Dinner was all ghosts and echoes, absent voices more audible than present ones. Eight people clustered at one end of the Attic’s long table, leaving the bottom half abandoned like a child. Everyone pretended to eat and no one said more than three words at a time.
Halfway through a meal no one wanted in the company of people who never met each other’s haunted eyes, Chay suddenly slammed one hand down flat on the table, making the crystal rattle.
Everyone jumped, startled out of private worries. Chay saw this with satisfaction and leaned back in his chair.
“All right, then,” he said. “Somebody say something. Pol, tell me about what happened down at Skybowl.”
“Uh—yes,” Pol answered, and gathered his wits. Not an easy task; he was seated next to Sionell, so close that their arms occasionally brushed. Every touch went through him like a flash of lightning.
He talked, drank wine to ease his throat, and talked some more. He stammered a little when it came time to tell of Maarken’s injury, and around the table felt everyone else flinch along with him. But when he spoke of teaching Jeni how to talk to her dragon, they all seized on it as the only light note in the whole proceeding.
“A damned good thing there weren’t any dragons at Graypearl while I was giving you your first Sunrunner lessons,” Meath told him. “Otherwise you’d never have learned to add two and two.”
“I can’t anyhow,” Pol replied with a shrug. “Never could. Audrite did her best, but I’m hopeless.”
“Never mind,” Chay said. “A prince should never do himself what others can do better and faster for him.”
“A lesson well-learned,” Sionell remarked, so softly that only Pol heard.
She means Tallain. He turned crimson and stared at his plate.
“—about the mirror, Pol,” Maarken was saying at the same time.
He grabbed at the words like bricks for a wall. “Yes, the mirror. The one that hangs in the entry at Skybowl, Mother, that belonged to your friend Camigwen.”
“What about it?” Sioned looked up from rearranging broiled vegetables with her fork. “It’s ... kind of hard to explain, but—”
“Give it a try,” Sionell murmured. She’s not just angry. She hates me for what I’ve done. Goddess help me, I deserve it. Tobin’s prediction about Sionell’s temper had been right. It was just the timing that was wrong.
He began to tell them about the mirror, even while his brain argued with itself. I can let her slice me up into dragon fodder, or I can do the smart thing and run like all Hells. Neither prospect held any appeal. What he wanted from her was ... was... What did he want from Sionell? “Alleyn and Audran really did see it. There’s something in that mirror. Someone.”
“Preposterous,” Chay snapped.
“I agree,” Meath said. “But then again, I thought the same thing when we started learning what the Star Scroll really is.”
Sioned was tapping a finger against the rim of her cup. “What did he look like?”
Pol thought for a moment, calling up the picture in his mind. “Thin, high cheekbones, longish hair. Definitely Fironese. Black hair, dark skin, the tilt to the eyes. About my age, between thirty and thirty-five.”
“What was he wearing?”
“All the mirror showed was his face.”
His mother regarded him narrowly. “What was in his eyes, Pol?”
“His eyes?”
“Fear? Anger? Sadness? Pride? Come, your father and I taught you to read faces. What was in his?”
Again he was quiet for a moment, considering. “I think ... I think he was resigned. As if there was no hope, and he’d even forgotten what hope is. And loneliness, no, that’s wrong.” He frowned. “It was as if he’d always been alone, and had never known anything else. It wasn’t a sad face, though he’d known grief. It was more ... tired. Accepting that he was utterly alone and hopeless. He’d gotten used to it because he had to. Because there was nothing else.” He shrugged again, embarrassed. “You’ll have to ask Riyan when he gets here tomorrow.”
“But I’ll never see him,” Sioned mused. “Only you, Riyan, Ruala, and Maara will be able to see this man. Whoever he was.”
Pol kept his muscles from tensing. Sioned, so close to him, felt it anyway.
“Most of us know,” she said aloud. “And those who don’t—well, it’s time they found out. How can you Sunrunners fix what went wrong at Stronghold if half of you are ignorant of what kind of power you have to work with?”
He made himself look at each of them in turn. His mother and Chay looked back calmly. Maarken stared at the wine cup in his remaining hand. Hollis seemed puzzled; Ruala nodded gently to herself as if a suspicion had been confirmed. Meath wore no expression at all.
Sionell spoke again into the silence. “Pol is Rohan’s son by lanthe of Princemarch—which makes him Lal-lante’s grandson and diarmadhi.”
Hollis gave a muted gasp and turned accusingly to her husband. “You never—and you knew—“
“It wasn’t my secret to share, not even with you,” he replied, gray eyes opaque as a cloudy sea.
“Which doesn’t seem to have stopped you” Pol rasped, glaring at Sionell. “Perhaps now you’d care to review your version of my character as well as the circumstances of my birth. Or shall I tell them myself what you think of me?”
“I told them the truth,” she said heatedly. “As you should have done a long time ago. They deserve to know.”
He sprang to his feet, her words further infuriating him. “Then tell them the rest of it, Sionell—all the vicious details of what lanthe did to my father while she kept him here, what my mother went through. If you can wait a moment, I’ll find you a map so you can show them exactly how she came here from Stronghold to claim me!”
“Stop it!”
“You began it! Finish it! Give them the whole story, Sionell!”
“That’s enough!” Chay thundered. “More than enough,” Pol agreed. Kicking the chair out of his way, he strode blindly from the room.
Sioned leaned back, wine cup in hand, a sardonic smile on her lips. “You’re subtle, the pair of you,” she said. “I’ll give you that.”
