by Melanie Rawn
Sioned unplaited her hair and ran her fingers through it, feeling the sunlight warm each strand. Soon she would have to go back inside and help with the evening meal—not that anyone ever let her near the cookpots except to taste their contents. She was hopelessly inept at the skills Camigwen practiced with a decided flair, and had never even learned how to blend herbs and cloves for a decent cup of taze. Sioned laughed ruefully to herself with the whimsical hope she would indeed marry the prince—for then she would never have to worry about her total lack of practical skills. His servants would take care of everything, and—
Sioned.
She whirled around, looking to the east from whence the call had come. She automatically opened herself to the colors brushing against her mind. There was always a Sunrunner on duty to receive messages sent on the light, but it was not Sioned’s turn today. Someone was calling specifically for her.
She wove rays of light back across fields and valleys, over rivers and the vast grassy sea of Meadowlord. The threads met and her own colors tangled with those of Lady Andrade. There was a second presence, like yet unalike, oddly familiar in some of its shadings and strong in ways very different from Andrade. Sometimes when the light was chancy—at sunset or sunrise especially—farad-h’im worked together. But Sioned was certain that the person with Andrade was not trained, though there were unmistakable gifts in the bright colors of amber and amethyst and sapphire swirling with the pattern of a powerful mind.
Thank you for coming to meet me, child. But I need you to come even farther, in person. Arrange an escort of twenty, Sioned. This will be no pleasure trip. You must be here within six days. But before you enter Stronghold, make yourself stately and beautiful. You come here as a bride.
Though she had been waiting for this for five years, the shock was still profound. All she could think to ask was, Does he know?
Not yet—but he will, the instant he sees you. Hurry here to me, Sioned. To him.
Andrade and the mysterious other withdrew down the faltering rays of sunlight, and Sioned raced along her own weaving back to Goddess Keep, not pausing as she usually did to appreciate the beauty of the lands below her. She found herself almost too abruptly back on the battlements, and caught her balance mentally and physically. Below in the fields, wide-shouldered elk were being unharnessed from the plows and the sun had nearly disappeared into the sea. Sioned trembled, knowing that had she delayed her return, she might have become shadow-lost, falling into the Dark Water along with the sun.
“Sioned? What are you doing way up here? And whatever’s the matter?”
Camigwen approached from the stairwell, scowling in response to what Sioned knew must be in her face. They had come to Goddess Keep at the same time, were only a year apart in age, and had become fast friends their first day here. Camigwen was the only one besides Andrade who knew what Sioned had seen in the Water and Fire, and so the explanation Sioned gave was a simple one.
“It’s time, Cami. I’m to go to him.”
A flush darkened the older girl’s taze-brown skin. Her eyes, large and dark and slightly tip-tilted in her pretty face, held a hundred questions. But all she did was grasp Sioned’s hands.
“Will you come with me, you and Ostvel?” Sioned pleaded. “I need you both—I don’t know what I’m to do or say—”
“You couldn’t keep me from a sight of this man if there were a thousand dragons in my way!”
Sioned gave a nervous laugh. “Well, you have the dragon part of it right.”
“The Desert? But who—?”
“The young prince,” Sioned replied, strangely unable to say his name.
Camigwen stared at her for some time, unable to speak a single word. But when she finally recovered her voice, it was to give a moan of dismay. “Oh, Goddess—and there’s not a single stitch sewn on a bride-gown!”
Tension dissolved into laughter and Sioned hugged her friend. “Only you could be so practical at a time like this!”
“Somebody has to be, with you standing there like a scattershell! Oh, Sioned! It’s wonderful!” Camigwen drew back and regarded her friend narrowly. “You do think it’s wonderful, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Sioned whispered. “Oh, yes.”
Camigwen nodded, satisfied. “I’ll tell Ostvel at once to arrange the escort. How many do you think we’ll need?”
“Lady Andrade said twenty. And we have to be there within six days.”
