet grass. “Here, what’s all this?” Ostvel began.

“My lords—Stronghold is ablaze and—“

“Impossible!” Kerluthan growled.

“Hush and let him finish.” Sick dread ached in his throat. “You’ve spoken with your sister?”

“Yes, my lord—oh, my lord, they’ve all left Stronghold and burned it behind them with Sunrunner’s Fire and—and—“ Andrev looked up at Ostvel in anguish. “Tobren says that the High Prince is dead!”

Ostvel’s gaze wandered from the boy’s face to the meadow before him, trampled to brown mud beneath boots and hooves. He looked up at the sky, and the white clouds edged in silver-gilt that drifted high on the morning breeze. He looked at anything that did not look back with knowledge in its eyes that his prince and his friend was dead.

“My lord?” Kerluthan’s voice, worried and subdued.

Ostvel nodded. “Andrev. Take me to Prince Tilal. You can tell me on the way what else Tobren said. Lord Kerluthan, make ready to march on Swalekeep.”

The younger man knew the difference in the order: march on, not to. He nodded and strode away. Ostvel put a hand on Andrev’s thin shoulder.

“Tell me the rest,” he said quietly.

*

At Castle Crag, within the crystal oratory that clung to the cliff, Alasen sat alone. The ritual would be held tomorrow night, but with the fall of dusk today she had lit candles by the hundreds in rows at the back of the oratory. Tonight she kept her own vigil.

Her gaze sought the pane of glass broken by Rohan in 719, replaced by Ostvel with one etched with the dragon cipher. Fironese crafters had colored the dragon golden-yellow and given it blue eyes. A real emerald was set into the ring pinched between the beast’s talons. It was the only stained glass in the oratory. When the sun shone, the whole room was drenched in color and the emerald refracted blue-green sparks in all directions.

Now, past midnight and with no moons, the gold and blue and green still caught the light. But there was no sparkle to the oratory, only the reflections of rows of candle flames against black glass.

Alasen didn’t think much about Rohan. She thought about her eldest daughter and her only son, who were somewhere between Stronghold and Feruche this night. She thought about her husband, marching on Swalekeep. But mostly she thought about herself.

How safe it was, perched here above the Faolain River. How safely she had lived her life here. After those few terrible days of Andrade’s death and Andry’s love, Ostvel had given her peace. How her father Volog and her brother Latham were dead, and Rohan, and hundreds more whose names she did not know. Ostvel and Jeni and Dannar were in the middle of war. Yet here, there was still safety and peace.

She had spent all the years since the discovery and the denial of what she was clutching at the safety of this place. She had distanced herself from princes and Sunrunners. Perhaps now was the time to acknowledge that she was both. Perhaps now she could no longer isolate her mind and heart, keeping each to the uses of her life here at Castle Crag.

Volog and Latham and Rohan and hundreds of others had died. More deaths would follow—though not, please the Goddess, anyone else she held dear. She would rather lay her living body down on an already lit pyre than lose any of them.

She watched the reflected candle flames against black glass, tiny fires that could not reach into the night beyond crystal windows. But there was another Fire that could. She possessed that Fire. Perhaps it was time she learned how to use it.

Perhaps then she would know an honest peace, one she herself made.

*

During the long day after Stronghold was set ablaze, other people in other keeps learned what had happened.

But in many places there were no Sunrunners to listen on light.

At Tiglath, a thin fog rolled in off the Sunrise Water and kept the Sunrunner there isolated. Sionell spent a heartbreaking morning trying without success to coax Rabisa, her brother’s widow, back to some semblance of life. Then she spent the afternoon preparing to receive her husband’s victorious army back from a battle not yet fought. That he would not be the victor never crossed her mind.

In the rugged hills of Dorval, where once the faradh’im had lived, there was no Sunrunner to receive and tell the news. Prince Ludhil and Princess Iliena inspected supplies seized from under Vellanti noses on the previous day’s raid, then planned the next one. They avoided talking of their children, safe with their grandparents in the Desert.

At Skybowl there was no Sunrunner and no need of one. Lady Ruala, Riyan’s wife, was a sorcerer to her last drop of blood. Untrained in most of the arts, still she knew how to speak on sunlight with her husband. When he told her about Rohan, she allowed herself to weep for a little while, then sought out Prince Chadric and Princess Audrite.

At Radzyn and Whitecliff, and in the port town below Graypearl, news of the High Warlord’s triumph came in more conventional ways.

At Gilad Seahold, Faolain Riverport, and Remagev, at Tuath Castle and Waes, there was no one at all.

At River Run there was a Sunrunner who didn’t know he was. Saumer of Kierst-Isel led his late lord’s tired army into the keep where Kostas and Tilal and Sioned had been born, and where Kostas would be burned that night. Every so often he glanced sideways at Rihani, whose wound taken at Catha Heights had begun to fester.

At Einar and Medawari; at Zaldivar and Athmyr; at High Kirat where Princess Danladi sat in the same gentle, frightening silence as Rabisa did at Tiglath; at Kadar Water and Grand Veresch and River Ussh and a score of smaller keeps throughout the princedoms, Sunrunners listened to Maarken, who spoke from Pol’s side, or Hollis, who spoke from Sioned’s. And not that night but the next, candles would burn in silence, and all who had died between Roelstra’s death and Rohan’s would be remembered.

At Faolain Lowland, the Sunrunner Johlarian brought the news to Lord Mirsath and Lady Karanaya, and then shut himself in his chamber so the once-beloved sunlight could bring him no more horrors.

At Balarat, the Sunrunner had been murdered. But that place had no need of her to receive word that Rohan was dead.

*

At Goddess Keep there were hundreds of Sunrunners—and one who stood alone on the battlements in the setting sun with tears streaking his face.

