The Azhrei — that was how he thought of himself now — spent the rest of that night at the lakeshore, watching his dragon sleep.
Feylin had completed her rounds at midnight. Pol told her there was yet one more patient, led her to the gates, and pointed at the dragon.
“You’re—“
“No. I’m not joking.”
“But how do I know that what works on people will work on a dragon?”
“You don’t know that it won’t. Just do it, Feylin, please. Help him.”
Azhdeen eyed her narrowly as they approached. But he trusted Pol, if not Feylin, and when encouraged to stretch out the hurt wing, obeyed with what in a human would have been a fatalistic shrug.
Trembling a little at first, gradually she forgot the rest of the dragon’s huge body — and his talons and teeth — and became the physician intent on a cure. Pol assisted, handing her what she needed from her kit and directing a fingerflame as she asked.
Finally she glanced up. “Put him to sleep. I’ve seen your mother do it to a dragon. Go on. This next bit is going to hurt him, and I’d like to survive it. You’re the one he likes, not me.”
He sat with Azhdeen’s great drowsing head across his knees as Feylin worked. When she was done, she tiptoed near and crouched down. Pol moved the fingerflame back a little so it lit her face but not his.
“Getting the arrow out and washing the wound were the best things you could have done. But he flew for a time with the arrow in, and it tore up the muscle. Some of the bones were out of alignment, too. I did some stitching, manipulated everything back into place, but— Hells, I don’t know. I suppose it’ll heal all right if he stays on the ground for a few days.”
He stroked Azhdeen’s nose, seeing the sensitive nostrils twitch. “Thanks, Feylin. I know how you feel about dragons.”
“It’s not dragons I mind, it’s getting close to them.” But her fingers ventured toward Azhdeen’s neck, careful of the spines. She touched, then stroked the tough hide. “Doesn’t bother you at all, does it?”
“He’d never hurt me. But protecting me hurt him. He began the battle tonight. Did you see? Even after what happened to Elidi, even though they’re not scared of dragons anymore, he attacked half an army.”
“Yes, and I also saw you stand between him and a hundred Vellant’im with nothing but a sword.”
Pol shrugged. “I owed it to him.” He watched her scratch the angle of the dragon’s jaw. “Not so frightened of him now, are you?” he asked with a faint smile. “You’ll ruin your reputation.”
“Once he’s awake, you won’t get me within arrowshot of him again.” She rolled her head on her neck, rubbing with one hand at sore muscles. “Well, you’ve won. What are you going to do now?”
He shook his head. “The rest of them are still outside Stronghold. I didn’t win anything. I failed again.”
“Don’t be a fool,” she snapped. “They’re half what they were.”
“So are we,” he replied bluntly. “We don’t have enough left for another battle like this one, Feylin. I won’t use up more lives this way. So that means I must be clever. The next fight must be the final one, between me and him.”
“Him?”
“The High Warlord.” Feylin mulled this over for a time. “Assuming you can arrange it somehow, you’ll have to get past a lot of people who’d rather do it for you. Including my husband.”
“Is he faradhi?” Pol asked.
“Pol, you can’t do it that way.”
“I have to. My father was right. We have to use everything we’ve got. Up at Zagroy’s Pillar I used the Desert. Tonight I used dragons, Goddess help me. Yesterday Walvis used the sandstorm. But they’re still here, Feylin. All I’ve got left to try is myself.”
“And your other Sunrunners.”
“And are they diarmadh’im?” He said it very softly.
By the tiny golden Fire, her face went very still.
“You knew. Walvis must have told you at Remagev, when he found out.”
“Yes. But the Vellant’im are fighting on behalf of—“
“—the diarmadh’im? There’s no proof of it. We’ve just assumed it. And I’m beginning to think we were wrong.” He raked a handful of hair back from his eyes. “Hildreth told me something very interesting the other day. Princess Naydra—Goddess, after all this time I still can’t get used to thinking of her as my aunt, the way Tobin is—“ He shrugged and returned to the subject. “Anyway, she told Alasen that there are two sorts of diarmadh’im. One kind, we met nine years ago. Mireva and my half-brothers. But there’s Ruala’s kind, too, who have nothing to do with these others.”
