The High Prince lazed late abed, finishing off a breakfast of fresh fruit and flaky rolls washed down by watered wine. A pile of parchments was at his elbow, the top one sporting a smear of apple butter. Usually Rohan even worked through his meals, but this morning he ignored duty in favor of the fun of watching his wife give in to nerves.
Her turquoise silk bedgown billowed around her as she paced. Three times she had braided and unbraided her long firegold hair, dissatisfied by every effort. With each sharp movement of her fingers, her emerald flashed in the sunlight. A selection of gowns was heaped on her lounge chair, but she had not even begun trying them on, occupied for the moment with doing something about her hair. Her muttered curses and the occasional hiss of sheer annoyance amused her husband greatly.
At last he said, “You never took so much trouble dressing for me.”
Sioned scowled at him. “Sons are more observant than husbands—especially when the son has been gone for three years!”
“May a mere husband make a suggestion? Why don’t you just look the way you always look? Pol will be expecting to see his mother, not the High Princess in all her silks and jewels.”
“Do you think so?” she asked forlornly, and blushed when he laughed at her. “Oh, stop it! I know it’s stupid, but I can’t help thinking how much he must have changed.”
“Taller, with better manners and an increased sense of his own position,” Rohan enumerated. “I was the same way as a squire. But he’ll be the same in all the ways that count—and he’ll find you every bit as lovely as he remembers.’ ‘ He grinned and brushed off his hands. “Trust me.”
“You’ve gotten crumbs all over the bed again.”
“I’m persuaded that Stronghold boasts a sufficiency of sheets, and servants to change them. Now, come over here and let me fix your hair, you madwoman.”
She sat on the bed with her back to him, and he deftly wove her hair into a single braid. “You’ve hardly got any gray at all,” he said as he worked.
“When I find any, I pluck them out.”
“If I did the same, I’d be going bald. Give me the pins and hold still.” He wrapped the braid into a smooth roll and kissed the nape of her neck before securing the knot with plain silver hairpins. “There. Go take a look.”
She went to the dressing table mirror and nodded. “If you ever get tired of being a prince, I’ll hire you on as my maid. This isn’t half bad. And as for going gray—all you’re doing is turning silvery instead of golden. I didn’t know you were so vain.”
He grinned. “I only say things like that so you can be a good, dutiful wife and compliment me.” Throwing the sheet over the parchments, he got to his feet and stretched. Running his fingers back through his hair, he yawned widely and stretched again—not quite preening under her gaze.
“Your good, dutiful wife begs to remind you we have work to do this morning,” Sioned told him.
“We do?” He looked over his shoulder at the bed. “I remember some reports, but they seem to have vanished.”
She chuckled. “Has anyone ever told you you’re impossible?”
“Yes. You. Constantly.” He approached and untied the belt of her robe. “Get dressed. The hatchling will be here before we know it.”
But the party from Radzyn was late. Rohan and Sioned waited in the Great Hall and Sioned resumed her pacing, boot heels clicking on the blue and green tiled floor. Rohan sprawled in a window embrasure near the squires’ table and watched her, vastly entertained by her impatience. He, too, was anxious to see his son, but some perversity of his temperament decreed that the more she fidgeted, the more he relaxed.
A servant finally arrived with the news that the young master’s party had been spotted from the Flametower, and Sioned flung a guilty look at Rohan. Her expression saved him the trouble of asking who had posted a lookout way up there. She smoothed her hair and straightened her clothes, taking in a deep breath before walking through the huge carved doors held open for the High Prince and High Princess. Rohan surveyed his wife with a smile, thinking that lovely as she could be in full dress and his emeralds, nothing suited her so well as riding clothes cut to emphasize her slim, long-legged figure. Well, he amended, either riding clothes or nothing at all except the masses of her unbound hair.
They stood together on the top step of the porch, Sioned rigid with nerves. Rohan noted the growing ex- citement among their people gathered in the courtyard below. The grooms were still arguing over who would have the honor of holding Pol’s reins as he dismounted; the cooks muttered about which of them had remembered his favorite foods, a conflict Rohan had thought settled days ago. Stronghold’s guard lined up in strict formation, their commander, Maeta, brushing imaginary dirt from spotless blue tunics and gleaming half-harness. All this for one boy, Rohan marveled, conveniently forgetting that he had received just the same welcome home from his training at Remagev. He heard the shouted query from the gatehouse that demanded to know who wished entry into Stronghold. He could not hear the answer, but knew what Chay’s reply would be: “His Royal Highness the Prince Pol, heir to the Desert and Princemarch!” Pride welled up in Rohan; he would give his son half the continent, from the Sunrise Water to the Great Veresch. He would also give him laws to rule those lands in peace, the power to enforce the laws, and faradhi gifts to keep it all safe. He glanced at Sioned, who had kept him safe for twenty-one winters—half his life. She had used her skills and wisdom on his behalf, and to hell with An-drade’s disapproval. Together they were the perfect team. Pol would have Rohan’s power and knowledge combined with Sioned’s Sunrunner gifts. Never mind that she had not physically borne him.
