The Mirror Prince

by Malan, Violette

  Cassandra shook her head, biting her lower lip as she followed Max up the hillside to the horses. She hadn’t liked Lightborn much to start with—after so many years among the Shadowfolk she’d forgotten the casual arrogance of the Rider Lords—and yet she’d found herself changing her mind. It was hard not to like such an engaging man. True, his counsel had always been one of waiting and delay—had his insistence on going to his mother’s aid in Griffinhome been genuine or a tactic to delay Max’s escape? But there were many people whose natural caution made problems worse, not better. Still, he had tried to talk them out of coming to the Tarn, even if he hadn’t tried very hard, and he had tried to delay them once they were here. It could have been in the hope that the Basilisk’s Riders would catch up to them.

  She paused as she put her booted foot into the stirrup. But Lightborn had let Max play the Game, and what did that mean? She reined in her horse—Lightborn’s horse, she reminded herself, as they all were—with more force than she intended. It wasn’t easy to see the truth of all of this.

  When they were all once again on horseback, Max turned to Moon.

  “We have followed your lead this long while, sister of my love. Now I ask you to follow mine.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  HE GUARDIAN’S KEEP WAS the closest thing to a home he’d ever had. Not Hearth of the Wind’s desert rocks, not his father’s temporary camps with his band of Wild Riders, not Honor of Souls’ fortress, Griffinhome. Though he’d lived in all these places, this was the only place in all the Lands, or the Shadowlands now that he thought about it, that belonged only to him. A thick tower of rough-worked stone, its large circular rooms were stacked atop one another, each one comfortably but sparsely furnished. The furniture was placed, and the lighting arranged, in such a way that it had taken him some time to realize, when the old Guardian first brought him here, that the Keep had no windows or doors. It could not be found by accident or by Riding. It was the safest place he knew.

  The layout of the tower was so simple that it had taken him only minutes to show Cassandra and Moon everything they needed to know to make themselves comfortable. The instant he could, he’d thrown himself into his favorite darkwood chair, still drawn up to the fireplace, exactly as he remembered leaving it, angled so that he could rest his heels on the raised hearth.

  He pushed his hair back from his face and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. The Sun was almost turned, but he needed time to think, to sort out the jumble of thoughts and feelings that tumbled through him. He was Dawntreader, no doubt, but he was also Max Ravenhill, as well as all the other humans he had been over that long life. Would he really have killed Lightborn? Or was that just the shock of seeing him so close at hand? His sword had been in his hand. He remembered learning of his cousin’s betrayal, and in one sense that discovery and the feelings that went with it were only a few weeks old. But between him and that hurt, that shock, was the distance of all his human lives, all their pettiness and all their glory.

  Was this distance, this perspective, going to help him now that he was the Prince again? Or would it hinder?

  He could see now exactly what Cassandra had meant when she’d told Max Ravenhill that they hadn’t been able to change his fundamental character. But he could also see differences, differences that she couldn’t know about, that, if anything, undermined his confidence now when he most needed it. He’d known exactly what he was doing when he’d surrendered himself to the Basilisk Prince to stop the War. Buying time. His decision had been based on all there was to know, after weighing every strength and every weakness. As Guardian it was his job, for god’s sake, to weigh every action against the good of the Lands, the People, and the Talismans. Trust his instincts, sure, but—

  He shook his head, chewing on his lower lip. Max Ravenhill had known nothing, weighed nothing. He’d made his decision based on a woman. Not even a known and loved woman, because Max Ravenhill hadn’t known Truthsheart, not really. He’d acted solely on trust. He’d made his decision to go to the Tarn even before he’d experienced the Basilisk Prince firsthand. Where had that decision come from? Max Ravenhill had won the Game of Three Questions. How? As Max, he’d chosen the right path, but how? Instinct? Luck? His Guardian’s training taught him to be wary of the former, and his human experiences that there was no such thing as the latter.

  If he could no longer trust in his own judgment, what could he trust?

  He tried to relax, but he was distracted by an old sensation made new. He could feel the Lands now, the directions that weren’t directions, the space that wasn’t space. It was this awareness that made it possible for Riders to Move, but he had never been conscious of it before the Banishment, before the amnesia. He hoped to god it would fade again. It was no more natural for a Rider to be aware of this sensation than it would be for humans to feel the blood moving through their veins. Riders didn’t Move consciously; their focus gave them destination, not Movement. “We don’t do magic,” Cassandra had told him once, back in the Shadowlands when they were both pretending to be human. “We are magic.” She was more right than she had known, he thought. Only a human perspective could have given Cassandra that insight.

  He steadied his breathing until his inhales and exhales were the beat of the Phoenix’s wings—his wings—as he floated through the currents of dra’aj that were the Lands. His heart opened in the old way, and immediately he felt them, his true fara’ip. He would always feel them, close or far, hidden or exposed. This was what had brought the old Guardian to him when her time was ending, and this what he would look for in the next Guardian when his time came. The dra’aj worked differently in all Riders, in all of the People for that matter, Naturals and Solitaries, too. Some it made Builders, or Singers, or Trees. Some it made Lakes, or Warriors, and some it made Healers. Some it made Guardians. And, only once in each Cycle, the dra’aj made a High Prince.