“If she even knows they exist.” Feylin traced the pattern of inlaid wood on her coffer of medicines. “I think there’s quite a bit that Ruala doesn’t even know that she knows. The coincidence of her grandfather’s name and this Lord Gerik of Lady Merisel’s...”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence, either. He was born around here, you know. And he had a title long before he ruled Goddess Keep with Merisel. They called him azhrei.” He paused as the dragon’s heavy head shifted in his lap. “It’s me they’re after, Feylin. My father, at first, because he was the Azhrei. But now it’s me. And I’m going to have to use that somehow.”
Again she was quiet for a long time. Then, frowning, she said, “Sioned left a lot for them to think about in that half-burned book at Remagev. Take that into account while you plan whatever crazy thing you think the rest of us will let you do.”
“Don’t try to stop me, Feylin.”
“I won’t have to. Plenty of others to do it for me.” She squeezed his shoulder, then rose to her feet and stretched her spine until it gave a muffled crack. “Goddess, I feel a million years old.”
Pol smiled tiredly up at her. “Don’t worry. You only look a hundred.”
“You’re too kind. There’s something else you should consider about this, Pol. Riyan understood a few words of what that leader of their was yelling. He told me while I was with Maarken. The Fire was quick work, by the way. He hardly lost any blood at all.”
Pol said nothing.
“Anyway, Riyan’s translation goes something like, ‘Kill the demon dragon and his master for their evil’— or ‘wrong,’ he wasn’t sure which. He says it was two or three words mushed together and the only one he recognized was the one the Isulk’im use for a poisoned well.”
“I know the word,” Pol murmured. “Andry calls it ‘sin.’ A fault against the Goddess, a breaking of her law.”
Feylin sucked in a breath. “And we all know who gets to punish such faults.”
“And what the punishment is,” Pol agreed. “How very shocked my cousin will be when he finds he has something in common with the Vellant’im. It’s more than the word, you see. What you’ve said fits. They keep coming after the Azhrei, and now they’ve called me the evil master of dragons. So somehow I must have done a sin against whatever they believe in.”
“But they bowed down to Azhdeen at Remagev. They ran away in terror at Lowland from Sioned’s conjuring.”
“And they killed Elidi over Stronghold, and shot Goddess knows how many arrows at Azhdeen tonight.”
“And that means?”
“If I knew, I’d use it. Like I’m going to use myself, and whatever your book told them.” He glanced up at the starry sky. “Go on back now, Feylin. It’s getting cold.”
“Don’t you stay out here all night. Azhdeen’s not a horse, to curl up near you and keep you warm. A dragon’s temperature tends to drop—“
He called Fire beside him on the sand. She cut short her lecture and gave a little grimace before walking back to the keep.
When dawn came Azhdeen stirred awake and lifted his head. Pol used the small Fire to conjure an image of the dragon resting at Skybowl, along with the emotional command: Don’t fly. A snort, a toss of the head, and a scornful rebuttal. Pol grasped the dragon’s muzzle between his hands and stared into dark eyes. Azhdeen looked completely astonished at the presumption. Pol turned him to look at the Fire.
If you fly, you won’t heal. And what then? Could you hunt? Could you win your ladies at the next mating? Could you even survive challenge for them? With each group of words that the dragon could never understand, Pol gave him a picture: an attempt at flight that brought him crashing to the ground, a herd of succulent sheep plodding past him in perfect unconcern, a score of females following another sire, a strong young male roaring derision at a dragon with a useless wing.
Pol had touched him where he lived: his pride. He grumbled with anger and rose on his hind legs, shaking himself all over. Communication was broken so abruptly that Pol was blinded by pain—but not before he tasted fear in the dragon’s colors.
Thoroughly exhausted, Pol climbed to his feet. The castle seemed very far away. During the long night he had resolved nothing, planned nothing, and made only one decision.
There would be only one more battle. And he alone would fight it.
Does that please you, Father? he said to the new sunlight. It’s what you would have done if you could. If you’d been what I am. I’ve been trying to be what you were. I can’t. Mother was right.
You and she made me a Sunrunner, lanthe made me a sorcerer. Last night, Azhdeen made me the Azhrei. Taken together, all those things make a High Prince the like of which has never been seen before. But what I make of what you’ve all made of me ... that’s mine to decide. I think I understand that now.
Is this what Lady Andrade wanted? And Roelstra? You and Mother?