Instinct told him that he had hit on the cause of her uneasiness. Had there been more time, he would have found a way to laugh her out of it. Pol was her son as much as his, and certainly more than he had ever been lanthe’s. Thought of the dead princess tightened Rohan’s shoulders; he consciously relaxed and took Sioned’s hand. Whatever her outward demeanor he could always tell what she was truly feeling when he touched her. The long fingers quivered just a little, chilled despite the spring warmth, and responded to his gentle squeeze not at all. Was she afraid that in growing up, Pol had grown away from her? Did she not yet understand that her claim on him through love was infinitely stronger than any claim of blood?
The gates of the inner court opened and the riders came through, Pol first as was proper for a young lord return- ing home. Chay, Tobin, and Maarken followed with ten soldiers. But Rohan had eyes for no one but his son. Pol rode forward to the steps amid the cheers of his people, and gave his parents a formal bow from the saddle.
Rohan and Sioned answered the salute with regal nods and suppressed smiles at Pol’s youthful solemnity. From a corner of his eye Rohan saw Chay grin and Tobin’s eyes roll skyward. He sternly refrained from winking at them. As Pol dismounted, Rohan descended the steps with his wife at his side.
“Welcome home, my son,” he said, and Pol gave him another ceremonious bow. Lleyn and Chadric had certainly taught him pretty manners—but, judging from the smile that suddenly transformed his whole face, they had not done so at the expense of his spirit. It remained only to see if he could abandon formality in the presence of the castlefolk, who had known him all his life and were just as proud and amused as his parents.
Pol passed the test. Royal manners disposed of, he bounded up the steps into his mother’s open arms. Sioned hugged him close, then released him so he could embrace his father. Mussing his son’s dark blond hair, Rohan grinned down at him.
“I thought we’d never get here!” Pol exclaimed. “I’m sorry we’re so late, Mother, but Maarken wanted to chase down a sandbuck—we lost him in Riven rock, though.”
“Too bad,” Sioned sympathized. “Perhaps we can go after him tomorrow. You look thirsty enough to have been out hunting all day. Shall we go in and have something cool to drink?”
“May I have some time to greet everyone first? And I should take care of my horse, too. Uncle Chay gave her to me for the summer, and I get to ride her to the Rial-la!”
Rohan nodded permission and Pol ran off. His pride in the boy knew no limits now. Stronghold had seen the changes in Pol’s appearance and behavior, every bit the proper young prince. Now his instincts told him to reestablish the friendships of his childhood. Rohan wondered if Pol knew what made him do it and what the outcome would be, then decided he did not. The actions were all the more engaging for their genuineness and spontaneity.
Chay had dismounted and was approaching the steps, wearing a devilish grin as he made Rohan a low, elaborate bow of homage. Rohan snorted.
“Don’t you start!”
“I thought only to follow your son’s excellent example, my prince,” Chay responded. “And if you’ll forgive my humble self and my insignificant son, we’ll follow the rest of Pol’s example and tend our horses. With your gracious leave, my prince?”
“Get out of here, you great idiot,” Tobin scolded, swatting him on the seat as she passed him on the steps.
Rohan looked around for Pol. The boy was in the center of a knot of chattering, teasing soldiers, archers, grooms, maidservants—even Rohan’s chief steward, who evidently felt he should be attending the young master rather than the older one. Rohan shook his head ruefully as he hugged his sister, slightly bemused by the hitherto unrealized power of his son’s charm. But as Tobin kissed Sioned and they went inside, she set him right about things.
“He’s exactly like you at that age,” his sister informed him. “I swear to you, he had everyone at Radzyn ready to battle dragons for him, and I can’t imagine he left Graypearl behind him much different.”
“At a little less than his age,” Rohan reminded her, “I was acting as go-between for a certain princess and her intended lord. Midnight meetings, secret afternoons—is Pol accomplished at that, too?”
