by Melanie Rawn
“Idiots. When I can talk to Riyan, I’ll tell him to mention that the High Prince is a generous man who sympathizes with their losses. Will that shut them up, do you think?”
“It’s worth a try. They’re scared, of course, and utterly lost away from the sea. Which I was glad enough to leave behind me.”
“I’ll just bet. I hope you have clothes in your saddlebags. I don’t have anything big enough to fit you.” She surveyed him critically. “Or maybe I do. You’re thinner.”
“Not for long.” And he pounced on the tray brought in by a page.
While he ate, Sioned readied his bath. That the High Princess should be doing this herself rather than having a servant do it held a significance that finally got through to Meath, once his stomach stopped growling. Washing down a meat pasty with a hearty swallow of wine, he stopped eating long enough to ask, “What is it, Sioned?”
“What’s what?”
His turn to take stock of her, and what he saw worried him. She, too, was thinner, and her firegold hair was streaked with white. New lines had appeared around her eyes and across her brow; her skin, not as fragile as most redheads’, was pallid beneath the Desert’s sun-glossing. And her eyes were darker, older with the attempt to hide pain and fear.
He’d last seen her in person four years ago. Though Meath fervently avoided the crossing to Radzyn, Rohan had marked his thirty-fifth year as ruling prince with an elaborate celebration that included as many friends and relations as possible. The gown Sioned wore at the banquet, green and gold sewn with hundreds of tiny crystals that shimmered with her every movement, had been Meath’s doing, as had Rohan’s dark blue tunic and silvery shirt. He had asked Meath to choose Sioned’s silk himself and keep it a secret; she had given him a similar commission in equal secrecy, and he’d had a good laugh when each discovered the other’s trick. How beautiful they had been, Sioned sparkling like a sun-misted forest, Rohan her perfect foil—crowned and jeweled and requiring neither, mated in all things, as matched as lovers’ clasped hands.
There was little of that regal elegance about her now. It wasn’t the clothes—she could look more of a princess in riding leathers than any other woman in full court dress. It was the way she moved, the way she held her shoulders, the lack of her usual swift grace. Meath was afraid he would find Rohan in a similar state. When Sioned stayed silent, he guessed that Rohan was the primary cause of her concern.
“I’ve known you too long,” he said. “Rohan, too. What’s bothering you about him?”
She perched on the large bed and hugged a pillow to her chest. “It’s not him—or not just him. It’s Pol. They barely speak to each other.”
“Why? They’ve always thought almost alike on just about everything.”
“Not on this. Not when it comes to war.”
“Tell me,” he said.
“I—”
He cursed under his breath as the page knocked on the door for permission to take the tray. Sioned encouraged Meath to take his time in the bath and send word when he was ready to see Rohan and the others. Then she escaped him. He didn’t know if she was sorry or relieved that the opportunity to talk had passed; he did know that it was unlike her to walk up to a thing and then back away. Sioned was a woman who dealt with difficulties by slamming her head against them until they collapsed. He had never seen her frightened of them before.
But in the time it took to tell his news to Rohan as Pol, Chay, Walvis, and Feylin listened, he began to understand why she was afraid. There was a chill in the Summer Room, and it emanated from the High Prince and his heir. Meath was disgusted with them both.
He said as much to Maarken later in the grotto. “Proud, arrogant, stubborn, willful, stone-headed—” He silenced himself with a long pull at a wineskin, and glared at the thin trickle of the waterfall.
“Accurate, if redundant,” Maarken commented.
Meath stretched saddle soreness from his legs and scrunched down against a rock dry-furred with moss. “This is the only privacy left at Stronghold, isn’t it?”
“Just about—except for a bath. But so many strangers are here who don’t know their way around that Hollis was almost surprised in the tub the other day. Stronghold was built to hold an army, but my grandmother changed a lot of it over the years. We’ve had to pack people in like silk bolts in a crate. Pass the wine.”
Meath obliged. “Skybowl won’t be much better. At least here there aren’t any weeping merchants.”
“They’ll settle down, once they’re assured Rohan will compensate them.”
