A Fall of Princes (53 page)

“Always,” she promised him.

It was hardly enough. But he let it suffice.

Sevayin drowsed, alone and lonely in a tent set wall to wall
with her father’s.

Through the tanned hide she could hear the voices of mages
and captains. She had banished herself from their colloquy: they could
accomplish little while she was there to cloud their wits.

And she was deathly tired. Alone, she could admit it. She
was too tired to play the royal heir; too tired to think, too tired even to
sleep.

Shatri had mounted guard outside her door. He had been
appalled to see her, until he decided to worship her.

It was bearable, that worship; it demanded nothing but her
presence and, on occasion, her smile. Later she would teach him that she was
neither saint nor goddess. Tonight she had no strength for it.

She lay on her side, shivering under the heaped furs, and
tried to shut out the murmur of voices. The child was restless; young though he
was, he kicked like a senel. Her hand calmed him a little, the power of the
Kasar
over the spark that was his
presence.

A familiar weight poured itself over her feet. Familiar
warmth fitted itself to her body, hand slipping to cup her breast, kisses
circling her nape to the point of her jaw. The child leaped no higher than her
heart.

She turned carefully. Hirel scowled at her. She scowled
back. “Couldn’t you live without me for a night?”

“No.” His hand was gentler by far than his voice, tracing
the line of her cheek, smoothing back her tumbled hair. “Have they been cruel
to you?”

“My people,” she said, “are still my people. And yours?”

“I remain High Prince of Asanion.”

“In spite of your unspeakable consort.”

“By edict of my father, you are a princess of the first
rank. Who dares speak ill of you, dies.”

“How absolute.” She looked at him in the lamplight. He wore
Olenyai black, the headcloth looped under his chin, stark against the ivory of
his skin.

His eyelids were gilded. She brushed them with a fingertip.
“You shouldn’t be here.”

“I cannot be elsewhere.” He was angry, but suddenly he
laughed. “One fool berated me for falling prey to a succubus. Ah, said I, but
there is no sweeter enslavement.”

“I hope he lived to hear you.”

“My father had not yet spoken.” Hirel kissed her, drew back.
“Vayin,” he said, “I must speak with your father.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“What is not?” He rose, drawing her with him.

She drew breath, considered, swallowed the words. In silence
she took up the robe of fur and velvet that her mother had given her, and
wrapped it about her.

Hirel’s impatience mounted, dancing in his eyes. She took
his hand and led him out of the tent.

o0o

They had ample escort: Ulan leaving his warm nest at the
foot of her bed, and Zha’dan with a great black cloak and a wide white smile,
and Shatri. The boy bowed to Hirel with deep and revealing respect. Sevayin
loved him for it.

Mirain’s council had shouted itself into stillness. The
princes took refuge in their winecups, the priest-mages in lowered eyes and
folded hands and carefully expressionless faces.

Sevayin’s coming brought them all about, staring. It had
always been so, she told herself. Gileni mane atop a Ianyn face, and the sheer
awe of what she was: heir of the Sunborn.

She showed them her most outrageous semblance, white teeth
flashing, black eyes dancing, red mane tumbling over the somber robe. “How goes
it, my lords? Trippingly?”

Mirain met her with a bright ironic eye and a grin as fierce
as a direwolf’s. He bowed his head to Hirel who had come from behind to stand
at Sevayin’s shoulder.

The rest, mages or no, were slow to know him. They marked
the Asanian face and bristled at it, but even Prince Halenan at first did not
see more than the barbarian warrior.

Hirel played for them; he braced his feet and set his face
and gripped the hilts of the twin swords belted crosswise over his robes.
Sevayin tasted the wickedness of his pleasure. “I bear a message from my
emperor,” he said, speaking Gileni, which was courtesy bordering on insult.
“Will the Lord of Keruvarion deign to hear it?”

“The Lord of Keruvarion,” said Mirain, “would gladly hear
new counsel.”

It was dawning on the rest of them. Vadin was amused. One or
two of the priests were appalled: the more for that they could see how the
power ran between Sevayin and her prince.

A simple man could have seen it, strong as it was, growing
stronger in the face of all their magecraft. Hirel’s eye were molten gold. She
could not resist and did not wish to; she poured herself into them and then out
again, effortless as water.

