Guards kept alert vigil against terrors bound to slither through the night now that the Lady of Goddess Keep was dead. They tensed at the sound of low murmurings, flinched at shadows cast on fabric walls by single candles. They tried not to see the sharp gestures, movements of impatience or pain or dread, arms that spread in helplessness or sometimes folded around a needing other. Long after the moons had nestled back into the embrace of the Veresch; long after the events of the day and night should have sent everyone to their beds; long after watch-fires burned low and only the stars lit the encampment in pale silvery light, the whisperings went on and on within the many-colored tents.
Rohan thanked Chadric and Audrite for their care of his wife and son, saw them off into the night, and poured himself a large goblet of strong wine. Pol sat tense and wide-eyed in a chair near Sioned, who tried without success to hide her intermittent trembling. He poured wine for them, too, and paced off a slow triangle on the carpet: desk to window, window to chairs, chairs to desk.
“She asked about you,” he said abruptly. “Both of you. To know that you were safe. Goddess help us. We mattered more to her than her own life.”
Sioned set her goblet down untasted. Rohan spoke her name softly, aching for the terrible guilt in her eyes that matched his own. “No,” she said, her voice raw with pain. “I can’t bear it, Rohan. She made me everything I am, and the last time I spoke with her—oh, Goddess!” Her numb composure broke. “She died thinking I hated her!”
“Sioned, don’t do this to yourself.”
She looked up at him, her eyes bleak. “If I stop, will you? “
Pol shifted slightly, meeting Rohan’s gaze with eyes much older than his years. “Father—Prince Lleyn told me what she said about Masul.”
“And?”
“He won’t have Princemarch. It’s not just that it’s mine by right. The people and the land accepted me. I won’t give them over to him, not for any reason.”
“They are yours, and you are theirs,” Sioned murmured. She looked up at Rohan, her haunted eyes saying, And he is Roelstra’s grandson, with more right to Prince-march than he knows.
“I’ll fight for them if I have to,” Pol finished.
“There will be no war.” Rohan knew how empty that vow was. He gave his wife a weary, cynical smile. “Well, perhaps only a little one.”
* * *
A larger war was being debated within Miyon’s orange tent. He lounged on a padded couch, listening as Kiele and Masul discussed troop strengths as if they knew what they were talking about. Amusement played around his eyes and lips. Whoever fought this war, it would hot be his own soldiers. He would get the others to do it. And when everyone was exhausted with battle, even the victors, his own fresh and ready army would seize great chunks of Firon and Princemarch and the Desert itself.
Lyell stood nervously by his wife’s chair, ignored by all until he said to Masul, “Your pardon, my lord. It simply occurs to me that all this would bring a great deal of destruction which would be very bad for us all.”
“Merchant,” the pretender spat scornfully. “We speak of thrones, and you babble about trade.”
Miyon hid a grin. Masul thought that being a prince was riding fine horses and wearing fine clothes, and enjoying the sight of heads and knees bent to him. He had never been strangled and starved by Desert armies, never seen the produce of his lands rot and rust for lack of transport to rich markets. Neither had he dealt with greedy, grim Merida, always clamoring for a war against the Desert that Miyon knew could only end one way. Perhaps he would send the Merida against the remains of Rohan’s armies, once the latter had exhausted themselves in Princemarch. Yes, that was a good thought; they might just annihilate each other, and at the very least would so decimate themselves that it would be a generation before either had the strength to fight again.
“The princedoms function on trade,” Miyon said softly. “But we are indeed speaking of thrones here, and not only that of Princemarch.”
“How so, your grace?” Kiele asked suspiciously.
