Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll (13 page)

“Especially once you get your hands on him,” Marron remarked with a smile.

Mireva chose to ignore the mockery beneath the admiration. “More important right now are the scrolls. You saw them, of course, though no one else did. When our people ruled here, the
faradh’im
stayed on their island and did nothing. Then, without warning, they were here, opposing us. They spent years watching us in secret, learning our ways for their own ends, using them against us. They drove us from power and chased us into these mountains. And then they erased all memory of us from the minds of the people, causing us to be forgotten along with our ways. But what they knew of us was written down. And now someone has found the scrolls and put them into Lady Andrade’s hands.”

“It didn’t seem as if she understood a word of them,” Ruval commented.

“But she will. She’s clever—and ruthless. She will want the
faradh’im
to know the power
we
once had.”

“So the scrolls must be destroyed,” Marron surmised. “That’s easy enough to do, even at this distance. A little starfire, nicely directed—”

“No! I must know what’s in them! I must know how much has been lost!”

“They they must be stolen,” Segev said. “As the knowledge was stolen from us. What if . . . ?”

Mireva narrowed her gaze at him in the starlight. “What if?” she prompted.

“Someone with the gifts could go to Goddess Keep to be trained, gain their confidence, and steal the scrolls.”

“Who did you have in mind?” Marron asked silkily.

“Not you,” his youngest brother shot back. “You have all the subtlety of a rutting dragon.”

“And you think
you
could do it?” Ruval scoffed.

“I can. And I will.” A smile stole across his sharp features. “And maybe I can even things up with dear Aunt Pandsala as well for betraying Grandfather during the war with Prince Rohan.”

“Your primary concern must be the scrolls,” Mireva said. “Leave the Princess-Regent to me—and to Masul, who may or may not be her brother.” She laughed softly with excitement. “Excellent, Segev! A scheme worthy of a prince and a son of
diarmadh’im.
But there are things I must teach you before you leave. Come tomorrow night to my dwelling.”

They understood this as dismissal, and left her. She heard the clink of bridles as they mounted the horses left deeper in the forest, and Marron’s voice as he taunted his brother about becoming a weakling
faradhi.
When their arguing had faded, she began the long walk back to her house, relishing the touch of cool starlight through the trees.

She lived in a low stone dwelling much larger than it looked, seemingly built out from the side of the hill but in reality dug deeply into it by generations of her forebears. There were two outer rooms that appeared to be the whole of the place, but the wooden planks that formed the back wall hid a door leading into the important part of the house. Mireva paused to build up the fire against the night chill, then went to the rough paneling and pressed a catch concealed in a seam. Grunting a little with effort, she pushed on the door and it swung open with a protesting creak. The hallway beyond was black as the night outside. Mireva struck iron to flint—she could call Fire if she wished but never used Sunrunner ways if she could avoid it—and a flame burned obediently atop a slim column of wax. She plucked the candle from its niche and walked down the packed earthen floor, not even glancing at the low-ceilinged corridors that branched off from the main one. At last she reached the door she wanted, and set the candle into a holder within.

There was the glint of golden things and silver, and gems that stained the room with rainbow colors. A massive mirror stood in a corner, shrouded in midnight-blue velvet sewn with silver thread in a pattern of stars. Most of the space was taken up by huge chests and boxes resting on tables. Mireva took a small coffer and opened it, removing a piece of parchment folded around something minced and brittle. There were only five similar packets left, she noted; she would have to go harvesting soon, high in the mountains where the herb grew strong and potent.

She returned to the outer rooms then, sliding the heavy door back into place. There was no indication that it even existed. Gathering a bottle and winecup, she settled into a soft chair before the fire and stirred the contents of the packet into the bottle. She waited for the herb to mix, then poured a measure of the wine and drained it in three long swallows. Earlier today she had consumed a similar cup, but the effects had worn off and she needed more. A smile touched her face as the drug began its work in her blood. How stupid the
faradh’im
were to be so afraid of this. But perhaps their powers of sun and moons were too fragile for
dranath.
The ancients had found it a source of sure and sustained strength, addiction to it an assurance of potency.

