Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (62 page)

Urival, knowing they would need help crossing the rivers between Goddess Keep and Syr, had delayed the application of sleeping herbs and Sunrunner magic on the detachment sent along to escort Pandsala to her father. Andrade had been all for trussing them up the first night out. But this afternoon on a rest stop she had done the necessary, and now they were free. Pandsala couldn’t have been happier, and Chiana bounced along on a horse too large for her, singing. Neither sight was calculated to improve Andrade’s temper.

The news on the sunlight had been terrible. The Merida assaulted the walls of Tiglath with infuriating regularity. Their arrows found a few targets, they lost a few men, and they retreated until the next skirmish. Andrade understood the tactic: constant harassment to wear down the city’s spirit. Open battle exhilarated, but a slow, steady siege exhausted morale. Young Walvis had plans to raid Merida supply lines, both to gain provisions for the city and to give his troops the reassurance of action. But a pitched battle on the plain was denied him.

Tobin and the younger twins had arrived safely at Stronghold, but Andrade’s view of the castle had shown it to be nearly deserted. A glimpse of the area around Tiglath showed a force had broken off from the main Merida army to head south. And at Feruche life went on as if all was usual and normal, as if the garrison below the keep was still full of Rohan’s soldiers. Of Rohan and Sioned, there was no news and no sign.

Andrade dried her face and hands on a relatively clean section of her skirt and started back. Urival’s sudden shout of alarm came just as she topped the rise. He stood before the cold fire, rumpled and furious, holding Pandsala’s empty cloak.

“Gone!” he bellowed. “Damn that bitch—she’s gone!”

Chiana sat with her feet tucked under her, unimpressed by Urival’s rage. Andrade saw the artful arrangement of saddles that had simulated two sleeping forms where there had been only one, endured Chiana’s smug smile for five long breaths, then hauled the girl to her feet and shook her.

“You knew!”

“Yes, my Lady,” Chiana affirmed with a nod. “My sister has gone to our father, of course,” she went on as if Andrade was too old and addled in her wits to grasp the obvious. “She ought to be with him by now. And she took all the horses with her.”

Andrade let her go, turning away, not wanting Urival to see the murder she knew was in her eyes. Pandsala’s weeping, hand-wringing performance to Lyell’s captain had renewed suspicions, but she had behaved herself perfectly on the journey when she could at any time have denounced the two Sunrunners. But now this—with Chiana as gleeful accomplice. Andrade had saved their lives and they would ruin her, for Pandsala wore
faradhi
rings now and her talents would be put to the service of the High Prince.

Slowly, she faced Chiana again. She saw her own hand draw back. But she did not strike. Chiana let out a soft whimper of fear.

“You are old enough to understand events—and old enough to betray,” Andrade told her in a deathly quiet voice. “I should have expected this from someone whose name means ‘treason.’ ”

Chiana stood her ground unflinching, defiance blazing in her eyes. “My father—” she began proudly.

“Is a walking dead man.” Andrade turned to Urival. “Thus far for tradition’s sake I have hesitated. But today the sunlight will tremble. The
faradh’im
choose the Desert, her prince, and her armies.”

“Please consider, my Lady,” he replied in formal tones that spoke his misgivings more clearly than if he had cried out a hundred reasons against her decision.

“I am within my rights. Roelstra has shut the
faradh’im
away from all light. For this alone he deserves what we’ll do to him.”

“His death?” Urival asked.

“We are not murderers.”

“Nor executioners?” he pressed.

“No,” Andrade said, and for the first time in her life regretted the ten rings on her fingers, the bracelets and chains linking them and her to ancient vows. “No,” she repeated. “Never.”

Sioned had grown used to the dark. Not a thread of light was permitted, not even a candle. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed, how many days and nights and days again. Meals came at irregular intervals—as did men who were a darkness she could taste and smell as well as feel.

She had been unable to test out Maeta’s information about the hidden entry to Feruche; though she had anticipated most of the guards and the time they changed duty, one had caught her just the same. Her own fault, she knew, for being careless in her urgency. And now she was here in this black cell, alone.

