Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire

by Melanie Rawn

  Rohan could hardly breathe. Sioned clung to the chair so hard her hands were bloodless.

  “How?” Pol’s voice was harsh, hollow.

  Sioned answered. “I lost every child I ever carried. All failings of a princess are forgivable but one: failure to bear a son. But I—I saw myself in a vision of Fire and Water. I was holding a newborn. You. So much your father’s son that there could be no doubt you were his. Yet I knew I would never conceive again.” She stood very still, staring down at her hands. “You know that Ianthe held your father captive at Feruche. I was there, too. When she was certain she was pregnant, she let us go.”

  “I do not excuse myself, Pol,” Rohan said quietly. “I—”

  “The first time,” Sioned went on as if he had not spoken, “she went to him while he was drugged with dranath and fevered from a wound. She . . . pretended to be me. She wished an heir to Princemarch and the Desert both, her vengeance on him for Choosing me instead of her.”

  “The second time, I raped her.” Rohan heard the revulsion he’d sworn he would never reveal, and cursed himself. “I prefer to believe you were the result of that first—” He stopped, swallowed hard. “When—afterward—I joined our armies already in the field. Sioned stayed at Stronghold and emptied it of all but a few servants. Tobin and Ostvel were here as well.”

  Pol flinched. “Then . . . they’ve always known. Who else?”

  “Chay. Myrdal. Maeta.” She pronounced the names slowly, reluctantly.

  “And the servants?”

  “All dead now, but for Tibalia.” Her eyes, liquid with anguish, beseeched him. “People who love you, Pol. Who—”

  “—don’t hold it against me?” For the first time there was an edge to his voice, a strange spark in his blue-green eyes.

  Rohan said softly, “She kept watch. She waited just as if she was the one carrying you in her body. You were hers, Pol. Do you understand? She’d seen you in her arms. Our child.”

  “I watched Ianthe grow big with the son she had stolen from me. From him. Her time came early. Ostvel and Tobin and I rode to Feruche.” She looked up then, memory swirling in her darkened eyes. “I took you from her in secret, reclaimed what was mine. I brought Feruche down around itself with Fire. Everyone thought that the child she bore died with her. But he did not. You are that child, Pol. We went to Skybowl. Few saw us there—the workers had all become warriors in defense of the Desert. Skybowl was nearly as empty as Stronghold. For those who did see, there was . . . an explanation.”

  “A lie,” Pol said in a toneless voice.

  “Yes,” she agreed steadily. “That I had expected the birth of my own son to occur in midwinter. That I had started for Skybowl on whim, Tobin and Ostvel in attendance. I . . . was not myself that summer and autumn. I don’t remember much about that time— not from the night Ianthe took me, put me into a cell without light . . . I think perhaps I went a little mad.” Her hands twisted around themselves. “My actions were understood to be part of this. It was plausible. Women with child have strange fancies sometimes.” A deep breath to calm herself, and she went on, “We told them at Skybowl that you were born along the way. That night I Named you with Ostvel and Tobin witnessing. And also that night—”

  “I killed Roelstra,” Rohan said curtly. “You’ve heard how it happened. A dome of starfire constructed all the way from Skybowl, catching into it every faradhi-gifted mind there and at the battleground—including you. Roelstra knew you had been born. He didn’t know his daughter was dead.”

  “Wh-who killed her?”

  Rohan met Sioned’s haunted eyes.

  “Oh, Goddess,” Pol breathed. “Mother—”

  “No!” Rohan exclaimed.

  “I didn’t kill her.” Sioned looked at Pol and her eyes were hard. “But I wanted nothing more in the world. She imprisoned us, tortured your father, shut me away from the sunlight—and she would have raised you to be as foul as she was. I couldn’t let that happen, Pol. She had the bearing of you, but you were never her son.” Her voice held a note of pleading now. But Rohan recognized that even in her anguish she had managed to avoid revealing another truth: that Ostvel was the one who had killed Ianthe. They could never tell Pol that.

  “Then . . . then Ruval is my half-brother,” Pol said slowly, as if awakening from a long sleep to find that even words were strangers. “And my life is a lie.”

