Birioc, who called himself Prince of Cunaxa, never saw the inside of Tiglath. He never even got to the walls. As Walvis had done thirty-three years earlier, Tallain took the fight to the Merida on the flat plain outside the castle and town.
There was no advantage on either side that was not matched and canceled by an advantage on the other. Fury collided with hate; desperation with determination. Superior numbers countered superior skills. The ground was level and provided no help to either side. Not even the sun mattered. The day was overcast by a thin haze off the sea that allowed not even a shadow.
Yet by the end of it, when the slaughter was finished and the battlefield was overhung with wheeling scavenger birds in a steely sunset, Tallain rode through the gates of Tiglath carrying aloft Birioc’s head.
He had it stuck on a pike and displayed from a balcony overlooking the main square. Then he washed the blood from his body and went to bed.
His Sunrunner awakened him at midnight. Vamanis had been ordered to keep watch for clear moonlight in which to send word west to Feruche of the victory. Instead, he came to him with news from the east, from the Sunrise Water.
“Ships, my lord. Three of them, with dragon heads and three square sails. They must be up from Radzyn.”
To help Birioc, no doubt. Well, Birioc was no longer in need of help.
Tallain was.
His people were exhausted. Casualties had been bru- tal. His own wounds—more bruises, ribs grazed by a sword, a gouge in his lower right leg—were throbbing again since the salve had worn off. He rose, and dressed, and armed himself with Vamanis’ help, and went up to the tower that looked out over the Water Gate.
From here, he and Sionell had seen more familiar sails when Chadric’s people had come during the first days of the war. The selfish part of him wished his wife was still with him; a more selfish part was passionately glad she was safe.
He could just see the ships now, coming as near as they dared in the shallow water, sails glowing in the moonlight. Rid of one enemy, tomorrow morning he would face another.
“What are your orders, my lord?” the Sunrunner asked.
What could he do? Nothing but close Tiglath as tightly as he could. Nothing but wait for them to come to him, and loose arrows when they got close enough, and hope they would be discouraged and abandon the attack.
To go where? South, back to Radzyn whence they had come?
No. They were here now, no matter that Birioc was not alive to rejoice in their coming. Tallain knew where they would go next, if they were not stopped here.
Feruche. Where Pol was.
Where Sionell would soon be.
“My lord,” Vamanis said softly, “if you ask it of me, I will.”
He turned his head, the movement pulling the stiff muscles of his shoulder where Birioc’s sword had landed with brutal force. The blow had been meant for his neck, and he’d only just managed to deflect it. With the next upswing of his own sword, he’d decapitated his enemy and the battle had been over.
“I will use Fire,” the Sunrunner said.
Tallain knew it hadn’t cost him as much as it would an older faradhi, one schooled by Andrade. No, that was unfair. Vamanis had sworn as they all swore, and all Andry’s pretty justifications couldn’t disguise the naked fact that the ros’salath had killed. What Vamanis was offering was as deep a betrayal of what he was as if Tallain had thrown open the gates of Tiglath, welcomed the Vellant’im with feasting and songs, and then given them a map of the easiest way to Feruche.
“I thank you, Vamanis,” he replied in a gentle voice. “But I would never ask it of you.”
“That is why I offered.”
After searching his eyes a careful moment, Tallain said, “I can’t tell you to do what you think necessary. That would be inviting you to break your oath while placing all responsibility for it on you. When a Sunrunner conies to live at a keep, it’s understood that he will be protected as surely as if he were sworn to the athri. The way I see it, I should protect you from having to make that decision.”
He shook his head. “It’s between me and Lord Andry. Me and the Goddess. You have nothing to do with it.”
“Except for the circumstances in which that oath might be broken. I think you’ll agree that this, at least, is my responsibility.” He smiled. “You’ve been with us nearly ten years. You should know me by now, Vamanis.”
“I came here after Princess Chiana threw me out of Swalekeep,” the Sunrunner retorted. “She wanted no faradh’im near her. You took me in. Here, I’ve done what I was supposed to do. What Lord Andry trained me for. Tiglath has become my home. I’ll help defend it any way I can.”
It was a losing battle—just like the one he suspected he faced against the Vellant’im. He nodded slowly, yielding to Vamanis. But not to them. Never to them.
“I think we can let the others sleep,” he said. “There’ll be no attack before dawn. Right now I need your Fire for another purpose. Will you come outside with me?”
“Certainly, my lord. Shall I try Feruche again? The wind may have shifted the clouds by now.”
“Perhaps later. Everyone else can sleep, but we must move quickly.”
By dawn, the longboats had landed in the cove and the alarm was sounded through Tiglath once again. The gates were shut and barred. Out on the battlefield, the heaped corpses of Merida and Cunaxan battle dead had been augmented by the fresh corpses of their wounded whom Tallain had killed with his own sword. Vamanis had set the whole huge hideous pile ablaze in warning to the Vellant’im.
*
Edirne hadn’t grown bored with playing soldier as quickly as Camanto had thought. He slept on the hard ground like everyone else (inside a small tent with a brazier burning all night against the cold), ate the same field rations as his troops (washed down with fine Ossetian wine instead of water), and washed each morning in melted snow (heated over that same brazier to a comfortable temperature). Camanto, sensible of the perceptions of the little army, slept outside. Edirne never offered him the wine or the hot water.
But it had been five days since they’d left Fessada, and still Edirne had not tired. It went beyond Camanto’s understanding of his younger brother. And as understanding him was the key to replacing him, Camanto was nervous.
