Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (47 page)

“They chose to go out into the world—or perhaps return to it from exile, I’m not all that sure. The records are incomplete. They’d wrapped themselves in ritual and mysticism, and then for some reason rejected that way of life.”

“What about the circle of trees on the bluff near the rains? Was that theirs as well?”

“Doubtless, although
I
didn’t know about that.”

Lleyn grinned. “I ought to follow up my advantage and gloat a bit that I knew something you didn’t. You needn’t ask—I’ll have Meath and Eolie investigate. But right now I’d like to hear about your ancient
faradh’im.
”

“Isolated on your island of silk and pearls and gold—who can say why they left? But there’s no mention in the records of their being ill during the crossing, which leads me to believe it’s a fairly recent trait. I’ve never discovered exactly how the gift is passed on, though. Urival and I have been trying to puzzle it out in the genealogies for years. It’s not linked to either male or female. Whole generations can go by without its showing up. Sioned’s family, for instance. You’ll know about the connection with Syr through the father’s line, but through the mother she’s related to Volog of Kierst.”

Lleyn sat up a little straighter. “The Sunrunner who was stolen away by Prince—what was his name?”

“Sinar. Yes—her grandmother. I’ve been waiting for Volog to make the connection. He’ll consider it useful when dealing with Rohan.”

“I don’t wonder. But your Sioned—or perhaps I should say
Rohan’s
Sioned—she’s the first one to show the signs?”

She nodded. “But sometimes it appears in families with no history of it at all.”

“You like things in a neat pattern,” Lleyn observed. “Life does not often oblige.”

“Life can be nudged here and there.”

“As with Rohan and Sioned?”

The singing had stopped, and they were now being presented with a towering pastry, a fabulous concoction of crust and fruit and sauce shaped like a fanciful hilltop castle. Lleyn and Andrade nodded their approval and it was taken to the next table.

“What do you plan for them, Andrade?” the old prince went on. “A line of
faradhi
princes? The others aren’t going to like that.”

“I do as the Goddess bids me,” she replied coldly.

“I have never believed in revealed truth,” he commented slyly. “It takes work and experimentation and confirmation to produce knowledge. Are Rohan and Sioned your experiment, Andrade?”

“You presume too much, Lleyn.”

“So do you.” He poured himself more wine. “I’m too old to be concerned for my own position. My son Chadric will come after me, and his sons after him—because you
faradh’im
left Dorval behind and will never return.”

“Now
you’re
the one looking for a pattern. Why do you think we won’t return to the places of our past?”

“For the simple reason that it
is
the past—and because, quite frankly, I would never allow it.” He regarded her thoughtfully.

“That’s why I like young Rohan. He wants to change things for the better, and he refuses to look back to the past. But his plans may not coincide with yours, Andrade.”

“My plans aren’t something I care to make common knowledge,” she muttered.

“Ah, but it’s the knowledge that counts, isn’t it? You Sunrunners rejected the isolation of selfish knowledge and chose to live on the continent, to disperse yourselves in service to the princedoms. Knowledge is useless unless it’s shared. And
that
should be the basis for desiring
faradhi
children of this marriage. The ancient Sunrunner seemed to know that one cannot stand apart from life, and became the living link between the lands. Now you would link them to royal blood. You want things dangerous to the other princes, Andrade.”

She knew from long experience that she could not stare him down the way she did nearly everyone else. That made him valuable. “Has age made you a philosopher then, my lord?” she asked sharply.

“One of its few advantages.” He paused. “There’s another rumor I’d like clarified, if you would. It’s said that Roelstra made use of one of your own. I won’t ask how. But I can see that it frightens you. It means you Sunrunners are vulnerable.”

“And you know all about vulnerability, sitting there on your impregnable island!”

“Peace, Andrade. I’m vulnerable, too, you know. I seek change. Old as I am, I’m yet young enough to relish upheaval when it leads to betterment. That’s a dangerous thing in any person, but in a prince it’s unforgivable.” He smiled. “I’ll support Rohan, never fear. Aside from the fact that I’m fond of him, I happen to agree with him.”

