Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire

by Melanie Rawn

  First the children—faces in rapid succession, vanishing too quickly for him to receive more than the vague impression that they all had his blue eyes.

  Then the chaos. Swords, steel-tipped arrows, horses gutted and dying, men and women warriors scythed down like harvested wheat. Battle. Blood. Radzyn demolished, Stronghold in ruins. His parents and brothers and all his family destroyed. Goddess Keep a smoldering wreck of shattered stone clinging to the sea cliffs, Sunrunners never to ride the light again.

  And finally the stars. Uncounted pinpricks of blinding light, like daggers thrusting straight up from the bottom of a deadfall. He hurtled toward them in an endless plunge into darkness punctuated by stars. The sorcerers’ stars.

  It was Sorin who woke him, running headlong into the circle where no one not faradhi was allowed. “Andry! Andry, wake up!” He was shaken roughly, opened his eyes, and saw his brother’s fear-paled face. He clung to Sorin, grateful for the warm strong arms around him and the presence that, but for the one vital gift, was twin to his own.

  How Sorin had felt it was a mystery to them both. They had heard of how Maarken, after his own twin died of Plague, wandered Radzyn lost and haunted, calling for the second self always there and now gone. But what they shared was stronger—perhaps because they were older, or because Andry was a Sunrunner even more powerful than Maarken.

  Since then, Andry dreamed occasionally of what the Goddess had shown him. Once it happened while Sorin was at Goddess Keep, on a quick visit before sailing for Kierst to supervise the making of tiles for Feruche. Andry had been shaken from the dream as he’d been from the vision, his brother’s hands frantic on his shoulders and his brother’s voice crying out his name.

  “What does it feel like?” Andry had asked as they waited for dawn beside the hearth, wrapped in blankets and gulping mulled wine.

  “Like when we were little, and one of us had a bad dream.” Sorin’s brows arched speculatively. “You never told me the details then—”

  “Neither did you. We were a prideful little pair, weren’t we? Never could admit to being that scared.” Andry smiled.

  “—and I don’t suppose you’re going to talk about it now, are you?” Sorin finished as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

  “No. Sorry. It’s bad enough that I see—what I see. If I told you, you might start dreaming the same thing. And it might bounce between us all the way to Feruche and back—and neither of us would ever get any sleep.”

  Andrade had always emphasized that the Goddess showed what might come to pass. “Nothing is written in stone—and even if it were, stones can be broken.” He wondered sometimes what she had seen of the future. Did the Goddess tell her to marry her sister off to Zehava? Or was that to change a future she didn’t happen to like? Did she ever see Pol? Or me? Did she realize what work I have in front of me? Is that why she chose me as her successor? Or did she see someone else, and pick me by default?

  Not what he ought to be thinking right now. As for what everyone else would think—he couldn’t bring himself to care about any of them but Maarken and Hollis. They had to understand. The Sunrunners here could be frightened, horrified, shocked, or awestruck. It didn’t much matter which. His brother had to understand and explain it to Rohan and Sioned and Pol.

  But he admitted to himself that he didn’t much care what they thought, either. If Rohan considered him power-hungry, and Sioned was affronted by his uses of power, and Pol felt threatened—too bad. They can look on this as they like, so long as they don’t hinder me. I can keep that vision from becoming real. This is my work to do, my warning from the Goddess. Only—please, Gentle Lady, let Maarken understand.

  He gave a violent start when Nialdan cleared his throat. The big man shrugged an apology. “Sorry, my Lord.”

  Andry smiled thinly. “Uproot yourself from the floor and go see what’s keeping Torien.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  With Nialdan gone, Andry could give in to nerves and pace. He was used to circling a room; the gatehouse was long and narrow, and the change in pattern unsettled him even more. He stopped by the table again and poured wine into the goblets for something to do with his hands. The dranath sifted down from his rubbing palms, fine powder vanishing instantly into the green-gold wine.

  “My Lord?” Nialdan came back in, leaving the staircase door open behind him. “Torien says they’re about ready. He’ll be up in a moment. Oclel’s making doubly sure about the swords and arrows.”