Arnisaya showed up on the fourth day with an escort of twenty, looking like the Snow Princess of legend in her white furs and riding a white mare. Camanto gave her full marks for audacity and for judging her husband’s mind; nothing could be prettier than prince and princess riding together in defense of their princedom. And that his soldiers should perceive his wife as being unable to live without him pleased Edirne’s vanity.
This wasn’t even within arrowshot of the truth, of course. They all knew what Arnisaya was playing at—or Edirne thought he did. Last midnight she’d left Edirne sleeping in his tent and sought out Camanto, coaxing him to walk with her along the frozen riverbank. In safe privacy, she had left no doubt as to which of the brothers she had really come to see.
This morning in public she had been all tender solici- tude for Edime, all admiration, all wifely pride. Camanto was disgusted with himself for finding it disgusting to watch. He ought to be have been amused. Instead, he was jealous. And that did not figure into his plans at all.
“I think that today we’ll teach the Fironese prince a little lesson,” Edirne announced as they rode together that noon.
It was what Camanto had been dreading. The bridge at Silver Hill was still several measures away. They had outpaced Laric’s forces marching on the other side of the Ussh. Edirne must intend now to cross in to Princemarch and fight it out there. Whatever the outcome, Pol would be livid.
Pol survived this war, which Camanto was determined that he would. He cherished no great tenderness for the new High Prince, but he knew what must be occurring up in Balarat, and a Vellanti or diarmadhi presence on Fessenden’s northern borders was intolerable. Laric must get there and defeat Yarin. And Camanto was going to help him.
How lovely that to do it, he would have to stop Edirne. For good.
“Not too much farther,” said the heir to Fessenden. His cheeks were red with the icy wind and his eyes sparkled his anticipation. Camanto wondered what Edirne thought battle was like. Waving a sword, shouting defiance, killing people who wouldn’t dare raise a hand to him because he was a prince?
“We’ll cross and wait for them. If they challenge us, we’ll fight them—all the way down to Brochwell Bay if need be. No one sets foot on the soil of Fessenden without permission from the prince.”
Camanto exchanged a speaking look with Arnisaya. She gave a minuscule shrug of one fur-clad shoulder. She had been oddly subdued—except for last night—and that made him suspicious. Edirne should have been, too, but perhaps he thought her dazzled by the figure he cut on horseback, with a sword at his side and the silver fleece of Fessenden billowing overhead on a sea-green banner.
“You must stay on this side of the river, my lady,” Edirne told his wife.
“Oh, but can’t I watch? I want to see you in battle, my lord, with your sword raised and your pennant flying—“
Camanto chewed on the inside of his cheek to prevent a snort of laughter.
“We must hope it won’t come to a battle,” Edirne replied, reaching over to pat her hand. “If it does, you’ll have to miss it.”
She pouted charmingly, then gave meek answer. “As you wish, my lord. Only—make certain he’s well protected, won’t you, Camanto?”
If he looked at her, all hope of composure would be lost. “Of course, dear sister,” he said as evenly as he could.
“You’ll have to keep up with me first,” Edirne gibed, putting spurs to his stallion and riding ahead at a carefree, contemptuous gallop.
Camanto gestured for a few riders to follow Edirne. Still unable to meet Arnisaya’s gaze, he muttered, “Goddess help me, if you say one more word—“
There was a muffled giggle amid the white fur cloud of her hood. He stole a glance at her, and suddenly laughter was the last thing on his mind. She was spectacularly beautiful, radiant with the cold air and exercise, curling tendrils of glossy hair straying around her brow and cheeks. No stranger to his desire by now, Arnisaya smirked her triumph and spoiled the view.
They rode on. Camanto occupied himself by trying to think up ways of preventing his brother’s folly. He never would have expected winter to do it for him.
The snowfall of eight days ago had melted into muddy slush, pooling in wagon ruts and dips in the road. Beneath was a layer of hard, slick ice. And it was across one of these that Edirne’s horse galloped, stumbled, and threw him into a roadside drift.
Camanto saw it happen. Very slowly, the way things sometimes happened in dreams. The stallion’s front hooves contacted ice; a year later his head thrust out in an impossible try for balance; an eternity after that
Edirne’s body lifted as if an invisible hand had plucked him up to toy with him. Even the thudding impact in soft snow seemed to echo forever.
Time speeded up then, sharp as the wind and quick as Camanto’s leap from the saddle. Everything seemed etched in frozen whiteness—the trembling horse, the snow-heavy trees, the shocked soldiers, Arnisaya’s face, Edirne’s body. Camanto fell to his knees beside his brother, turned him onto his back. It wasn’t the fall that had killed him; his breastplate of stiffened leather had jammed up against his throat and broken his neck. Camanto fingered the broken straps that had done it, wondering numbly why the breaks were clean slices halfway through, then became ragged where they had torn.
Arnisaya knelt, taking her husband’s head onto her lap, and bent low so no one could see her face. All Camanto could do was hunch nearby, stunned by this thing he had spent half his life hoping for. He hadn’t intended it to happen like this. Not like this, and not so fast. He’d wanted to do it himself. Slowly.
They wrapped Edirne’s body in his cloak and tied him across his saddle. Time slowed down again; it was but a few measures to the bridge at Silver Hill, yet the journey lasted until noon.
A few cottages clustered around a small inn and a barn—the usual sight at a river crossing on a trade route. By late afternoon the soldiers had been fed by the astonished innkeeper, the horses were crammed into the drafty barn, and Camanto and Arnisaya were seated by the hearth in the cleanest of the cottages.