‘ ‘Consider, dear lady.” He snuggled back into the embrace of soft pillows. “Aligned with us are Gilad and Grib, Fessenden—and of course Isel.” He chuckled. “What a merry time of it they’ll have on their island, once they start the real war they’ve been flirting with for the hundred years since the last one! Grib and Gilad lie on either side of Ossetia, ready to pinch it between them like a dragon’s jaws. Fessenden rides atop Princemarch— and will rein it into our hands. How many fronts do you think Rohan has armies enough to fight on? What use would Dorval be to him? Syr is a powerful ally—but once Clutha understands that his beloved Meadowlord will yet again become a battlefield, he’ll save his troops for protecting his own, not for a fight he cares nothing about.” Miyon sighed happily. “Rohan is mistaken if he looks for substantial help from any of his allies.”
“I don’t see that all this gets me into Castle Crag any the sooner,” Masul said, glowering.
“Patience.” Miyon smiled. “Watch them wear themselves out for a spring and summer. By then, not only will you walk into Castle Crag without opposition, but the others will be so exhausted by their wars that they’ll have no strength to counter your more interesting proposals at the special gathering of princes you’ll call to end the wars.”
“And you, your grace?” Masul asked in silken tones. “I take it you won’t be exhausted.”
“Not in the slightest. I’ll own the Desert from Tiglath to Feruche. You may have the rest. I’m not greedy.”
“Of course not,” Kiele murmured.
“Tomorrow should make a lovely little beginning for our wars,” Miyon finished. “Remember that, and don’t lose sight of the whole world for dreaming yourself at Castle Crag.”
Pandsala slept, dreaming of just that place. She was a young girl again, strolling the gardens dug into the cliffs, and the sun was soft on her face and hair. Her sister lanthe handed her a violet-wrapped bundle that squirmed in her arms. The child had golden hair and blue-green eyes.
“You’re not the guardian I would have chosen for him, but you’ve done very well,” lanthe taunted. “You even love him! My son, and you love him! It’s the best joke I ever played on anyone, the crowning scheme of my life!”
Pandsala stared in horror at lanthe’s child. Part of her wanted to thrust it away from her, hurl it over the walls to the deep gorge of the Faolain below. lanthe laughed. “But I’ll take him back now. He’s mine. More important, he belongs to our mother’s people. I always thought it grossly unfair that she passed the gifts to you, not me. Think what I could have done with them!” She held out her hands. “Give him back to me now, Pandsala. Your work is done.”
“No!”
“He doesn’t belong to you,” lanthe explained as if to a dull-witted student. “Give him to us.”
A shadow fell on the lawn beside her. She turned and , saw her father, tall and green-eyed and adamant. He said, “Give him to us. It’s time.”
She clutched the infant to her breast. Calling on everything she had ever learned of power, she flung a bolt of Sunrunner’s Fire at lanthe, at Roelstra. Their flesh blackened and crisped before her eyes, but they were laughing as she killed them.
She began to run, tripped on the steps, fell, dropped her precious burden. She screamed again, terrified. But the blanket was empty.
Sioned appeared on the walkway above her, the emerald ring blazing as bright as her emerald eyes. She knelt and gathered the violet blanket, never taking her gaze from Pandsala’s.
“What have you done?” she demanded, unfurling the cloth. “Look at the blood!”
Pandsala cringed away from the velvet that dripped fat spheres of thick red blood. They hit the sun-heated stones and burned to blackened circles. She touched one and her fingertip came away scorched, but there was no pain.
She looked up suddenly, relief sobbing through her as Pol came out of the castle to stand beside Sioned. But this was not the boy Pandsala knew; this was a man fully grown, tall and proud, the great topaz-and-amethyst ring on his finger. He looked down on her with remote curiosity and no recognition. Sioned took his hand. Claimed him.
Pandsala opened her mouth to reveal the truth. She could destroy Sioned by speaking of lanthe.
Bud she did not. If she had killed lanthe and Roelstra to keep Pol free of them, she could not reclaim him for them by telling him who his real mother had been. She could not do that to him.
Another shadow appeared, and for a panicked instant she thought Roelstra had escaped the flames. But it was Masul who strode forward, green eyes brimming with vicious glee as he swung his new Cunaxan sword at Pol’s head.