Tobin had the grace to blush, even at her age. “I don’t know, but if he is I’ll wager he’s not half as clumsy about it as you were! I lost ten years off my life that time Father caught me with Chay!”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Rohan protested. “And you were only found the once, of all the hundreds of times—“
“Hundreds! Listen to him!” She stepped back on the coolness of the foyer and inspected them both. “Rohan, you’ve been eating. I don’t believe it.”
Sioned chuckled. “One of the privileges of encroaching middle age is getting fat.”
“I am not,” Rohan said. He pinched Tobin’s waist that was still as firm as a young girl’s. “You don’t seem to have taken advantage of it.”
“If she did,” Chay said from the open doorway, “I’d throw her in my dungeon and starve her. Sioned, you’re more beautiful than ever—as always.” He kissed her, then paused a moment and kissed her again for good measure. “What’s all this about middle age? And as for you—“ He clasped Rohan’s shoulders in both strong hands and grinned. “You could still hide behind your swordblade. Why am I the only one getting older?”
Sioned’s brows arched. “The mere sight of you sends every woman at Stronghold into a flutter, and you ask that?”
“I adore this woman,” he sighed happily. “But it’s not me, it’s Maarken. Do you know he’s asked for White-cliff to be redone this summer?”
“Oho!” Sioned laughed. “Do I detect grandchildren soon?” Catching sight of Maarken in the doorway, crimson to his earlobes, she beckoned him over for an embrace. “Not another word about it, I promise.”
“Thank you,” he said feelingly. “Pol wants us to go upstairs without him. He’ll be along in a little while. Myrdal’s got hold of him.”
Tobin nodded and started up the main staircase. “And she won’t be giving him up for the time it takes us to discuss the danger he’s in.”
The warmth of the family reunion turned to chill silence. Several steps above them now, Tobin sighed, turned, and shrugged an apology.
“It has to be talked about. Come on, all of you.”
Rohan, in an attempt to recapture a little of the former mood as they followed her, whispered loudly to Chay, “Why is it she can make me feel like a guest in my own castle?”
“Better a guest than a servant,” Chay responded philosophically. “You should see what she does to lords and princes foolish enough to invite us for a hunting party or a harvest festival.”
“I’ve seen, thanks—every three years at the Rialla. She and I had the same parents and the same upbringing, Chay—why can she do it when I can’t?”
Tobin had reached the landing by now and glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, poor, awkward, tongue-tied High Prince,” she scoffed. “You do it, too—only you realize it as little as Pol does.”
When Rohan had assumed the title of High Prince, the number of people coming and going at Stronghold multiplied fourfold. Ambassadors from other princedoms arrived with increasing frequency and stayed longer, although Rohan refused to keep the kind of permanent court Roelstra had established at Castle Crag. Sioned’s skills as a Sunrunner made resident representatives unnecessary; she could communicate more swiftly and effectively to faradh’im at other courts than messages could go back and forth via couriers. Moreover, the interplay between Sunrunners was brief and to the point, unlike the endless civilities and obfuscations by which officials justified their existence. The lack of a formal court was a relief to both Rohan and Sioned. During Pol’s childhood especially they had wanted to preserve some semblance of family life despite their exalted position.
Nevertheless, emissaries still came and went, and it had been necessary to modify Stronghold to accommodate the increased traffic. Sometimes every chamber, anteroom, and even the hallways were jammed full of people who had had the misfortune to arrive all at the same time. If there were complaints, Sioned never heard them. She never apologized, either, for the inconvenience. She looked on anyone but her family and close friends as interlopers in her home: tolerated, fed, and conversed with, but encouraged to leave as soon as they had finished their business. Rohan’s mother, Princess Milar, had changed Stronghold from warrior’s fortress into family dwelling; Sioned had no intention of its becoming a court that functioned only for the comfort and ease of outsiders.
Rohan had insisted on one thing, however. There was a large, formal audience chamber directly off the main foyer, but it was much too grand for confidential talks in a relaxed atmosphere. He had therefore claimed a smaller and less formal room within the precincts of their own suite. In the downstairs chamber the floor was bare, the few chairs were uncushioned, and one wall was covered with a huge tapestry of Stronghold itself in an unsubtle reminder of the keep’s strength and its rulers’ powers. But upstairs a gorgeous Cunaxan rug covered the stone floor in restful colors of green, blue, and white; the seating was casual and plentiful; smaller tapestries depicted the Vere Hills in spring bloom. The windows overlooked the courtyard where castlefolk went about their business and provided a pleasant background noise. In this beautiful room many profitable discussions had taken place between Rohan and his athr’im or the officials sent by one prince or another to talk over problems.
