Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll (78 page)

Davvi did not answer. Volog gave him a speculative glance, then pushed himself from the chair.

“I know,” Volog said. “It’s not something I can decide for her.” He led the way into the main part of the tent, gestured Davvi to a chair, and beckoned a squire to pour wine. “I’m curious, cousin,” he went on. “How did Sioned happen to leave River Run for Goddess Keep?”

Davvi waited until the squire had bowed his way out and they were alone, then said slowly, “Sioned was only a little girl when our parents died. I suddenly had a keep to oversee. I was too busy to take much notice of her and she went pretty much her own way. But when I married Wisla, she was quick to see it—‘a strange way with the wind,’ she called it. One winter night as we sat in the solar, the fire went out and Sioned coaxed it back into being without touching it, without moving more than her fingers. Our grandmother and yours was
faradhi.
But it never occurred to me before that night that Sioned might be, too.”

“I’ve been just as blind with Alasen,” Volog admitted. “You know, I often wondered what it might be like—I’ve even envied Sioned.” He glanced at the partition behind which his daughter slept. “But not anymore.”

“Sioned has found great joy and fulfillment in being a Sunrunner.”

“Alasen has not.” Volog sipped at his wine. “Ah, well. As I said, it’s her choice to make.” He looked up as the squire came back in. “Yes? What is it?”

“A message from his grace of Isel, my lord.” The boy handed over a folded and sealed square of parchment, and again bowed himself out.

Davvi snorted. “Let me guess. Saumer has experienced a revelation.”

“No bet.” Volog tore open the letter and scanned its contents. “Ha! It seems that not only Saumer but Pimantal of Fessenden has had a change of heart. Kiele is confessing to anyone who’ll listen. She had word of Masul, brought him to Waes, believed his story, and taught him Roelstra’s mannerisms to heighten the chance resemblance. She begged him not to kill the Sunrunner, and so forth and so on. I doubt any of it will weigh much with Lord Andry. But I find this very politic of Saumer and Pimantal, I must say.”

“Especially in Pimantal’s case, now that rumors about Lleyn’s grandson and Firon are all over the camps. Volog, I need a favor. When Pimantal makes his conversion public, kick me when I laugh in his face.”

Volog grinned. “Agreed, if you’ll do the same for me. Rohan has his majority now, at any rate.”

“Cold comfort.”

“Indeed.” He hesitated, then asked, “Davvi, what do you know of the Lord of Skybowl?”

If Davvi was surprised, he did not show it. “A good man, the best. He spent his early youth at Goddess Keep with Sioned—married a Sunrunner, in fact, though he’s not one himself. You saw how fine a son he raised.”

“Mmm. Lord Ostvel was of great help to me with Alasen. I’d like to do something for him, if he’ll allow it.”

“I doubt he will. But if you approach Rohan and Sioned, they’ll find a way around him.”

“Advice I shall take, cousin.”

 

By sheer force of will and a flat refusal to let the staggering pain in his head get the better of him, Urival got out of bed, dressed, left his tent, and started walking.

It was still early, the moons just visible between clouds. But it felt more like the deep black time before dawn. The last days had been an unrelieved horror and anyone with any sense was resting. But he had long ago acknowledged that sometimes he had very little sense indeed. So he crossed the bridge and skirted the silent Fair, heading for the field of battle.

He was more or less certain he knew what had happened. The two deaths besides Masul’s, and the burning of his own rings, had told him much. He paused for a moment when the field stretched out before him, thinking about how he had found them: Pandsala, her dark eyes staring sightlessly up at the clouds; Sejast, prone with a knife stuck in his back. Hollis was sprawled nearby, propped on one hand with her head hanging, bright hair tangled around her face. Urival had looked swiftly around him. But no one watched; all eyes had fixed on the little knot of people around Maarken. Quickly he yanked the knife from Sejast’s corpse. Hollis had lifted her head. There was blood all over her.

“He’s dead, then, isn’t he?” she said quite calmly.

“By your hand,” he murmured.

She nodded. “Pandsala tried and failed.” Suddenly tears rained down her cheeks. “Ah, Goddess, the Star Scroll—he knew, he knew, he was one of them, he wanted Maarken dead! Give me back the knife, he needs killing—”

“He’s dead. And Maarken’s alive. Hollis, listen to me!”

But she drew her knees to her chin, arms wrapped around them, and rocked back and forth, weeping, murmuring of
dranath
and the Star Scroll and sorcery.