It’s not what Andry has in mind, that’s certain. Perhaps he’ll call it a “sin.”
And wouldn’t Andrade have a screaming fit over that?
*
Amiel of Gilad was four days and ninety measures out of Medawari when, on an after-dinner stroll into the trees to relieve himself, he stumbled into a soldier returning from the same errand. He nodded at her, took two steps, and whirled around again.
“Oh, damn,” said his wife.
The subsequent discussion was conducted in full voice for all the troops and physicians to hear. Amiel demanded to know what she thought she was doing. Nyr told him to take a good guess. He ordered her to go home. She gave him a choice: let her stay or get himself divorced. He informed her that marching with an army was no way to look after herself and the child she carried. She inquired what danger he perceived when half that army was comprised of physicians.
At length, they came to an understanding, spurred by muffled laughter from the people who had gathered in the forest darkness to hear their prince and princess have at each other. Nyr would come with Amiel as far as Catha Heights. Along the way, at the first sign of danger a guard and a physician would whisk her from any potential battle.
Fourteen days out of Medawari, they still had not seen a single live Vellanti warrior. The dead of Gilad and Syr—left to rot where they had been killed that Autumn—had been Amiel’s major concern, and the physi- dans’. Everyone knew that disease attended on unburned corpses. They had been careful, and done for the dead what little could be done by way of ritual burning. But Amiel kept Nyr far away from scenes such as the one encountered a few days ago along the Catha delta. Outside a blackened husk of a farmhouse, what had been a girl-child of no more than six winters lay half-burned—and half-picked over by scavenging animals.
Though Catha Heights was behind him, Nyr was still with him. They had rested there for a few days, made welcome by those of Prince Kostas’ army who had stayed to keep it secure after the battle. Amiel decided it would make a good base for some of the physicians. Goddess knew their skills were needed, for many of the wounded were in a bad way, with only the most rudimentary medicines available to them. He left behind fifteen physicians with orders to take a like number of Syrene troops with them up to River Run and be of what help they could to whoever had survived in between. Then he started down the Catha River to the sea.
But there were no Vellant’im, only the marks of their passing during those terrible Autumn days. It was as if they had blown through in a storm of death and fire, then vanished.
On the fifteenth day, his luck changed. He was just returning from a quick hunt through the forest, pleased with himself and his three companions for having brought down a deer to augment the usual camp stew. A lone rider galloped toward him across a meadow, waving her arm wildly. “Your grace! Your grace!”
His heart turned over in his chest, his immediate thought being his wife. But back at their camp, Nyr was seated quite calmly on a folding stool provided for her at Catha Heights. At her feet was a thin, dirty, bearded man in no need of ropes to bind him, although whoever had found him had tied his wrists and ankles anyway. Fevered dark eyes rolled restlessly in hollow sockets; he didn’t look capable of standing, let alone attacking. “Where did this come from?” Amiel asked.
“The last farm we passed wasn’t entirely burned, my lord,” his wife replied. “Master Chegry here thought there might be something useful inside. I think he expected copper pots and spoons, though. Not a Vellanti.”
“He’s been there all this time? Ever since Autumn?” Amiel prodded the man’s ribs with a boot toe. With a groan and a flinch, he rolled onto his stomach, revealing a blood-crusted hole on the left side of his tunic.
“Looks as if he was wounded and left to die, your grace,” one of the older physicians remarked. “I’ll be more than happy to finish the job.”
Master Chegry, a stocky youth from Meadowlord who didn’t look old enough to have mastered shaving, swung around angrily. “That’s not what we’re sworn to do!”
“After all the dead we’ve seen in Gilad and Syr, you think we should be merciful to this—this—“
“He’s wounded,” said Amiel. “You’re physicians. Heal him.”
Nyr looked up, startled. “My lord?”
“He’s the first one we’ve found alive—the only one we’ve seen at all. And I have about five thousand questions to ask him.”
“We’ve no language in common,” she protested. “Even if he lives—“
“If he’s survived so far, I doubt he’ll die on us now.”
Chegry offered, “The wound is but three or four days old, your grace.”
“So they were here at least that long ago,” Amiel mused. “I wonder if we can catch up to them. Wherever they are.”
Nyr got to her feet. “Be that as it may, my lord, once he has his strength back he’ll try to kill us. You know he will.”
