by Melanie Rawn
Rohan had to admit that his actions in pursuit of his own ends would be incomprehensible to most. He would play the indecisive prince when the vassals arrived to do him homage, then next spring fight the Merida for a time before buying them off and sending them home rich and smug to plot his destruction. He wished them pleasant dreams of retaking Stronghold, for two or three springs hence he would show himself the true son of the dragon.
As for the Rialla—he smiled tightly and rubbed his fingers against the smooth silver bark of a tree. Roelstra would offer a daughter. Rohan would pretend to consider. The High Prince would sweeten things with treaties, and Rohan would make certain they were binding, not like the promises that had died with his father. He would lead Roelstra a wonderful dance, make him sign wonderful parchments, and all the while have a wonderful time pretending to decide between princesses. And then he would marry Sioned.
Rohan coolly reviewed possible reactions to his marriage, specifically to his not marrying one of Roelstra’s daughters. Prince Clutha of Meadowlord would probably have an apoplexy; his country was the traditional battleground between Princemarch and the Desert. The last war had been in the reign of Rohan’s grandfather Zagroy, who had wrested the Treaty of Linse from Roelstra’s ancestor, the agreement giving the Desert to his line for as long as the sands spawned fire. If Roelstra was angry enough—or could drum up support enough to “avenge” his rejected daughters—Clutha would be frantic to prevent another war across his landscape. He would, in brief, do Rohan’s work for him. But there was another place from which Roelstra might attack with the help of the Cunaxans and the Merida they sheltered. Rohan thought hungrily of Feruche Castle, set into the mountain pass just above the desert. Long a Merida holding, in exchange for assistance several years ago Zehava had promised the keep to Roelstra. It had been to the High Prince’s advantage to support Zehava in that final campaign against the Merida, for Feruche guarded the major trade route across the north. Fees for caravans’ safe passage were lucrative.
Rohan had seen Feruche at his one and only battle. Disguised as a common soldier, he had fought alongside the vassals’ recruits while his parents thought him snug at Stronghold. Afterward he had camped in the sand below the castle with his new companions, for to enter the keep with his father and Chay would have necessitated revealing his true identity. Feruche nestled into the mountains like a gemstone between a woman’s breasts. It would make a perfect summer residence, with its cool spires of pink and golden stone. He decided he’d give it to Sioned as a wedding present. If she fulfilled her part in his plans as well as he hoped, she would deserve the extravagant gift.
All thoughts of her usefulness fled when he saw her coming toward him. Moonglow turned her to dark silver from the veil over her hair to the hem of her gown. He had seen her shape more clearly when she’d worn her riding leathers, of course, but there was something about the allure of shadows shifting down long thighs that made the breath catch in his throat. He told his body to leave him alone and called her name softly. Turning, not quite startled, she approached him with a shy smile.
“I’ve never met a man in secret in the middle of the night before. I could learn to like this!”
Rohan blessed her for saying the perfect thing. “I’ll arrange it every so often once we’re married. Although I don’t know what people would say if they knew their prince had to sneak around in the dark to spend a few private moments with his own wife!” He paused an instant, then went on, “After the way I behaved today, I’m surprised you’re even speaking to me. Sioned, have you thought about this?”
“I need to hear what it is, first,” she replied, not looking at him.
Rohan nodded, approving her caution. But part of him was disappointed that she was no longer so blindly trusting. Knowing this to be absurd—for it was reassuring proof that she could think as well as feel—he coaxed her over to a bench and when they were seated, side by side but not touching, he began.
“You know what happens at the Rialla. Everyone comes to arrange the next three years’ trade, settle disputes, and so on. There’s a huge fair as well, and races—Chay usually wins most of them and makes pots of money selling his horses.”
“The High Prince will be there, too—with his daughters,” Sioned purred.
