Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire

by Melanie Rawn

  “It was justice,” Andry said coldly.

  “It was murder. It made a mockery of justice. Worse, it broke the vow you made never to kill using your gift.”

  Andry’s eyes widened and he gave a startled laugh. “You can’t possibly think you’re going to punish me for it!”

  “Murder does not go unpunished in this princedom. Use of power does not go unnoticed. We choose now to use our own.”

  The royal plural stunned Andry. “He killed Sorin! He deserved to die! Who had a better right to do it than—”

  Rohan paid no heed to the outburst and continued implacably, “We do not harbor murderers in our princedom. You have three days to remove yourself from our lands. Set foot here again on pain of arrest and trial for murder.”

  Andry’s face went death pale. But there was more.

  “Further, whatever princedom we see fit to inhabit for whatever amount of time, we forbid you to be present in that princedom. We lift this restriction for the Rialla every three years, and for two days preceding and following.”

  “You have no right—”

  Rohan’s temper flared at last. “We have every right! Be grateful we don’t order you confined to Goddess Keep!”

  Surging to his feet, Andry challenged, “And how would you go about it?”

  “This ros’salath of yours might prevent us from entering—but we could also prevent you from leaving. Further—”

  “How dare you?” he cried. “I refuse to be sentenced for a crime that was no crime, by someone who has no authority—”

  “Further,” Rohan repeated, “any use of the thing you term ros’salath for other than direct defense of Goddess Keep is forbidden for as long as we are High Prince. You deemed it necessary to learn, necessary to teach, and now necessary to use. Whatever the reason, consider your motives carefully. Rest assured that we will do the same.” He stared Andry down. “Your grandfather said once that the promises of a prince die with him. When Pol rules here, he may decide as he pleases about these things. But while we live, Lord Andry—”

  “You have no right!”

  “We have every right,” Rohan said again. “Or had you forgotten that tradition states and ancient scrolls confirm that faradh’im hold Goddess Keep of the High Prince? How long, do you think, would it take for us to make good a revocation of that gift?”

  Andry gasped.

  “You’ve not inspired trust among the princes,” Rohan observed coldly. “Or even your own senior Sunrunners.”

  The struggle for control made a battlefield of Andry’s features. He mastered himself and turned to Pol. “You think yourself well-educated in the scroll Urival stole for you, don’t you? You think you can defend yourself from what will come when—when the princes have had enough of a Sunrunner High Prince. Think again, cousin!”

  Pol didn’t much care what Andry thought or believed; he was railing against the consequences of his father’s lack of action. Why hadn’t something been done before now? he cried inwardly. Why did it have to come to this?

  Rohan spoke again. “We strongly suggest you accept your punishment, my Lord. It is mild indeed, compared to that which we might have chosen.”

  Andry appealed to his parents. “You can’t let this happen!”

  “You let it happen,” Chay told him gravely, his face twisted by grief.

  “Mother!”

  Tears ran down Tobin’s cheeks. “Andry—don’t you see? You left no other choice.”

  He turned to Maarken, beloved eldest brother, only brother now. There was no succor there either, and equal grief. Andry’s expression hardened as he turned to Rohan again.

  “I understand, High Prince. You see me as a threat. You’re afraid that my power is greater than Pol’s, so you want to make me as impotent as you’ve made your other enemies. I am no enemy of yours, High Prince—nor even of your son. You understand nothing about me or my intentions. I saved your precious palace for you, and this is how you repay me. Oh, I accept the punishment. By law I can do nothing else—you made your precedent yesterday, when you took judgment of a Sunrunner from me. How clever of you,” he snarled, “how expert in the use of your power. As High Prince you have jurisdiction over us all.”

  “We are pleased you understand that,” Rohan said.

  “Make sure you understand this, High Prince. I will leave the Desert and never return. I will even abide by your restrictions on my movements. But I will do as I like at Goddess Keep. Someday you and yours will call out for devr’im to protect you. Be warned by the Lord of Goddess Keep—you will need us.”

