Far away in the mountains, Mireva paced and fretted. “Why do they do nothing?” she demanded for the fifth time of Ruval, who lounged near the open door of her dwelling, his chair tilted back and his feet propped against the wall. “This whole day long, nothing but baking in their damned tents like dragons in hatching caves, when they could be—“
Ruval laughed and she rounded on him furiously. He held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Forgive me,” he said, still smiling. “But what else can they do? You saw how they scuttled from tent to tent last night. Today they wait. By sunset they’ll have made the pyre, and before the first star is out they’ll gather to burn the old witch.” He shrugged. “I still don’t understand why you killed her, though.”
“Could there ever be a better time? And when would I get another chance?” She poured wine from a bottle kept cool on the table. “She was vulnerable as she’d never been before. In any case, with her gone and her senile lover distraught, Segev will find it that much easier to steal the scrolls.”
She drank off the wine, set her goblet down, placed her palms together. “I can almost feel them in my hands, Ruval. I must have them, I must. So much has been lost. It’s incredible that Merisel wrote it all down. She was our most powerful and implacable enemy. And yet she seems to have known almost everything! Who told her? How did she gain such knowledge?”
He stretched his arms wide and eased his chair to the floor. Rising, he poured himself a share of the wine. Watching him, she felt her tension dissolve and something else uncurl in her body to take its place. He had experienced his final growth to manhood this spring and summer. His shoulders were broader with muscle, the lines of body and face hard and clean with the predatory beauty of a hunting cat. Even lazing back as he had been, or standing casually with a goblet in his hand, there was a feeling of contained power about him. For now it was purely physical; over the next years she would tutor him fully in other powers. Mireva’s gaze roamed over him, and a slow smile stretched her lips.
Ruval recognized the look, and laughed. “We really ought to celebrate Andrade’s death,” he suggested. Taking a long gulp of wine, he set down the cup. “After all, they won’t be doing much of anything for the rest of the day. No need to bore ourselves with watching them.”
“And have you a means of celebration in mind?” she asked archly.
He only laughed again.
But a little while later, when they lay in a tangle of half-discarded clothes on her bed, she drew back and took his face between her hands. Fiercely blue eyes, hot with passion, glared at her for the interruption.
“Hear me,” she said, breathing hard. “Tonight we must watch most carefully, and every night until Segev is back with the scrolls.”
“Don’t you trust my dear littlest brother?” he mocked.
“If I didn’t, he’d be dead.”
Ruval grinned down at her, turned his head to sink his teeth into her hand. “And the same goes for me, doesn’t it? But apart from that craven idiot Marron, I’m all you have, Mireva. Treat me sweetly, my lady, and I’ll give you a princedom.”
“Treat me sweetly, my lord, and I’ll give you everything from the Sunrise Water to the Far Islands.” She tightened her grip on his face, dug her fingers into his hair. “Remember that.”
“How could I forget?” He grasped her wrists and spread her arms wide on the bed. “Will you do this with Pol one day?” he asked, eyes burning even hotter now.
For answer, she called on the dranath that had been in the wine, using it and ancient sorcery to transform herself into the beautiful, willowy girl. She flung thick black hair over her shoulder, stretching widely, grinning in delight at the young, supple body she now wore.
Ruval laughed. “Fit for princes, indeed! May his Goddess pity him!”
* * *
It was a long walk to the cliff’s where the ritual would be held. Rohan worried that the distance might be too much for Chale and Clutha, and especially for Lleyn. But Chale had Gemma and Tilal to support him; Clutha had Halian. Lleyn leaned on nothing but his dragon-headed cane, though Chadric and Audrite hovered close enough to irritate him into several sharp glances.
Andry had seen to the building of a suitable stone pyre. He and Urival had chosen a site where the rocky cliff’s rose to their highest point, the sea immediately below. Stones had been piled up into a flat resting place, covered by a length of white silk velvet never unbolted since its weaving. A litter had also been constructed quickly from a single mighty tree felled that morning; every wood-carver at the Fair had been called on to smooth the struts and poles, a goldsmith had gilded the four handles, and a jeweler had set moonstones into them.
