“... washed and stuffed back in and stitched up—now, that’s the tricky part.” Feylin dried her hands on a towel and tossed it into the basket that served as laundry hamper. “I imagine you don’t see anything similar on Dorval.”
“We do, actually,” Audrite replied. They emerged from the infirmary into the courtyard at Skybowl, squinting in the bright noontime sun. “Pearl fishers sometimes get sliced up when the water’s murky. The marking poles can be pretty vicious. But I’ve never seen anyone survive the wounds you’ve been treating.”
“If I can get to them quick enough, they usually do all right.” Feylin paused at the well for a dipper of water. “That powder they came up with at Giladan school— that’s made all the difference with infections. It’s the damage to what’s inside that worries me. Sewing guts back together is long work, but it can be done. What I hate to see is a womb cut open, or a liver, or a stomach. I can’t do anything about those.”
“Almost all the cases here are like that,” Audrite observed quietly, shaking her head to the offer of a drink. “Those, and the amputees.”
“Yes—everyone who couldn’t walk, ride, or be carried to Feruche. A fine army we’ve got if the Vellant’im do decide to attack us.”
“You realize, of course, that if they do...”
Feylin shrugged and let the dipper splash back into the bucket. “Half of those fools inside would march out holding their swords with one hand and keeping their guts in with the other. Half of the rest would hobble out on crutches or tie a sword to the stumps of their arms. And we’d have to tie the rest of them to their cots to keep them from following.” She stretched to ease the strain in her back. “Not so much to save Skybowl. To avenge Rohan.”
Audrite said nothing as they walked back to the main keep. Then, slowly: “Pol commands their loyalty, but not yet their love. He’ll have to gain it in ways his father never had to.”
Feylin held the door open for the princess and followed her into the dimness of the hall. “Oh, that’s better! You wouldn’t think the sun would be so blinding this time of year. Do you think Pol’s not capable of winning the same kind of devotion Rohan did?”
“Certainly he is! I had charge of him for all those years, remember. But Rohan fought wars for the Desert. He didn’t have to hold the hope of all the princedoms in his sword.”
“Today’s—what, the forty-eighth of Winter? Pol’s only been High Prince twenty-five days. Give him some time.” Feylin paused to splash some water on her face from the small basin below Camigwen’s mirror. “When he drives the Vellant’im back into the sea, they’ll all fall on their knees thanking him.”
Audrite shook her head. “After which they’ll wonder who he’ll turn those war-making skills on next. Rohan won his people—and everyone else’s—with peace. That’s not an option for Pol. He has to send them out to be wounded or killed. Once this is all over, he’ll have to begin in his father’s way, convincing them he’ll be the same kind of High Prince Rohan was.”
“Nobody said it would be easy. But do you think he has the patience for it? Or that he’ll be like Rohan—or even that someone like Rohan is necessary after an upheaval of this kind?” Feylin raked her hair back from her eyes and grimaced. “How did you get me around to such a depressing topic? You know I hate politics. And I’m terrible at it, anyhow.”
Audrite smiled. “You’re very good at asking uncomfortable questions the rest of us like to ignore!”
“Well, we see things differently, I suppose,” Feylin replied. “Just let’s get this war finished and let me go home to Remagev. You and Chadric and the other princes can worry about politics. That’s your job!”
Audrite laughed and started up the stairs to rest before the midday meal. At the upper landing she paused to look down on the courtyard, where servants went about their business as usual. With only a little imagination, one could believe that there was no enemy encampment nearby. That there had been no battles, no ruined castles, no deaths.
It was a daily series of shocks, living like this. Waking, washing, dressing, breakfasting—all as if she and Chadric guested here for pleasure instead of dire necessity. But then came the first visit of the day to the infirmary. After that, a walk near the lakeshore with her grandchildren to watch the dragons, or a brief rest before the midday meal—after which the guards drilled to keep themselves sharp. Hardly had she settled the children down for their naps when it was time to join Feylin in the infirmary once more. By late afternoon she was always exhausted, not so much from her years but from the constant jolt back and forth between placid pursuits and reminders of war.
In all her reading, and Audrite was a formidable scholar, she had never found a description of what she was living now. A castle besieged, a castle defended, a castle assaulted, a castle destroyed—she had read accounts of all these and lived through the latter two. But she had never read anything that matched this strange, unsettling combination of normal life and war.
It would have been easier if something happened: a battle or the immediate threat of one would give everyone a narrow purpose; a ring of enemy drawn tight around Skybowl would focus mind and feeling. But this was neither peace nor war. It was a precarious imbalance between. One or the other could be dealt with. Being jerked back and forth several times each day was maddening. The respite of a quiet nap in her rooms was denied her today. Chadric and Walvis had chosen to spread their maps on a table by the bedchamber windows, making note of various landmarks to use if and when a battle came. Audrite sat in the corner with a book and tried to ignore them. She never knew what word it was she heard just that once too often, but without her conscious awareness of it she was on her feet and shouting at them. “Do this somewhere else! Not in my rooms! Not in here!”
Her husband’s jaw fell open. Walvis’ blue eyes rounded to the dimension of soup bowls. Audrite tried to stop herself and simply could not.
“I won’t have your damned war in here, do you understand me? I’m sick of listening to you! Take your maps and get out!”
And then, to her everlasting mortification, she began to cry.
Chadric started toward her, arms wide in an offer of comfort. She snarled at him and batted his hands away.
“Get away from me! You and all your talk of battles and soldiers and where to hit the Vellant’im first! Get out!”
Walvis had already fled, maps clutched to his chest. Though Chadric backed off a step or two, he was stubborn enough to stay.
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down!” she warned.
Perfectly seriously, he replied, “If I did, you’d break my arm. All I want to tell you is I’m sorry you’re upset.”
“You ought to be. It’s your fault.” She wiped her eyes, infuriated by the weakness. “Isn’t there one place left where I can have a little peace?”
“Evidently not,” he admitted ruefully.
Audrite scowled and sank back down onto the couch, exhausted. “Yell back at me, why don’t you? Why are you being so nice?”
Chadric hesitated, then shrugged. “I’m worried about Ludhil and Laric, too, you know.”
She glanced up sharply. She hadn’t been thinking about their sons—but all at once she knew they were the undercurrent to her every waking thought. Dangerous, like the sea’s dark undertow. Fear for them was the thing she was the most determined not to feel. Hearing their names, she wanted to cry again. And not just for Ludhil, fighting on Dorval, and Laric on his way to battle in Firon. She was sick with terror for Laric’s little boy, all alone at Balarat, for Alleyn and Audran even though they were safe here at Skybowl.
Safe? Where was anyone safe these days?
“We would have heard,” she said, hating the quiver in her voice. “One of the Sunrunners would have seen if either was—“
“Yes.”
“So why don’t you tell me to stop worrying?”
“Because it wouldn’t do any good.” He sat beside her, draping an arm over her shoulders. “We’re too old for this, love. We should be dozing away our days in our own palace, watching the sea. Audrite, what are we doing here?”
She drooped against him, sighing. “A nice, comfortable doze is the last thing we can have around here.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe if we squint, we can make believe it’s a sea of water out there and not sand.”
