The emissary from Prince Laric of Firon rode out of Fessada at a gallop, new snow fountaining beneath her horse’s hooves. Camanto, elder prince but not Fessen-den’s heir, watched from a tower window and grinned to himself. He’d had no need to be present at the recent audience; he was so certain of what had been said that he could have set it to music.
In fact, he mused as he went back to his maps and rosters, all this would make a rather fine ballad series. He’d have to find a bard with a sense of humor when he commissioned the songs.
Later in the morning he put himself by way of encountering his brother’s wife in the garden, where she always went when she was furious. As Arnisaya was possessed of a volatile nature, she spent quite a lot of time there.
And so it was today. Camanto lingered in the arcade for a moment, admiring her delectable curves as she strode along swept gravel paths between snowy hillocks. She’d been rather a scrawny little thing when she’d married Edirne; motherhood had improved her figure, if not her temper.
He strolled around the perimeter of the garden, where bare roses drooped beneath the weight of last night’s snow. Eventually she turned for another path, and saw him.
“Camanto! Have you heard the latest idiocy?”
He took her arm. “Succinctly—my father has refused Laric permission to cross the Ussh and march through our lands on his way to save his princedom.”
“And do you know why?” She snorted. “Because
Laric is a kinsman of the High Prince, and if the Vellant-‘im find out we helped him, they might attack us!”
“Thin, I’ll admit,” Camanto said. “Actually, my father is afraid that Fessenden will become what Meadowlord always was—a convenient battleground. Yarin must know Laric’s coming. If he’s smart, he’ll already have sent troops south to watch the most likely routes.”
“To battle his own prince? His brother-by-marriage?”
“Of course not. Against the Vellant’im, of course.”
She stopped walking and shook his arm. “Tell me what you’re talking about! You’re not making sense!”
“Picture a snowstorm,” he suggested. “Just a little one. Two groups not quite sighting each other, not quite sure who the other might be. Neither has had access to a Sunrunner for Goddess knows how long, so neither knows where the Vellant’im are. A skirmish in the snow against soldiers who, for all they know, are the enemy ... except that the one side knows very well who the other is. And then we’ll all be in mourning gray for yet another prince.”
Arnisaya still wore that color in memory of her brother Lord Segelin and his family, dead the first day of the war at Gilad Seahold. She wore it to remind all who looked at her of what she had lost, unavenged. But in the snug little world of Fessada, girt by snow and far from the fighting, people had ceased to notice the color or remember what it meant.
Camanto knew all this, knew how angry it made her. He wondered how much of what else he knew he ought to tell her. She was impulsive and reckless, likely to say whatever was in her head. But he needed her. With a shrug, he went on.
“Does it make sense now, dear sister?”
She had recovered her powers of speech. “Yarin wouldn’t dare.”
“Whether he would or not, Laric is currently our problem. No matter what Father says, he’ll try to cross the Ussh River.”
“With his princedom at stake, I should think he would! And he must, if what you say of Yarin is true.”
He smiled. “You know, I was just thinking of ways to prevent him.”
He kept a firm hold on her arm so she couldn’t strike him with it. Her other hand came up and he grabbed that, too. Her hair came loose of its pins, cascading around her crimsoned face, and he spared another moment’s admiration for a woman of immediate passions— so unsuited to his cold fish of a brother.
“Gently, my lady!” he laughed. “Hear me out in full before you kill me!”
“I thought you a man of honor and pride!” she snarled. “You led me to think it after Rohan died. Have you turned craven like your father and brother?”
“You don’t much care who fights whom, do you? As long as someone does something!”
“I care about my son,” she snapped. “And what fine examples his kinsmen are of what a prince should be! Nothing but cowardice and—“
“Yes, yes, I know the whole list of defects in our characters,” he interrupted. “You have such a demanding standard of excellence. Will you listen for a moment, Arnisaya? I promise you’ll like what you hear. For Len-ig’s sake as well as your own.”
Sullenly, she replied, “Talk. It’s all you and your breed are good at.”
This was the way to handle her, he thought: ignite her temper, then bank the fire with sweet reason that kept it smoldering against the object he intended. Life with her would not be placid, but never would it be dull.
“I’ve notified those among the highborns who believe as we do to be ready at my summons. The household guard is mine to command as well. What do you think I’ve been doing all autumn and half the winter?”
She caught her breath. “Riding the nearer keeps, and the river all the way to Einar. But you said it was to make sure we had defenses enough if the Vellant’im did attack.”
“So I said. So I meant. And now my father and brother will thank me for it—for when Laric is denied crossing here, he can be persuaded south. Edirne will have no stomach for riding that far in such weather. So once he’s trotted out looking lovely on his horse and shouted a bit at Laric, he’ll return here and leave the army to me.”
“And once you’ve persuaded Laric down to Einar? What will Lord Sabriam do?”
She had a quick brain when she chose to use it. He smiled. “His son Isriam is in the Desert. His sister Kiera married AHun of Lower Pyrme—and their son Kierun is Pol’s squire. It’s taken direct threats from my father to keep Sabriam from outfitting his merchant ships for war and sailing against the Vellant’im in Brochwell Bay. Thus far, he hasn’t moved. A hundred troops have been at Einar since mid-autumn to make sure of it. But when I arrive with a whole army, and tell Sabriam to give Prince Laric all the ships he needs...”
Arnisaya clutched his arm excitedly. “Who’s to say it’s not your father’s will? But why do all this for Laric? Firon and Fessenden have ever contended over their borders. Even when Laric was made prince in 719, and so much was settled—“
“—and so much land was handed over to us to gain our support for Laric’s claim,” he broke in. “I know all that. But Laric wants nothing but Firon. There’s been no trouble since he came to Balarat. Peace is a very good thing, Arnisaya.”
“Yarin is of the old line, and would start it up all over again,” she said, nodding. “Yes, I see. But you’re not doing this for Edirne’s ease as the next Prince of Fessenden. You’re doing it for me, and for Lenig.”
He made an abashed shrug and let her think what she liked. As he returned indoors, he reflected that it was easier than telling her the truth.
