Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire

by Melanie Rawn

  “I think so, too,” Tallain put in, aiding and abetting her shamelessly. “Lord Ostvel’s report through the Sunrunner Donato regarding the shattering of the mirror—shocking. Sorcery is the only reasonable explanation. No one is so stupid as to believe that their graces of the Desert and Princemarch could be defeated.”

  Sioned saw Meiglan lower her lashes and turn white. So she could still feel fear—not of her father, but for her father. Amazing. But Sioned could not fault her for it, and, indeed, would have thought less of her had she greeted Miyon’s approaching downfall with glee.

  The tension following Tallain’s last remarks was dissipated by Sionell. She took Meiglan’s arm and said, “I was just going for a stroll in the gardens. Won’t you come with me?”

  “Thank you. I’d like that very much.”

  The retreat in good order from a victory was gracious, graceful, and sent furious color into Miyon’s cheeks. Sioned smiled.

  A little while later she had related the whole story to Rohan, Chay, and Tobin. “Cool as a cloud, not just standing up for herself but confident about it, without a trace of the hysterical child. I don’t know how it happened, but I wouldn’t have missed the sight of Miyon’s face for all the gold at Skybowl!”

  “You already own all the gold at Skybowl,” Chay reminded her, grinning. “But I take your point. So he’s staying. Good. Rohan, will you have him executed here or at the Rialla?”

  “Oh, do wait!” Tobin said, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “I wouldn’t want to miss hearing him try to explain in front of everyone how it was all due to sorcery.”

  “Speaking of which. . . .” Sioned hated to wreck the ease brought by laughter, but she had to. “Have any of you seen Pol this morning?”

  “Maarken saw him on the way to your office,” Chay said. “I assume he’s studying the Star Scroll. And I’m told he now knows everything. You don’t think he’s fool enough to proclaim his ancestry as further proof of his right to Princemarch, do you?”

  “I hope not.” Tobin shook her head. “I’m beginning to think you were right all these years, Chay, and I was wrong. He ought to have grown up knowing, so it wouldn’t be such a shock to him.”

  Her lord and husband clapped both hands to his heart. “Fetch a scribe! Find parchment and pen! This is historic—she’s admitting to a mistake!”

  Sioned met Rohan’s gaze. Our mistake, they told each other silently.

  Tobin saw and understood the look. “Stop that at once,” she said severely. “We all did what we thought best.”

  “And now he’s paying for it,” Sioned murmured.

  “I said to stop it and I meant it!” Tobin exclaimed.

  Chay added lightly, “I’m sure you can find something better to occupy your minds than what might or should or could have been.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” Rohan snapped irritably.

  Sioned recognized the warning signs and exchanged a glance with Tobin. But she had to agree with the silent message she received in reply. Leaving Rohan alone would be even worse than keeping him company. Truth be told, none of them wanted to be left alone to think too much. Pol would ride to Rivenrock at dusk. There was nothing anybody could do until then but wait. It was a thing at which they had all had a great deal of practice.

  Not that that made it any easier.

  As grateful as Meiglan obviously was for Sionell’s support and the timely exit she provided, once they reached the grotto it was obvious that the girl wanted to be alone with her excitement. Sionell had certain things to discover first, and went about it as obliquely as she could manage.

  “Be careful to stay in the shade—that pale hair of yours is no protection at all from the sun.” She touched Meiglan’s untidy curls. “Was your mother’s hair this color? You don’t resemble your father at all.”

  “My mother was blonde—” Meiglan stopped, her dark fawn’s eyes blinking up in confusion. Sionell waited, then smiled as the girl understood her real meaning. “No, I’m nothing like my father.”

  “I thought not. Why don’t you stay here for a little while? Your maid needs the time to unpack your things.”

  Another meaning to that, as well; this time Meiglan caught at it eagerly. “I don’t think she packed much. It was her suggestion that I stay here at Stronghold.”

  “I see. Well, I hope it’s not too much work for her, taking care of you—now that Mireva is no longer available to help her.”