As her family arranged themselves on sofas and chairs, Sioned signaled the servants to provide everyone with cool wine and then withdraw. A cup was left for Pol on the side table. Sioned hoped he would take his time; there could be no discussion of danger with him in the room. Not that concern for his safety would frighten him; quite the opposite. He would instead try to find ways of giving everyone the slip to escape the oppressive sense of being watched—thereby increasing the danger.
“With your permission,” Chay said to Rohan, although his expression implied that the request was a mere formality and he would do as he planned with or without permission, “I’ll set Maarken as Pol’s guardian on this Princemarch trip. He ought to get some experience of the place, anyway. Not only for his own education but with an eye to its military layout—if you plan to make him Pol’s field commander eventually, that it.”
“It’s become one of Radzyn’s duties by now,” Rohan replied. “Maarken merits the position by training and wits as well as birth.”
“Thank you, my lord,” the young man responded.
“It’ll be a long while before your father gives up his post, though—despite his advancing old age. I assume there’s more, Tobin.”
“Of course.” She tucked one booted foot beneath her, careless of the velvet upholstery. “I’m worried about what Meath told us regarding this supposed son of Roelstra’s. It didn’t bother me before—the claim is absurd, after all— but the boy might become an annoyance through those who are foolish enough to support him for whatever reasons of their own. It’ll be difficult to tell if they truly believe in his claim or if they’re only pretending to believe for the trouble it’ll cause. What do you plan to do about him. Rohan?”
“Nothing, Not directly anyway. If I even admit that the problem exists, I lend credence to the rumors, you see. Our visit to Princemarch will do more to squelch the hopes of this pretender than anything else. I’m taking enough swords with me to show strength, but only as many as are proper for a royal party. Besides, we’ve been planning the trip for a long while, before these rumors really got started. So it won’t seem as if this is a deliberate bid for the area’s support.”
Tobin nodded her approval. “A hasty journey, previously unannounced, would be taken as a sign of worry and weakness.” She sipped at her wine, then nodded again. “With Maarken along to keep close watch on Pol without his knowing it, he’ll be in a position to learn all he can about Princemarch just in case it comes to a fight.”
“There will be no war.”
Rohan said it softly, but the words were all the more potent for the quiet of his voice.
His sister’s black brows slanted down. “If it’s necessary, you’ll fight. Whatever pretty notions you have about honor and law, there are times when steel is the only answer. You know that as well as I. And Pol’s training will make sure he knows it, too.”
“He will not live by the sword as our father did.” If Tobin heard the warning in his voice, she ignored it. “Don’t be a fool. I’m not saying Pol ought to enjoy war the way Father did. I’m saying that at times a prince has to fight or he’s no longer a prince.”
Rohan met her gaze calmly. “You’re correct, Tobin.
No longer a prince, but a barbarian. And that is what I intend my son to learn, much less painfully than I did.”
Into the awkward silence that followed came Pol, all fair hair and bright eye and limitless energy. His excited smile died away as he slammed up against the room’s tension. After a swift inspection of each face, he said,
“I can always tell when you’ve been talking about me— you all stop talking.”
The peevish tone hit Rohan all wrong. “Perhaps if you knocked at a door and waited for permission to enter, we’d be able to change the subject gracefully.”
Pol blinked and turned crimson. Sioned cast a disgusted glance at her husband and rose. “Come have something to drink” she said to her son.
He followed her to the side table readily enough, but once there he asked, “Is he angry at me?” “No, hatchling.”
“I’m not a baby, Mother. When is everybody going to stop treating me like a child?”
“You were a child when you left us. We’re just not used to you yet.”
“Well, I’ve grown up,” he stated flatly. “I don’t need to be protected. What could be so awful that you have to stop talking about it when I come into a room?”
Sioned bit her lip. In trying to mend the damage of Rohan’s flash of temper, she had only made things worse. Her hand moved toward Pol’s shoulder, fell back. He was so different, this youth who had returned in place of her little boy, adult lines of cheek and jaw showing in his face now, adult perceptions in his eyes. An ache tightened her throat. She wanted her child back. But Pol was right; he was no longer a child. Yet there were things he must not know—and one truth from which he must be protected as long as possible. If she could not hold onto his love and trust now, when he finally found it out she might lose him forever. “Mother? What were you talking about?” In her heightened state of nerves she could not face his direct challenge. Treat me like an adult, his eyes said.
