by Melanie Rawn
Urival accepted the glass of wine Andry gave him, nodded his thanks, and drank deeply. Setting the cup down, he sagged back in his chair and exhaled. He rubbed the ring on his left thumb absently. “I’m too old,” he muttered. “I haven’t the strength anymore.”
“At least you felt it,” Andrade said. “I didn’t even catch a flicker.” She looked up at her grand-nephew and namesake. “You either?”
“No, my Lady.” Andry stared down at his four rings, each set with a small ruby token of his status as son of a powerful athri. Chay’s colors were in his clothing, too, his tunic decorated around the throat with interlocking red and white knots. “I thought I saw the fire jump, but. . . .”
Urival said, “That had nothing to do with what I sensed. Someone was watching us. It was subtle, but it was there. And it had no basis in the fire—not Sunrunner’s Fire. It’s night, the moons aren’t up—there’s only the stars.”
“You’ve said what it wasn’t,” Andrade snapped. “Tell me what it was.”
Andry crouched down with his back to the hearth, sitting on his heels. With his lithe body curled up thus, and his too-long hair drifting untidily around a nearly beardless face, he seemed much younger than his twenty winters—except for the sharply intelligent eyes, a deeper blue than Andrade’s. “We conjure with Fire to show us things, but we can’t actually watch events except on woven light of sun or moons. Yet Urival says we were being watched. If not in the usual ways, then how?”
Andrade tapped the scroll with one long finger. “Not us, Andry. This.” She traced the title page with its two ominous words and its strange border design. “Look at this and tell me how it was done,” she added grimly.
Urival stared. “Impossible!”
“Sioned did it,” she reminded him. “She used starlight.” She met his gaze and they shared the memory of the night Rohan had killed Roelstra in single combat. The two had been protected from interference by a dome woven by Sioned of shining silvery starfire. She and Urival had both been caught up in the powerful conjuring. Pandsala, present at the scene, had been trapped into it, and Tobin, who had been with Sioned far away at Skybowl. And, though barely a day old, Pol too had been woven into that dangerous, forbidden fabric of light.
“Aunt Sioned has done it?” Andry looked up, frowning. “But it’s not possible, and even if it were—”
“If it were not possible, why bother to forbid it to us?” Urival asked. “It’s not something we do, but we know it can be done because Sioned did it.”
“Whoever it is must have powers beyond ours.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Look at this page.” Andrade traced the pattern of night sky with stars again. “On Sorceries.”
“No wonder Meath was frightened by it. And no wonder somebody tried to kill him in order to get it. Knowledge left behind on Dorval by our ancestors—things they didn’t want remembered?”
“And somebody doesn’t want us to discover, that’s certain,” Andry said.
“The temptations must be very great.” The Lady of Goddess Keep folded her beringed hands tightly together. “I am tempted. I choose to give in to that temptation. I must know what the scrolls teach. Others know it. So must I.”
“They had reasons for leaving this behind,” Urival warned. “Reasons for the prohibition against using starlight. Andrade, the danger—”
“—would be in not knowing,” Andry interrupted, rude in his excitement. “The Lady is right. We must know what’s here and how to use it. If only to know what to guard against.”
His attention was on the scroll, and thus he did not see the glance that passed between his elders. Through no special power but long years of familiarity with each other’s thoughts, Andrade and Urival shared reaction at Andry’s use of the plural. He had counted himself among those who must know. Andrade had summoned him here tonight because he was her kinsman and extremely gifted, but he did not yet know what she and Urival had decided this winter: that when she was dead, Andry would be Lord of Goddess Keep. Young as he was, he was the only possible choice. His relationship to the High Prince had only sealed what his talents would have earned him had he been born in a cottage instead of a castle.
“Use their own weapons against them, whoever they may be?” Andrade asked him now. “Ways our ancestors thought best forgotten? Ways dangerous and forbidden to us?”