“The eligible ones,” Rohan said, hiding a grin. “And that’s why you’re so important. When they think I’m indifferent to you and you to me—but with wounded pride on your part—they’ll talk. My sister picks up all sorts of useful information talking to the other women at the Rialla. And she’s an expert at passing along information my father and Chay want circulated. You’ll like Tobin,” he added.
“I like the way she treats her husband,” Sioned answered mischievously.
Rohan had a sudden vision of his bedroom turned into the kind of verbal battlefield he knew Chay’s sometimes became—and lost the image of an infuriated Sioned in the even more compelling picture of her between the sheets of his bed. He pulled in a long breath, managed a smile, and told her, “She’ll probably give you lessons, if I know her.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I wanted to emulate her,” Sioned answered earnestly. “I’d never yell at you in public, Rohan.”
He regarded her with a whimsical smile. “Don’t go making any hasty promises, my lady. You don’t know me all that well yet.”
“But we can talk to each other and find out. I was afraid we wouldn’t have anything to say, that you’d be too serious or too proud to speak what was on your mind. Or that you wouldn’t have a mind to speak of.”
He nearly took her hand, but remembered what had happened earlier in the day. “I was worried about the same thing. You don’t know how glad I am to find you’re as clever as you are beautiful.”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re planning,” she reminded him.
“Oh.” She was the first woman he had ever met who didn’t preen or at least smile after a compliment. “Well, I’m not quite sure of all of it yet myself. Roelstra will be looking for a naive princeling and that’s just what I’ll present him with, while I pretend to look his daughters over.”
“To bait the hook,” she replied, nodding. “But I don’t suppose you do any fishing in the Desert!”
“Chay and I go sailing when I visit Radzyn. I’d offer you the same, but I’m told you faradh’im have a slight problem with water.”
She grimaced. “I’ve never been so sick in my life as when we crossed the Faolain. And now I’ll have to cross it twice more to get to Waes and back. Rohan, you had better be worth it!”
It was a challenge no man could let pass. His arm slid around her waist before he could consider the danger, and he drew her toward him. “I hope you’ll find reward enough, my lady,” he murmured. And, because a glimmer of caution remained, he pressed his lips to her temple rather than her mouth.
Touching her at all was a mistake. Her body was warm and slim and supple, seemingly lit from within by the same Fire that flashed along his own nerves. Her arms locked around him, her fingers tangling in his hair, and he felt her thigh trembling against his own, muscles leaping as his hand slid of its own will from her knee to her hip. Her fingers followed a similar path toward his groin and she turned her face to his, eyes and lips inviting more.
Rohan caught his breath and shuddered, and it nearly killed him to let her go. He got to his feet quickly, fists clenched. Sioned gave a little gasp of mingled surprise and dismay as he stared down at her.
“I’ve never touched a woman like that in my life,” he said roughly. “Sioned—it isn’t just being near you—hearing your name is enough!”
“Is it that way for you, too?” she breathed in wonder, then shook her head. “Rohan, how are we going to manage? It’s not even a day old between us. We don’t even know each other! I’ve never felt like this with any other man.”
In that instant he learned what jealousy was. He wanted to know the name of every man she had ever even looked at, whether they had touched her—and mos
t especially where to find these men so he could kill them. What was the matter with him? She wasn’t his wife yet; he hadn’t even kissed her lips, let alone made love to her. But because he, too, could think as well as feel, he realized that if she was prey to the same jealousy that gripped him, he would have to be very careful during his charade with Roelstra’s daughters or there would be bruised princesses. He considered the brilliant green eyes and amended that; she would not be so gentle, would his Sioned.
“We knew from the first that this wouldn’t be easy,” he told her with a rueful smile. “I promise to keep my hands and my eyes to myself.”
“Ah, now there you are, making hasty promises,” she teased.
“Everyone will think you have some sort of disease if I never get within arm’s length of you!”
“I get hives when I eat marsh apples,” she said gravely, her dancing eyes belying the tone. “Shall I eat a few and turn lumpy and splotched? Would that make things easier?”
