by Melanie Rawn
“Turn around and go back to the beginning,” Tilal pleaded.
“Isn’t it obvious? Why aren’t the Vellant’im in Waes? It’s wide open. Even if they suspected a trap, at least they should have foraged for supplies, as you mentioned earlier. But they’ve shunned it as if it oozed poison. Why?”
“They outthought Chay—which has to be a first.”
Ostvel shook his head and poured himself more wine. “No. Not that Chay is infallible—and don’t ever tell him I said so. The truth is that the Vellant’im were warned.” He smiled mirthlessly as the green eyes rounded.
“But they couldn’t have known we’d—”
“Couldn’t they? There’s nothing to stop them coming here and taking what they want—lolling here all winter in these very rooms, if they pleased. You and I couldn’t have gotten here any faster than we did—which means they had ample time to strip the place. But it hasn’t even been touched. They were told not to come here at all.”
“Chiana.” The name was a hiss.
“Chiana,” Ostvel agreed. “Rialt suspected her—or rather his very perceptive lady did—almost the instant they got to Swalekeep. Chiana threw a fit when she learned that Waes was open to invasion, supposedly because nothing lay between her and attack from the west. But she also knew that you were coming from the south and I from the north. We are the millstones, Tilal—but the grain is missing.”
The prince looked as if he would throw his wineglass into the fireplace. “She saw the trap and warned them. She’s working with the enemy.”
“She wants Princemarch. More to the point, she wants to enter Castle Crag as its owner. My castle, that my prince gave me and that my son will hold when I’m gone.” He heard the fierceness and made his voice lighter. “So you see that Chiana and Rinhoel will die for high treason, and Meadowlord will be forfeit, and our cherished, sadistic Rohan will probably give the damned place to me next summer.”
Tilal snorted. “Alasen would laugh herself into a seizure if she could hear you complaining!”
“I’ve been surrounded all my life by women who find me hilariously funny,” he replied in an aggrieved tone. “Alasen, Sioned, Tobin, my daughters—you never met my first wife, did you?”
“No, but I’ll bet she’s laughing at you, too, on the night wind.”
“I have every faith that she is.”
They stayed silent until Andrev appeared with a pitcher of hot taze and cups. Tilal roused himself to ask if the boy had eaten and found himself a bed.
“Yes, my lord. Your chambers are ready for you upstairs. We aired them as best we could, but with all this rain . . . .”
“I’m sure they’re fine. Go to bed, Andrev. It’s been a long day.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll just build up the fire a little.” Again he stooped to put wood on the hearth, and urged the flames higher with faradhi arts.
When he bowed his way out, Tilal said, “No, not shy about it at all, is he? I’m told he knows his sister Tobren’s colors and can speak with her on sunlight. If we ever see any again, I’ll have him report to her and she can tell Rohan all this.”
Ostvel nodded and sipped at his steaming mug. “When Sioned first came to Goddess Keep, she was wary of her gifts. I remember the night she and Cami had to call their first Fire for Andrade. We talked afterward, the three of us—and for Sioned it was in the way of a confession. ‘I always thought I was odd, strange, not like other people,’ she said. ‘But until I came here, I didn’t know it was because I was special.’”
“My father told me that one night, when she was sitting with him and my mother in the solar at River Run and the fire needed stirring, Sioned lifted a finger and it blazed up. Sunrunner’s Fire, without even thinking about it.” Tilal sighed. “My mother didn’t much like that, or her. She was always ‘your father’s Sunrunner sister’ that we didn’t talk about. I was—oh, six, I suppose—when she married Rohan. Mother was more inclined to mention her after that! Then I went to Stronghold as a squire and saw for myself.”
“The Sunrunner witch,” Ostvel supplied, smiling.
“I’m surprised Mother never used that name.”
“I’ll bet Andry does.”
“Reluctantly.” Tilal reached for the pitcher of taze. “When do you think he’ll emerge from Goddess Keep?”
“Sometime after the first battle Andrev is in, I should imagine.”