Andry rose fluidly to his feet, and there was nothing boyish about him as he looked down at her. There was the look of his father about him now, strength of will, clear-sightedness, and firmness of purpose adding maturity to his face. But more than his sire, Andrade suddenly saw his grandsire in him, saw Zehava’s single-minded acquisitiveness, his drive to possess. Zehava had wanted land and unquestioned authority over it; Andry wanted knowledge. Both ambitions were perilous.
Andry’s eyes shone with ambition as he said, “How do you think our ancestors won in the first place?”
Urival gave a muffled exclamation. Andrade did not react outwardly at all.
“Go on,” she said quietly.
“You said that long ago they left Dorval and came here to involve themselves in the world. Why? It can’t have been for the sake of power, for they didn’t take over as princes, and our history hasn’t been one of meddling in the affairs of the princedoms.” Until recently, his eyes said, until you, Aunt Andrade. “Thus it must have been not for their own gain, but for the people. Because they were needed. And yet they left certain knowledge behind on Dorval. Why didn’t they want us to know these things? More importantly, why didn’t they want us to know how to use starlight, the ‘sorceries’ this scroll implies? Tonight we learned that others know what these Sunrunners wanted forgotten. Is it so great a leap of logic to think these were the people our ancestors came here to oppose?
“And why learn the ways of the enemy in the first place? Knowledge is to be used—else why learn it? They must’ve carried it with them inside their heads and once the others were defeated, never taught it again, so of course it’s been forgotten.”
Urival roused himself from appalled reaction to Andry’s words and said, “That’s a long way from saying they used what might be in this scroll to battle these unknown enemies—existence of which hasn’t even been proved!”
“Hasn’t it?” Andry faced his great-aunt. “You saw, when you first became Lady here, that High Prince Roelstra was too powerful.”
The jewels of her rings quivered in the firelight, betraying the sudden tremor in her hands. “I knew long before that what he would become. He came to my father’s keep as a youth, looking for a bride.”
Andry’s eyes widened, for he had never heard that part of the story before. “But you must already have been a Sunrunner.”
“Yes. Home to visit my father and my twin sister—your grandmother Milar. I know what you’re about to say, Andry. I saw the power of the faradh’im dwindling, our influence threatened as Roelstra’s power grew. So I married off my sister to Prince Zehava, hoping one of their children would be a son with the gifts, someone I could train up to be the first Sunrunner prince.”
“Only it didn’t turn out that way,” Urival murmured.
“No. Your mother showed the gifts instead, Andry. And so I arranged for Rohan to marry Sioned, whom I knew to be powerful.” A twinge of bitterness crossed her face.
“And now Pol will be the prince you wanted,” Andry went on. “But it’s happened even before him, my Lady. Sioned is High Princess, with no hesitation in using her gifts as she sees necessary to governance. Pandsala does the same as Regent of Princemarch. My brother Maarken, and Riyan of Skybowl—and maybe others we haven’t identified yet—they’ll all be Sunrunner lords, just like Pol will one day. Faradhi ways are merging with those of princes, because you decided they must.”
“And must our ways now merge with those of our enemies, because you decide they must?” she snapped.
“Not merge. But why shouldn’t we do what our ancestors probably did?”
“Beca
use they had good reason for leaving that knowledge behind and forbidding us the starlight.” She leaned back in her chair, looking very old. “Talk with Rohan sometime about using methods you despise to gain something you know is right. Why do you think his sword has hung idle in the Great Hall of Stronghold since he defeated Roelstra?”
“Yet he did battle, and he won! And because of it, he’s had the chance to make this a world of laws instead of blood brought by the sword.”
“Would you make us into users of dark stars rather than the clean light of sun and moons?”
“By your own admission, Sioned used starlight—and even though she wears no faradhi rings now, there can be no doubting her heart.”
Urival pushed himself to his feet. Andry was too clever by half and had learned logical argument all too well. “Leave us now. You’ve made your case. And I don’t need to tell you not to speak of this.”