Urival shouted Sorin’s name. The young man glanced around, left Andry to Lleyn’s care, and hurried over. At Urival’s direction, he gathered Hollis up to carry her. She buried her face in his neck for a moment. Then, looking at Urival again, she whispered, “Tell my lord I’m sorry. I beg his forgiveness.”

“He’ll understand.”

“Do
you?
” Her eyes narrowed.

Urival nodded. “Take her back to the encampment, Sorin.”

Hollis shivered, her gaze wild again, tears streaking through the blood on her face. “But there’ll be no Sejast, and I’ll die—you know that I’ll die without him!”

Sorin stared at her. “My lady—”

“Hush,” Urival whispered. “She’s not responsible for what she says right now. Rest easy, Hollis. You won’t die, I promise you.”

Her hand reached out piteously. “Do you swear? I don’t want to die. Maarken—I want Maarken, where is he?”

Urival placed his fingertips on her forehead and spun sleep around her. As long lashes descended to hide the anguish in her eyes, he told Sorin, “Don’t worry. She’ll be all right.”

“If you say so, my lord,” came the dubious reply.

Urival flinched in the darkness now as his boots crunched on glass. The remains of Rohan’s water clock were underfoot, trampled and forgotten. He poked around, careful not to slice his fingers, and eventually found what he was looking for: the golden dragon that had decorated the upper sphere’s lid. He turned it from side to side, rubbed his thumb over the proudly uplifted wings, then pocketed the emerald-eyed token and walked on.

He stopped when he saw the dark bloodstains soaked into the soil. Only a little of it was Pandsala’s, spilled from a wound that should not have killed her. He had taken Sejast’s body from the wash of blood on the ground and hidden it in the nearby trees. He went there now. Insects had not yet begun on the flesh, gorged as they were on the blood. For a moment Urival considered throwing the body in the river. There would be no cleansing Fire for this one. But he rejected the impulse; Rohan would want to look on the dead face, the other princes would need proof that there had been a sorcerer present—and Andry required a vivid demonstration of Sunrunner fallibility.

He picked up the corpse and carried it from the trees. Like Andrade, he had seen and frowned on the boy’s arrogant delight in his growing powers. But that was gone now, leaving only this light, limp body, dark head tucked to Urival’s shoulder like a sleeping child. Who was this boy who would never become a man?

With the compelling eyes hidden, Urival saw softness that lingered around the lines of cheeks and brow, the curl of the mouth. A boy arriving out of nowhere, speaking in the accents of the Veresch, fixing unerringly on the two Sunrunners with the closest ties to the Desert, knowing snatches of the old language. Knowing, too, the uses of
dranath
and sorcery.

This “child” had lied his way into Goddess Keep, addicted Hollis to
dranath
that might yet kill her, cozened her and Andry into letting him work on the scrolls. He had spun sorceries hoping to kill Maarken. He had killed Pandsala. Every Sunrunner present had felt his power. He was an heir of the Old Blood, enemy of the
faradh’im.
And yet he seemed so young, so innocent.

Urival searched for reasons. Sejast’s people had been hidden for hundreds of years. Why now? Why him? What was special about this boy? He had sought to aid Masul, who claimed to be of Roelstra’s blood. How could his victory have benefited the sorcerers? What could possibly connect sorcery and Castle Crag?

The first anyone had ever heard of
dranath
was when Roelstra used it to enslave a Sunrunner. Alone of her sisters, Pandsala had proven gifted—but no one had ever tested the others. And she did not share the Sunrunner aversion to water.
“My mother came from a place known only as The Mountain.”
The mountains of the Veresch—whence Sejast had come to Goddess Keep.

Urival stifled a curse as the boy’s head rolled back against his arm. He’d forgotten in his haste earlier to slide the lids closed—and the eyes were wide open to the star light. Glazed. Staring. He’d seen eyes like that long ago, dead green eyes lit by stars and framed by black hair. Rohan’s sword had gouged his throat, but still the face had smiled in death, as this face smiled now.

Nose, brow, mouth, jaw—not the mimickry of color and movement Kiele had heightened in Masul, but a
likeness,
the way a sapling is the young, half-formed version of the parent tree.

Ianthe had borne three sons before her death, sons everyone thought had died with her—and the mysterious fourth son—at Feruche. Urival had long known their names. And that all of them were alive.

