by Melanie Rawn
“Not out loud, no.”
“Then there are three alternatives. First, he didn’t expect it but now believes that someone wishes to help him, and doesn’t wish to jeopardize that person by admitting he even saw the Fire. Second, he knew in advance and is certain it was meant for Sorin, and doesn’t wish to admit that someone with faradhi gifts is working for him. The third alternative is suggested by his reaction to your mention of Fire, Sioned. He may believe that a Sunrunner did indeed do this, and will do something even more deadly if he complains of it. Do you think he’s honestly frightened of us?”
Sioned frowned, then nodded slowly. “He’s extremely wary, at least, of what he believes we’re capable of. Sorin, did he look frightened to you?”
“It seemed as if he resents faradh’im more than he fears them, although you made him really nervous tonight when you lit the candles.” He grinned suddenly. “I think Masul’s just started to realize that Pol’s surrounded by Sunrunners.”
Chay said, “Whichever of Urival’s alternatives holds true, he’ll be worried about us.”
“Us?” Tobin asked, surprised. “Do you know that’s the first time you’ve ever included yourself with the Sunrunners?”
He shrugged. “I have a wife, two sons, a sister-by-marriage, and a nephew who’re are faradh’im. My eldest son is about to marry one. We’re sitting here with the Lady of Goddess Keep, the whole place is lousy with Sunrunners, and you object to my saying ‘us’?”
“How nice to know the Lord of Radzyn finally accepts us,” Andrade said dryly. “The question is, how can we turn events to our advantage?”
Rohan looked thoughtful. “If we assume Masul was as surprised as Sorin and doesn’t know there’s somebody helping him, then it might be possible . . .”
“To do what, Father?” Pol asked.
“To encourage this belief and present him with a somewhat stupefying source of help.” He turned to Pandsala. “Could you swallow your hatred long enough to convince him?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “I’ve been too vehement. Had this come several days ago, after my talk with Kiele—she and I are agreed that Chiana’s humiliation by whatever means would be most satisfying. But after yesterday’s encounter with Masul. . . .” She lifted her hands, let them fall back into her lap. “I’m sorry for it, because the idea is an excellent one. But a sudden conversion to his cause would be suspect. If there were others of my sisters who had the gifts, it might be possible. But I cannot even think his name without wanting to spit.”
“You’re not the only one,” Tobin muttered. “Sorin, how’s your shoulder?”
“Healing, Mother. Don’t worry.”
“Well, so much for that idea.” Rohan sprawled his legs out in front of him and stared at his boots. “We can discount the assumption about the Fire being meant for Masul, because we know this to be untrue. We have to work with what we believe to be the truth, which is either that he didn’t know and welcomes the help, or that he knows very well indeed.” He paused, then slowly lifted his gaze to Urival. “I’d be interested to hear your reasons now, my lord, for thinking that there is no Sunrunner corrupted to causes other than our own.”
Urival’s golden-brown eyes darkened, the angles of his face like rough-hewn stone. He looked around the circle as Sioned had done, but not to collect their attention. He judged each face in turn, from the prior knowledge in some to the frank bewilderment in others. At last he spoke, having satisfied some inner criteria for each person present.
“I suspect none of the faradh’im. I trained them all; I know them. The person I suspect is an unknown, and adheres to the old ways of sorcery, which the Sunrunners left Dorval to oppose. It is a shock, but not really a surprise, to know that some of the descendants of those sorcerers still exist.”
“But they work with starlight, not the sun,” Andry protested. “What went on today happened in broad daylight!”
Ostvel’s gaze was focused on the glowing brazier, his gray eyes lit almost to rubies by the coals. “My late wife was from the Fironese mountains, as her dark coloring made obvious. The legends of sorcerers were more than legends where she grew up. There were two kinds of gifts—one kind we see in the faradh’im, and the other very similar but of a different emphasis. They could use sunlight if they chose, but preferred the stars, believing that power more potent and moonless nights the best time to work. Camigwen always thought that the reason Sunrunners were forbidden the starlight was because these others had used it. The ancient faradh’im did not wish to be mistaken for their enemies.”