He accepted the wineskin back, drank, and glanced around the grotto. He’d never seen Stronghold in winter, and it was somehow more bleak even than in the heat of high summer. Not until spring snowmelt would the waterfall and Princess Milar’s fountain run again, or the mosses plump out pillow-soft, or the poor thirsty roses and grasses and fruit trees awaken.
“Have they been at each other’s throats yet?” Meath asked suddenly.
Maarken knew his meaning. “Not publicly. But when it comes to a battle here, I’m afraid it’ll all be out in the open. Pol wants to use sorcery the way Andry did. To kill. He never took the oath and won’t now. I think he respects us for keeping our vows, but he’s also contemptuous and a little angry.”
“He never knew the discipline of Goddess Keep, as we did. The only discipline he knows is his own. He’s a good man, he’s got a conscience. But I can understand how hard this has hit him.”
“His failure at Radzyn most of all. It rankles that Andry succeeded at Goddess Keep.” Maarken sighed. “I wish I knew where it was they parted. They were friends when they were little.”
“Does it matter when it happened? The number of years don’t count when the jealousy runs that deep. It can happen in an instant and last a lifetime.”
Maarken stared up at the cloud-shadowed moons. “That’s what scares me. And it can’t be like that, Meath. We can’t afford it.”
“But they both want things their own way.”
“Rohan’s the only one who can hold them both in check. Andry swore to him, not to Pol, about the ros’salath. Not to use it except in defense of Goddess Keep.” Maarken paused then shrugged again. “The last few days I’ve wondered what’s holding Rohan together.”
“Sioned.”
Maarken shook his head. “I’ve lost count of how many directions she’s being pulled in. There’s Rohan, and Pol, and her Sunrunner training, and her knowledge of the Star Scroll, and being furious with Andry even while she still cares about him.”
“Chay says your mother is the only one of you he’ll talk to.”
“So far. I think he’d accept Hollis, possibly me, if we ever get some sun again. Goddess! Never in my life have I been so conscious of the sky—or how vulnerable we Sunrunners are.” He gestured to the moons that glowed behind the haze. “Look at them. They’re up there—I can see them, feel them, almost smell them. But they might as well not exist for all the use they are right now. Always before, you just waited for the next day or the next night, or the one after. Nothing was so urgent that it couldn’t keep. But this—this is maddening.”
“Clouds don’t last forever.”
“Not here. But it’s almost winter. The whole Veresch, Goddess Keep, Kierst-Isel, all those places are blocked off most of the season. And Cunaxa—Goddess, I wish I knew what in all Hells was happening in Cunaxa!”
“It’ll still be there in a few days, when the sun comes back.”
“Yes—but how much of it will have spilled over onto our lands?” He reached for the wine again. “The Vellant’im have some kind of connection with the Merida. We have no idea what it might be. Through sorcery, perhaps. But nobody really knows. It’d be nice to know who it is I’m fighting.”
“Would you like a list?”
Maarken snorted. “You mean, add Chiana to it? That’s another thing that makes me half insane. We all know damned well she’s bedded down with the enemy. Rialt is in Swalekeep and we can’t reach him to
confirm it. Tilal and Ostvel could march on her from Waes—but you know Rohan. He’ll want proof. I’m not so sure Kostas will adhere to the same morals, though, and that might be all for the best. And now I’m talking like Pol—abandoning everything that makes us civilized for the sake of fighting these barbarians as barbarians.”
“Oh, it’s just that you’re not drunk enough yet. Have some more wine.”
“No, thanks. I’ll have to go stick my head into a trough and chew a pemric seed before I go up to Hollis.” He heaved himself to his feet and tossed the wineskin down to Meath. “Here. Enjoy. It’s almost the last of the Syrene gold.”
“Go away,” Meath said, waving him off. “I was depressed before I got here, and now I’m beginning to wish I’d stayed on Dorval.”
Maarken gave him a tired smile and left him. Meath settled back to savor the Syrene vintage in peace when light footsteps crunched the gravel path. Glancing up, he instantly recognized the gleam of fair hair going silver, and nodded thoughtfully to himself. Yes, Rohan was due to be next. He only hoped he could have a night’s sleep before Pol’s turn came.