“Splotched if you must, Sioned, but not lumpy.” They laughed together and he exclaimed, “Do you know, I feel as if I’ve been married to you forever!”
“You don’t know me, either, Rohan,” she reminded him.
“Maybe you’ll find out I’m a—”
“Witch,” he finished for her. “I decided that when I saw you in the Fire. But I have a little magic of my own, you know. Come with me, I want to show you something.”
She walked with him deeper into the grotto toward the cliff walls. Giving him a sidelong glance, she said cautiously, “You must have something of the gift, you know. Your mother is Andrade’s sister.”
“What of it?” he asked in casual tones.
“Nothing.”
Rohan hid a frown. She knew as well as he did that Andrade wanted faradhi children from their marriage. Why couldn’t she trust him enough to tell him? He decided to talk more about his own plans—as much as he dared right now—and acknowledged that he didn’t yet entirely trust her, either.
“Roelstra will tempt me with treaties and agreements that I intend to make him sign before we get around to discussing his daughters. But I swear to you, Sioned, that after I’m through with the game, I’ll claim you in front of everyone.” He stopped walking and said, “Here—this is what I wanted to show you, before anyone else could.”
Trees parted around a silent pool for the long, pale waterfall that appeared from nowhere high above their heads. Flowering mosses and ferns softened the ragged rock, and moonlight turned the water to a ribbon of silver. This was the life of the castle, this precious water from the north. It ran underground, protected from the heat, then tumbled down to nourish this one hollow in the rock. Rohan glanced at Sioned’s eyes and suddenly knew what his ancestors must have felt when they had first discovered this gift of cool, sweet water in the Desert.
But when she spoke, it was not about the miracle before them. “Does my being faradhi make you uneasy?” she asked softly.
“No,” he answered honestly. “Why should it?”
“It will give your people pause, you know. A Sunrunner witch married to their prince, mistress of all this wealth, helping you rule the Desert.”
“You’ll win them as quickly as you’ve won me,” he said quietly.
She glanced at him, then turned to the water. Lifting her hands, moonlight sparkling off her rings, she wove the silver moonrays into a conjuring over the pool. He saw his own face and hers, and a single burning red-gold strand that formed the circlets that were their crowns. After a moment the conjure faded and Sioned met his gaze once more.
“I had to do that to prove something to myself. I lost control of a Fire-conjure on the way here, and I’ve been afraid to try again. But I’m not afraid anymore, Rohan. It’s too soon for me to trust you. My brain keeps saying that, and I have to listen. But in every way that counts, I do trust you.” She shrugged slightly. “I probably shouldn’t have said that, and I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but—”
Her kiss on his mouth was as swift and startling as heat lightning across the Desert sky. But before he could reach for her, she was gone.
Chapter Seven
News of Prince Zehava’s death reached Castle Crag on the morning sunlight. Crigo’s contact with the wine steward at Stronghold incapacitated the already overwrought Sunrunner, who took to his bed after downing a large cup of wine laced with dranath. Roelstra celebrated the news with a good long laugh and a lavish breakfast, then closeted himself with his ministers for the rest of the day. It was left to Palila to arrange the evening’s ritual and make sure all the daughters dressed in mourning gray to honor their royal “cousin.” A piece of nonsense as far as Palila was concerned, and doubly irritating because gray was not her color. But grief must be shown, and she comforted herself with the knowledge that at least the slate-colored gown hid her pregnancy.
Roelstra led the procession into the oratory of Castle Crag as soon as the first evening stars appeared. The chamber was a wide half-circle of Fironese crystal jutting out from the cliff like a giant soap bubble. During the day, sunlight streamed in to bathe everything in gold, dazzling from the ornaments and plate. Chairs of white wood cushioned in white silk were arrayed on a thick, snowy wool carpet that swallowed up all sound in its depths. Onto this background the faceted windows poured rainbow sparks that slurred down the walls and decorated the floor with brilliant color. But at night only the cold, pale moons shone, and the oratory was a place of silvered shadows where colorless faces showed eyes and mouths sunk into dark hollows, eerily emphasized by the white candles carried by each mourner.