“No!” she screamed again. Behind him were three more shadows, dark and menacing, more fatal even than Masul. Rohan must change his mind, he must allow her to remain regent of Princemarch—how else could she continue to protect Pol from the dangers that threatened him again and again and—
Masul laughed down at her and the sword continued on its slow, deadly, sunlit arc toward Pol’s neck.
“NO!”
“My lady!”
She sat up in bed, shuddering, and stared without comprehension at the boy standing beside her. He held a candle. The flame danced light over his dark hair, into his eyes—green like Roelstra’s, like the pretender’s—like Sioned’s. Their faces layered over his, joined by lanthe’s atop them all, and Pandsala shrank back from him. “Wh-who are you?” she breathed.
“My name is Sejast, my lady,” he said, and the other faces vanished at the sound of his voice. Not more of the dream, then. Only a boy wearing a single faradhi ring on the middle finger of his right hand.
“Forgive me for violating your privacy, but—but I was sent to find out if you were in any distress after what happened tonight.”
“I’m quite all right,” she said, her voice infuriatingly thin and weak.
“I’m glad to hear it, my lady,” he said with a shy little smile. “Some of the others aren’t doing so well. But you’re much stronger than they, I think.”
“You don’t seem much bothered.” She swung her feet over to the floor, smoothed back her hair. “Are you so vefy strong?”
He blushed. “I’m not that gifted, my lady. If you’re well, then I’ll go and let you rest.”
“Wait.” She grasped his arm and he helped her to her feet, all respectful solicitude. “Get me something to drink.”
He obeyed as she made her way to a nearby chair. She drank thirstily, needing the wine to wash away the last shadows of her dream.
“Do you want me to call a physician, my lady?”
“No.” Feeling better, she straightened her shoulders and regarded him closely, searching for the elusive memory. She had seen him before, she was sure of it. All at once she had it. “Aren’t you the boy who attends Lady Hollis?” ; “I have that honor, my lady.”
“I see.” Having placed him now, she relaxed. This was no shadow, only a nice and helpful boy who had been kind—and who had better not say anything about what he might have heard. “I was dreaming,” she said, “when you came in and woke me. I must have startled you.”
“Not half as much as I did you, my lady.” He smiled again. “I heard you call out and I thought it best to wake you if I could.”
“My thanks. It was not a pleasant dream,” she added wryly, relieved that she had said nothing to reveal herself. “And thank you for your attention, Sejast. You may go now. I’m recovered.”
“Very good, my lady. But please try to rest. You look very tired.”
“I will. Good night.”
Segev grinned to himself as he left the tent. So much for family instinct, he thought; Pandsala had not recognized a hint of her sister lanthe in him. It had been a daring thing to do, but the night and Mireva’s use of him and especially Andrade’s death had intoxicated him. He had felt power rip through him like a blizzard of cold, stinging snow that burned with his own body heat and turned to fiery rivers of strength. His mind itched for the Star Scroll and the spells that would show him even more power. But he still had to wait.
Not for long.
He made his way to the High Prince’s tents, careful to let his ring be seen by the guards. He paused outside Maarken’s tent, listening to the voices, watching the shadows on the wall.
“Hollis—stay here for the night, you’re not well enough to—“
“I want to go back and sleep in my own bed!”
“This is your bed! You’re going to be my wife! Any bed I’m in is the one you should be in, too!”
“Maarken—leave me alone, I can’t—“
Segev grinned again, barely containing laughter as the shadow that was Hollis broke away from the taller shadow’s outstretched arms. He hugged himself with excitement.
Hollis snapped, “Stop acting as if I’m yours!”
She nearly stumbled over Segev in her flight from the tent. Suddenly it was as if Maarken’s rasping cry of her name did not exist—or Maarken himself, for the matter.
“Oh!” she said, startled. “Sejast! Are you all right?”
He had grasped her elbow, and now slid his hand down to hers. Thin, chill fingers curled around his. “Are you all right, my lady?”