It was the lack of colors that disturbed her most. A Sunrunner shut away from the light was an unnatural thing, yet panic had not lasted long. The suffocating heat did not trouble her after what must have been a day or so. But she missed the colors. She spent her time tracing the shape of each one in memory: not the faces and landscapes and sky they formed, but wanting only to feel them, wrap them around her in the blackness. They were life to her, the gorgeous spectrum that made up the world she touched as a
faradhi.
But without light, she could not feel them. They had no substance.

She did not waste her energy by conjuring Fire very often. It hurt her eyes, and the colors of flame raged with her inner turmoil, her fear. And what was the use, in any case? She knew she would not be here forever.

A squeal of hinges alerted her a few moments before a torch spewed red-gold into her cell. She covered her face and turned away to spare her eyes that teared and stung with the pain of light.

“Goddess blessing, Sunrunner,” Ianthe greeted mockingly.

Sioned took her hands from her cheeks and slitted her eyes open, wiped away tears. But she was not yet equal to meeting Ianthe’s gaze.

“Here,” Ianthe went on, “cover yourself. You’re looking rather awful, my dear. Like Rohan—too afraid of the
dranath
to eat much. It shows, princess.” She laughed. Sioned held herself from a flinch as clothes were flung at her.

She could open her eyes now without too much pain, and after brushing away the last of the tears she faced the princess. Ianthe’s smile sickened her.

“You’d enjoy killing me, wouldn’t you, Sioned? Almost as much as Rohan would. But you’re both too cowardly to dare it here in my castle. Tell me, Sunrunner, do you love your life so much you’d willingly endure this? Or do you love life even more than you hate me?” She laughed again. “There’s a subtlety here that has escaped you, I think. Hate is everything. My father understands that, and so do I, thanks to you and Rohan. Yes, I really ought to express my gratitude! Hate is the only thing that endures. It’s kept you alive thus far, hasn’t it?”

Ianthe took another step into the cell, firelight playing off her unbound hair, her jewels, her dark crimson gown. “But neither of you will risk your own lives to fulfill your hate for me and my father. Very practical of you, and very satisfying for me. There’s another life in question now. When a woman has borne three sons, she knows the signs of another in her body.”

Sioned stared at the torch Ianthe held. She could do it—conjure the Fire higher and hotter, send it writhing down the princess’ body, do to her what Roelstra had done to his mistress—

Ianthe cursed and threw the torch onto the stones. But Sioned had already doused the small flare her thoughts had given the flames. She would not kill Ianthe. Yet. There were no burns on her own flesh, no child in her arms.

The light fluttered up in strange patterns of shadows that both burnished and blackened Ianthe’s face. “I knew seven days after my youngest son was conceived,” she said. “But I wanted to make especially sure this time. Perhaps you think I won’t be believed. Put your mind at rest, Sioned. There will be no doubt that this child is Rohan’s. With my father victorious on his battlefield and I on mine, who will dare to doubt? Rohan will live long enough to acknowledge his son—and I want you alive to hear him do it. After that. . . .” She shrugged. “You’re free to go now, and your princeling with you. Enjoy your life while you may, for it lasts only until midwinter when my son is born.”

Sioned waited until the princess had turned to the door in a sweep of crimson, then said, “Enjoy your hate while you may, Ianthe, if hate is life to you. It ends when Rohan’s son is born.”

The princess’ spine stiffened and for an instant she froze. Sioned smiled to herself. Then Ianthe was gone, the door wide open behind her.

Sioned took her time, gathering her strength. Slowly she put on the riding clothes given her to cover her nakedness, then made her way from the torchlit dark along an empty corridor. There were many stairs, and several times she had to stop and lean against the wall while dizziness shook her. At last she emerged into a chamber washed with feeble dawn, where Rohan waited for her.

The pale light spared nothing of the hollows gouged out around his ribs, the stark bones of his face. They had given him rags to wear, the proud dragon prince—trousers, boots, a cloak he held awkwardly over one arm. The blond hair was dark and lank with sweat, the eyes bruised, and in those eyes was a despair that tore at her soul.

She knew what he must be seeing as he looked at her. The clothes hung from her shoulders, and the light would be equally merciless on her own gray skin, her features still drawn tight against screams she had refused to give. She saw him staring at her and hurt more for his hurt than for any of her own.