She felt her throat tighten, and whispered, “Chadric ... I hate it here. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it.”
“It’s not Skybowl you hate,” he murmured against her hair. “It’s just that it’s not home. I’ll rebuild Graypearl for you, love. All of it, even more beautiful than it was.”
Thinking of their palace as it had been, she doubted that was possible. Still, she owed him her strength after he’d been so gentle with her weakness.
“Well,” she said, “it’ll certainly keep us busy in our old age.”
*
Hildreth, watching her elder son swing easily up into his saddle, hid an oppressive sense of unease. Feneol would be safe enough; there was no reason he should not be safe enough. Besides, he was needed. Lord Draza, learning of the young man’s intimate familiarity with the
Veresch, had asked him to join the group heading for Feruche with Princess Alasen. They would meet up with Princess Meiglan’s party, and Feneol would ride back to Dragon’s Rest with her as guide through the mountains.
Hildreth was unsure of the wisdom of sending Meiglan home. Pol had seemed confident enough that the roads and passes were clear of Vellant’im. Her own observations last night and this morning confirmed it. But perhaps they knew enough to hide while there was light to work by, either sun or moons.
Well, it wasn’t her decision to make. But the staying or going of her younger son was, and he didn’t much like her edict.
“You won’t change your mind?” Aldreth asked again at her side. He was rubbing a nose red and swollen with sneezing.
She tugged the scarf from his pocket and handed it to him with silent eloquence.
“Master Evarin is very clever,” said Ullan when their son opened his mouth to protest again. “But no physician, Sunrunner or not, has ever cured a cold until that cold wanted to be cured. No, here you stay, my lad, to cough this out of you.”
“And try not to give it to everyone else while you’re at it,” Hildreth added. “Get out of this wind, Aldreth. There’s snow in it before afternoon, I can taste it.”
He looked up at his brother and pulled a face. “You’d think I was six years old. All right, all right, I’ll take my stuffy head someplace where it’s warm.”
Feneol grinned down from horseback. “Just the other day you were telling me that the fire in Birnali’s room is—“
“Shut up!” Aldreth exclaimed.
“—and you weren’t talking about the hearth,” he finished.
Ullan cocked an eyebrow at the younger man. “The little redhead? What happened to Romia, and Antaji, and—“
“Men!” Hildreth snorted. “Listen. There’s the call from Lord Draza’s captain. Behave yourself, Feneol, and keep a close eye on the trails. Princess Meiglan will want to be home as quickly as she can.”
“Mother,” he said with a patient sigh, “I’ve hunted in these mountains for years. I’ll get her here safe and sound—and bring you back an elk or two as well.”
He rode off to join the departing company, and Aldreth took himself and his cold indoors. Ullan nudged his wife toward a nearby paddock, where other horses were being readied for travel.
“How long do you think Birnali will last?”
Hildreth shrugged. “As long as any of the others with our prancing young studs. Goddess, how I wish one of them would make a Choice and give us a grandchild!”
Ullan grinned. “Speak for yourself, lady mine. Come, Edrel and Norian are about to leave. They’re the ones who’ll need wishes for a safe journey.”
The new Lord of River Ussh and his wife, Princess of Grib, were going south at all speed to give her brother Elsen what help they could. It was Norian’s fiercest desire that they would encounter Andry along the way. She had a few choice opinions to unload on him for calling on her crippled brother to lead an army in defense of Goddess Keep.
Finding Andry was one of Hildreth’s ambitions, too. He seemed to have vanished. She couldn’t be riding the sunlight all the time, and seeking one faradhi in all the length and breadth of the southern princedoms was insanity. If she happened to be looking while he was projecting his colors, she might have had a chance. Otherwise... But she kept trying because Pol asked it of her.
She would not be trying today. After a clear morning, clouds now brooded overhead, heavy with the snow Ullan had predicted. As Alasen and her party rode up the valley, tiny pinpoints of white drifted down in a sullen breeze. Hildreth shivered while bidding Edrel and Norian farewell, and returned inside as soon as she could.
*
Andry had no warm shelter to seek. He was out in the open with not even a tree in sight. The Storm God was sparing him not at all.
Not that his own thoughts did, either. His body, trained to horsemanship from babyhood, took care of riding. His mind was free to follow paths even more treacherous than the snow-thickened road before him.
The obvious starting place—Goddess, I’m freezing!— led to, This is no place for a Sunrunner to Let alone a son of the Desert to Why can’t I be going south where it only rains? to Why am I doing this crazy thing anyway?
To answer “Alasen” was too easy. And it wasn’t entirely true. There was his firstborn to consider. Objectively, he knew Andrev was safe enough with Tilal, who would never risk his Sunrunner in battle. Subjectively, Andry also knew his hatchling would fight him tooth and talon if he tried to take him from Tilal’s service. So, to avoid a vicious scene that would hurt them both—and probably amuse Tilal no end—Andry bowed to his son’s pride and rode north.
But that wasn’t all of it, either. He returned to “Alasen” and hunched his shoulders into his cloak. He didn’t love her. Not anymore. Not after Brenlis. And it wasn’t as if she needed his help. She’d gathered an army at Castle Crag and sailed down the Faolain (he spared a shiver for the journey over water) to Swalekeep, then ridden in good time (considering the weather) to Dragon’s Rest seeking Chiana. He suspected that with her quarry undiscovered, she would soon either make for Feruche or return to Swalekeep. Both were folly and he intended to persuade her to stay at Dragon’s Rest where she could be safe.
He knew he had about as much chance of that as he did of reclaiming Andrev.
No, they didn’t need him at all. But in an odd way they were his shadowy companions on this road he was traveling now, the one that led back home to the Desert. Alasen was his past, his youth; Andrev was the future. Each guided him in a different way, but toward the same goal.
However, between the Desert and what he must do there—whatever that might be—lay Dragon’s Rest. And Miyon of Cunaxa. Getting him to Rezeld Manor presented an interesting problem. Andry couldn’t go in as a Vellanti warrior replete with beard and beads; the guards would slaughter him on the spot. But who would Miyon trust?
Ah, Goddess, of course. Who else?
Andry laughed at the trick he was going to play—and coughed when he got a mouthful of snow flurry. The problem with snow was that it was so damned cold. What he wouldn’t give for a nice, warm sandstorm about now...
*
During the noon meal, Walvis kept a wary eye on Au-drite. Her outburst had frankly shocked the stuffing out of him. If a woman of her calm could blow up with the violence of a sudden sandstorm, then Feylin—volatile at the best of times—would bear careful watching. But as he considered further, he decided there was small danger of it. She vented her emotions in frequent squalls, unpre-dictably there and swiftly gone. And, bitterly, he knew that where Audrite still had two sons to worry about, the Vellant’im had already done their worst to Feylin. They had killed her only son; they had killed a son-by-marriage as dear to her as if she’d birthed him herself. She had wept a lifetime’s tears twice this winter. Knowing how empty he felt, Walvis suspected his wife didn’t have much left by way of rage or weeping, either.