Maarken saved the moment by asking Pol to explain aspects of squire’s training that they both had in common under Chadric’s direction, and gradually the mood in the room eased. Under the interested questioning of his elders, Pol began to chatter like any other boy who had been away from home and learned a great many things. But Sioned mourned the easy manner of his first greeting, lost when she had disappointed him.
When the wine was gone, Chay took Tobin off to their chambers to rest. Rohan still had his parchments to attend to, as Sioned reminded him sweetly, earning herself a disgusted look. She asked Pol if he’d like to help her supervise the spring planting in the gardens, and tried not to be too hurt when he mentioned a previous promise to spend more time with Myrdal at the guardhouse. The retired commander of the stronghold guard, Maeta’s mother was a particular friend of Pol’s, and Sioned could not deny the old woman the pleasure of his company.
Maarken asked if she would mind if he accompanied her instead, and she accepted his offer with a degree of curiosity. He had no interest at all in herbs and flowers. Strictly speaking, neither did she, particularly; it was her duty as Stronghold’s mistress to make sure it bloomed. They walked the gravel paths and crossed the little bridge arching over the garden stream whose dual purpose was irrigation and beauty. The trickle had swollen with spring runoff from the high Vere Hills and culminated in Princess Milar’s fountain. Sioned spoke with the grounds-keepers along the way, attending to her duties with one part of her mind while the rest of her chased an elusive memory. When she and Maarken were alone beside the tall, fluted blossom of water, she caught the memory and smiled.
They had walked this path the morning after he had convinced his parents that he should go to Goddess Keep for more than just rudimentary training as a Sunrunner. Tobin had three rings betokening skills taught her by Sioned with Andrade’s approval, but she had never lived the whole cycle of training. Chay had been frankly opposed to the idea of his son’s education in such things; he had never been entirely comfortable with Tobin’s skills, though he valued the advantage they often gave him. But he was concerned that the powers of a faradhi added to those of an important lord would create enmity and suspicion. Sioned had helped Maarken convince Chay that his talents deserved nurturing to their fullest, and the following morning they had strolled the gardens while he tried to find words to express his relief and gratitude.
She sensed that he again needed her support, but waited for him to broach the subject himself. They stood watching his grandmother’s sparkling creation of playful water in the Desert, and at last he spoke.
“About Whitecliff,” he began, then sighed. “It’s not in hopes of finding a wife that I want it made ready. I’ve already found her.”
Sioned nodded slowly, following the dance of tiny crystal drops that plunged into the greater pond and sent out conflicting circles on impact, replaced every instant by another drop and then another. “She’s a Sunrunner.”
“How did you know?”
“If she were not, you would’ve told your parents you had someone specific in mind—perhaps even brought her to Radzyn, or asked that she be invited here for the summer. But because you have not done any of those things, you’re apprehensive about their approval—which points to her rings.”
He kicked at the white gravel around the fountain. “Then you know why I’m telling you this, and not them.”
“You think you need my help.” She faced him, put a hand on his arm. Her emerald caught possessively at the light, glinting its ownership of the sun. “You’ve done everything a young lord is supposed to, Maarken. Lleyn taught you your role as knight and athri, and you’ve been to other princedoms and holdings to see right and wrong ways of governing. But Andrade taught you how to be a faradhi, and that makes you different. I think you believe your choice of a Sunrunner as your wife will set you firmly on one side and not the other.”
Maarken bit his lip. “She and I decided that we’d both have to be fully trained before we could marry. Well, I’m wearing my sixth ring, and I’m still worrying like a dragon at a stag’s bone.”
They sat on the edge of the fountain, and Sioned kept her hand on his arm in comforting encouragement. He extended long legs, boot heels digging into the gravel, and stared at his knees.
“I thought I wanted to wait because at the Rialla they could meet her without prejudice, see what she’s like for themselves. But you’re right, Sioned. I don’t know which is going to be more powerful in my life, being Lord of Radzyn or being a Sunrunner. I don’t know how much they’ll influence each other or how to reconcile them. I always thought I’d serve my lands and my prince and myself better if I was both—but choosing a Sunrunner makes it seem like I’m more one thing than the other. And that brings Andrade into things where she doesn’t belong. Sioned, I can’t let her in, not to the part of me that will be Lord of Radzyn.”