“Any of that left?” said the High Prince as he sat lightly on the dry moss.
“Some.” Meath gave over the wineskin and conjured a fingerflame to see by. Not that Rohan’s face revealed much, except when he was tired, but Meath usually needed all the clues he could get to this man. Friendship only went so far; even Chay complained that Rohan was always at least a half-step ahead of him and rarely waited for him to catch up.
But tonight Rohan was weary indeed, or he wouldn’t have been so blunt. “I’m glad you’re here, Meath. Nobody else can talk sense into Pol. Maybe you can.”
“Maarken’s told me. Actually, I’m not surprised that you and Pol disagree. But it’s gone too far, hasn’t it?”
“Much.” Raking one hand back through his hair, Rohan met his gaze and in the flicker of Fire Meath saw anguish in his eyes. “I was outnumbered at Radzyn. I had to fight at Remagev. I lost. So I gave up Remagev too, and trusted it and the Desert to do my work for me.”
Meath heard the repetition of I—as if there had been no one else there, as if Rohan had fought this war alone.
“Meath, I can’t and won’t give up Stronghold. It’s not just sentiment or stubbornness. It’s symbolism—for if Stronghold falls, my power is gone. The power Pol says I’m frightened of using.”
Meath blinked. “Frightened? You?”
“Oh, yes.” A chill smile touched his lips. “There’s much about me my son doesn’t understand, but he knows that much. If I lose Stronghold—the High Prince who couldn’t even hang onto his own castle? My authority vanishes if Stronghold falls. And after this is over, I’d have to build from the ground up again. I did it once—I don’t know that I have patience or strength to do it again. You tell me Tallain has rebuilt the wall his father left in rubble. That was a symbol, too.”
“I know,” the Sunrunner said quietly. “Walls stronger than mere stone.”
“Yes. But the walls I made are useless now. So you see I have to fight and I have to win. There’s no other choice.”
“And you’re tempted to let Pol try the ros’salath. The sorcerer’s wall.”
“Tempted? More than I can say. It’s not my oath. And he’s pointed out it’s not his, either.” There was a slight pause. “Would you do it if I ordered it?”
The crisp, brutal simplicity of the question shook him to his bones. All at once he understood Maarken’s deepest fear: obey the prince he loved or his Sunrunner vows? Use what he was in defense of his world and thereby betray what he was, or do nothing and watch that world destroyed?
Rohan was smiling again, without bitterness. “I thought as much. Forgive me. I won’t ask again, Meath.”
“No—Rohan, it’s just—I need a little time to think.”
“Seductive, isn’t it? Forswear yourself, do something wrong to gain a thing you know to be good. I’ve done it before, and I’m not going to ask it of anyone else. I know how it feels.”
“But you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” Meath asked slowly. “Betray what you are so that we don’t have to.”
“If necessary.” Rohan plucked a bit of moss, crumbled it between his palms. “That’s an interesting word, you know. I must do necessary things—and I could, with the power I still have. But it’s sliding through my fingers like wind. Like time. I’ve had hints of it at the Riall’im, watching Pol grow into leadership, sitting back and letting him practice being High Prince. He’s good at it, Meath—but I’m afraid that there are things in him that will make him good at other kinds of power, too. Roelstra’s kind.”
“Don’t be shadow-fearing like a one-ringed Sunrunner.”
“My father enjoyed war. He loved the challenge of it, physical and mental. He was very good at it. Maybe it’s for the best that Pol shows the same signs. Maybe he’s what we need—someone who knows what’s necessary and just does it.”
Meath had never felt so helpless. The ways of princely power were beyond him. He’d witnessed it most of his life and even participated in a few maneuvers, but always as a piece on the board moved by others. He had never understood the movers themselves, never explored their duties and guilts and processes of thought. But now Rohan was telling him things he would have wagered not even Sioned had heard. As if he had answers. As if he could help.