Turning his thoughts away from the pain, he gradually began to notice—with welcome amusement—that everyone else at the high table was watching Sethric and Daniv try not to watch Jeni.
She was a pretty girl, with her father Ostvel’s deep gray eyes and her mother Alasen’s smile. A wealth of sun-streaked brown hair, knotted in braids at her nape, would look better twisted high on her head to show off a swanlike neck; clothes that fit better would have em- phasized her figure. But even in plain workday garb, with hair straggling around her face, she was lovely. That she was a Sunrunner didn’t hamper her attractions; the way that responsibility rested gracefully on her would make Ostvel and Alasen proud.
It was an interesting little dance the two young men and the girl were engaged in, made the more entertaining by Jeni’s insistence that whatever they did, wherever they rode or explored, thirteen-year-old Alleyn and nine-year-old Audran must go with them. The addition of two children to their group neatly prevented the young men from making complete fools of themselves. It actually brought them closer together as they tried to find ways of losing the hatchlings so Jeni’s attention could be divided between them alone.
Walvis watched the three of them—plus, inevitably, Alleyn and Audran—leave the hall to visit their horses, smiling behind his beard. Feylin saw it; she always saw it. “So,” she said at his side. “Do you think she’ll make herself a lord’s lady or a prince’s princess?” Walvis shrugged. “Depends on where she wants to start—and where she wants to get. Sethric has nothing of his own. But married to a Sunrunner, he could rise much higher than a prince’s cousin can usually hope to do. Daniv is Prince of Syr and kin to her through the
Kierstian royal line, and—”
“I think you’re rushing things a bit!” Audrite told him, smiling. “After all, Jeni’s scarcely limited in her Choice.
And I heard no mention of love, Walvis. Shame on you!”
“Jeni’s much too young to know what or who she wants,” Feylin agreed. Walvis grinned at her. “Shame on you! War shows a woman what a man really is. It’s how you fell in love with me.” He gave a wistful sigh. “Ah, that sweet and lovely time at Tiglath—“ Feylin interrupted, “—when the only time I spoke to you was to tell you what an idiot you were. You do choose the strangest things to get sentimental about, my lord.”
Chadric, seated next to Feylin, began to chuckle softly.
“My lady,” Walvis replied serenely, “your words only confirmed your growing adoration.”
“My—!”
“Nothing like a bit of danger to help a woman realize she wants a man to stay in one piece with all useful parts intact and functional.”
“Perhaps,” Chadric murmured, “I ought to have had my father arrange something. A skirmish with bandits would have done it—and saved me the saddle sores. All those measures back and forth to Sandeia. Goddess, the things we do when we’re young!”
“There haven’t been any bandits on Dorval in a hundred years,” Audrite scoffed.
“There are now—and their leader happens to be our son!”
“Oh, I agree that war is a charming way to Choose one’s lifemate,” Feylin remarked. “Let’s remember to tell Ostvel that when this one is over, he’ll have to hold lots of little ones so his daughter can make a really informed decision, based on circumstances that, please the Goddess in her mercy, won’t occur ever again in their lives!”
But it seemed that the circumstances were upon them once more. Daniv came running into the hall to report that a large force of Vellant’im was fifteen measures from Skybowl and would arrive before midafternoon.
“Sethric is already seeing to our preparations, my lord,” the young prince finished. “Horses, troops, archers—“
“What about the dragons?” Feylin asked.
Daniv blinked, his eyes darkened by worry from their usual bright turquoise. “The dragons?” Then he blinked again. “Oh. I see. If they fly away, it had better be now, while the enemy can’t get at them.”
“You’re the expert,” Walvis told his wife. “How do you chase off a half-dozen dragons? Yell really loud?”
“Very funny,” she retorted. “If only we had someone here who could talk to them. Well, we don’t.” Briskly rising to her feet, she went on, “Maybe they’ll just stay where they are. They must know what happened to Elidi at Stronghold. They’ll have the sense to stay out of arrowshot.”
“Unless one of them decides to take vengeance,” Chadric said.
“One of the males, no doubt,” Feylin commented. “Come on, let’s have at these lice-ridden whoresons.”
“My dainty, delicate darling,” Walvis muttered, mostly for Audrite’s benefit. If he could help her keep fear at bay a little while longer, he’d gladly make jokes until he rode out the gates. After this morning’s outburst, he wasn’t sure how she’d react. Yet she was not frightened; the same battle-spirit that glinted in Feylin’s gray eyes sparked in Audrite’s as well.
“Yes,” she was saying, “let’s get started. Those people are beginning to annoy me.”
By the time Walvis mounted his horse, Daniv and Sethric had gathered their soldiers into formation—no more than a hundred men and women, and not more than half of them knowing more about fighting than to stay in the saddle and hack away as best they could. Still, for what Walvis had in mind, that would do. Though Jeni could listen to other faradh’im, she could not yet go Sunrunning herself. But Pol or one of the others had surely seen the enemy advance, and even now they would be marching south from Feruche. All that was required of Walvis was to slow the enemy down.
They had all agreed that Skybowl was the best place to meet and defeat the Vellant’im. The terrain was right—the hills and the crater held by the Desert forces, and nothing but sand for the enemy to retreat to, with a good flat plain to fight on. Daniv and Sethric had fought several map battles for him and Chadric recently, honing ideas as Rohan and Chay used to. The young men had plotted out lightning raids, so beloved of the Isulk’im, against anything up to three hundred Vellant’im. Sethric, victim of Kazander’s techniques at Remagev, looked forward to applying them to someone who would really benefit by them.
But no one had thought the Vellant’im would send so many so soon. More than four hundred bearded warriors marched in close order onto the plain below Skybowl, settled into battle ranks, and waited.
“We could just let them sit, you know,” he murmured, more to himself than to Sethric as they watched from the crest of the crater. “We’re the ones with water and shelter. We could just wait for them to give up and go away.”
“My lord?”
“But Pol’s coming, I can feel it,” he went on. “We owe it to him to do whatever damage we can. It’s a good plan. I can think of only one improvement.” Even as he spoke he was listening to the dragons. They were shifting nervously along the lakeshore behind him, but whether from the smell of the Vellant’im or something else, he wasn’t sure.
He made note of the ten different groups into which the enemy was divided, and especially of the man in stark white who rode before them. Viewed through a long-lens borrowed from Feylin—who used it to inspect dragons at a respectful distance—Walvis saw that the man wore not a single golden token in his beard. Not the High Warlord, then. Pity. But an interesting target just the same.
“Improvement, my lord?” Daniv prompted when the silence went on for too long.
“Hmm? Oh. Yes.” He took the wooden tube from his eye to polish the lens at the larger end. “Daniv, do you see the one in white?”
The young prince peered into the distance. “Yes, my lord.”
“I think Lord Andry would be mortally offended by that man’s wearing Goddess Keep’s color. Bloody it up for him, please.”
“With pleasure my lord!”
“But not yet,” Walvis added as Daniv shifted in his saddle, preparing to gallop down the rocky slope all alone.
Sethric, on his other side, looked puzzled. It amused Walvis to see that he didn’t resent that Daniv had been given so important a task—though he was protective enough of his status as a warrior and determined enough to impress a certain young lady that he asked, “And me, my lord? I’ll lead the attack as planned?”