Rohan held two of those handles now, feeling the cool overlay of gold and the smoothly rounded gems in his palms. Chay had taken the other end of the litter, at Andrade’s feet. Rohan watched the bowed dark head above the collar of gray mourning clothes, seeing suddenly how much silver had threaded through Chay’s hair. Sioned and Pol walked to one side of them as they carried An-drade, Tobin and two of her sons on the other. It was
Andry who led the procession, the bracelets gleaming around his wrists. Urival followed behind with the Sun-runners. Highborns, their families and retainers, and finally the common folk trailed behind Rohan—whose back Tallain had insisted on guarding.
They set Andrade on the stones, bowed to her, and joined their wives and children. The ritual belonged to Andry tonight; he alone would preside. Not even Urival, who had known her and loved her so long, could participate as anything more than just another faradhi.
Andry came forward, lean and pale and moving with the strict grace of one whose control is too rigid to permit natural gestures. He paused while everyone assembled, and Rohan followed his gaze where he could among the crowd. Princes, athr’im, their wives and children and retainers; the Sunrunners to one side; great numbers of merchants and servants from the Fair across the river; all of them encircled by soldiers wearing the emblems and colors of the thirteen princedoms on their tunics, but carrying no weapons. Rohan wondered how many of them would soon be wearing colors and weapons in earnest.
Andry seemed to be looking for someone in particular, and a small muscle tightened in his cheek when that person went unfound. Rohan knew his nephew’s face well enough to read it, even in its new aspect of Lord of Goddess Keep.
Water from a flask was scattered down the length of Andrade’s white cloak as more people stood watching than had ever seen a Lady or Lord of Goddess Keep honored before. They kept a respectful distance from Andrade’s family and the faradh ‘im. The ritual itself was long familiar to them all—but the one they held vigil for tonight had been the personification of the Goddess’ power. There were many who looked askance at the young man who would replace her, and even more who considered him easy prey. Rohan felt a faint, grim smile move his lips as Andry, a slim gray shadow in the gathering gloom of dusk, let a fistful of Earth trail from his fingers down the white cloak. If anyone thought him weak, they were in for a surprise. They ought to know that a man born of Chay’s family, Andrade’s, and Zehava’s was made of both power and strength.
It seemed Andry wished to go on record for those qualities, as well. He circled Andrade’s pyre so everyone could get a good look at him. Then, facing west to the sea across her body, he held up both arms. His. sleeves fell back to show bracelets that caught the last rays of the sun in silver and gold. His four rings tipped in tiny rubies shone as he suddenly stripped both bracelets from his arms and replaced them on Andrade’s crossed wrists.
Rohan felt Sioned give a start of surprise beside him. He took her fingers and she met his gaze, bewildered. Rohan admitted to himself that if Andry had not explained it earlier, he would not have comprehended, either. The youth was putting everyone on notice that whatever Andrade had been, he would not be the same. When she had become Lady, she had used the bracelets of the man who had been Lord before her—a calculated act of humility, for she, too, had been very young when named Lady. But the gold and silver bracelets that had circled her wrists for most of her seventy winters would melt and vanish with the flames that consumed her empty flesh. Rohan did not know whether this was the action of an arrogant child or a man who knew precisely what he was doing. But he knew that sooner or later they would all find out.
Urival had been scandalized by Andry’s plan, though he dared not object. Now he stood with bent head and slumped shoulders. He looked so old, Rohan thought, aching with pity. He held tighter to Sioned’s hand, not wanting to think about a time when he might stand thus and watch his own beloved consigned to the Fire.
Andry gestured, and a soft breeze stirred the motionless Air, wafted across Andrade’s body, fluttered the hem of her cloak and touched loose wisps of her silver-gilt hair. Tobin and Sioned had offered to help Urival make her ready, but he had jealously clung to the one service he was allowed to perform: washing her body, dressing it in a white gown, braiding her long hair.