He’d learned it himself from his uncle. Almost two years ago, after his wife’s death in a hunting accident, Milosh had fled into the hills on his swiftest horse. Some said he wanted to escape his sorrow, others that he wanted to find death, still others that he wanted to find and kill the stag whose chase had caused her fall from the saddle. Instead, a diarmadhi found him. The sorcerer had died and Milosh had come home, and had not left his holding since.
Camanto, who was friend as well as nephew, had been the only one to whom Milosh confided that he’d had no hand in destroying the man who captured him. “I was trussed in a chair. He went outside for more wood, I heard him scream, and when I finally got myself loose I found him in the clearing, charred to a crisp. Another sorcerer, Sunrunners, I’ve no idea—but he was dead by someone’s fire, with no one around but me.”
It was something else about the incident that motivated Camanto now. The sorcerer had said almost nothing to Milosh, not even why he’d been taken or what was planned for him. On his way back to Fessada after making sure his uncle was recovering from the ordeal, Camanto had ridden alone up to the cottage. There he had found three interesting things: a crystal goblet, a small sack of coins, and a coverlet on the bed. The money was undoubtedly payment for Milosh’s abduction. The goblet and quilt, however, made little sense until he noted the colors: the ice white and winter-sun yellow of Snowcoves.
The quilt was new, silk on one side, velvet on the other. The goblet was as fine a piece of work as any Camanto had ever seen, with the hallmark of Snowcoves’ court glassmaster on the bottom. How would someone living in a hillside hovel, and so far from Firon as well, acquire such expensive items?
He’d worked his mind around it all the way back to Fessada. Payment and tokens of favor; they had to be. To a sorcerer, from someone rich and important enough in Snowcoves to buy from Lord Yarin’s own personal crystaller. If Yarin himself wasn’t diarmadhi, then someone close to him must be.
Camanto had burned the quilt and shattered the goblet in the hearth. He told no one. Who would believe it? Stirring up the old troubles between Fessenden and Firon with only a suspicion would avail nothing—and might injure Milosh, for Camanto’s suspicions included him. He would never willingly join in treason, but no one knew what sorcerers could do to a man. Revenge for some petty personal grudge was the accepted reason for the abduction. Coins, goblet, and quilt said otherwise. Sunrunners could use eyes and ears other than their own; why not sorcerers? Princess Chiana been suborned by a diarmadhi witch. It was possible. Milosh had been held for almost two days. Who knew but that he had been made a creature of the diarmadh’im without his knowledge? It was much better that he stayed at his own holding and away from Fessada.
When rumor and then Fessada’s court Sunrunner established Lord Yarin at Balarat, Camanto knew that just as the sorcerers had tried to take Princemarch by killing Pol and using Chiana, now they were attempting to claim Firon. Whether or not Yarin himself was diarmadhi made little difference. Surely they were his allies. It all made too much sense; in ages past they had retreated to the Veresch in the face of faradhi supremacy. There could be thousands of them in the mountains, ready to come at Yarin’s call once Balarat was secured. And where would they go next but Fessenden on their way to Princemarch?
Camanto was well aware that the mere thought of facing a whole army of sorcerers would destroy the fighting will of any force raised against them. Better that they not know. He knew, and it scared him more than the Vellant’im ever could.
By all reports, the Vellant’im shouted “Diarmadh’im!” as their battle cry. Yarin could also be receiving support from them. No dragon-headed ships had been sighted sailing north to Snowcoves, but that might only be because of the miserable weather. They might be waiting for spring, until after the south was theirs, to assist Yarin and his diarmadhi confederates in the north.
Camanto knew how vulnerable his homeland was. Einar could be seized in a day, the lower Ussh River taken in a four-day march. Fessada would be the work of an afternoon. Ensuring that the enemy did not get past Einar was his duty as a Prince of Fessenden. And once he accomplished it, there would be no question of his brother Edirne’s continuing as their father’s heir.
All autumn he had debated the merits of asking Lord Andry’s help. The Lord of Goddess Keep and his Sunrunners had done—something—to kill the sorcerer. More, they had done it from an incredible distance, even greater than that bridged by Sioned in building her dome of starfire around the battle between Rohan and Roel-stra. They might perform the same service for Camanto now. They might give his army an edge if it came to fighting sorcery.
Andry’s own actions—or lack of them—kept Camanto from contacting Goddess Keep. No one, no matter the need, had been helped at any distance by Andry. What did it matter that Rohan had restricted use of faradhi arts to the defense of Goddess Keep? Andry’s duty was to protect the princedoms. He hadn’t. And Pol would never ask for his help. A man would have to be monumentally witless not to know how things stood between Andry and Pol. Camanto despised Edirne, but the emotion was grounded in contempt. He didn’t fear his brother the way those two feared each other’s power. Andry had let Radzyn, his own birthplace, be taken; what did he care about all of Fessenden?
No, Camanto would not ask help from the Lord of Goddess Keep. And once Pirro was dead and he was Prince of Fessenden, both Andry and Pol could rot for all the support he would ever give them in anything.
And he would be Prince of Fessenden. Totally honest with himself, if not with those around him, he knew his actions were motivated by equal parts ambition for his future, loathing for his brother, and love for his princedom. Desire for Arnisaya was purely secondary, but made things more amusing.
So that night he had a little talk with his father and brother. Two mornings later—as Pol started for Feruche, Tallain for Tiglath, and the maimed Cunaxans and Mer-ida for their homes—Camanto stood once again in his tower chamber, watching his brother ride a beautiful black horse out into the snow. A measure away at the river, as many troops as could be gathered in so brief a time had assembled for Edirne’s inspection—and Ca-manto’s eventual use.
*
For the first thirty-two years of her life, Princess Nay-dra had been a daughter of High Prince Roelstra. For the next thirty-two, she was the wife of Lord Narat of Port Adni. The former had been an accident of birth; the latter was a blessing for which she thanked the Goddess every day of her life.