It had just gone dusk. Andry rested his hands lightly on the stone balustrade and gazed down at the assembled Sunrunners and common folk. His athri, Jayachin, stood with her young son at the head of the latter crowd, hiding resentment that she would not stand with him in honoring Rohan. As if she had the right, he thought bitterly, as if she had even seen him more than once or twice in the distance at a Rialla.

Very few here, either Sunrunner or commoner, had known Rohan. Many faradh’im remembered Sioned during her girlhood here, and wept for her loss. None but Andry had known Rohan. In this, as in other things, he was alone.

All the Sunrunners wore gray mourning. The refugees from Waes and elsewhere had little enough; that they had made an effort to conform to the ritual—a gray tunic here, a headscarf there, everyone wearing at least a token of the color—touched him. They had so little, and yet they each held an unlit candle, a precious thing in their poverty. Whatever else he had been, whatever he had done or not done, however he had succeeded or failed, Rohan had been their High Prince for more than thirty years. Andry drew breath in the stillness, and began to speak.

*

Nearly the breadth of the continent away, those who had known Rohan best—some of them all his life—also assembled. Amid the stone spires and towers and strange shadows of the Court of the Storm God, they wore no gray and held no candles in the night. The moons had not risen, nor would they. Only cool starlight shone down on the warriors and servants, nobles and Isulk’im, and a tall, solitary figure whose blond hair faded to silver in the gloom.

He stood among them, not apart, though the wide place among the twisting rocks had been chosen partly for the flat stone just behind him, upon which he was meant to stand while he spoke. But he found himself unable to stand above them, even though the position he now held was at the pinnacle of his world.

They waited in patient silence for him to collect his thoughts. When at last he spoke, his words rang like a steel sword off stone.

“My father ... was a man to whom life had given the truth of himself. A rare and precious gift, more important than the power he was heir to in the Desert, and the power he was given when he became High Prince.”

*

“... who understood power, both of his person and his position. My kinsman was a man in whose presence all of us felt more alive. His was the silent challenge to know and to learn, to do our work and excel at it—and then to surpass ourselves. But this he did with kindness, and understanding for our frailties and the difficulty of the task. He was called Azhrei not because he was fearsome, but because he was strong enough to shelter us beneath his wings...”

Andry paused, sudden memory interrupting his train of thought. He could see before him as clearly as in a Fire-conjuring two little boys and a cloak-draped “dragon.” Wings fluttered and merry blue eyes peered out at the would-be heroes, daring them to attack the fearsome dragon with their wooden toy swords.

*

“My father was a man of great power. His strength of mind and heart, his wisdom and his courage, these things all of you know. But perhaps the greatest of his strengths was that he understood power and was wary of it. As High Prince, with the wealth of the Desert behind him, and with a formidable Sunrunner as his Princess, he might have taken any land he fancied and ruled only to please himself. But he did not. That was the true greatness of his power, as he saw it: that he so rarely used it.”

But everything he ever taught me or told me is useless to me now. What good is law and gentle persuasion and waiting for the right moment to act when the world is collapsing around me? I love you, Father, I admire you, and everything I’m saying now is true. But why didn’t you ever teach me the things I really needed to know? How do I defeat these barbarians with laws written on a parchment page?

*

“... and the world is a more threatening place without him. In his last season of life he saw lands ravaged and castles razed. He saw battles that killed his people. And all that he kept safe is safe no longer.”

Once more Andry paused, the two visions of Radzyn hovering in his mind. One in flames, the scene of years of nightmares; the other as it was now, intact and proud but echoing to Vellanti footfalls. Andry had seen destruction that meant the enemy had no usable base in the Desert. Reality was a keep still whole but given over to their ease and comfort. Which was failure, and which was victory?

He didn’t know anymore.

“Our task now is to restore the peace that he cherished more than his own life. And those who think that he failed will learn otherwise. He lived, and he kept us safe. That was his gift to us. With his silent challenge before us—to do our work as well as we know how, and then to do it even better—we cannot fail. With his example living still, especially in the hearts of those who knew him best, we will know that safety again.”

Andry lifted both arms slowly, and slowly every candle lit as if a breath of Fire blew across the wicks one by one. The fields before him blazed to life with flames that burned to mark a death.

Torien, as Chief Steward of Goddess Keep, led the Sunrunners and castlefolk out to the walls, where the candles were placed in the soft ground. They filed back through the gates.

Jayachin came forward to place her own candle and that of her little boy. After her shuffled nearly three thousand others, and by the time it was done the tiny Fires embraced the foundation stones like a half-moat of white and gold.

Andry wondered if anyone else saw it the way he did: incomplete, as if one saw the top half of a ring and assumed that it indeed circled the whole finger, not knowing it was a sham and a deception.

But it was Rohan the flames symbolized. It could not be a Sunrunner’s ring. His had been only a halfling gift. So perhaps the half-circle of light was appropriate after all.

*

There were no candles at the Court of the Storm God. Pol raised one hand and called Fire to unlit torches. Bright as day they blazed, making stone beacons of the pale yellow and orange and dark russet of the spires.

He thought of the Fire that still burned, spilling down from the Flametower at Stronghold. And of another fire that should have replaced it, but would remain unlit for what he suspected would be a long time. His own fire.

The great topaz gleamed in its circle of emeralds where Chay had placed it on his finger only a little while ago. He had never seen that ring on any hand but his father’s. To find it now on his own cut him to the heart.

He stood there in the blazing night, Fire lighting the tears that ran like scars down his cheeks.

Chapter Three

The Vellanti courier strode across Princess Chiana’s priceless carpets, leaving a trail of mulchy leaves, raindrops, and mud. He was lacquered in it head to foot and as he yanked off his cap in her presence, water flew in all directions.

Chiana hastily drew back in her chair. “How dare you come in here covered in filth! Look what you’ve done!”

“Mother,” Rinhoel murmured, pale green eyes intent on the single clean thing about the courier, a little gleam of gold stashed safely in the cap. He held out his hand and when the dragon token was in his grasp he wasted precisely one instant admiring its solid gold wings and ruby eyes. “You come from the High Warlord, then.”