“You might practice weeping,” he advised. “It’ll be expected, once the shock wears off.”
They were completely alone; she spoke as freely as he while pouring herself another cup of mulled wine. “I’ve decided to bear my tragic loss with dignity in public, and do my crying in private. Try some of this cheese? It’s really rather good.”
“It seems there’s no shock to wear off.”
“You don’t appear exactly grief-stricken, dear brother.” She sipped her wine, watching him from over the rim of the wooden cup. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks glowing with the warmth of the fire.
“But you’re not even surprised.”
She laughed softly. “Aren’t you going to ask why?”
Camanto gritted his teeth. “All right, then,” he snapped. “Why?”
“I didn’t think it would be quite like that,” she admitted. “I thought he’d be fool enough to fight, and during the battle...” She finished with a little shrug and another smile.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Arnisaya gave him a tolerant look. “Really, Camanto. I helped my darling husband arm himself this morning.”
*
The gates of Swalekeep were wide open in the evening gloom, ready as always to admit travelers. Not that there were many in this season of war, when even the sparse wintertime trade had ceased altogether. But there was welcome here nonetheless. As the little group of two men, two women, and three sleepy children rode past, the gatekeeper called down friendly advice to try the inn on Oak Knoll Lane. Reasonable rates, his aunt’s famous cooking, and clean beds.
The taller of the men offered thanks by waving a gloved hand, and turned to his companions. “Oak Knoll is on the east side of the castle square, but from there you’re on your own,” he said with a smile. “It’s a long time since I was in Swalekeep, and the streets were laid out by a drunkard.”
“We’ll find it, or something else to suit,” the other man replied. “Speaking of drink, are you certain you won’t join us for a wine cup at least?”
“To thank you for your help,” one of the women said. “If not for your sword, those brigands would have killed us.”
“So much for the High Prince’s Writ,” the second said, rocking her infant daughter before her in the saddle.
“Hush,” the elder chided. “Once he and the good
Lord of Goddess Keep have rid us of these savages, the countryside will be safe again.”
“I do hope so,” the tall man answered gravely. “As for thanks, none are needed. I was glad to be of service, and glad of the company these last two days. Goddess blessing to you all.”
“By Lord Andry’s Rings, the same to you, friend.”
Parting from them, he rode ahead to a side street marked by a tall pine tree in a gated garden, his fingers clenched around those rings.
It had been a miserable journey from Goddess Keep. The Father of Storms had spared him nothing—fierce wind, pelting rain, fog so thick he could barely see his horse’s ears, even snow flurries yesterday morning. But except for the thieves, there’d been no trouble. He had used the shape-changing trick all through Ossetia where he might be recognized, and had taken on a Vellanti beard when he skirted the Kadar River where burned farmhouses and barns bore silent witness to enemy passing. There was no way to hide his limp when he dismounted; his leg, though healing well, still hurt almost all the time. Yet the only disguise really necessary in all the eleven days he’d been riding had been the long leather gauntlets that hid his rings and armbands.
Now, however, he set his mind to the acquisition of a reddish tint to his brown hair, and a hazel cast to his blue eyes. Not too much difference, and easy enough to maintain without too much effort. Pity he couldn’t work the same magic on his all-too-obviously Radzyn-bred horse. But Swalekeep was populous enough, and Oak Knoll Lane distant enough from his own destination, to minimize the chance that he would encounter the farmer and his wife and widowed sister again. He had worn his own face around them, and it would not do for that face to be recognized here.
His chance-met companions, riding to where they hoped food was, had not known they had been defended by the Lord of Goddess Keep. In truth, it hadn’t taken much more than a few swings of his sword to discourage the brigands. A good thing, too; while he knew what he was doing with it, he didn’t know half as much as they assumed he did. It had surprised him to be so successful—and so admired for something he’d never pictured himself doing.
The bandits, and the reason the family had left their home on the Kadar River, had angered him. He could almost wish for Rohan’s Medr’im to ride the princedoms and keep honest people safe. He could do nothing about the shortages of food that would only get worse as winter wore on, and worse still come spring. The land lay fallow, crops rotting in the fields and no new crops planted for ten to fifteen measures on either side of all the great rivers: the Kadar, the Pyrme, the Catha, the Faolain. In other places, farmers had dared and sometimes been ordered by their athr’im to harvest in autumn and plant in early winter. But it took bravery to work the fields when one never knew if the Vellant’im would thunder over any hill at any moment.
Ossetia would have to feed Gilad next year, Andry thought as he tethered his horse outside a rickety inn near a break in Swalekeep’s wall. The middle of Syr would do all right, and Grib had seemed to his eyes to be fairly well-off. But the food that was there was not being brought to where it was needed. Traffic on the rivers was nonexistent; trade caravans feared the roads. Pol, he told himself as he went inside and asked for a room, would be spending a large portion of his wealth keeping people fed.
“A fine room, left at the top of the stairs. Now that Prince Tilal is gone and his army with him, I’ve a few beds to spare again.”
Andry froze with his fingers around his coin purse. “Gone?”
“Yes, and with only the promise of payment for housing his soldiers.” The man spat onto the floor and beckoned Andry to the staircase. “It’s said Lord Ostvel will make good on it as soon as accounts are presented. But he’ll use Meadowlord’s treasury to do it with, and where’s the honor in that? It wasn’t our own people I gave room and dinner to.”