Sioned murmured, “She told me some of the tales when we were very young. I never believed them.”
Andrade’s fingers beat a slow rhythm on the arm of her chair, her jeweled rings catching the light in a rainbow of colors. “The prohibition regarding use of the stars is as adamant as that regarding use of the gifts to kill.”
Ostvel’s gaze now lifted to Sioned across the circle. “Yet it cannot be intrinsically evil to weave light from the stars. Sioned has done it—the night Rohan battled Roelstra in single combat. Others were caught up in it—Princess Tobin, the regent, Urival, Lady Andrade herself. No one could suspect any of you of being sorcerers. So it must have been forbidden simply because the old ones did it. What could be evil about starlight, except in the way one uses it?” He paused a moment, then bowed to Andrade. “Forgive me for presuming to interpret faradhi matters, my Lady.”
“Presuming?” She snorted. “You are as much one of us as if you wore the rings.”
“Thank you. Then I will further say that because Sunrunners can use starlight, as Sioned proved, Andry is mistaken in his assumption that it is the only sort of light with which these sorcerers work. They may prefer it, but. . . .” He shrugged. “All this leads to a conclusion I don’t think any of you will like. There is no reason to assume that these people cannot call Fire or use the light of sun or moons. Therefore there is no reason to assume they cannot become faradh’im.”
Urival’s spine became a swordblade. “Are you telling me I might have trained the descendants of our enemies?”
“You have undoubtedly trained people, my lord, who aren’t aware of the real source of their gifts. The power is the same. The uses are not.” He turned to Andrade. “Is there any way to tell the two apart?”
Andry was the one who answered. “I haven’t got all the scrolls translated yet, my lord. It may be that there are clues within—”
“Scrolls?” Alasen instantly blushed and shrank back into her chair, having startled herself with her one-word question. “Forgive me, I’m sorry—”
Andry smiled kindly. “No, I’m the one who ought to apologize. I forgot that not everybody here knows about them. They’re histories, mainly, of how the ancient Sunrunners left Dorval to oppose the sorcerers on the continent.” He turned to Ostvel. “Did Lady Camigwen ever say anything about the old language?”
“Not that I recall. Dialects vary widely in the remote mountains, you know.”
The young faradhi sat forward eagerly. “That’s where the scrolls say the sorcerers fled after they were defeated!”
“And so every person with the gifts who comes from the mountains is probably of the Old Blood? Bah!” Urival flung up his hands. “I’ll have you know that my grandsire was born at the highland source of the Uss River, and his fathers before him back as far as anyone knew. Does that make me a sorcerer?”
“No, my lord,” Ostvel said calmly. “But it might make you part of the remnants of their blood.”
Pandsala said, “My mother was from a place called only The Mountain.”
Sioned’s eyes met Rohan’s for an instant before she said, “This is all speculation, Ostvel. Interesting, I’ll grant, but what has it to do with our present circumstances?”
“I think it has a lot to do with them, Sioned,” Tobin interjected, having understood the look that had passed between the pair. Pandsala’s mother was Pol’s grandmother; if she had been of the Old Blood, then so was
he. “If all this is true, then there could be descendants of sorcerers who aren’t about to be commanded by their ancient enemies. And we would never know who they were, because their skills would be exactly the same as ours.”
Riyan had been chewing his lip this whole time. At last he burst out, “Father—is that what my mother was? Is that what I am?”
“You and she are proof of the nature of the gifts,” Ostvel said firmly. “Rohan, you hold the same kind of power Roelstra did. Is it power that produces evil, or the man?”
“We know the answer to that,” Andrade snapped. “Not to spare your feelings Pandsala, but Roelstra would have been a tyrant in a pig-wallow.”
“My feelings about my father are roughly comparable to yours, my Lady,” the regent reminded her. “I believe Lord Ostvel’s comparison to be valid. Certainly I would prefer it to be so, if my mother was indeed of the Old Blood. But there may be a way to tell the two apart. There is no hint of Sunrunners in Roelstra’s line. Yet I have become a Sunrunner. You yourself theorized, my Lady, that the gifts must come from my mother. And I am different from other faradh’im. I can cross water without difficulty.”