One was dead now. Not “Sejast,” but Segev. Segev, who had killed Andrade.

Urival carried Ianthe’s son to the bridge. Aching with exhaustion, he paused in the center of the span. The Faolain was dark and deceptively quiet below him. Upriver the water thundered, but from here to the sea all was swift, powerful silence. Desirable silence.

The muscles of his shoulders and back tore as he hefted Segev’s body over the rails and let it drop into the current. The gray-clad corpse surfaced once, then vanished forever.

 

“Urival came in just before midnight to tell us the boy, Sejast, was responsible. Sorcerer’s get, living all this time at Goddess Keep. It doesn’t bear thinking about, Meath.”

“It can’t become common knowledge, Sioned. Andry’s going to have trouble enough convincing everyone he’s as strong as Andrade was—if this was known, no one would have confidence in him at all. He let Sejast work with him on the scrolls.” Meath downed his third cup of wine in two swallows. “Goddess! Andrade’s death, and now this!”

Rohan pushed the flask across the table to him. “With no body to hand, we can say that the boy died the same way Pandsala did. The problem is, we don’t really know why she died.”

“I can tell you that.” He glanced up suddenly, and set both cup and pitcher down hard on the table, spilling some of the wine. “Pol!”

“What are you doing up?” Sioned asked sharply. But Meath was already rising to give the boy a rough hug.

“Goddess, but I’m glad to see you! Sioned, don’t make him go back to bed. He wouldn’t sleep, anyway.”

She shrugged. “Oh, very well. As long as you’re up, you probably ought to listen so we don’t have to repeat ourselves. Sit here by me, Pol.”

He did so, settling into a place between her and Rohan. “You look tired to death,” he told Meath.

The Sunrunner dropped back into his chair. “I’ve been on horseback ever since word came about Andrade. And you don’t look so great, yourself.”

“Why did Pandsala die?” Pol asked softly.

“Sioned was in charge of a powerful conjure, right? Every
faradhi
in the place dragged into it.”

“And we were winning, too,” Pol muttered.

“Of course,” Meath said, surprised that he would even mention it. “You’ve got a lot to learn about your mother, y’know. From what’s been described to me, all of a sudden you felt like the whole world was shattering around you. I’m not surprised—and I know exactly what it feels like. The same thing happened to me. I was in the middle of a conjuring and got a knife in me. And do you know why I didn’t die?” He paused for another swallow. “I pulled it out.”

If he’d had the energy left, Rohan would have been pacing the carpet. “You
faradh’im
are forbidden to use your arts to kill. Are you saying—”

“I’ve been reading Andry’s translations,” Meath interrupted. “The precise wording is that we’re forbidden to use our skills in battle. And this is why. A working Sunrunner hit by arrow or sword or knife is dead.”

“But why?” Sioned exclaimed. “There’s no reason for it! Why should a minor wound taken during a conjure kill us?”

“I don’t know. But think about this for a moment. There’s a mention in the scrolls of the Merida and their glass knives. They worked for the sorcerers. Glass was said to be sacred. It became a matter of pride to use glass, almost a religion. It was their hallmark, their signature on a murder. But why glass?”

“Iron,” Pol said abruptly and succinctly. Then he seemed to hear what he’d said, and his face changed. He reached across the table, poured wine for himself, gulped it down.

Meath nodded. “My reading exactly. The knife that hit me and the one that stabbed Pandsala were steel. And I’m betting that Kleve’s wounds weren’t ones to kill him, either. He was trying to use the gifts, and the knife—”

“But the steel was removed,” Rohan pointed out. “It had to be, for Masul to sever more than one finger.” He saw the Sunrunners look a little ill at that, their hands clenched instinctively into fists, and added, “Forgive me. But I don’t see how your theory works here, Meath.”

“I’m guessing that even though the knife wasn’t in him all the time, each successive cut acted the same way, shocking his mind until he died of it. You told me Pandsala had only the one wound on her leg. And yet she’s dead. You also said that just as suddenly as the pain began for the rest of you, it stopped. That must have been when Hollis removed the knife. The iron was no longer disrupting the linked conjuring. But Pandsala was already too far gone. Think of it like blood going to the brain through the big arteries in the neck. If they’re severed, the brain dies. There must be something that happens inside us when we weave light or conjure Fire—something that iron breaks. Thank the Goddess that Sejast was not part of the Sunrunner conjuring when Hollis stabbed him.”