  Oclel was Nialdan’s good friend and the only man at Goddess Keep big enough to give him a decent workout with a sword. Born in Princemarch of a huntsman’s daughter and a soldier who had fought for Roelstra in 704, Oclel had married the mother of Andry’s elder daughter. Andry preferred it so. Rusina had not wanted the child he’d given her on her first-ring night. Already in love with Oclel, she bore Tobren grudgingly and had wanted nothing to do with her from the day of her birth. Another woman had nursed the child, and Valeda took care of Tobren’s need for affection.

  Othanel, mother of his only son, was another matter entirely. Triumphant in her pregnancy, she kept little Andrev close and barely allowed him to play with other children, as if fearing contamination. She was possessive and jealous, barely able to hide her fury when first Rusina and then Valeda bore Andry’s children, and not bothering to hide her glee when both women birthed daughters.

  Contemplation of Rusina’s anger and Othanel’s ambition brought an uncomfortable memory of his mother’s stinging rebuke at the last Rialla. When he’d tried to explain that both babies were too young to travel, Tobin had exploded like heat lightning across the Desert sky.

  “What are you afraid we’ll see? Children conceived not because you care a damn about their mothers—which you don’t—but because you want your own little brood of Sunrunners? Not even Andrade went that far!”

  “Didn’t she? What are you and Rohan but her experiments in faradhi royalty? Not to mention Pol!”

  Maarken had come by later that night. Man-to-man reasoning left Andry unmoved, but when Maarken’s temper flared he capitulated. He had never gone against his adored eldest brother’s wishes in his life.

  And, truthfully, he didn’t regret the meeting last summer in Syr. Time spent with Andrev and Tobren had softened his mother’s wrath. Sorin made the journey from Feruche to High Kirat, Maarken came with his family from Whitecliff, and Tilal from Athmyr. Kostas, a father now himself, presided over the whole noisy crowd with a sardonic grin. The eight children—Andry’s, Maarken’s, Kostas’, and Tilal’s—had seemed bent on demolishing anything that got within reach of their fists, including, on occasion, each other. For ten days it was almost as if they were any ordinary big family.

  Rohan, Sioned, and Pol had sent their regrets. Andry understood perfectly. They would let the others make the initial moves toward peace. Thus this current visit by Maarken and Hollis.

  It fit in perfectly with Andry’s own plans. He knew now the method by which he would change that future of horror and blood.

  Maarken had to understand.

  Torien appeared at last, visibly annoyed by the delay. “But everything’s ready now, my Lord. They’re waiting for you to begin.”

  He nodded and gestured to Nialdan, who emptied his goblet in two large gulps. Andry took a little longer at it, savoring the slow pulse of the drug in his body. He had been careful to use only enough for an increase of power—he’d heard from Maarken how Hollis had suffered after her addiction to dranath. He didn’t want that for any of his people, and certainly not for himself. But the augmentation of gifts was too important to reject dranath completely.

  When he could feel its effects—soft heat in his cheeks, a tingling in his groin, a flush of energy through his body—he straightened his clothing and went to the balcony that overlooked the courtyard. Taking another lesson from Rohan, he had chosen his clothes carefully: wool trousers dyed red, white shirt and short white tunic. Radzyn’s colors, meant to remind Maarken that whatever he might witness
today, they were of the same place, the same heritage.

  “Your cloak, my Lord?” Torien murmured behind him, and he shook his head. A breeze off the sea quickened the air, but he wasn’t cold. He never was, except in the depths of winter. The joke around Goddess Keep was that he’d soaked up so much Desert sun in childhood that he’d never feel anything but the worst blizzard the Father of Storms exhaled from the icy heart of the Veresch.

  Many of those below him were in warm woolen gowns and tunics, with cloaks against the wind. Several wore the hoods pulled up—perhaps to keep their ears warm, and perhaps to hide their reaction to whatever shocking innovation Andry was about to present. He shrugged, but made mental note of them anyway. They could be sent elsewhere for duty and cease to trouble him. Again he thought of Urival, whose removal from Goddess Keep had been no guarantee of lack of trouble. Whatever Pol now knew of faradhi arts, it was too much—because Andry had not been the one to teach him.