“I’m fine. But I’m glad you’re here. Will you take me back to our tents?”
He cast one glance back over his shoulder as he escorted her. Maarken stood there in the entry of his tent, a lit candle flickering in his hand. By its light, Segev saw undisguised jealous hatred in the young lord’s pale eyes. And grinned.
* * *
Ostvel had tried to give Volog’s daughter back to him on the knoll, embarrassed by the girl’s small,” desperate sobs and the way she clung to him. But Alasen would not let go. Volog, after a gentle attempt to draw her into his own arms, shook his head and murmured, “Come with me. I doubt she’s aware of much of anything right now.”
It seemed true. It was accident that he had been near her in the first place, when Andrade’s conjuring had gone all awry and the Fire had turned from vision to nightmare. Alasen’s moan of agony, a tiny echo of Andrade’s scream, brought Ostvel’s hands out to steady her; the next thing he knew, she had buried her face against his chest and dug her fingers into his shirt. She trembled as if her slender body would shatter. Frantic for his son’s safety, Ostvel tried to pry himself away. She only hung on tighter.
Davvi and Chale were helping Riyan; as Ostvel watched, Gemma and Tilal joined them. Riyan looked groggy but was fast recovering. Ostvel gave heartfelt thanks to the Goddess and to the tenderly protective spirit of his Camigwen that surely watched over their son, and turned his attention to the girl weeping hopelessly in his arms.
Volog seemed content to let Ostvel help Alasen back to the tents. He left them for a time, then returned to murmur, “Riyan’s all right. Davvi’s seeing to his comfort.”
“Thank you for your care of my son, your grace,” Ostvel said.
“And for your care of my daughter.” Volog stroked Alasen’s hair. “Poor child. . . . She’s faradhi, of course.”
Ostvel coaxed her to take a few steps. “Come along now, Alasen. It’s all over. You’re safe.” He met Volog’s eyes again. “What of Andrade?”
The prince shook his head.
Ostvel swallowed hard. Memories tumbled in him of his youth at Goddess Keep, growing up with Camigwen and Sioned and Meath and so many others who were Sunrunners. He had never felt the lack of what they had and he did not, had even hoped that one day he would earn the rank of chief steward there. Instead, he had accompanied Sioned to Stronghold, become Rohan’s liegeman and friend and finally athri of his own keep. Andrade had ordered Sioned to the Desert, thus reordering all their destinies. Andrade had in many ways ruled his life for much of his life. It was impossible to think of her as dead.
Alasen was walking more securely now, but when Ost-vel tried to unclench her fists from his shirt and hand her over to her father, she gave a despairing cry and huddled still closer.
“It’s all right, my love,” Volog murmured, one arm around her waist. “Only a little way now. My lord, you know more ofthe faradh’im than I. What happened here tonight?”
“I’m not sure, your grace,” he temporized, although he had strong suspicions. “There are . . . certain things in which all Sunrunners present are joined, and tonight . . . tonight was dangerous.” Even more so than the night Sioned had woven starlight, and not only Tobin and Pol, who had been nearby, but faradh ‘im hundreds of measures away had been caught up in it. Then, the tangle of colors had been sorted out by Andrade; Ostvel surmised that Sioned had done the work tonight. The other Sun-runners, no matter their level of training, had recovered, though they would all have raging headaches, if he knew anything about the breed. But Alasen had no training at all.
“Joined whether they like it or no,” Volog interpreted, nodding at his daughter’s bent head.
Ostvel nodded.
“Urival—or was it Sioned?—is very skilled.”
He knew a leading remark when he heard one. “I don’t think those of us without the gifts can ever really understand what happens to them, your grace.”
“But you lived amongst them for most of your youth, yes?”
“I had that honor. When they talked of touching colors and seeing each other’s patterns in light—“ He supported Alasen as she stumbled. “Their powers are a mystery to me, your grace. But they are only people in the end, like the rest of us.”
