Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (6 page)

“It wasn’t him, it was me,” Sioned told him, then burst out, “and Cami tells me I have nothing to fear!”

“If you do,” Ostvel murmured, “it’s fear of too much brightness. Too much Fire. Not the shadows, Sioned—never those.”

“I could get as easily lost in the one as in the other,” she whispered, staring down at her hands.

Rohan managed to elude his aunt successfully until the evening after the dragon hunt. Andrade, after sending Tobin to rest and recover from the drain on her energies, had sought the young prince but had not found him. Her dignity forbade asking anyone for his whereabouts. She had a reputation to maintain, after all, and refused to admit that she was unable to find one man in a finite area. Irked at his ability to vanish when he wished—and entirely familiar with it from his childhood—she decided to stubborn him out, knowing full well that
he
would choose the time and place of their meeting.

She spent part of the day with Tobin, giving her niece a deserved explanation. Chay was sleeping off physical and emotional exhaustion—and all the wine he’d drunk on an empty stomach, trying to forget the sight of Zehava being gored by the dragon—when Andrade appeared at the door of Tobin’s chambers late in the morning. The two women went down into the gardens for a private talk.

“It was very strange,” Tobin admitted when Andrade asked her reaction to what they had done the previous evening. “I always wondered how
faradh’im
worked with the sunlight.”

“Don’t think that because you helped me once you’ll be able to do it on your own,” Andrade warned. “The balance is a delicate one, and control of it takes a good deal of training.” She paused as a groundskeeper bowed his way out of their presence near the roses. “But I think I’ll have Sioned teach you something about it when she arrives.”

“Is that her name? Sioned?”

“Yes, but accent the second syllable more. ‘Sh-
ned,
’ ” she repeated.

“It’s a lovely name,” Tobin mused. “Does Rohan know yet that he’s expected to add ‘princess’ to it?”

“I thought you’d figure that out. Yes, she’s going to be his wife. He doesn’t know it yet, but he soon will.”

“I liked her. It’s as if I touched her somehow. There were—colors, almost as if I could hold them in my hands. Beautiful colors.”

“I don’t think this kind of touching is completely new to you.” She cocked an eyebrow at the princess.

“Sometimes with Chay I feel something of the same thing,” Tobin said slowly. “Almost as if I’m looking into him and he’s all sorts of colors. Does that mean I can learn to be
faradhi?
”

“Sioned can teach you a little—but no more than that. It’s dangerous.”

“I remember when Kessel got shadow-lost,” she replied quietly. “Mother and I took care of him until he died.”

Andrade glanced away, remembering the handsome young Sunrunner who had been posted here for a time. He had misjudged the light late in the day. Shadow-lost was the most fearful risk
farad-h’im
could run, for thoughts unraveled in darkness never rewove, and colors forgotten in the night never knew sunlight again. The mindless body soon died, its essence having following the sun into the Dark Water.

“Then you know the consequences of overconfidence,” Andrade said. “And speaking of arrogance, Rohan seems to be making quite a game of avoiding me.”

“Mother says he was in Father’s room late last night for a little while. But I don’t know where he is this morning.” She sank down on a bench in the shade. “And before you ask—yes, I know most of his places, and I’m not going to tell you. He’ll appear when he’s ready. Don’t push him, Aunt. Not now. I’m worried about him.”

Andrade sat beside her, shrugging irritably. It was probable that Rohan was in no state to talk to anyone, not even his family, and especially not Andrade. “He’ll have to face me sometime.”

“How dare you imply that he’s a coward!”

“I didn’t. But why isn’t he with Zehava?”

Tobin sighed. “I suppose he’s like me, and can’t believe Father’s dying—not so quickly, or so slowly. Does that make any sense?”

Andrade understood. A strong and vigorous man one day, Zehava was dying the next. Yet life lingered painfully in the ravaged body, refusing to relinquish its hold on flesh.

“In any case, it’s forbidden for the next prince to watch his father die,” Tobin went on.

“That’s a very bad idea. Rohan must watch or all his life Zehava’s image will be in front of him, never really dead and burned.”