“Six?” She groaned and shook her head. “We’ll never make it. But we must, and on time, too, or I’ll never get my sixth ring and Ostvel will be demoted back to stable-boy instead of Second Steward of the Keep! We’ll leave tomorrow at first light. I can cut cloth tonight and sew along the way!”
Between Camigwen’s efficiency and Ostvel’s authority, all was arranged so quickly that Sioned’s head spun. She found herself on horseback before dawn the next morning, riding east toward the Desert. She turned only once to look back at the castle on the cliffs. Blue-gray veils of mist swirled around it, and the sky beyond was still night-dark over the sea. She knew she should have taken time to ask her future of the Mothertree, but there had been no chance. She felt only mild regret, however; the things of Goddess Keep were past now, and she was riding to her future.
A future with a man she didn’t even know.
The first night they stopped before dusk beside a branch of the Kadar River, having made excellent progress during a hard day’s riding. With Sioned were lifelong friends—Antoun, Meath, Mardeem, Palevna, Hildreth, all around her own age and with whom she had gone through faradhi training—as well as several others with relatives along the way who would be glad of a sight of their faradhi kin and would provide shelter for a night. There were younger men and girls who were responsible for the horses and provisions, making the ordered total of twenty. Sioned was amazed that so many people had been willing to ride so far for her sake on such ridiculous notice.
Most of them sat around the fire after their meal, Mardeem idly singing a love song and glancing slyly at Sioned whenever he reached a particularly suggestive lyric. Camigwen sat within the secure circle of Ostvel’s arm and fretted that there wasn’t light enough left to continue sewing the bride-gown. Sioned joined in the laughter as Ostvel teased her, wondering if the same kind of loving, playful relationship waited for her with him. She didn’t know him, had only seen his face years ago in the Fire. She was still a girl enchanted by blue eyes and her own fantasies of what she thought was in them. Why was she riding so many hundreds of measures to marry a man she didn’t know?
“Are you tired or just thinking?” Ostvel asked with a kind smile.
“A little of both,” Sioned replied. “And dreading the idea of crossing the Faolain in a few days.”
“It’s the last river you’ll have to cross for a good long while,” he reminded her, amusement making his gray eyes sparkle in the firelight. “The Desert is just the place for you Sunrunner types. Tell me, Sioned, are you like Camigwen, who gets queasy looking at a bathtub?”
Cami fisted him in the ribs. “Watch what you say or I’ll be sure to get sick all over you when we cross!”
Grunting, Ostvel gathered long legs under him and stood. “Come on, Meath, Antoun—let’s go check the horses before my dainty and gentle beloved decides to break my arm.”
Mardeem, unable to cause more than a blush in Sioned with his songs, declared himself out of voice and in need of sleep. Most of the others followed his example and rolled themselves in blankets on the ground nearby, tactfully out of earshot of the fire where Sioned and Camigwen lingered. It was too quiet without music. Sioned reached for a twig, pulling it from the fire, moodily watching the little flame.
“Cami—will you and Ostvel stay with me there for a little while? After I’m—” She couldn’t bring herself to say married, and the word princess was for the woman she’d seen in the Fire years ago. “I think I’m going to need somebody to talk to,” she finished lamely.
“We’ll stay as long as you
like. But you won’t need us, Sioned. You’ll have him.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she muttered.
“What’s the matter? You’ve hoped for years that this would happen, and you’ve been so happy all day today.”
“What if we can’t talk to each other?” Sioned burst out. “What if we find we have nothing to say? Cami, look at me. I’m nothing. A six-ring Sunrunner who barely knows her craft, born in a holding nobody’s ever heard of! Can you seriously see me as a princess?”
“You’re shadow-fearing, Sunrunner,” Camigwen said briskly. “Stop being so silly. Of course you’re going to love each other.”
“But what if we can’t? I don’t know him, and he certainly doesn’t know me. I don’t want to tie myself to a man I can’t love.”