“No, my lord. You needn’t tell me.” The words were spoken without rancor, but the blue eyes were shaded with defiance. He bowed to them both, and left.
Andrade was silent for a time, then said, “If I don’t live long enough to instill some caution in that boy, we’re lost.” She tilted her face up to Urival’s. “Do you think I’ll last?” she asked almost playfully, but her eyes were bleak.
“You’ll drink to the sight of my ashes floating away on the breeze,” he told her. “But not if you don’t get some rest.”
“I won’t argue. Put the scrolls away somewhere safe.”
“I will. And then come back to make sure you’re sleeping.” He smiled. “Stubborn old witch.”
“Foolish old bastard.”
After the scrolls had been put in a place only Urival knew about, he returned to her chambers. She was seated on her bed, long silver-gilt braids undone and forming a pale, rippling cloak around her. She had changed into a nightrobe, but seemed too listless to finish the job by sliding between the sheets. Urival had seen her like this more and more often in the last two years, and fear for her health was a stab of anguish in his breast. He drew back the covers and helped her into bed, feeling how light and frail she had become. Extinguishing the candles, he moved silently to the door.
“No. Stay.”
From any other woman it would have been a command to offend even the most loving heart. From her, it was as close to a plea as her pride would ever allow. Urival was frightened.
“As you wish, my Lady.” He stripped down to his long under-tunic and lay down atop the covers, dragging the quilt up from the foot of the bed to drape around him. He did not touch her, only waited, the hearthlight playing soft shadows across the room.
“If it were Maarken instead of Andry, I wouldn’t be worried,” she said at last. “He was born with a sense of honor as strong as Chay’s or Rohan’s. But Andry is cursed with the wrong kind of cleverness. Why do all my relations have to be so intelligent?” She sighed. “There’s something different about him from his father or his uncle or his brothers. Perhaps he gets it from Zehava.”
“Or maybe even from you.”
“Yes, I’ve always been terribly clever, haven’t I?” She gave a harsh laugh. “Andry’s going to be even more dangerous than I. And I beg the Goddess I’m not doing wrong in making him Lord of this place once I’m dead.”
“He’s young. He’ll learn.”
“And he’ll have you to guide him.”
“Always assuming I outlive you,” he bantered as lightly as he could manage, not wanting to think about a world that did not have her in it. “Besides, there’s Rohan, his parents—and don’t underestimate Maarken’s influence or Sorin’s. Andry adores his brothers.”
She shifted beneath the blankets and her fingers closed around his. “Not the first time we’ve shared a bed,” she remarked. “Do you remember?”
“Of course. I always knew it was you who made a man of me that night.”
“I do good work,” she replied, real laughter in her voice now. “Had to fight Kassia for you, too. It was to be one or the other of us. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me.”
“I would never have forgiven you if it had been her.”
“But how did you know? None of my others ever did.”
He did not tell her that because it had been him, she had not woven the Goddess’ illusions as carefully as she should have. Forty-five years later, she still did not realize that she had wanted him to know. “Gift of the Goddess,” he replied, meaning it.
“And all the nights since. That must be how you recognized me. Repetition of the experience. Did Sioned ever know it was you?”
“She may have guessed. I don’t know. I must say, I’ve been tempted to collect my full share of gratitude from Rohan, though. I do good work, too.”
“Conceited old lecher.” She moved closer and he put his arm around her. “They’ve been good for each other. Will Maarken and Hollis be the same, do you think?”
“As good as you and I have been through the years.” He pressed a light kiss to her forehead. “And neither of us is so old that come morning, when we’re rested, there won’t be a way to prove it.”
“Shameless.”
“You were the one who taught me,” he answered, smiling. “Go to sleep.”
Chapter Six
Sioned was not in the habit of deceiving her husband on any matter, nor had she ever avoided his presence for any reason. How deceive or avoid one’s second self? But she found it necessary to do both during the days after her rescue of Meath and the shocking encounter with the dragon.