“Yes, you’ll have plenty to do. In fact, if you do it as well as I believe, Lord Kazander will make you an honorary Isulki and offer you one of his cousins for your first wife. Maybe even a sister.”
“Not if she talks as much as he does!” Sethric’s laugh was a deep rumble, like gravel in a velvet glove.
Daniv laughed, too, softer and more excited. “Whenever you’re ready, my lord.”
“Oh, it has nothing to do with me,” Walvis replied, with a casual flick of a glance to his own banner. The blue-and-white of Remagev floated on the breeze like a single graceful dragon wing.
Sethric gave him a long, frowning look. A few moments later he sat back in his saddle, hooked a lazy knee over the pommel, and grinned.
Daniv looked from one to the other of them, What did I miss? scrawled all over his face. After a while he could stand it no longer and asked, “Would somebody please tell me what we’re waiting for?”
“You’ll know when you see it,” Walvis said, and would tell him no more.
Ten Vellanti warriors carrying their battle flags rode forward to shout up at the troops poised atop the mountain. Most of their invective was wasted, being in the old language, but they had learned enough civilized speech to insult one’s ancestry, bravery, and certain habits of the Azhrei.
Seeing Daniv flush with rage at a particularly foul insinuation about his kinsman the High Prince, Walvis commented, “Their accents really are vile.”
“Kind of makes you wonder what their women are like, though,” Sethric drawled. “Personally, I’m flattered to be compared in courage to some of the ladies I know.”
Belatedly catching the spirit of the exchange, Daniv said, “It also makes you wonder what they do in their spare time. I mean, you can’t accuse somebody of rutting with—what was it, goats and sheep?—with all the nasty details, unless you’ve had some experience of it yourself.”
Walvis laughed his approval. “Careful with your language! I know your mother well, and if the lovely and gentle Princess Danladi ever heard you say such things, she’d tear out your tongue and send it to the launderers!”
“And stitch it back in upside down,” Daniv agreed. Neither young man realized what the laughter accomplished, but Walvis did. He’d watched it done and done it himself often enough to know how and why it must be done. What worked on Daniv and Sethric worked just as well on the people around them. Appalled by the size of the Vellanti force, they had seen and heard their commanders laughing. Tension had been released in humor; the half-paralyzing fear was gone. They were ready to fight.
So was Prince Chadric. He rode up the slope, arrayed in battle armor too big for him. It had been padded out with several heavy shirts and a wool tunic.
“Yes, it’s hotter than a midsummer Desert day in here,” he said cheerfully. “And no, don’t tell me you agree with my wife that I’ve lost my wits. Just tell me where to ride, and how many you want me to kill.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Walvis growled. “Be sensible, Chadric! You—“
Then he stopped. Almost sixty years separated the prince from Zehava’s squire. But Chadric had been trained by that redoubtable warrior in all the arts, and what the body could no longer do, the intellect compensated for. Walvis, past fifty himself, understood that very well. Chadric was still secure and easy in the saddle, his wrist still strong enough to wield a sword. But even if he had been as feeble as his years might have indicated, Walvis knew he couldn’t forbid the old man. Chadric needed to fight. He had been helpless at Graypearl and at Sandeia; he had seen his own palace and his wife’s childhood home destroyed; he had watched his scholarly elder son turn soldier out of tragic necessity. There was enough angry frustration built up in him to make him explode the way Skybowl itself must have done a thousand and more years ago.
In a completely different voice, Walvis said, “I’d be honored to have you ride with me, your grace.”
Chadric nodded once, gratitude shining briefly in his eyes. His tone was wry as he said, “Yes, I imagined you’d take any sword you could get—even one as shaky as mine. Well? When do we start?”
“In just a little while, your grace,” Sethric told him, casting a quick glance at the battle flag. To Walvis he said, “The wind’s shifting, my lord.”
“So it is.”
Daniv fairly bounced in his saddle with impatience. “Why in the Name of the Goddess are we waiting?”
Walvis raised the lens to his eye again and looked northeast. “It doesn’t happen around Stronghold—the terrain is wrong and it’s too far south—so you won’t have seen it before. And I’ll admit that it’s rather early in the year. But the conditions are just about right. We’ll wait a bit longer. If it doesn’t come up soon, we’ll begin without it.”
“Without what?” Daniv demanded of Sethric.
Walvis gave a start as a dragon called out from the lakeshore behind him, and turned to watch all of them take to the western sky over the hills. It was the signal he’d been waiting for. Nodding satisfaction, he tucked the wooden tube in his saddle quiver.
“That,” he said succinctly, and pointed to a faint white-gold smudge on the horizon. And smiled.
*
“Twenty days? Here?” Chiana hissed to her son as he closed the chamber door behind him.
It was not her usual sort of room. Rezeld Manor was a pleasant enough place, adequately if not luxuriously appointed, with room to house Chiana and Rinhoel and their scanty retinue in comfort. But they had not arrived as the Prince of Meadowlord and his lady mother. The steward was Pol’s creature and would welcome Rinhoel with a sword. Isolated Rezeld might be; stupid, Pol’s servants were not.
So instead of the best chambers in the manor, Chiana was given a hole overlooking the stables, where the noise was unbearable and the stench worse. Suitable for a woman widowed in the war, with her young son attending her—but insulting and well nigh insupportable for Roelstra’s daughter.
“Eighteen days,” Rinhoel corrected, tossing his gloves and cloak on a rickety wooden table. “Why didn’t Avaly recognize you? She must have seen you nine years ago when you were here.”
“Oh, she recognized me.” Chiana sank onto one of the two beds, wincing in distaste as she discovered the mattress was stuffed with straw instead of feathers. “But she’s no fool. You gave her and that nasty-faced steward false names, and she accepted them because she knows we’re up to something. She hates Pol as much as she hated Rohan for taking away her rank. She’ll help us.”
“She’d better.” Rinhoel paced for a few moments, an unrewarding occupation in a room as small as this one. Window to table to door to window again, at last closing the latter to shut out some of the racket from down below.
“Thank you,” his mother said feelingly. “Now, how do we get rid of the steward before the diarmadh’im get here? We need control of Rezeld—and I simply must have a warm, dry, decent room! There are undoubtedly bugs, and I’m sure the roof leaks. I can’t stay here very long, Rinhoel, I just can’t.”
He sat in the room’s only chair, sprawling long legs. “I left our troops outside for a reason, Mother. Once I’ve talked with Avaly and let her know what’s going to happen, she and I can arrange to leave the gates open one night. She’ll let me know which of the retainers are hers and which are Pol’s. When our people come in, they’ll seize and kill—“ He broke off as she bit her lip. “What’s wrong?” After a brief hesitation, she said, “You’ll have this place and all Princemarch under your rule one day soon.”
“So?”
“Do you intend to kill everyone who ever served Pol?”
He went very still—then abruptly kicked at a table leg. The furniture skittered, catching in a warped floorboard. The next instant he was smiling.