Hollis began to rise, then sank back down again. “No, I think I’d rather hear it from one of you. Chay?”
He lifted one shoulder. “It’s not my story to tell, either.”
“Nor mine,” Meath said quietly. “But I saw most of it.”
“Then tell me!” Hollis demanded. “You can’t just leave something like that hanging in the air like smoke.” Meath glanced at Sioned, who nodded permission and rose to her feet. “But you’ll forgive me if I leave you now and find Pol. If both of us were younger, I’d take him across my knee. Goddess, but he can be stupid.” She smiled again and drained her wine cup. “I wonder who he gets it from.”
That silenced them all. She glanced at each tense face, her gaze finally meeting that of her Namesake. “As for you—“
Sionell bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of it.”
“No, my dear. You shouldn’t. But not for the reason you’re thinking.” Turning to Meath, she finished, “Don’t drag it out too long. Everyone’s tired and needs a good night’s sleep.”
She left them, but did not go looking for Pol. She sought her own rooms and tucked herself into a chair where she could watch the stars. A long while later the bedchamber door opened—as she had known it would— and solid footsteps hesitated on the carpet behind her.
“Come in, Meath,” she said without glancing around.
“Sioned—“
“Did you expect me to be surprised, my old friend?”
“You knew?” He came to stand by the window, between her and the stars.
“Oh, yes.” Her voice sounded strange in her ears, like nubby silk, smooth but with a catch in it every so often. “As little as I remember of that time, I knew that someone watched. Andrade would never have demeaned herself to do her own spying. No one else would have been so scrupulously careful not to be noticed. And the feeling always faded before the sunlight did, so my watcher had to be eastward of me, where the sun sets earlier. Graypearl seemed logical.”
“I should have realized,” he admitted ruefully. “You’re not angry?”
“Should I be?”
“A little. Perhaps. I don’t know.” He sat in the window embrasure, leaning back against the wall. “Did you find Pol?”
“I didn’t look. It’s not me he needs to talk to.”
Meath frowned, then gave a start. “Sionell? They’ll rip each other’s eyes out. I thought he was going to slap her.”
“Lacking manners as he may, slapping her isn’t what he has in mind.”
“You’ll have to explain that one. And what you meant about why Sionell shouldn’t have said what she did.”
“Isn’t it obvious? She thought she’d hurt me, and she was sorry for it. But you know, Meath, now that Rohan’s gone, it doesn’t bother me much anymore. He was the one who was ashamed. Oh, not of Pol, but of what led to Pol’s birth. He was always afraid of that side of himself. The savage.”
“And you?” he asked softly. “What did you fear that you don’t anymore?”
She inhaled deeply and blew out the breath in a long sigh. “It’s a long time since I stopped being afraid that Pol would despise me for what I did. No, what I always feared was the look in Rohan’s eyes. As if he’d betrayed not just me but everything he was.”
“With Pol as living proof? But it wasn’t Rohan’s fault. He knew that.”
“What the mind sees clearly, the heart often clouds. Things happen as they happen, Meath. What will be arises from what we are.” She remembered the pebble and the pond, and the visions that had come to her there. “Pol is the result of scheming and lies and murder—but he’s also a living reminder that Rohan wasn’t perfect. No one likes to have that thrown in his face, but when one is High Prince...” She ended with a shrug.
Meath shook his head. “Rohan was never that arrogant.”
“Of course he was. As much and sometimes more than the rest of us. He knew it, and laughed at it most of the time. But he was the High Prince. If he couldn’t govern his own life, how could he govern the princedoms?” She saw that she was drumming her fingers on one drawn-up knee. The emerald sparkled by candlelight. Only a sparkle, not a throbbing. “Rohan’s tragedy was that he tried to be a civilized man in a world of barbarians. His triumph was that he kept on trying.”
“Well, Pol’s tragedy is not who birthed him,” Meath said firmly. “That’s too easy.”
“I quite agree.”
He waited for more, but she said nothing. At last he prompted, “You still haven’t told me why Sionell was wrong to say it.”
Sioned glanced at him, another little smile teasing her lips. “Not because Hollis and Ruala shouldn’t know.”
“Because of Pol himself, then?”
“Meath, you are giving a very good impression of a dragon gnawing at a bone already picked clean.”
“To get at the marrow,” he growled. “Crack it for me.”
“It’s wide open and has been since she started talking.”
“Sioned—“ he warned.
“Oh, very well.” She hunched down in her chair, legs curled to one side, hands clasped around them. “She knows what he is and it doesn’t matter to her. Being diarmadhi is just one more part of him, one more color in his pattern, if you will. But he’s painfully aware that to some people, this would matter very much.”
“Andry?” he guessed.
“What does Pol care what Andry thinks? In fact, he’ll probably enjoy flinging it in his face. No, this is someone much closer—whose love he fears will change, once she knows.”
Meath’s eyebrows climbed his forehead into his thick fringe of graying hair. “Meiglan? You’re crazy! She worships him!”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You’re not serious!”
“Never more so. And it’s precisely because she worships him. It’s not something you or I ever came up against, you know. We like what we are, we enjoy what power gives us. So does Pol. He loves using any kind of power. But what he possesses is different from the ordinary kind of Sunrunner. And that’s really what he wants to be. Ordinary.”
“Pol?”
“Well, look at the girl,” Sioned invited. “That delicate, shy, enchanting little darling of his heart, who adores him utterly and never questions a word he says. Personally, I’d find that stultifying, but ...” She wrapped her arms around her knees again, resting her chin on them. “Don’t mistake me. I’m fond of Meiglan.
