Pol had dreadful memories of his first trip across the straits between Radzyn and Dorval. His mother had warned him that faradh ‘im and water were in no way compatible. But, wise in the way all eleven year old boys think themselves wise, and very conscious of his dignity as the son of the High Prince, Pol had not believed her. His first step on board ship had’taught him otherwise. He remembered turning to look at his parents, who stood on the dock with Aunt Tobin and Uncle Chay, all of them waiting for the inevitable. The ship moved fractionally on the tide. Pol felt himself turn green. He staggered to the rails, was grabbed by a sailor before he could fall overboard and, after being dreadfully sick, fainted. A long day’s misery in a private cabin had been crowned by the indignity of being carried off the ship that night and put immediately to bed.
The next morning his eyes had ceased their imitation of hot coals and his stomach seemed inclined to stay where it belonged. Pol pushed himself upright, every muscle in his body bruised with the violence of his reaction to crossing water, and groaned. A very old man was dozing by the empty hearth. The noise made him start awake from his nap, and a kind smile further wrinkled his face.
“I thought you’d appreciate a good night’s sleep on solid ground before riding up to Gray pearl. Feeling better? Yes, I see you are. You’ve freckles on your nose now, not green splotches.”
Thus had he made the acquaintance of Prince Lleyn of Dorval. Pol had felt unequal to the breakfast the old prince proposed, and they had ridden to the great palace where the entire household had assembled to greet the future High Prince. The night’s rest enabled Pol to behave with suitable dignity, and his gratitude had been of such proportions that it had been only a short step to outright worship of the wry old man to whom his parents had entrusted him.
Similar arrangements were made in Radzyn so that Pol and Meath could sleep off the crossing in private before their official arrival at Radzyn Keep. Assisted from the ship to a small house Lord Chaynal kept in the port, they were tucked up between cool sheets and in the morning were greeted by Pol’s cousin Maarken.
“I won’t ask about the crossing,” he said, smiling in sympathy as the pair woke up bleary-eyed. “I remember it all too well myself. But you both look as if you’ll live.”
Meath glanced at him balefully. ‘ ‘I had my doubts last night.” Turning to Pol, he asked, “Are you recovered, my prince?”
“More or less. It never gets any easier, does it?” Pol sighed.
“Never,” Maarken affirmed. “Do you want something to eat?” Their winces made him grin. “All right, stupid question, I know! There are horses outside if you feel capable of sitting a saddle without falling off.”
They did. There was no special welcome from the people of the port, though they paused in their daily routines to greet both Pol and their own young lord. Maarken was the image of his handsome father: tall, athletic, with dark hair and gray eyes like sunlight through a morning mist. He was more lightly built than Chaynal, however; the slender bones of his grandmother’s people had lengthened in him, not thickened. At twenty-six he had fulfilled the promise of height and strength that for now was only hinted at in his young cousin. He also wore six Sunrun-ner’s rings where Pol had none. As they left the precincts of the town and started down the road between newly sown fields, he caught the boy’s envious look and smiled.
“You’ll have your own one day. I had to wait until after I’d been knighted before Father would let me go to Goddess Keep and Lady Andrade.”
“What’s she like?” Pol asked. “I remember her from when I was little, but not very clearly. And the only thing Meath and Eolie ever say when I ask is that I’ll find out sooner than I want to.”
Meath grinned and shrugged. “It’s only the truth, isn’t it, Maarken?”
The pair were old friends from Maarken’s days as a squire at Lleyn’s court, and they shared a chuckle. The young lord told his cousin, “You’ll have the chance to see for yourself in Waes. It’ll be a real family reunion this year, in fact. Andrade’s bringing Andry with her, and Sorin’s to be knighted by Prince Volog.”
Andry and Sorin were Maarken’s brothers, twenty-year-old twins whose lives had taken divergent paths. Andry hadfaradhi gifts, just as Maarken did, but had seen no reason why he should go through the usual pattern of squire’s training and knighting when all he had ever wanted to be was a Sunrunner. When Sorin was fostered to Volog on Kierst, Andry went to Sioned’s brother, Prince Davvi of Syr. But after only a few years he had successfully pleaded his case to his parents. His progress in earning his rings had confirmed his choice.