Her father was long dead. Now her husband was dead too, having succumbed to a chronic weakness of the lungs early in autumn at Waes. Neither father nor husband was alive to give name, definition, meaning to her life. Had she borne a son, she would have devoted herself entirely to him and been content. Daughter to a father, wife to a husband, mother to a son: a gentle womanly circle, a perfect life. But completion of it was denied her, for she had no son, and no means of defining herself.
She was still a princess, still Lady of Port Adni. But the titles were empty as blown eggshells without the men who had given them. People said “your grace” and “my lady” and the words meant nothing.
The day after Cluthine left for Tilal’s camp and did not return, Princess Pallia’s tutor came to Naydra’s chambers, bowed low, and gave her a new title.
“I beg a few moments, Diarmadh’reia.”
Distracted by her concern for Cluthine, Naydra did not immediately understand the strange word. When she did, her knees buckled and she stumbled to a chair.
The man leaned back against the door into the anteroom. It snicked shut. He had the temerity to lock it.
“You knew, your grace,” he said quietly. “Your sister Pandsala knew at the last. lanthe did not—and thank the Goddess for it. Lenala died of Plague before she could find out. Your mother was Lallante of the Mountain—a line of so-called ‘stone burners’ old before the time of Lady Merisel.”
Naydra stared at him. She had never seen a sorcerer— that she knew of—but they were said to almost always be Fironese in appearance, reflecting their exile to the Veresch and the mingling of their blood with that of the mountain folk. This young man was fair, with blue eyes and reddish-blond curls and a pale complexion. He didn’t look like a madman. But he babbled complete nonsense.
“My name is Branig,” he said. “I am the latest of those who have watched Swalekeep—for Princess Chia-na’s safety, although she wouldn’t see it that way,” he added with a little smile. “After what happened nine years ago, we decided that certain persons might be vulnerable to their own ambitions, and need guarding against—“
“We?” She clutched the arms of her chair. “Who are you? What do you mean?”
Branig sighed. “This will take time, which we don’t really have. Not all of us side with Mireva, who challenged Prince Pol. Your mother was their hope. You may very well be ours.”
“My mother?” Naydra shook her head weakly. “What are you talking about?”
“May I explain, Diarmadh’reia? May I tell you what you are?”
“Stop calling me that!” she cried. “ ‘Princess of sorcerers!’ “
“No. A princess who is a sorcerer.”
“I’m not! Get out! I want nothing to do with your wickedness!”
“Mireva’s clan-kin have much to answer for,” Branig muttered.
“This war is your doing! The enemy use the very name as their battle cry!”
“I can’t help that. I don’t know why they do it. I don’t even know who they are! What I do know is that they must be defeated. And to do that, I need you.”
Naydra pushed herself to her feet and backed away from him. “If I cry out, guards will come—“
“I know. Am I so stupid that I would risk coming here if it were not vital?” Urgency was in his pale eyes, his extended hands. “Listen to me. Lady Cluthine is dead.
Lord Rialt and Lady Mevita are in custody by Chiana’s order. She works with the enemy, and Lady Aurar is her courier, as traitorous as she and for the same reason: desire for a princedom.” He came forward. Tall and inexorable, he reminded her frighteningly of her father.
But his voice was soft, almost pleading, and there was need in his eyes as he said, “Diarmadh’reia, you must believe me. You can no longer ignore what you are— and we can no longer let you.”
Her mind reeled. Cluthine dead, Rialt and Mevita in prison? This could not be happening. She knew he must be insane.
She suspected suddenly that she was, too, when she heard herself say, “Sit down, Branig, and tell me what you think I am.”
*
“Pol—“
He jerked upright in his saddle. The late afternoon sunshine was warm, oddly soft for winter, and the steady rhythm of hooves had nearly lulled him to sleep. “What? What is it? More Merida?”
“No, of course not.” Riyan sounded amused. “I was just thinking about what you said. Using the Desert. Did you have anything in mind?”
Pol’s turn to smile. So that’s what he’s been chewing over, he thought. Riyan had been silent ever since starting for Feruche. Pol had waited him out through fifty measures of sand, stone, and occasional salt flats with a patience possible only because a battle had been won. Not the most important one, but at least the taint of defeat was scoured from his tongue. He was no longer in such a hurry—even though he’d decided to ride ahead with an escort of cavalry and the three Cunaxan brothers. That they were Meiglan’s brothers was something he didn’t think about too much.
“Sand, dragons, gold,” he mused. They rode at the head of the column, out of earshot, or he would never have mentioned that last. “Interesting weapons.”
“Very,” Riyan agreed. “We’ve seen what creative use of the terrain can accomplish. I doubt you could buy off the Vellant’im, so I can’t see what good the gold can do us. But they are scared of dragons.”
“One of them isn’t.” And Pol explained how Elidi had behaved at Skybowl—and what had happened to her at Stronghold as reported by a horrified Meath the next morning. “When I took a look for myself, they were yanking out her talons and teeth—keepsakes, I suppose,” he finished bitterly.
“Poor little thing,” Riyan murmured. “You see the implications.”
“I’ve been too angry to think much about it,” he admitted. “But I’ll find whoever did it, Riyan. Find him and butcher him the way he did her.”
“But do you know what this means?” he insisted. “Dragons talk with each other. There’s proof now. You say Azhdeen talked to you—“ He interrupted himself with a sigh. “We have to find a better word for it one of these days.”
“It does tend to give the wrong impression,” Pol agreed. “Go on.”
“Elidi got the information from Azhdeen and flew off to Stronghold. That’s important. But what’s really intriguing is that dragons care about their humans. They’re indifferent parents to their own offspring. They share rearing among all adult dragons. But they care about us.”
Pol mulled that over, rubbing his thigh to ease a muscle cramp. He’d been in the saddle two days past forever. “Maybe they’re just possessive. I always get the feeling that Azhdeen considers me his property. Morwenna was Elidi’s, and taken from her.”
“But the way you described her howls—and Elisel hovering around Sioned—it argues for something else. Something more.”
“Not a parent-child relationship. And certainly not friendly equals.”
Riyan nodded ruefully. “You know what it reminds me of? A child with a favorite toy.”