“Yes, my lord. Rohan is dead at Stronghold. It and he still burn with cursed Fire.”

“Dead?” Chiana gasped. “Are you certain?” He looked at her as if she were insane. “Would it be said if it were untrue?”

“But how did he die? Not in battle, surely!”

“At his years?” the courier scoffed. “When warriors beat through the flames, they came upon him lying on the ground as if sleeping. None dared touch him, nor come too close, but a physician looked and saw, and believes his heart stopped in his chest.”

Chiana snorted. “A wonder Sioned’s didn’t stop, as well—one heart in two bodies.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, the corners of her mouth curving. “Poor Sioned. Oh, poor, poor Sioned!”

She was still grinning—inside—when she summoned Rialt and Naydra and told them the High Prince was dead. She explained her knowledge by saying that couriers had ridden night and day since the terrible tragedy; true enough, and unnecessary to identify exactly whose couriers, for the instant the news left her lips they were too stunned to think.

Rinhoel, standing nearby, wore a decently sorrowful expression. “Naturally, the ritual will be held tonight. Our steward will provide the proper gray clothes and all that must be done will be done. Lady Aurar notwithstanding,” he added with a frown.

“Aurar?” Naydra echoed, bewildered. Her eyes were liquid with grief; Rialt looked sick, too dumbstruck to comprehend anything.

Chiana, watching her half-sister’s face, blessed her son’s cleverness. “Aurar refuses to put on mourning. She says it serves Rohan right for condoning her father’s murder and for sending Kostas to take Catha Heights.” She gave a tiny shrug. “As if it was Rohan’s fault that Patwin turned traitor, or that Mirsath killed him at Faolain Lowland.

Rinhoel nodded. “I’m afraid her sorrow for her father has unsettled her mind. I’ve told her not to show her face at the ritual if she knows what’s good for her.”

That Aurar had other, better things to do with her time went unmentioned; the purpose of the little exercise was to excuse her absence. Not that either Naydra or Rialt would notice, Chiana thought. Still, best to be cautious.

“May I leave, your grace?” Rialt asked suddenly.

Chiana nodded her sympathy. “Of course. This is a terrible loss to us all, Master Rialt.”

For once he did not arch a sardonic brow as she deprived him of his honorary title. He walked from the room as if in a dream. Naydra went with him. Rinhoel waited until the outer doors had closed before turning a broad smile on his mother.

“They’ll be paralyzed for days over this.”

“They’d better be. I don’t like to think what Rialt could get up to if he found out Tilal and Ostvel are so close to Swalekeep.”

“But they’ll be paralyzed, too. This couldn’t have come at a better time!” He threw the golden dragon into the air, catching it before tossing it into her lap. “Thus too Castle Crag, my lady, after the Vellanti have beaten its lord outside our walls.”

“Will they come in time?” Despite the excellent turn of events, she was fretful. “There’s been no reply from Lord Varek.”

“His army marching up the Faolain will be answer enough. Don’t worry, Mother.”

“I’ll try not to—but it’s been my whole life, Rinhoel, waiting, always waiting...” Another thought occurred to her. “We’d better send someone with Aurar, to make sure she hands over our letter instead of tending to her own ambitions. Do you know she had the gall to order me to march on Syr?”

He paused, watching her delicate, scarred fingers toy with the ruby-eyed token. “Actually, it’s not such a bad idea—once Tilal and Ostvel are taken care of. Kostas is dead and his army is commanded by Saumer and Rihani. There wouldn’t be much credit in defeating two boys my own age, even if they are princes, but—“ Chiana stiffened. “I won’t have you risk yourself!”

“Mother—“

“No! Absolutely not! And if you mention it again, I’ll forbid you even to ride the outskirts of the battle against Tilal and Ostvel!”

Rinhoel looked rebellious, then shrugged. “As you wish. But once I’m High Prince, not even you will stop me from doing as I wish.”

“Once you’re High Prince, there’ll be no danger of your being killed in a war. That’s the one good thing Rohan did in his life. He gave the princes and athr’im a taste for peace. Once the Vellant’im have what they want—and we have what we want—there will be peace again.”

He laughed down at her. “Oh, Mother, how can you believe that?”

“You just think about power for a time, my son!” she snapped. “A High Prince who’s constantly at war is a High Prince who’s not being obeyed.”

That Rinhoel had never considered this before was clear in his eyes. At last he nodded. “As you wish,” he repeated.

“Good.” Placing the dragon token on a table beside her, she shook out her skirts and rose. “We’ll have to talk to your father and work out what he’ll say at the ritual tonight.”

“Thank the Goddess neither of us has to speak. I’m going to have enough trouble not laughing.”

*

Pol finally located Sioned, but only because he recognized the man riding protectively at her side. Though Meath had covered his graying head with the hood of his cloak, no one else had his height or breadth of shoulder. Pol ached a little at the Sunrunner’s weary slump, memory supplying him with a picture of a vigorous man in the prime of his life who had taught him everything from basic swordsmanship to fine control of a Fire-conjuring. Now Meath seemed old.

But Sioned was straight-spined and elegant as ever in the saddle. Pol had been prepared to find her as hunched and weary as Meath. He had also expected to see the familiar shining cascade of her hair. The short curls were a shock. His gaze had passed right by her at first—just as hers did now, green eyes filmed with dullness that made a lie of her outward composure. For all the recognition she gave him, he might have been one of the swirling wind-carved stones that rose to either side of the trail through the Court of the Storm God.

Meath saw him and shook his head. Pol hesitated. He understood the warning, but he had not spoken to his mother since the remains of his army had met up with those who had escaped Stronghold. He’d only glimpsed her last night, and only after he’d called Fire to honor Rohan’s memory, and even then he’d been unsure of the hooded woman’s identity until the emerald ring flashed when she covered her face and turned away.