“Or try to escape,” Amiel said.
She blinked, then smiled so dazzlingly that he nearly kissed her, right in front of their troops, the Vellanti, and physicians from all thirteen princedoms. Before he could act on the impulse, Nyr turned to Chegry and said, “Let us know as soon as he’s healthy enough to steal a horse.”
When they were alone, Amiel put his arm around Nyr’s waist and rubbed his cheek to her bronze hair. “If I was sure he’d lead me to where the Vellant’im are, I’d draw him a map. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m spoiling for a fight. Hardly civilized of me.”
“No one could blame you for it, my lord.”
“I blame myself. It’s not what I was taught.”
“It’s not your inclination, either. There are much better things to do with one’s time than fight battles.” She moved a little closer. “I can think of several...”
“So can I. But the baby—“
“—won’t mind at all. Amiel, don’t be silly. He hasn’t even kicked me yet.”
“But—“
Her method of silencing him drove all thought from his head.
Eighteen days out of Medawari, with the Vellanti looking healthier, Amiel stood on a promontory overlooking the Catha delta, marshy land where fresh riverwater played tag with the salt sea. He gazed out at a blue-gray horizon completely free of dragon-headed ships.
“Where in all Hells are they?” he muttered.
Behind him was the shell of Gilad Seahold. Lord Sege-lin, Lady Paveol, and their little boy Edrelin—Namesake of Amiel’s friend Edrel, whose sister Paveol had been— were charred bones somewhere inside, along with all their servants and retainers. The thatched cottages of the fisherfolk were burned and abandoned. Some of the survivors—very few; the Vellant’im had been very thorough—had been at Catha Heights, and told of how a juggler had frightened Paveol, and been chased up to the ramparts, and had thrown a torch over the wall. Signaling easy pickings at the castle, Amiel was sure.
But not even their ships remained.
His captive Vellanti had proved uncooperative. He behaved himself perfectly, never even murmured when the physicians tended his wound, and flatly refused to attempt an escape.
“What’s that idiot waiting for?” Amiel fumed, and at his side Nyr shrugged. She was plying a comb through her tangled hair, thwarted at every attempt by a wind that seemed determined to tie it into knots. Amiel watched for a moment, then said, “Let me do that.” It was oddly soothing to comb out his wife’s hair, and after a time he smiled. How his childhood playmates would gape in disbelief if they saw their imperious prince playing lady’s maid.
“We’ve given him every chance,” Nyr mused, taking the section Amiel had freed of snarls and beginning to plait it. “We ‘forget’ to put ropes on him. We make sure the guard is distracted. We let him near enough to the horses that all he’d need do is jump onto one...”
“You’d think he doesn’t want to escape.” Amiel listened to that, his hands moving automatically through the long, shining strands. “Perhaps we’ve made it too easy.”
“My lord?”
“They left him for dead. What if he showed up at their camp, healed and healthy and without a mark on him? How could he explain it?”
She looked over her shoulder, eyes wide. “Amiel! You don’t mean you’re going to torture him!”
“Of course not! But what if we don’t make things quite so easy? Your uncle’s a hawkmaster—when do the birds try hardest to escape?”
“Unhooded but still jessed,” she answered slowly, then caught her breath. “They can see freedom but can’t get at it. Oh, Amiel, of course!”
“If we tie him to leave bruises, maybe cobble up something in steel that he can’t get off, they’ll see what he had to do to get away. So they’ll praise him for his bravery instead of killing him for still being alive!”
Nyr turned, the wind undoing all Amiel’s work, and kissed him. “Wonderful, my lord!”
“I do try,” he said modestly, and grinned. So cuffs were made of spare cinch-rings, pried open at their joining and wrapped tightly around the man’s wrists, and linked by strong chain from an extra bridle. But all that evening and through the night the Vellanti did nothing.
Then, the morning of their nineteenth day out of Med-awari, Nyr approached him bearing a basin, soap, and Amiel’s straight razor.
“Lice,” she said, and mimed scratching at her own chin and cheeks.
His eyes popped half out of his head and he howled with outrage. She frowned and backed away, but by her gestures gave him to understand that sooner or later she meant to do it.
With the incentive of an unthinkable desecration to spur him, he was gone by noon.
The guard assigned to watch but not hinder him came up to Amiel as the prince was checking his horse’s hooves for stones.