Pol gave a start, then began to laugh. “Goddess. That’s exactly what it is! I had a stuffed greentail bird when I was little, velvet with real feathers sewn on, and polished sand-jade eyes. I talked to him all the time, played with him, wouldn’t go to bed unless he was there—and Goddess help anybody who so much as put a finger on him. He was mine.”
“And not to be shared. And that’s how the dragons see us.”
“So I’m Azhdeen’s walking, talking, breathing stuffed toy, am I?”
“It’s just how Sadalian treats me.” He paused. “Do you think Elidi went to Stronghold for vengeance?”
Pol narrowed his gaze. “If you’re asking whether one of us should volunteer to play dead and then see what the dragon does, no thanks.”
“I’d never do that to a dragon! No, I was thinking that if they perceived a threat to their humans—“
“—they might attack?” He considered it, but only for a moment. “They’re too vulnerable. Think what damage a volley of arrows could do, or one of those stone-throwing arms. And the Vellant’im don’t seem afraid of dragons anymore.”
“Maybe. But I’d probably wet my trousers if I saw a flight of angry dragons coming at me.” He shook his head. “No, you’re right. We can’t use them. Not that way.”
“So we’re back to sand. More specifically, what’s on it. Tell me how I can use Feruche.”
Riyan flexed stiff fingers around his reins and rotated his sore right shoulder. He’d slaughtered so many Merida and Cunaxans that he’d wrenched a muscle in the process. “I don’t think we can. Sorin built it too well. It’s too imposing. One look and nobody in his right mind would attack.”
“That’s what everybody thought about Stronghold, too.”
“But Feruche is relatively easy to supply, which Stronghold really wasn’t. They knew you had to come out and fight eventually. What about Skybowl?”
“What about it?” Pol asked, his impatience returning. “You own it, you know it better than anybody but your father. How would you use it?”
“It’s too steep to attack from or mount an assault against. But there’s a good flat stretch out beyond it, if you’ve a mind to a pitched battle.”
“I don’t. We lose them,” he replied bluntly.
Riyan said nothing.
After a moment Pol shrugged irritably. “We’re beating our wings without flying anywhere. Tomorrow morning we’ll be back at Feruche, where two Battle Commanders can think this out much better than we can. Chay didn’t have much to do the last thirty years, but Zehava kept him good and busy before that. And he taught Maarken everything he knows.”
“But you’ve got an advantage with Maarken. He’s a Sunrunner. He’ll use that in his battle plans, too.”
Pol glanced back and slowed his horse, seeing that they were a little too far ahead of the others. “That’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. What we did at Stronghold worked, as far as it went. Sectioning off the enemy under a fire dome—and we’ll have to think up a better word for that, too. It wasn’t really the ros’sa-lath Andry used at Goddess Keep.”
“It didn’t kill,” Riyan murmured.
“No, it only allowed the soldiers to do our killing for us.” He slammed his fist against the pommel, startling his horse. “Hells, Riyan—I dance as I like around an oath I never swore, but the rest of you—“
“—will make peace with ourselves. And with the Goddess.”
“Very pretty,” Pol snapped. “Stop trying to make me feel better.”
Riyan gave him an overdone bow from the saddle. “It’s Maarken’s duty to kick you when you need it. The rest of your athr’im must soothe your bruised backside. Which reminds me—with a victory to celebrate, would it be the right time to take formal oath of us? There’s Chay, Maarken, and me—“
“And that madman Kazander.”
“He’d swear to you?” Riyan asked in amazement. “An Isulki?”
“He’s crazy enough to swear the sun sets in the east if I ask him to.”
“I don’t dare imagine the words he’ll use in the oath-taking. Does he always talk like that?”
Pol smiled briefly. “Worse. I think it’s a good idea about the vassals. We’ll include your little brother, too, on your father’s behalf.”
“Dannar will enjoy that. Kierun and Isriam can swear to you for their fathers, as well. You don’t happen to have another prince handy, do you? One of them ought to take oath in token of the rest.”
“Not all of whom are thrilled with the prospect of me as High Prince. No, I left Daniv down at Skybowl with Walvis and Feylin. He’ll be sorry to miss all the princely trimmings. There was a banquet once, at Radzyn, and my father says—“ he closed his mouth and glanced away.
“I understand,” Riyan told him quietly. “It hurts us all. But it’s hardest on you.”
He shook his head. “Goddess, I wish it were. I can stand it—at least, I think I can. I have to. But my mother—you don’t know what this has done to her. At least I can go out and kill people.”
“It helps.”
“Only while I’m doing it. When the fighting’s over and my blood cools, I feel—Riyan,” he blurted out, “I’m a fraud. An imposter. And I don’t know why it should matter, because it’s been that way all my life. But every time anyone says ‘my lord’ in the voice that really means ‘High Prince,’ I expect to hear him answer. I’m pretending to be what he was, doing what I think he’d do.”
“Why not do what you believe is right?”
“I did. Yesterday,” he replied bleakly. “I don’t want to be good at killing. What scares me is that I think it’s what I might be best at.”
Rohan had said the same thing, jeering at him. “Perhaps you’re the right man for the work after all. Perhaps only a barbarian can defeat barbarians. Take heart, Pol. If I die somewhere along the way, you’ll be High Prince and get your chance to play the warrior. You ought to do very well. You seem to have all the right instincts.”
And yet, who had been his pattern for what he had done? None other than his elegant, educated, civilized father. In 704, Merida had attacked Stronghold. Rohan had ordered the right hand of every prisoner cut off— and hadn’t even had compassion enough to cauterize the wounds...
Riyan’s voice, deliberately harsh, interrupted his thoughts. “Maarken isn’t here, so it’s left to me. Stop feeling so damned sorry for yourself! If all this wounds your tender sensibilities, so much the better.”
“What do you care? AH you have to do is what I tell you. I’m the one who has to decide.”
“So the lowly athri can’t possibly understand the mighty High Prince?” Dark eyes glittered dangerously. “You whining, self-righteous—“
“Stop it, Riyan!”
“Didn’t you learn anything from Rohan? It’s when war starts to feel good that you’ve got something to worry about!”