“It’s not a bad idea, but I take your point. You’ve thought about this much longer than I have. I forget that sometimes.”
“Thought and planned and dreamed,” she agreed. “We’ll have to keep an eye on such persons, of course. But we can’t kill all of them. And killing these would be a bad way to start. You must be seen as the strong alternative to Pol. They must flock to you because they have faith in you.”
“And because they fear the diarmadh’im.”
“Yes, but you can keep yourself a step or two removed from them. Blame any blood on them—“
“—and keep my own hands clean,” he finished. “Yes, I see. All right, then, how about this? I’ll have Avaly suggest that Ostvel needs fighters down south more than Rezeld needs them here. I’ve called myself a farmer, so I can humbly offer to oversee the land. That way, all the ones who’re most loyal to Pol and Ostvel will leave.”
“Good. Better yet, mention that a call has gone out from Ostvel for anyone who can use a sword or a bow.”
He frowned slightly. “How do I explain why I didn’t heed that call myself?”
“I begged you not to.”
“I don’t like playing the craven, clinging to my mother’s skirts.”
Chiana knew better than to ridicule his pride for the childish thing it was. “But, dearest,” she said reasonably, “your duty is to protect your defenseless, widowed mother. No one will wonder at it. Indeed, they’ll think all the more of you for your care of me. Especially after you prove your wisdom and courage in battle, and enter Castle Crag as High Prince.”
She had used the magical term. He relented with a nod. She found more personal enchantment in the name of her father’s keep, but Rinhoel didn’t share her need. It didn’t bother her; fulfilling his ambition would fulfill her own.
“Go talk to Avaly,” she said. “Be sure to treat her as you would a younger and prettier woman. I’ll stay here and rest. You don’t need me to help.”
RinhoeFs lip curled. “She’s twice my age! Are you telling me I have to seduce her?”
“Use your own judgment. If she seems to want it, take it a few steps and then back away. Leave her wanting you.” She looked her son over thoughtfully. “You’re a beautiful young man. That’s a valuable thing to be when dealing with a woman of a certain age—especially one who once tried to attract Pol.”
“She did? When?”
“Oh, he was only fifteen at the time. That summer before the Rialla of 719, when he and Rohan toured Princemarch. I suppose Lord Morlen was hoping that a young and impressionable boy would make the girl his first love. Marriage was out of the question, but remembered tenderness would work to their advantage. It didn’t happen, of course, but I would imagine it still stings her a bit.”
“So if I do what Pol did not—“
“Exactly. Don’t forget that your grandmother was the mistress of a High Prince. Avaly can be encouraged to think she could hold the same position.”
Rinhoel came to her, bowing over her hands to kiss them. “You are as clever as you are beautiful. Lie down and rest, Mother. I promise that in two days you’ll be sleeping on silk sheets in the best bed Rezeld can offer.”
“I do hope so,” she answered, glancing around the tiny, dusty room. “This isn’t a place to receive diarmadhi lords in, you know. I’d die of shame.”
*
The problem with sand was that it was always where one didn’t want it to be. No matter how vigilant the servants were, a little sand always sifted onto the floors and beneath the rugs, between book pages and into the toes of one’s socks, and occasionally—to the mortification of the cooks—into the food. Sand was rather like the Isulk’im that way: it appeared unexpectedly, just to let one know it was still there.
That afternoon at Skybowl was no exception. Sun-warmed air rose as it met the hills, creating thermals on which dragons loved to glide. More air swept in off the Desert—and brought sand with it. Small storms of this type were usually predictable in strength and duration by the temperature and time of day. When they met cooler air sliding down the crater at Skybowl and the surrounding hills, they stalled and stuttered around themselves for a little while, then usually subsided.
“Usually” was, of course, the salient word. Walvis was all for Rohan’s idea of letting the Desert do much of their work for them. But the Desert usually cooperated only so far, and no farther.
He and Daniv and Sethric had led their little groups in quick attacks worthy of Isulki horse-borrowing expeditions at Radzyn. Gallop in, slash and cut, wheel, and gallop away—only they sliced not halters but throats, and when they fled it was for their lives. Walvis had counted on the sandstorm hovering in one place for a little while, downdrafts from Skybowl fighting its westward progress until it gave up and turned away like a rejected suitor. The Vellant’im would be nearly paralyzed, unable to retreat and unable to advance against the lightning raids of Skybowl’s defenders.
It didn’t work that way, of course. What he hadn’t counted on was being caught in the damned thing himself.
Riders appeared and vanished in a blink as battling winds blew sand every which way. Not thick enough to choke on, still the grit clogged breath and played tricks on eyes and ears. A shout would make Walvis turn to find no one; another would be carried away in a whisper even though he was looking straight at the person who had yelled. The skirmish—such confusion didn’t deserve to be called a battle—was chaos cast in yellow and brown shadows with the occasional colored silk pennant flapping in his face. His sole consolation was that if this mess rattled him, it must be driving the Vellant’im utterly mad.
Only the horses seemed unperturbed. Radzyn-bred, all of them on both sides of the fight—if only he could figure out which side was where. Use the Desert, Rohan had said. Clever me, Walvis thought sourly, cursing the storm that had fooled him, hacking his way through a knot of enemy who at any moment might or might not become invisible.
Skybowl could have been any distance in any direction, and the wind had changed so many times that even if he managed to gather his people for a retreat, he could just as easily be leading them into the storm as out of it.
And he’d lost Chadric someplace, too, damn it.
A thunderous roar overhead nearly toppled him from his saddle. An inspired yell went up: “Azhrei!” He recognized the voice as Chadric’s, and kneed his horse to where he thought the prince might be. No, not quite— another shout, and as he turned half around to follow it, a bearded warrior made a fair attempt to deprive him of his left arm. It was no time for pretty maneuvers; he slammed his boot into the man’s chin and yanked his stallion’s head around. Large white teeth sank into the exposed neck. That’s another one Pol won’t have to fuss with, he told himself, patting the horse’s neck in apology for the foul taste of the Vellanti. He looked around for Chadric again. Very suddenly, like the parting of a dark golden curtain, the sand swept aside to show him the old man in borrowed armor, waving his sword high over his head and bellowing Rohan’s title—Pol’s title now, Walvis reminded himself automatically—at the top of his lungs, answering the dragon every time it howled.
Others heard, too. The men and women of Skybowl and Remagev rode toward Chadric through the swirling grit. Walvis decided that direction no longer mattered, as long as they escaped enemy swords. He saw Sethric, then lost him, then saw him again; Daniv appeared a few moments later, breathing hard and wincing every time the dragon cried out above them. Walvis was just about to call the order to return to Skybowl when he saw Jeni. “What in all Hells are you doing here?” he shouted. She opened her mouth to reply and choked on sand. “Never mind! Come on! We’re getting out of here!”
They bunched together, and the Vellant’im who had sneaked—or stumbled—among them were quickly dispatched. Jeni maneuvered her horse near and cried, “It’s that way!”
“How can you tell?”
“I just know!” She wiped tears from her eyes, coughing. “Walvis—I think I killed one of them!”
“Well, what do you think war is, you little idiot? If you know where you’re going, then get us there fast!”