But what she loves isn’t Pol as a whole man. She’s afraid of the Sunrunner and the man who talks with a dragon and the High Prince—“
“—and the diarmadhi? Yes, I begin to see what you mean. But they’re happy, Sioned. She suits him.”
“In many ways, yes.” All at once she grinned. “Though he got the shock of his life when she turned up at Stronghold! You should’ve seen his face!”
“I don’t think she deserves your contempt!” Disapproval knitted his brows back where they belonged.
“There, you see? You misunderstand me. I admire her courage in coming to the Desert. But I admire her even more for leaving. Pol is the center of her existence. She’s lost without him. I know something of how that feels,” she admitted without bitterness.
“Meiglan wouldn’t change if she knew. You could never make me believe she would, Sioned.”
“Your belief doesn’t count. Pol’s does. Sionell brought that fear back to him tonight. It doesn’t matter to Ell except as a potential source of power to defeat the Vel-lant’im. She won’t change. Meiglan might. And to make things really amusing, at the same time Sionell made him see something else—of which, thank the Goddess, she is blissfully ignorant.”
“I’m tired of guessing games,” Meath snapped. “Oh, it was all over his face! He didn’t Choose the woman he should have, and he’s finally realized it.” Sioned rested her cheek against her knees, closing her eyes to the sight of Meath’s shock. “Goddess grant that it doesn’t become his tragedy.”
*
No one spoke to him or even looked at him on his way to his tower rooms. No one dared.
Let her claw him? Run away? Well, she’d drawn blood and he’d fled.
Damn her for doing this to him.
As if it was her fault.
He tore off his tunic and flung it anywhere. It slid across a table and a pair of crimson glass bowls caught in its folds as it fell, bouncing softly against the carpet. There wasn’t even the satisfaction of a crash. He had an insane urge to smash the crystal beneath his bootheels, grind them into the rug. Destroy a tiny part of the beauty Sorin had created here at Feruche.
Sorin’s Feruche. Not lanthe’s, where he’d been born— as Sionell had pointed out to his shame tonight. He hated her for it.
He loved her more than pride or shame or his own life.
He must be losing his mind.
Love shouldn’t hurt like this. Love was the finest thing a human could feel. There ought to be wine in his blood, not acid. That was what all the bards sang of, what all the tales and legends asserted was true, what everyone hoped for while growing up, what he had seen over and over again in the marriages around him.
It shouldn’t hurt this much. But how should he know? He’d never felt this way about Meiglan.
He could never love Meiglan this way, not if he spent a hundred years with her. Nothing in her could awaken this passionate hurt.
Gentle Meggie. Delicate, shy, enchanting Meggie. She was everything Sionell was not. That was how he had always thought before. Now—
Sionell was everything Meiglan could never be. He discovered he was pacing, and had crushed the bowls under his heels. Deep red shards littered the carpet like bloodstains. It didn’t make him feel better. He was deeply, insanely, desperately in love with a woman who was not his wife.
A woman who had adored him as a child, loved him hopelessly as a young girl. A woman whose love he had thrown away. A woman who had loved and wed someone else, one of his dearest friends, a man eminently worthy of her love—more worthy than he, Goddess knew.
A woman who despised him for being her beloved husband’s death.
He could almost hear the Goddess laughing at him. She could be cruel, that one. He had seen that aspect of her tonight in Sionell’s eyes.
Someone had the colossal gall to enter the anteroom of his chambers. He swung around and snarled through the open inner door, “Leave me!”
“Not before I’ve said what I came to say.” Oh, perfect. It only lacked her actual presence to make his madness complete. He nearly lost his balance with pain and weakness and something close to fear. Sionell stood in the doorway, inevitable, implacable, her gaze like icy sapphires.
“So,” Pol said. “You still haven’t run out of swords to stick in me tonight?” Astounding; his voice was level and as cold as her eyes. He felt feverish, almost sick. “Well? Come on, then. Have at me.”
She said nothing. He couldn’t look away from her eyes. He had never noticed their exact color before—the dark gray rim around the irises, the flecks of silvery white paling the blue, making them as changeable from blue to gray as his were from blue to green. “I’m waiting!”
Sionell bent her head, lowering her gaze to her clasped hands. “I came to tell you I regret what happened tonight.”
How dared she spare him—and herself? “Is that your idea of an apology?”
She drew a slow, controlled breath. “I didn’t say ‘I’m sorry’ because I’m not. But I wish it hadn’t happened that way.”
“I can’t imagine what you would have preferred.” Her face lifted. She was tall, and long-limbed, and didn’t have to tilt her head back to look up to him the way Meiglan did.
“I would prefer that you hadn’t made such a mess of it. Nobody cares, Pol. It makes no difference to any of us that you’re lanthe’s son by birth and not Sioned’s. But you act as if—as if it’s some kind of disease that will disfigure you the moment you admit who and what you are. I’ve never understood why you’re so ashamed. You didn’t choose your parents, or how you were born. You had nothing to do with it.”
“Stop telling me what I feel! What do you know about it?”
Her brows arched. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
More than nine years ago, in the Flametower at Stronghold.
“I don’t like it any better now than I did then,” he shot back.
“I know. I’m wondering when I can stop repeating myself. The people who love you will go on loving you, Pol. It’s not important to them—“
“The way you kept on loving me just the same, Sionell?”
She straightened abruptly, eyes kindling, hands clenching into whitened fists. This was the Sionell he knew, proud and passionate and quick-tempered.
