The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  So she shrugged off Hollis’ polite refusals of her help and went for a walk.

  There were too damned many people in this castle. Even with the Dorvali mercifully gone and their racket with them, Feruche swarmed with the refugees of three other Desert castles. It would be four when Sionell arrived with her Tiglathis, and until poor harried Ruala got everyone tucked away the place would be unbearable.

  But there was no one in the west garden. Of all the walks and plantings and little pleasure-arbors tucked away within Feruche, Ruala had reserved this one for the family. Every morning the groundskeepers tended the maze and pond, raked the gravel paths, and oiled the gate hinges. But no one else was allowed here. Sioned let herself in, threading her way through the twists and turns until she came to the center pond.

  Seating herself on a bench, she threw gravel from the path into the water for a while, watching the ripples. It was almost quiet here. Concentrating, she gradually shut out the noise of guard drill in the courtyard, the chatter upstairs in the weaving room, the bleating of goats and sheep. There; that was better: only the irregular plop-plop of rocks thrown into the pond, and the murmur of water. An insect buzzed by, distracting her with sound and long, iridescent blue wings. She scowled and rewove the silence around herself again.

  After a time she closed her eyes and let her mind follow a stone through the air and down into the water. Short flight, stunned impact, surrounding silence . . . sinking, nudged this way and that by the chill undercurrent . . . falling slowly into a patient darkness with the weight of the water like Death. . . .

  She drifted downward. The sunlight dimmed and faded away. Yes, the cold, yes, the lack of light—this was what dying must be.

  A Sunrunner fully vulnerable to the weakness of her kind, she had never willingly set foot in more water than would fill a bathtub. Except when she’d nearly been killed crossing the Faolain River, of course. She might have drowned then, and never come to the Desert, never met Rohan.

  What an odd thought. I might have been dead these thirty-nine years, and everything would have been different. Rohan might have married Pandsala or Ianthe—and, been long dead, too. Pol would never have been born, or at least a different Pol would have been raised by Ianthe.

  She was nearly at the bottom now. The pond was much deeper than she’d thought. Colder, too. A finger of current, sluggish as if the chill had stiffened its joints, tapped her to one side, then left her alone.

  Dying.

  She watched pasts that had never been, conjured in her mind like the Fire-visions of a skilled faradhi. Rohan: alive only long enough to father a son, dying of a stealthy sword, a secret poison, the convenience of the Plague. Pol: ignorant of any gifts of power other than what his grandfather Roelstra chose to parcel out. Roelstra himself: reaching a ripe and wicked old age with none but Andrade to oppose him. Everyone whose love and loyalty were Rohan’s, dead. Chay and Tobin and their sons: murdered outright, shut away where they could be no threat, killed trying to escape.

  So many dead. So many never even born.

  Because of her?

  Impossible.

  But if she had died at the Faolain crossing . . . if she had never reached the Desert . . . if the Water had taken her, as it was taking her now. . . .

  If, if, if. What a silly word. Life happened as it was supposed to happen. And struggling against the current (he, Desert-bred, would have said flying into the wind) was even sillier, a total waste of breath and energy.

  But there was no wind here, no current anymore, nothing to arrest her soft, slow downward drift. No struggle here. Nothing to struggle against. It was a sweet and peaceful thing, dying.

  On and on the visions came, cycling forward from her death, back around to begin new variations. People she knew, people she had never seen, people who had been born in one past and never born in another. She watched pasts that had never known a future, and the future whose past she had lived (and how he would have relished that convolution!). But none of it had anything to do with her. It was neither her doing nor her fault. She felt only remote curiosity, no anger or outrage or sorrow—

  —and no joy.

  Goddess, how she missed that. Missed him.

  “Life happens as it’s meant to happen.”

  She could hear his voice so clearly, as if he were here with her. Perhaps he was. This was dying. He was dead.

  Rohan? Are you here, beloved?

  “Beloved”—the last word he had ever spoken to her. She used it to call for him again.