“Stubborn son of a—” Tilal laughed suddenly. “Yes, he is a son of a she-dragon, isn’t he?”
“Down to his toes. Tobin’s the only one he still speaks to. I hope she can make him see sense.”
“Well, it’s still my opinion that we don’t need him. We can beat these savages on our own. Andry can either sulk and lose all respect, or he can forgo his conditions and fight beside us and take what credit he can get for it. But either way, we’re going to win.”
Ostvel nodded, though he was thinking, But how much and how many are we going to lose along the way?
Chapter Twenty-one
The day after Birioc met his distant kinsman, Tirel and Idalian made their pact, and Ostvel and Tilal rested their armies in Waes, Rohan entered Stronghold. The next dawn brought Sethric of Grib, bearing tokens of a Vellanti defeat out in the Long Sand. Clothing, swords, knives—even gold beads painstakingly unthreaded from thick black beards—he presented it all to the High Prince on the main steps.
“I know your grace is interested in such things,” he said with a low bow.
“Good work. Did your people take any hurts?”
“Minor scrapes. We didn’t lose anyone and recovered several of the horses stolen from Radzyn,” he added in Chay’s direction. “Your trick with our own horses worked perfectly, your grace. Some of the enemy kept following but lost us when we turned for Stronghold. There wasn’t anything to track us by.”
“Excellent. Then perhaps it will work for my son and Lord Maarken as well. After you’ve washed and eaten, come back and give us the details of the fight.”
“I can tell it all now.”
Rohan smiled slightly. “But you’ll tell it in more comfort later. There’s time, my lord.”
The young man hesitated. “Your grace—I just wanted you to know . . . .”
“Yes?”
“You’re not at all what my uncle Prince Velden says you are.”
Chay gave a complex snort. Rohan only nodded. When Sethric had been taken upstairs by a page, he slanted a look at his brother-by-marriage.
“Go ahead,” he invited. “Say it.”
“Say what, my prince?”
“Don’t make innocent eyes at me. I know what you’re thinking.”
“Then there’s no need for me to say it out loud, is there?”
“No, but you’ll enjoy it.”
Chay grinned. “So will you, for all your protests that you don’t do it on purpose. Very well, here it is—that boy’s ready to give over loyalty to his princedom, his own kin, and whatever inheritance Velden’s promised him for the sake of swearing himself yours. He doesn’t even want a holding—just the chance to follow you and be within sight of your princely face and dragon’s eyes.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s gone that far yet,” Rohan commented. “I’ll bet he’s still wondering why I didn’t order a massive battle on the Remagev plain.”
“At this point, do you think he cares? He’s young, he’s seen action and won, and he’s alive to be smug about it.”
“If that’s all that’s necessary, then Pol should come back singing my praises.” Repressing a sigh, he added more lightly, “I’ve never seen a dragon with blue eyes.”
“I have, azhrei.”
• • •
At first, after he knew Brenlis was dead, Andry had been unable even to look at their three-year-old daughter. Merisel had her mother’s blonde hair and delicate little face, and her mouth curved in Brenlis’ sad-sweet smile. It hurt to be near her. But as the days wore on, he found comfort in the resemblance and spent more time in the nursery playing
with her, reading to her, or just watching her sleep. When Torien or another of the devr’im wanted to find him, that began to be the first place they looked.
His other children were old enough to mark the change in the frequency of their father’s visits. At ten, Chayly was Valeda’s to the quirk of her eyebrows; Joscev, not quite seven, had long been in his half-brother Andrev’s shadow. Indeed, the boy seemed made of shadows: of all Andry’s offspring, only he was black-haired and brown-eyed, like his mother, Ulwis. Had Andry looked, he would have seen his own jaw and cheekbones in Joscev’s face, and his own smile on Chayly’s mouth. But he did not look at them. Only at Merisel.
She enchanted him as thoroughly as her mother had done. He lavished on her all the love Brenlis had never allowed him to give her. But there was a difference between mother and daughter: Merisel adored him in return and cried when he was called away to his duties.