“You know what I wish?” he continued, goading her. “I wish that once, just once, you and I could talk to each other without having it turn into a fight.”
“We do seem to make a habit of it,” she said through her teeth, but still controlled, still holding herself back.
“Yes, I knew you’d start shouting at me sooner or later. I must say I prefer it to being treated as if we’re polite strangers. I thought it would be for Tallain, and now for Maarken—my fault. The whole damned war is my fault. I should have—“
“Tallain? Maarken?” she echoed in bewilderment. “What have they to do with this?”
“They paid,” he snarled. “Everyone’s paying except me. I haven’t been more than bruised in any of the battles I’ve fought. Hundreds have died, been maimed for life—but I walk around whole and unhurt. There’s shame for you, Ell. Because what the Vellant’im really want is me. And everyone around me will prevent their taking me if it kills them. Which it’s been doing quite regularly.”
Sionell gaped at him, so incredulous that for a moment she couldn’t speak. Then her fist connected with his chin—no open-palmed slap but a real punch, with so much force behind it that his head snapped back and he staggered.
“You selfish, arrogant swine!” she hissed. “As if the entire world is centered on you! They don’t fight for you! It’s their homes and their families they care about, not you! You’re not bloody worth it!”
“Tell me something I don’t know!” Her lips thinned and her jaw jutted out and he thought she was going to hit him again. Incredibly, a little gulp of laughter escaped her.
“Oh—oh, Goddess, you’re right! It is a habit! We always tell each other the truth and it’s always exactly the wrong thing to say!”
She was laughing aloud now, throaty and slightly wicked, mocking them both. He tried. He really tried, but it was impossible to resist.
“You witch!” he accused, grinning. “You’ve brought out the worst in me ever since I was a little boy!”
“Well, it’s mutual,” she answered frankly. “Shall we start over?” He moved closer, holding out his hands. “I’ll even apologize.”
“Yes, you will—but only if I apologize first. I know you,” she reminded him, accepting his hands.
Touching her was a mistake. He should have known that.
All he meant to do was brush his lips lightly, formally, over her fingers. Instead he turned the palms over and pressed a kiss into each. She freed one hand—not snatching it from him but sliding it from his loose grasp to caress his hair.
If it had stopped then, they would have been all right. But it didn’t stop. Pol bent his head and kissed her.
Sionell caught her breath and tried to turn her face away. He sought her mouth blindly, smiling when her lips opened to him slowly, delicately. She tasted of wine and warm spiced taze. He gathered her close—carefully, as if the heartbeat against his chest was a fragile thing. Silly idea; she wrapped her arms around his ribs and held him fast and kissed him so deeply that his knees turned to sand.
Sionell tried to balance them both, failed, and they lurched toward the tapestried wall. Pol braced himself against the deep woolen nap with one hand, running the other down the curves of her body, coaxing her thigh up so her knee crooked around his hip. She cried out, a word that might have been anything at all. Anything but refusal. Anything but that.
He answered with her name. She shook her head, her hair coming loose of its pins, tumbling around her shoulders and through his eager fingers, glowing like dark fire against the blues and greens of the tapestry forest. She captured his face between her hands, never relinquishing his mouth.
All the bitter hurt became a sweet ache, totally unfamiliar, totally hers. She wanted him. He drew his head back, about to ask a lover’s question, and saw her eyes.
Beautiful, passionate, and cold.
She wanted him. With all her will she wanted him— because this was the worst hurt she could ever give him.
“Oh, no,” he whispered, stricken. “Not like this—“
“How, then?” she asked, and her voice was as cold as her eyes.
“Ell—why?” he begged, and then said words he had never said to anyone in his life. “Love me. Please. I need you to love me, Sionell—“
She turned her face away.
“Please!” He buried his face in the fragrant warmth of her shoulder, trembling as no woman had ever made him do.
A small, choked sound left her throat. She dug both hands into his hair and pulled his head up, and in her eyes now was reckless fire. His hands clenched in the tapestry. As she pushed him down, down, the green forest and blue sky ripped from the wall.
*
The candles had long since guttered out. Hearthfire glowed from the other end of the room, making of the bed a looming darkness and of their bed on the floor a shadow.
“This isn’t what I wanted for us,” Pol murmured into her hair. “Not the way it happened. You deserve better than—“
“It doesn’t matter.”
Remembering the urgent, inelegant love they’d made in the tangle of the tapestry and their clothes, he said, “It matters to me.”
“I suppose it would.”
“You do love me.”
“Long ago. The boy you were.”
“You still love me.”
She sighed, warm breath across his chest. Her words were measured into the soft darkness like smoothed stone building a wall. “If I explain it to you, will you try to understand? I adored you when I was little, with all the trust of a child and the sweetness a girl brings to her first love. You never saw it. But it didn’t break my heart, Pol. I was a child. I grew up. I saw what was there to be seen, that you’d never make me your Choice. I wanted to be first with you as you’d been with me, and I knew that would never happen.”
“I felt the loss of you,” he murmured. “I’d always counted on what you felt for me, and one day it wasn’t there anymore.”
“I didn’t marry Tallain because I couldn’t have you. I married him because I loved him.”
“I know,” he murmured.
“No, you don’t. You think I gave him what had been yours. That was the way a little girl loves. Tallain was my husband, my lover, the father of my children. We made a life with each other. For each other. That kind of loving is still his. It always will be. I can’t give that to you.”
“Tallain’s gone. I need you now, Sionell. I love you.”
“Don’t.”