Mireva drew in a deep breath to prolong the lightheaded glow and closed her eyes. No, the Sunrunners were weaklings who could not tolerate use of
dranath.
The one enslaved to it by Roelstra had burned out after only a few years. She remembered very well the day she had presented the herb and knowledge of its addictive properties to Lady Palila, Roelstra’s last mistress. Mireva had been young then, and only playing the part of old wisewoman from the hills. Her bedchamber mirror told her that far less effort would be required to sustain the image these days, and the opposite deception would be needed tomorrow night. She sighed, then shrugged.

She had the ability. And she would win. The Sunrunner corrupted and used by Roelstra had been an amusement. But now she would play the game in earnest. The gambit with Masul would test her opponents, Segev would gain her the scrolls, and in only a few years Ruval would bring her final victory.

The rush of
dranath
peaked, centered in her belly. She shifted slightly, enjoying the tingle of sensual pleasure. Andrade might have her ten rings and her position as ruler of all
faradh’im,
but Mireva knew she had never know the sheer glut of power brought by
dranath.
To ensure that she never would, Mireva took out pen and parchment, closing her eyes the better to remember the words of the scroll. After a few moments her hand began to move, copying what she saw in her mind.

 

Urival accepted the glass of wine Andry gave him, nodded his thanks, and drank deeply. Setting the cup down, he sagged back in his chair and exhaled. He rubbed the ring on his left thumb absently. “I’m too old,” he muttered. “I haven’t the strength anymore.”

“At least you felt it,” Andrade said. “I didn’t even catch a flicker.” She looked up at her grand-nephew and namesake. “You either?”

“No, my Lady.” Andry stared down at his four rings, each set with a small ruby token of his status as son of a powerful
athri.
Chay’s colors were in his clothing, too, his tunic decorated around the throat with interlocking red and white knots. “I thought I saw the fire jump, but. . . .”

Urival said, “That had nothing to do with what I sensed. Someone was watching us. It was subtle, but it was there. And it had no basis in the fire—not Sunrunner’s Fire. It’s night, the moons aren’t up—there’s only the stars.”

“You’ve said what it wasn’t,” Andrade snapped. “Tell me what it
was.
”

Andry crouched down with his back to the hearth, sitting on his heels. With his lithe body curled up thus, and his too-long hair drifting untidily around a nearly beardless face, he seemed much younger than his twenty winters—except for the sharply intelligent eyes, a deeper blue than Andrade’s. “We conjure with Fire to show us things, but we can’t actually watch events except on woven light of sun or moons. Yet Urival says we were being watched. If not in the usual ways, then how?”

Andrade tapped the scroll with one long finger. “Not us, Andry. This.” She traced the title page with its two ominous words and its strange border design. “Look at this and tell me how it was done,” she added grimly.

Urival stared. “Impossible!”

“Sioned did it,” she reminded him. “She used starlight.” She met his gaze and they shared the memory of the night Rohan had killed Roelstra in single combat. The two had been protected from interference by a dome woven by Sioned of shining silvery starfire. She and Urival had both been caught up in the powerful conjuring. Pandsala, present at the scene, had been trapped into it, and Tobin, who had been with Sioned far away at Skybowl. And, though barely a day old, Pol too had been woven into that dangerous, forbidden fabric of light.

“Aunt Sioned has done it?” Andry looked up, frowning. “But it’s not possible, and even if it were—”

“If it were not possible, why bother to forbid it to us?” Urival asked. “It’s not something we do, but we know it can be done because Sioned did it.”

“Whoever it is must have powers beyond ours.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Look at this page.” Andrade traced the pattern of night sky with stars again.
“On Sorceries.”

“No wonder Meath was frightened by it. And no wonder somebody tried to kill him in order to get it. Knowledge left behind on Dorval by our ancestors—things they didn’t want remembered?”

“And somebody doesn’t want us to discover, that’s certain,” Andry said.

“The temptations must be very great.” The Lady of Goddess Keep folded her beringed hands tightly together. “
I
am tempted. I choose to give in to that temptation. I must know what the scrolls teach. Others know it. So must I.”