Maarken glanced over Pol’s head at Meath. “When do you ride for Goddess Keep?”
“Tomorrow morning, after I’ve paid my respects to your parents.”
“You’ll need an escort, if I’m not mistaken.” He gestured to the saddlebags slung across Meath’s horse. When the older man’s shoulders stiffened, Maarken went on, “Don’t worry, I won’t ask. But even in your misery last night you didn’t let go of them when the rest of the baggage was taken off the ship. That means they’re impor- tant, and you’ll need an escort to protect them—and you.”
Meath smiled uneasily. “I didn’t know I’d been so obvious. I don’t want more than a couple of guards, Maar-ken. More might arouse suspicion.”
Pol eyed his friend. “Then they must be very important. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to Goddess Keep? You told Maarken on the sunlight, didn’t you? How am I ever going to be a prince and make the right decisions if nobody ever tells me what’s going on?” Then he shrugged. “You don’t have to say it. I’ll learn what I need to know when I need to know it.”
“Enjoy ignorance, Pol,” Maarken said. “When you’re older, you’ll know more than you want to, sometimes— and they’ll usually be the wrong things, anyway.”
The road curved through pastureland where tall spring grass waited for horses to crop it. Ahead of them rose the magnificent towers of Radzyn Keep, seat of Maarken’s paternal forebears for hundreds of years. To the left was the sea below ragged cliffs; on the right, far beyond the grasslands, Pol glimpsed the beginning of the Long Sand, shimmering golden in the sunshine.
Again Maarken understood his glance. “It’s always out there, isn’t it?” he murmured. “Waiting. We work so hard to make this little green ribbon along the coast, but the sand would take it back in a single winter if we ever got careless.” Changing his tone, he asked, “How is the old prince these days?”
“Hale and hearty for his age, and asks to be remembered to you. As if anyone could ever forget him!”
“He does tend to make an impression—especially on your backside when he’s caught you doing something you shouldn’t.”
Pol started. “How did you—?”
Maarken grinned. “Oh, you’re not alone, believe me. But it’s a relief to know he applies the same remedy to princes as well as lowly lords. How long was it before you could sit down?”
“A whole day,” Pol admitted sourly.
“He must like you, then. It was two days before I recovered.” Maarken stood in his stirrups and peered at the bulk of Radzyn Keep, then smiled in delight. “There’s
Mother and Father with the new foals! They were going to come meet you today, but the Master of Horse insisted the inspection had to be this morning, and he’s a real tyrant. Come on, let’s go watch.”
A wild ride and several jumped fences later, they drew rein. Princess Tobin, neat and trim in riding leathers, gave a glad cry and jumped down from her horse. Pol dismounted and went to be hugged and kissed. He was then held at arm’s length while his aunt’s black eyes regarded him in astonishment.
“Chay!” she called to her husband. “Come over here and see what Lleyn sent us in place of the hatchling we gave him three years ago!”
Pol found that he was no longer at eye-level with his aunt. He hadn’t realized he’d grown so much taller. She was grayer around the temples and white threads wove through her black braids now, but otherwise was just as he remembered: beautiful as a starry night. Pol looked up as Chay came over to them, and was startled again to find he didn’t have to tilt his head as far back to look into those piercing gray eyes.
“Don’t be silly, Tobin,” Chay admonished, giving Pol a quick hug. “It has to be Pol—either that or Rohan all over again at that age. My own gray hairs tell me that time hasn’t gone backward, so it must be Pol. You don’t look any the worse for the crossing,” he added, ruffling the boy’s hair.
“Not now, I don’t. But you should’ve seen me last night. And I have a feeling I did something awful all over the deck!”
“Never you mind,” Tobin soothed. “It’s just proof that you’ve the faradhi gift.” She turned and smiled at Meath. “Welcome to Radzyn. And thank you for taking care of Pol on the way.”
“I can’t make any claims to having done so, my lady,” The Sunrunner said as he swung off his horse. “Goddess greeting to you both, my lord,” he went on, bowing to Chay. “I bring you fond words from Prince Lleyn and all his family.”
