Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire

by Melanie Rawn

  “I . . . I’m sorry. I never doubted that you love me.” He touched the scar on her cheek. “I just—I never expected this kind of proof. That you’d risk so much for me.”

  Sioned framed his face hesitantly, afraid he would pull away. He did not. Her eyes stung with tears.

  “I loved you before you were even born,” she murmured. “I saw you and you were mine. I Named you, taught you, gave you everything that had meaning for me. But you’re not mine anymore, Pol.” His eyes widened in protest and she shook her head. “Let me finish. You belong to no one but yourself. That’s what it means to leave childhood behind. No one can possess anything of your heart unless you choose it so. Whatever you feel for me—”

  “I love you,” he said. “Please don’t cry, Mama.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, damn—I swore I wasn’t going to—”

  “Shh. I love you.” Pol gave her a quick, hard hug. Then, stepping back, he held out one hand. “We’ll have to hurry or we’ll miss it.”

  She swept tears from her face. “Yes.” Managing a smile, she added, “Your father does so hate to be deprived of an audience when he’s being clever.”

  It had taken no special cleverness to figure out that those he sought were almost certainly hiding somewhere within Stronghold.

  Rohan reasoned this way. It was unlikely, considering Riyan’s quick order to the gatehouse, that they had managed to escape the castle. If they had, sorcery would probably be necessary to conceal their movements. Sioned, Maarken, and Morwenna, all of whom knew the surrounding hills and dunes intimately, had searched by Sunrunner methods and found no trace. Riyan, with both diarmadhi blood and faradhi rings, had sensed nothing on his own forays. Soldiers both mounted and on foot had undertaken a more conventional exploration with the same negative results. The chances of successfully hiding from so many were remote. Mireva, Ruval, and Ruala were not outside Stronghold.

  If they were not without, they must be within. But Riyan’s tours of the keep from cellars to battlements had revealed no hint of sorcery either. Physical search by servants and guards had proved equally fruitless.

  Every indication affirmed that the three were neither inside the castle nor outside it. But not even a sorcerer could vanish into thin air. Still, there were places in Stronghold that could create that impression.

  Rohan knew they must be laughing, safely concealed in his very castle while he made a fool of himself trying to find them. What profit in leaving? How much more formidable they would seem, after all, if the challenge came from within Stronghold itself, as if they already had command and possession of the keep. It was what he would have done. They must be waiting here for a ripe moment to reveal themselves.

  Rohan had had enough of waiting.

  Given the clues by Myrdal—stubborn old she-dragon, he told himself with an inner smile both fond and exasperated—he led his little group to the southern side of the fourth floor. On the way upstairs Myrdal whispered instructions about which rooms contained secrets. Though she rejoiced in teasing him without mercy, she did so only in private; the privileges of a High Prince did not include being made a fool of in public. So he entered the maidservants’ quarters with perfect confidence, blessing her tender regard for his image.

  Riyan gestured candles alight without being asked. By their glow the room’s features were revealed: a row of beds along one wall, covers tumbled; a carved screen around the private space for Tibalia, the benevolent despot in charge; standing wardrobes that sectioned off the sleeping area from chairs and tables scattered casually before the windows. It was to this wall that Rohan went.

  Chay said, “I hate to ask, but would somebody please tell me what we’re supposed to be doing?”

  Maarken answered him. “Finding a couple of unwanted guests. Andry, Riyan, we’ll have to be ready for just about anything.”

  Rohan felt carefully along the junction of walls. “I regret I’ve never heard of a way to prepare for countering an attack by sorcery. I’m relying on your instincts.”

  “What do yours say, Rohan?” Chay asked.

  “That this is the logical place. Mireva would have been in here several times during her stay. Our tyrannical Tibalia is as strict with guesting servants as she is with our own maids, so Lady Meiglan’s pair would have found themselves spending evenings here instead of roaming the castle.”

  “Which gave the witch ample opportunity to find what we’re looking for now,” Myrdal finished approvingly. “Very good indeed, my prince.”

  “Why waste time on places she didn’t go? It isn’t as if she was free to explore. And I can’t convince myself that all the secrets of Stronghold are known by every diarmadh’im in the—aha!”