“Think of it as receiving back some of the taxes you’ve paid Prince Halian,” Andry suggested as he limped up the steps.
“Now there’s a thought.” The innkeeper grinned over his shoulder. “Don’t mistake me, I’m grateful to Prince Tilal for driving those whoresons away. We got little enough defending from our own prince, Goddess give him rest.”
He gave a start, and the shifting weight of the saddlebags slung over his back nearly toppled him. “Halian is dead? When? How?”
“Where have you been? Died defending us after all, he did, riding out in secret to help Lord Draga. No one saw him die, but everyone saw how his head had been bashed in. A fine Burning it was, the Fire called by the Lord of Goddess Keep’s own son. Though the smell of so many began getting through the oils and herbs toward dawn, if you know what I mean.”
“How many dead?” Not Andrev; he was safe. He had called Fire.
“Too many,” the innkeeper intoned sadly. “Our own prince, and the lord and his pretty lady from Waes, and young Kerluthan of River Ussh.” He pushed open a door. “She fled into the night with her son, after they set the wolves and big cats on us to hide their escape. Will this do for your comfort, then?”
Andry nodded, not even seeing the room. No need to ask who she was. “So she’s gone. Where? Has anyone set out after her?”
“Prince Tilal went south to catch the rest of those bearded barbarians.” He paused as if tasting the phrase, then nodded as if he approved it for use the next time he told the tale. “But no one knows where she went. You must’ve had a long ride, not to have heard any of this. Well, unless you’re a Sunrunner or within hearing of one, news is slow at the best of times. These days it’s hard to come by even with a Sunrunner around.”
Another worry added to his list. Though he’d been aware of the disruption in faradhi communications since autumn, it appeared to be getting serious. He’d have to warn Torien at Goddess Keep soon.
The innkeeper was leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded over his chest. “So, my friend, where have you come from?”
Andry dropped his saddlebags onto the bed. It gave off the smell of molding straw. “Ossetia,” he answered truthfully. “I’ve kin up north.”
“You’re no farmer nor fisherman, not with that sword.”
It wasn’t the ceremonial one, all set with jewels, he’d worn this autumn. He hadn’t made that mistake again. This was a plain, strong blade that meant business. “I was wounded near Goddess Keep. My lord gave me leave to ride here to help if I could. What else has happened? You seem to know what’s going on.”
“Those as are in my calling usually do,” the innkeeper chuckled. “There’s not much more, though, but for the Princess Alasen coming down the Faolain from Castle Crag with more troops for her lord. I saw her ride in the other day. It’s said she looks like her cousin, and if the High Princess was half the beauty she is, Rohan was a lucky man.”
“It’s in the eyes,” Andry said absently. Alasen, here in Swalekeep. He had not been in the same place with her since ... since he couldn’t remember when.
“Then you’ve had the privilege of seeing the ladies?”
“What? Oh, I’ve heard they both have green eyes, like Prince Tilal and most of the Kierstian line. Princess Alasen is with her husband at the castle?”
“No, she rode out this very morning, for Dragon’s Rest. She took twenty or thirty with her as escort, with Lord Draza in command.” He chuckled again. “But if you ask me, it’s she who does the commanding!”
Andry managed a smile to cover a rage of disappointment. “Highborn women,” he replied with a shrug. “Well, now that I’m comfortable, have you a place for my horse? I can pay, and in advance,” he added, taking out another few coins.
When the innkeeper left to arrange a stall and fodder,
Andry sat on the windowsill and stared out over the roofs of Swalekeep to the castle towers. Andrev had been there. He had no doubt that his son was with Tilal’s army; as a squire, his place was at his lord’s side. And just last night Alasen had slept in one of those rooms. At her lord’s side.
But why had she gone to Dragon’s Rest? And where was Chiana?
He was tired, and his leg was aching worse than usual, or he would have made the connection much sooner.
*
The moons would rise around midnight. Long before that time Camanto left the warmth of the hearth, but not for Arnisaya’s bed. She had hinted and more than hinted on her way up the ladder to the sleeping loft. He had ignored her. He could not bring himself to sleep with a woman who had deliberately made herself a widow.
After dressing in heavy clothes, he left the cottage by the back door. He had to pause a moment to catch his breath at the brutal slap of the wind in the moonless night.
It was a short, steep walk to the bridge, which he crossed quickly. He wasn’t seen. Several measures down the road, he was abruptly challenged by a sentry wearing Pol’s badge of a white wreath on a violet field.
“Camanto of Fessenden, desiring speech with Prince Laric,” he replied, holding open his cloak to show he carried no sword. “Will you be so kind as to take me to him?”
“And why should I do that, even if I believed you?”
Camanto wrapped the thick wool about him once more, shivering. “Look at it this way. If you don’t, and I really am who I say I am, would the prince appreciate your having made his decisions for him?”
The man smiled, unperturbed. “No one appreciates that, but my prince doesn’t pay me to bring strangers wearing Fessenden’s badge within arm’s reach of his kinsman.”
Camanto had forgotten the telltale cipher on his tunic. Pol evidently did pay his guards to use their eyes; a nasty habit. “Very well, I understand. But do remember to give your own lord his proper title. For the past eighteen days, Pol has been High Prince.”
The sword came up reflexively. “You’re a liar.”
“You’ve been traveling a long time, with no faradhi to ride the sunlight for you. How can you be certain?” He stomped his feet in the snow, trying to restore circulation. “Can you at least take me to the nearest fire? I’ve met Prince Laric, he knows me. Wake him up and let him get a look at me from a nice, safe distance. He can catch up on his sleep some other time. I’ve other news besides Rohan’s death.”