“Glad to have you here at Radzyn,” Chay replied. “And it’s good to know the old boy’s well. If you’re not too tired, why don’t the three of you come look at our new crop of foals?” He slung a companionable”arm across Pol’s shoulders. “I’m disgustingly proud of them— like all my brood,” he added with a smile for his eldest son.
As they walked to the paddock fence Meath remarked, “The Desert breeds sons and Sunrunners as fine as its horses, my lord. I’ve reason to know.”
Tobin nodded proudly. “I think you’ll find that this year, they’re all something very special. Pol, do you see those six little beauties over there? Three grays, a sorrel, and a pair almost golden?”
Pol caught his breath at the sight of them. Long legs carried them in playful leaps that were more graceful than awkward despite mere days of life. The golden duo in particular caught Pol’s eye, so alike in color and size, and the darkness of mane and tail, that they could have been dragons hatched from the same shell. “They’re wonderful!” he exclaimed.
“They ought to be.” Chay folded his arms on the top fence rail and gazed dreamily at the foals. “Bloodlines from here to the start of the v/orld and back again, by my best mares and your father’s old warhorse Pashta. If there’s royalty among horses, you’re looking at it. Pashta’s last are even finer than his first.”
“His last?” Pol glanced up at his uncle.
Chay nodded. “He died over the winter, very easily and full of his years—and his self-importance, too! Almost as if he knew how these six would turn out. By next Rialla they’ll be ready for you.”
“Me?” Pol was unable to believe his luck.
“Who else?” Chay squeezed his shoulder. “It’s Rad-zyn’s duty to keep its princes decently mounted, you know. All six are yours.”
The boy stared in awe at the foals, imagining them full-grown. He could see old Pashta’s siring in their depth of chest and the cant of their ears—his father’s beloved Pashta, ridden in a Rialla race to win his mother’s wedding emeralds. “Thank you, my lord,” Pol breathed. “Are they really to be mine?”
“Of course.”
“But I don’t need six horses just for myself. Would it—would you be angry if I gave the others as presents?”
“Who’d you have in mind?” Chay asked curiously. “My father would like one of Pashta’s colts, wouldn’t he? And Mother would look wonderful riding one of the golden ones—she and Father could have those two, like a matched set.” He paused. “Would it be all right, my lord?”
“Perfectly all right. And no more of this ‘my lord’ business, unless you want me to start calling you ‘your grace’! Well, now that that’s settled, would you like to see the mare you’ll be riding to Waes for me? I need steady hands and an understanding rider for her. And if you’ll do me the favor, you can exercise her out in the Desert this summer. Will you?”
Pol’s eyes shone. “Will I!”
They spent the rest of the morning looking over various mares and geldings that would be taken to Waes for sale, including the horse that would be Pol’s for the summer. A pretty bay mare, she inspected Pol with large dark eyes for several moments before nudging him with her dainty nose in token of friendship. He was enchanted, as the horse had obviously intended him to be, and only his growing weariness kept him from trying her paces there and then.
After a casual midday meal in private at the keep, Tobin sent Pol off for a rest. Not even healthy young boys could weather a water crossing with aplomb when they were faradhi-born. Maarken disappeared soon after on his own pursuits, but Meath lingered behind.
“My lord, I have a favor to ask for reasons I cannot reveal to you. It has to do with Lady Andrade.”
Chay shrugged. “Reason enough—and favor granted.”
“Thank you, my lord. Will you lend me two guards for the journey to Goddess Keep?”
Tobin cocked her head to one side. “Maarken mentioned something about that. You need more than the protection of your rings? What are you carrying, Meath— information in your head or on your person?”
He shifted uncomfortably and apologized, “I’m sorry, my lady, but I can’t tell you.”
“Sunrunners!” Chay complained in a teasing voice. “And Sunrunner secrets! Certainly you may have your guards, Meath. I’ll order it this evening.”
“Many thanks, my lord. And now I have something I must tell you that is also a secret, and must be discussed in private.”
The princess’ eyebrows shot up, but she rose smoothly and suggested, “Perhaps a turn in the back gardens, by the cliff path?”