They reached Volog’s scarlet tents. Ostvel began to wonder if he would have to sacrifice his shirt to the girl’s fierce grip. Eventually, however, he and Volog persuaded her fingers to loosen. The prince placed his daughter on a low couch, covered her with a light blanket. Her green eyes were wide open and staring, blind to everything around her. Or so Ostvel thought until he turned to go, and she reached out both hands with a piteous cry of abandonment.
He knelt beside her, pressing her hands in both of his. “Hush now. It’s all right, Alasen. You’re safe. I promise you, my lady. Safe.”
She searched his face and sense returned to her eyes. She almost smiled at him. Goddess, but the girl was beautiful, he thought with a catch in his heart that confused him. Her long lashes closed and he was glad that those eyes no longer gazed up at him with such trust, such gratitude.
Alasen whispered suddenly, “But she’s dead. All the colors—and Lady Andrade is dead.”
“Shh,” he replied, aware of Volog hovering on the other side of the couch, watching. “Just sleep now, my dear.”
Alasen’s fingers moved convulsively in his own, then went limp. Ostvel waited until he was sure she slept, then rose tiredly to his feet. Joints at knee and shoulder hurt a little in the damp climate of Waes, so different from ,• the hot, dry Desert around Sky bowl. The dull aches reminded him of his age, fully twice that of the girl who lay on the couch, resting at last but not at peace. Another small hurt centered in his chest as he gazed down at her youth, her pale, strained face.
He turned to Volog. “She’ll be all right once she’s had a good long sleep, your grace.”
“You must be getting bored by my expressions of thanks,” the prince said wryly. “May I offer you some wine, my lord? We could both use it.”
“At any other time I would accept gladly. But I really ought to go see about my son.”
“Of course. Another time, then.” He escorted Ostvel to the entryway. “I hate to ask it, but what do you think will happen tomorrow? Andrade is dead, the question of Masul is still unresolved, and I see no way out of this.”
“The High Prince will find one. He always does.” Ostvel thought of, the Sunrunner Masul had undoubtedly killed; if it could be proven against him, he would die-pretender to Princemarch or not. “Good night, your grace.”
He met Chay outside the perimeter of Rohan’s tents. “I’ve been checking on our sons,” the older man said. “All serene—though they’ll not be fit to live with tomorrow, if I know faradh ‘im.”
“My diagnosis exactly. I’ve just been with Volog. Ala-sen was stricken more than the others. She’s had no training.”
Chay looked grim. “Someone must have known her colors. Otherwise Sioned would never been able to find and separate her from the other Sunrunners, and we would have lost her to the shadows.”
Ostvel wondered who it might have been who had touched and remembered Alasen’s unique pattern of light. Then he shrugged; it was enough that someone had. “How does Tobin?”
“Well enough. She knew what was happening the entire time. She’s stronger than she knows, and even stronger than she pretends to be,” he added with a rueful shrug. Then he sobered. “I can’t believe Andrade is gone.”
“Nor I,” Ostvel murmured.
“I can usually guess the workings of Rohan’s mind— though I’m just that half-step behind him much of the time. But I’m damned if I know what he’s going to do now.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe she’s gone,” he repeated.
Ostvel thought it best to change the subject. “Riyan is with Davvi right now?”
“What? Oh—no, he’s with Andry at the Sunrunner tents. Sorin’s going to stay the night with them. Maar-ken’s holed up in his own tent pretending to be asleep.” Chay grimaced. “I wish I knew what was going on with him. That girl of his is lovely, of course, and Andry tells us she’s perfect for Maarken. But if she’s in love with him, / haven’t seen anything of it. Ah, well. They’ll work it out themselves, I suppose.” He squinted at the eastern sky. “Not much left of tonight.”
“I wish there were. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.”
“Will the burning be here, do you think, or at Goddess Keep?”
“I don’t know. Urival will have to decide, but I don’t think he’s in any state to make plans.” He gripped Chay’s arm lightly. “We won’t be, either, unless we at least try to get some sleep.”