  He raked the group with one last icy glance, then strode from the room with his Sunrunners behind him.

  Rohan went to his sister. “Tobin . . . I’m sorry.”

  She gazed up at him, her black eyes liquid with anguish. “I lost one son this spring,” she whispered. “Now I’ve lost another.”

  Pol stood irresolutely in the antechamber of his suite, unwilling to enter the bedchamber where the smell of Meiglan and what they had done last night surely lingered. When Edrel appeared from the inner door, carrying an armful of bedclothes, Pol turned away to hide his flinch. He’d been right; the sheets carried her perfume and the scent of sex.

  The boy deposited his silken burden in a large hamper, then approached Pol. Wordlessly he held out a delicate veil of taze-brown lace. Pol accepted it helplessly. His earlier shame was nothing compared to this.

  “Edrel,” he began.

  “I’ve put fresh sheets on the bed, my lord. Your lady mother relayed an order for you to rest.”

  “I couldn’t. Not after—” Neither could he meet the squire’s gaze. Thirteen innocent winters old; he couldn’t remember what it had been like to be that age, and untouched. “Edrel,” he said again, but did not go on. He had no right to upset the squire with talk of what had happened, especially not to ease his own mind. If he felt soiled, it was his own fault.

  “You really ought to try to rest, my lord,” Edrel said.

  “If you wish.” He started for the bedchamber door.

  “My lord?”

  He forced himself to turn and face the boy. But in those guileless black eyes there was the same trusting admiration as always. “Yes? What is it?”

  “I’ll come back in a little while with some food.”

  Pol nodded and fled into the next room. The bed was pristine. He sprawled in a deep chair by the windows and stared at the view of cliffs and sky, trying not to think of anything.

  His brain did not cooperate. Meiglan was part of it, but mostly it was Andry and the punishment Rohan had decreed. Not that Pol disapproved; it was only what his cousin deserved. The law was the law, no matter what. But something in him argued that if only his father had done something before this, no punishment would have been necessary and Andry would not now be an open enemy.

  And what of his threat—promise, really—that sooner or later they would call on him in their need? Was it only to frighten, or had he truly seen into the future? Pol knew his mother had done so several times. He wished he’d inherited the gift from her. Since he hadn’t, he must rely on his instincts and his other gifts. And they demanded that he act.

  Marron was dead, but his brother was here somewhere at Stronghold. Pol could sense it all along his nerves. The waiting was intolerable. Today, tonight, tomorrow—when? A challenge would come and he would have to face it—react instead of act. He was not made the way his father was, he could not be that patient.

  Yet what could he do? The curse of using power wisely was to keep from using it until absolutely necessary. He had been taught that all his life through lesson and observation, and had believed it. But not this time. He must do something. He must control events, make them happen, instead of waiting for them to force him into a corner. He was prince and Sunrunner with power to act as he chose. What good was power if one didn’t use it?

  Pol pushed himself out of the chair and left his suite. At the very least he could find out whether Riyan or Morwenna had disc
overed other sorcerers in their midst.

  He met the new Lord of Feruche on the main stairs, accompanied by Rialt. Ruala was with them. Even the seriousness of the day could not dim the joy she and Riyan had found in each other.

  “No luck,” Riyan said. “But Ruala says there’s one guard missing.”

  “If they can change their forms, my lord,” she said to Pol, “then he could be anyone, anywhere.”

  “I took the liberty of ordering the gates shut so no one can leave without written permission from your father or mother.” Riyan shrugged. “It’d be nearly impossible to duplicate their seals, but. . . .”

  “Who knows what these people are capable of?” Rialt finished.

  “Actually, Ruala has a pretty good idea,” Riyan said. “It seems we ought to listen more closely to the legends of the Veresch. She never quite believed before, but she’s been witnessing the truth of them all spring.”

  Pol gestured up the stairs. “I need all the information I can get, my lady—legend, rumor, and especially fact. If you’re not too tired, perhaps you can educate me.”

  “I’m not tired, my lord.”

