by Melanie Rawn
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,” Masul 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.
“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, lordling. 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 Sunrunners 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 entertainmen
t 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 farad-h’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 Masul. 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 Sunrunners.
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. H
e 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 Sunrunners’ 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 faradh’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.