  But all was silence, and darkness, and cold. No, this place was not meant for him. He had loved music and laughter (and the sound of his own voice, she reminded herself with a reminiscent smile). He had been carved of light: body, mind, and heart. And warmth—how warm his arms around her, how strong and safe.

  The rush of joyous memories surprised her, all the wonder of the past she had lived with him. Oh, I’m glad I didn’t die. I’m glad I didn’t miss all that.

  The past had happened because she had been meant to be there. And the future did not intend to happen without her. It claimed her suddenly, light blazing through her as if the Water had been rent by Fire.

  Sioned gasped, opening her eyes. Her lungs ached, her heart pounded frantically, her whole body screaming for Air, Light, life. She cringed in primal faradhi dread from the Water that had nearly been her death, and though she had not even touched it with a fingertip, primal faradhi instinct rebelled. Her empty stomach spasmed again and again until her vision went black.

  A long time later she managed to push herself upright. The arm braced on the edge of the bench slipped as her elbow unlocked, and her hand plunged into the cold water. She lunged away wildly, gravel cutting into her knees as she fell.

  Her low cry of pain was echoed high overhead. She looked up, baffled at first by the dark shape circling in the sky.

  One or another of the dragons flew up almost every day from Skybowl—Elisel more often than the others. Sioned watched the dragon spiral closer, heard her cry out again.

  “Was it you?” she whispered. “Were you looking after me, little one?”

  Color whirled around her in the sunshine, a silent offering. The dragon’s lonely yearning made tears come to Sioned’s eyes. But she shook her head.

  “No—I’m sorry. Not just yet. I can’t.”

  It wasn’t a very big garden. But there was room enough for a dragon to land. Elisel growled irritably as she crushed a section of hedges beneath her tail. Turning, she demolished a wooden bench. At last the dragon hollowed out enough space to curl up in, and settled down to watch Sioned with huge, resentful eyes.

  Someone called “My lady!” from an upstairs window. Maarken shouted back up from the courtyard that there was nothing to worry about and to leave them alone. Sioned reminded herself to thank him, then forced her aching body to stand and approached her dragon.

  Again colors surrounded her, and again she had to shake her head and refuse them. Leaning against a powerful shoulder, she smoothed the silken hide with long strokes of her hands.

  “Perhaps later, little one,” she murmured. “So you came to find me, did you? Well, I can’t say for sure that I would’ve come back on my own. It wasn’t all that bad. Just cold. And lonely. You wouldn’t understand.” She paused, watching the great shining eyes. “Or would you? Is that why you came looking for me?”

  Elisel hummed, enjoying the attention and not comprehending a word. Sioned found that comforting; she was sick of words. She hunkered down in the sun-warmed gravel with her dragon’s head on her lap, her back nestled to Elisel’s neck, and went on crooning and petting. The low, rough music of the dragon’s voice rumbled pleasantly against Sioned’s spine, and for the first time in a long time she fell asleep stone cold sober.

  • • •

  Sunrunning was at times a frustration—knowing that vital events were happening just beyond the sunlight’s touch, or cursing clouds or fog that kept one pent inside one’s own mind. But Pol was finding
out that seeing too much was worse than seeing too little. He could shrug and walk away from what he could not reach. He could not turn his sight from this.

  He watched women and children and the guards who protected them trudge across the Long Sand. He saw Birioc assemble another army, made up of those who had escaped Zagroy’s Pillar and those his Merida kin had brought in haste from wherever they could be found. Until he counted their numbers, he thought Tallain foolish and panicky to send his people fleeing from Tiglath. But somehow Tallain had known or suspected the size of the force Birioc would bring against him.

  Pol had watched the course of the battle, and just last evening he’d seen Birioc’s severed head impaled and displayed from a balcony overlooking the main square. That night at Feruche they drank to Tallain’s victory, and Pol sent a rider to tell Sionell that when camp broke in the morning, she could turn back for home.