The smile returned—a little wider, apologetic. “And there you sit, wondering, ‘Why in the name of the Mother of Dragons is he telling me these things?’ I’d tell you that, too, if I had any idea.” He exhaled a long breath and shrugged again. “Perhaps because you know most of my secrets, and have none of your own. I trust you because of that, Meath. And it’s funny, because it doesn’t usually work that way.”
Meath nodded. A man who knew one’s secrets could be trusted only if one knew his; each would have something to lose. But the usually perceptive High Prince was wrong. Meath did have one secret, kept close ever since the day Sioned returned from the tree circle near Goddess Keep, sixteen years old and newly a woman, with a vision of Fire and Water and her lifemate dazzling her green eyes.
At last Meath said slowly, “You know that in spite of Andrade, in spite of my vows, in spite of my service to Lleyn and then Chadric—in spite of everything else in my life, I am your man and always will be.”
“Mine, or Sioned’s?”
Meath wore only six rings, but he had practiced his craft for over forty years. The fingerflame held steady, betraying him no more than his face or voice. “Yours, Sioned’s, Pol’s—it’s all one and the same, isn’t it?”
“I hope so, my old friend. Goddess help us, I do hope so.”
• • •
Miyon of Cunaxa disliked having his only choice presented to him as his only choice. It reminded him of the years after his father died of Plague, when he had been prince but his advisers had ruled. It had taken him a very long time, but he had finally rid himself of all of them—some executed by his own hand. The impulse to do the same to the Merida lord who stood in his presence chamber now was almost overpowering.
“So,” he said. “I am rousted out of bed at midnight to hear that the Merida are doing what they’ve been planning to do ever since they bred enough sons to form a respectable army. I note that neither you nor your own sons are at Catchwater, my lord.”
“My eldest will be leading the Castle Pine guard—as is his right as its commander. Your grace, our aim is identical to yours. We are fulfilling your ambitions as well as our own. Have they not always been the same?”
“Similar, perhaps. We do have a major difference in who will rule at Stronghold, but doubtless that can be worked out later.” He stretched his lips in a smile.
“Will it matter so much, when all the Desert is ours at last?”
“Oh, little things like that matter a great deal. Little things like who is the ruling prince around here!” He rose from his chair, set on a raised dais, and towered over the Merida, who had the good sense to bend
double. Miyon was not fooled, but a narrow thread of satisfaction stitched up his pride. “I trust you won’t mind too much if I refuse my official sanction for this war?”
The Merida’s head and shoulders snapped up so fast that Miyon wondered why his spine didn’t crack. “Your grace—?”
“I’ve been dealing with Rohan for many years now. His son is my daughter’s husband. His grandchildren—” And here he smiled with real enjoyment. “—are my grandchildren. Poor innocent darlings, alone with their mother at Dragon’s Rest. I believe I’ll pay them a visit.”
Deprived of the powers of speech, the Merida could only stare. Miyon wondered if they had sent him this imbecile on purpose to irritate him into rash action.
“Yes, to Dragon’s Rest,” he continued pleasantly, “complaining all the while about my treacherous former allies’ unauthorized attacks on the Desert.” He warmed to his theme. “Demanding the support of my son-by-marriage in ridding my lands once and for all the Merida vermin.” He leaned forward, grinning now. “Depriving Dragon’s Rest of half its guard. Protecting my precious granddaughters myself—while the Vellanti army marches in.”
The Merida lord’s incoherence resolved itself into a long “Ahhh” of enlightenment and a slowly spreading smile.
“I see you understand me. Order my horses and escort. It’s a long way to Dragon’s Rest.”
“Your grace is wise beyond wisdom! Your grace has found the perfect—”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
“I am honored to serve your grace.” Hesitation, then: “May I humbly ask a boon? Lord Birioc is at this moment proving his worth and valor by leading our people—your people—to the walls of Tuath. By tomorrow night, he will be the victor. Although he isn’t the eldest of your grace’s four fine sons, he is certainly the most clever.”
“And he wants to be my heir, just like his brothers. Let him bring me the Desert, and then he may have the heir’s circlet. I’ll keep it safe for him, you may count on it.” Miyon laughed. “I just hope Rohan lives long enough to see a half-Merida proclaimed a prince!”