He pulled away and sat up, staring down at the pale triangle of her face with its broad brow and cheekbones, small round chin. He called Fire to a candlewick on the bedside table and by its light saw bleak warning repeated in her eyes.
“You’ve had your revenge on me, then,” he said bitterly.
“It wasn’t revenge or spite. All I meant was that you shouldn’t love me, because I don’t love you.”
He refused to believe it. No woman could make love with such passion and then deny it with such terrible calm.
“Then why?” he demanded.
“Tonight I needed you, too. For a time. I’m not sure why. But don’t ask me to love you, Pol. I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
Her shoulders moved in a tiny, silken shrug. “Whatever you like. It doesn’t matter.” Sitting up, she gathered her hair and knotted it at her nape. “I think I’d better leave.”
“No.”
“We both have children. You have a wife.”
Pol’s heart froze. He had forgotten that Meiglan even existed.
Sionell went on speaking as she reached for her clothes. “It may seem a little late to worry about that. But with luck and some work, no one need know. We can forget this ever happened.”
“No!”
She faced him, her eyes cool and eloquent. He watched as she began to hide her body, her arms, her shoulders, beneath fine silk garments, softly woven wool.
“No,” he repeated fiercely. “I won’t let you.”
He didn’t let her answer. He took her mouth again, wanting to steal her breath and her sanity and the heart he knew was his. Must be his. He could taste it on her skin, feel it in the quiver of desire that betrayed her, hear it in the low whimper of despair. He knelt and seized her waist, lifting her onto his thighs, and laughed in triumph as her legs circled his waist and her nails dug into his shoulders deep enough to scar him. They both cried out as their flesh joined once more. Her spine arched, her head falling back, long hair sweeping across his thighs.
“Forget this” he taunted, moving powerfully. No frail flower, this woman, to be touched like crystal. She was his match in body and mind and the heart that was his no matter what lies she told.
But when he could breathe again, he was sprawled alone on the tapestry with only the slowing thud of his heart and the feel of her on his fingers to tell him she had ever been there.
*
“Pol, you look horrible,” Sioned observed before anyone else at the high table could say anything. “I told Kierun not to wake you with breakfast, but you didn’t sleep at all, did you?”
By being the first to proclaim how awful he looked, Sioned effectively put Chay, Tobin, Ruala, Meath, and Kierun on notice that whatever explanation he chose to give for his appearance, she would believe it—and they’d better believe it, too.
All the same, a warning glittered in her green eyes. Pol rallied with an effort and dragged the broken pieces of himself together. He rubbed his unshaven chin, hoping his face conveyed the proper degree of ruefulness.
“I didn’t sleep. I sort of ... um ... passed out.”
“You Desert types are all alike,” she scoffed. “Blood so thin and dry that even water makes you drunk.” She hooked a finger at Kierun. “Fetch his grace some breakfast—something that won’t curdle his stomach.”
“You’re in luck, my lord,” the squire said. “The Isulk-‘im sent supplies the other day, including a nanny goat. So there’s fresh milk to sop your bread in.”
Pol had no trouble looking slightly ill. He couldn’t vouch for what Kazander fed his goats, but whatever it was produced milk with a taste that could politely be described as “pungent.”
“Ahh, just bread, and some taze,” he said.
Having created the necessary excuse for Pol’s haggard face, Sioned ignored him and turned to Ruala. They and Meath resumed a discussion of scheduling faradh’im to search for Chayla on the sun and moons. Pol nibbled bread and blistered his tongue on honeyed taze, ashamed of himself for having forgotten the reason he’d hurried back to Feruche.
Eventually the great hall emptied but for Sioned and Pol, and the servants cleaning up breakfast. They stayed tactfully out of earshot.
“I won’t ask you what you said to each other,” Sioned murmured. “But neither of you looks happy.”
“She’s been here this morning?”
“Finishing her meal just as I came in.” She hesitated. “If you want to talk about it...”
“There were enough words. We beat each other up fairly well last night. I’m surprised you don’t see the bruises.”
“In your eyes, Pol.”
Yes, it would show there.
Mother, he wanted to say, I’ve done something terrible. Unforgivable. I’ve fallen in love with the woman I should have Chosen long ago, only I was too stupid to see it. But now it’s here in front of me, and I love her, and she loves me—even though she won’t admit it. But there’s Meggie. I still love her, but it’s not the same. What in the Name of the Goddess am I going to do?
He kept his mouth shut. He had the feeling there wasn’t much Sioned didn’t know about it, anyway.
“Your grace! Your grace!”
They each looked up at the call. A woman wearing riding clothes and the blue-and-black headscarf of Feruche around her shoulders strode into the hall. She was breathing raggedly, her cheeks pallid with shock.
“Your grace, the princesses are but half a measure behind me, We saw them while we were out looking for Lady Chayla, and I rode back to tell you—“
“Princesses? Oh, Goddess—Meggie!”
“Your grace—“
But Pol didn’t wait to hear the rest. Sioned watched him hurtle from the chamber, yelling for a horse to be saddled for him immediately. The guard turned to Sioned, agony in her dark brown eyes.
“He doesn’t understand!”
Her heart gave a sick sideway twist. “What happened? Tell me what my son couldn’t stay to hear.”
“Your grace, it’s not as he thinks. The princesses—“
“Tell me,” Sioned ordered, certain that she didn’t want to know.
*
There was no horse saddled but the one the guard had ridden in. Pol kicked the lathered mare to a full gallop once he was outside the gates. Half a measure. Why had Meggie returned to Feruche? What had gone wrong?