Tobin’s black eyes sheened silver with tears, like rain at midnight. “You are the crudest woman I ever knew,” she whispered.

Andrade bit her lip, then grasped her niece’s hand. “Never think I don’t grieve for your father. Zehava is a good man. He gave me you and Rohan to love as I would have loved children of my own. But I am what I am, Tobin. And you and I are both women of consequence with responsibilities. When we have time for it, we feel. But there is no time. Rohan must be told.”

Yet he eluded her for the rest of the morning and afternoon. Andrade grew furious at the dance he was leading her and was reduced to the humiliation of setting one of her Sunrunners outside his chamber door, with orders to report instantly if and when the young prince appeared. Her other
faradh’im
she posted at various places around the keep with identical instructions. But none of them came with news during the whole day.

With the evening, Andrade was exhausted. She had attended Zehava twice, hoping but not really expecting him to awaken, and had sat vigil with Milar for several hours in the suffocating heat. At dusk she decided to go up to the Flametower, where there might be a breath of air to cool her. She opened the door of the uppermost chamber, panting after the climb, and cursed viciously—for Rohan was in the huge circular chamber, alone.

The light from the small fire in the center of the room turned his hair fiery gold and glistened on the sweat that beaded his forehead and the hollow of his throat. As Andrade entered, he glanced up without curiosity from his seat before the little blaze.

“It took you a long time to find me,” he observed.

She resisted the impulse to blister his ears with her reply. Choosing a chair from the few stacked against the far wall, she placed it opposite his at the fire and stared into the flames. “Gracious of you to wish at long last to be found,” she told him in a rigidly controlled voice. “Although this isn’t the most agreeable place for a talk—or the most comfortable.” She gestured to the fire that was kept burning year round.

“Comfortable?” Rohan shrugged. “Perhaps not. I keep seeing Father in the flames.”

“A trifle premature. He’s not dead yet.”

“No. But when I don’t see Father, I see myself.” He rose and paced to the windows, pointing arches left open to whatever wind chose to blow. They circled the room at regular intervals, each one surmounted by a sleeping dragon carved into the stone. Rohan made the circuit slowly, stray gouts of fire-sent breeze ruffling his sweat-damp hair.

“They’ll signal his death from here,” he said musingly. “Build up the fire so high and hot that this room will turn to flames. You can still see the soot from when my grandfather died, and all the other princes of our line, back three hundred years or so. . . .” He swept his fingertips along the walls. “And then I’ll take the spark from here that will light his pyre, and this fire that was his will be put out. Mother and Tobin will clean the floor themselves—did you know that? It should be my wife, but I have no wife. I’ll come up here and light new flames that will eventually become
my
pyre.”

The shadows licked at his face as he talked, a proud and elusive face, not easy to know. But Andrade knew him, and kept silent.

“Someday my son will do for me what I’ll do for Father in a few days. And on it will go, for more generations. All that’s ever left is this.” He held up his blackened fingertips with an unpleasant smile. “Goddess, what a morbid thought!” The smile crumpled as he whispered, “Why does he have to die?”

It was the cry of a boy for the loss of a beloved father, but it was also a moan of dread. There had been a time like this for Andrade, too, over twenty years ago, when the Lord of Goddess Keep had died and she had been chosen to wear the rings in his place. She had been alone.

But there was someone for Rohan to turn to in his need. She caught his gaze and drew it to the flames by the force of her powerful will. Stretching forth one hand to the fire, she whispered Sioned’s name.

Rohan tensed, the pulse beating faster in the hollow of his throat. A face coalesced in the glowing flames, a pale oval of fine bones and green eyes framed in red-gold hair. Andrade held the conjure for a few moments, allowed it to fade, and sank wearily back into her chair.

“Who is she?” the young man breathed.

Andrade said nothing, almost too tired to care if he had any instinct for seeing into his own heart. It was a long while before he spoke again, and when he did his tone was deliberately casual.

“I haven’t seen you do a conjuring since I was eleven years old. You did it then to please a child. I think you did it now to promise me something. What will she be to me, Andrade?”

How odd that he had used Sioned’s word:
promise.
“You already know.”

“You want me to marry a Sunrunner witch?”