“Then start worrying,” he snarled. “I loved it and I can’t wait to do it again!” He dug his heels into his stallion’s ribs and galloped ahead, where the lengthening afternoon shadows could hide him.
*
“You got him! You got him!”
Isriam staggered carefully amid a swarm of children and wished Princess Jihan wasn’t such a stickler for realism. Even on his best days he tended to a few awkward bumps—his ever-lengthening limbs would get in the way of every table and chair and doorway at Feruche—so he was used to bruises. But Jihan would complain if the fall wasn’t a good one, and there was nothing soft in the kitchen garden but turned vegetable beds. Resigned to more bruises and a great deal of dirt, he toppled with what he hoped was true artistry, bracing himself with one “wing,” and let out a piteous moan.
Instantly a dozen children climbed all over him, giggling and tickling. Lady Maara then called victory, and he was helped to his feet by the solicitous royal hands of Princess Rislyn, who asked if he was all right.
“Your poor, defeated dragon is just fine, your grace,” he replied. Brushing himself off, he smiled down at her and wished his parents had seen fit to give him a little sister or two. In this castle that some days resembled a minor riot held at hip-height, he was discovering that he liked playing big brother.
Lord Chaynal had been apologetic when assigning Is-riam to ride herd on the children. “It’s scarcely the kind of duty a squire dreams of, especially one at the court of the High Prince.”
“Oh no, my lord, I like it. I want a big family—and it wouldn’t do to have Daniv playing nursemaid. Not a Prince of Syr.”
So Daniv had stayed at Skybowl to command troops as befitted his lofty station—under the guidance and protection of Lord Walvis and Lord Sethric. Isriam did not envy his friend in the least. He’d had enough of battle. It was a relief to be given charge with Lady Betheyn of the refugees from Dorval. He had quickly learned that although the children were fun and not all that much trouble, he had no patience with their elders. He loathed bad manners. Betheyn took care of the parents; he saw to the children; and if patrols hadn’t regularly ridden in and out of Feruche, he could have sworn this was merely a castle with an overpopulation problem and there was no war at all.
Of course, the journey to Chaldona would be another matter entirely. He would have chances enough to use his training to keep the Dorvali together and moving. His was the command of the accompanying troops, and his orders would supersede even Betheyn’s. Isriam knew he could do it, and do it well, but he was just as happy to be distracting the children while their elders packed for the evening departure.
Hungry after their fifth dragon slaying, the children invaded the kitchens. Isriam groaned inwardly when sweets were distributed by indulgent servants. So much for any hope of settling the mob to naps.
Suddenly a wave of silence passed over them, and every single head bowed in the direction of the door. Isriam turned. High Princess Sioned paused at the lintel, blinking at a quiet unnatural in a kitchen full of children. She swayed slightly, and for a moment she almost looked like Princess—High Princess—Meiglan, tense with apprehension at what all these people might expect of her.
Isriam had lived at Stronghold since 733, when he’d come as a squire at the age of twelve. Her grace’s capacity was legendary. He had seen her drink her husband, Lord Chaynal, and Lord Maarken under the table and not bat an eyelash.
He had never seen her drunk.
He started forward, fearing he knew not what. Rislyn was faster.
“Granda, Granda!” she sang out, clasping her grandmother’s hand. “Isriam makes us take a nap before dinner, will you read to us instead? Please?”
He cringed inwardly at the thought of a slurred voice stumbling over every other word. But he had underestimated her. Not a syllable was out of place, not a sibilant was anything other than perfectly clear.
“Of course I will, darling. Come on, all of you, let’s go upstairs and I’ll read you a story.”
“Not a lesson story,” Jihan said, wrinkling her nose. “We had lessons this morning. We want a good story!”
Sioned laughed and led her little army of sticky-faced children away. Isriam had better manners than to sigh with relief. But relief lasted only as long as it took one of the maids to catch his eye.
“I was hoping she’d come down for something to eat, my lord. She doesn’t, you know. Hardly a morsel. Just this.” She held up an empty wine pitcher.
His mother, a Lady of Meadowlord who made sure everyone knew it, had drilled into him very early that one never listened to servants’ gossip, let alone participated in it. But Lady Isaura had never had to deal with a High Princess in Sioned’s condition.
“It’s not as if she tries to hide it, either. My lord, I don’t like to trouble the High Prince, but if she keeps on the way she’s going...” She shrugged. “Perhaps Lord Meath...”
“Yes. I’ll talk to him.”
On his way to the courtyard to find the Sunrunner, he wondered how in all Hells one informed a man that his mother was drinking herself to death. Well, better Meath than him.
A groom told him that Meath had been seen entering the west garden. Isriam pushed open the black iron gate decorated with painted dragons and made his way through the short shrubbery to the pond at the maze’s center. Meath was sitting on a bench, calmly Sunrunning. Isriam knew the look of it, and respectfully held back until the faradhi’s eyes focused again.
Meath smiled at him. “Isriam. Everything ready for the trip to Chaldona? What brings you here—the peace and quiet?”
“No, I came to ask you something.” He drew a breath. “Does it seem to you—it’s come to my—I mean, I’ve noticed—I’m worried about the High Princess,” he blurted at last.
The big Sunrunner gave a tiny sigh. “She’s better. She isn’t keeping to her rooms as much anymore—“ he broke off as Isriam shook his head. “What is it?”
“Just now, in the kitchens—if Princess Rislyn hadn’t asked her to read them a story, she would’ve gone back up with another pitcher of wine. One of the maids says she drinks constantly and eats almost nothing.”
Meath leaned back against the cool green-veined marble of the bench. “I know,” he said softly.
“Somebody has to do something. I’m afraid she’s going to kill herself.”
“If she wanted to die, she would,” was the flat reply. “She’s a Sunrunner. She knows how.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“I understand your worry, Isriam. You’ve done your duty by telling me—“
“To Hells with my duty!”
The faradhi eyed him musingly. “Forgive me. It was a foolish thing to say. I’ll do what I can, Isriam. I promise.”
And with that the young man had to be content.