Meath said nothing until they were strolling the gravel pathway between plantings of herbs, the surf pounding far below. No one else was in this section of the gardens, and they would be able to see any intruders long before they were within earshot. He told them about the incident in the tavern, Pol’s conclusions about it, and especially Lleyn’s conversation with him, Chadric, and Audrite afterward. Chay’s fists clenched and Tobin’s black eyes narrowed dangerously, but neither said a word until Meath had finished.
“Does Sioned know?” Tobin asked.
“I told her yesterday on the sunlight, my lady. She wasn’t pleased,” he added with gentle understatement.
“I can imagine,” Chay muttered. “Well, Pol will be watched by even more eyes than usual, though none of us will breathe easy until he’s safe back at Graypearl. But the Rialla worries me. Do you think Rohan might be persuaded to change his mind and not take the boy?”
“Sioned didn’t tell me otherwise, so they must feel they can protect him,” Meath answered.
“And Rohan’s had this progress planned since last year. Damn!” Tobin kicked at a rock, her fists jammed into the pockets of her trousers. “I thought we’d rid ourselves of those damned Merida years ago!”
“I don’t like to leave Pol,” Meath said slowly. “Not even to the care of his own parents. He’s that important to me, and not just as the future High Prince and the son of my old friend. I love that boy more than if he was my own son. But I must go to Goddess Keep at once.”
“What you carry is that important?” Chay asked, then held up a hand. “Forgive me—I won’t question you any further about it, whatever it is. My best horses and two of my best people will be waiting for you tomorrow at dawn. They know the fastest and safest route.” He smiled slightly. “And they’ll look after you when you cross the rivers.”
Meath winced. “Please, my lord—don’t remind me!” Thefaradhi left them. Chay and Tobin continued walking along the cliff path, mulling over the news. At last they sat down on a stone bench, their backs to the sea. Their castle rose before them: coveted, never breached, holding a young boy safe as he slept.
“There’s not a hint of her in him,” Chay said suddenly. “His hair’s a little darker than Rohan’s, and his jaw’s going to be longer, but otherwise it’s as if he had no mother at all.”
“More to the point, it’s as if Sioned very well could be his mother.”
“When are they going to tell him?”
“I don’t know. It’s not something anybody ever talks about. He must be told one day, I suppose—but when he’s older and can understand.”
“You mean when circumstances force it. You know as well as I that left to herself, Sioned would never let him know she’s not his real mother.”
“She is his real mother! In all but birthing him, Pol is Sioned’s son, not lanthe’s!”
Chay pressed her hand in his own. “I don’t need convincing. But what would it do to him if he found out from somebody other than her or Rohan? Every year the chance grows.”
“Diminishes,” Tobin replied stubbornly. “There’s never been the slightest whisper. If anyone knew, they would have spoken up before now.”
“There’s knowledge and then there’s proof,” Chay reminded her. “It’s the latter I worry about.”
“Find me proof,” she scoffed. “The few who were at Skybowl and Stronghold love us and him and will say what Sioned and I tell them to say. As for those at Fer-uche—bah!” She dismissed them with an arrogant shrug. “The word of a few servants against that of two princesses!”
Chay knew that the surge of royal arrogance meant she felt threatened. “Let’s make a case,” he suggested despite the flash of warning in her eyes. “Let’s say there are women still alive who helped lanthe that night, washed the baby, rocked the cradle—“
“They’d never be believed.”
“Then count how many hundreds knew Rohan was held at Feruche. And how many of them can count the appropriate number of days without using their fingers.”
Tobin was unperturbed. “She delivered early. They’ll think she was pregnant before she captured Rohan.”
“So who was the father?”
“Who knows? And who cares? They believe the baby died in the fire with her, so it doesn’t matter whose child he was.”
Chay shook his head. “There are three elder half brothers still alive who were brought in to see their mother’s latest son. They’re not servants, Tobin. They’re the sons of a princess and three highborn lords. And what if Sioned were asked to prove that she’d borne a child? There can’t be a mark on her that would indicate it.”