“Maarken.” She waited until he met her gaze, then touched her own cheek where a small crescent scar curved near her eye. “I was burned by my own Fire because I put the needs of my prince and my princedom above all else, including my faradhi oaths. I believed more strongly in my own wisdom and my choices—destiny, if you will— than I did in being guided by Andrade. Don’t ask me what happened or how, because I can’t tell you that. But I used what I am to get what I believed was right.” The authority of a princess had gained her the loyal lies of her people about Pol’s true parentage, but Sunrunner’s Fire had destroyed Feruche and lanthe’s corpse after Sioned had taken Rohan’s son. It was only through the grace of a friend that she had not actually murdered Pol’s mother with Fire, a thing utterly forbidden Sunrunners. But it would not have been the first time she had killed using her gifts. The faradhi in her writhed in shame, but the princess knew quite coldly that such things were necessary.
She held Maarken’s gray eyes with her own. “It’s a difficult choice to make, and a lonely one. But it teaches you something very important. Fear.”
“How to fear Andrade?”
“No. Your own powers. Maarken, you’re a strong man and you know your strength could kill. You’ve learned to be careful in practice combat for fear of hurting others. Being a Sunrunner is like that—even more so for one who is also a great lord. What you do will set the standard for Pol and Andry and Riyan. There’ll be more in the future. But you’re the first.”
“What about you? You’re Sunrunner and princess both.”
“I’m a half-breed of sorts. I wasn’t born royal, no matter what my family’s connections with Syr and Kierst. I was a faradhi before I was a princess, and that’s always influenced my choices. I sometime react one way as a Sunrunner and quite another as a ruler, and the two aren’t always compatible to my aims.”
“I think I understand,” he said slowly. “I know the kind of power I have as a warrior—and one day I ‘11 be Pol’s field commander with an army behind me. I also know my influence as my father’s son, and how careful I’ll have to be with that power.” He held out his hands so the rings caught the sunlight. “These are another kind of power. And it might conflict with the other. But you made your choice, Sioned. The only ring you wear is Rohan’s.”
“The others are still there, like scars,” she murmured. Then, more calmly, she went on, “I’m willing to bet your Chosen appeals to everything you are, Maarken. She matches you in gifts, but she’ll also make a fine Lady of Radzyn. Doesn’t that show you’ve already woven the two kinds of power together, whether you realize it or not? What you did at the Faolain years ago proved it.” She saw the memory in his eyes. At barely twelve winters old, he had recognized the military necessity of destroying bridges across the Faolain River, and used his Sunrunner gifts to do it. Fire-bearing arrows would have been risky, for Roelstra’s troops might have swarmed onto the bridges to put them out and might have died. But Maarken’s Fire had frightened them into doing nothing. No one had died. Rohan had told Sioned about it, marveling at the boy’s mature decision that had combined duty to his prince and faradhi ethics: it was for this act that Rohan had given Maarken his first ring.
“I’m glad you’re to be the first,” Sioned told him. . “Rohan knows the ways of princes, and I know those of Sunrunners. But you’re both. Pol could have no finer example than you.” Pausing for a moment, she waited until he again looked at her, and smiled. “Because of that, you don’t really need any help when it comes to this lady. You have it, of course. But you won’t need it.”
“Maybe not—but I’ll be glad to know you’re there, just the same.”
“You mustn’t tell me her name yet, you know,” she continued in a lighter tone. “I want to see if I can pick her out from among Andrade’s suite. And I’ll wager you whatever jewels she fancies for your wedding necklet that I can pick her out!”
Maarken smiled at last. “Sioned! You don’t need to provide a dowry!”
“Who said anything about her dowry? Haven’t I the right to see my nephew in something magnificent at his marriage? If I lose, then you can have that tapestry you’ve always liked. I always thought it would be most properly displayed in a bedchamber.”
He blushed, then gave up and laughed with her. “All right, done! I win either way—and don’t think I don’t know you planned it like that!”
“There’s something about a Rialla that makes me want to wager. Did I ever tell you that I bet one of Roelstra’s daughters she’d never catch Rohan? This emerald against all the silver she had on—and she was clanking like a wind chime.”
“I know you—you only bet when you’re sure of winning. You’d never have risked that ring otherwise.”
“How very perceptive of you, my lord.” A smug grin on her face, she rose and brushed the dark, sun-warmed hair from his forehead. “It’s getting too hot out here. Can you imagine what summers are like at Remagev? Walvis and Feylin will be here in a few days with the children to escape the heat.”
“Remagev always reminds me of a dragon sleeping in the sand. Do you think I could ride out to see it and come back with them? I hear Walvis has worked miracles with the old place the last few years.”