The other Sunrunners moved to circle the pyre. Urival was the last to come forward, holding out a small silver flask of sweet oil to Andry. But the young man shook his head, returning the flask to the old man’s suddenly shaking hands. Rohan nodded slowly in approval. Urival should have some part in honoring Andrade. It was only right.
He could smell herbs and spices heavy on the motionless air as thick oil was tenderly smoothed on Andrade’s hands and brow and lips, and the four corners of the cloak were anointed. Urival stepped back, tears shining on his cheeks as Andry called Fire.
Sunrunners cloaked and hooded in gray bent their heads. The flames caught, rose, lit Andrade’s strong, severe profile for a long moment. Rohan felt Sioned tremble—and then she was walking forward to join those of her kind in watching over the woman who had taken her in, taught her the nature of her gifts, summoned her to the Desert to become the wife of a prince. Tobin hesitated, then went to Sioned’s side. Maarken was right behind her, and last of all Pol left Rohan to stand between his mother and his cousin. Rohan felt Chay and Sorin draw a little closer to him. Of all Andrade’s family, they were the only ones ungifted with Sunrunner’s Fire.
Andrade had hoped and planned what Rohan would be. Instead it was Pol who would be both faradhi and prince. There were soft gasps throughout the crowd as he joined the Sunrunners and gave them another reminder of what many would like to forget.
Rohan glanced around the cliffside. His eyes lit on Ma-sul. Murderous, greedy, ruthless—everything Pol was not, Masul was. What if faradhi powers had been added to those vices? He acknowledged the reasons for the strictness of Andrade’s training, her arrogant demand that all Sunrunners bend to her will. Sioned had not; but neither had Pandsala. She had given Rohan a bitter lesson in what could result when faradhi and princely powers combined in a single ruthless will.
Sooner or later there would be other princes >vho possessed the gifts. Pol, Maarken, and Riyan would not be alone for long. Andrade had trusted that her formidable will would instill discipline in such people to guard against abuses of power. But Andrade was gone, and Andry would take her place. He was too young, Rohan thought, frowning. Much too young.
“The same age you were when you became a ruling prince. ...”
He looked sidelong at Chay. By the blazing light of the pyre, the proud, handsome face seemed carved in stone, generations of loyal athr’im and valiant warriors shining in his eyes. Rohan’s gaze then sought his sister in the circle of Sunrunners, the ends of her black braids peeking out from beneath her gray veil. She was a most remarkable woman: princess and politician, warrior in her own right, born of a long line of princes. Coming from people such as these, Andry could not help but be strong. Perhaps in a way much different from Andrade, as his refusal to wear her bracelets had foretold, but strong just the same.
The first waiting period had passed, and the common folk began to come forward to make their bows to Andry and to the High Prince. Most moved quickly, wanting to be gone from this place where at dawn the faradh ‘im would call Air to scatter Andrade’s ashes over the length and breadth of the continent. But some walked by slowly, staring at the great and the would-be great. Rohan received their salutes quietly, nodding to a few he noticed were frightened of him. And he felt Masul’s eyes like pinpricks, knowing the pretender was seeing himself in Rohan’s place as High Prince.
,. Most rituals began at midnight. For a Lady or Lord of Goddess Keep, things were different. At moonrise, the Sunrunners wove a delicate fabric flung out to all lands, touching all faradh’im, making them a part of this ritual as was not done for mere princes. This was the first many of the faraway Sunrunners would learn of the Lady’s death; sustaining them in their grief and extending the weave to find every faradhi everywhere took time and much strength. Had this happened at Goddess Keep, where all Lords and Ladies had died in the past, there would have been hundreds of Sunrunners and students to perform this duty. But here there were barely enough to make this outpouring of power safe. A few were swaying a little on their feet, held up by their fellows as the work continued. Sioned sent Tobin and Pol back to stand with the family, both of them looking pale and drained. Rohan nodded approval to his son but did not put an arm around him for support, as Chay did for Tobin. Pol’s eyes showed his gratitude before he turned to watch the Fire once more.