  The Talismans stirred as they felt him, but not enough. Only his Phoenix flames kept him from feeling the chill of fear. He had only agreed to the Banishment to buy time, to allow the Prince to appear, to allow the Talismans time to be ready. But now . . .

  The end of the Banishment was near, he knew it, he could feel it, and the Talismans should be dreaming, close to awakening, and he could indeed feel the echoes of those dreams; Ma’at, Stone of Virtue, dreaming its slow visions of earth, always and never sleeping. Solid and still, always waiting for the Time of Princes. Porre’in, Spear of War, dreaming of flight, waiting for the Call. Ti’ana, Sword of Justice, dreaming of battles, waiting for the Trial. Sto’in, Cauldron of Plenty, tasting the wind and the earth, waiting for the Feast. And with himself, the fifth Talisman, they should be dreaming of the Prince, all in their own ways ready for the Cycle to turn.

  But they were not. None of them were dreaming of the Prince. They were no more prepared to greet the High Prince than they had been, though the Sun, Moon, and Stars had turned so many times since the Banishment began. But the Cycle was ending. Of that, there was no doubt. He had seen the signs of it himself, though as Max Ravenhill he hadn’t fully understood what he had seen. Beyond manifestations like the carnivorous grass, there had been signs in every place they had Ridden. Leaves turning where usually there was the green of high summer; skies overcast or raining where in the past had been only spring sunshine. Even at the lodge, he realized, the winter’s night had been colder, the snow and wind more biting that it should have been. That the Talismans remained dormant could only mean that there was still no High Prince, that the Cycle might end without turning.

  “Be ready, my brothers,” he pleaded with them, determined to be wrong, “I come.”

  As he withdrew, he floated once more through the net of dra’aj that was the Lands, his heart and his hope sinking as he went. There was no doubt that the net was weakened and broken, in some places crumbled and gone. Fading more and more as the Cycle turned. With the end so near, where was the Prince?

  If she were human, Cassandra thought, she’d have a
headache right now. Human or not, what she most wanted to do was take the Prince Guardian and shake him until he coughed up some answers. He’d whisked them away from the Tarn of Souls and told them he needed time to think, no explanations, no discussion. Time they didn’t have, she’d wanted to point out.

  And what about Lightborn? Cassandra bit down on her lower lip. She was certain, as certain as she was standing here, that the Rider hadn’t said one thing that wasn’t true. And he’d sworn fealty, hadn’t he, along with Windwatcher and Honor of Souls. Cassandra shook her head. Right now, when nothing was as she’d expected it, she couldn’t be sure of anything.

  The Guardian said he remembered everything, and maybe he did, but he didn’t act like it. Did he really remember her? And if he did? What did she want that to mean? Dammit, there was no time for this!

  “What does he do?” Moon said, her head tilted to one side as she studied the Guardian in his chair.

  Cassandra drew her sister to the door of the tower room with a jerk of her head. “He’s thinking,” she said as they gained the staircase. She knew from experience that no sound they made could disturb him while he was meditating, but she was too restless herself to sit and watch sedately while the great Prince Guardian organized his thoughts. There were things that needed doing no matter what he might decide. Supplies to be checked, horses to be soothed, defenses to be investigated and learned, things that she couldn’t do if she were sitting in the tower room, waiting for him to decide to speak to them.

  The staircase wrapped around the outside wall of the tower, warm despite the fact that it was walled in stone on both sides. A quick examination showed Cassandra that the Guardian’s Keep had all the comforts—stabling for horses, a stocked pantry, linen on the beds that smelled as fresh as if it had just been removed from a scented chest, and even kindling ready cut. Below the room where the Prince sat was a combination kitchen and storage room. It was evident that the kitchen was actually used for cooking rather than just as a place to store the traditional food servers that were never empty. The fireplace was large enough to roast a small pig whole and there were signs that such a thing had been done in the past. There were cupboards built into the walls beside the fireplace, and in them Cassandra and Moon found a full supply of travel bags, spare clothing, even weapons that were still serviceable, bows with their strings still sound. Other open shelves held baskets of various sizes and stone bottles filled with wine. So they didn’t need to cook if they didn’t want to.

  “Ugh,” Moon said, peering into a shallow basket. She pulled out a loaf of bread as long and as thick around as her forearm. “Look,” she said, holding out the bread to Cassandra. “What kind of food is this?”

  Cassandra’s nose told her what was wrong even before she saw the small dots of blue and white on the crust.

  “The dra’aj fails,” Cassandra said, lifting her eyes to meet her sister’s gaze. “Even here, the dra’aj fails. The bread is spoiling,” she told Moon. “Put it down and wash your hands.”

  “Food does not . . . ‘spoil,’ ” Moon said, dropping the bread back into its basket and scrubbing her hand on her thigh.

  Cassandra remembered her own shock at what happened to uneaten food in the Shadowlands, and how long it took her to get used to containers that didn’t refill themselves.

  “But why? I have not seen this spoiling of food before,” Moon said. “Why should this be happening here?”