“Your grace, he took the hint.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I think I was convincing,” he added with a wince.
Straightening, Amiel tucked the hoofpick into his belt. “But you’re all right? That’s a nasty lump.”
“Oh, not much of a one, your grace. I’m fine—the more so for seeing my wife and her brother start after that bearded savage, just as your grace planned.” He grinned. “I only pretended to be out cold. I saw the whole thing.”
“Wish I had, too! Which direction?”
“Due east, your grace, right along the shoreline. Muddy going, I’m afraid. And I can’t think what he’s after, to leave such clear tracks without caring about it.”
“Hmm. Interesting point. Well, we’ll soon see, won’t we? Have Master Chegry tend that for you. Nice work.”
The little army of soldiers and physicians mounted up. They would never quite catch up to the Vellanti until the man had reached his goal—wherever and whatever that might be.
They saw it sooner than Amiel had anticipated. Just at dusk, after they crossed the last fording of the Catha delta and crested the bluffs above, Nyr gave a sudden cry and pointed to the southern horizon.
Ships, their square sails white in the gloom, were angling in for the bay at the mouth of the Faolain.
Amiel reined in and stared thoughtfully at the display. Then he said something that made his wife feel queasy for the first time in her pregnancy.
“I wonder ... does anyone here know how to sail one of those things?”
*
Hildreth and Ullan stood with Princess Lisiel on the covered porch of the Princess Hall, watching Miyon and his Cunaxan troops ride down the valley to Dragon’s
Gullet.
“Thank the Goddess, he’s finally gone,” Lisiel murmured.
“You don’t really think he’s going to Swalekeep, do you, your grace?” asked Ullan.
The princess shrugged. “He can go to the Hell of his choosing for all I care, as long as he’s not at Dragon’s Rest when Princess Meiglan gets here. Besides, how much damage can he do with only twenty soldiers?”
Hildreth smiled as her husband scowled. “If it’s Swale-keep he’s headed for, there’s nothing to worry about. I knew Ostvel in our youth at Goddess Keep. He’ll know what to do with Prince Miyon.”
“If Miyon ever gets to Swalekeep,” Ullan warned. “Wherever he goes, he’s not our concern any longer,” Lisiel said firmly. “Come, we’ve much to do to make ready for the High Princess.”
Miyon was as glad to see the last of Dragon’s Rest as Lisiel was to see the last of him. He knew she doubted his intention to go to Swalekeep. He didn’t care if she thought he was going to a stone hut on the farthest of the Far Islands. All that mattered was where that so-called Merida courier thought he was going—and it wasn’t to Rezeld Manor.
The “Merida” was oblivious to all of it, being still sound asleep in his bed in a locked room. When he woke, sometime around noon, he lazed for a while in luxurious enjoyment of warm, dry blankets and a real bed beneath his sore backside. At last he rolled to his feet and dressed, and with his clothes he also donned a different face.
He never saw a middle-aged woman with gray-green eyes stop abruptly outside in the corridor. The muscles of her shoulders twitched and her fingers moved as if to ward something away. Her perceptions were dull with disuse. She had no need of them in serving her lady and the two little princesses, and there was always the chance that Pol might sense something. But she knew the feel of a spell being woven, especially this spell.
Suspicion, comprehension, and fear chased each other across her face. After a second convulsive shudder, Tha-nys quickened her steps down the hallway.
But there was no escape. Nine years ago she had won free of her family’s ambitions and thought their scheming as dead as Mireva. Evidently not—for who else would come to Dragon’s Rest wearing a shape-changing spell but another diarmadhi?
*
After Pol’s warning not to fly, Azhdeen settled himself huffily down to sleep once more. Pol went out to see him that afternoon. The dragon sensed his presence, lifted his head, and yawned in Pol’s face.
If he hadn’t been sure it would crack his skull open, Pol would have laughed. His headache, product of the crack across the helm he’d received yesterday, lack of sleep, and the usual results of a chat with Azhdeen, was a brutal clanging from one side of his skull to the other. Even a smile hurt. But smile he must as the dragon stretched, yawned again, and meandered over to the lake for a drink.
“Feeling better, I see,” Pol commented. The huge head craned around at the sound of his voice. A low rumble greeted him, and the offering of bright tangled colors.