  The sunburst pattern was half-hidden in a decorative carving of flowers. Gesturing the others closer, he held his breath and pressed down.

  Nothing happened.

  He felt the stones all around the sunburst, trying to discern in which direction the wall would give. “Damn it all, where is it? There’s got to be a catch here someplace. Myrdal, help me with this.”

  “I only know about the fool thing, I’ve never actually worked it before,” she grumbled, but obeyed.

  “Riyan,” Pol said, and his presence startled Rohan, “you remember the defense we read about today. We’ll weave it now, just in case.”

  Rohan glanced over his shoulder, saw his son standing protectively in front of Sioned. Her face was tense, but the terrible hurt had left her eyes.

  “The Star Scroll?” This from Andry, in sharp tones.

  “You’ve used it,” Pol said aggressively. “Why shouldn’t we?”

  Rohan’s fingers probed and pushed, twisted, tugged, and tested. Swearing under his breath, he drew back slightly. “Look here, you can see where it fits into the wall. There’s a little seam in the stone. But it won’t work!”

  “Maybe they fouled it somehow,” Chay suggested. Then, with an odd look at Myrdal, “How many of these little secrets are there around here?”

  “A lot more than in Radzyn,” she replied smugly. “I think this one’s hopeless. I’ve opened plenty of others and they all work perfectly. Chaynal’s right, it was broken somehow.”

  “Deliberately?” Sioned asked.

  Rohan sighed. “It doesn’t much matter. So much for my first brilliant idea. We’ll have to try another—” He broke off and stared at the stone carvings.

  “Father? What is it?”

  He ignored his son, addressing Myrdal instead. “You said they traded control of Stronghold back and forth, finding out each other’s secrets, putting new ones in.”

  “Yes, but—”

  He ran his fingers over the stone, inspecting each shadow. “By logic, this is the room. All the others would be difficult to explore without getting caught. She wouldn’t want to draw attention to herself. This has to be it.”

  Sioned reluctantly pointed out, “But the sorcery, Rohan. We can’t know what she’s able to do. Nothing ever prepared us for shape-changing. There could be any number of other things—”

  “But only one star carved into this wall!” he interrupted triumphantly.

  “By the Goddess’ works and marvels,” Myrdal breathed.

  “Careful,” Chay warned. “They might be expecting us.”

  Rohan was counting on it. He looked again at the Sunrunners. “Ready yourselves. We’re not likely to be welcomed with open arms.”

  There was an exit to his own bedchamber marked with a star, something Myrdal had shown Sioned years ago. One pressed gently on the carving until it gave, then turned it to the left. He held his breath again as he manipulated the star symbol, hoping it worked the same way.

  It moved. The seam parted—slowly at first, then faster. A gap opened from head-height to floor, grew wider as a section of stone slid back. Something rustled within, a heavy sound that set his heart beating rapidly with excitement and apprehension. He stood his ground.

  From the blackness leaped a hatchling dragon colored the
slick red of fresh blood. Its head reared back on a furious shriek, wings spread wide, gleaming claws ripping at the air. It doubled in size as it surged into the room, roaring a challenge. The creature was every nightmare of dragon that ever was, down to the flames that spewed toward the ceiling beams from jaws powerful enough to snap a man in two. The throat pulsed as another gout of fire hissed forth. Another hideous roar, a flexing of the massive muscles in the wings—and blazing ruby eyes fixed on Rohan.

  He had looked into dragon eyes before. None had been like this. Will drained from him like water into sand. He was nothing. The flames would burn him to nothing, crisp his flesh and bones to ash on the blackened stones. . . .

  “Rohan!”

  The word barely made sense to him. His name? Yes. Sioned’s voice. Sioned—

  She screamed his name again and this time he responded, terrified not for himself but for her. He tore his gaze from the dragon’s compelling ruby eyes and realized with vague astonishment that he had toppled to the floor. The dragon loomed over him; he could see its wing lifting to block out the ceiling like a blood-red cloud across a white sky.