“Then why are we discussing this?”

“Because of that vulnerability I spoke of before. It’s an important thing, for it prevents tyranny. You and I know that you Sunrunners have your weak places. The other princes do not. Both of those things are your strength. Because you know yourselves to be vulnerable, you don’t overreach—which might possibly expose your weaknesses, and shatter the power you have with the princedoms. Consider Roelstra in the present case. He did not know his plans for Rohan were vulnerable to one fire-haired girl. Thus he’s attempted tyranny, and failed—and is now very dangerous. Consider also yourself. You didn’t know your people were vulnerable to whatever Roelstra did to your
faradhi
—and that’s failure, too.”

“Are you calling me a tyrant?”

“You have the potential,” he replied equably. “Let me annoy you a moment longer, and then we will do nothing but gossip about our neighbors. I describe to you a circle, Andrade. At the bottom, you Sunrunners were isolated and impotent. You are climbing the arc now until you approach the highest point of the circle. But there is another half to it—the fall from power.”

“I don’t want power,” she protested.

“Not for yourself, perhaps. But for your kind. I’m glad you
faradh’im
are in the world, giving of your skills and knowledge. But do not attempt to
become
the world, Andrade.”

“The rest of you have made a proper mess of it.”

“Do you think you will do any better?”

Andrade pondered this as a section of the pastry tower was set before her, a spire with a spun-sugar flag flying from a candy pole. “I don’t know,” she said to Lleyn in all honesty. “But I intend to try.”

Roelstra endured the feasting, sustained by his hate, and spent the dinner counting up those he intended to destroy. It was an interesting list, worthy of a High Prince. Andrade was at the top, followed by that Sunrunner witch in her white-and-silver dress and emeralds who sat next to Rohan looking like a living flame. The princeling was next, and for good measure his sister and her insufferable lord as well. He would obliterate the entire family—leaf, branch, and root. Ianthe would help him do it, for she had learned life’s most important lesson: how to hate. He would teach her its real power; how it could be fostered in others; how to create suspicion and division through skillful use of half-truths and insinuations, the manner in which he had presided over the princedoms for years. She would be an apt pupil, for of all his daughters she was the most like him. But because of this, he would never fully trust her.

As soon as he could decently do so, he left Clutha’s absurd silken grotto. No one would expect him to stay. There had been lifted brows at his appearance here tonight, for all knew of the “tragedy” on board his ship. On the walk back to his tent he consoled himself with the memory of Palila’s screams as he set fire first to the hangings of the bed and then to her lovely hair. It had burned like fine dry grass across a prairie. Roelstra found it a great pity smoke had so quickly filled the room, forcing him to leave; he would have enjoyed watching her flesh crisp.

After dismissing his servants, he gave orders that the single male visitor who would come to his tent that night be admitted without challenge. Then he reclined in a silken chair, his head resting against a cushion. When he closed his eyes he could see Sioned. Last night she had been within his grasp. No woman had ever refused him before, and she would live to regret it—live a very long time in the most exquisite torments he could devise, after he had possessed her in all the ways imagination could suggest.

Roelstra could wait for his vengeance, however. This was the essential aspect of hate that Ianthe had yet to learn. Rohan would be expecting a move against his lands, and with every season that passed, every year without a blow struck back, the princeling’s nerves would tighten another notch. Clever as he was, not even Rohan would be able to guess the direction from which Roelstra’s vengeance would come.

The candles had burned low behind their colored crystal screens by the time he heard quiet footsteps outside. He lifted his head and assumed the pose of a prince granting favors, determined that the man he had summoned would not consider himself in a position to bargain. But the expected visitor did not enter his tent. Rohan did.

They stared at each other for some time in silence, taking measure not as princes but as sworn enemies. Roelstra noted that the youth had taken off his fine clothes and jewels, and was clad in a simple dark outfit and scuffed black boots. He did not want to remember the strength of Rohan’s grip, the lithe muscular body. Bred to the harsh Desert, this man took wealth for granted but would never be softened by luxury. The High Prince realized that he no longer thought of Rohan as a boy. A man had been created during the days of the
Rialla
—mature, confident, and powerful.