  Quicker and quicker, Sionell mused. Meiglan comprehended this game. As big eyes grew even bigger, it became an interesting choice between believing her sudden apprehension was real and suspecting it was not. Sionell had given her the opening. It remained to see what she did with it.

  Innocent worry clouded Meiglan’s face, as expected. But Sionell had not anticipated the narrowing of those eyes, the thoughtfulness of the voice, as if she puzzled this out aloud.

  “Thanys—she did whatever Mireva told her. She was the senior of them, having been with me over two years, yet she—” Panic again, and honest concern for her servant. “Oh, my lady, do you think she could have been a victim of sorcery, too?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose.” Sionell hid surprise—and admiration of the clever excuse, if cleverness it was. Goddess, she thought impatiently, when would this child reveal her true coloring?

  “I shall have to question her very closely,” Meiglan went on, seemingly oblivious to her companion’s irritation. “Or should I ask someone else to do it? Tell me what to do, my lady.”

  “As you think best,” Sionell replied, more sharply than she’d intended. “You are, after all, a lady who holds a manor in your own right. Your servants are your responsibility.”

  “But I don’t know how!” the girl burst out. “I watched you at Tiglath—and the High Princess and the others here—you never have to give an order twice, sometimes you don’t have to give them at all! I can’t be like you, I don’t know how to be a great lady or even a little one!”

  “Yet you see and understand the way we do things. It’s not difficult, Meiglan.” Sionell gave a little shrug. This was no time for lessons in highborn ways. Was that why she wanted to stay here at Stronghold, to learn how to be a High Princess? Stop it!

  “No one would ever obey me,” Meiglan said sadly.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You did a good piece of work on your father today.”

  A tiny smile hovered around her mouth. “Yes—I did, didn’t I?” In a rush, clasping a startled Sionell’s hand, she went on, “I couldn’t have, not without you and Lord Tallain and the High Princess—I was so frightened, I was sure he’d beat me right in front of all of you. But I stood up to him, didn’t I? I said what I wanted—oh, Sionell, I was so angry! He used me against all of you, who’ve been so kind to me—he gave me all those jewels and pretty clothes and the fenath, and he was only trying to—”

  “To what?” Sionell asked softly, and when the small hand tried to escape she held it fast. “How was he trying to use you, Meiglan?”

  “I-I don’t know—”

  “Of course you do.”

  “No!”

  “I knew it was Pol you saw that night at Tiglath. Or claimed to have seen.”

  “But I did—he was in my room, I saw him—”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes!” she wailed, struggling to free herself, tears welling in her soft eyes. “Please, you’re hurting me—”

  Sionell let go. Memory gave her the farcical little scene played out that night—for whose benefit? Hers? Meiglan’s? Pol’s? Whose, Goddess damn it to all Hells—

  Meiglan was rubbing her wrist. It astonished Sionell that she had not fled. Surely she knew there would be more questions.

  “My lady,” the girl said with a pathetic dignity, “I can’t make you believe me. I only know what I saw. And—and what I felt when we came here to Stronghold and it was him. I think my father used me as a d-diversion. So you would all look at me and s-suspect me. And so Mireva could c-come along and be free to work—he us
ed me to bring a sorcerer here to destroy you—”

  Seeing that her moment of self-command had vanished and tears were imminent again, Sionell looked down into pleading eyes and knew she had to make a choice, one way or the other. She could believe Meiglan innocent or suspect that she was not. This had nothing to do with Pol or Miyon’s plots or anything else. This was between the two of them. She had offered Meiglan friendship before; she could continue to do so and have it be the truth or a lie, or reject her outright, now.

  No one could possibly be so innocent. No one could possibly be so guilty and gaze up at her with such guileless liquid eyes.

  As Sunrunners from Dorval to Kierst had heard Ruval’s challenge on the last starlight, thus did they hear Pol’s acceptance on noon sunlight.

  Strong and sure, with a power previously felt only by those who had had contact with such masters as the late Lord Urival or those of Pol’s own remarkable family, colors flowed along rivers of sun. Diamond-white, deep emerald, iridescent pearl, glowing golden topaz, the jewel tints of his mind were as a pattern in stained glass through which light streamed without shadow.