She gave him a triumphant smile. “Yes, there is! Myr-dal knows of herbs that bring a woman’s milk, even when she hasn’t given birth. Nursing changes a woman’s breasts.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he conceded. “But it still doesn’t negate the fact that there must be someone who recognized you and Sioned and Ostvel at Feruche the night the castle burned.”
“You’re shadow-fearing like a one-ring Sunrunner,
Chay.”
He eyed her beneath frowning brows. “You don’t think Pol should be told, do you? You’d keep it a secret. Don’t you understand that he must be told? And not find out through rumors that would hurt him and make him doubt who he is! And what might be worse, rumors like that could unsettle everything Rohan’s built so far! Look at this nonsense about Roelstra’s supposed son!”
“Chay, it’s just that: nonsense. If he dares show up at the Rialla, he’ll be laughed out of Waes. And the same thing will happen if there are ever rumors about Pol,” she finished.
“You’re as stubborn and blind as Sioned!” “Stubborn, certainly. But not blind. I understand what you’re saying. But I don’t see why Pol should ever be told. The whole foundation of his life is the royal heritage from his father and the faradhi gifts he believes he gets from Sioned. How do you tell a child that he’s the grand- son of someone like Roelstra—or that his father killed his grandfather?”
“You don’t tell a child such things, no. But once he’s grown, and has his knighthood and a few Sunrunner’s rings to his credit—“
“No. There’s no need for it.”
Chay knew his wife’s mind well enough to know there was no further arguing with her. He rose, drew her up beside him, and they started back to the keep.
“At least you’ll agree,” he said, “there’s a need for his physical protection right now. I’m going to set a special watch over him. Maarken’s perfect for it. He’s good with sword and knife, he’s a man grown, and a faradhi as well. Pol won’t be suspicious or resentful if it’s his cousin guarding him.”
Tobin smiled up at him. “The way you’ve guarded Rohan.”
“It’s another duty that Radzyn never cedes to any other Desert lord.”
* * *
The future Lord of Radzyn was at that moment some distance physically from his inheritance and even farther removed from it in his thoughts. Maarken had left the stables mounted on Isulkian, which in the old language meant “swift wind.”
Chay had named him for the nomadic Desert tribes that appeared and vanished as they pleased—usually to steal one of his studs. The Isulk’im never kept the stallions they spirited away, sometimes in broad daylight, and returned them in excellent condition after their mares had been serviced. He would have gladly given them a prize stallion, just to save the wear on his nerves from wondering when his horses would disappear, but the Isulk’im scorned all such offers. Borrowing a stud from under Chay’s nose was much more fun.
The stallion lived up to his name as Maarken guided him along the road leading south from the castle. At length the young man drew rein and smiled as the horse tossed his head, still eager to be racing the spring breeze.
“Just hold that thought, my friend. We’ll be racing in earnest at Waes, and for more than the fun of it. I have need of a few sapphires to grace a certain blue-eyed lady’s neck.”
Continuing at an easy walk, Maarken was not too surprised to find he’d instinctively chosen the way to White-cliff. Some measures down the coast from Radzyn, it was where the lord’s heir lived after he took a bride. Chay had never inhabited it, for he had been Radzyn’s lord by the time he married Tobin, and for years Whitecliff had been run by stewards. But if Maarken had his way, it would be in use by autumn, and for the purpose for which it had been built.
He knew he should have said something to his parents long ere this. But somehow he did not feel equal to telling them that picking through the various maidens at Waes this year was not his intention, for he had already found the woman he wished to wed. Or perhaps she had found him. He was not entirely sure which, and did not much care. He was only glad it had happened. Just thinking about Hollis brought a smile to his lips—and that this attitude was slightly adolescent bothered him not at all. He had had plenty of examples of foolish lovers all around him since childhood, his parents being the prime culprits in unwittingly nurturing his ideas of romance in marriage. His father had passed his fifty-first winter and his mother was only a few years younger, yet the looks they exchanged when they thought no one was looking were unmistakable. Rohan and Sioned were just the same, as were the Lord and Lady of Remagev, Walvis and Feylin. Even serious Prince Chadric and Princess Audrite had provided an example. Maarken had always wanted the same things for himself: the smiles, the secret glances, even the flashfire of temper. He wanted a woman he could work beside as well as sleep beside, someone he trusted with his thoughts as well as his heart. Without that kind of partnership, wedded life would be little more than waking up each morning to a stranger.