  He had seen her, limp in Kazander’s arms across his saddle, and for a time was frightened. But when she roused enough to ride by herself with her son Meig before her, he began to guess at what Tallain had done.

  And when he saw the Vellant’im leave their ships and march through the clear, bright dawn, he was passionately glad of what Tallain had done.

  Clouds had blown up then. He was no longer in danger of seeing too much. So he wasn’t there to watch as Vamanis took up his position on the walls near the Sea Gate and summoned a wall of Fire in front of the Vellanti lines. He didn’t see the twenty bearded soldiers who braved the flames and—screaming, their clothes ablaze—launched a volley of steel-tipped arrows. One grazed his arm; a slight wound, but enough to obliterate the Fire. He cried out in agony, stumbling from scant shelter, and more arrows found him. The twenty Vellant’im died, but not before they had killed a Sunrunner.

  Pol didn’t see the battle, nor the rider who escaped it by the Sand Gate at a hard gallop. He didn’t see the large leather satchel containing Birioc’s head that bumped the horse’s flank. He didn’t see the man catch up to Sionell as the Tiglathis started wearily for home, nor the shudder that racked her when he spoke, nor Kazander actually laying the flat of his sword to his mount as he turned for Feruche at speed.

  He did see the Vellant’im withdraw from the battered, bloodied walls that they could not breach. He watched in a fury of pain as they regrouped, marched back to their ships, and sailed serenely away.

  Pol shut himself in his chambers alone for the rest of that day, so that he would not have to see anything more. But he knew what would happen at Tiglath as the sun went down. He knew whose body would burn along with scores of others who had kept Tiglath safe, beaten back the Vellant’im, and prevented their march on Feruche.

  Kazander appeared around dusk. Pol listened to what he had to say and closed the door again.

  It was long after midnight when he had to watch Sionell walk toward him across the courtyard, dry-eyed and pale as ashes by torchlight.

  She stood below him on the steps and stared up at him without seeing him. Surrounding her were those who had known and loved her since childhood. None of them could offer any comfort, especially not him.

  There was nothing he could say. But it was his duty as Tallain’s friend and prince to give her certain words, in the hearing of her people.

  “I would rather have him back than the victory he won us,” Pol said, willing his voice not to break. “I can’t count as a victory something that cost us so much. But he did win, and thereby kept us safe, and—” He swallowed hard. “Losing him is like losing my right arm.”

  Sionell nodded, blue eyes blank and blind. “Yes, my lord.”

  Meiglan went down to her, put an arm around her waist. “Come upstairs now, dearest. Come.”

  Pol watched them climb the steps. Sionell faltered only once, but the effect was as if she had collapsed sobbing. He started for her, but Tobin gripped his arm with surprising strength.

  “No. Let her be.”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  The others left to take care of the new arrivals, to sleep if they could, to grieve in private, to do anything but watch Sionell climb the stairs to an empty bed.

  Tobin remained. She tugged at Pol’s arm, taking him into the full light of the moons. Her voice spoke in his mind, the words forming sure and strong.

  Tomorrow night you may go to her. But not before.

  He stared down at her, confused. I thought you said to leave her alone.

  She’ll need you then. She’ll need an object for her anger, and you’ll need to be that object.

  Guilt choked him. He had failed at Radzyn. From that beginning, all had come, all of it. And now Tallain was dead, and that too was his fault.

  Tobin sat carefully on a little stone bench, clasping her hands around the head of her cane. She was using it more and more in recent days, for the strength she had temporarily won back at Stronghold was slow to return.

  Tonight she will need her children, to be their mother who always soothes their hurts. That will ease her heart a little. If her parents were here, she could be their daughter, their child running to them for the same comfort she gives her own children. I think that is something Chay or I must do for her, since neither Walvis nor Feylin is here. But tomorrow she will have no more roles to play, nothing familiar to comfort herself with. So the anger will come. Only after that will she be able to grieve.

  I don’t understand.

  No? She shrugged one thin shoulder. Didn’t you lash out in your anger at the Harps? And again fighting the Merida?