  A few of those touched responded in words. Meath, who had been Pol’s first teacher, paused in a meander through the ruins of a faradhi keep on Dorval where he had found the scrolls. Donato, who had accompanied Sioned to the Desert on Andrade’s order thirty years ago, spoke from Pol’s own Dragon’s Rest. Several others who knew Pol or Sioned or both gave proud answer. One who would have could not; Alasen, playing with her children in the coolness of the bowl-shaped garden at Castle Crag, lacked the training to respond. But for the first time in her life she wished she did know how. She wanted to tell Pol how sure she was of his victory.

  The rest received the communication in silence. Of these, the Sunrunners at Goddess Keep were the most troubled, just as they had been by the challenge of the previous night. For they, like Rohan, understood that it was not just Pol and his princedom at stake; it was all faradh’im. When they responded, it was to seek out Andry.

  He confirmed their suspicions and soothed their worries. What he did not reveal was that while Pol did battle with Ruval, he had other plans for Mireva. Andry wanted to be here even less than Rohan and Pol wanted him here—but here he would stay until this was over. Nialdan and Oclel chafed at the delay, not understanding why he had not ridden out immediately after the High Prince’s unfair decree. He knew they suspected he was hoping for a softening in Rohan’s position; Andry didn’t bother to tell them that until Ruval and Mireva were dead, he would stay if he had to learn shape-changing himself in order to do it.

  Pol finished his work and rested in the shade on a bench circling a tree in the gardens. Instinct had guided him to choose sunlight rather than stars. Diarmadhi blood he might have, but he had been trained as a Sunrunner and thought of himself as such. Eventually he would get used to the idea that he possessed other powers—things he expected to use tonight—but for now he was strictly a Sunrunner. No one must ever know otherwise.

  One of the few people who did know appeared quite suddenly from the grotto pathway. Pol straightened from his weary slump at the sight of Sionell. She saw him at the same instant and her step faltered. Emotions tangled in his throat: shame, regret, resentment, longing for the old Sionell with her ready smile—and for the old Pol, who had been so blithely innocent. He sat there staring at her, unsure of his reception at her hands for the first time in his life. Speech or silence, either might bridge the chasm between them or widen it.

  She spared him the trouble of deciding. After another moment’s hesitation she approached and said, “I understand Ruval has made challenge to you.”

  Pol nodded. “I’ve just finished accepting. On sunlight.”

  “Of course.” Her eyes, a deeper and truer blue than his, were calm and quiet. “I would have liked to have heard it.”

  “Just arrogance and posturing,” he replied, shrugging. “It’s expected. I’ll meet him tonight, at Rivenrock.”

  “Alone?” Her voice betrayed a hint of bleakness, of pity. Then she answered her own question. “No, plenty of witnesses, of course.”

  But still alone, her eyes said, and he wondered why he deserved her compassion. “I’d like you to be there, Ell.”

  “Invitation to an execution by sorcery,” she mused. “A thing not to be missed, obviously.”

  The muscles of his arms, shoulders, and back tensed as if preparing for a battle of swords, not words. “If you’d rather not—”

  “Oh, I’ll be there. It ought to be very educational, even for those of us who know nothing of what Andry now calls magic.” She paused, raking the dark red hair from her eyes. “You know, when I was little I wanted more than anything else to be one of you. To fly on sunlight the way dragons soar through the sky. . . .” Sionell clasped her hands behind her back; he wondered if it was to hide their trembling. “The art of being faradhi is one thing. The power of magic—I wouldn’t have it now if someone offered it to me.”

  “Why?” he challenged. “Are you afraid of it?”

  “Of what it does to people. Your mother and Morwenna and Maarken and Hollis—they have such joy in what they can do. Such delight in the chance to fly. Andry doesn’t. He might have had, once. But not anymore. You can see it in his eyes. He’s learned how to use his gifts to kill.” The blue eyes became piercing. “What about you, Pol? How much joy will you take in your powers once you’ve used them to kill your own brother?”