  But it should have been black. The fire should have scorched whitewashed rafters and stone. Unreal. He scrabbled for purchase, and had barely regained his feet when the dragon lashed out with blade-sharp talons. They passed right through him and left him whole.

  He laughed up into the hot, glowing eyes, dizzy with relief. The dragon was not a shape assumed by Mireva herself, but a conjuring, harmless as morning mist. Into the gaping darkness of the hiding hole he shouted, “If this is the best you can do, try again!”

  The dragon vanished. In its place stood a young man with dark hair and Ianthe’s eyes, a death’s grin on his handsome face. “Better, High Prince?”

  Rohan crossed the distance separating them, confident that this was illusion, too. But the taunting laughter was real. The knife that plunged into his shoulder was real. The pain was real.

  “No!” Riyan staggered forward, hands contorted in familiar agony. He slammed into Ruval, knocking him down. The blood-stained knife clattered to the stones. Chay’s boot descended on the blade as Ruval’s fingers groped for it.

  Riyan’s abrupt sundering of the defensive weave left Pol momentarily blind. From behind its protection he had seen the conjured dragon, a terrifying sight but one he knew could not harm his father. It had no substance. His senses—Sunrunner? Sorcerer? —told him without his conscious awareness.

  But the knife was real. As he sensed its solid steel panic flooded his whole body, shattering the weave as surely as Riyan’s sudden departure from it. But Ruval moved too fast. Pol’s vision cleared and he surged forward, ready to kill. Before he could get there, Riyan had twisted around to clasp the shaking form tight in his arms. They rolled against the wall beside the gaping blackness, Ruval protected by Riyan’s body. Chay, not as vulnerable to the lash of sorcery against his consciousness, rushed forward with a knife.

  “No!” Riyan cried again. “It’s not him! My rings are burning the flesh from my fingers—it’s not Ruval! It’s Ruala!”

  Pol stared down in shock as the tall, muscular shape shifted to a slighter one with slender curves and tangled black hair. Trousers and shirt and tunic were all that remained of the illusion of Ruval.

  Rohan recovered first. He pulled Riyan and the dazed, half-conscious young woman to their feet. Then he winced and leaned against the wall, clutching his arm. Sioned pried his fingers away from the wound. Her scowl worried Pol, but her words dispelled his fear. “As if you didn’t have enough scars, you great fool!” She ripped the sleeve off and tied it around his arm to stop the bleeding.

  Rohan made a face at her rough handling that, even more than her scolding, indicated the wound was not serious. Turning to Pol, he said grimly, “She’s still in there. Unless there’s an escape built into that hole.”

  Maarken pushed by his father, who was helping Riyan and Ruala to nearby chairs.

  “Maarken—no!” Pol exclaimed, but his cousin was already ducking past into the darkness. There was a blaze of light, a startled cry of pain, and Maarken stumbled back against Pol.

  “Merciful Goddess,” he breathed. Then, rallying, he said, “Well, at least we know where she is.”

  Andry came to his brother’s side. “You idiot—she might have killed you. Are you all right?”

  Maarken nodded. “Shaken a little. There’s quite a bit to this sorcery,” he said with deceptive mildness. “We can’t go in, that’s obvious. But if she could have escaped, I think she would have done it by now.”

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have no taste for waiting her out.” Andry turned. “Sioned, can you weave some sort of protection for yourself and the others?”

  “Yes, I think so, but—”

  “Please do so.” He met Pol’s gaze in sardonic challenge. “Well? Shall we see which of us she most wants dead?”

  “Interesting decision for her,” he replied. “Ready?”

  Andry nodded. He murmured something under his breath then called, “Did you hear me, creature? Your choice! The Lord of Goddess Keep or the next High Prince! Which of us would be easiest for you?”

  “Whichever of us you destroy, the other will come in after you!” Pol shouted.

  Laughter floated from the darkness. “Which of you has the courage to come to me for your death?”

  “No!” Rohan hissed behind them. “Don’t go in! Bring her out!”

  “Can you face me?” Mireva taunted.

  “Can you face us both?” Pol jeered.