  This wasn’t the time to think about that, either. He rested his hands lightly on the smooth balcony rail and surveyed the assembly with justifiable pride. The Sunrunners, students, and servants of Goddess Keep numbered over four hundred—two-thirds of them faradh’im at various levels of expertise.

  In Andrade’s time there had been as many non-gifteds here as Sunrunners. The reason was not talent, but money. Prior to Andry’s rule here, students were required to give to Goddess Keep that share of their parents’ wealth that would have dowered them. No prejudice was attached to the gift’s size; the price of a few sheep, all Nialdan had brought, weighed equally with the substantial slice of Radzyn’s wealth that had been Andry’s portion. Indeed, it was this princely sum that had allowed him to cancel the dowry custom. Parents loath to sell off goods for the stipulated cash were now perfectly happy to send gifted sons and daughters to become Sunrunners; the other children benefited through increased dowries. Andry had brought with him more than enough to make up for any loss of income. It afforded him a certain grim amusement to wonder how Rohan would have worked it out if Pol had come here; he was dowered with all Princemarch.

  They probably would have done what Chay and Tobin did with Maarken—told Andrade that if she wanted Whitecliff (his dowry while his father lived), she could come collect it lock, stock, and paddock.

  But Andry had insisted on giving the whole of his fortune to Goddess Keep. He could have had almost any place he wanted in the Desert, a manor or castle and honors befitting the son of the Battle Commander and the grandson of a prince. But this keep was all he had ever wanted. Now it was his. And, thanks to him, wealthier and more populous than Andrade had ever dared hope.

  And all of them looked to him for guidance. No one, not even those chosen for this demonstration, knew of his terrible vision and the dreams that haunted his sleep. Caution told him they must trust him for himself, not out of fright of a dreaded future. They must follow him because they believed in him, give him loyalty, dedicate themselves to him so that when he finally revealed his reasons, faith would conquer fear. They must be certain to their bones that he would teach them how to use their gifts against the coming battle and blood.

  He could not glimpse his brother’s head in the crowd, and so looked for Hollis’ distinctive tawny hair. Where she was, Maarken would be. At last he located them by the well. He murmured to Torien, “Take my brother and his lady closer to the gates. I want them to have an unobstructed view.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  Andry drew in a deep breath and addressed his people. “Since faradh’im left Dorval to end the sorcerers’ control of the princedoms, we have been forbidden to use our gifts to kill. This is a wise law. Without it, we might have become hired assassins like the Merida, our honor the price of a wineskin—or worse.

  “But in reading the scrolls left by Lady Merisel, who led the Sunrunners with her husband Lord Gerik and their friend Lord Rosseyn, I discovered something. They and their faradh’im went into battle alongside their allies—and they used their gifts to protect.”

  He waited for this to sink in, then continued. “The concept of warrior faradh’im was as astonishing to me as I know it is to you. But the fact remains that they were. And it was only after the so-called Stoneburners had been defeated that the law was made forbidding us to kill with our gifts.”

  Torien had reached Maarken by now, and was urging him politely toward the main gate. Andry ignored the little rustling they made through the crowd. He also did himself the favor of ignoring the many faces eloquent with suspicion that he was about to un-make that particular law.

  “Lady Merisel was wise,” he said quietly. “We are so made as Sunrunners that we cannot conceive of causing death with our art. This is as it should be. We are here to work with and for the princedoms, not to terrorize them with our power as the diarmadh’im did.

  “But I have come to believe that we must learn to do what our ancestors did. Not to kill in battle, but to protect. Many of you were at Goddess Keep in 704, when Lyell of Waes camped outside our gates—ostensibly to protect us against the war between Roelstra and Prince Rohan. You who were here remember how helpless you were against only fifty or sixty armed soldiers.

  “You may rightly say that times are peaceful now, with no need for learning what I propose we learn. But consider the possible results of a single death: that of Prince Pol.”