  Rialt was frowning as he regarded Pol. “But you are.”

  “I can’t afford to be.”

  They climbed the stairs and went down the hall toward the library that had been schoolroom to generations of princes, Pol included. As they passed a junction of corridors, Ruala suddenly gasped.

  “What is it?” Pol caught her arm. “What’s wrong?”

  “Can’t you feel it?” She was trembling and clutched at his shoulder for support, her gaze seeking Riyan. “Can’t you sense it through your rings?”

  He lifted his hands, staring white-faced. “Sweet Goddess—it’s faint, but it’s there. Ruala, where’s it coming from?”

  She took a few steps forward. Rialt helped her; Riyan was beginning to shake with increasing pain. Then Pol felt it, too, a jarring dislocation of his thoughts and senses, a dizziness, a dry ache in his head of colors and sounds and textures that weren’t really there. It felt oddly familiar, but he couldn’t think clearly enough to identify it. Ruala lifted her face to him, shock superimposed on shock as he caught his breath.

  “You, too?” she whispered.

  Rialt stared from one to the other of them, mystified. “What is this? And whatever it is, where’s it coming from?”

  Ruala squinted down the hall that glowed with morning sun, hurting Pol’s eyes. “There,” she said, pointing. “There—”

  Mireva met Ruval in the stables. He drew her quickly and silently into the small tack room where he usually slept and shut the door. She sank wearily onto a bench, rubbing her face with her hands.

  “What in all Hells do we do now?” he rasped. “Chiana and her so-called army are lost to us! That fool Marron ruined everything—”

  “Be silent! Let me think!” She had been doing little else during the long night and morning.

  But a strong dose of dranath had restored her somewhat, though her weariness was still profound. Panic had a way of draining the spirit as well as the body. She forced herself to rally and speared Ruval with her gaze.

  “Riyan will test all Miyon’s suite for signs of sorcery,” she said, taking worst things first. “You’ll have to relinquish that form and use another.”

  “Don’t I know it! I stole some other clothes.” He gestured to a bundle on the floor. “You’ll have to help me work the change. Damn it, Mireva—”

  “Settle down. We can overcome Marron’s stupidity, but not if you persist in acting like a witless fool instead of a prince.”

  “Just give me another face for a day or so, and I’ll show you a prince,” he retorted.

  A few moments later it was done. Ruval’s dark hair was now gray-streaked, his blue eyes brown, his smooth chin showed a deep cleft. Mireva worked a few lines into his face to support the impression of a man twice his true age, then leaned back against the wall and sighed tiredly. “There. Commit this to memory. And for fear of the Nameless One, don’t get it confused with the other!”

  Ruval stripped off his shirt. The tunic of service to Cunaxa had been burned that morning. “How did your little tryst with Pol go last night?”

  “Total success, but for the shock of its conclusion. Andry caught him in a weaving,” she said. “I thought Pol would embrace ‘Meiglan’ with vows of love, which would have been useful. But his attitude was quite unexpected.” She grinned suddenly. “He believes her to be a lying, cheating little whore. And that’s even better, because now he doesn’t trust his own judgment and perceptions. The blow to his pride in his cleverness was a devastating one.”

  “Naturally ‘Meiglan’ wept and pleaded.”

  “Naturally. I really did have a wonderful time—until Andry interrupted.”

  “Well, we won’t have to worry much about him.” Ruval finished dressing in the plain shirt and vest worn by most servants at Stronghold.

  “What have you heard?”

  “You mean I know something you don’t?” He laughed again. “It seems he’s been banished for all time to Goddess Keep. At least, that’s the rumor. I doubt even Rohan would attempt to cage him there physically, but the effect will be the same. One of Miyon’s people saw him tear out of the Summer Room in a rage guaranteed to freeze the balls of anyone who saw him. And the rumors have been flying ever since.”

  “Ah!” She rocked back and forth, chuckling. “Delicious!”

  “Some say he’s got until tonight to clear out, some that he’s been given five or six days.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’ll never help Pol defend against your challenge now. Perhaps this business with Chiana wasn’t such a disaster after all.”