There were two horses ahead of him, moving at the slow walk of numb exhaustion. They looked half dead. The riders—one man, one woman holding a child before her in the saddle—slumped with heads down, huddling in their cloaks with hoods drawn up. Pol drew rein so sharply that the horse nearly foundered. He leapt from the saddle, crying out Meiglan’s name.
But the woman who lifted her head to look at him was not his wife.
The child stirred in her arms. Jihan saw him, gave an incoherent sob, and scrambled down from Alasen’s horse. She ran to him and he caught her up in his arms. She was shaking so hard he thought she would shatter.
“Hush now, little one, it’s all right,” he soothed, stroking her hair and rocking her as she cried. “I’m here, Jihan, you’re safe with Papa now. Shh.”
“Pol...”
He looked up. Alasen slid bonelessly from her saddle. She was filthy and bruised, and tears streaked the dirt on her face. Laroshin had dismounted, hobbling around to take her reins. His face was wet, too.
Holding Jihan tighter as she wept against his shoulder, he asked, “Meiglan?”
Alasen’s green eyes were liquid with grief and guilt. “Pol—I’m so sorry—she’s not ... with us.”
“What do you mean? I was told the princesses—“ His blood ran icy in his veins. “Princesses,” he repeated dully. “You and Jihan.”
“Yes.” She was crying now, her voice thick, her body trembling with exhaustion.
“Where is she, Alasen?”
“She—both of them, Meiglan and Rislyn—the Vellant-‘im took them, Pol. Somehow we were betrayed. We lost most of our people trying to—but there were so many of them, Pol. So many.” She wiped her face on her sleeve, smearing tears and dirt on her cheeks. “They weren’t harmed. There was an order not to hurt them. Miyon said he’d—“
“Miyon? Her own father?”
Alasen nodded bitterly. “He’s dead. I saw it happen. I—“ She swayed against the mare’s shivering shoulder. “I’m sorry, I—“
Laroshin caught her as she fell, stumbling on his injured leg. Pol heard someone call out behind him, felt Jihan flinch. He held her to his heart and buried his face in her bright tangled hair, and wept.
*
Much later, when Jihan was tucked into bed with sleep woven around her, Alasen told the whole of it. Sioned watched Pol, but she also watched Sionell. They looked at each other only once. That was enough. It was too much. The anguish and the guilt were living things writhing in the air between them.
As Alasen spoke, death came to Pol’s eyes. Warrior’s eyes. He would kill and kill until he was awash in blood. Sioned recognized the look. She had seen it in her mirror when lanthe had taken Rohan. Terrible, and terrifying.
Alasen didn’t look at him. Her gaze never left Sioned’s face.
“Dannar will be here soon,” she finished wearily. “We rode ahead. He and Draza...” She seemed to lose track of what she was saying; she gave a start, forcing herself awake again. “I’m sorry. It must be the wine.”
“Yes, dearest,” Sioned told her. “Go on.”
“I think some of our people followed the Vellant’im. I don’t know where they are now. We came here. I thought it best.”
“Yes,” Sioned repeated gently. “It was.”
“It was all I could think of to do. I—I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes filling. “I should’ve learned long ago—and you would have known sooner, and—“
Sioned understood. “It’s all right, Alasen. You did the right thing.”
The younger woman shook her head, gulping back tears. “Don’t tell Ostvel,” she pleaded. “He mustn’t be worried about me, not when he has so much to—“
“Hush, dearest.” She flicked a glance at Sionell, who nodded and went to coax Alasen from her chair.
She blinked as if recognizing Sionell for the first time. “I’m so sorry—Lyela and Rabisa—“
“I know. You told us.” SionelPs voice was low and soothing. “Come and rest now, Alasen.”
Hollis and Ruala went with them. Sioned found herself alone with Chay and Maarken. And Pol.
He pushed himself to his feet, bracing his fists on the table.
“We’ll find them,” he said in a clear, cold voice. “All of them.”
Then he turned on his heel and left.
Sioned felt a bitter, musing smile twist her mouth.
“What?” Maarken asked softly.
“I was just thinking how much he has the look of his grandsire about him.”
Chay frowned. “How would you know? You never met Zehava.”
“No,” Sioned murmured. “I was thinking of Roelstra.”
INDEX OF CHARACTERS
ALASEN of Kierst (696-). m719 Ostvel. Mother of Cam- igwen (Jeni), Milar, Dannar.
ALLEYN of Dorval (724-). Daughter of Ludhil and Iliena. AMIEL of Gilad (716-). Cabar’s only son and heir.
Dragon’s Rest 729; knighted 737. m737 Nyr. ANDREV of Goddess Keep (724-). Andry’s son by
Othanel. Tilal’s squire 737-. ANDRY of Radzyn Keep (699-). Lord of Goddess Keep
719-. High Kirat 711-713; Goddess Keep 713-. Father of Andrev, Tobren, Chayly, Joscev, Merisel. ARLIS (710-). Prince of Kierst-Isel (Isel 727- [regency to 730]; Kierst 737-). Stronghold 722; knighted 730. m730 Demalia. Father of Roric, Hanella, Brenoc. ARNISAYA of Gilad Seahold (708-). m731 Edirne of
Fessenden. Mother of Lenig.
AUDRAN of Dorval (728-). Son of Ludhil and Iliena. AUDRITE of Sandeia (670-). m692 Chadric of Dorval.
Mother of Ludhil, Laric.