“It can’t be true. He can’t be dead.”
“He is, Goddess help us all. He died at Stronghold, which is now ashes blowing through empty stone walls. Pol is at Feruche, last I heard from our own Sunrunner at Fessada. Can we please find someplace warm? You can tie my hands if you like, only let’s get out of the cold.”
Both suggestions were followed. He put up with the one to gain the other, even though the rope had been cleverly tied beneath the high cuffs of his gloves so that his fingers couldn’t get at them. But the campfire waiting at the end of the long walk through the woods was worth the discomfort.
So was the sight of Laric, crouched beside the flames with a cup of taze wanning his hands. He glanced around at hearing footsteps beyond the yellow circle of firelight on the snow. As Camanto stepped from the shadows, Laric’s brows knotted over the large, fine dark eyes he’d inherited from his mother.
“Prince Camanto? Yes, I see it is. Though I can’t think why.”
He gestured, and the ropes were swiftly untied. After bowing an apology, the guard backed away a few steps— but not so far that he could not just as swiftly overpower Camanto if need be.
“Thank you,” Camanto said, rubbing his sore wrists. “I’ll do my best to forget it.”
This brought a twist of amusement to the man’s lips, as if he held himself from saying, Forget or remember as you wish. I am Pol’s man. No other prince mattered, and none other but Rohan could so much as make him lower his gaze.
Laric rose. “You’ll forgive my suspicion, my lord, but what are you doing here? Your brother is determined to keep me this side of the Ussh. If you’ve come to reiterate, you’re wasting your breath.”
“As it happens, I don’t agree with my brother. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Edirne is dead—a fall from his horse earlier today.” Camanto went to the warmth of the fire, gratefully accepting a full mug of taze. He drank, the unsweetened liquid burning his tongue. “My lord, I’ll be blunt. Your wife’s brother has Balarat, and if you don’t get there soon, he and his diarmadhi friends will have the rest of your princedom as well. I don’t like the Fironese—no true-born prince of Fessenden ever could. But I like Yarin of Snowcoves even less, and sorcerers not at all. If they take Firon as they mean to do, their allies the Vellant’im will find help there no matter what happens elsewhere.”
Laric’s frown had vanished. He was frankly gaping at Camanto, eyes wide and jaw hanging slightly open.
“I came tonight to tell you that if you wish to cross the Ussh here or anywhere else, feel free to do so.”
It was a while before the other prince spoke. “And if I do, and march north to Firon?”
“The army Edirne led was raised by me, and is loyal to me. You won’t be challenged again. Only move soon, while my father is too busy mourning my brother to look. He’s even less fond of you Fironese than I am. By the way, you needn’t do it all on foot. I also have some influence in Einar. Lord Sabriam’s wife is a friend of mine.” He let a tiny smile indicate how good a friend Lady Isaura was. “A ship will be readied for you on my order when you reach Einar.”
“Assuming I believe any of this, what are you after in return for your generosity?”
“I told you,” Camanto replied impatiently. “I don’t want sorcerers and bearded savages on my northern border when I rule Fessenden. And I will be the next ruling prince, now that Edirne is dead.”
“You appear brokenhearted over your loss.”
He smiled again, but without humor this time. “Don’t insult the man who’s going to help you win back your princedom. I’m not known for purity and goodness, Laric. But I’ve never been called a fool.”
“No. Your brother had that distinction. I don’t much like you Fessendens, either.” Laric gestured to the fire and hunkered down beside it. “I’ve been without news a long time. Tell me everything you know.”
“Then you trust my offers, if not me personally?”
Laric shrugged. “In the absence of another source of information, I must believe you. Or at least work with what you tell me is true. I’ll find out soon enough if your offers are genuine. Besides, I have more soldiers than you do.”
Camanto sat down on a folded blanket, and his smile this time was of honest humor. “If you believe that to be the ultimate advantage in battle, you’re going to have a terrible time at Balarat.”
A nearby guard swore softly. But Laric was smiling as he said, “I’m not particularly knowledgeable about war, never having had occasion to practice. But neither have you, Camanto. I lied just now. I have far fewer troops than you. Yet in all the days you’ve been shadowing me across the river, you never took the trouble to count.”
Now the guards snorted with laughter. Camanto stiffened for a moment, but in the next he was chuckling, too. “I think I begin to like you, Prince of Firon.”
Dark eyes met his over the flames. “Prince of Fessenden, I couldn’t care less.”
*
Sioned knew very well why she was discouraged from helping tend the wounded. Hollis was exquisitely tactful, as usual, with plenty of reasonable words to say about resting, not troubling herself, there were enough people to take care of everything. The simple fact was that Hollis didn’t trust her to so much as bandage a sword cut.
The servants had taken to watering the wine they brought her each evening—probably at Pol’s order, or Meath’s. Stupid, interfering, judgmental idiots. What business of theirs if she drank too much? She knew very well what she was doing. Wine was as effective a painkiller as any of Chayla’s herbal concoctions. Infinitely more pleasant going down, too.
She wished she had some right now. But it was only midafternoon. If she started too early, when it came time for serious drinking tonight she would have to down a truly scandalous amount in order to get to sleep. There were levels to getting drunk, and she knew them all. But hers was the curse of an iron head.
So she shrugged off Hollis’ polite refusals of her help and went for a walk.