Worry about Pol and Tobin, who had reacted badly to the drain on their energies, took up the afternoon and evening. By the time she was certain that both would sleep it off with no real damage done, Sioned was so exhausted she fell into bed, oblivious until the next noon. The arrival of the Lord and Lady of Remagev with their children occupied the rest of that day; their welcome and settling in gave Sioned further opportunity to deceive Rohan about her troubled thoughts and to avoid being alone with him.
He waited her out, but every time she looked at him the concern in his eyes was deeper. By the third morning he had had enough of waiting, and rather than go downstairs to share breakfast with everyone in the Great Hall, he ordered the meal sent to them in their study. It was understood that they were not to be disturbed—and Sioned knew there would be no fortuitous interruptions, for the command would remain in force until Rohan was satisfied in his own mind about what had occurred on the sunlight.
She sat opposite him at the large fruitwood table that served as their desk, reminded of times at Goddess Keep when she had been called on to explain some misdeed or other. Certainly there was a family resemblance between Rohan and Andrade, emphasized now by the stern set of his features.
Neat piles of letters, blank parchments, writing materials, and the other accoutrements of a voluminous correspondence had been shoved aside to make room for a meal neither of them touched. Near Rohan’s right elbow was the huge book of law and precedent, bound in slightly iridescent green-bronze dragonhide and resting on a carved wooden stand given them by Prince Davvi of Syr, Sioned’s brother. On her side of the table was a matching wooden box that held their various seals: one each for their personal letters, another pair for more formal documents, and the great dragon seal, wide as Sioned’s palm, that was pressed into pendants of blue wax hung from green ribbons on all decrees of the High Prince. Two walls were lined to the ceiling with books, volumes neatly arranged in subject order; a stepladder stood abandoned by the section on geology and metallurgy. The door cramped into a corner, more books above it, and a tapestry map took up most of the third wall. Heavy silk and wool stirred sluggishly in a warm breeze through open windows on the wall to her left.
Sioned loved this room. In it Urival had taught her probably more than he should have of faradhi secrets her first summer at Stronghold, before she had become Rohan’s princess. Here she had learned Desert law and the principles of justice her husband valued so dearly. And for the past twenty-one
years she had worked with him in this chamber, governing their lands and planning the future they would give their son. But now she wished guiltily that she was anyplace rather than sitting across from Rohan, his cool blue eyes fixed on her so grimly that she wanted to squirm like a child caught breaking a rule. She held herself still, aware that at this moment he was not her husband but the High Prince. Neither was she his wife; she was his Sunrunner.
“A dragon,” was all he said.
She nodded, deciding to get it over with so she could have her Rohan back. She explained what had happened from the time Meath contacted her on the sunlight, and finished with, “We’ve always suspected dragons are highly intelligent. If I’m right, and they have thought-colors faradh’im can perceive, then it may be that they’re even more intelligent that we originally thought.”
“Why has this never happened before? With all the faradh’im weaving sunlight and all the dragons flying Goddess knows where over the years, why didn’t anybody ever ‘bump into’ one before now?”
“Perhaps they did, but didn’t understand it. Or perhaps I’m completely mistaken. But I swear by what I felt, my lord. I touched colors and I felt wings, and so did Maarken. Pol and Tobin were safely back here before it happened, so they can’t verify. But Maarken can.”
Rohan placed his hands flat on the table. Like her, he wore only a single ring, a topaz that had been his father’s. The gem had been reset some years ago into a circle of tiny emeralds, tribute to the color of his wife’s eyes. His hands were lean, powerful, the long fingers bearing faint battle scars; they were hands that could control the most mettlesome horse with ease, or caress her skin as lightly as the merest breath of wind, or wield sword and knife with killing strength. They were the hands of a knight and a prince, but also those of a poet. Sioned could not recall a time when she had not coveted the touch of those hands.