AURAR of Catha Heights (715-). Chiana’s niece. Fostered at Swalekeep 732-.
BETHEYN (707-). Sorin’s unofficial betrothed. Radzyn
731-. BIRIOC of Catchwater. (716-). Miyon’s son by a Merida noblewoman. Remagev 735-736. BRANIG (706-). Tutor at Swalekeep.
CABAR (687-). Prince of Gilad 701-. Father of Amiel, Selante.
CAMANTO of Fessenden (705-). Eldest son of Pirro; not his heir. CAMIGWEN (Jeni) of Castle Crag (720-). Daughter of
Ostvel and Alasen. Fostered at Stronghold 734-. CHADRIC (664-). Prince of Dorval 720-. m692 Audrite of Sandeia. Stronghold 677; knighted 683. Father of
Ludhil, Laric. CHAYLA of Whitecliff (722-). Daughter of Maarken and Hollis. Fostered at Remagev 736-. CHAYNAL (668-). Lord of Radzyn Keep 689-. m690
Tobin of the Desert. Father of Maarken, Jahni,
Andry, Sorin. Battle Commander of the Desert 695-. CHIANA (698-). Roelstra’s daughter. Fostered at Goddess Keep 698-704. m719 Halian of Meadowlord.
Mother of Rinhoel, Palila. CLUTHINE of Huntsmoor (695-). Kalian’s niece;
Isaura’s sister.
DANIV (721-). Prince of Syr 737-. Stronghold 734-.
DANLADI (694-). Roelstra’s daughter. Fostered at High Kirat 705-. m720 Kostas of River Run (Prince of Syr 724-737). Mother of Daniv, Aladra.
DANNAR of Castle Crag (726-). Son of Ostvel and Alasen. Dragon’s Rest 737-.
DENIKER (705-). Devri. m735 Ulwis.
DRAZA (709-). Lord of Grand Veresch 732-. m729 Jeri-ana. Father of Ezmaar, lanel.
DUROTH (718-). Son of Miyon.
EDIRNE of Fessenden (707-). Pirro’s younger son and heir. m731 Arnisaya of Gilad Seahold. Father of
Lenig. EDREL of River Ussh (715-). Dragon’s Rest 727; knighted 735. m737 Norian of Grib. Kerluthan’s brother. ELSEN of Grib (710-). Velden’s only son and heir. m731
Selante of Gilad. Father of Vellanur. EVARIN (716-). Giladan School for Physicians 733-735;
Goddess Keep 735; Master Physician 736. EZANTO (713-). Son of Miyon.
FEYLIN (684-). m706 Walvis. Mother of Sionell, Jahnavi.
GEMMA of Syr (694-). Princess of Ossetia 724-. m719 Tilal of River Run. Mother of Rihani, Sioneva, Sorin.
HALIAN (680-). Prince of Meadowlord 722-. m719 Chi-ana. Father of Rinhoel, Palila.
HILDRETH (673-). Itinerant Sunrunner 700-731. Court Sunrunner at Dragon’s Rest 732-. m705 Ullan. Mother of Feneol, Aldreth.
HOLLIS (691-). Goddess Keep 707-718; Court Sunrunner at Kadar Water 718-719. m719 Maarken of Radzyn Keep. Mother of Chayla, Rohannon.
IDALIAN of Faolain Riverport (718-). Mirsath’s brother. Balarat 732-. ILIENA of Snowcoves (697-). m721 Ludhil of Dorval.
Mother of Alleyn, Audran. Sister of Lisiel, Yarin. ISAURA of Huntsmoor (700-). m719 Sabriam of Einar.
Mother of Isriam. Halian’s niece; Cluthine’s sister. ISRIAM of Einar (721-). Sabriam’s only son and heir.
Stronghold 734-.
JAYACHIN (702-). Master merchant from Waes. Unofficial athri of refugees outside Goddess Keep. Mother of Ondiar.
JIHAN of Princemarch (730-). Rislyn’s twin. Daughter of Pol and Meiglan.
JOHLARIAN (682-). Court Sunrunner at Faolain Lowland.
JOLAN (702-). Devri. m722 Torien.
KARANAYA of Faolain Lowland (711-). Cousin of Mir- sath and Idalian. KAZANDER (711-). Korrus (“battle leader”) of Isulk-
‘im. Remagev 728-729. KERLUTHAN (706-). Lord of River Ussh 729-. m734
Lesni. Brother of Edrel.
KIERUN of Lower Pyrme (725-). Elder son and heir of Allun and Kiera. Dragon’s Rest 737-.
LARIC of Dorval (698-). Prince of Firon 719-. m721 Lisiel of Snowcoves. High Kirat 710; knighted 718. Father of Tirel, Larien.
LISIEL of Snowcoves (699-). m721 Laric of Dorval. Mother of Tirel, Larien. Sister of Iliena, Yarin.
LUDHIL of Dorval (694-). m721 Iliena of Snowcoves. Fessada 705; knighted 714. Father of Alleyn, Audran.
LYELA of Waes (709-). Tallain’s cousin. At Tiglath 720-.
MAARKEN of Radzyn Keep (693-). Lord of Whitecliff 719-. Graypearl 702; knighted 712; Goddess Keep 712-719. m719 Hollis. Father of Chayla, Rohannon. Chay’s eldest son and heir.
MEATH (673-). Court Sunrunner at Graypearl 698-.
MEIGLAN of Gracine Manor (710-). Daughter of Miyon. m728 Pol of Princemarch. Mother of Jihan, Rislyn.