“Oh, Goddess—not just now, Azhdeen, please!” The weave slipped around him anyway, and he flinched and swayed.
“My lord? Pol?”
Azhdeen released him with an irritated growl. Pol squinted at the person—a girl, she wore a skirt—who stood a respectful distance from him and the dragon. Slow-witted, he sorted through the list of persons here at Skybowl who were young, female, and addressed him by his name.
“Jeni?” When she moved closer, his vision solidified and showed him the pitcher and cup in her hands. “If that’s more of Kazander’s brew, give it here. Nothing could possibly make me feel worse than I do right now.”
She smiled, pouring a slosh of wine into the cup. After handing it to him, she reached in the pocket of her gown for a couple of thin, round wafers. “Lord Kazander sent the wine, but Feylin sent these. They’ll help your headache and settle your stomach.”
“Promises.” He chewed the wafers, washed them down with wine, and managed not to choke. “I must be as crazy as Kazander. I’m starting to get used to this stuff. So, Jeni, what’s the bad news?”
“Bad—?” She frowned.
“Whatever it is you have to tell me that you had to make me feel better to hear.”
“But there isn’t any bad news, Pol. No one died during the night, and Feylin says that with luck, no one will. The Vellant’im are all gone—every last one of them—so Lord Riyan led some people down to collect our dead.”
“And—and Maarken? How is he?”
“Sitting up, wide awake—well, almost,” she corrected with a smile. “Whatever Feylin gave him for pain makes him nod off now and then. But he’s fine, really.”
Pol nodded, and started back with her to the keep. At every other step both his knees cracked like dropped plates.
“Pol...”
“Mmm?”
“Could you—I mean, you were talking with your dragon a little while ago, weren’t you?”
“He made the attempt. I’m not up to it.” He found Azhdeen with his gaze. “He’s not limping, is he?”
“He looks as if he’s favoring the one wing a little.”
“As long as he doesn’t try to fly on it.”
“You can tell him that, can’t you?”
“I already did. It remains to be seen if he’ll pay any attention to me. Stubborn beasts, dragons.”
“I know.”
Pol studied her for a moment. “My dear,” he said, “you have your father’s eyes—and their total inability to conceal feelings. What else do you want to know about dragons, that you think only I can tell you?”
She blushed all over her round cheeks, and burst out, “How to talk to them. To one. I’ve named him Lainian. That means—“
“ ‘Sand wind,’ yes, I know. Did you pick him out of the bunch?”
“He picked me.”
She told him about the sandstorm, and how the dragon had hovered and cried out, and her sensation of his approach. “But I don’t know how to answer,” she concluded, frustrated. “I can feel him, Pol, but I can’t do anything about it.”
“Which one is he?”
Jeni pointed to the lip of’the crater. “The reddish-brown one with black undersides to his wings. Isn’t he beautiful?”
Pol—who had watched Daniv and Sethric watch Jeni back at Stronghold—had the sudden wry thought that if she ever spoke of a young man with that proud and dreaming note in her voice, he’d be down on his knees instantly.
“Well, as you don’t really know how to go Sunrunning, you can’t expect to be able to talk with a dragon. If you can bear to wait until these clouds blow over, then I’ll teach you enough so you can.”
“Oh, would you, Pol? Please?”
He laughed aloud.
“You must think it’s stupid,” she muttered, head bent to hide her crimson cheeks.
“Not at all. I know what Lainian is offering you. He must be just as impatient as you are. But before I teach you, Jeni, you have to promise you won’t try things that are beyond your knowledge.”
“I won’t—I mean, I will promise,” she said. “But it’s so unfair! Just because my parents don’t like Lord Andry, I can’t be trained as a Sunrunner. I’m sixteen, and I’d have at least one ring by now, probably two, and had my first—“
She closed her mouth with a snap, and this time the blush went to her hairline. Pol felt no urge to laugh. He knew very well who had the woman-making night of most of the girls at Goddess Keep—and the thought of Andry bedding Alasen’s daughter made him nauseous.
“Your parents have their reasons,” he managed. “And I have mine for making you promise. Since you have, then with the first good bit of sunlight, I’ll teach you how to weave your colors with those of your dragon. It’s similar to what Hollis does when speaking to you on sunlight. But the strength of a dragon can knock you out the first time, until you show him how to be careful.”