“I was with her,” he said abruptly.

“I know. And now she carries your son, as I cannot.”

“I should have killed her.”

“No.” But she could not explain, not yet.

He came forward, placed the cloak around her shoulders, careful not to touch her. “We’re free to go.”

“Rohan—you’re mine,” Sioned told him. “Mine.”

He shook his head, moved away from her to the door.

“She could never take you from me. The only one who could do that is you—and I will never give you up or let you go.”

“I won’t let you claim soiled goods,” he rasped.

“Is that why you won’t touch
me
?”

He swung around, fresh agony crying out from his eyes. “Sioned—
no
—”

She waited until her meaning was completely clear to him, calculating the balance of his love for her against his hatred of himself. “I lost track of how many used me,” she said at last, words chosen for their cruelty, words that were a terrible risk. But she knew this man—stricken, stripped of pride, whom she had just hurt again. The shock would either break him or bring him back to her.

She knew him. He held her gently, as if she would shatter in his arms. Sioned rested her head on his shoulder and let the tears fall, cleansing her eyes, washing his skin.

The courtyard outside was empty, but Sioned could feel hundreds of eyes in the shadows. There were two horses tied just inside the gates, a waterskin strapped to each saddle. Ianthe evidently meant them to survive the Desert. As Sioned and Rohan mounted and rode out of Feruche, neither missed and neither commented on the sight of Ianthe, high on the battlements, watching them.

Rohan was as tense as if he expected an arrow in his back at any instant. Sioned knew there would not be. Midwinter, she repeated to herself. Midwinter. She had until then to decide the manner of Ianthe’s death.

“Just a skirmish,” Prince Jastri begged. “The men are restless. They know we have the superior force and want to prove it! Just one small skirmish—”

Roelstra’s lips twisted and he pushed his breakfast away. There was no sense continuing the meal with Jastri nagging at him and destroying his appetite.

“One small skirmish,” he mused. “Something Lord Chaynal will know very well how to turn into a major battle. Haven’t you listened to anything that’s said of him? He knows war, Jastri. He had a most competent teacher in Zehava, and plenty of experience with the Merida. There will be no skirmish. Not yet. Now, be a good boy and leave me to finish my breakfast in peace, won’t you?”

Jastri, usually flushed with the delight of commanding his own troops in their drills, now flushed with rage. A handsome boy of sixteen winters, he had all the high spirits and impatience of youth released from the onerous supervision of tutors and advisers. But he had found that Roelstra’s rule was even more confining. The leather battle-armor decorated here and there with garnets fit him most attractively now that life in a soldier’s camp had run the baby fat from him, but he had not yet learned a soldier’s discipline. Roelstra, inspecting the scarlet cheeks and flashing gray-green eyes, considered it was time to teach a lesson.

“I am a prince,” Jastri informed him hotly. “I am no man’s boy!”

“You are and will remain a boy until you’ve blooded yourself with a virgin girl and a battle,” Roelstra snapped back.

“And you’re the one to instruct me in both!” the young prince scoffed. “You, whose wife and five luckless mistresses have made no sons for you! You who sit here in this tent stuffing yourself on breakfast when we could be feeding our swords with Desert blood!”

Roelstra sighed, comforting himself with the thought of how pleasant it was going to be to have this irritating child killed. He said, “When you have sons of your own and scars of battle on your skin, then you may gloat.
Boy.
But until that time, you will do as I say.”

Jastri flung himself out of the tent, shouting furiously for his horse and escort. Roelstra ignored the commotion and attempted to interest himself in breakfast once again, but could not. He hoped Lord Chaynal was equally incapable of enjoying his meals, his sleep, and his every waking moment.

Yet he smiled as he considered what must be going through the Desert commander’s mind. Roelstra’s troops outnumbered Chaynal’s, a weakness that could be exploited at any time—yet Roelstra did not attack. The excuse for battle had been handed to him by Lord Davvi, who was with the Desert armies rather than supporting his rightful overlord—yet Roelstra did not attack. The High Prince picked up his goblet and spoke to his reflection in its polished silver surface.