Rohan wanted desperately to touch his son, to break the silence decreed by the ritual, to speak to him of his pride and his promises for the future. Tomorrow, last day of summer and Lastday of the Rialla, would see Masul dead. Rohan did not yet know how he would manage it, but Masul would be executed. And if some still believed him Roelstra’s son—well, they could not put a corpse on a throne. Rohan no longer could afford to care about discrediting the pretender. His death would be enough.
The princes and athr’im began to move, preparing to leave the cliff. Rohan was startled; surely it could not be past midnight already? But the position of the moons told him it was. And as Lleyn came limping forward, the means of Masul’s death were determined by Masul himself.
He strode insolently past the Prince of Dorval, coming to a halt three steps from Rohan and Pol. His green eyes were wells of shadow as he turned his back on the pyre and broke the ritual silence that had reigned through the long night.
“There is only one way to resolve this, High Prince,” he announced in a clear, ringing voice that brought gasps of shock from everyone but the oblivious Sunrunners. “I claim the right of challenge—just as you did when you battled my father in single combat. I will prove my claim on my body.”
Old as he was, Lleyn could still bring thunder with his voice. “How dare you insult the solemnity of this night? Be silent in respect to the Lady we honor here!”
“She failed to prove your point,” Mashl returned flatly. “And in any case, I have no use for faradh’im. “ He said this staring straight down at Pol, a faint, mocking smile on his lips.
Rohan felt the anger spasm through his son’s body. “Your grace,” he said quietly to Lleyn, “the Lady we honor would quite understand the arrogance of this young fool. And she would welcome, as I do, the chance to provide him with the death he deserves.”
Lleyn bowed slightly. “I believe you are correct, High Prince. The Lady would undoubtedly laugh in his face.”
Masul had stiffened in outrage, but quickly recovered his poise. “Then you agree to do battle with me.”
“Did you think to fight my son?” Rohan smiled a very small smile, and even Masul recognized its deadliness. “I gather you think age is on your side in either case. Only a knight may issue such challenge. I’ve been expecting it since his grace of Cunaxa sponsored you yesterday. But it is also true that only a knight may respond.”
.”Father,” Pol said in a low voice, tense with hatred, “Princemarch is mine. “
“That was never in any doubt, my son. But I do not intend that you soil your hands on this pestilence.”
“I hear your sword has not left its scabbard in fifteen years,” the pretender drawled. “Indeed, it has not left your Great Hall. I wonder whose you will have to borrow—and if you remember how to use one.”
Rohan’s smile widened a fraction. “As the challenged, I have the right to choose the weapon.”
“And what will it be? Lawbooks thrown at fifty paces?”
“I trust you know how to use a knife for more than slicing onions.”
The insulting reference to peasant’s food went right •. past Masul. Someone had evidently warned him that Rohan was the best knife-fighter in three generations. He looked shaken for just an instant before he again recovered his aplomb. “Knives it is, your grace.”
“No,” Maarken said, suddenly appearing at Chay’s side. “Swords. Yours and mine.” He bowed to Rohan and Pol, his voice and phrasing strictly formal. “Your graces, I claim the right to act as champion against this pretender. His highness, my cousin, is too young, and you, my prince, long ago made a vow that I would not see you break. Not when my sword is here to serve you.”
“Maarken—“ Chay’s voice was half-strangled.
“Father, I know what I’m doing. Not only has he caused endless trouble here among princes, but he murdered a faradhi. “
This revelation broke the last of any respectful silence that was left. The Sunrunners stayed in their ritual circle, but they all turned to the group of highborns. Those backlit by the flames were silvery-gray forms without faces; those looking across the Fire were made equally faceless by hoods and veils. But their rings—four here, eight there, and only one on Sioned’s slender hands— swallowed the flames and spat them back in brilliant colors.
“Look at his hand,” Maarken said. “He’s wearing a Sunrunner’s ring, taken from Kleve, whom he killed.”
“It’s true.” Riyan, too, had left the circle of faradh’im now, coming forward with every evidence of relief that his information would be used at last. “He stayed at a manor house owned by Lady Kiele and her husband. I know because I followed her there one night.”
Somewhere in the crowd, someone gave a sobbing gasp. Rohan would have bet his dragon gold that it was Kiele.