“Ostvel, I can’t even begin to think what plans to make—except ones for war.”
* * *
“Andry lay sleepless and afraid in the small white tent, not comforted even by his twin’s presence nearby. He had been the one to delineate Alasen’s colors—and Sioned had not been the one to separate her from the rest. Andry had done it himself. Through the shock and agony threatening to tear his mind apart, he had seen the luminous pattern that was Alasen begin to splinter. Panic had shoved aside all else. He had sensed the method used by Sioned to extract Pol from the chaos; instinct had taken over from there. The effort to calm Alasen’s terror and keep her whole had wrung all the strength from him. The next thing he knew he was being helped down the knoll, led by Sorin’s worried, soothing voice.
He could hear his twin’s soft breathing nearby, the rhythm one of wakefulness, not sleep as Riyan’s was in the other bed. Andry sat up slowly, holding his throbbing head between his hands.
“Lie back down, you idiot,” Sorin whispered, instantly at his side. Andry groped for his brother’s warm hand. “What is it, Andry? Are you all right?”
He could not seem to stop the sudden shivering that invaded his bones. “I-I just can’t get warm,” he stammered.
Sorin pulled another blanket from the foot of the bed. “Here, get this wrapped around you. Better?”
“Yes,” he lied.
Sorin crouched beside him as he lay back. “I sent a squire to ask after the others. Everyone’s all right, more or less. But the consensus is that you Sunrunners will be feeling tomorrow as if you’d had a four-day voyage on the open sea.” He pressed Andry’s fingers hard. “Goddess, you scared me!”
He let himself drink in his brother’s solid, sane pres- ence. Gradually the visions faded from his conscious mind, sinking into a locked place where only nightmares would have the key. “Are you going to stay here?” he asked, unashamed of his pleading tone.
“Of course. For one thing, Father ordered it. And for another, do you think I’d leave you when you’re hurt like this?”
Andry remembered a time long ago when they’d both been very small, and the sunlight had suddenly assaulted his mind and gifts with brutal insistence. Frantic, Sorin had stuck to Andry’s side for days thereafter. And there had been a winter when Sorin had sickened with a high fever, and Andry had defied his mother’s prohibition and stayed with him, taking care of him until he was well again. It had been like that all their lives. He pitied those who had no twin, no second self to be there always—but even more, he pitied his brother Maarken for what he must have endured when his twin Jahni had died of Plague.
Sorin squeezed his hands again. “Do you think you can get some sleep now?”
“Yes—no. Andrade’s dead, isn’t she?”
Sorin nodded. “Urival’s with her, and Lleyn, too, I think.”
“Be thankful you can’t see and feel what I do, brother,” Andry whispered. “It was like a window of stained glass all in motion, pictures shifting and backlit by Fire—but then it shattered into a million pieces and I had to find the right ones, put the pictures back together again—Sioned did the work, but—I could feel all of them, all of us, the fear of the shadows—“
“It’s all over,” Sorin murmured. “Relax now, Andry. Just close your eyes. I’ll be here.”
He smiled faintly. “I’ve missed you, you know.”
“Me, too. Listen, what if I ask Father if I can come visit you at Goddess Keep for the winter? He and Rohan have to figure out something for me now that I’ve been knighted, after all. That’ll give them some time to think up what they want to do with me.”
“What about what you want to do with you?”
“I never really thought about it,” Sorin replied easily.
“They won’t set me to the account books at Radzyn Port or anything boring like that, you know.”
He chuckled. “A good thing, too. You never could add without counting on your fingers.”
Sorin grinned, and Andry realized that sibling magic had worked again: his brother had made him laugh.
“It’d be interesting to help with the new port on the Faolain, thought,” Sorin went on. “I like building things. Volog’s got a little manor house that he’s reworking just in’case Alasen marries somebody who doesn’t have a place suitable for a princess. I’ve had a great time there—“ He broked off suddenly, whispering, “Andry?”