  Ruval chortled. “Oh, it’s not because of what he did with the ros’salath.”

  “Then why—?”

  “You won’t believe it! Rohan’s punishing him for the murder! Have you ever heard anything more insane? I overheard one of the stewards say with the most pompous pride that his grace obeys the law, no matter what. Even though Marron was a threat and a murderer himself, Rohan’s laws must be followed and Andry must be punished!”

  Mireva choked on laughter. “A truly honorable idiot—let’s hope his son is the same!”

  “Pol will be that much easier to defeat.” Ruval grinned down at her. “For, as we both know, I have no honor at all.” He paused, his fingers cupping her chin. “So you had a wonderful night with him, did you?”

  “Very,” she purred.

  “I’ve never seen you wearing Meiglan’s face. It might be interesting.”

  “When you hold Princemarch, I’ll wear whatever face most pleases you.”

  “When I hold Princemarch, I’ll have Meiglan herself or any other woman who pleases me.”

  She jerked her head away. “Do you think you won’t need me anymore once you’re at Castle Crag?” she snapped. “I made you and I can destroy you.”

  “But you won’t.” He gave a harsh laugh. “I’m the only one you have left, Mireva. I’m your only hope now that both my brothers are gone. And that, my lady, is the power I possess over you. I suggest you remember it and behave accordingly.”

  He left her seething with impotent rage. Mireva calmed herself with an effort. After a time she returned to the keep, where she mounted the steps to Meiglan’s chambers and locked herself in with the still unconscious girl. She spared a vicious glance for the youthful golden beauty so helpless in the bed, then rummaged in a coffer for a certain bracelet. Marron had stolen it and its mate from Chiana’s colossal collection before he’d quit Swalekeep.

  She fetched a shallow basin of water and lowered herself onto the Cunaxan carpet. The bracelet tinkled down into the water and she cradled the bowl in her lap, fingers spread. There was enough dranath in her still to facilitate the spell. Her pride was soothed by the swift sureness of her gifts.

  Chiana was pacing before a banner of pale Meadowlord green. The mirror was set nearby in obedience to strong compulsion. It reflecte
d the princess and Morlen of Rezeld. Both were frightened. Mireva could imagine their conversation, necessarily low-voiced with so many guards nearby wearing Princemarch’s violet. Ostvel would arrive soon, Mireva was sure, to begin asking questions that, thank the Nameless One, none of them could answer in ways damaging to Mireva. But there was a risk that the Sunrunner with diarmadhi blood would be there as well. She had encountered him several days ago while shielding the army with the mirror; the touch had been unmistakable. The mirror must be destroyed before he could comprehend its uses.

  She gathered herself and clamped down on Chiana’s readied mind. It was simplicity itself to turn her, fix her gaze on the mirror, draw her toward it. Mireva’s peripheral vision showed her Morlen’s slack-jawed stare of surprise, affording her momentary amusement. Chiana moved like a sleepwalking child.

  Mireva concentrated, suddenly furious as her contact with Chiana increased and she saw that Marron had played on Chiana’s ambitions for her son. After all the effort it had taken to persuade the princess that Rinhoel’s claim was hopeless, Marron had insidiously undone her work, knowing Chiana’s lust would be the greater in her son’s cause alone. Doubtless he would have killed Rinhoel once Princemarch was safely in his hands. A clever plan—for which Chiana would be the one to pay.

  The princess stood sightlessly before the mirror, her pale, soft, beringed hands lifted in tense fists. An instant later the mirror lay in blood-covered shards on the ground. Chiana’s mouth stretched in an unheard scream of pain and she fell to her knees amid the shattered glass, her fingers slashed to ribbons and dripping crimson.

  Mireva watched a few moments longer from a narrow splinter of mirror, then withdrew. “Thus ever for those who disobey,” she murmured.

  And the door of Meiglan’s bedchamber crashed open, the lock forced and the wood splintered, and three pairs of diarmadhi eyes transfixed her.