“You’d hardly recognize it. I—“ she broke off as the air around them shimmered with color, patterns of light she could touch with her thoughts. She gripped Maarken’s arm with both hands, seeing that he was as caught as she by the woven rays of sunlight that thickened urgently as a faradhi voice spun down the threads with a brief, frightening message, crying out for help.
* * *
It had not taken Meath long to find out that pleasure rides through the hills on Dorval were no proper training for the long journey to Goddess Keep. Each time he began to think that perhaps the misery of a sea voyage would have been preferable to the mutiny of every muscle in his body, he forced himself to think of yesterday’s crossing of the Pyrme River in a tiny, leaky raft. He had been given scant time for recovery; when Lord Chaynal told his people to be somewhere quickly, they obeyed. Meath reminded himself that at least there had been a bridge over the Faolain River and fresh horses at one of Prince Dav-vi’s holdings, but he was too exhausted to appreciate the fine animal under him. They were out of Syr now, riding the open pastureland between the Pyrme and Kadar Rivers, and as the afternoon wore on Meath began to wonder with a hint of desperation if his escort would ever call a rest stop. A broad-shouldered man of about thirty winters and a slightly older woman, they seemed tireless. Meath had to admit they’d made excellent time, though he suspected that by tomorrow they would have to strap him to his saddle to keep him in it.
Revia rode ahead of him, her companion Jal just behind him. Their swords and bows were augmented by his Sunrunner status that completed their armament. His rings had commandeered the raft ahead of several other passengers, and at manors and villages along the way a glimpse of them had brought swift service. Lady An-drade was known, respected, and generally feared throughout the princedoms, and assisting one of her far-adh’im was good politics as well as good manners.
When the first two riders appeared over the low northern hills, Meath felt only vague curiosity. The addition of a third, fourth, and fifth did not concern him. But when they chose an intercepting path and he saw the glint of unsheathed steel, he tensed in every aching muscle. The sluggishness of his body’s responses warned him he would be slow until battle warmed him, for nothing other than battle was indicated by those drawn swords.
The bow came off Revia’s shoulder. She looped her reins around the saddle horn, guiding her mount with knees and heels while she drew her first arrow. The five riders increased their pace and Meath tried to guess when they would be within range of that long, deadly bow. Hitting moving targets from a moving horse would be difficult for even the best archer. But Lord Chaynal had promised him the best—and Meath gasped aloud as Re-via’s second arrow was nocked and drawn before the first had even found its target. The red-and-white fletch-ing sprang up like an exotic flower against the green grass just ahead of the galloping horses; a warning only. If they did not turn aside, the next shot would be in earnest.
Jal came up beside him, bow at the ready, saying, “Go on, my lord, ride ahead to those trees. We’ll take them down if necessary, then join you.”
When the lead horse neatly sidestepped the first arrow and the riders kept coming, Revia let fly. Jal kept perfect time with her, shooting as she withdrew another arrow, taking another one himself as she shot.
Meath’s primary urge was to stay and fight alongside his escort. But the scrolls he carried were too important. He was about to follow Jal’s suggestion when another ten riders crested the hill, sun shining on naked swords.
“Quickly, my lord! The trees!” Jal shouted.
“Or Lord Chaynal will have us scrubbing the middens for life,” Revia added calmly, never losing rhythm with her bow.
Rather than obey, Meath reined in so hard that his horse reared back on its haunches. He tied his reins as Revia and Jal had done, freeing his hands. But he did not take up his sword. Instead he lifted both palms so his rings caught the sunlight. He did not do it to warn the attackers that they violated the law by approaching a Sunrunner with swords drawn, for they were clearly intent on assault, laws or no. He instead gathered in skeins of sunlight and sent an urgent message flashing toward Goddess Keep.
The Radzyn soldiers placed their horses ahead of his, protecting him. Meath was dimly aware that one man had fallen and two more had wounds, and the fourth man’s horse shrieked with the pain of an arrow in its neck. But distance had softened the impact of the arrows, and the others kept riding.
Meath raced down the weave of sunlight to the western coast. A chill gray fog stopped him. He cursed the spring weather that shrouded the keep in impenetrable mist. Instantly he returned and cast the skeins in the other direction, east and north toward Stronghold. Sioned’s emerald and sapphire and onyx and amber were long familiar to him; he wove light around the pattern of her colors and touched them. Briefly he communicated his location, the danger, and that what he carried must not fall into the wrong hands.
Without waiting for any answer, he pulled away from her and kicked his horse forward until he was beside Revia. Then he lifted his hands again. He could call down Fire if he had to, but Fire might kill—or blaze through the grasses if his control was not fine enough. He had no desire to leave behind a conflagration as token of a Sun-runner’s passage.