“You’re spoiling her,” Rusina observed as Andry kissed his daughter’s tear-streaked face and handed her over to the nurse.
“No, Merisel, you mustn’t cry! Papa will be back to tuck you into bed. There’s a good girl.”
“And hurting Chayly and Joscev,” Rusina added as they left the room.
He gave her a sidelong look. “When did you ever concern yourself with my children—even the one you bore me?”
She tossed unruly dark curls from her eyes. “Tobren turned out just fine without me. I don’t think the others much care about who tends or teaches them. You’re the one who’s important in their lives.”
“And they all know I love them.”
“Even Andrev?”
“I can deplore his actions without ceasing to love him.”
“As your father does with you.”
Andry grunted and led the way down the staircase. “Are the horses saddled?”
“Yes. I still think this is unwise.”
“If I spend one more day pent up in the keep, I’ll go mad.”
“Not even Merisel can distract you from boredom?”
“Stop it, Rusina,” he warned.
“Yes, my Lord. Of course, my Lord. As you wish, my Lord.”
He had never hit a woman in his life. The impulse to slap some respect—or at least a little fear—into Rusina disgusted him. He strode into the courtyard, hoping the chill autumn air would cool his anger. Oclel turned his head when Andry spoke his name, thick fingers testing the saddle girth he’d just tightened, moving to tighten it some more.
“I could do with a good gallop,” the younger man said. “Do you mind if I come along?”
“I’ll be glad of the company,” Andry lied. He’d wanted to spend some time alone in the fresh air, riding beyond fields still trampled down by two armies into unspoiled countryside. Especially did he want to escape the growing village of tents and lean-to shelters around the keep. What was he supposed to do with all these people? The Goddess had shown him nothing of this in either vision or dream.
Having given Oclel permission to accompany him, he could hardly send Rusina away. She climbed into a saddle as if she straddled a trestle bench. When Oclel rolled his eyes skyward at his wife’s ungraceful performance, Andry felt a smile tug his mouth. He had never known so oddly mated a couple as this: the brawny, plainspoken soldier’s son from the Veresch and the frail, acid-voiced athri’s daughter with a few drops of Fessenden’s royal blood in her veins.
Not that anyone would wish to own to a relationship to Prince Pirro, Andry reflected as they rode through the gates. Pirro huddled up there in his chilly stone keep, far removed from battle and with every obvious intention of remaining so. Andry had to admit privately to a grim amusement that the prince had used the fine points of Rohan’s own laws against him. “Defend only from attack by other princedoms,” indeed. Good Goddess, what was wrong with these people? Didn’t they understand that nothing less than retaking the entire continent would content these diarmadhi-inspired Vellant’im?
As for the refugees clustered around Goddess Keep—did they think Andry could wave a hand, say a few words, and remove the threat forever? His mouth quirked in a bitter smile. Hand-waving and speech aside, he could indeed have done something about the danger—if only Rohan and Pol would let him. Their foolish tactic of letting the Desert kill the enemy for them was hopeless. If only they would send for him and his devr’im.
“A glorious day, my Lord!” Oclel exclaimed happily. They had left behind the tents and the mangled fields, and were riding up the road that, within a few measures, would branch off to the coastline. Andry hesitated. His intended destination lay to the west, but it was indeed a beautiful day—perfect for a good run. Impulsively, he decided to give the stallion his head.
Rusina called out Andry’s name, then laughed and challenged her husband to a race. The thunder of hooves was a good sound, bright as drums beating time to a dance—not the heavy thuds that echoed the pounding of a fear-sick heart.
Andry finally halted atop a little rise. He stroked his horse’s sweaty neck, catching his breath after the wild gallop. “Ah, we’re both out of shape for this kind of thing, my lad! It’s been too long.” He walked the stallion in slow circles while the others, riding lesser animals and not raised in the saddle as he had been, caught up.
