by Melanie Rawn
Palila lay spent against the white pillows now, a triumphant smile on her face. When Andrade turned, Ianthe was gone. She hurried into the passageway, where the princess stood with the child, and pushed the blanket from the tiny face. And suddenly Pandsala was there, holding another baby wrapped in gold-embroidered violet. Her face froze in horror at the sight of Andrade.
Roelstra’s presence filled the narrow passage—tall, heavy through the shoulders, green eyes blazing. And while Andrade stared at him, Ianthe and Pandsala—and the children in their arms—were out of her view.
And then there were the five of them and the two violet-wrapped children alone in the cabin and Andrade took one of the babies and Palila screamed and Roelstra held a candleflame to his mistress’ hair and she became a living torch and the child in Andrade’s arms reached glittering claws for her eyes.
The power had hold of her now, dragon talons around her mind. No more did she control the visions that swirled and broke and coalesced again in the flames. She cried out at the agony ripping through her skull. It was the touch of an alien thing, a malignant fiery grasping thing tearing at her mind, clawing the faradhi colors away, that soft cloak of additional power gone now. There was only Andrade, her blood afire with dranath, her eyes blinded by a flash of starlight come to earth.
Clever Andrade, said a mocking voice in her mind. So very clever! Daring to use my kind of power! Learn now that this is a sorcerer’s way!
She screamed, fell to her knees with her fire-filled head clutched in both hands, screamed until she had no voice left.
The circle shattered with Andrade’s first cry. The Sunrunners lurched, some of them slumping to the grass, others held up by the terrified princes. Maarken stumbled over to Hollis, who lay senseless at Miyon’s feet. Pol clung wild-eyed to Tobin as she moaned softly with pain. Barely catching Sioned when she began to crumple, Rohan shouted for Chay and Ostvel. The fire and its hideous visions raged on, its roar punctuated by terrible screams.
Urival, with the knowledge and strength of his nine rings that had circled his fingers like fire since the first of Andrade’s working, wrenched his own colors back from the tangled weave. Let Sioned sort the others out; let her worry about them. He flung himself to his knees beside Andrade, rocking her in his arms, his head nearly bursting and his stricken face contorted in the harsh red glow of the flames. He wrapped Andrade in his own colors, vainly attempting to shield her from encroaching darkness. The others were in danger, but he had no time for them. Not now, not when Andrade’s cries were growing weaker. Hanging onto her, his rings burning his flesh, he sobbed and cursed into her silver-gilt hair.
Riyan, Andry—even Pandsala and Alasen outside the circle—all the faradh’im were nearly senseless with sudden agony no one not of their kind could understand. The unraveling of Andrade’s power-filled weaving created a chaos of colors. Sioned struggled in Rohan’s arms, her face sheened in sweat as she tried to sort through a blinding whirlwind of patterns that the ungifted could not see. Pol, giving Tobin over to Chay’s strong arms, managed a few steps toward his mother and flung his arms around her waist. She cried out and held his bright head close, separating his glowing colors first. When he was whole again he slid to the ground, shocked and trembling still, but safe.
Sioned worked desperately as the shadows threatened, surged close to darken faradhi minds. She beat back the black mist in a frenzy, reformed the elegant shining patterns of Sunrunners nearly lost. At last she gave a great shudder and collapsed in Rohan’s arms.
The fire died very suddenly, almost as if a gigantic fist had strangled it. No one saw Segev fall to the grass, seemingly in the same reaction as the other Sunrunners. Only he knew that his collapse came because Mireva had at last released him and the fire she had created through him. He lay in a forgotten heap, breathing heavily around a heartbeat so rapid that it slurred in his chest.
Prince Lleyn limped over to where Andrade was cradled in Urival’s arms. He lowered himself to his knees, picked up one of her hands. His proud old face twisted with grief.
Chadric and Audrite approached Rohan where he bent over his wife and son. He shrugged off their compassionate hands, terrified by Sioned’s spent face, Pol’s uncontrolled shivering. Audrite murmured reassurance with a serenity not reflected in her eyes; Chadric gripped Rohan’s shoulder and said, “They’ll be all right. There’s another who needs you now.”
Rohan looked up, followed Chadric’s gaze to where Andrade lay. He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head in negation of what he had seen. But when he looked again. . . . Tenderly he touched his son’s hair, his wife’s scarred cheek. Then he went to Andrade.
Alasen was sobbing in a strangled, helpless way in Ostvel’s arms. Davvi was supporting Clutha, whose ashen face and glazed eyes betokened shock nearly as severe as the Sunrunners’. Some part of Rohan automatically took note of them all, a warrior keeping track of friend and enemy alike in battle. Sorin bent over his twin brother; Lyell and Kiele shrank back as Rohan passed; Chiana clung to Halian’s arm, gasping with imminent hysteria. Pandsala huddled on the ground, hugging her knees. Tobin was gathered up into her husband’s arms; Kostas and Chale had Riyan on his feet and coherent by now. Velden and Cabar and Pimantal stood in a little knot of fear.
Masul spoke suddenly, sounds that grated in the cold. “I don’t think anything was proved,” the pretender observed to Miyon, “except that they can prove nothing.”
Tilal answered him, his voice low and harsh. “Close your mouth before I carve another hole in you to keep it company!”
Masul sounded vastly amused. “Is that a threat?”
Gemma straightened within the shelter of Tilal’s arm. “Bastard,” she hissed furiously. “Lying bastard! It’s not only a threat, but I’ll hand him his sword to do it!”
Rohan crouched beside Lleyn. His throat was too tight to ask what he feared to have answered. The old man met his gaze, tears running down withered parchment cheeks, and shook his head.