He cursed himself for letting it show on his face. “What?” he asked, trying to imitate Maarken’s most forbidding tone. But evidently his older brother had been the only one to inherit that particular inflection from their father. Sorin simply stared.
“You—and Alasen?” he got out at last. “Oh, Goddess!”
“What’s wrong with me and Alasen?” Andry challenged. “I may not be a prince and I don’t have any lands, but I’m the grandson of a prince and son of the Lord of Radzyn and nephew of—“
“Oh, stop waving your credentials like a trade ambassador,” Sorin chided. “It’s just a surprise, that’s all. I can’t think of her as anything but a pest who grew up sort of pretty. But if you love her—“
“As if there’s a chance,” Andry muttered.
“Why shouldn’t there be? Your lineage is just as good as hers. What’s more, she’s kin to Sioned and Pol. It’d be in the family. I think it’s a great idea. Really.”
“Do you?” He sighed. “Now I just have to convince her, and her father, and her mother, and—“
“You sound like Maarken. You Sunrunners—always finding shadows where there aren’t any. Why shouldn’t she accept you? You’re fairly presentable, you don’t eat with your fingers, you’re smarter than the average plow-elk, and you wash regularly.”
Andry couldn’t help grinning again. “Thanks for building up my confidence!”
Sorin patted his shoulder. “Only too glad to help.” But after a moment he grew serious. “But do you think you could give up being at Goddess Keep? It’s all you’ve ever wanted, Andry. The manor on Kierst is beautiful, and it’d be more than enough for any man to run—and having Allie there would make it perfect for you. And you’d still be a Sunrunner, of course, probably attached to Volog’s court. Actually, it’d be an excellent move politically. If you were their assigned Sunrunner, then when Arlis grows up and inherits the whole island—“
“I’d do it, for her,” Andry said slowly. “But I won’t have to leave Goddess Keep. Alasen will come there, and be trained as a faradhl.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Sorin—I can’t imagine anyone who has the gifts not wanting to use them, to learn everything they can about being a Sunrunner. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world. It’s—“
“I could set that speech to music by now, I’ve heard it so often,” Sorin interrupted, grinning again. “All right, then—take her to Goddess Keep and make a Sun-runner of her.” He wagged a monitory finger in Andry’s face. “But I’ll come along this winter to make sure your intentions toward her stay honorable!”
“Sorin!” Andry protested, outraged until he saw the teasing gleam in his twin’s eyes. He took a playful swing at Sorin in retaliation, but sudden movement jostled the ache in his skull to new and inventive pain. He lay back and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Easy,” Sorin advised, worried again. “You really should try to sleep.”
“Not for the next little while, I’m afraid,” said a quiet voice behind them. They turned, startled, and beheld Prince Lleyn silhouetted in the doorway. “It’s nearly dawn—not enough time for a decent sleep. Lord Andry, if you feel up to it, Lord Urival asks that you attend him. I suggest,” he added dryly, “that you feel up to it.”
Andry hurried into his clothes and exchanged a single bewildered glance with his twin. Following Lleyn from the tent, he asked, “Your grace, do you know why Lord Urival wishes to see me?”
The old man cast him a sidelong look. “You don’t know? Good.”
The words did nothing for Andry’s peace of mind. He entered the huge white pavilion alone, almost trembling with unformed” apprehensions. Urival stood before the tapestry partition that hid the sleeping area where An-drade lay. His hands were clasped behind his back, his face utterly still and expressionless but for the sorrow that dulled his golden-brown eyes.
“My lord?” Andry asked hesitantly.
Urival took the few steps that separated them, extending his hands. Andry looked uncomprehendingly at the two bracelets held out to him.
“My Lord,” Urival said quietly.
And then he knew, and there was a roaring in his mind like a storm of Fire. Agony and exultation, grief and joy, terror and desire—Andry took the bracelets, clasped them about his wrists.
“My Lord,” Urival said again, and bowed low to him.