His cheeks flushed as he recalled the many times he’d done just that—and the first morning he’d awakened to Hollis. He should not have, and Andrade had been livid when she found out. But he cared nothing for his great-aunt’s displeasure.
He had been nineteen, and by no means inexperienced.
Indeed, his father had once shown him a letter from Prince Lleyn in which the old man wryly complained about Maarken’s propensity for attracting women of all ages at Graypearl. Practically everything in my palace that wears a skirt has chased him quite devotedly since he turned fourteen, and of late I do not believe he has been running as fast as he might. In fact, I believe he enjoys being caught. Chay had waited to show him that letter until Maarken had been knighted and was on his way to Goddess Keep for faradhi training. They had laughed over it, Maarken with crimson cheeks, Chay with smug pride.
But those encounters had been experiments only, quick desire and curiosity easily satisfied. Hollis had ignited in him a fire that had burned steadily for six winters now.
He had been at Goddess Keep only a little while when Andrade had decided that his unorthodox first ring was indeed valid. Rohan had given him the circle of silver set with a garnet during the campaign against Roelstra, when Maarken had called down Fire. He had proved to Andrade that he deserved the ring, and she had given him a plain silver band to wear with the garnet on his right middle finger. Looking into her pale blue eyes, he had heard her tell him that the next day he would go alone into the forest and consult the Goddess regarding his future as a man—but that before then, at midnight, a faradhi woman would come to him and make him a man.
In theory, one never knew who that first sexual encounter was with. It was considered very bad form to try to find out, and it never really mattered anyway. The Goddess herself shrouded the Sunrunner in mystery, concealing identity from the girl or boy who by morning would no longer be virgin. It was only faradhi men and women of seven or more rings who possessed this skill, only they who had the responsibility of making girls into women and boys into men.
Hollis had worn but four rings that winter night. He wondered sometimes if he would have guessed anyway. Even in total darkness, her hair had felt golden in his fingers. Maarken drew in a long breath as if to scent again the tender fragrance of her body.
It was forbidden to speak. They both knew that. Lips were only for kisses and caresses, voices for calling out in delight. Yet when it was over and he rested by her side, his heart still thudding in his chest, he whispered her name.
She gasped and went rigid. Maarken tightened his arms around her, holding fast when she would have escaped him. “No,” she whispered, “don’t, please—“
“You want to be here as much as I want you here.” But then, because he was only nineteen, he added hesitantly, “Don’t you?”
She trembled for a moment, then nodded against his chest. “Andrade’s going to murder me.”
Maarken felt slightly delirious. “She’ll have to get past me to do it,” he answered lightly, “and she won’t risk a hair on my head. Kinsman, future Sunrunner Lord of Radzyn—I’m much too important! She may rant and rave a little, but we’ve both heard her do that before!”
The tension went out of her. “There’s still a problem, though. This was supposed to be your man-making night. I have only four rings, so I can’t have instructed you properly. I’m afraid I haven’t done my duty by you, my lord.”
Maarken gasped in astonishment before he recognized the teasing note in her voice. In his silkiest tones he said, “You’ll have to lesson me again, my lady. I’m a very slow learner. In fact, it’s quite possible you’ll have to go on teaching me all night.”
They forgot that at midnight another woman would come to Maarken’s chamber. They forgot everything but the sweet joy of each other’s flesh. Her hair was a river of gold that seemed to glow with a light of its own in the darkness; almost blind, he brushed the delicate strands from her face, tracing the contours of nose and cheeks and brow with his fingers, learning her face with touch as he had long since learned it with his eyes. His hands learned everything about her, all the colors of her body as clear as the colors of her mind. He lost himself in the sapphire and pearl and garnet of her, deep shining colors that were flung around him like velvet, a perfect pattern of a luminous and beautiful soul.
They were lying together, trading idle kisses, when the door squeaked softly open, Maarken sat straight up in bed and Hollis gave a little cry of fright. A voice Maarken did not recognize came from a woman wrapped in silk shadows.