“Faradhi spy,” Masul sneered.
“Murderer,” Riyan shot back. “You left the evidence behind you—and there was one ring missing. The ring on your hand right now!”
Andry suddenly looked more like his hawk-faced grandsire than either of his parents. His eyes had gone nearly black with rage. He had known about Kleve’s death and who had caused it, but that the pretender would dare to put a faradhi ring on his finger ignited something feral and deadly in the young man. He grasped Masul’s wrist and held up the offending hand for all to see.v
“A Sunrunner’s gold ring,” Andry said, “made from Sunrunner’s gold. For this you will die.”
Masul laughed harshly and snatched his hand from Andry’s grip. “Mind your words and your manners, lord-ling. When I am High Prince, you Sunrunners will be watched at Goddess Keep by every court, not the other way around. Princes have a right to conduct their affairs as they choose, without the interference of faradh ‘im whose only power was the fear their late Lady inspired. I doubt you will be as formidable.” He glanced around the assembly. “Yes, I killed Andrade’s spy. All hold Sun-runners in such reverence—but they bleed and die just like anyone else. I wear one of their rings to prove it. Ask my sister, Lady Kiele. She watched while I did it.”
Andry found her in the crowd, pressed against her husband’s side, her stricken face proclaiming her guilt.
“My Lord—I swear I know nothing of—“
“Abandoning me, sweet sister?” Masul jeered. “What have you to fear? By tomorrow I’ll hold Princemarch and nothing can touch either of us. I accept this one,” he nodded at Maarken, “as my opponent for the challenge. He looks as if he could give me decent entertainment in a fight.”
Rohan was privately astounded by the man’s arrogance. All the bitterness of long years of believing himself Roelstra’s lost son seemed to have risen up in the space of mere moments. He was paying back everyone who had ever thought him nothing more than a serving woman’s bastard, everyone who had doubted what he had dreamed himself into believing was his true birth.
Maarken was still waiting for Rohan’s answer. He gazed into the angry gray eyes, so like Chay’s, and for just an instant remembered the little boy he and Sioned had saved from a dragon, the squire who had gone to war too young. Maarken still wore the garnet ring Rohan had given him as his first Sunrunner’s token.
He looked then at Tobin, whose fingers were white-boned on Chay’s arm. But her black eyes were adamant; •. neither Rohan nor Pol could engage in this battle. The honor of their house demanded that a member of that house be named in their stead. Chay nodded silently, his expression both furious and proud.
All at once he saw a graceful movement of gray silk skirt and veil. Sioned, who had stood apart with the other faradh ‘im, took a few steps forward. Her gaze never left his; in her was no anger, no stiff pride. Only sorrow for what had to be.
Rohan turned to Maarken. “It is for my son to say. Princemarch is his.”
Pol held out one hand to his cousin, who took it and dropped to one knee before him. “We recognize your right, Lord Maarken—although we regret that you should sully your blade with this man’s blood.”
Masul gave a shout of laughter. “Oh, well said, little prince!”
Pol looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “Maarken,” he said slowly, “win quickly—but make sure he dies slowly.”
“As you command, my prince.”
“Tomorrow, then, at noon?” Masul asked, as casually as if making an assignation with a woman.
“Noon,” Maarken said after rising to his feet. “Now get out. You dishonor this ritual by your presence.”
Masul gave him a mocking bow and departed. His allies followed, though they remembered to make their obeisances before Rohan and Andry. The rest stayed. The Sunrunners formed their circle again, gray shapes around the pyre. All was once more silence, the only sound that of the hungry flames.
* * *
Pol stood at his father’s side, staring with blind eyes at the Fire. His mother had been in gentle contact with him while he stood with the circle, acting as buffer between him and the other faradh ‘im while light was laced across the continent. But now that tender, supporting presence was gone. He had never felt so alone in his life.