“Listen to me, Sioned. Look into the Fire. There aren’t any shadows to lose yourself in and never come out. There’s only the light.”
At her friend’s coaxing, Sioned dropped the twig back into the fire and faced the flames, and within them was his face. She flinched at the grief that clouded his eyes and scarred his sensitive mouth. Her hands reached involuntarily and she cried out as Fire seared her fingers and her mind.
“Sioned!”
She was scarcely aware of the cold water Camigwen poured over her burned fingers or of the worried voices around her. The pain had raced up her hands and arms to her heart, and deep into that portion of her brain that knew how to ride the woven threads of sunlight. She rocked back and forth, gasping around the agony until it gradually began to fade and she could see clearly once more.
Her friends had gathered in a circle of concern. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, ashamed, and bent her head, cradling her burned fingers in her lap.
“The fire blew sparks, that’s all,” Camigwen told the others.
“Be more careful, Sioned,” Meath cautioned, patting her shoulder with rough affection. She nodded wordlessly, unable to look at any of her friends.
“Yes,” Ostvel drawled. “We owe the prince a bride who doesn’t wince with pain when he kisses her hands. Everybody get some sleep. We’ve got a long way to ride tomorrow.” When they had gone, he crouched down beside Sioned, tilting her face up to his with an insistent finger beneath her chin.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Camigwen said. “I only wanted you to look at him again and realize you don’t have to be afraid.”
“You lost control of a Fire-conjure?” Ostvel asked, and when Sioned nodded miserably, he whistled. “I can hardly wait to meet this prince of yours. Any man who causes a Sunrunner of your rank to make a mistake like that—”
“It wasn’t him, it was me,” Sioned told him, then burst out, “and Cami tells me I have nothing to fear!”
“If you do,” Ostvel murmured, “it’s fear of too much brightness. Too much Fire. Not the shadows, Sioned—never those.”
“I could get as easily lost in the one as in the other,” she whispered, staring down at her hands.
Rohan managed to elude his aunt successfully until the evening after the dragon hunt. Andrade, after sending Tobin to rest and recover from the drain on her energies, had sought the young prince but had not found him. Her dignity forbade asking anyone for his whereabouts. She had a reputation to maintain, after all, and refused to admit that she was unable to find one man in a finite area. Irked at his ability to vanish when he wished—and entirely familiar with it from his childhood—she decided to stubborn him out, knowing full well that he would choose the time and place of their meeting.
She spent part of the day with Tobin, giving her niece a deserved explanation. Chay was sleeping off physical and emotional exhaustion—and all the wine he’d drunk on an empty stomach, trying to forget the sight of Zehava being gored by the dragon—when Andrade appeared at the door of Tobin’s chambers late in the morning. The two women went down into the gardens for a private talk.
“It was very strange,” Tobin admitted when Andrade asked her reaction to what they had done the previous evening. “I always wondered how faradh’im worked with the sunlight.”
“Don’t think that because you helped me once you’ll be able to do it on your own,” Andrade warned. “The balance is a delicate one, and control of it takes a good deal of training.” She paused as a groundskeeper bowed his way out of their presence near the roses. “But I think I’ll have Sioned teach you something about it when she arrives.”
“Is that her name? Sioned?”
“Yes, but accent the second syllable more. ‘Sh-ned,’ ” she repeated.
“It’s a lovely name,” Tobin mused. “Does Rohan know yet that he’s expected to add ‘princess’ to it?”
“I thought you’d figure that out. Yes, she’s going to be his wife. He doesn’t know it yet, but he soon will.”
“I liked her. It’s as if I touched her somehow. There were—colors, almost as if I could hold them in my hands. Beautiful colors.”
“I don’t think this kind of touching is completely new to you.” She cocked an eyebrow at the princess.
“Sometimes with Chay I feel something of the same thing,” Tobin said slowly. “Almost as if I’m looking into him and he’s all sorts of colors. Does that mean I can learn to be faradhi?”