“Well, well, well.” Suddenly the woman laughed indulgently. “You might as well finish your night so well-begun. Peace, children.”
The door closed, and she was gone.
Maarken gulped. “Who—who do you think it was?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. But whatever she said just now, we’re in trouble, Maarken.”
“I love you, Hollis. This was right.”
“For you and me, yes—but not so far as Andrade is concerned.”
“The hell with Andrade,” he said impatiently. “I told you, she won’t punish us. You heard what whoever that was just told us. The rest of the night is ours. I’m not going to give it up. And I’m certainly not going to waste it!”
“But-“
“Hush.” He silenced her with a kiss. Desire glided through his veins, turning his blood to slow molten sunlight. She resisted for a moment, then sighed and clasped him in her arms.
The next morning he went alone to the tree-circle where faradh’im sought their futures. Kneeling naked before the motionless pool below a rock cairn, he faced not the Child-tree or the Youth-tree but the Man-tree. One day he would turn toward the huge pines symbolizing his fatherhood and old age, but not yet. Today, in Sunrunner ritual, he was a man. He conjured Fire across the still Water, plucked a hair from his head to represent the Earth from which he was made, and blew the Air of his own breath to fan the flames. In them he saw a face: his own, matured and proud, with his father’s strong bones and his mother’s long-lidded eyes. The Fire flared then, and another face appeared beside his own. It was an older version of Hollis that he saw, her tawny hair sleekly braided around her head and bound with a thin silver circlet set with a single ruby, marking her as Lady of Radzyn Keep.
On his return, after more or less recovering from stunned happiness, he found a summons from Lady An- drade waiting. He was impervious to her wrath as she raged at him for disregarding the traditions of Goddess Keep. When she finally snapped out an angry question about his penitence, he smiled at her with perfect serenity.
“I saw Hollis in the Fire and Water.” Andrade sucked in a breath and gave a terrible frown. But nothing more was said and neither Maarken nor Hollis had been punished. Still, he was heir to an important holding, a grandson of Prince Zehava, and cousin to the next High Prince. He could neither marry nor make a formal Choice without the consent of his parents and his prince. But he was only nineteen, Hollis was two years older, and there was time.
On receipt of her fifth ring that next summer, Hollis had been sent to Kadar Water in Ossetia. The holding was close enough to allow occasional visits and easy communication on sunlight between a trained faradhi and a mere apprentice, and the facilitation of such contact motivated Maarken to excel at his studies. The days were endurable, with the touch of her colors available to him on the sunlight; the nights were very long.
Hollis herself had been the one to plead patience. She was adamant that he not approach his parents or the High Prince until they each had a sixth ring, signifying they were capable of using moonlight as well as sunlight. “They have to know I can be of use to you and to them,” she told him quite frankly. “And you have to prove you’ve gained all the skills your gifts demand. I’m learning what I need to know about courts and manners, and how to run a holding—things I can only learn here at Kadar Water. I have to be able to function as your lady as well as a Sunrunner. Besides, if I’m to be at Radzyn one day, I’ll have to learn about horses—and where better to do that than at Kadar Water, the competition?” And though they had both laughed at this, she had quickly become serious again. “It’s important to me, Maarken—as important as your knighthood was to you.”
He had reluctantly agreed. Now, looking down at the six rings glinting on his fingers as he held Isulkian’s reins, he wondered why he still hesitated. He could tell his parents, or wait for the Rialla until they met her and saw her worth for themselves. Andrade had recalled Hollis to the keep with the understanding that the young woman would be part of her suite at Waes. Maarken was grateful but suspicious; he knew his aunt, and she never did anything without a specific goal in mind. If she wished him to marry Hollis, it was not for reasons of their love, although she would have no objections to their being happy. No, Andrade must have something else in mind, and it worried him.