There were too damned many people in this castle. Even with the Dorvali mercifully gone and their racket with them, Feruche swarmed with the refugees of three other Desert castles. It would be four when Sionell arrived with her Tiglathis, and until poor harried Ruala got everyone tucked away the place would be unbearable.
But there was no one in the west garden. Of all the walks and plantings and little pleasure-arbors tucked away within Feruche, Ruala had reserved this one for the family. Every morning the groundskeepers tended the maze and pond, raked the gravel paths, and oiled the gate hinges. But no one else was allowed here. Sioned let herself in, threading her way through the twists and turns until she came to the center pond.
Seating herself on a bench, she threw gravel from the path into the water for a while, watching the ripples. It was almost quiet here. Concentrating, she gradually shut out the noise of guard drill in the courtyard, the chatter upstairs in the weaving room, the bleating of goats and sheep. There; that was better: only the irregular plop-plop of rocks thrown into the pond, and the murmur of water. An insect buzzed by, distracting her with sound and long, iridescent blue wings. She scowled and rewove the silence around herself again.
After a time she closed her eyes and let her mind follow a stone through the air and down into the water. Short flight, stunned impact, surrounding silence ... sinking, nudged this way and that by the chill undercurrent ... falling slowly into a patient darkness with the weight of the water like Death...
She drifted downward. The sunlight dimmed and faded away. Yes, the cold, yes, the lack of light—this was what dying must be.
A Sunrunner fully vulnerable to the weakness of her kind, she had never willingly set foot in more water than would fill a bathtub. Except when she’d nearly been killed crossing the Faolain River, of course. She might have drowned then, and never come to the Desert, never met Rohan.
What an odd thought. I might have been dead these thirty-nine years, and everything would have been different. Rohan might have married Pandsala or lanthe—and been long dead, too. Pol would never have been born, or at least a different Pol would have been raised by lanthe.
She was nearly at the bottom now. The pond was much deeper than she’d thought. Colder, too. A finger of current, sluggish as if the chill had stiffened its joints, tapped her to one side, then left her alone.
Dying.
She watched pasts that had never been, conjured in her mind like the Fire-visions of a skilled faradhi. Rohan: alive only long enough to father a son, dying of a stealthy sword, a secret poison, the convenience of the Plague. Pol: ignorant of any gifts of power other than what his grandfather Roelstra chose to parcel out. Roelstra himself: reaching a ripe and wicked old age with none but Andrade to oppose him. Everyone whose love and loyalty were Rohan’s, dead. Chay and Tobin and their sons: murdered outright, shut away where they could be no threat, killed trying to escape.
So many dead. So many never even born.
Because of her?
Impossible.
But if she had died at the Faolain crossing ... if she had never reached the Desert ... if the Water had taken her, as it was taking her now...
If, if, if. What a silly word. Life happened as it was supposed to happen. And struggling against the current (he, Desert-bred, would have said flying into the wind) was even sillier, a total waste of breath and energy.
But there was no wind here, no current anymore, nothing to arrest her soft, slow downward drift. No struggle here. Nothing to struggle against. It was a sweet and peaceful thing, dying.
On and on the visions came, cycling forward from her death, back around to begin new variations. People she knew, people she had never seen, people who had been born in one past and never born in another. She watched pasts that had never known a future, and the future whose past she had lived (and how he would have relished that convolution!). But none of it had anything to do with her. It was neither her doing nor her fault. She felt only remote curiosity, no anger or outrage or sorrow— and no joy.
Goddess, how she missed that. Missed him.
“Life happens as it’s meant to happen.”
She could hear his voice so clearly, as if he were here with her. Perhaps he was. This was dying. He was dead.
Rohan? Are you here, beloved?
“Beloved”—the last word he had ever spoken to her. She used it to call for him again.
But all was silence, and darkness, and cold. No, this place was not meant for him. He had loved music and laughter (and the sound of his own voice, she reminded herself with a reminiscent smile). He had been carved of light: body, mind, and heart. And warmth—how warm his arms around her, how strong and safe.
The rush of joyous memories surprised her, all the wonder of the past she had lived with him. Oh, I’m glad I didn’t die. I’m glad I didn’t miss all that.
The past had happened because she had been meant to be there. And the future did not intend to happen without her. It claimed her suddenly, light blazing through her as if the Water had been rent by Fire.
Sioned gasped, opening her eyes. Her lungs ached, her heart pounded frantically, her whole body screaming for Air, Light, life. She cringed in primal faradhi dread from the Water that had nearly been her death, and though she had not even touched it with a fingertip, primal faradhi instinct rebelled. Her empty stomach spasmed again and again until her vision went black.
A long time later she managed to push herself upright. The arm braced on the edge of the bench slipped as her elbow unlocked, and her hand plunged into the cold water. She lunged away wildly, gravel cutting into her knees as she fell.
Her low cry of pain was echoed high overhead. She looked up, baffled at first by the dark shape circling in the sky.
One or another of the dragons flew up almost every day from Skybowl—Elisel more often than the others. Sioned watched the dragon spiral closer, heard her cry out again.
“Was it you?” she whispered. “Were you looking after me, little one?”
Color whirled around her in the sunshine, a silent offering. The dragon’s lonely yearning made tears come to Sioned’s eyes. But she shook her head.
“No—I’m sorry. Not just yet. I can’t.”