“This is an abomination!”

No matter who said it. It burst from a Sun-priest’s torque,
child of a mind grown narrow, blinded by the light.

Sevayin remembered the fire’s heart and the darkness that
dwelt there. She spread her hands, black and burning gold, and spoke as sweetly
as she had ever spoken. “We are your peace. We who were born for undying
hatred; we who without power could never have been. The god has willed it. He
is in us. See, my lords. Open your eyes and see.”

“I see it,” Mirain said, and he did not say it easily.
“Speak, high prince. What brings you here?”

“Your daughter.” Some of them grinned at that. Hirel grinned
back. “And of course, Lord An-Sh’Endor, my father. He proposes a two days’
truce, a pause while his mages settle a certain matter. He bids me assure you
that the matter is nothing of your making, and that your people will not be
harmed in the resolving of it.”

“There is truce until morning,” Mirain pointed out.

“And a pair of cold beds.” Vadin said it lightly, but his
eyes were level upon Hirel. “Why, prince? What do they need to do that will
take the night and two days after?”

“It may not take so long.” Hirel met a captain’s eyes until
the man slid out of his seat. Coolly he set Sevayin in it. She let him, mainly
out of curiosity, to see what he would do next.

Little enough, for a breath or ten. He sat at her feet,
considering those whom he faced, letting them wait upon his pleasure. At last
he said, “While I spoke with my father’s princes, my eldest brother appeared
with little escort and no fanfare. He was not astonished to see me. In part
indeed he had come for my sake, with news of great and urgent import. The mages
know not only of my escape with my lady but our coming to this field and of our
actions thereon. They are far from pleased. Peace they profess to seek, but it
must be peace as they alone would have it.”

“Aranos told you this?” asked Sevayin. She could easily
believe it; she wanted to be sure of it.

“None other,” Hirel answered her. “He has, he said, grown
weary of that particular conspiracy. It serves Asanion no longer; it threatens
to destroy us all. The time and the place are set, the mages prepared. Both
emperors are to be slain at their meeting; you are to be taken, I to be held in
sorcerous confinement lest you seek again to win free.”

A snarl rose, wordless and deadly. Sevayin spoke above it.
“I don’t trust that little snake,” she said.

“Who does?” said Zha’dan, coming into the light. “But its
truth he’s telling.”

“How much of it, I wonder?”

“Enough.” Mirain met all their stares. The rumble of anger quieted.
“So then, prince. You would seek out the mages, end their plotting, leave us
free to choose our own peace.” He leaned forward. “Why is it only truce for
which you ask?”

“I,” said Hirel, “do not ask it. My father has no hope of
more and no will to suffer your refusal. If you will not grant the truce, he
asks at least that you restrain your mages while his own are engaged in
preserving your life.”

Mirain laughed across the mutter of outrage. “What if I
offer him my mages? Will he take them?”

“Can he trust them?”

“My presence will keep them honest.”

Hirel rose to one knee. “So I told my father. I vowed that I
would bring you back with me.”

“And you say you are no mage.” Mirain stood over him,
drawing him up and embracing him with ceremony. “I will keep your vow for you.”

o0o

They rode into the Asanian camp in the deep hours of the
night: four priest-mages who bore within them the gathered power of their
order, and Mirain, and Elian and Vadin and Zha’dan, and Prince Halenan with
Starion who was the strongest in power of all his children; and Hirel leading
them with Sevayin.

She had lost her weariness in the exhilaration of danger,
the light keen madness that comes before a battle. They all had it. Hirel
thrummed with it, vaulting from his mare’s back, swinging Sevayin to the
ground.

She snatched a kiss. He drank deep of it before he pulled
free.

Ziad-Ilarios was waiting for them. He sat like a golden
image in his golden pavilion, in its center where the roof lay open to the
stars: a court of fire and darkness. His mages stood about him, nine men and
women garbed variously as priests, courtiers, guildsfolk, but all mantled in
power.

It rose like a wall before the Varyani. They halted, drawing
together. Their power gathered, flexed. Ulan growled softly despite Sevayin’s
calming hand.