“Sioned can teach you a little—but no more than that. It’s dangerous.”
“I remember when Kessel got shadow-lost,” she replied quietly. “Mother and I took care of him until he died.”
Andrade glanced away, remembering the handsome young Sunrunner who had been posted here for a time. He had misjudged the light late in the day. Shadow-lost was the most fearful risk farad-h’im could run, for thoughts unraveled in darkness never rewove, and colors forgotten in the night never knew sunlight again. The mindless body soon died, its essence having following the sun into the Dark Water.
“Then you know the consequences of overconfidence,” Andrade said. “And speaking of arrogance, Rohan seems to be making quite a game of avoiding me.”
“Mother says he was in Father’s room late last night for a little while. But I don’t know where he is this morning.” She sank down on a bench in the shade. “And before you ask—yes, I know most of his places, and I’m not going to tell you. He’ll appear when he’s ready. Don’t push him, Aunt. Not now. I’m worried about him.”
Andrade sat beside her, shrugging irritably. It was probable that Rohan was in no state to talk to anyone, not even his family, and especially not Andrade. “He’ll have to face me sometime.”
“How dare you imply that he’s a coward!”
“I didn’t. But why isn’t he with Zehava?”
Tobin sighed. “I suppose he’s like me, and can’t believe Father’s dying—not so quickly, or so slowly. Does that make any sense?”
Andrade understood. A strong and vigorous man one day, Zehava was dying the next. Yet life lingered painfully in the ravaged body, refusing to relinquish its hold on flesh.
“In any case, it’s forbidden for the next prince to watch his father die,” Tobin went on.
“That’s a very bad idea. Rohan must watch or all his life Zehava’s image will be in front of him, never really dead and burned.”
Tobin’s black eyes sheened silver with tears, like rain at midnight. “You are the crudest woman I ever knew,” she whispered.
Andrade bit her lip, then grasped her niece’s hand. “Never think I don’t grieve for your father. Zehava is a good man. He gave me you and Rohan to love as I would have loved children of my own. But I am what I am, Tobin. And you and I are both women of consequence with responsibilities. When we have time for it, we feel. But there is no time. Rohan must be told.”
Yet he eluded her for the rest of the morning and afternoon. Andrade grew furious at the dance he was leading her and was reduced to the humiliation of setting one of her Sunrunners outside his chamber door, with orders to report instantly if and when the young prince appeared. Her other faradh’im she posted at various
places around the keep with identical instructions. But none of them came with news during the whole day.
With the evening, Andrade was exhausted. She had attended Zehava twice, hoping but not really expecting him to awaken, and had sat vigil with Milar for several hours in the suffocating heat. At dusk she decided to go up to the Flametower, where there might be a breath of air to cool her. She opened the door of the uppermost chamber, panting after the climb, and cursed viciously—for Rohan was in the huge circular chamber, alone.
The light from the small fire in the center of the room turned his hair fiery gold and glistened on the sweat that beaded his forehead and the hollow of his throat. As Andrade entered, he glanced up without curiosity from his seat before the little blaze.
“It took you a long time to find me,” he observed.
She resisted the impulse to blister his ears with her reply. Choosing a chair from the few stacked against the far wall, she placed it opposite his at the fire and stared into the flames. “Gracious of you to wish at long last to be found,” she told him in a rigidly controlled voice. “Although this isn’t the most agreeable place for a talk—or the most comfortable.” She gestured to the fire that was kept burning year round.
“Comfortable?” Rohan shrugged. “Perhaps not. I keep seeing Father in the flames.”
“A trifle premature. He’s not dead yet.”
“No. But when I don’t see Father, I see myself.” He rose and paced to the windows, pointing arches left open to whatever wind chose to blow. They circled the room at regular intervals, each one surmounted by a sleeping dragon carved into the stone. Rohan made the circuit slowly, stray gouts of fire-sent breeze ruffling his sweat-damp hair.