Sioned was amazed by Pandsala’s courage in pointing this out. It was tantamount to admitting she came of a line of sorcerers. “So,” she heard herself say, “we have only to conduct that test?”
“Perhaps,” Pandsala said softly. “It might be useful. But if Lord Riyan is also of the Old Blood, and he has the usual problems crossing water, the test may not be valid.”
“I get sick,” the young man told her, “but not very. Does that mean anything?”
“Who can say?” Urival shrugged. “But word of this goes nowhere,” he added in warning. “All we lack is some fanatic demanding proof of pure faradhi blood through a test! And it wouldn’t signify, anyway, because whoever’s clever enough to have learned Sunrunner arts would be smart enough to fake the usual reaction. So that leaves us nowhere.”
Andry cleared his throat. “Every piece of knowledge helps, my lord,” he said in quiet tones.
Riyan was still looking troubled, but not, Sioned thought, because of his possible ancestry. “What is it, Riyan?” she encouraged.
“My lady . . . I think it’s likely that this person is among us, someone we wouldn’t begin to suspect. If they gave one of their own to be Roelstra’s wife, then isn’t it possible that they wanted a son born of the marriage to become High Prince? That way, they could come out of hiding and openly challenge the faradh’im.”
Sioned tried not to, but could not keep from glancing at Andrade—who had wanted faradhi princes born of herself and Rohan. Are we so different from them after all? her eyes asked Andrade, who looked away.
Urival said, “And failing this, Masul is an opportunity to break the power of the present High Prince, who is so closely tied to us.” He looked down at his nine rings. “I wonder if Roelstra ever knew.”
Shifting slightly in his chair, Rohan said to Alasen, “You were going to tell us what you observed this afternoon, my lady.”
“Yes, your grace,” she said promptly. “Those with Masul after the race were Kiele and Lyell, Prince Miyon, Prince Cabar, and Cabar’s wife Kenza. Prince Velden joined him a little later, as did Lord Patwin—who addressed him as ‘brother’ on behalf of his late wife, Lady Rabia. Prince Saumer watched from nearby, looking as if he’d swallowed a vat of bad wine. Prince Clutha’s heir Halian was just as unhappy, but he was staring mostly at Chiana.” Alasen gave a faint smile. “She was hanging onto Miyon and didn’t realize until too late where he was going. Masul gave her the nastiest smile and said he’d be pleased to share the prize with her, as he wished to be known as a prince who saw to the dowering of his common folk. I thought she’d tear his throat out.”
“I can imagine,” Ostvel said dryly. “The lady is in a rather awkward position. I must say I’m enjoying it.”
“So is Kiele,” Sioned pointed out. “And that worries me.”
Rohan got to his feet and began to pace as if he could no longer sit still. “What have we got, then? Patwin following his overlord Velden by going over to the pretender. Saumer jumping any which way. Halian may be able to influence his father if he wants Chiana badly enough—Clutha wouldn’t marry his son to a servant’s daughter. But I’m not going to count on it. Thank you for your work, Princess Alasen. You’ve been very helpful.
“But we still have the matter of this unknown who’s helping Masul. He was raised in the Veresch, so he may know all about this and be playing ignorant to protect the source of his aid. We have proof that sorcerers exist—the attack on Meath as he carried the scrolls to Goddess Keep, the scrolls themselves, certain other incidents—yet we have no idea who or where these people are. All in all, it’s quite lovely, isn’t it?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Andrade, I need to discuss something with you in private. I thank the rest of you for meeting me here. You may go to your beds—and start watching for anyone who might be our culprit.”
Maarken stood outside Hollis’ tent, irresolute for one of the few times in his life. A brisk wind made his silk shirt a sheath of ice, but his trembling came from much deeper inside. As he stood there shivering he gradually realized that no amount of waiting would settle the chaos of his feelings. Only Hollis could do that by explaining herself.
There was a single lamp lit within, turning the tent into a large white lantern. He could see her shadow on the fabric wall: shoulders rounded, head bent, pacing like a caged animal. He pushed aside the tent flap and went in.