It wasn’t the loss of her touch that disturbed him, nor his father’s rigid silence beside him. Over the course of the summer and the Rialla he had experienced the power of the princely title his father had given him, and handled it to his own satisfaction. But twice now in two short days he had felt the incredible strength of his legacy from his mother. And that was a more difficult adjustment. Being a part of tonight’s weaving had taught him the formidable ways of faradh’im intertwined, the breathtaking beauty of disciplined patterns of color. But last night, when Lady Andrade had died. . . .
His head still ached a little with the force of that battle his mother had waged against the shadows. He had learned the subtlety of her art, her fine, fierce command of her gifts. He had always thought of her only as his mother, but last night he realized how powerful a faradhi she was. His gaze sought and found her tall, slender figure, firegold hair shining even beneath the dull gray veil. She stood in the circle as a Sunrunner, though she wore only the emerald ring signifying her position as High Princess. He wondered suddenly which of her powers brought Her the most satisfaction; he knew which she would give up if forced to.
Andry had made his choice long ago. As son of an important athri and close kinsman of princes, there would have been a castle or manor for him to rule, power and responsibility and honors. But he had chosen Goddess Keep and the rings that would soon number ten on his fingers. Pol felt none of the astonishment of the others at Andry’s elevation. Especially not after his words to Ma-sfll. Absolute authority had rung in his cousin’s voice, and Andry’s face had matured almost overnight into that of a man twice his twenty winters. Andry was exactly where and what he wanted to be. He possessed everything he had always wanted—the only thing he had ever wanted.
Watching him with suddenly narrowing eyes, Pol wondered why. Maarken and Riyan had the same prospects as Andry: good lives as lords in their own keeps, as trusted and powerful councillors to the High Prince. Men to be reckoned with. But not as powerful as the position Andry now held.
Pol shifted his weight slightly, aware that Prince Lleyn was now accepting the support of Chadric’s arm. Those two would teach him as they had taught Maarken. He would learn the ways of princes. He had no choice about ; what he would be. Neither had Maarken or Riyan. They were Sunrunners, too, just as he would be. Yet they would not have the tremendous power of being High Prince.
And that was where he and Andry were matched, he realized. A mere five years apart in age, they would be dealing with each other for the rest of their lives. Andry would be the one to whom Pol would go for faradhi training. And suddenly Pol’s jaw set. He would one day be High Prince; he would not be ruled by his cousin of Goddess Keep.
It was not arrogance that made the decision, or jealous possessiveness of his power. It was simple self-preservation. He could not live in the kind of conflict he now understood had wracked his mother. She had been a Sunrunner before she had become a princess. But he was a prince first, last, and always. That he was also faradhi was a gift from the Goddess, and one he did not intend to squander. He would learn what Andry could teach him, and use it. But for his own ends, not those of
Goddess Keep.
He wondered why he felt this sudden wariness of his cousin. There had always been much visiting back and forth between Stronghold and Radzyn, but the mere five years between them had seemed like many more to a small boy trailing after his older cousins. Pol had been only seven when Andry had gone to Prince Davvi as a squire and thence to Goddess Keep. To look at him now, cloaked in his new authority, was to look at a stranger.
Then he chided himself. He and Andry were blood kin. They shared grandparents, the Desert, Sunrunner gifts. Through those common bonds they could understand each other and work in harmony. There was no reason to doubt it. It would not be with them as it had been between Andrade and Roelstra, or the more subtle conflict between Andrade and Pol’s parents.
And Pol knew that he, not Andry, was the culmination of Lady Andrade’s ambition. She had wanted a Sunrunner prince, not a descendant of princes ruling all Sun-runners.
Still . . . Andry possessed something Andrade had not. The Star Scroll. Pol knew better than to discount the power that had ravaged Andrade’s visionary Fire last night.
He frowned slightly, then shrugged. So long as Andry kept within the bounds of his own powers and did not challenge anyone else’s, as Andrade had done—but was that in the nature of a Lady or Lord of Goddess Keep when dealing with a High Prince? Yet he could not imagine a situation in which he and Andry would come into conflict, and the frown melted from his features at the reassurance given by shared blood, shared background, and shared gifts.