The air breathed enmity. Sevayin thrust herself into it.
Made herself face that shadow of her own power and see it as it saw itself.
Born of the god as was her own. Necessary; inevitable.

Her body did not want to accept it. Her mind wanted to fling
it away in revulsion. Only her raw will drove her forward. Opened her mind.
Embraced the darkness and the fire in its heart.

She stood before Ziad-Ilarios. Ulan was with her, and Hirel
standing at her right hand. She bowed as queen to king.

The emperor took off his mask and met Sevayin’s eyes. “Help
me up,” he said, “daughter.”

She was as gentle as she could be, and yet she caused him
pain. He had worsened even since the morning. Death had lodged deep within him.

“No,” she whispered. “Not you, too.”

He smiled and touched her cheek with a swollen finger.
“Present me to your escort,” he bade her.

She named them one by one. They bowed low, even Starion
under Mirain’s stern eye.

Elian did not bow. She came to the emperor, her shock well hidden,
her smile warm and no more than a little unsteady. He took her hands and raised
them to his lips.

Neither spoke. There was too much to say, and too little.

Sevayin, watching, swallowed hard. She knew what they had
been once. The songs were full of it.

She had known that he still loved this one whom he had lost.
She had not known that her mother loved him a little still. Maybe more than a
little.

Elian drew back. Her smile died; she averted her face so
that he might not see her brimming eyes.

Sevayin saw and held her peace; but she reached for her
mother’s hand. It was thin and cold. It did not pull away, but closed tightly
over Sevayin’s fingers, drawing from them a glimmer of comfort.

Mirain faced his rival. He was all that Ziad-Ilarios was
not: hale, strong, young in body and great in power. But they were both
imperial.

Mirain acknowledged it. He bent his head and sketched a
gesture of respect. “It seems that we are allies after all,” he said.

“And kinsmen,” Ziad-Ilarios responded, “after all. I find
that I am not displeased.”

“My daughter has chosen well, if not entirely wisely.”

“My son has chosen as he could not but choose. So too must
we.”

“And your eldest son? I do not see him. How has he chosen?”

“For himself.” Ziad-Ilarios’ irony had no bitterness in it.
“He has returned to his old allies, lest they suspect that he has betrayed
them. He will aid us as he can.”

“He might have been better dead.”

Ziad-Ilarios smiled with terrible gentleness. “Perhaps. But
he has yet to betray me openly. Even were he not my son, I would not condemn
him to death for simple suspicion.” He raised his hand, ending the matter,
inviting Mirain to his side. “The gate waits upon our opening. Will you begin,
son of Avaryan?”

Mirain bowed to his courtesy. The mages of the Sun went
where their lord’s will bade them, weaving into the Asanian circle.

It strained, resisting. Eyes glittered; tempers sparked.

It was Starion, wild Starion, who broke the wall. His mate
in power was young and lovely and very much a woman, and by good fortune a
lightmage, a priestess of Uvarra. His body drew him toward her; his hair caught
her eye and his face held it, and won from her a blush and a smile.

They had met before they knew it, clasped hands and power,
and laughed both at once, both alike, for the wonder of the meeting.

The rest moved then. Light met dark, thrust, parried,
struggled and twisted and locked. Their very hostility was strength, their
sundering a bond as firm as forged iron, holding them ever joined and ever
apart. Out of the weaving rose wonder, and a flare of joy that was half terror.

The terror was Sevayin’s. Body and power shaped the center
of the circle, her body clinging fiercely to Hirel’s, her power drawing its
potency from his presence.

They were the strongest. Mirain himself, for all his flaming
splendor, was less than they.

It was the two of them, and the child they had made. Because
she was what she was and had been, and because Hirel was what he was: the Sun
and the Lion mated before all gods who were. The third made them greater than
any three apart.

The circle was in her hands. Had fallen into them.

She could not even feign raw strength without skill. She
wielded that skill to gather it all. Tensed to thrust it into her father’s
hands. Paused.

He had no part in the weaving with the dark, though he
rested within it, accepting it as grim necessity. There was a sickness in him
that he must do even so much. He could not raise the gate. He could not will
himself to hold the dark together with the light.