Meath’s look again cautioned him against approaching Sioned. He rode forward anyway; he’d found no comfort in the ritual, still less in his own words, and only a little in his reunion with Meiglan and his daughters. He knew it would be even worse for Sioned. Perhaps they could find ease for their grief together.

“Mother?” No reply, no reaction, nothing. “Mama,” he whispered, and heard a plea in his voice that belonged to the child who had called her that.

It was only when Meath spoke her name that she glanced around. Her gaze found Pol without curiosity and almost without knowledge of who he was. She wore the polite social mask he’d seen a thousand times, the face behind which she hid boredom or anger or impatience. Her eyes were lightless and her voice was impersonal as she said, “Yes?”

“I thought—I thought we might ride together for a little ways.”

Her answer was gently courteous. “There’s hardly room for it through the Spindle Forest. Perhaps later?” Her attention returned to the trail ahead.

“Mama—“

Respectful but insistent, Meath said, “Please, Pol. Not now.”

Pol nodded helplessly. As he waited for Maarken and Kazander, who rode at the rear of the line, he told himself that she was still in shock—well, wasn’t he?

Visian, Kazander’s brother-by-marriage, was speaking animatedly to the young korrus, whose black eyes were alight with feral glee. Maarken had developed an apprehensive expression; Pol rode up in time to hear him say, “I’m not your commander, my lord, so you can do as you like. But I doubt even your Isulk’im are ready for another fight.”

Kazander snorted. “Against that pitiable handful of barbarians who sit horses like kittens squatting to piss?” He caught sight of Pol and bowed, one hand over his heart. “Mighty prince, I beg you. Allow your humble and unworthy servant to gift you with the heads of your enemies. Few as they are, it will make a start. Before the winter becomes the spring, I swear to slice necks until my sword blunts on their backbones, and—“

Maarken shrugged. “If you’re determined to do it, then go enjoy yourself. As I say, my authority doesn’t include the Isulk’im.”

The korrus looked hurt. “Great and noble athri, my heart and sword are yours—second only to the commands of the High Prince himself.”

Never, Pol decided, would he get used to people saying that title while looking at him. “No, my lord,” he told Kazander. “Until noon, I’m yours to command. I’m going with you.”

“Pol!”

“I’m going,” he repeated, goaded by the memory of his mother’s eyes. They would pay for what they had done to her—and to his daughters as well, for their pain and shock and fear as they and the other Sunrunners were assaulted by iron. He would kill and kill until the canyon flowed with blood, and he would laugh and laugh—

“Don’t be a fool!” Maarken rasped.

Pol ignored him. To Kazander, he said, “Tell me what you plan.”

He looked from the High Prince to the Battle Commander in mute distress. Then, with a small, fatalistic sigh, he said, “We will wait for them at the Harps—a wind is rising, and the sound will disguise any noises of our gathering. Visian, yours is the honor of riding with the High Prince.”

“Yes, my lord!” The young man—scarcely more than a boy—cast a quick glance at Maarken that said Pol would be protected whether he liked it or not.

“I trust you won’t mind if I don’t mention this insanity to your wife,” Maarken said in acid tones.

The unsubtle reminder irritated Pol. He needed vengeance right now more than anybody else needed to know him safe.

“The High Princess has nothing to fear,” Kazander proclaimed.

Pol froze. If it was impossible to associate his own name with “High Prince,” still less could he hear “High Princess” and think of Meiglan.

Maarken gave him a look that went right through him. “Enjoy yourself,” he invited acidly. But Pol saw the way he flexed his damaged wrist, and knew that despite his protests, Maarken wanted to be in on the action, too.

The Harps was a deep, ragged cave high up the sandstone wall where water trickled through from some buried spring. At its narrow mouth, caught between the moisture and the sun, grew several varieties of cactus and succulents, many of them with long, sharp needles. Almost any breeze was drawn into the cave to swirl in the coolness and emerge through a shaft of collapsed soft stone—and on its way in, rustled the cactus spines until they vibrated like harp strings. The stronger the wind, the louder and wilder the music. And as Pol rode with the Isulk’im to the gully below the Harps, he could hear swift and eerie harmonies punctuated by the slow droning of air escaping the shaft.

Kazander drew rein half a measure from the cavern. His black eyes swept over the thirty-two who rode with him, narrowing on this one or that as if selecting special skills. He made a series of complex gestures with his right hand that sent all but five of his men off to hide where they could amid toppled boulders and standing spires. Before Pol had drawn ten breaths, the twisting little canyon was empty.

His amazement must have shown on his face. Kazander glanced over and grinned, a flash of white teeth below his mustache. “A simple enough trick. I will teach it to you, if you like.”

“I’d like,” Pol replied. He looked around again, not even hearing the Isulki horses. “Though why you needed the cover of the Harps—“

“There is the occasional carelessness.” Kazander shrugged. “Visian, find a place for the High Prince and yourself.”

“Wait,” Pol said. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“You’ll know.”

Visian led him past a bend in the gully to a balancing stone, a flat pale slab poised atop a broad-based pillar tapering upward to a point scarcely as wide as a woman’s wrist. From this angle, it looked as if a breath would overset the huge rock. But as they climbed up, Pol found that while narrow from back to front, the width of the pillar had been disguised by shadow. There was plenty of room to conceal their horses and themselves behind the wall and beneath the overhang—though he caught himself glancing nervously up at the several hundred silk-weights of rock above his head. He knew very well that the formation was one giant piece of stone, its softer parts worn away until the balancing illusion was perfect. Still...

He touched Visian’s sleeve. “I won’t be left out of this,” he warned, whispering even though the Harps had responded to a shift in the wind and sound wailed through the canyon.

The young man looked shocked. “My lord korrus bade me ride with the High Prince—not wet-nurse him.”

Pol chuckled low in his throat. “Just so we understand each other.”