“They had reasons for leaving this behind,” Urival warned. “Reasons for the prohibition against using starlight. Andrade, the danger—”

“—would be in not knowing,” Andry interrupted, rude in his excitement. “The Lady is right. We must know what’s here and how to use it. If only to know what to guard against.”

His attention was on the scroll, and thus he did not see the glance that passed between his elders. Through no special power but long years of familiarity with each other’s thoughts, Andrade and Urival shared reaction at Andry’s use of the plural. He had counted himself among those who must know. Andrade had summoned him here tonight because he was her kinsman and extremely gifted, but he did not yet know what she and Urival had decided this winter: that when she was dead, Andry would be Lord of Goddess Keep. Young as he was, he was the only possible choice. His relationship to the High Prince had only sealed what his talents would have earned him had he been born in a cottage instead of a castle.

“Use their own weapons against them, whoever they may be?” Andrade asked him now. “Ways our ancestors thought best forgotten? Ways dangerous and forbidden to us?”

Andry rose fluidly to his feet, and there was nothing boyish about him as he looked down at her. There was the look of his father about him now, strength of will, clear-sightedness, and firmness of purpose adding maturity to his face. But more than his sire, Andrade suddenly saw his grandsire in him, saw Zehava’s single-minded acquisitiveness, his drive to possess. Zehava had wanted land and unquestioned authority over it; Andry wanted knowledge. Both ambitions were perilous.

Andry’s eyes shone with ambition as he said, “How do you think our ancestors won in the first place?”

Urival gave a muffled exclamation. Andrade did not react outwardly at all.

“Go on,” she said quietly.

“You said that long ago they left Dorval and came here to involve themselves in the world. Why? It can’t have been for the sake of power, for they didn’t take over as princes, and our history hasn’t been one of meddling in the affairs of the princedoms.”
Until recently,
his eyes said,
until you, Aunt Andrade
. “Thus it must have been not for their own gain, but for the people. Because they were needed. And yet they left certain knowledge behind on Dorval. Why didn’t they want us to know these things? More importantly, why didn’t they want us to know how to use starlight, the ‘sorceries’ this scroll implies? Tonight we learned that others know what these Sunrunners wanted forgotten. Is it so great a leap of logic to think these were the people our ancestors came here to oppose?

“And why learn the ways of the enemy in the first place? Knowledge is to be used—else why learn it? They must’ve carried it with them inside their heads and once the others were defeated, never taught it again, so of course it’s been forgotten.”

Urival roused himself from appalled reaction to Andry’s words and said, “That’s a long way from saying they used what might be in this scroll to battle these unknown enemies—existence of which hasn’t even been proved!”

“Hasn’t it?” Andry faced his great-aunt. “You saw, when you first became Lady here, that High Prince Roelstra was too powerful.”

The jewels of her rings quivered in the firelight, betraying the sudden tremor in her hands. “I knew long before that what he would become. He came to my father’s keep as a youth, looking for a bride.”

Andry’s eyes widened, for he had never heard that part of the story before. “But you must already have been a Sunrunner.”

“Yes. Home to visit my father and my twin sister—your grandmother Milar. I know what you’re about to say, Andry. I saw the power of the
faradh’im
dwindling, our influence threatened as Roelstra’s power grew. So I married off my sister to Prince Zehava, hoping one of their children would be a son with the gifts, someone I could train up to be the first Sunrunner prince.”

“Only it didn’t turn out that way,” Urival murmured.

“No. Your mother showed the gifts instead, Andry. And so I arranged for Rohan to marry Sioned, whom I knew to be powerful.” A twinge of bitterness crossed her face.

“And now Pol will be the prince you wanted,” Andry went on. “But it’s happened even before him, my Lady. Sioned is High Princess, with no hesitation in using her gifts as she sees necessary to governance. Pandsala does the same as Regent of Princemarch. My brother Maarken, and Riyan of Skybowl—and maybe others we haven’t identified yet—they’ll all be Sunrunner lords, just like Pol will one day.
Faradhi
ways are merging with those of princes, because you decided they must.”