  “Pol!” Rohan went to him, grasped his shoulders. “You are no different now than you were before you knew! What’s changed? You were born of princes, you are faradhi, and you are my son. And Sioned’s.” He stared into his son’s face, willing Pol to say words that would free Sioned of her terror.

  “No different?” the young man asked incredulously. “Knowing I’m diarmadhi, that I’m the child of rape, that my father killed my grandfather, that my mother—” He gave a small, choking laugh. “Which mother?”

  “Pol—”

  “No different?”

  “Are you anything less than you were before you knew?” Rohan snapped.

  “I’m more,” he replied in soft, deadly tones.

  Rohan stood away from him. “This can only change you if you let it. Ianthe may have birthed you, but you were never her son. Never. Do you feel any kinship to Ruval? Any pull of brotherhood? Who was it who nursed you, raised you, loved you, taught you—”

  Sioned moaned low in her throat. Rohan turned to her, stricken by the look in her eyes. What she had always feared had come to pass. Pol was blaming her, rejecting her—for something Rohan had done.

  He faced his son once more. “This is no easier for us than it is for you. If we’d had a choice—”

  “You never would have told me. That’s obvious. You would have gone on letting me believe a lie!” He surged to his feet.

  “That you’re Sioned’s son? Is that truly a lie? Pol, look into yourself. Are you Ianthe’s?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Pol cried. “Why did you keep it secret?”

  “If you need to blame someone, blame me,” Rohan said.

  “Do you know what they planned for him, Pol?” Sioned spoke with deliberate harshness. “Do you know what they would have done, your birth-mother and her sire? He and Ianthe were to marry. Once an heir was born, Rohan would have been killed. The Desert would become part of Princemarch. Ianthe’s son would rule both as High Prince once Roelstra was dead. Do you want to claim such people for your own? They had nothing to do with your life!”

  “Except that they gave it to me! And things haven’t worked out too differently, have they? I’ve got Princemarch, and eventually I’ll have the Desert and be High Prince—Goddess, it’s all happened as if my—my grandfather was still alive!”

  “Stop it!” Rohan commanded. “I killed Roelstra because he needed killing, not because I wanted his power for either of us. If you believe otherwise after so many years, you’re a fool! All this was my doing, Pol. All of it. It’s my fault that they plotted against me, my fault that your mother was captured and shut away in the dark and—”

  Sioned made a small, animal sound, her hands lifting as if to ward off the memory of rape, darkness in her eyes that would devour her if the words were spoken. He bit his lips closed and dug his fingers into his palms, speaking again only when he could do so with relative calm.

  “I raped Ianthe and I killed Roelstra and I allowed you to think you’re what everyone believes you are. All these things you may blame me for. But Tobin knows the truth of your birth, and Chay, and Myrdal, and Ostvel—and so did Maeta. Would she have given her life for you if she believed you to be truly Ianthe’s son? Do any of the others watch for signs of Roelstra in you? Your real mother is here before you, not in the ashes beneath Feruche!”

  At last Pol looked at Sioned. She had wrapped her arms around herself, shivering, eyes huge with pain and pleading. He stared at her a long, silent time, without accusation or understanding. Then he turned and left the room.

  He didn’t know he was running until there was nowhere else to
go.

  The door to the uppermost chamber of the Flametower stopped him. He stared at the carved wood without comprehension for some moments, then slammed it open with one shoulder, colliding instantly with a blast of searing heat from the constant fire. The door reeled on one hinge; he shoved it closed, leaned back, tried to catch his breath. Intense firelight stung his eyes and all the colors he had ever seen or dreamed whirled in the center of the windowed room, reaching out as in faradhi vision to assault his senses.

  Air rasped into his lungs. He staggered to a window, unable to breathe around the ache in his chest. Lied to, betrayed, deceived—and by the two people he loved and trusted and honored more than anyone in the world. He cried out a wordless, mindless protest. This could not be happening to him. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair—how could they have lied to him? They were supposed to love him, to want the best for him. And yet they had done this thing to him.