Visian shyly returned his smile. “Besides, great Azh-rei, you’re bigger than I am. How could I stop you?”

Pol turned to watch for Vellant’im. The word caught at him. Rohan had been the Azhrei, the dragon prince. Pol had inherited everything, it seemed—from the Desert to the title of High Prince to the name bestowed on Rohan in affection and awe. And none of it fit, not the words or the concepts. Maarken had told him that he’d never be the man or the prince his father was until he knew what it was to hurt so much he thought he’d die of it. Maarken had been wrong. He ached as if his heart was being crushed within his chest, but he knew it to be a selfish pain. I want my father back! something young and frightened cried, and the hurt grew all the worse when only silence answered.

Visian’s fingertips on his arm alerted him. Several mo- ments later he heard it, too: the dull clop of hoofbeats, discernible even through the groaning sound of the Harps. No conversation, no jingle of bridles. The Vellant’im were being cautious, or perhaps they were intimidated by the bizarre music. Thinking that over, Pol decided not; the only thing that seemed to affect these savages was the sight of a dragon. He considered conjuring one from the mouth of the cave on the opposite wall. No. This battle he would fight with the strength of his hands, not the power of his mind. Not that he’d had much luck with the latter, he thought bitterly.

He wondered all at once why he hadn’t used that power to go Sunrunning, to give Kazander the exact location and number of the enemy. Surely he could have done that much. Why hadn’t he thought of it?

Simple enough. He’d failed. Over and over again, the combined strengths of faradhi and diarmadhi blood had proved impotent. At Radzyn, at Remagev, at Stronghold—the memory of Azhdeen showing him Fire bleeding down the castle walls made him cringe.

Visian was looking at him, dark eyes worried. Pol smoothed his expression. The youth gestured to the gully below. The enemy was within reach, and in the next instant the music of wind through cactus spines was nearly drowned by the screams of dying men.

Pol dug his heels into his stallion’s ribs and ducked his head as he burst from beneath the balancing stone. His sword—Rohan’s sword—was in his hand without his having to think about it. With the memory of Stronghold and his father’s lifeless body and his mother’s lightless eyes before him, he blanked all portions of his brain that thought beyond the next sword stroke and all portions of his heart that felt anything but rage.

And as he began to kill, he did indeed begin to laugh.

*

In Firon, the sun was no match for snow clouds that had blown in overnight. The only difference between dawn and noon was a shift in the gray pallor surrounding the castle at Balarat, and it took a glance at the water clock to tell that it was nearing dusk. Even the most powerful Sunrunner would have been helpless in such gloom. But Firon’s court Sunrunner was dead, and for all the contact with the world beyond its walls, Balarat might as well have been built on one of the three moons.

Even had there been news, Prince Tirel would not have been privy to it. Since the Sunrunner Arpali’s death, he had been confined to his chambers, ostensibly to keep him from contracting the illness that had supposedly killed her. His constant companion and only servant was his father’s squire, Idalian. For a willful seven-year-old, heir to the princedom and accustomed to being treated as such, being isolated and ignored was intolerable. But worse was happening, and he knew it.

His uncle, Lord Yarin, was availing himself of opportunities opened by the absence of Tirel’s parents in Princemarch. That the nobles and ministers had not rescued Tirel from what amounted to imprisonment scared him. Though Idalian said that they must think the threat of disease a real one, Tirel believed they were either aiding Yarin or too frightened of him to object.

Idalian—whose home at Faolain Riverport the Vellant-‘im had destroyed the first day of the war—did not insult Tirel by patronizing him. They spent their days in quiet study and games, alert to the presence of Yarin’s servants outside. But at night, when the squire judged it safe, he discussed matters with the boy. Their talks produced no solutions but at least helped them both clarify what was happening, what might be happening, and why.

That day, however, there was nothing Idalian could say to calm the fretful child. Denied exercise and fresh air, the natural energy of a healthy young boy had turned in on itself. A rough-and-tumble game of tag amid the furniture hadn’t tired him, only made him more restless. He wouldn’t settle to his books, begging Idalian to talk to him instead. So the squire decided to occupy Tirel’s mind with a history lesson.

“You have to know what happened in the past,” he said, trying to match his voice to his memories of his own tutor at her most pedantic. “The truth, that is, not what gets prettied up for the scrolls. Old Prince Ajit had half a dozen wives but no heirs—“

“I know that,” Tirel said impatiently. “The High Prince gave Firon to Papa because he was the closest heir with Fironese royal blood. But what does that have to do with Uncle Yarin?”

“I’ll get to that.”

“Do it faster,” Tirel demanded. He flopped down across his bed, unsettling the chessboard and pieces spread out for the benefit of anyone who might open the door.

“Ajit never left Balarat except to attend Riall’im. Everybody did pretty much as they liked for all the years he ruled. He wasn’t allied with anybody, the way Firon’s a close ally of the High Prince now. As for your uncle ... back in Ajit’s day, Yarin was a young man and he always did as he liked. When Ajit got really old, Yarin of Snowcoves ruled in all but name. When the old prince died, he felt he should’ve had the name as well.”

“Oh.” The child’s voice was very small. “He must hate my papa.”

“Prince Laric has what Lord Yarin wants,” Idalian replied with a shrug.

Tirel suddenly turned ashen. “Idalian, will he do to me what he did to our Sunrunner? Will he pretend I got sick and—“

“Absolutely not,” he answered firmly. “You took care of that yourself, by asking him if he was going to isolate his own son for protection. And Natham’s been in and out of here for days now—”

“I like him better when he’s out.”

“So do I, my prince.” Idalian grinned. “But you see, if something happened to us he’d have some fast explaining to do about why it was just us and not Natham, too. So we’re both safe.”

For now, he did not add aloud. Yarin had made Tirel sign a document giving him complete power to rule until Prince Laric returned—a worthless piece of parchment, as it happened, for no one under the age of ten could lawfully sign anything. Not that it meant anything in immediate terms for the prisoners.