Impossible. Andrade could not die. Rohan gripped Urival’s shoulder and the bent head lifted for a moment. There was no accusation in the golden-brown eyes. There was only agony.
Andrade stirred slightly, her eyes opening, colorless and hazy. She saw Rohan and her lips curved in a tiny, rueful smile. “Pol,” she breathed. “Safe?”
He nodded wordlessly.
“Sioned?”
Again he nodded, and the tension left her features. She said his name very softly, with love that was a knife in his heart. “No blame,” she murmured, her voice thready now. “Forgive me—”
Forgive her? He choked and touched her face. The skin was so cold. “Please—Andrade, please. . . .”
“Sorry . . . I couldn’t . . . prove . . .” All at once her gaze hardened. “Kill him,” she said very distinctly.
Once more Rohan nodded. Andrade found Lleyn with her gaze and the old imperious command was in her face.
“He will die,” Lleyn told her. “Fare you well, dear friend.”
She relaxed back into Urival’s embrace, looking up at him. Another small, gentle smile lifted the corners of her mouth. When the light left her eyes, she was still gazing at him.
He would not allow anyone else to touch her. He himself carried her back down the hill, half-blinded by tears that were rivulets of ice down his cheeks in the cold night air. They followed behind: princes and faradh’im, enemies, friends, blood of her blood, people of Roelstra’s making and of hers. He held her closer, saw the breeze wisp strands of silvery hair about her forehead, saw the rising moons glitter off the ten rings and the chains and the bracelets. Soon enough he would remove them, all but the tenth on her marriage finger, and distribute them amongst her blood kin. And one of them would go to Sioned, as a reminder. But the tenth ring he would leave on her hand, where he would have put his own ring had not Goddess Keep claimed her long before he could, and the delicate chains he would keep for himself.
He heard the others disperse as they neared the torchlit enc
ampment. A few were crying softly; some murmured of comfort or grief or political implication. He carried her into the white pavilion and placed her carefully on her bed.
The High Prince was the only one who dared follow him in. Rohan took a light blanket from the foot of the bed and drew it gently up around her waist.
“She and my mother were twins, but never much alike,” he said quietly. “But right now their faces are the same.”
Urival understood. Milar had always been the pretty one, the bright and lovely one. Yet Andrade’s face in death was smooth, beautiful, its calm giving the lie to the restless impatient spirit that had been freed tonight. He folded her arms atop the blanket, fingertips touching each ring in turn.
“Forgive me,” Rohan whispered.
Urival shook his head, glanced at the tormented eyes. “You of all people should know that she never did anything she didn’t want to do.”
“If I hadn’t—”
He sighed impatiently, wishing Rohan would take his guilt somewhere else and leave him in peace with her. “And if there hadn’t been the Star Scroll, and if Ianthe hadn’t been a scheming bitch and Pandsala with her, and if Andrade hadn’t brought Sioned to Goddess Keep—how long must I go on? There’s nothing to forgive.” He paused, then shrugged. “Perhaps someday you’ll believe that.”
“Perhaps.”
They sat in silence for a long time. At last Urival said, “You have to know it now. Andry will follow her and wear the rings.”
“Andry?”
Blue eyes almost the color of Andrade’s narrowed in almost the same calculating way. Urival realized there would be echoes of her around him for the rest of his life. But never the same. Never.
“He’s no more than a child,” Rohan said.
“He’s the age you were when you became a ruling prince. He was her choice. The only choice she could make. Not just for Pol’s future, but for all faradh’im. You don’t understand his power—and neither does he, yet.” And Goddess help us when he does, he told himself.
“If Andrade willed it, then. . . .” Rohan cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for his sake, Urival.”
Another silence followed, thick and heavy, like storm-clouds that would not break with rain.
“I heard no dragons,” Urival said suddenly.
“Dragons before dawn, death before dawn,” Rohan quoted, low-voiced. “Yes, I would have expected that, too.”
A soft limping step sounded, and both men turned to find Prince Lleyn making his slow way into the pavilion.
“Your wife is asking for you,” he said to Rohan, who rose at once. “Don’t panic, boy, she’s quite all right. Chadric and Audrite have been looking after her and Pol both.” He took the chair Rohan had vacated and folded his hands atop his dragon-headed cane. “But you go to them now. We’ll watch over her.”
When Rohan was gone, Lleyn sighed and shook his head. “I always thought the wind would take my ashes to her at Goddess Keep—not that I’d watch her Sunrunners call up Fire for her.”
Urival nodded. “You loved her as I did.”
“No, not as you did. I spent all I possessed of that on my wife. Forty-six winters ago it was that she died. I see her in her son and her grandsons, but it’s not the same.”
“No, never the same.”
“Masul will die for this, of course,” Lleyn went on. “If I were younger, I’d do it with my own hands. But listen to me, Sunrunner. Don’t you do it with yours.”
He had never killed using the gifts; he wondered how Lleyn knew that this was precisely what was going through his mind now.
“She’d breathe down my neck the rest of my days if I allowed it—stubborn woman, your Andrade.”
Yes, Urival thought, she was his alone, now that she was dead.
“I hope you don’t mind if I wait with you. It’s going to be a very long night.”
“No, I don’t mind at all. I think she’d want you here.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Lleyn bowed his head as if Urival had been born royal. “I’ll stay here, then. We’ll wait together.”
Chapter Twenty-five
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 Princemarch 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 not 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 Ianthe handed her a violet-wrapped bundle that squirmed in her arms. The child had golden hair and blue-green eyes.