Pol was surprised to see that it was nearly dawn. In the Desert, sunrise always seemed to creep across the sand, creating and then filling in shadows with light. On Dorval, dawn was a flood of sudden brilliance over the heights above Graypearl. But here in Waes he had found that daylight seeped across the sky in subtle tones that barely touched the land until the sun itself slid over the eastern hills. The stars were gone in half the sky now, replaced by a milky soft haze that dimmed in comparison to the flames still burning within the circle of faradh ‘im. He thought of what he had seen earlier that night, the land spread out before the flung weave of Sunrunner colors, the giddy sensation of flight such as a dragon must feel when first it discovers its wings. He looked up at his father; azhrei, Dragon Prince, they sometimes called him, which made Pol the Dragon’s son. He felt a tired smile tug at his lips. Whatever else Andry might possess, he could never have that.
His faradhi senses stirred suddenly. The flames flared once, then sank into the blackened stones. Andrade was gone. Only a thin scatter of ashes remained of the powerful Lady of Goddess Keep. Pol felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, the fingers tightening convulsively, and glanced up to find the blue eyes blurred with tears. He was surprised to feel his own eyes stinging. He had known Andrade only slightly. But her death was the passing of someone extraordinary who had worked for his birth and schemed to keep him safe.
The Sunrunners had broken their circle. They gathered now at the head of the pyre, exhausted by the night’s vigil but with one more duty to perform. Andry began it, standing apart from them with raised arms and closed eyes as he called Air. A breath of it touched Pol’s cheek, swirled lightly around the assembly, fluttered the Sun-runners’ gray clothes. Pol felt himself responding, adding his own gifts without conscious volition. And he discovered how very easy it was to summon the wind, make it whirl with a force that lifted the ashes and indeed the very rocks that had built Andrade’s pyre. There were gasps and flinches, but Pol paid them no heed, not even when Andry turned to face him and his father’s hand gripped his shoulder even harder.
Pol could feel Andry’s colors now. The other fa-radh ‘im, even his mother, drew back in the face of their combined strength. He sensed someone else for a moment, someone vaguely familiar and strictly disciplined, upon whose strength and training this power was built. But the joy of power itself soon made him forget that other presence. There was only himself and his cousin, and the sweet intoxication of their gifts.
The ashes moved. They became a stately vortex borne on Air, pulled higher and thinner until the spiral spread thrice a man’s height over the awestruck crowd. Pol had tasted faradhi power before; this was the reality, the full feast of it, glutting his mind and body. And he understood Andry’s single-hearted commitment, his need to be this above all things, a Sunrunner who called Air and summoned Fire, who could weave light and all the elements with the power of his thoughts.
The ashes, silver and gold fused with them in glittering pinpoints of light, were sent out over the land, wind drawing the mist ever more fragile. As far away as Dor-val, as far as Firon and the Desert and Kierst’ other breezes would pick up the fine dust until the invisible rain finally fell and joined with the soil. The last link between Andrade’s spirit and body was severed, the substance that had once been flesh now spreading across the lands she had served so long.
“Pol.”
He was dimly aware that someone was speaking his name.
“Pol. It’s done. Pol, come back to us.”
He looked up uncomprehendingly at his parents. His mother’s green eyes were dim with weariness and, star-tlingly, fear. His father had a grip on both his shoulders now; he was the one who had spoken. Pol drew in a soft breath and tried to smile at them, suddenly aware of how much effort it took to make the muscles of his face respond. He was tired with a tiredness he had never experienced before, and it was remarkably difficult to stay on his feet.
His mother nodded slowly, her eyes no longer afraid. “It’s all right now,” she murmured to herself.
Of course it was all right, Pol wanted to say. He had only been doing what every Sunrunner could do.
But as people came to make their bows to him before returning to the encampment, he saw strange things in their expressions. Even Lleyn, even he and Chadric looked at him with new awareness in their eyes. Pol found it very odd.
But he understood only too well the expression in one pair of eyes. Andry never took his gaze from Pol’s face.
And in that long, level look Pol found confirmation of his earlier wariness. Andry might be powerfully gifted in the faradhi arts—but Pol was just as gifted, and a prince.