Idalian thought it odd that Yarin had insisted on the signature. But there were reasons why it might become important from his point of view. The immediate result was power he, the nobles, and the ministers considered legal. Even if some or all of them knew that the signature of a seven-year-old was invalid, they could always claim an honest mistake made in ignorance.

But that was assuming Laric could retake his princedom, and Idalian knew that Yarin assumed nothing of the kind. The document was simply his way of adding legitimacy to his claim to Firon. And he would formalize that claim when he decided it was time to kill the young prince.

This thought chilled Idalian more than the snow outside. Unused to scheming enemies, a near-stranger to introspection, he must try to think as Yarin would, for the sake of the boy whose only protection he was.

Idalian had no illusions that he could rally influential persons to the boy and foil the Lord of Snowcoves before Laric’s return from Princemarch. He kept up the fiction of believing that everyone thought them truly in danger of illness, but he knew as well as Tirel did that it truly was fiction.

AH things came down to one: for Yarin to succeed, Tirel must die.

But surely, Idalian thought, surely Yarin knew that the High Prince would never accept him as ruler of Firon. If Yarin defied him, Rohan could decree the princedom outcast. Cessation of trade would be a terrible hardship for Firon, which could not feed itself on its two major attributes—crystal and snow.

But if Rohan lost this war—

He shook himself mentally. He would not think about defeat. Tirel was alive. It had not occurred to the boy yet—and Idalian didn’t mention it—that Yarin would keep him that way at least a little while longer, until he’d worked out a plausible method for killing him.

Idalian himself was another matter. But he didn’t mention that, either. “We’re safe,” he repeated.

Tirel nodded, content for now. Waving a hand at the chessboard, he asked, “One more game?”

The squire gave a sigh. Nineteen years old, proficient at arms, with a war going on out in the great world— and here he was, sitting across a chessboard from a seven-year-old. But Idalian knew bleakly that there was no one else to care about the fate of a helpless little boy.

The chess set was a beautifully crafted one. Tirel’s uncle Ludhil had sent it last New Year from Dorval, and the boy mostly played the pieces in elaborate battles across bunched bedsheets. Though chess was no game for a fretful child, Idalian had been teaching him for something to do. A reluctant pupil at first—it was much more fun to fly the dragons at enemy knights and imagine Sunrunners weaving spells around opposing castles— Tirel had applied himself after his cousin Natham demonstrated considerable proficiency for a ten-year-old.

Idalian smoothed the quilt flat and arranged the enameled copper pieces: twenty-three for each side in three rows on a nine-squares-by-nine board. Tirel dutifully recited the placement.

“Back row is dragon-knight-knight-Sunrunner each side, High Prince in the middle. Second row is castles at each end and squires between, except the Sunrunners don’t have anybody ahead of them so they’re free to work.” Tirel fingered one of the dragons. It was a fierce little creature with arching wings, talons dug into the riv-erstone that formed the piece’s base. “Idalian, why do the dragons stand behind the castles?”

“Because they need someplace to perch. Front row?”

“All guards except for spaces in front of the Sunrunners. But I think they need protection, too, these days. Arpali did...”

Idalian bit his lip at renewed mention of the dead faradhi. When the door was flung open, even the usually unwelcome entrance of Yarin’s son and heir was a relief. “Are you still playing that silly old game?” Natham scoffed, making himself comfortable at the foot of the bed without a by-your-leave. “My papa’s new friend taught me the real way to play chess.”

“Perhaps you’d like to teach us,” Idalian suggested, gritting his teeth, but ready for any distraction.

“I don’t think so.” Natham smiled. He had a round, pretty face reminiscent of his aunt Lisiel, and his mother Vallaina’s thick-lashed black eyes. Another six or eight winters, and those eyes would earn him grand success with the ladies—if Tirel let him live that long. The cousins had come to loathe each other during the long days of isolation.

“Why not?” the young prince challenged now. “I can learn anything you can!”

“Could not.”

“Could so! And beat you at it, too!”

“You could try!”

Idalian held his breath, ready to separate the boys if it came to physical blows. But Tirel then proved himself a master strategist, even at his tender age, by shrugging carelessly.

“If you’re scared that I’ll learn better than you and win too fast, then—“

“Scared of you?” Natham snorted and plucked all the faradhi pieces from the board.”This is how you play real chess—without these stupid Sunrunners messing things up!”

Idalian didn’t dare ask what replaced them.

Natham grabbed up the central figure from Tirel’s side of the board. “And you can’t play with a High Prince from now on because Rohan is dead!”

“No!” Idalian snarled.

Instantly the boy dropped all the pieces onto the quilt and jumped to his feet. “Don’t tell!” he demanded in a voice that tried to threaten even as it shook. “You can’t tell I said that!”

Tearing his gaze from the gutted board, Idalian picked up two of the discarded pieces: Tirel’s High Prince and a Sunrunner wearing a green dress.

“Swear you won’t say anything!” Natham ordered. “Or I’ll—“

Glancing up, Idalian asked quietly, “And who is there for us to tell, who doesn’t already know it?”

Natham flushed crimson all over his plump face. “Just—just don’t say you heard from me, that’s all.” He fled.

“Idalian...”

“Hush up!” he hissed, and Tirel cringed.

“But what are we going to—“

“I said to hush!” Rising, he went into his own chamber next to the prince’s, and stood at the windows staring blindly at the snow.

It wasn’t until that sleepless midnight that he wondered how, lacking a Sunrunner, Yarin could know that Rohan was dead.

*

It was midnight, and the ritual was over. Rialt choked down some wine, turning his face from the plate of food his wife brought him in the banqueting hall. Mevita hesitated, as if about to coax him to eat, but then thought better of it and set the plate aside.