Incredibly, she did. Sunrunner, he told himself, grinding his teeth. She deserved to have more than her ears blistered for this, but the look in her eyes told him to go easy. Some people killed in battle without thinking; some without caring; others without remorse. It had nothing to do with male or female; thirty years ago, he’d seen Feylin lop off a Merida’s arm, leave him to bleed to death, and not bat an eyelash as she turned for another target. Some killed with brisk efficiency and shook until midnight in reaction; some were as sick as faradh’im crossing water before the fighting but feasted with perfect cheer once the fighting was over. And some people weren’t bothered by it at all. Killing was something that hit people in different ways.
But by the look in her eyes, Jeni was not someone who would kill again.
She led them from the sandstorm, up the side of the crater against a downdraft that gradually won its battle against the sand. Halfway up, the sky was abruptly clear. Walvis looked back over his shoulder to the storm, as if he were high in the Veresch gazing down at a cloud. He reined in while his people urged their horses up the hill. He identified them all, counting them, nodding encouragement as they passed. Thirty or so wounded; twelve missing, whom he must assume were dead. They might be found once the storm had abated; then again, sand might have buried them forever.
He waited a little while after the last of them went by, hoping the twelve would show up. When he was sure they would not, he rode the rest of the way to the lip of the crater. Chadric, Daniv, and Sethric were there—as were Feylin and Audrite. The latter railed at her husband as he dismounted stiffly, and yelled some more while she unbuckled his armor. He swayed a bit against his horse’s flank when the layers of tunics and shirts were pulled away from a deep graze at his ribs where the oversized armor had been no protection at all.
“You moldering old fool!” she exclaimed, daubing the wound with wine. “How dare you? Of all the stupid, lack-witted, scatter-shelled—“
“Didn’t do too badly for an old fool,” he said, his voice rough from all that shouting. “I got quite a few of them—at least six.”
“One for each rib you broke? Serves you right, you ass! I ought to break another one for giving me heart failure like that!”
Walvis had never heard the calm, elegant Princess of Dorval so much as raise her voice. But for the second time that day she was fairly shrieking at Chadric, utterly beside herself with fury.
The prince, however, was quite content. He smiled at Walvis and winked. Nothing was broken. The padding beneath the overlarge armor had seen to that. He was only bruised and winded. He had finally struck his blow against the enemy who had destroyed so much of what he loved.
Daniv was not as happy. Feylin, having directed the wounded back to the keep, had fixed a steely glare on the young man and ordered him off his horse. He was resisting. Walvis unslung his waterskin, had a drink, and slouched in his saddle prepared to enjoy the show. “It’s only a scratch—“
“It’s only bled right through your shirt and down your arm! Get off that horse now, or when you fall off it from loss of blood I’ll take you over my knee, Prince of Syr or not!”
“There are others more seriously hurt than I,” Daniv began with dignity.
“And plenty of people to take care of them. Down!”
“It doesn’t look too bad, really,” Sethric said, peering at his friend’s shoulder. “How’d you get it?”
“When I made sure that white tunic was good and bloodied as Lord Walvis ordered.”
“Nice work!” Sethric leaned over to clap him on the shoulder. Daniv winced.
Unimpressed, Feylin put her hands on her hips. “Every moment you keep me here is one more moment I’m not tending the others. Now, do you want to play the brave unflinching hero for Jeni’s benefit, or are you going to behave like the prince you’re supposed to be?”
Daniv’s face turned even redder beneath the wind-burn. He slid down off his horse and submitted with poor grace to Feylin’s ungentle ministrations.
“Did you’kill him?” Sethric asked eagerly.
“No, damn it.” He winced as the gouge in his shoulder was cleansed. “You should’ve gone after him, Seth, you’ve got a longer reach and a stronger arm.”
“Yes, but you’re quicker.”
Walvis grinned to himself. If they were busy complimenting each other to prove that Feylin was wrong about their desire to impress Jeni, they were doomed to disappointment. The girl was nowhere to be seen.
He turned his head at the sound of hooves crunching loose ash. “Sweet Goddess!” he exclaimed, recognizing Radzyn’s huntmaster, who led a ragged group up the slope toward him. Eight, ten, eleven—all twelve were accounted for. “Don’t hear this wrong, but what in Hells are you doing here?”
The woman smiled tiredly. “Better here than down there, my lord. We just got a little sidetracked, is all. But it’s like Prince Rohan said—the Desert takes care of her own.”
Feylin quickly checked them over, ordering a few to the makeshift infirmary and the others to their beds
Walvis watched them ride slowly down to the keep, shaking his head in grateful amazement. The Goddess must like him today, he thought; he’d done what he intended without a single casualty.
When everyone else had gone, Feylin at last approached Walvis. “Well? Are you going to be an ass about it, too?”
“About what?”
“Whatever wounds you’re pretending not to have.”
“I’m not pretending. What I am is insulted that you think so little of my prowess that you assume—“
“That’s my property they were mauling about down there.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said meekly. “That’s why I was careful of it.”
“You’re truly not hurt?” She frowned up at him, one hand on his knee.
“Why don’t you strip me and make sure?” he suggested, and, taking her hand, pulled her up behind him on the horse. “You see, I was right after all,” he added as her arms went around his waist and hugged tight, “there’s nothing like a war to make a woman realize how much she adores—ow! Feylin!”
Pol had once said that Laroshin, commander of the guard at Dragon’s Rest, was the perfect servitor: instantly present when required, always unobtrusive when not, and between times doing his job with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of skill. At Stronghold he had fought with the other soldiers, leading when necessary and keeping his mouth shut when Maarken was there to give orders. He had seen to the needs of his fellows on the way to Skybowl and Feruche without making himself noticed. Now he appeared when Meiglan summoned him, and made ready for the return to Dragon’s Rest with typical efficiency.
Meath, who was of two minds about the journey, watched from a corner of the main hall as Sioned bade farewell to her daughter-by-marriage and her grandchildren. They say Rislyn has the look of her, he mused as she knelt to embrace the twins. I suppose it’s the green eyes. And there’s something of the way she looked as a girl, back when she first came to Goddess Keep—the innocence, the shy smile. Who could guess then that she’d become High Princess?
And who would guess now that those girls are no more related to her than they are to me?
He was startled out of his thoughts when Rislyn and Jihan came to hug him around the knees. Bending, he gathered one in each arm and hugged back, flattered by the attention.
But then, he had been their “dragon” several times here at Feruche, and back at Stronghold. “A good dragon,” Jihan had announced then, “but not as good as Grandsir.”
“Take care of yourselves, my ladies,” he told them as he set them down again. “And of your mother.”
“We will,” said earnest Rislyn. “Just please don’t tell us to be good,” Jihan added. “Everybody keeps saying that.”
“Did you ever think there might be a reason?” Meath asked, smiling.
“They always tell you, not me,” Rislyn teased. “But I’m always good! Or at least I never do anything really wrong.”
“Girls! Come along now, we must leave,” Meiglan called from the doorway.
“Coming, Mama!” Looking up at Meath, her blonde head tilted way back, Jihan said seriously, “We’ll take care of Mama, but you have to promise to take care of Granda, Meath.”