They filed in according to strict rules of precedence and took their seats. Palila sat with bowed head and folded hands in the front row, the daughters all around her. Ambassadors, ministers, officials, and the minor nobility of Princemarch sat behind her—an assembly of men and women who thoroughly loathed her, she thought with a tiny smile. Nearly all of them had come to her at one time or another, hoping to influence Roelstra through her. She took what they offered and promised nothing—for they could scarcely run to the High Prince with complaints when their bribes to his mistress failed. Roelstra laughed whenever Palila showed him some new jewel or gown presented in hopes of a word whispered when his head was on her pillows. He encouraged her to keep the bribes that satisfied her acquisitive instincts without his having to spend a thing, for the splendor of the gift was an indication of how badly the giver wished his favor. He was never influenced by presents to his mistress, but he pretended sometimes that he was, to keep the expensive trinkets coming.
They hated Palila for another reason. She was a noblewoman who had besmirched the dignity of her class, even though the position of mistress to the High Prince held a certain honor. She had betrayed them by not working actively in their behalf, instead seeking to increase Roelstra’s power at their expense. Worse, she had not produced a son. And, even more damning, she kept Roelstra from seeking out another woman who might give him a male heir. They all had candidates for Roelstra’s next mistress, but Palila had not lost her hold on him. The thought of her as his legal wife horrified them.
The nobles, ministers, and ambassadors would also have candidates to put forth as possible brides for young Prince Rohan. No one knew much about him except that he was quiet and studious, and at the last Rialla had effaced himself to such effect that few even remembered what he looked like. Palila could sense them judging the daughters and wondering which of them would catch his fancy at the Rialla.
The daughters were wondering the same thing. Palila was sure that Ianthe at least knew the direction of her father’s thoughts, for the girl showed signs of hurrying to catch up. Neither was Pandsala a fool; she had insinuated herself into mealtime conversations these last days, making remarks designed to show her loyalty and intelligence. Gevina and Rusalka, the eldest of the illegitimate girls, could hardly have missed noting that their wardrobes and jewel cases had improved in content recently. Let them fret, Palila thought complacently. Let jealousy
spread like wildfire among them—and let the nobles place their bets on the most likely bride for the princeling. She alone knew what Roelstra had in mind, and would share that knowledge with no one.
After a period of silence to show respect for the dead, Roelstra stood before the assembly’s flickering candles. He had a fine voice meant for ceremonies and for murmuring in bed, and he knew how to use the resonance of his tones to excellent advantage. He gave a little speech of regret that the great and noble Prince Zehava had been taken so untimely from the world, and entreated the Goddess to allow Zehava’s spirit to find her loving embrace. That he meant not a word of it was not lost on anyone present. Everyone attended not to make sure the proper forms were observed but to enjoy Roelstra’s irony and contemplate the delicious prospects before them. Hardly a mind in the oratory was not making some plot toward Rohan’s disadvantage.
When Roelstra fell silent, Palila glanced up at him. His dark hair was crowned by silvery light, his eyes nearly colorless, the candle in his hand giving off a thin yellowish glow that picked out the strong bones of his face and the sardonic line of his mouth. His gaze met hers and she smiled slightly. How fortunate it was that they understood each other, she told herself. Her position would be a precarious one until she gave him a son, but because she comprehended her lord, she could follow his thoughts and, sometimes, outguess him.
One by one in ascending order of importance, the gathering rose and filed out. They left their candles on shelves to either side of the arching doorway. Palila had the honor of immediately preceding the High Prince and placing her candle next to the place where his would be. It was a privilege no one but his legal wife should have had, but she enjoyed many similar privileges at Castle Crag and guarded them jealously. One day they would be hers by right.