“I know you want to leave,” she murmured, her eyes warning him of the watchers all around them in the crowd. “But we can’t. We must stay and listen.”

He nodded numbly. Ever since Chiana had spoken words that meant Rohan was dead, he had been struggling to comprehend them. There was no Sunrunner to consult for confirmation or denial. He wanted to believe it was all a trick, that Chiana had lied for reasons of her own. But he could think of no advantage to be gained by it. Indeed, news that the High Prince was dead had created unease in most of those around him now. They spoke in low, nervous voices, all the nobles and important merchants who had been invited to participate in the ritual. He sent Mevita to circulate among them and hear what they were saying. Halian, as was his princely duty, had spoken before the lighting of the candles. He was honestly sorry that Rohan was dead. Voice breaking once or twice, he told his personal memories—hunting, hawking, riding the green richness of Meadowlord to try out new horses. He said not a word about Rohan as a prince, only as a man. Pol’s name was not mentioned once. It was Pol who occupied Rialt’s thoughts as he exchanged his empty wine cup for a full one. Pol was his friend as well as his prince—and now the new High Prince, although formal acknowledgment of that would have to wait until all the princes could be assembled to confirm him. And that would have to wait until after the war. Rialt suspected Chiana had ordered Halian not to speak of Pol because any reference to him was tacit admission of his new status. To admit was to acknowledge; to acknowledge was to acquiesce. And that would not suit her plans for Rinhoel.

This subject was exercising the tongues of Halian’s three illegitimate daughters, who stood nearby with pages to hold their plates for them. Rialt never could get their names straight—probably, as Mevita had pointed out, because he didn’t want to. They all looked alike anyway: being very close in age and all dark-haired, brown-eyed, and snub-nosed like their father. The only way to distinguish them was that the eldest and youngest chattered constantly and the middle one never had a word to say for herself.

The talkative pair were discussing quite openly their half-brother’s nearness to the throne of Princemarch, now that Pol and the two little princesses might be killed at any instant.

“Rinhoel’s claim is stronger than Daniv’s. Chiana was only six when Rohan forced her to sign the parchment that disinherited her.”

“Daniv’s mother was eleven—of legal age. So if Pol dies...” She pursed her lips. “How much of a fight would Prince Miyon put up? Against Rinhoel’s marrying Jihan or Rislyn, I mean.”

Rialt struggled against nausea and turned his back.

“Oh, not much. Although he’ll extract a stiff price for the marriage.” She giggled. “Half the Desert!”

“Not unless Maarken and his son and daughter and all of Andry’s children die, too. They’re the next heirs to the Desert.”

“Well, Rinhoel can bother about it once he’s at Dragon’s Rest.”

“And Chiana is finally at Castle Crag! She’ll never leave it until her last breath and we’ll be rid of her at last.”

“I wonder which of Pol’s daughters Rinhoel will Choose. They’re both said to be pale, puny little things.” The third sister spoke up for the first time. “I can just imagine the ways he’ll use to decide between them!”

The trio laughed aloud at this, drawing a few startled glances.

“My dear!” her sister chided gaily. “When he’s High Prince, he can do as he pleases—so why not take both?” Rialt swung around on his heel, unable to stand any more. “The day he touches either of them, I’ll—“

“Here you are, my lord!” exclaimed Mevita, grabbing his arm. “Come and tell Princess Palila about—“

“Leave me be!” He took her off, intent on the sisters, and took a menacing step forward. Mevita’s hand shackled his wrist.

“My lord!” she said sharply.

He ignored his wife. “You miserable, foul-minded bitches—“

“Did you hear that?”

“How dare you insult us!”

“And he threatened our brother Prince Rinhoel. We all heard him!”

Mevita hung onto him with all her strength. Rialt tore out of her grasp and advanced on Halian’s daughters. People were staring now, some of them shocked and some of them delighted by the excitement. He clamped his fingers around a skinny, silk-clad shoulder. “Papa!” she squealed in honest alarm. “Yes, someone fetch Prince Halian,” Rialt snarled. “You can tell him your treason with your own lips!”

“My lord—no!” Mevita pleaded. “Think!”

“Shut up!” he ordered, but he released the woman. “It sickens me even to touch you.”

“You assaulted me! Papa! Papa, help!”

Mevita had him by the arm again, trying to draw him away. “Excuse my husband, my lady, it’s his grief talking, and the wine—“

It infuriated him to hear her grovel to them. But she dug her nails into his hand and a measure of sanity returned.

“What’s all this?” Halian asked.

His daughters immediately accused Rialt of vile insults and preparations to do violence. Halian, for all his faults as a ruler, was a tender parent when his children were called to his notice. He turned angry eyes on Rialt.

“How dare you lay threatening hands on a Daughter of Meadowlord? You forget yourself! You should be thrown into prison.”

All three ladies—one of them rubbing her shoulder as if a hatchling dragon had clawed her—looked gratified at the prospect.

Halian continued, “But as you are valued by my niece Cluthine and my wife’s sister Naydra...”He gestured, and a guard came forward. “Escort him to his quarters.”

That was Halian right down to the ground, Rialt thought in digust: he couldn’t stay a prince for more than two breaths together. In a similar situation, a single withering phrase from Rohan would make the transgressor slink away wishing he’d never been born; Pol would simply have flattened the culprit with a fist to the jaw. But then, no one would ever have dared put a finger on any lady associated with Rohan or Pol—and not just for fear of the princes, either.

As Rialt was summarily removed from the hall, he caught sight of RinhoePs face: a marvel of affronted dignity marred only by the glee grinning from his pale green eyes.

*

Morning again. Morning of the fourth day since Rohan’s death.

I must stop thinking that, Chay told himself, holding his wife more tightly in his arms as they rode. If I don’t stop, I’ll think of nothing else. But oh, Goddess, it hurts so much.