It wasn’t a very big garden. But there was room enough for a dragon to land. Elisel growled irritably as she crushed a section of hedges beneath her tail. Turning, she demolished a wooden bench. At last the dragon hollowed out enough space to curl up in, and settled down to watch Sioned with huge, resentful eyes.
Someone called “My lady!” from an upstairs window. Maarken shouted back up from the courtyard that there was nothing to worry about and to leave them alone. Sioned reminded herself to thank him, then forced her aching body to stand and approached her dragon.
Again colors surrounded her, and again she had to shake her head and refuse them. Leaning against a powerful shoulder, she smoothed the silken hide with long strokes of her hands.
“Perhaps later, little one,” she murmured. “So you came to find me, did you? Well, I can’t say for sure that I would’ve come back on my own. It wasn’t all that bad. Just cold. And lonely. You wouldn’t understand.” She paused, watching the great shining eyes. “Or would you? Is that why you came looking for me?”
Elisel hummed, enjoying the attention and not comprehending a word. Sioned found that comforting; she was sick of words. She hunkered down in the sun-warmed gravel with her dragon’s head on her lap, her back nestled to Elisel’s neck, and went on crooning and petting. The low, rough music of the dragon’s voice rumbled pleasantly against Sioned’s spine, and for the first time in a long time she fell asleep stone cold sober.
*
Sunrunning was at times a frustration — knowing that vital events were happening just beyond the sunlight’s touch, or cursing clouds or fog that kept one pent inside one’s own mind. But Pol was finding out that seeing too much was worse than seeing too little. He could shrug and walk away from what he could not reach. He could not turn his sight from this.
He watched women and children and the guards who protected them trudge across the Long Sand. He saw Birioc assemble another army, made up of those who had escaped Zagroy’s Pillar and those his Merida kin had brought in haste from wherever they could be found. Until he counted their numbers, he thought Tallain foolish and panicky to send his people fleeing from Tiglath. But somehow Tallain had known or suspected the size of the force Birioc would bring against him.
Pol had watched the course of the battle, and just last evening he’d seen Birioc’s severed head impaled and displayed from a balcony overlooking the main square. That night at Feruche they drank to Tallain’s victory, and Pol sent a rider to tell Sionell that when camp broke in the morning, she could turn back for home.
He had seen her, limp in Kazander’s arms across his saddle, and for a time was frightened. But when she roused enough to ride by herself with her son Meig before her, he began to guess at what Tallain had done.
And when he saw the Vellant’im leave their ships and march through the clear, bright dawn, he was passionately glad of what Tallain had done.
Clouds had blown up then. He was no longer in danger of seeing too much. So he wasn’t there to watch as Va-manis took up his position on the walls near the Sea Gate and summoned a wall of Fire in front of the Vel-lanti lines. He didn’t see the twenty bearded soldiers who braved the flames and—screaming, their clothes ablaze— launched a volley of steel-tipped arrows. One grazed his arm; a slight wound, but enough to obliterate the Fire. He cried out in agony, stumbling from scant shelter, and more arrows found him. The twenty Vellant’im died, but not before they had killed a Sunrunner.
Pol didn’t see the battle, nor the rider who escaped it by the Sand Gate at a hard gallop. He didn’t see the large leather satchel containing Birioc’s head that bumped the horse’s flank. He didn’t see the man catch up to Sionell as the Tiglathis started wearily for home, nor the shudder that racked her when he spoke, nor Ka-zander actually laying the flat of his sword to his mount as he turned for Feruche at speed.
He did see the Vellant’im withdraw from the battered, bloodied walls that they could not breach. He watched in a fury of pain as they regrouped, marched back to their ships, and sailed serenely away.
Pol shut himself in his chambers alone for the rest of that day, so that he would not have to see anything more. But he knew what would happen at Tiglath as the sun went down. He knew whose body would burn along with scores of others who had kept Tiglath safe, beaten back the Vellant’im, and prevented their march on Feruche.
Kazander appeared around dusk. Pol listened to what he had to say and closed the door again.
It was long after midnight when he had to watch Sionell walk toward him across the courtyard, dry-eyed and pale as ashes by torchlight.
She stood below him on the steps and stared up at him without seeing him. Surrounding her were those who had known and loved her since childhood. None of them could offer any comfort, especially not him.
There was nothing he could say. But it was his duty as Tallain’s friend and prince to give her certain words, in the hearing of her people.
“I would rather have him back than the victory he won us,” Pol said, willing his voice not to break. “I can’t count as a victory something that cost us so much. But he did win, and thereby kept us safe, and—“ He swallowed hard. “Losing him is like losing my right arm.”
Sionell nodded, blue eyes blank and blind. “Yes, my lord.”
Meiglan went down to her, put an arm around her waist. “Come upstairs now, dearest. Come.”
Pol watched them climb the steps. Sionell faltered only once, but the effect was as if she had collapsed sobbing. He started for her, but Tobin gripped his arm with surprising strength.
“No. Let her be.”
“But—“
“No.”
The others left to take care of the new arrivals, to sleep if they could, to grieve in private, to do anything but watch Sionell climb the stairs to an empty bed.
Tobin remained. She tugged at Pol’s arm, taking him into the full light of the moons. Her voice spoke in his mind, the words forming sure and strong.
Tomorrow night you may go to her. But not before.
He stared down at her, confused. I thought you said to leave her alone.
She’ll need you then. She’ll need an object for her anger, and you’ll need to be that object.
Guilt choked him. He had failed at Radzyn. From that beginning, all had come, all of it. And now Tallain was dead, and that too was his fault.