MEVITA (714-). m731 Rialt. Mother of Polev.
MIRSATH of Faolain Riverport (716-). Lord of Faolain Lowland 737-. High Kirat 728; knighted 736. Brother of Idalian.
MIYON (689-). Prince of Cunaxa 701-. Father of Meiglan, Birioc, Duroth, Ezanto, Zanyr.
MYRDAL (645-). Commander of Stronghold guard 675-703.
NATHAM of Snowcoves (727-). Only son and heir of
Yarin and Vallaina. NAYDRA of Princemarch. (673-). Roelstra’s daughter. m705 Narat of Port Adni. NEMTHE (689-). Dorvali silk merchant. NIALDAN (703-). Devri. NORIAN of Grib (718-). Daughter of Velden. m737
Edrel of River Ussh. NYR (718-). m737 Amiel of Gilad.
OSTVEL (673-). Second Steward of Goddess Keep 695-698; High Chamberlain of Stronghold 698-705; Lord of Skybowl 705-719; Regent of Princemarch 719-726; Lord of Castle Crag 719-. m(l)698 Camigwen; m(2)719 Alasen of Kierst. Father of Riyan; Camigwen, Milar, Dannar.
PAULA of Meadowlord (723-). Daughter of Chiana and
Halian. PIRRO (683-). Prince of Fessenden 716-. m704 Lennor.
Father of Camanto, Edirne. POL (704-). Rohan’s son by lanthe of Princemarch.
Ruler of Princemarch 725-; Prince of the Desert 737-;
High Prince 737-. Graypearl 716; knighted 725. m728
Meiglan of Gracine Manor. Father of Jihan, Rislyn. POLEV (733-). Son of Rialt and Mevita.
RABISA of Tuath Castle (712-). m732 Jahnavi of Rema- gev. Mother of Siona, Jeren. RIALT (701-). High Chamberlain at Dragon’s Rest 726-
730; Lord Regent of Waes 730- (courtesy title). m(2)731 Mevita. Father of Mistrin, Tessalar; Polev. RIHANI of Ossetia (720-). Elder son of Tilal and
Gemma, heir to Ossetia. High Kirat 732-. Knighted in the field 737. RINHOEL of Meadowlord (720-). Only son and heir of
Chiana and Halian. At Remagev Summer 735. RISLYN of Princemarch (730-). Jihan’s twin. Daughter of Pol and Meiglan. RIYAN (699-). Lord of Skybowl 719-; Lord of Feruche
728-; Lord of Elktrap Manor 730. Swalekeep 711-713;
Goddess Keep 713-717; Swalekeep 717-719; knighted
719. Son of Camigwen and Ostvel. m728 Ruala of Elk-trap Manor. Father of Maara. ROHANNON of Whitecliff (722-). Chayla’s twin. Son of
Maarken and Hollis. New Raetia/Zaldivar 735-. RUALA of Elktrap Manor (700-.) m728 Riyan. Mother of Maara.
SABRIAM (695-). Lord of Einar 701-. m719 Isaura of
Huntsmoor. Father of Isriam. SAUMER of Kierst-Isel (720-). High Kirat 734-.
Knighted in the field 737. Brother of Arlis. SETHRIC of Grib (717-). Velden’s nephew. At Remagev 736-737. SIONED of River Run (677-). Goddess Keep 689-698. m698 Rohan. Princess of the Desert 698-737; High
Princess 705-737. SIONELL of Remagev (708-). m726 Tallain of Tiglath.
Mother of Antalya, Jahnev, Meig. Daughter of Walvis and Feylin. SIONEVA of Ossetia (721-). Daughter of Tilal and
Gemma. SORIN of Ossetia (728-). Younger son of Tilal and
Gemma.
TALLAIN (700-). Lord of Tiglath 724-. m726 Sionell of Remagev. Stronghold 713; knighted 721. Father of
Antalya, Jahnev, Meig. TILAL of River Run (692-). Lord of River Run 712-719;
Prince of Ossetia 724-. Stronghold 702; knighted 712. m719 Gemma of Syr. Father of Rihani, Sioneva, Sorin.
Sioned’s nephew. TIREL of Firon (730-). Elder son of Laric and Lisiel, heir of Firon. TOBIN of the Desert (671-). m690 Chaynal of Radzyn
Keep. Mother of Maarken, Jahni, Sorin, Andry. Rohan’s sister. TOBREN of Goddess Keep (725-). Andry’s daughter by
Rusina. Fostered at Whitecliff Manor 737-. TORIEN (697-). Devri. Chief Steward of Goddess Keep
723-. m722 Jolan. TORMICHIN (656-). Dorvali silk merchant.
ULWIS (711-). Devri. Mother of Andry’s son Joscev. m735 Deniker. URSTRA (669-). Birioc’s Merida uncle.
VALEDA (700-). Devrl. Mother of Andry’s daughter
Chayly. VAMANIS (700-). Court Sunrunner at Swalekeep 725-
728; Tiglath 729-. VAREK (698-). Second Battlelord to Vellanti High
Warlord. VELDEN (683-). Prince of Grib 701-. Father of Elsen,
Norian. VISIAN (715-). Brother of Kazander’s youngest wife.
WALVlS (685-). Lord of Remagev 714-. m706 Feylin. Stronghold 697; knighted 703. Father of Sionell, Jahnavi.
YARIN (690-). Lord of Snowcoves 701-. m725 Vallaina. Father of Natham. Brother of Lisiel, Iliena.
ZANYR (715-). Son of Miyon.