“Does the thought of a Sunrunner witch like me frighten you, boy?” she snapped.

“You don’t frighten me, and neither do your kind. But I can’t marry a
faradhi
woman.”

“Isn’t her blood pure enough for you, princeling?”

Rohan’s lips curved in a feral smile she had never seen before. “First let us clarify something. I am neither a ‘boy’ nor a ‘princeling.’ I honor you as my aunt and for your position, but you will remember who I am.”

She gave him an ironic little bow. “And forget whose nose I wiped and whose skinned knees I bandaged.”

All at once he laughed. “Oh, Goddess—I deserved that, didn’t I?” He sat and put his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. “Very well, Andrade, let’s talk things over like rational people instead of arrogant prince and Lady of Goddess Keep. I need an alliance as well as a wife when I marry. What do I gain by taking one of your
faradh’im?
”

“You could do worse. Much worse.” She hid her pleasure at what had just passed between them. Never having suspected him capable of such hauteur, she was glad he could not only use it but laugh at it. Arrogance—or its appearance—would help him rule, but laughter would keep him sane while he did it. “You don’t have any other women in mind, do you?”

“I was bemoaning their lack only yesterday.” He shrugged again. “You know, I’m not quite sure what to feel. I don’t want my father to die. I know I should be terrified of becoming ruling prince—but I’m not. Goddess help me, Andrade, I want the power of it. There’s so much I want to accomplish. But why does Father have to die in order for me to do it?”

“You’re tired of being one step away from the power that is your right. It’s only natural, Rohan, especially when you have dreams. One fire goes out and a different one is lit. You’re eager to try your wings and that’s a very fine trait—”

“In the son of a dragon?” he interrupted.

She grunted her appreciation of the remark. “Let’s leave them out of this for now, shall we? What I meant was that caution in flight is also a good idea.” She paused a moment, then rapped out, “Does the girl repel you?”

“No!” was his quick response. “She’s beautiful!” Then he blushed. “Any fool could see that. Men my age are usually fools about women.”

“So she doesn’t disgust you physically. That’s a start,” Andrade said wryly. “Now that we’ve established her as a woman and not a witch—”

“Have we?” He gave her a tiny smile. “I have your word for it, but the face in the flames said otherwise. If not a witch, then certainly something enchanted. What comes from Goddess Keep that is not?”

“Oh, very pretty,” she mocked, restraining laughter with difficulty, more and more pleased with him. “Have you studied charming phrases, or do they come naturally? As for the girl—she’s a fit mate for a dragon’s son. Your children should be the wonders of the world.”

The hot color came back to his cheeks, the sight an education to Andrade. He rose and went to the windows again, saying with an attempt at nonchalance, “We’ll tithe one of them to you for playing matchmaker.”

“Don’t be facetious.” Waiting until he faced her again, she went on, “Your mention of an alliance is something I’d expect. But you’re so rich that very few could aspire to your hand and your bed.” He did not blush at this reference to sex, and Andrade rightly concluded that the prince could consider such things but the man was shy about them. “Of the great lords and princes, only a few of them have daughters of marriageable age. Most of these are out of the question, being either promised or too ugly or stupid for consideration. None of us wants you tied to a fool.”

“Is that a polite way of saying I’m going to need all the help I can get?”

“You were lonely as a little boy,” she said with a gentleness that surprised her. “I don’t want you to live your manhood lonely as well.” To cover the emotion she continued more briskly, “Of the few eligible ladies, most of them are the High Prince’s daughters.”

Rohan’s face pulled into a grimace. “Thank you, no. The son of the dragon has no wish to marry a daughter of the lizard. I would gladly live my manhood lonely, as you put it, in exchange for the assurance of living it at all.”

“And what do you mean by that?” she asked, wondering if he had figured it out for himself.

He gave her much the same reasoning she had given Milar, and Andrade sent heartfelt thanks to the Goddess. Rohan would not have an easy time of it as ruling prince, but neither would he be the victim of those more clever than he. There would not be many. When he had finished a succinct summation of why his life would be worth less than nothing after he had gotten an heir on one of Roelstra’s daughters, Andrade smiled her approval.