“Tell me about the
dranath,
” Rohan said at last.

“Still feeling it, is she?” Roelstra shrugged. “She’ll survive.”

“It’s grown only in the Veresch. There’s nothing to counteract it, if that’s what you’re after. She’ll suffer until it’s cleaned out of her blood.” Roelstra smiled. “There’s more over in the desk—second drawer at the back. I didn’t give her quite enough to addict on a first dose, but she may relish another taste.”

“What does it do?”

“Haven’t you been listening? It addicts, worse than wine to a man or woman with that weakness. Because once it has strong hold, stopping the dose kills.”

“You used it on the other
faradhi
to control him.”

“Of course.”

Never relinquishing Roelstra’s gaze, Rohan moved to the desk, opened it, and felt around for the small packet. He slipped it into his tunic pocket. “I’ll take this.”

“There’s more where it came from, but only I know where to get it and how to refine it. It was Palila’s gift to me, the knowledge of
dranath
—poor darling.”

The blue eyes regarded him coldly. “Butcher.”

“She deserved to die. So do you, but much more slowly than she. Now that you have what you came for, get out.”

“I wanted this, yes,” Rohan said slowly. “But I also wanted to look at you one last time.”

“And which of us will die before the next
Rialla,
do you think?” Roelstra chuckled.

“I don’t have to kill you. Much as you need killing, Roelstra, all I have to do is break you.” The finely shaped lips curved into an unpleasant smile. “And I
will
break you.”

“Try,” Roelstra invited.

“My word on it.” Rohan gave him a mocking little bow and disappeared.

Roelstra folded his arms and leaned back to wait. After a time he heard more footsteps that announced the arrival of his originally intended guest. He called to the guard, who entered and stood at attention.

“Bring my daughter Ianthe here at once.”

“Yes, your grace.”

The man who stood just inside the tent flaps was thin, intense, with a ritual scar on his chin like all his noble Merida relations. He frowned at Roelstra. “A woman? Here? What help could she be to us?”

The High Prince smiled. “Beliaev, my dear scion of a dead dynasty—you have yet to meet my daughter.”

T
he journey back to Castle Crag was as long and difficult as any of his enemies could have wished on High Prince Roelstra. Denied Radzyn’s strong, fleet horses, he had to make do with lesser animals. Without baggage carts of his own, he had to wait while Prince Clutha rounded up wains sturdy enough for the hard roads through the mountains. The delay meant that Roelstra was caught in the first torrents of autumn while negotiating a pass treacherous enough even in summer. Rain tumbled mud and rock down the cliff sides to block the trail, drench everyone, and make a journey of twelve days in good weather into one lasting over thirty. When at last the exhausted party reached Castle Crag, Roelstra locked himself in his chambers with Beliaev and Princess Ianthe in attendance, and emerged several days later in a temper only slightly less foul than the one he’d taken in with him.

The journey back to Stronghold was of an entirely different nature. Lady Andrade accompanied Rohan to a remote hilltop just inside the Desert border where, surrounded by family and friends and with the Faolain River singing below them in the sunshine, the Lady of Goddess Keep celebrated her nephew’s marriage to his red-haired Sunrunner witch. Afterward she returned to the great castle on the western shore of Ossetia with her
faradh’im
while the prince and new princess made a leisurely trip back to their fortress. Rohan then locked himself in his chambers with Sioned and emerged several days later looking sunnily pleased with himself and all the world.

By the following spring, Ianthe was established in Feruche Castle. There was no proof—not that anyone expected to discover any—that she was behind the Merida attack on Tiglath that season. Young Lord Eltanin, flushed with pride in his beautiful wife and their expectations of an heir, fought off the Merida with assistance from Rohan’s armies and his father-by-marriage’s money. Faced with three hundred troops and the knowledge that Jervis of Waes would provide endless supplies to keep his daughter’s new home safe, the Merida withdrew. They marched back to their northern wastes and seethed, making occasional forays into Rohan’s territory and trusting that time, Roelstra, and Ianthe would work in their favor.