He could not count on his parents as allies yet, no matter how often they said they wanted his happiness above all else. He was, after all, their eldest son and heir, a powerful position even without his blood bond with Pol. He would rule the only safe port on the Desert coast, through which all important trade passed: horses, gold, salt, and glass ingots going out; foodstuffs, manufactured goods, and especially precious silk coming in. Radzyn bred horses of a quality that brought higher prices every Rialla, but its real wealth was in the trade it administered. Maarken’s grandsire had been rich, his father was richer still, and he did not yet adequately appreciate just how rich he was going to be. By all the rules, he ought to marry a woman of birth if not fortune to match his own.
Hollis was an uncommon woman, but she was common-born of two faradh’im at Goddess Keep, who had themselves been of no recognized family connections. Her children with Maarken would certainly inherit the gifts, reinforced through both parents. Maarken had already had experience with the suspicion and envy attached to being both Sunrunner and son of a powerful family.
He walked his horse along the road to Whitecliff, stopping at the stand of trees his mother had ordered planted before his birth. The cool shade spread out around him, and he ignored Isulkian’s impatient prancing. He could see the manor through the trees, the solid stone walls gentled by flowering vines. Stables, pasture, gardens, a sandy beach below the cliffs, a comfortable and cozy home—all of it would be his, and he would bring Hollis here before the stormy season began. They would spend winter listening to the rain and wind, snug beside their hearth. He had always envisioned it so, ever since childhood when he and his twin brother Jahni had ridden here to play young lords of their own manor. They had been much too young to include anything so alien as the idea of wives in their games, but sometimes in the years since his brother’s death Maarken had wondered how it might have been, the pair of them and their wives sharing this fine old house, children overflowing its many rooms and playing at dragons in the courtyard. A small, sad smile crossed his face, and he rode nearer.
Whatever Andrade wanted, she would get her way. She always did. She had married off her sister to Prince Ze-hava in the hope of a male heir with faradhi gifts. Instead, Maarken’s mother had been the one with potential. Andrade had then put forth Sioned as Rohan’s bride, and this time the union had borne fruit in a son who would be both faradhi and High Prince. She had bred them all to each other like prize studs and mares. Maarken wondered whether she already had a girl in mind for Pol, despite his youth. She would not object to his own mating with a Sunrunner, guaranteeing the next generation’s gifts. But he also knew that his great-aunt’s fine, elegant ringers would close around his life if he was not careful. There were intimations that this was the source of the coolness between her and Sioned. Andrade had used her and Rohan to get her Sunrunner prince, and they resented it. Moreover, since Pol’s birth Sioned had worn only her husband’s emerald ring, not the seven others she had earned as a faradhi—visible reminder that she was no longer ruled by Andrade and Goddess Keep. And that was precisely what made other princes nervous.
Not that they would have been comforted by the idea that Andrade ruled through Rohan and Sioned. It was the notion of the two kinds of power merging in any combination that bothered them. And there were others besides Pol: Maarken himself, his younger brother Andry, Riyan of Skybowl. The other highborns feared the power of a lord who could summon Fire on command, watch any court on a weave of light, use eyes and ears not his own to observe wherever he chose. There were ethics involved in being a Sunrunner: the strict prohibition against using the gifts to kill, the equally strict injunction that the good of one land should not be sought at the expense of another. Yet what had Andrade expected when she created rulers who possessed both kinds of power?
It was a thin and difficult line to walk. Maarken had not yet been faced with a crisis of choice, but he knew that one day he would be. From the sometimes haunted look in Sioned’s eyes, she had already done so—and whatever the outcome, it had scarred her. He could not talk to his parents about this kind of thing; despite her three rings, his mother would not understand. Though influential in her own right and as Lady of Radzyn, Tobin did not think the way Sunrunners did. She had never been formally trained at Goddess Keep. But there was Sioned, and Maarken relaxed a little at the prospect of talking all this out with her. She had been the first to wield both kinds of power. She would have the same fears for her son as Maarken felt stirring for himself and his unborn children.
He turned his stallion before he reached the gates of Whitecliff, not yet ready to enter it as its future master. A word to his father about the possibility of refurbishing its interior in anticipation of his marriage would clue his parents that he was at last thinking seriously about taking a wife. But he would wait, talk with Sioned, and at Waes allow everyone to see Hollis’ merits for themselves before he said anything.
He would ride through the gates of Whitecliff with her at his side, or no one.