“The sires are the most powerful, aren’t they? Feylin says so.”
“True. I’m impressed that Lainian didn’t just grab onto you and half-drown you in his colors the way Azh-deen sometimes does with me. He seems to value you very highly already. But don’t mistake—they don’t feel about us the way we feel about, say, a friend or family.”
“What do dragons feel?” She stood beside him, offering the wine cup once more. “Do you need more of this?”
“No, thanks, I’m fine. But I think I need some more sleep.” They continued their slow circuit of the lake back to the castle.
“Riyan and I have talked about it,” Pol mused. “We’re rather like pets to dragons. They’re fond of us, like we’d be with a cat or a stuffed toy. Yesterday, even though Azhdeen was hurt, when the Vellant’im were marching straight for us he put his wing around me— damned near suffocated me, too,” he added, smiling.. “So they do care.”
“Of course. But not as friends, Jeni. After all, look at us compared to them. We’re nowhere near their equals— and I’m not referring to size. You’ll feel it when you touch Lainian’s colors. Dragons are so incredibly powerful.”
She was quiet for a moment, matching his strides in the sand. “Is it anything like what happened at Stronghold? Your mother’s weaving, I mean.”
“You were caught up in that, weren’t you? I’d forgotten. Well, double that, double it again, and imagine it’s a stained-glass window with four or five suns shining through it at different angles. All the colors are wrapped around you. Add to it emotions that are just as strong, and conjured pictures in the air between you and the dragon—all alive and swirling with color and feeling— and you get an idea of what it’s like. And that’s when the dragon is being gentle.”
That kept Jeni silent until they were nearly at the gates. Then she shook her head. “If you’re trying to scare me, it didn’t work. I still want to learn. Will you still teach me?”
“Of course! And I wasn’t trying to frighten you. I just want you to know something of what you’ll feel.” He glanced up. The sun was a vaguely brighter patch of haze in a gray sky. “But not today.”
She frowned up at the sun as if it had offended her, and he laughed again. Putting an arm around her shoulders, he waited until she turned her face up to his with a rueful smile on her lips, and kissed her forehead.
“Patience,” he teased. “Patience! Do you know how much I hated that word when I was your age, and learning how to be a Sunrunner?”
“I’ve heard my father say it’s not a word you’re too fond of now, either,” she replied archly.
“Ostvel knows me far too well for my own comfort. Come on, I need something to eat and someplace to sleep, and I need it now.”
“Patience!” Jeni giggled, and he growled at her.
*
It didn’t occur to Laric until they were well out to sea that Rohannon was a Sunrunner who wasn’t sick on water.
They had spent the previous night slowly sending those of their troops housed inside the residence at Einar down to the docks, with orders to have everyone on board by dawn. Rohannon’s frantic warning had not been discounted by Arlis, but he had pointed out that no one, not even Sabriam or a diarmadhi, was insane enough to kill three princes and the son of the Desert Battle Commander in one night and claim that all the deaths were accidents.
But that Sabriam and his ally—or allies—were stupid was obvious. “They would’ve done better to kill me,” Laric said. “After all, I’m the one bound for Firon with an army to dislodge them.”
Arlis agreed, and thought it highly likely that something might happen on the way to Snowcoves. So despite concurring with Rohannon that haste was essential, he took time to make certain that every man and woman on each ship was known to him personally. Laric vouched for those brought with him from Dragon’s Rest. And sure enough, four young men were discovered who had no good reason for being among the troops other than an avowed desire to fight. These were summarily ordered to return to their homes.
They might have been telling the truth. Arlis didn’t risk it. Just before dawn, he called for the sails to be set and all speed made from Einar.
If Sabriam knew of it, there was no sign. No one came to the docks to protest, much less to give them the athrfs farewell. Laric thought this suspicious, and said so, but Arlis only shrugged.
“I left him a letter. What more does he want? If he has a problem, he can bring it up at the next Rialla.”
“Besides,” Rohannon put in, leaning into the breeze, “you’re princes. He can hardly forbid you to go where and when you like.”
It was at this point that Laric noticed the oddity: a Sunrunner on water and still on his own two feet.
Rohannon spread his hands in an eloquent gesture. “I don’t argue with it, my lord. I just savor it while it lasts. Because it won’t. I learned that on the way here.”