There was wisdom to the ritual of burning. The daylong fast cleansed body and mind; the gathering of family and castlefolk comforted with a sense of shared grief, even as total silence secluded them one from the other. The endless wait for dawn gave time for thoughts and memories. And the final wafting of ashes on a morning breeze called up by a Sunrunner freed the spirits of the living as well as the dead.

But the ritual deep within the Court of the Storm God had not been that of burning. Chay had not seen his prince consumed by Fire, nor felt the gentle release of the wind. There had been no nightlong silence in which to remember, to allow pain to claim him and then quietly let him go. He had not worked his way from grief that Rohan was dead to gratitude that he had lived. He had not said farewell.

He rode with Tobin wrapped in his arms, as he had during their escape from Radzyn. She was crying again. Despite the hundreds of people around them as they rode through the Court of the Storm God, she hid her face against Chay’s shirt and cried.

He felt the raw wound of her grief as keenly as his own. For all the others they had lost, they’d cried in private. For her father, killed by a dragon; for her mother; for their sons—he had held her and wept with her. But they did not have the luxury of solitude now. Chay held her close and said nothing to soothe or silence her. What could he say?

So he stared stolidly at the trail ahead, cradling his wife in his arms. Around them, the wind-carved sandstone rose in irregular layered towers, some thick as castle turrets and others slender as ship masts, struggling to cast shadows in pallid dawnlight. The people of Stronghold and Remagev and Radzyn—riding, borne on litters, or walking—traced the meandering path among the rocks. It was mindless. One step after another. It left too much room in the brain for thinking.

Tobin finally raised her head. “Where?” she asked, strain roughening her voice and slowing her speech.

“Just coming up on the Sentinel Stone.”

“Too slow.”

“Don’t worry. They won’t follow us in.”

She twisted to look at his face and ask a silent question with her eyes.

“Pol,” he said reluctantly. “Maarken says that he and Kazander rode back to the Harps. They plan some discouragement.”

“Idiot!” she hissed.

“Don’t fret over it. There’s nothing you can do.”

“And you?”

“I’m old,” he said tersely. Then he smiled, a mere shifting of the exhaustion beneath the dirt and sweat on his face. “They’ll be all right. We all will. The Vellant’im won’t dare chase us through here. As your father told me the first time we ever rode through this maze, this is one hell of a place to lose a cow.”

Tobin gave a snort and subsided. But once her head had fallen back to his shoulder, Chay bit both lips between his teeth. The words had brought a memory of their youth: riding this very trail, hoping for some time alone, unable to escape watchful attendants. All at once a boy had galloped by, yelling like an Isulki warrior, and the servants had taken off in a panic to keep the precious heir to the Desert from killing himself on his new Radzyn stallion.

Thus had Rohan gleefully aided his sister’s aim of capturing the Lord of Radzyn for her own. Chay could still see him, all golden hair and blue eyes and reckless energy, laughing as he hurtled past, his grin as wide as his twelve-year-old face.

Chay knew enough about grief to know that such memories would eventually make him smile. If he lived long enough.

“My lord? I’m to tell you that Prince—I mean, that the High Prince has returned.”

Glancing around, Chay saw Rohan’s—now Pol’s— squire, Daniv of Syr. A ruling prince now himself, this war and his father Kostas’ death in it had taken all his mother’s gentleness from his face. Chay wondered if Danladi would even recognize her son in this grim-faced, stubble-chinned young warrior.

“Intact?” This from Tobin, who had tensed in Chay’s embrace.

“Very much so, my lady. And victorious.”

“Fine,” Chay rasped. “I want a little chat with his grace, Daniv. Lend me your horse.”

Carefully descending from his saddle, he made sure his wife was steady in it before handing the reins to the young man. He mounted the other horse and cursed his bones for creaking. “Will you need a torch, my lord?”

“I was threading this maze with my eyes closed thirty years before you were born. See to my wife’s comfort, Daniv. I’ll be back soon.”

He found them easily. Running one scathing glance down Pol’s bloody clothing, he muttered, “I see you took Maarken’s advice, and enjoyed yourself.”

“Yes.”

The word was both calm and fierce, reminding Chay of Rohan more than he was willing to admit. The jaw was longer and there was no cleft in the chin and the eyes were more green than blue right now, but Pol was his father’s son.

And his mother’s. And it was not Sioned Chay thought of at that moment.

Kazander filled up the silence in his own inimitable way. “Dread Lord of Radzyn, fifty of the barbarians watered the canyon of the Harps with their blood. To ward off what horrors might spring from such foulness, we piled them like empty sacks and burned them. This is what kept us so long, for which this wretched servant asks pardon.”

Chay was in no mood for garlands of Isulki eloquence.

“I see,” he said shortly. Then, relenting a little, he asked, “Did any of you take hurt?”

“Pinpricks,” was the reply, with a shrug.

“Have them tended.”

Kazander looked from him to Pol as if wondering whether they should be left alone in close proximity. But then he bowed and rode off, his troops with him.

“I owe Maarken a report,” Pol said. “Where is he?”

“With his wife.”

“As I ought to be with mine?” A sun-bleached brow arched in the tanned face that was so close an echo of his father’s.

But not quite. Not quite. He never will be Rohan. I have to stop looking for what I’ve lost.

“You do as you like—High Prince.” And for the first time since Roelstra’s death, Chay used the title as an insult.

Pol exploded. “Damn you, what else can I do but fight when and how I can?”

“You can keep yourself alive—chances of which aren’t improved by galloping around waving your sword!”

“My father’s sword,” Pol hissed. “This one, the very one he killed Roelstra with—and then put away because he believed in peace. The Vellant’im don’t share that belief, my lord! And I don’t have the luxury.”

Setting heels to his weary horse, he rode away. And as he passed among the straggling lines of refugees, Chay heard them say the name of their new High Prince with admiration and with pride.

The sound weighted the old man’s shoulders with despair. Goddess forgive me, but if not for Tobin I would have done better to have died with my prince.