Meath watched him go, thinking that although he had never understood how they did it, Rohan and Sioned both evoked emotions that went far beyond mere duty. Those who knew and served them had faith in them as rulers, and love for them as’people. Perhaps it happened because they earned loyalty that anyone else would simply have commanded or taken for granted.
But Sioned was taking advantage of that loyalty, and hurting those who loved her. Anger he had not allowed Isriam to see began to roil in him. Yesterday Hollis had asked him to please discourage Sioned from offering to help with the wounded. In her present state, she was as likely to give a cleansing tincture as a sleeping draught. This morning Riyan had asked him to please discourage Sioned from offering to help exercise the horses. In her present state, she was likely to fall off.
Now Isriam.
“Stay with her,” Rohan had said. Meath would, until his last breath—but Sioned wasn’t making it easy. He tried to tell himself that it was a good sign, her willingness to help again. She was venturing out of her emotional exile, attempting to make herself useful. He knew she needed something to do. He sympathized—but he wasn’t about to let her do it drunk.
Sioned had made fools of the clever all her life, out-thought and out-fought every enemy, guided whole princedoms— had done it sober.
He didn’t relish the idea of confronting her. He suspected Pol had already done so, without perceptible success. Rohan would have known what to say, what to do, Meath told himself in despair. Rohan would have been appalled to know he was the cause of this.
Maybe that was how to do it. But even the prospect of mentioning Rohan’s name around her was enough to make him queasy.
Perhaps when Pol got back from killing Merida he could talk some sanity into her. If not ... Meath would have to try it himself.
But he knew that no one, no one, made Sioned’s decisions but Sioned.
*
Princess Naydra kept to her room the whole of the day, alternating between disbelief and a strange new sensation of power. The seemingly endless tolling of It cannot be true—It must be true gradually rang a change in her mind to I’m not—I am. And finally, toward dusk: I don’t want—I do want.
At sunset, a servant crept into her chamber with a tray of food. “My lady? Please, you should eat something.”
“Take it away, I’m not hungry,” Naydra said.
“But, my lady—“
“I said leave me!” she snapped. “Are you deaf?”
“No, my lady. I—“
“Then what’s wrong with you? I gave you an order. Follow it!”
Branig slid smoothly into the anteroom, took the tray, and said, “Perhaps her grace will feel more like eating a little later. You can go back to the kitchens now.”
The servant scurried away. Branig elbowed the door shut and put the food on a table, regarding her specula-tively. “You’ve thought it over,” he said.
“Yes,” Naydra replied, and heard more than simple affirmation in her voice. She realized then that It must be true/I am/ I want had won the battle of belief; more, for the first time in her life she had access to power that would allow her to do something about her fate. Branig must have seen it in her eyes, for a fleeting smile touched his lips.
“I’ll give you all the help I can, Diarmadh’reia.”
She trusted him not at all. But whatever he wanted from her—and she was sure it was different from what he said he wanted—she could learn nothing by rejecting his offer of action.
“If anything is to be done, it must be done tonight. Now.” She was unable to believe the words had left her lips. But despite the strangeness of the sounds to her ears, her mind and body settled into this new strength with surprising ease. “Prince Tilal and Lord Ostvel need to be told certain things.”
“Tell me, and I will go to them.”
Was that what he wanted? To know what she knew, and tell the Vellant’im? “Impossible. They’ve never met you. I must go myself.” When he frowned, she dismissed further objections with a shake of her head. “I need a horse. Not one of those fire-eating Radzyn monsters, mind you, I’d fall off. Can you get me outside the walls with no one the wiser?”
“Horses will be waiting for both of us. How we get to them is my responsibility.” Branig took a small pouch from his pocket and reached for the wine pitcher on the tray. As he poured wine into a cup and sifted some sort of dried herb into the liquid, he went on, “Everyone already thinks you indisposed. Call your maid. Tell her you’re going to bed. I’ll be back before moonrise.”
“Why not after? The light will give you the chance to see—“ She broke off as another little smile touched his mouth. Used to Sunrunners, she’d forgotten that diar-madh’im did not need the moons.
“The moonlight will let others see, as well,” he said. “And what they will see is us.”
“That won’t matter, once we’re out of Swalekeep.” She started for her bedchamber, then turned. “In which direction did Cluthine ride?”
Branig frowned. “West.”
“Then we’ll go south and turn west after a few measures.”
“But that will lead us directly into the Vellanti lines!”
A smile curved her lips, an unfamiliar smile that nevertheless felt quite natural. “Don’t worry, Branig. Meet me at moonrise near the library stairs.”
She left him in the anteroom and hurried to the standing wardrobe to pick through her scant store of clothing, tossing her selections over her shoulder onto the rug.
The trousers, woolen shirt, and knee-length cloak had last been worn on the journey from Waes. The garments were clean now, and mended, and the boots borrowed from one of Rialt’s household guard gleamed with polish. Naydra changed as quickly as she could, cursing her aging bones. Never physically robust, long days in the saddle escaping Waes had left her sixty-four-winter-old frame in a state of near collapse. But her muscles had toughened, and if the horse Branig gave her was soft-mouthed, she might just make it through without having to soak in a hot bath for three days afterward.
When she returned to the other room, Branig had vanished. So too the wine he’d poured. Naydra sat and forced herself to eat a few bites of dinner, thinking about what she would be doing in the next little while. To her surprise, the spoon clattered against the empty bowl in no time at all.
How odd that having power and purpose made one so hungry.
There was a guard down the hallway that led to Rin-hoel’s chambers. Naydra called her over and told her to take the tray downstairs, and while she was at it to find her maid. “This horrible climate of yours has given me a chill,” she said petulantly. “1 don’t wish to be disturbed until noon tomorrow. Not by anyone for anything. Is that clear?”
“Yes, my lady,” the woman replied, respectfully enough—this was Princess Chiana’s half-sister, after all— but with an undertone of resentment at being commanded to play the lackey. As she started down the corridor, Naydra emphatically slammed the door shut. After counting to twenty, she opened it again, glanced around, and tiptoed across the thick rugs to Rinhoel’s rooms.