  I’m her battlefield. Her enemy.

  For this purpose, yes. It’s all you can do for her right now, Pol. And if you think about it, you haven’t purged your own anger. When you have, you can grieve for Rohan as well as Tallain.

  He shook his head. Anger is what keeps me fighting. It’s strength, if you know how to use it.

  Not when it’s coupled with guilt. Tobin pushed herself to her feet, black eyes glinting as he moved to help her. No. I’m quite all right. Tomorrow you go be the High Prince and the Sunrunner and whatever else people need you to be. Tomorrow night, be what Sionell needs. But for what remains of tonight, my dear, I suggest you follow your mother’s example and get very, very drunk.

  • • •

  He took Tobin’s advice, but not in his mother’s company. When he went to her chambers, he found Meath waiting for him with three pitchers of wine and the caution to drink quietly, as Sioned was asleep in the next room.

  “Really asleep?” Pol asked as he sat down and the first cups were filled.

  “Without the aid of this, you mean? No, it’s honest sleep. I think she’s finally exhausted herself.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  Meath shrugged. “Depends on how she wakes up tomorrow morning. Drink up, as Tobin told you.”

  “And you, obviously.”

  “You need someone to drink with who can put you to bed when you fall over. I volunteered.” He smiled. “Do you remember the first time we ever went drinking together? Back at Graypearl?”

  He did. He’d called Fire and watched Meath demolish half the tavern in a fight with some Gribain soldiers—one of whom had been a Merida sent to kill Pol. “Promise you won’t break any furniture tonight.”

  The only thing broken was an empty pitcher when, after matching Meath cup for cup for some time, Pol misjudged his reach. They both froze, listening for sounds from the next room that would mean Sioned had wakened. Nothing. Meath kicked the shards under the table and poured them both another cup.

  “Does she talk to you?” Pol asked suddenly.

  “A little. Not much.”

  “She’s got to stop doing this to herself.”

  Meath contemplated his rings. There were six of them, silver and gold on his large, strong hands. “To you, you mean. Let her be. She’ll come back to us when she’s ready.”

  “I need her now.”

  “Even the way she is?”

  “Her brain drunk is worth any five others
stone sober.”

  “Make do with your own.”

  “You’re not very comforting tonight.”

  “Is that why you’re here? For comfort?”

  Pol looked at his own rings. The Desert, and Princemarch, and a token faradhi ring set with the moonstone that had been Andrade’s. No comfort there, either, only responsibility.

  “No,” he answered thickly. “I came here to get drunk.”

  He did, and in silence after that, until he had scarcely enough wit left to know when Meath tucked him into the bed in the corner. When he woke the next morning from the promised oblivion, it was to the sight of his mother’s face.

  She stood beside the bed, as she had sometimes done when he was a little boy, sunlight glowing on her short curls and warming her cheeks with rose. She looked young this morning after her sleep, reinforcing the childhood memory. Then, he had been so proud of her beauty. But today he saw her power, a fire that might have burned someone else to ashes. His father had awakened to the sight of her face for nearly forty years, knowing that everything this woman was belonged utterly to him.

  Years ago, at Castle Crag and rather drunk after Dannar’s Naming, Ostvel had assured him that opening his eyes to Alasen every morning was at times a joy more piercing than making love with her. Pol could not imagine it then, being only twenty-two and unmarried. He could not imagine it now. He adored Meiglan, but she drew her strength from him, not the other way around. He was content to have it so, to shelter her gentleness and watch her blossom under his care of her. He had never known what it was to wake beside a woman whose strength sheltered him.

  Rohan had. So had Tallain.

  Detesting the disloyalty to his wife, Pol sat up—and discovered whole new worlds of self-hatred. Vicious little men pounded drums in his skull. His mouth filled with a taste as foul as if he’d swilled raw sewage the night before. Sinking back into the pillows, he drew in a careful breath and hoped the intake of air wouldn’t split his brain apart.