  “What else can I do? Why are you making this worse for me? To pay me back?”

  “Do you think I’m like that?” she flared. “That I’d deliberately—” She stopped, calmed herself with visible effort, and finished, “I said it because I don’t want to see you become like Andry. With no joy left in your eyes.”

  That stung. “Ell—”

  “I owe my first loyalty to your father as my prince, but you’ll be in his position one day—High Prince and Sunrunner both. I want to see you become what you can be, not what events bludgeon you into becoming.” She looked as if she would have said more, but ended only with a little shrug.

  “So your worry is for what kind of prince you’ll have to deal with in the future,” he said bitterly, and the hollow where certainty of her love had been ached anew. He was a political reality to her now, not a man. And it was his own fault; he had destroyed anything she might still feel for him.

  A wiser part of him whispered that it was better so. Tallain deserved all of her heart. But it hurt; Goddess, how it hurt to know that his own words had cost him Sionell’s caring, lost him that part of her he had always thought of as his alone.

  He got to his feet, more drained now than even the strain of a powerful Sunrunning had made him. “Thank you for your honesty. What was it Mother told you when we were little? That a prince who reminds others of it isn’t much of a prince? How much less a prince he is if others have to remind him! If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have preparations to make for my coming act of fratricide.”

  “Stop it, Pol!”

  But he strode away from her, seeking the shaded silence of a little grove near the grotto from which she had come. She did not come after him. And perhaps that hurt most of all.

  “So,” Miyon drawled. “My little hothouse rose, so carefully nurtured, has grown thorns.”

  Meiglan froze. Miyon smiled down at her where she sat on a flat rock near the grotto pool. His quiet, silken approach had terrified her more than if he’d come here roaring out his rage. Good.

  “You have few usable wits, but enough to understand that this has not endeared you to me. Had you thought about what will happen once you have no highborn allies to protect you?”

  She looked sick, her skin turning slightly green.

  “At Castle Pine there will be no one to rescue you when I whip the skin from your bones.”

  “I won’t go. I’m staying here.”

  The defiance infuriated him, but he made himself laugh. “By the Goddess, it has a brain after all! Yes, you will
stay here! Can you guess why?”

  “Stay—?” she whispered. “You will let me stay?”

  Miyon loomed over her, and menace replaced the laughter. “Until the Rialla at Dragon’s Rest. After that, you will stay there. As Pol’s wife.”

  Meiglan stared up at him dumbly. Breath rasped in her lungs and she trembled like a captive wild thing.

  “He can’t keep his eyes from you. It should be fairly easy for you to trap him into a formal Choice. Use these newfound wits of yours. Because only when you are his wife will you be safe.”

  Her mute anguish ignited his temper at last. Plucking her up by the shoulders, he shook her until her bones rattled. But she did not cry out, which angered him even more.

  “Do you understand? Do you hear what I’m telling you, daughter of a whore? Your mother schemed to become a princess. You will be High Princess once that dragon-spawn who sired Pol is dead. It’s the only way to save your own life.”

  “And yours,” she breathed, and light came back into her eyes.

  Miyon dropped her to the ground, where she crumpled like a rag doll. “I was afraid I’d have to use words of one syllable,” he snapped. “You’re quite right, my precious jewel. Rohan can scarcely execute the father of his son’s wife.”

  “No.” But it was not agreement with his analysis; rather, defiance.

  “You will do it,” he said. “Wed him and bed him and make him the perfect little princess. Goddess help him!” He managed a real laugh this time. “A mouse has more spirit, a plow-elk more intelligence! You have beauty and music, and that’s all. No use to a prince. He’ll rule alone. You’ll never be any worth to him except in breeding his heirs and playing him to sleep with your lute.”

  She flinched, but there was something in her eyes—something. He must not lose his advantage of terror over her, lest she see his own fear. His life was in the hands of the daughter he despised. She held the whip now; he could not let her feel it in her fingers.