Everyone was at dinner in the hall. Naydra knew exactly where to find what she sought, and expected to whisk in and out before anyone saw her. The heavy oak doors opened to her—there was no need to lock up when there was always a guard on duty, the one Naydra had sent off on an errand—and she entered the reception room. Large, masculine furniture was strewn across an enormous Cunaxan carpet patterned in shades of green and blue and crimson. And there, between a pair of garnet velvet chairs, on the table beside a silver bowl of candied fruits, was—
Nothing.
Naydra stared at the table, stricken. All at once a soft crash near the fireplace whirled her around. Tangled in a chair, its pillows, and her own skirts was a small, struggling figure. Naydra swallowed her heart and quickly righted first the chair and then Princess Palila.
“What in the Name of the Goddess are you doing here?” she scolded, guilt and surprise sharpening her voice. The girl cringed back, terrified. “We gave each other quite a start, didn’t we? I’m sorry, Palila. Are you hurt?”
“N-no, my lady—I was just—I didn’t mean—“
“I know you didn’t. But I don’t understand why you’re in your brother’s rooms,” she said, hoping the same question would not be asked of her.
“I’m sorry, my lady.”
Naydra smiled reassurance. “Oh, I think we know each other well enough so that you can use my name, or call me your aunt, whichever pleases you. Are you looking for something? So am I. Perhaps we can help each other.”
Palila fidgeted and clenched her fists. Then she delved into a pocket. “I—I already found—but it’s not for me, my lady—I mean, Aunt Naydra,” she amended shyly. “It’s for Polev. He’s in my room, crying. Nobody knows where his parents are and he’s upset, and—“
Naydra’s gaze caught on the gold in the small palm.
“He’s always talking about—I thought he might like to play with it. I was going to put it back later. He’s crying,” she repeated. •
She reached for the token, felt it cool and sharp in her hand. “It was kind of you to think of a way to cheer him.”
“You won’t tell?”
“Of course not. Why should I?”
Palila smiled and started for the door. Naydra glanced around swiftly. Everything was as it had been, the overturned chair and pillows back in place. Closing her hand around the gold dragon, she followed the girl into the hall.
“Aunt Naydra, do you know where Lord Rialt and Lady Mevita are?”
“No, my dear,” she replied, and it was only partly a lie. She had no idea where prisoners were kept in Swale-keep. Always assuming that Branig had not lied about that.
Polev held forth from the middle of Palila’s bedchamber floor. Tears ceased instantly when he was presented with the dragon. Naydra kept one eye nervously on the windows for the first glimmer of the moons. But Polev, long since worn out by sobs, quickly began to droop over his prize. She tucked him into the quilt, gently retrieving the dragon from a possessive fist grown lax with sleep.
When Naydra whispered, “Won’t someone wonder where he is?” Palila shook her head.
“The servants brought him to me when his crying kept everybody else from going to sleep. He’ll be all right here, Aunt Naydra. Will you keep the dragon for him?”
“No, I’ll put it back in Rinhoel’s room. And he doesn’t need to know that we borrowed it. You’d better get to bed yourself, my dear. Good night.”
She was only a little late getting to the library stairs. Branig stepped out of a shadowy embrasure and murmured, “I’d begun to worry.”
“That I’d lost my courage?”
“Never, Diarmadh’reia. That you’d been caught.” He led her down the three flights of steps to a back entrance. “We’re in luck. There’s trouble at the dockside warehouses. Everyone’s in a panic. We won’t be noticed even without sorcery.”
“Do you use it so casually, then?” She pulled her cloak more firmly around her with one hand, the other tight around the dragon.
“I use it very rarely. All of us do.” Taking her elbow to guide her through the deserted kitchen garden, he added, “But I didn’t use it tonight. Whatever’s going on isn’t my doing. It’s the Goddess smiling on us.”
“You believe in her?”
Branig laughed softly. “So they still tell those old stories, do they? Lady Merisel managed to obliterate our language, our knowledge, and damned near us, but not even she could stifle the legends. No, my lady, diarmadh-‘im do not murder children, trap innocent spirits inside mirrors, drink dragon’s blood, or set fire to mountains.” There was a bright, excited note to his voice, not tense, but anticipatory. As if he was about to have the time of his life. “Though I’m told there used to be some very pretty ceremonies at Castle Crag at the New Year—all that stone to burn, you know.”
Naydra tried to imagine it: the cliffs glowing red and gold and white with flames, fire falling down the canyon until the very rocks seemed ablaze, reflecting in the river far below...
“But you do believe in the Goddess?” she insisted.
“Of course. And the Father of Storms.” He held a branch out of her way as they skirted the fence of the Swalekeep menagerie. She could hear the mountain cats and the wolves snarling at each other, their cages clattering.
“And the old sorcerers—what did they believe?”
“At the first, who knows? At the last, all they seemed to believe in was their own power.”
“Rather like my father,” she muttered.
“I suppose so, my lady. Quietly now. A guard sits by the gate and I don’t want him alerted before we get to him.”
Branig’s touch cautioned her to stay put behind the thin shelter of a bare-limbed fruit tree. He left her momentarily, then came back smiling.
“He’s only asleep,” he said as they passed the slumped figure at the gate. “Or do you trust me enough not to suspect me of spells more sinister?”
He was teasing, his own lightheartedness reaching out to her. A sense of humor had never been encouraged in Roelstra’s daughters; though Naydra had slowly ac- quired one through the years, she didn’t find this at all funny. By the first thin rays of moonlight she scowled at Branig, who immediately bowed his contrition and asked her pardon.
“It’s the dranath,” he explained as they made their way along the torchlit streets of Swalekeep. “I took quite a lot of it tonight in preparation for whatever I might have to do. It affects some differently than others.”
It had once enslaved her father’s Sunrunner. She wondered if Branig was similarly addicted. “Who was Lady Merisel? You seem to admire her, and yet—“
“And yet,” he agreed. “Down this alleyway, my lady. Yes, we do admire her. But not as an enemy who vanquished us—although she did that. It’s very complicated, what we feel for her.”