  The cool scented darkness of the Desert spread beyond Stronghold. Above, the night sky was drenched with stars. He clenched his fingers on the stones as if he could tear them asunder, push them into the placid garden of roses and water below, then take flight like a dragon into the sky.

  That was what had brought him up here. The need to escape, to find freedom, solitary and wild, to flex the muscles of his wings and fly. He stared down at his useless hands and a low groan of rage broke from his throat.

  Fire blazing behind him soaked him in heat and sweat, and he knew that if he turned he could conjure visions in that Fire. He could bring into being scenes of the past. The Star Scroll had taught him that today. A rape, a stolen child, a castle gutted by Sunrunner’s Fire. Scenes to bear silent witness to the lie that was his life.

  Or he could urge the flames higher, hotter, and in them be consumed.

  “Pol?”

  He swung around, livid with fury that someone had dared intrude. “Get out!” he snarled before he even recognized the young woman who stood beside the drunkenly tilting door. Her dark red hair was already thick with sweat that sheened her skin. “Leave me alone!”

  Sionell hesitated, then moved inside and managed to wrench the door shut behind her. She leaned back against it as he had done, her voice almost casual as she said, “You’re lucky I’m the only one still about at this hour to see you tear through the hallways like an avenging dragon.”

  Small solace that no one had witnessed his flight. Sionell had. And he would never forgive her for it. “I don’t have to answer to anyone—least of all you!”

  “Now, that sounds just like the arrogant little boy I used to know. The one who found me such a nuisance. You still do, I take it.”

  “Don’t make me order you out of here, Sionell. Just go!”

  Her brows arched. “Once when I was about eleven winters old, your mother interrupted one of our constant arguments. She told you that a prince who has to remind others of his rank isn’t much of a prince.”

  His whole body stiffened at mention of his mother. Not his mother. His mother was Princess Ianthe, dead the night of his birth.

  “What is it, Pol?” Sionell asked, more softly now. She raked damp hair from her face, blue eyes shadowed by a concerned frown, and took a step toward him. “We’ve known each other a long time. You can talk to me, you know.”

  “Really?” he asked in cutting tones. “I can talk to you, tell you anything, no matter what, and you’ll love me just the same?” Some vicious part of him wanted to hurt someone else as deeply as he’d been hurt. It was Sionell’s misfortune that she happened to be handy. “Do you think I haven’t known all these years?”

  That struck home. All the natural color drained from her face, leaving ugly red patches on cheeks and forehead where the fire’s heat blazed against white skin.

  “Go back to the husband you Chose because you couldn’t have me,” he taunted. “Go back to him and leave me alone.”

  “You bastard,” she breathed.

  Laughter scraped his throat raw. “Truer than you know, my lady! My father the prince and my mother the princess—only not the one everyone thinks!”

  Stark bewilderment replaced mortal hurt in her eyes.

  “Ianthe!” he shouted. “My real mother was Princess Ianthe!”

  “No—that’s not possible—”

  Her shock confirmed his worst fears. He would see it in everyone from now on, everyone. They would know whose son he was, and whose grandson.

  “It’s true. They told me tonight—finally told me the truth of who I am!”

  Sionell rallied with infuriating swiftness. “What of it? What about your own truths? Are you defined by a woman dead for—”

  “For the length of my life, less one day! Now you know—so get out!”

  “No,” she said quietly, and stepped closer to the fire.

  “Don’t you understand? You’re supposed to be clever, aren’t you? I’m Roelstra’s grandson, just like the man I’m supposed to kill! He’s my brother!”

  “And what of it?” she repeated.

  “You haven’t heard the best part yet! Can you guess, Sionell?” he jeered. “Does your cleverness extend to it? Have you figured out that I’m sorcerer’s blood, just like my brother?”

  “So is Riyan. So was Lord Urival. What of it?” she cried for a third time. “Does this makes any difference in what you choose to be?” Long fingers again pushed sweat-soaked hair from blazing blue eyes. “Will you choose your own life or trap yourself into what you think your ancestry makes you?”

  “Leave me alone!” he shouted. “You can’t possibly understand!”