Arlis grinned. “By noon our poor little Sunrunner will be crumpled in a miserable heap, retching his guts out. I’ve got a bucket all ready for him.”
The squire made a face. “You’re too good to me, my lord.”
“I know.” He ruffled Rohannon’s windblown hair. “While you’re still upright, take a look ahead and tell me what the sea’s like.”
A few moments later, Rohannon said, “Now I know why Sabriam isn’t worried. His Sunrunner must’ve told him we won’t get far. There’s a storm coming right through the strait between Isel and Fessenden.”
“Bad?” Arlis frowned.
“The kind that blows all the way to Lake Adni and sets windows rattling at Zaldivar. I don’t think even you could sail through this one, my lord.”
Arlis looked tempted. But a storm of this kind was the most dangerous on all the seas around the continent, for the strait acted like a funnel to concentrate the force of wind and rain.
“Bet I can outrun it,” the prince said. “All the way around your island?” Laric asked. “All the way around,” Arlis confirmed. “It’ll take us a few more days to reach Snowcoves, and I’m sorry for it. But better to get there late than not at all.” He moved off to give the orders.
Laric watched Rohannon speculatively. “I was a little boy when your father came to Graypearl as my grandfather’s squire. Maarken used to be sick just thinking about the trip to Radzyn and back.”
“Oh, I know what’s coming, my lord,” the boy said glumly. “And it makes me the same kind of queasy. But I’ve got until around noon, as Prince Arlis says. After that, I probably won’t know my own name until we get to Snowcoves.”
“It’s a long journey. If you can’t keep food or water down you really will get sick, and not just from the sea.
Perhaps we should stop at New Raetia and put you ashore.”
“No, my lord, please. I’ll be all right. I promise.”
Laric frowned and was about to say more when Arlis yelled for Rohannon from the upper deck. The squire escaped gladly, appalled that his stupid Sunrunner weakness might cost him this adventure. He’d just have to be stronger than it was.
“I nearly forgot about those damned Vellanti ships we sent running before. Rohannon, tell me where they are.”
“Yes, my lord.” Rohannon was a little ashamed of himself. His chance for excitement counted for nothing compared to his lord’s need for a Sunrunner. He ranged south over Brochwell Bay, but with the dranath fading he didn’t feel confident enough to go as far as Goddess Keep. So he returned and asked for something to drink, saying with a smile that though it might not look it, Sun-running did give a man a thirst.
While Sabriam’s court Sunrunner examined Camanto’s body last night, Rohannon had sneaked out a quick hand and snatched up one of the leather pouches of herbs in the man’s coffer of medicines. All the bags were conveniently tagged. The one he drew surreptitiously from his pocket now was, of course, dranath, its label removed. While Arlis conferred with the ship’s master, Rohannon sprinkled a pinch of dried leaves into the water a page had brought him.
When, in due course, he reported back to Arlis about the Vellanti fleet, it was to say that they were settled off the coast of Goddess Keep, threatening no one for the moment. And if the drug in his bloodstream slurred his speech just a trifle and put a flush in his cheeks, everyone assumed it was only the beginnings of the usual Sunrunner seasickness.
*
Jayachin would have disagreed vehemently with Ro-hannon’s estimation of the danger posed by the Vellanti ships. But Jayachin was not in charge of defenses at God- dess Keep. Torien was. And Torien, having tested the ros’salath and grown more confident in its use—and knowing that Prince Elsen of Grib was on his way with soldiers to defend Goddess Keep—was not overly worried.
Until he discovered that Valeda was not in the castle.
She had sent word two days ago that she wasn’t feeling well and would remain in her chambers. The next morning he’d sent someone to inquire after her health, and was told she’d left orders not to be disturbed. Now, tonight, he let himself into her rooms with the master key and stopped in his tracks.
Her bed was tidily made, her books and personal things in place, her wardrobe door shut. But the hearth was long cold, and tacked to its wooden mantle was a folded piece of parchment with his name on it.
I’ve gone to help Andry if I can. If he’ll let me. The past few days I tested a few of those he tested before, after Odel and Rusina died. Teach Martiel and Linis to be devr’im. Their colors are right, and Martiel is diarmadhi, which may help. Take care of my daughter. And for the love of the Goddess, don’t let that fool Jayachin bully you.