“I promise, my lady,” he said, and bowed with one hand over his heart.
Satisfied, she nodded and took Rislyn’s hand. They trailed along in their mother’s wake, and after a moment
Sioned joined him at a window to watch them in the courtyard.
“I don’t half like this,” she murmured. “For one thing,
Jihan is very subdued—for her. She might be a little feverish.”
“Chayla and Hollis think they’ve escaped contagion. I’d say Jihan is just trying to be very grown up. What else bothers you?”
“Rabisa.”
She nodded to where Jahnavi’s widow was being lifted to a saddle. Physical habit straightened Rabisa’s back and made her take the reins that were put into her hands. But attached to the bridle was a lead-rope, the other end held by Tallain’s cousin Lyela, who would ride beside her and take care of her. Someone had to.
“She’s been like a shadow-lost Sunrunner ever since Jahnavi died,” Sioned went on. “I know how she feels. But one of these days she’s going to wake up and remember everything.”
“Won’t it be better for her to do it where she’s not surrounded by reminders of war?”
“Perhaps. But what happens when she realizes her children are at Feruche instead of with her?”
“They’re not well enough to leave. Siona came down with it in earnest the other day. And it’s not as if the poor girl even knows they’re ill. As you say, she doesn’t know much of anything.” Meath shrugged. “I agree with Hollis. Rabisa will be better off someplace quiet and protected.”
Sioned tilted her face up, giving him a curious smile. “Is there one?” Then, looking away again, she said too quickly, “Dannar is more like Riyan every day, isn’t he? Except for that insane head of red hair, of course. And I could swear he’s grown a handspan since Autumn. Alasen won’t know her own son.”
He waited a moment, then asked softly, “And do you know how that feels, too, Sioned?”
“Meath, my old friend,” she murmured, “you know that I love you dearly. But don’t presume too far.”
He backed off from the quiet warning, knowing that Rohan would have pushed. “Shall we go outside and see them away?”
“No, I’m a little tired. I think I’ll go upstairs and rest.”
He nodded and watched her go—not toward the staircase, but the kitchen. Where, Meath knew, a fresh pitcher of wine would be poured for her. She would drink it alone, he told himself in sudden anger, and find her bed tonight as best she could. These past days she’d come downstairs during the day, seeking her wine cup only in the evening. Meath had thought her over the worst of it. Evidently not. But even his seemingly inexhaustible supply of patience faltered at the thought of watching her drink herself close to oblivion again.
Close, but never quite there. No matter how her body tottered and stumbled, her mind and her memory remained steady. It was as if she ran an endless race and someone kept moving the finish line. She could match Meath cup for cup, and though he weighed twice what she did, she never got more than mildly drunk.
He wondered briefly what had set her off today. Then he shook his head and went outside to the back garden, seeking his own oblivion in a long, aimless ride on the sunlight.
As it happened, he had done Sioned an injustice. She went to the kitchen, true, but not for wine. Yesterday, helping tend the children who had come down with silk-eye, she had vaguely remembered something in Lady Merisel’s Star Scroll about a febrifuge more effective than the standard ones. Last night she had spent a long time concentrating very hard, using faradhi memory to call up each page, each recipe. Toward dawn, she remembered the whole of it—disgusted that it had taken so long, and vowing to curtail her consumption of wine. It was warping her memory.
The ingredients were fairly simple, but for a rare herb or two and a very long process of distillation. Claiming a kitchen boy to help her and a place at one of the huge iron stoves, she began the first part of the concoction by boiling strong taze for the base. Then she started down the cellar stairs, intending to rummage through the storage bins for what she needed.
She conjured a fingerflame to light her way. It fluttered gently at her shoulder, as clear and strong as any she had ever made. She stopped and looked at it for a moment, oddly surprised. It was the first Fire she had called since Meath forced her to stop the Fire at Stronghold.
Ten steps, turn at a small landing, ten more steps— the upper door slammed shut behind her, startling her. Reminding her.
There was nothing wrong with her memory. Nothing at all. It took her back more than thirty years. To the other Feruche. To a stumble down hundreds of steps just like these, to a cell shut away from the light—
It came upon her like a dragon’s shadow, talons reaching for her mind. The tiny fingerflame died into darkness and there was no light, no warmth, no hiding from the dark. She was alone in sick blackness and her mouth was sweet with blood.
Sound. Scrape of metal on rock. Her cheek was pressed to the cold wall, her body flattened against it, fingers clawing. But the sound, gold on stone—she slid her hand to her face and explored chill metal with her lips, the way a baby uses its mouth to identify objects. She ran her tongue over the gold, licked at the faceted gem.
She knew what it was, this coldness on her hand. The ring lanthe had stolen. Here, on her finger. Here. Now.
Now, not then.
She began to breathe very carefully, very painfully, as if she had not breathed in a long time. Now. Not then. The emerald was on her finger. She tasted blood tm it, sucked it away.
She lifted her bruised cheek from the wall and opened her eyes to a darkness so absolute that primitive terror, deeper even than a Sunrunner’s fear of a world without light, shook her heart and breath. But there was light: a deep, pulsing emerald glow on her hand.
She watched it, fascinated beyond fear, slowly realizing the throb of it was in perfect time with the stuttering of her heartbeat. Third finger, left hand; the heart-finger, where the pulse of the soul ran truest. She stared at the visible light of her own heart.
Emerald was the stone of hope and renewal. But this emerald had never shone from within. She had never felt power gathering in it, fed by the beat of her own blood.
By her blood.
“Your grace? Your grace, are you down here? Lady Chayla is looking for you. Your grace?”
A candle descended, illumining a small, worried face. Kierun, her mind identified automatically. Pol’s squire.
He clattered down the last few steps to the landing. “Your grace! What happened? Are you all right?”
Sioned pushed herself away from the wall, her gaze fixed hungrily on the candle flame. Light. Light she understood, that flickered only with the wafting currents of air and breath.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she lied. “I stumbled in the dark. Light me back upstairs, please, Kierun?”
“Your hand is bleeding,” he said.
She looked down. Her right hand was indeed scraped raw across the palm. Her left hand, however, was stuck deep in the pocket of her trousers. Instinct.
“It’s not serious. It’ll be all right.”
Back in the warm, bright kitchen, she suffered Chayla to tend her injured hand and kept the other hidden. She would see to that herself. After explaining what herbs were needed, she left the girl to puzzle over the recipe she’d written down this morning and returned to her chambers. Only then did she take her hand from her pocket.
There was a scrape on the heel of her palm, raw but not bleeding. What she’d tasted on the emerald must have been from a bitten lip, then. She turned her hand over.
The ring was just a ring. Only an emerald, surrounded by diamonds, set in gold. There was no sparkle to it but that given by the sunshine.
She ought to find darkness again, find out if it would change. But to be without light, to be shut away for even a moment—she couldn’t do it. Not yet.
Sioned turned to the table, where pitcher and cup waited as usual. Her hand reached, fell back to her side. The emerald glittered, heavy on her finger.