  “I understand you perfectly,” she replied with a serenity that enraged him. “I always have. I just never knew it until I stopped loving you and started seeing you for what you are.”

  Stopped loving him? There was a sudden hollowness inside him that he never would have believed possible.

  “You’re arrogant and insufferable and self-centered,” she continued icily. “The natural result of too much pride in too many gifts. And too damned smart for your own good.”

  “Thank you for that comforting list of my virtues,” he snapped.

  “Incomplete,” she shot back. “But that’s not important right now. What matters is that you’re also strong enough to live as your intelligence and your heart say you must. Not as you think two dead people wanted.”

  “My whole life is a lie, Sionell! I’m not me, I’m—”

  Her temper suddenly ignited. “You’re a fool! Maybe you’re right. Maybe being Roelstra’s grandson is enough to overcome all you are, all you’ve been taught, all the love and guidance lavished on you from the day you were born! Maybe you’ll forsake all that when you face Ruval, turn into some vicious—Goddess knows I’ve seen cruelty enough in you tonight! You didn’t spare me much.” She paused, sudden suspicion tightening her features. “And you didn’t spare your mother either, did you? Pol, how could you?”

  “She’s not my mother!”

  Sionell crossed the distance between them and struck him across the face. “Damn you,” she hissed, breathing hard. “Cruelty and disloyalty make a fine start! You’re right, Pol, you’re just like your grandsire! Why don’t you let Ruval kill you? That way you won’t have to spend your life proving to everyone else what a monster you really are—the way you proved it to me tonight!”

  She wrenched open the door and the gush of air snagged at the flames. The next instant she was gone.

  Rohan stood alone, unnoticed and unremarked in an alcove near the main stairs. He wasn’t exactly hiding, but he did want to observe without being assaulted with endless questions while at his order every room in the keep was emptied.

  It was considerably past midnight. The general tone of conversation was therefore querulous if not downright irritable as servants, squires, guards, and highborns alike descended the stairs. Muttering and complaining, they crowded into the foyer, which was dimly lit by four tall standing branches of candles. To pass the time while he waited for the castle to clear, Rohan wa
gered with himself that he could guess what they’d say. Most of it was fairly predictable.

  “What’s going on?”

  “How do I know?”

  “We already searched from Flametower to the cellars—”

  “It’s the High Prince’s order. Just do it!” This from an under-chamberlain to a group of drowsy-eyed maids he was herding downstairs.

  “But why order everyone out?”

  Rialt, taking the last steps two at a time, said, “Whatever the reason, look lively. It’s bad practice to keep a prince waiting.”

  Hollis and Maarken, carrying their sleepy children, said nothing. Morwenna came downstairs with bedrobe askew, grumbling under her breath about an honest day’s work deserving an honest night’s slumber. The duty guards were polite but firm as they ushered castlefolk and Miyon’s servants out to the courtyard.

  “This is an outrage!” announced Lord Barig. His Giladan lawyers agreed with him. Rohan mouthed the next, inevitable words along with his lordship: “I demand to know the meaning of this!”

  Nodding to himself, Rohan saw Barig waylay Arlis, who stood in the foyer encouraging people to assemble swiftly in the courtyard. The young man listened with grave politeness, shrugged an apology, and gestured to the doors.

  Andry was predictably silent, but Nialdan rumbled, “It’s the middle of the night! Why are we being rousted out of bed?” To which Andry replied softly, “Doubtless to witness something both entertaining and instructive. Aren’t you glad we were given three days to leave?”

  Sionell came down the stairs wrapped in a thick robe, her hair dripping. Rohan’s brows shot up; it was a little late at night for a bath. Tallain was waiting for her in the foyer. Rohan could not hear the words they exchanged, but as she huddled into the curve of his arm his protective tenderness was eloquent. Rohan tried to puzzle it out as noisy squires and young servants trooped past. Something had hurt Sionell. More than that, he realized, something had made her feel unclean. He had felt the same impulse himself at times, a need for cool cleansing water. But the cause of her distress was a mystery. Pol’s infatuation with Meiglan, perhaps? No, Ell was too sensible for that. Come to think of it, where was Meiglan?