Oclel complained good-naturedly about Radzyn get—the two- and four-footed variety. Rusina had lost her cloak, and Andry offered her his own. “I never get cold, you know,” he told her. “It’s the Desert sun in my bones.”
“If you say so,” she said, clasping the white wool around her. “I’d like to go to the cliff forest, if that’s all right with you. Valeda needs some fresh wildflowers for the children’s lessons, and what with the battle and now all these tents, everything within two measures of the Keep has been trampled.”
“Still doing her favors to apologize for borrowing her face, I see,” Oclel teased. “Very well, my lady. Fringecup and autumn bower and blue-hoof it is. We may even find some wooly-buttons. It’s about time for them to bloom.”
They rode across the fields to the boundaries of the Goddess’ forest. Tethering their horses—one did not enter these precincts except on foot—they separated, keeping track of each other by the sound of twigs snapping underfoot in the dense undergrowth. Andry returned with an armful of color to find Rusina glaring in disgust down the road back to Goddess Keep.
“What happened?” He looked around for the missing horses.
“What does it look like?” She shook a broken branch.
“Well, it is their dinnertime. And it’s not too long a walk home.” Approaching her, he peered at the jumble of flowers in a fold of his cloak. “What a mess.”
“You may as well dump yours in, too. We can sort them later.”
Adding his collection to the tangle, he said casually, “I think I’ll look in at the tree circle.”
“Are you sure the Goddess will be at home?”
“There are ways of coaxing her when she’s feeling shy.” He reached in his pocket and brought out a scrap of parchment folded around dranath.
When Rusina spoke again, her voice had lost its sardonic edge. “Andry, be careful with that. The added strength isn’t worth the risk.”
“I’m touched that you care,” he replied in silken tones. But when she didn’t snap back at him, he shrugged an apology. “I have to know.”
“And if you see things even more terrible than what’s already happened?”
He made the effort to smile. “You mean it can get worse?”
“You don’t usually ask stupid questions.” Rusina scowled at the flowers. “Valeda had better appreciate this. Let’s go home, Andry. It’s late. Oclel!” When there was no answer, she sighed her annoyance. “Hundreds of Sunrunner men at the Keep, and I have to Choose one who loses himself not on sunlight, but in flowers. Oclel!”
They listened for him and heard nothing. She drew breath to call out again. Andry gripped her arm.
“No,” he whispered. “Hear the stillness?”
“As if there
were wolves out hunting,” she breathed.
He pulled Rusina up and flowers tumbled from the cloak, scattering onto the dirt. “Get moving,” he ordered quietly.
“No!” she hissed.
“Shut up.” He froze as bootheels crunched dry leaves. Anyone meaning them harm would have been quieter. Catching a glimpse of blue wool, he exhaled in relief and called out, “Oclel, you idiot, you gave your wife a terrible start!”
The tall Sunrunner emerged from the trees. His blue tunic was spotted mid-chest with darkness. As he staggered forward and fell, a matching stain on his back showed where the sword had entered his body and gone all the way through him.
Rusina shrieked his name. Andry started for him, but Oclel waved him back.
“No! Get away Andry—close behind me—”
“Oclel—”
“Run!” The few extra moments of life lent by urgency and fear faded from his blue eyes, and he was dead.
Men crashed through the forest now, having given up hope of a surprise attack on hearing Rusina’s scream. Andry swung around, trying to detect their direction. His gaze flickered to the broken branches where reins had been tied. Stupid! he raged uselessly at himself; one horse might escape, but all three?
Escape—he grabbed Rusina’s arm as she stumbled past him, trying to reach Oclel’s body. The one thing he could not do was break into the open; they would be perfect targets. So he clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs and hauled her with him deep into the trees.
Plunging into the frail shelter of a glade, he clasped her against him and stared hard into her tear-filled eyes. “Be silent!” he breathed. “Oclel died to protect us—will you make his death meaningless?”
She stopped fighting him, limp for an instant. Then she straightened, and hate was in her eyes. When he touched her cheek in compassion, she jerked her head away.