They passed by a group of men and women bemoaning whatever disaster had occurred at the warehouses. Something about foodstuffs ruined by flooding, Naydra gathered, not much caring.
“About Lord Andry we are not so ambiguous,” Branig said suddenly.
“Why?”
“He wants us all dead. Wiped out of existence and even memory—although he’s pleased to use our knowledge when it suits him,” he added bitterly. “Here, this turning. You see the tavern? The Crown and Castle? At the end of the street there’s a breach in the wall. That’s where we’ll go through.”
“But it’s barricaded. And, Branig, there must be guards!”
“Of course. It’s on the west side, where Prince Tilal must approach, and they’re guarding the arms stockpiled in those carts.” he clasped both hands together in front of his face. “Now’s when I need the dranath,” he muttered, closing his eyes.
He murmured something—the spell, perhaps. She shivered. And felt something almost at once, a kind of scratching in the far corners of her mind. Like mice scurrying for their holes. No, she thought, frightened and intrigued in equal parts, more as if the mice were inside the walls and scrabbling for a way out. And suddenly it was not mice she thought of but great predatory beasts, like the cats and wolves in Chiana’s animal garden, or dragons. Clawing at their iron cages, at the piled stones of their hatching caves, howling an insatiable need for freedom.
The freedom to hunt, to kill?
Was this what it meant to have a sorcerer’s power?
She gave a convulsive shudder and stepped back from Branig, wanting to run from him and this revelation of what she could possess—what might possess her. But his hand enfolded hers with exquisite respect, and he led her up to the carts that blocked the section of toppled wall. The guards reacted not at all. As if they saw nothing. As if Naydra and Branig were invisible.
He helped her clamber between the barriers and over the broken stones. She slipped once, and heard someone behind her ask, “What’s that?” But the reply was only, “Oh, the walls shift and resettle all the time. Make yourself useful and go get us another pitcher, why don’t you?”
There was soft, rain-drenched ground beneath her feet. Knees buckling, she leaned back against the solid rock of the outer wall.
Branig gave a long, relieved sigh. “I haven’t done that in dragon’s years. Not many know how. Nice to know I haven’t lost the knack of it. Wait here, my lady, I’ll go get the horses.”
“No—no, I’ll come with you.”
“You can rest for a while if you like.” He smiled kindly in the gathering silver glow of the moons. “I know what it is to feel someone else’s power for the first time.”
Naydra swallowed hard. “Wh-what did you do?”
“It’s a variation on something the Sunrunners do, actually. Not wicked or even very difficult if you really know the trick of it—although disguising two people from four other people isn’t something I’d care to juggle very often. I’m good, but not that good.”
“No, I meant what did you do?”
“Oh, that. I linked with you a little—not much, just enough to include you in the working so what shielded me also shielded you. What you felt was what you are, answering to the use of power.”
“I’ve been around Sunrunners,” she breathed. “I never felt—“
“I should’ve said our kind of power. My lady, there’s no hint of faradhi in you. If there had been, you would have felt something around Sunrunners. But you’re not, so you didn’t.”
“You’ve said what I am. What are you?”
“We have a long ride ahead of us, and we’ll have to hurry. I’ll tell you on the way.”
“You will tell me now, Branig.”
The young man nodded. “Very well. The faradh’im have begun to form two factions: those loyal to Lord Andry and those who look to High Princess Sioned and her son. The same thing happened to us after Lady Merisel defeated us. One side brought about Lallante’s marriage, Mireva’s plots nine years since—and this war, for all I know. They want the old ways back, and the old power. I am not one of them, my lady. We want only to live without fear and without hiding what we are. Prince Pol has shown himself tolerant. We feel we can trust his protection, so we will fight for him. But even if that were not the case, how could we stand by during this horror? This is our land, too. And we’re dying right beside the rest of you.”
“And yet you say you need me.”
“You are Diarmadh’reia” he replied simply. “That is a powerful thing among our people. And now I think we must start. We’ll ride south, as you said, so as not to be obvious. Then we will turn west. With another of the Goddess’ smiles in our direction, we ought to be in Prince TilaPs camp before dawn.”
*
They were, and Tilal’s astonishment on recognizing Naydra was equaled only by hers that she had actually gotten there alive. No Vellanti patrols had challenged her passage; she and Branig might have been alone in all the world.
When she had been given mulled wine and a comfortable seat in the prince’s tent, she said what she had come to say. Then Branig asked if there was a place where she might rest until full light, when they would leave.
Ostvel eyed him pensively. “I appreciate your care of the princess, but I’m at a loss to understand your devotion to our interests. Without offense, may I ask exactly who you are besides the court tutor?”
“Only that, my lord,” he replied. “And well aware of who ought to win the coming battle.”
Naydra was staring into her wine cup. Ostvel caught Tilal’s eye, glanced at the exhausted princess, and saw the younger man arch a brow slightly.
“I see,” was Ostvel’s only comment, but as Branig escorted Naydra to Ostvel’s own tent, vacated for her use, he said to Tilal, “I don’t believe him any more than you do.”
“I don’t have much interest right now in who he is or even who he claims to be. I trust Naydra. Do you?”
“Yes.” Ostvel shifted on his camp stool, wishing for a softer pillow beneath his saddle-sore behind. While he was at it, he wished for his own hearth, with a roaring fire in it, and his own bed—with his wife in it.
“It’s too bad about Lady Cluthine,” Tilal murmured. “And intolerable about Rialt and his wife.”
“What do you want to do about it?”
“Siege?”
Ostvel shook his head. “Even with the warehouses fouled—and I think I detect the hand of a certain silk merchant’s son there—Swalekeep can still feed its populace and the Vellant’im for a while yet.”
Tilal shrugged. “All the same, it’s not nice to make war on people whose only fault is that their prince is an idiot and their princess a traitorous bitch.”
“Granted. But we’ve only two choices. Attack the Vellant’im or attack Swalekeep. Which do you think Chiana wants most?”
Tilal chewed his lip. “Isn’t there a third alternative?”
“Attack nobody?” Ostvel snorted with laughter.
“Certainly not. Attack everybody.” And Tilal grinned.