“Hollis—” Her name caught in his throat as she swung around to face him. “Hollis,” he said again, his voice thick. “Tell me why. Tell me what’s changed.”
Terror and tears filled her eyes. She shook her head, long bright hair undone down her back.
Maarken tried again. “I told my parents tonight. They’re waiting to welcome you. When Andry told me what you’d said—”
“I’ve shamed you,” she whispered. “Maarken, I’m sorry, I never meant . . .”
“Then what did you mean? You haven’t spoken to me, you haven’t tried to see me, you haven’t even looked at me! Not even now, when your eyes are right on me!” He heard his voice roughen with emotion, saw her flinch. “Hollis, look at me!”
She faced him, her eyes incandescent with fury. “You have others to look at you—I heard what Prince Pol said about Lady Chiana in your tent! Go feast your eyes on her!”
“Chiana? Oh, Goddess! She came unbidden and unwanted, Hollis—you can’t possibly be jealous of her!”
“Doubtless with her royal lineage you’re working so hard to uphold, she’s better suited to your royal self than I!”
He took the three steps that separated them and grasped her shoulders. “You’re going to talk to me. Do you understand? Tell me why, Hollis. Now!”
“Let me go! Damn you, Maarken, if you don’t get your hands off me—”
He stopped her words by taking her mouth. She struggled frantically in his arms like a wild, frightened thing. Then, with a low sobbing moan, she clung to him and her lips parted to his kisses. Rage melted from him, along with the terrible ice in his heart. Maarken lifted her and carried her to a cot in the corner. Her hands fumbled at his clothing and he chuckled against her mouth, amused by her awkwardness and haste.
“Can this be the woman who came to me in the guise of the Goddess to make a man of me?” he whispered teasingly. “Have you forgotten everything you ever learned, my clumsy Sunrunner?”
“Do something with your mouth other than talk,” she ordered, becoming the Hollis he knew so well. He laughed again and obeyed.
It was the change in the shadows that warned him, a blurring of his image on the tent wall as he sat up to remove his shirt. His head turned and he saw a candle held in the shaking hand of the black-haired boy. A small voice observed wryly in his head that he ought to be getting used to having private moments with beautiful women interrupted by children.
“I�
��forgive me, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you weren’t alone, my lady—” The youth was holding a steaming cup of taze in his other hand, and the violence of his trembling put him in danger of spilling the hot liquid. “I only thought you might like some more—I didn’t know—”
Hollis sat up and pulled her clothes together. “Thank you, Sejast,” she said with admirable calm. “That was very thoughtful of you.”
“Leave it and go,” Maarken added, and the boy nearly dropped cup and candle both in his haste to obey.
“I’m sorry my lord, my lady—”
“Forgiven,” Hollis said kindly, and he gulped. But as Maarken put an arm around her, something flickered in the boy’s eyes, something older than his years and very dangerous. “It’s all right, Sejast,” she said, and he fled.
Maarken felt her draw away from him, watched her do up her bodice with a finality that made his heart plummet. The mood had been broken and there was little hope of salvaging it. He had an intense urge to throttle that stupid child, but instead rose from the cot and brought Hollis the cup.
She sipped and met his gaze over the rim. “He makes a special brew and brings it to me every night about this time. I was just finishing the first cup when you arrived. It helps when I’m tired.”
“I suppose I ought to be grateful for his care of you. Andry tells me he’s become your shadow. But I must say I admire his taste more than his timing.”
“He’s just a sweet boy who thinks he’s in love with me. Affection isn’t so plentiful in this life that any of us can afford to reject it when it’s offered, whatever its source. Besides, I don’t want to hurt him, Maarken. He’ll grow out of it.”
“He’d better hurry up about it.”
“Oh, stop being so silly.” She gave him the cup as a gesture of peace.
He took a long swallow that burned his tongue, then another, and handed it back to her. “I should return to Andrade. Unless you want me to stay.” Please want me to stay, his eyes told her.
She was staring into the empty cup. “No, you’re right. You ought to go back.” She paused, drawing a long breath. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just—I don’t know any of them and they don’t know me. There’s so much power in your family, so many different kinds of power. Can you understand that it’s difficult for me to see myself becoming part of them?”