*
Everyone was in the great hall at Skybowl that night, even the wounded on their stretchers. “Not a single injury that won’t heal up just fine,” Feylin had told Walvis, satisfaction tinged with wonder at their luck. So he ordered up a feast to be attended by all, except for a few guards who watched the Vellanti camp by night. One had just come in to report that although the cookfires were mere pinpricks in the dark, the pyre was a considerable blaze.
“No way to tell how many we killed,” he observed to Chadric. “Still, it doesn’t much matter. We stopped them here. They have to stay and burn their dead. Pol ought to arrive tomorrow sometime—and then we’ll have them.”
“But not yet all of them,” Sethric grumbled. “Why did their Warlord send only half his army?”
“Thank the Goddess it was only half,” Walvis said. “We wouldn’t have had a chance with our Isulki imitation.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Chadric mused, shifting uncomfortably against the strapping around his bruised ribs. “Between the sandstorm and that dragon, we did all right. Alleyn, sweet heart, pour your old grandsir some more wine. My aches need numbing.”
Alleyn smiled and happily acted as squire. Prince Lleyn’s Namesake had changed greatly since autumn, her dark red hair lightened by the Desert sun with streaks of gold. That same sun had dusted an infinity of freckles across her nose and cheeks, much to her chagrin. But the most significant alteration was one that happened to all little girls of thirteen or so winters: she was no longer a little girl. Walvis felt sorry that Ludhil and Iliena would miss this transformation while it was happening. He smiled suddenly, remembering Sionell at that age: all elbows and knees and curses under her breath when she bumped into yet another chair. But coltish Alleyn would never be. She moved as delicately as a bird on the wing.
Before she resumed her chair, Daniv leaned over and whispered something. Alleyn shrugged and replied, “Audran went up to tell her dinner was ready, but she wasn’t in her room.”
Walvis hid another smile. If Jeni didn’t want to join them, that was her privilege. Still, he sobered on recalling the look in her eyes earlier. She had killed today, and knew that she had killed. Glancing at Feylin, he decided that his blunt, practical lady was not the person to talk it over with her. Daniv or Sethric would only tell her that a gently reared highborn girl shouldn’t be forced into such a position in the first place, and ought to be protected (volunteers at the ready). Walvis could imagine how that would be received; no fragile flower to begin with, Jeni had lived at Stronghold with Sioned’s vigorous example before her for three years. Audrite might do, even though she had never lifted sword or bow in battle. But she was intelligent and wise, and more sympathetic than Feylin. Yes. He’d mention it later.
Good wine and plenty of food did their work on tired bodies; it was early by most standards when people yawned their way to their beds. Well before midnight Skybowl was silent everywhere but the kitchen. The work of cleaning up after the feast was made easier—if slower—by drinking leftover wine. There was some activity in the infirmary as well, where Feylin made the rounds, giving final orders to those on night duty before she retired to bed.
There was no one to see Jeni slip into the keep just after midnight, shivering in the chill, and pause before the main staircase to rub some warmth back into her hands. No one but two little shadows who crept out from behind a long table and whispered her name.
She nearly jumped out of her skin. “Don’t ever do that! What are you doing up so late?”
“We waited up for you,” Audran explained, taking her hand. “Oh, but you’re cold!” He tucked her fingers against his chest.
She smiled down at her gallant little prince. “Thank you, that’s much better. But let’s go upstairs. It’s very late.”
“Why weren’t you there tonight?” Alleyn asked. “Daniv asked for you.”
“I had something else to do.”
“What?” Audran demanded, performing the same service for her other hand.
“Unless it’s a secret,” his sister added.
Jeni sighed. She really did want to talk to someone about it, before the frustration boiled over. She sat on the bottom step with the children on either side of her, an arm around each.
“It’s a secret among us three,” she said. “Do you promise not to tell?”
They nodded gravely. Misty golden light danced over their faces from the candles on either side of the hallway mirror. It had belonged to Jeni’s father’s first wife, the Sunrunner for whom she was Named. The candle nearest the door had blown out when she and the breeze entered; she thought for a moment, then called Fire to light it again. Audran’s eyes rounded in awe.
“Did they tell you how we were led out of the sandstorm by a dragon’s call? All the while I kept having the strangest feeling. Like something tickling the edge of my thoughts.”
Audran caught his breath. “Was it the dragon? Like Prince Pol and Lord Maarken and them can talk to dragons?”
“Not ‘them,’ “ Alleyn corrected. “ They.’ Oh, Jeni, did the dragon really talk to you?”
“I think he was trying. But I don’t know how to do it! After what happened at Stronghold, being caught up in Princess Sioned’s weaving—I know I’m a Sunrunner, but I don’t know how to do anything! And there’s nobody here to teach me.”
“Meath says some things are easy,” Audran said. “Like calling Fire, and hearing people on sunlight—“
“I can do both of those. And he’s right, you just have to think about it a little the first few times, and then it’s simple.” She nodded to the candle she’d just lit beside the mirror. “But the important things have to be taught. Like really Sunrunning, and talking to a dragon—“
“You were trying tonight.” Alleyn’s voice was hushed. “That’s where you were. Outside with the dragon.”
“His name’s Lainian,” Jeni said absently. He had come to her in a sandstorm, so calling him after sand and wind had seemed natural. “Tonight was just like this afternoon. I could feel him wanting to—I don’t know, it was almost like when Lady Hollis talks to me on sunlight. All the colors. But I don’t know how to go Sunrunning on my own, and unless I find out, I won’t be able to talk to Lainian.”
“And you have to know soon, or he might change his mind?” Alleyn clutched her arm. “Jeni, how awful! But Lord Walvis says Prince Pol will be here soon. He can show you, can’t he?”
She gave a sigh and got to her feet. “I can hardly ask him to postpone the fighting he has to do in order to teach me how to be a real Sunrunner. Come on, let’s get you two upstairs to bed.”
As the children stood up, both gasped. Alleyn shrank against Jeni’s side, whispering, “Do you see it?”
“In the mirror,” Audran breathed.
Jeni looked, and saw nothing but their own reflections in the right-hand quarter of the mirror. “It’s just us,” she began.
“No—look!” Alleyn pointed.
“I don’t see anything.” She glanced up the stairs behind them; empty of everything but the blue carpet runner and the polished brass rods that secured it. Perhaps a flash from one of these had made the children think—
“It’s a man, dark like Mama and all the Fironese,” Audran said. He started forward; Alleyn grabbed his arm. “Let me go! I want to look at him.”
“No!”
“There isn’t anything in the mirror,” Jeni said, pulling them both to the right so that their own reflections vanished.
“He’s gone,” Audran complained.
“He was never there,” she said firmly. “It’s dark, and it was only a trick of the light.”
“But, Jeni, I saw—“
“Imagination and shadows,” Jeni told them, and took their hands to urge them up the stairs.
But when the two children were snug in their own beds, and Jeni had gone to hers, Alleyn whispered, “He was there. I saw him.”
“So did I. Why didn’t she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who do you think he was?” Audran persisted.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know much, do you, Alleyn?”
“Then why are you the one asking all the questions? You don’t know any more than I do. Go to sleep.”