  Cassandra shook her head. “Perhaps because no one has been here since before the Great War. If all the dra’aj is Fading, as I’ve been told, perhaps it Fades faster where there are no People. Are all the containers like this?” Great, she thought. All safe and sound and hungry as rats. She lifted the lid off a small crock and was pleased to find a round of cheese carefully wrapped in large leaves resting inside. After a few minutes of searching, she and Moon had collected a bottle of wine to go with the cheese, a basket of warm yeast rolls, two peaches, and several pears which, while blemished, were still edible.

  At least Cassandra could eat them. Moon wrinkled her nose and chose one of the peaches instead.

  “What do you know of the Guardianship?” Cassandra asked, as she sat down at the oval table in the middle of the room.

  “Only what the Songs tell,” Moon said, pouring out two glasses of wine.

  “And that isn’t much?” Cassandra tore a yeast roll into four pieces, spread cheese on one, and popped it into her mouth. She chewed slowly, following her own thoughts. Interrogating Moon wouldn’t give her the answers she needed anyway. She needed to know the kinds of things the Songs couldn’t tell her. His bringing them here was not what was bothering her. They had needed to leave the Tarn, and quickly, once Lightborn’s treachery was exposed. And, undoubtedly, the Prince needed time to think. But she didn’t like the way the Prince had Moved them here without explanation and without discussion. In the past, in the Shadowlands, he’d always been ready to share his plans and stratagems, always ready to consider the experience and ideas of others, especially her own. Clearly, he no longer saw himself as her comrade-in-arms, but as the Prince Guardian, as an elder lord.

  Nothing else could have shown her as clearly as this that she had no relationship with this man, whatever he might think. Even if he did know her, even if he did remember everything, all that his human selves had known and felt, this person, this amalgam of memories, wasn’t someone she knew.

  “Is he . . . is he well?” Moon said, breaking into Cassandra’s thoughts.

  “Is he mad, do you mean?” Cassandra shook out her napkin and mopped up a few drops of wine from the table with more care than was needed as she considered the question. She laid the napkin back in her lap. “He feels True to me.” And that in itself was true, she thought.

  “Would you be able to tell?”

  Maybe that was the problem, she thought. Even if he did remember her, and love her, he wasn’t human anymore, he was a Rider now. And not just any Rider, but the Prince Guardian. She could hold her own with any human—and any elder lord, she thought—but she couldn’t expect to have the same easy partnership with the Prince that she’d had with his human selves. Even Max Ravenhill. That companionship was gone, and the Prince couldn’t bring it back, even if he wanted to.

  And what would she do about that?

  “I’ll go and check the horses,” Cassandra said.

  When they came back to the sitting room, the Prince was kneeling in front of the cold hearth, arranging lengths of ash wood over kindling.

  “My lord Prince—” Cassandra began.

  He turned and smiled, his eyes warm. “Call me Max,” he said. “I’m serious,” he added when she hesitated, eyebrows raised. “I’m not sure I can explain it, but it feels right to me.”

  Cassandra nodded, her eyes narrowed. “You’ve had good instincts in your human lives,” she said. “Let’s hope that’s true now.” She leaned against the arm of the other chair, stretched out her legs, and crossed her ankles. “What do your instincts tell you about Lightborn? Will he bring the Basilisk here?”

  Max shook his head. “He’s never been here. No one has. I wouldn’t have brought even you if there had been anywhere else we could be safe.” He stood, dusting off his hands, as flames began to lick at the wood on the hearth. “Besides, the Basilisk Prince isn’t important. What matters right now is the Talismans.”

  Moon sat down in the chair Cassandra leaned against. “The Basilisk Prince is not important?” she said, her eyes on Max’s back as he watched the flames.

  “Time’s running short, and the Basilisk Prince isn’t our primary problem,” Max said, as he turned to face them. “I must go to the Talismans.”

  Cassandra’s head snapped up when it became clear that Max wasn’t going to say why.

  “So you know where they are?” Moon leaned forward.

  Max nodded. “They’re in the Vale of Trere’if.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Cassandra said, her annoyance blown away. She glanced at Moon and saw her own fears conf
irmed by the look on her sister’s face.

  “What is it?”

  “Honor of Souls told us the first day,” Cassandra said. “Don’t you remember? The Basilisk has built his Citadel in the Vale of Trere’if.”

  “Oh, fuck,” the Prince Guardian said.

  Lightborn picked up the little malachite Cauldron and held it a moment, considering his move, before he set it down on the square next to one of the Basilisk Prince’s Guidebeasts.

  “Did you tell him?” he asked.

  “Why would I tell him?” The Basilisk toyed with his glass of wine, swirling the liquid slowly and inhaling the bouquet. In the corner of the room a large white dog with liver-colored ears stopped scratching and watched them, head canted to one side as if it could understand their speech. Lightborn had the uneasy feeling that the dog changed shape when he was not looking.

  “I would have wasted my great weapon, had I told him anything of you,” the Basilisk said, after reaching for his own Cauldron and withdrawing his hand without making a move. Lightborn was relieved to see the Basilisk’s hands were steady, and that his skin was bronze with health.