So he summoned Air. The dust of the fields rose up behind the first group of enemy riders, gathered loose grass and tiny pebbles, swirled into a whirlwind the size of a small dragon. Through its thickness he saw horses rearing in terror and men trying to regain control.
Jal gave a startled curse. Revia kept shooting arrows, but with a grin on her face now that her targets were nearer and she need not worry about the second wave. One man went down screaming, an arrow through his cheek. But another, infuriated, dug his heels into his stallion and hurtled forward, ignoring the shaft Jal placed in his thigh. He raised and let fly a knife.
Meath grunted with the impact in his shoulder. He lost control of his whirlwind, the shock of the wound devastating. But that should not have been, he told himself fuzzily; it was only a throwing knife stuck in his shoulder, not through his lung or heart. He fumbled for the haft, drew the steel knife from his flesh with agonizing effort. It seemed to him that he toppled very slowly, his bones water. Countless colors shattered all around him; the hues of trees, flowers, meadow, and sky becoming as stained Fironese crystal, losing depth, paintings on glass that splintered with a terrible sound and crashed into jagged shards. He fell onto them, soft blades of spring grass now blades of colored crystal. And then all the colors were gone.
* * *
Sioned gasped with the force of Meath’s weaving, and again when he abruptly vanished. “Maarken! Help me find him! Quickly!”
He followed her down the paths of plaited sunlight, seeking the familiar pattern that was Meath. But he had not Sioned’s skills, and so found only the colors, not sight of Meath himself. Sioned saw; Meath conjuring Air, Meath felled by the slick, glittering knife. She saw her friend go down and a sound left her throat that was half sob, half snarl.
The enemy riders regrouped as the whirlwind spluttered to nothingness. They thundered down on the two Radzyn guards and the Sunrunner lying prone in the grass. Sioned knew they would be slaughtered. She did not make the choice consciously; she did what was necessary. With the ruthlessness of need she grasped every mind with faradhi potential she could find nearby. Twirling all the colors together, light bright threads of silk in the hands of a master weaver, she spun the sunlight as she had once spun the glow of the stars, and directed its brilliance to the road immediately in front of the assassins.
Sunrunner’s Fire sprang up, a thick wall of roaring flames. They rode directly into it, too late to stop their horses’ momentum. Sioned could not hear the screams or the thuds as they fell. But she could see her Fire licking at their clothes as they rolled about in the dirt, trying to douse the flames.
The woman wearing Radzyn’s colors leaped down from her saddle, lugging Meath’s long, brawny frame up as best she could. Her companion was soon helping her, casting fearful glances over his shoulder at the Fire. Meath was thrown over his saddle and within moments the trio were heading for the sheltering trees. When they were out of sight, Sioned let the Fire die away. It left a scar across the field, blackened dirt like a line drawn daring the enemy to cross.
They did not. Dust rose nearly as high as Meath’s whirlwind as they scrambled for what horses they could catch and rode away at speed, leaving their wounded behind to fend for themselves.
Sioned waited until they were gone, then turned her energies to untangling the taut weave of colors. Elsewhere at Stronghold, Tobin shuddered in the sunlight coming through her bedchamber window and Chay shook her by the shoulders, calling her name frantically until sense returned to her eyes. In the sunlit outer courtyard hear the guardhouse, old Myrdal hung onto Pol’s slight form, feeling the boy tremble in a storm of power. She had seen the High Princess conjure Fire and the like, but now something else was happening to Pol. At length he gave a convulsive tremor, awareness back in his face, and even smiled at her a little before fainting in her arms.
Maarken, the strong central thread of her weaving, was the last to be released from it. Sioned separated herself from him and together they moved back along the strands of light to Stronghold. She spared no glimpse for the rich Syrene meadows below them, nor the proud rise of the Vere, intent on seeking the safety of the garden.
But all at once there were other colors—a blinding, amazing whirl of rainbow hues as startled by them as they were by it. Sioned shied away and the other did the same. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring at Maarken— and could not rid herself of an impression of wings.
The young man was drenched in sweat, shaking. He hung onto Sioned’s hands so hard that the emerald ring bit into her flesh. His own knuckles were white. She could not recall when they had linked fingers as well as gifts.
“Sioned,” Maarken whispered, his voice not quite steady. “Wh-what was that?”
She met his gaze and said carefully, “I think ... I think we bumped into a dragon.”