Tobin sat carefully on a little stone bench, clasping her hands around the head of her cane. She was using it more and more in recent days, for the strength she had temporarily won back at Stronghold was slow to return.
Tonight she will need her children, to be their mother who always soothes their hurts. That will ease her heart a little. If her parents were here, she could be their daughter, their child running to them for the same comfort she gives her own children. I think that is something Chay or I must do for her, since neither Walvis nor Feylin is here. But tomorrow she will have no more roles to play, nothing familiar to comfort herself with. So the anger will come. Only after that will she be able to grieve.
I don’t understand.
No? She shrugged one thin shoulder. Didn’t you lash out in your anger at the Harps? And again fighting the Merida?
I’m her battlefield. Her enemy.
For this purpose, yes. It’s all you can do for her right now, Pol. And if you think about it, you haven’t purged your own anger. When you have, you can grieve for Rohan as well as Tallain.
He shook his head. Anger is what keeps me fighting. It’s strength, if you know how to use it.
Not when it’s coupled with guilt. Tobin pushed herself to her feet, black eyes glinting as he moved to help her. No. I’m quite all right. Tomorrow you go be the High Prince and the Sunrunner and whatever else people need you to be. Tomorrow night, be what Sionell needs. But for what remains of tonight, my dear, I suggest you follow your mother’s example and get very, very drunk.
*
He took Tobin’s advice, but not in his mother’s company. When he went to her chambers, he found Meath waiting for him with three pitchers of wine and the caution to drink quietly, as Sioned was asleep in the next room.
“Really asleep?” Pol asked as he sat down and the first cups were filled.
“Without the aid of this, you mean? No, it’s honest sleep. I think she’s finally exhausted herself.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Meath shrugged. “Depends on how she wakes up tomorrow morning. Drink up, as Tobin told you.”
“And you, obviously.”
“You need someone to drink with who can put you to bed when you fall over. I volunteered.” He smiled. “Do you remember the first time we ever went drinking together? Back at Graypearl?”
He did. He’d called Fire and watched Meath demolish half the tavern in a fight with some Gribain soldiers— one of whom had been a Merida sent to kill Pol. “Promise you won’t break any furniture tonight.”
The only thing broken was an empty pitcher when, after matching Meath cup for cup for some time, Pol misjudged his reach. They both froze, listening for sounds from the next room that would mean Sioned had wakened.’Nothing. Meath kicked the shards under the table and poured them both another cup.
“Does she talk to you?” Pol asked suddenly.
“A little. Not much.”
“She’s got to stop doing this to herself.”
Meath contemplated his rings. There were six of them, silver and gold on his large, strong hands. “To you, you mean. Let her be. She’ll come back to us when she’s ready.”
“I need her now.”
“Even the way she is?”
“Her brain drunk is worth any five others stone sober.”
“Make do with your own.”
“You’re not very comforting tonight.”
“Is that why you’re here? For comfort?”
Pol looked at his own rings. The Desert, and Princemarch, and a token faradhi ring set with the moonstone that had been Andrade’s. No comfort there, either, only responsibility.
“No,” he answered thickly. “I came here to get drunk.”
He did, and in silence after that, until he had scarcely enough wit left to know when Meath tucked him into the bed in the corner. When he woke the next morning from the promised oblivion, it was to the sight of his mother’s face.
She stood beside the bed, as she had sometimes done when he was a little boy, sunlight glowing on her short curls and warming her cheeks with rose. She looked young this morning after her sleep, reinforcing the childhood memory. Then, he had been so proud of her beauty. But today he saw her power, a fire that might have burned someone else to ashes. His father had awakened to the sight of her face for nearly forty years, knowing that everything this woman was belonged utterly to him.
Years ago, at Castle Crag and rather drunk after Dan-nar’s Naming, Ostvel had assured him that opening his eyes to Alasen every morning was at times a joy more piercing than making love with her. Pol could not imagine it then, being only twenty-two and unmarried. He could not imagine it now. He adored Meiglan, but she drew her strength from him, not the other way around. He was content to have it so, to shelter her gentleness and watch her blossom under his care of her. He had never known what it was to wake beside a woman whose strength sheltered him.
Rohan had. So had Tallain.
Detesting the disloyalty to his wife, Pol sat up—and discovered whole new worlds of self-hatred. Vicious little men pounded drums in his skull. His mouth filled with a taste as foul as if he’d swilled raw sewage the night before. Sinking back into the pillows, he drew in a care- ful breath and hoped the intake of air wouldn’t split his brain apart.
“Sleep well?” Sioned asked.
“That’s not funny,” he muttered.
She arched a brow, then went to push the tapestry curtains back from the windows. Sunlight lanced into Pol’s eyes. “Fiend.”
“But you did sleep, and didn’t dream.”
So she was in on Tobin’s little conspiracy, too. “Where’s Meath?”
“Up at dawn, and quietly enough not to wake you.” She smiled, enjoying his look of disbelief. “He’s got a hollow leg and an iron head—or is it the other way around? Though he did say something about his tongue feeling as if last night’s wine had stayed in his mouth and died there.”
“Then there’s justice after all.”
She started for the door. “I’ll call your squires in to help you. You’ll feel better once you’ve sweated out the wine in a hot bath.”
“Is that what you do every morning to sober up?”
Sioned turned, and the look she gave him made him wish he’d sliced his tongue out with his own sword.
“No,” she said with terrible calm. “What I do is remember the sight of your father’s dead eyes.”
The door slammed shut behind her.