  Hollis’ dark golden head jerked up at that. He met her gaze calmly, knowing he need not spell it out in words of one syllable or less. But he explained it anyway. They had to understand. This was a thing dire enough to convince them, while leaving the real threat unrevealed. The prospect he detailed was real enough in any case, and frankly made him sick to his stomach.

  “My cousin is heir to two princedoms, and to the High Prince. He is the only heir. He is a strong young man in excellent health—but so was Inoat of Ossetia, who died very suddenly with his only son, leaving Chale without an heir. Had there been no Princess Gemma to inherit Ossetia, war would have come—and in the very princedom Goddess Keep inhabits.

  “My cousin’s life has been threatened before, by the Merida. I don’t need to number Roelstra’s grandchildren for you—enough to make life interesting, certainly, should the Merida or mere accident claim Pol’s life, Goddess keep it from happening. Which of Roelstra’s get have parents powerful enough to back a claim to Princemarch? Don’t remind me that their mothers signed away all right—what would that signify, with a princedom at stake?

  “My brother Maarken would inherit the Desert, of course.” He nodded at the tall, composed man in their midst—Sunrunner, able warrior, Radzyn’s heir—and his heart gave a skip of sheer pride. There was no finer man alive. “But there would be war over Princemarch. We all know it.”

  He paused again, gathering all his determination. “I don’t believe any of this will happen. But it could. And who can say what else might occur that none of us could ever d-dream of?” The stumble was almost unnoticeable; he had a sudden vision of Sorin’s worried eyes. “One day we may be called upon to defend ourselves. Quite frankly, I don’t intend to be trapped within Goddess Keep as Lady Andrade was. Beside this, it is unfortunate but true that my kinships excite the suspicions of certain princes. If war comes, for whatever reason, Goddess Keep is the first place they would attempt to capture. And how easy it would be to do it!”

  Andry gestured to Nialdan. The tall Sunrunner stepped forward and with one lifted hand called a flame to a torch pole set just outside the open gates. A moment later the crowd was startled by the quiet thunder of hoofbeats. All eyes fixed on the forty riders, led by Oclel, galloping across the fallow fields. Andry knew what they were imagining: not men and women they knew, wielding blunted swords and cloth-wrapped arrows, but soldiers under enemy banners. He slipped down the inner stair, deliberately unobtrusive, but few marked his passage in any case. He nodded his satisfaction. Let them see danger, he thought; let them see their own helplessness.

  Oclel raised his sword, and arrows thickened the sky. They th
udded to the ground, hopelessly out of range. But the next volley hit the walls—away from the open gates, yet close enough to emphasize the threat. There were gasps, and a few cries of protest or outrage. Andry repressed a smile.

  “What in all Hells do you think you’re doing?” demanded a familiar voice at his side, anger echoed in the strong grip on his arm.

  “Hush,” Hollis murmured to her husband. “We’re about to find out, I think. Let him work, Maarken.”

  Andry gave her a sharp glance, surprised that she knew his mind better than his own brother. He shook Maarken off and strode to the gates. Standing in the center of the wide gap, he lifted both arms. Jeweled rings and wristbands flared in the sunlight—and in the glow of a wall of Fire that sprang up fifty paces from the castle.

  Nialdan was nearby, arms similarly raised, rugged features clenched with the strain of calling another barrier of Fire just this side of Andry’s. What no one but the two men knew was that whereas Nialdan worked with the sun, Andry had mastered the diarmadhi technique of constructing the wall without it.

  The riders slowed when Fire appeared. Oclel bellowed an order and they abandoned their frenzied horses to approach on foot. Andry whispered a silent apology to his friend; Oclel had no idea what he was letting himself and his people in for.

  Sunrunners approached Fire—and began to scream.

  Andry silently counted to twenty, then lowered his arms. He spoke Nialdan’s name into the horrified stillness of the courtyard and the smaller Fire sputtered out. Oclel led his weak-kneed troop through the gates, pausing only to fling an order to the grooms to gather the horses.

  “Sorry,” Nialdan muttered to Oclel, who gulped and shook his head.

  Andry said nothing. The testimony of those who had felt the spell would be enough. He watched solemn-faced as furtive glances slid to him and then away.