  “The two of you, working as one?” She laughed uproariously. “You’ll combine forces when dragons fly the seas instead of the sky!”

  Pol met and held Andry’s gaze. His cousin whispered words in the old language that for a moment confused Pol. Fire dream? Andry gestured impatiently and suddenly Pol understood. Nodding, he readied himself.

  Two forms coalesced from Sunrunner’s Fire. One of them became Pol; the other, Andry. The conjurings drifted into the blackness. By their light Pol saw the shape of the room, the woman standing within—alone and still laughing. His fury at being cheated of Ruval showed in a flare of his conjuring. The next instant he cried out and lost control completely as Mireva assaulted his Fire with her own. It was white and cold and it seared every nerve in his body.

  “Try again, princeling!”

  “Shall I show you how it’s done?” Andry said, voice acid with contempt for them both. Pol’s jangled senses reeled as power flowed smooth and strong from Andry. It was an almost casual display; no effort showed on his face or in his eyes. But Mireva fell back, and the white fire guttered out.

  “Pol! Grab her—she’s lost the spell, she’s vulnerable!” Andry cried.

  His head was a mass of needles and the orders he gave his limbs were so garbled that he moved like a badly jointed puppet. But he flung himself forward, crashing into Mireva. The Fireglow vanished as they sprawled onto the hard stones.

  Pol went for her throat. The loose and wrinkled skin of age suddenly firmed to youthful suppleness and the face above his throttling hands was the exquisite face of Meiglan, framed in the light of her golden hair. His grip faltered. Even though he knew it was illusion, he faltered.

  His mind was a storm. Like lightning branches across the Desert sky, firebolts ripped through his brain. He fled them. But Meiglan’s face with Mireva’s gray-green eyes laughed from every corner of thought. Spasms leaped through his muscles as in his mind he ran screaming. But there was no escape.

  It was Mireva’s face again, a ruby glow of triumph deep in the eyes. But only for an instant. Horror sliced through him and another burst of lightning as the face changed again, dissolving into formlessness, reshaping as a nightmare. The neck he clutched grew leathery, the face above it became a leering, hideous mass of blotched sores and shedding scales. Horns tipped with blood sprouted from the forehead; curving fangs and a forked tongue protruded from slimy lips. The thick body writhed beneath him;
more hands than were possible touched his body in obscene caresses. A shriek echoed endlessly in his skull, a howl half laughter and half feral hunting call.

  But the gray-green eyes with their crimson light were still Mireva’s.

  Her mistake saved his sanity. He was within an instant of abandoning the struggle in stark terror when some lingering portion of reason screamed that it was illusion: no matter how horrible, only illusion. Fear brought a sob to his throat, but he dug his thumbs as hard as he could into the neck, seeking to crush bones. He concentrated on the sight of his own hands, the moonstone ring, the amethyst of Princemarch, the whitened knuckles, the infuriating weakness that made his fingers jerk and quiver so he could not get a death grip.

  Hands very like his own reached down. He tried not to look at them, fearing they were another conjuring. But one finger wore a topaz circled by emeralds. The hands worked quickly near the angle of the massive jaw. And the monster roared in agony.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” said Rohan.

  Mireva writhed on the floor as if from a mortal wound. Pol drew back, stunned by the thing’s sudden disappearance. Rohan pushed him aside and deftly tied the woman’s wrists together with a length of thin wire. Then he grasped Pol’s shoulders.

  “Are you all right?” Pol nodded mutely and Rohan sighed with relief. Rocking back on his heels, he wiped sweat from his face and asked more softly, “Well? Does my version of taking action meet with your approval?”

  Pol flushed crimson and looked away. Candlelight spilled from the outer room across Mireva’s upper body. She lay quiet now, her head lolling to one side. And then Pol saw it—a thin gleam of silver twisted through her earlobe. No, not silver: steel. He stared at his father with equal parts astonishment and admiration. Rohan smiled tightly.

  “It won’t kill her. They’re not as vulnerable to iron as Sunrunners are. But if she makes the slightest attempt at sorcery, her new earring will cause her the agony of all Hells.” He shrugged. “Inelegant, but effective.”