Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (63 page)

“Do I wait for Lord Chaynal to attack first? No, I’m too clever to think he’d put himself in the wrong. Do I wait for Rohan to arrive so I can destroy him and his armies in a single battle? No, for I know the princeling will be surrounded by a wall of swords and shields. Then why do I wait on my side of the river like a sandstorm brewing in the Desert?”

He chuckled and drank, conceding that if Jastri had a virtue, it was his ability to provide the finest of Syrene wines. Probably his only virtue, Roelstra added with a sigh as he heard a renewed commotion outside his tent. A squire slunk in and bowed, a convenient target for the High Prince’s temper.

“Am I to have no peace at all? What is it now?”

“Forgive me, your g-grace, I—”

The tent flaps parted, to reveal a woman he had thought never to see again. She made a cursory obeisance, her dark eyes insolent and cool, and said, “Welcome me back, Father.” She held up her hands, and he saw the three Sunrunner’s rings on her fingers.

Guards stood behind her, wary and uncertain. Roelstra waved them and the squire out of the tent. “Do you think my daughter is here to kill me? Get out, all of you! I’ll speak alone with the princess.”

Pandsala seated herself without permission and folded her hands in her lap. “Thank you for my title, Father. With that and my rings, I should have no more trouble making these people obey me.”

“Why should they obey you, and to what purpose?”

She laughed. “Lord of Storms, what do you think these last six years have been like, walled up with Lady Andrade? Even if you’d turned me out—which you’re too smart to do, having seen these rings—and even if you’d had me killed, it’d be preferable to what I’ve endured.”

He regarded her silently, allowing his suspicions to show on his face. At last, he said, “You’ve not aged well, my dear. Andrade and her pious household have not agreed with you any more than they would with me. I don’t trust you, Pandsala. But you don’t expect me to, I take it. What do you want?”

“My freedom. And my position as your daughter, and a princess. I can be of use to you, Father, and you know it.” She smiled. “You’re showing your age, too, you know. White hairs here, more flesh there, lines and wrinkles. Are you still wasting your time and energy trying to beget a son, or have you decided Ianthe’s brats will make princes after you’re dead?” Laughing, she went on, “Princes! Goddess, that’s funny! They’ll rip your lands apart from one end to the other! Anything Ianthe gave birth and suck to would turn out vile.”

“She and I have that in common,” Roelstra observed coldly. “I gave your little sister the name I should have given you—having betrayed first me, and now Andrade.”

“You’re right, I don’t expect you to trust me. But I can be useful, Father. And you were never stupid.”

They watched each other for some time—Roelstra calculating, Pandsala confident with the assurance of one who had nothing to lose.

“Very well,” he said abruptly. “Serve me. But trust in one thing. If you betray me again, your years with Andrade will seem a carnival of delight compared to what will happen to you.”

“How could I doubt it, Father?” She smiled again, stretched languidly. “May I share your breakfast? It was a longer trip than I thought from where I left Andrade and Urival and Chiana.”

He gave a start and saw her satisfaction at his reaction. But before he could ask his questions, a guard burst into the tent, barely remembered to salute, and gasped out, “Your pardon, your grace—there’s a rider here who demands audience at once!”

Roelstra half-rose to his feet, then sank back into his chair, slanting a look at his daughter. “Leave me. I’ll call for you again shortly.”

She arched her brows, but left the tent without comment. Roelstra gestured and the rider was brought in. When the man had given his news, he summoned Pandsala again and met her outside in the sunlight.

“I do intend to use you, my dear,” he told her. “And it seems I must trust you a little in order to do so. Show me now that you’re worth those rings you wear. Find Rohan.”

“I’m an apprentice, not a fully trained
faradhi!
”

He relished the apprehension in her eyes. “Then train yourself, and quickly. I want to know where Rohan is. Do it, Pandsala—or find out what happens when your father is angry.” He smiled, menace in his eyes.

She swallowed hard, then faced the sunlight and closed her eyes. He watched her tremble and wondered why of all his daughters by Lallante this was the one with the gift. Then again, had it been Ianthe—

Pandsala gasped and her eyes flew open. “I saw them! Rohan and the
faradhi
princess—and dragons, out in the Desert—I saw them!”

Roelstra nodded, pleased that she had passed the test. “Excellent.”

“But I don’t understand!” she cried. “Why did Ianthe let them go?”

“For reasons of her own.”

“You knew about this?”

“The courier who just arrived told me.” He took her back into the tent and poured wine for them both. “The night before she released him, the signal fires were lit. All across the Veresch to Castle Crag, where a boat waited to sail down the Faolain more swiftly than a rider could go.”

“But Lord Chaynal is upriver—”

“Precisely. Horses were waiting. And now I know what Lord Chaynal does not.” He smiled, thinking that only he and Ianthe shared another interesting piece of information, which would remain secret until the time was right. He, Ianthe—and Rohan.

Pandsala took a swallow of wine—and suddenly turned white, staring into the cup in horror. Roelstra choked laughing.

“Oh, that’s rich! What did you expect—
dranath?
Don’t be an idiot, Pandsala! When did I have the chance to drug the wine?” He took the cup from her and drank, mocking her.

She calmed down, but the fear was still in her eyes. He enjoyed it, knowing she would not eat or drink without first having to overcome terror of the drug. The constant uncertainty would keep her honest, though he would never really trust her.

“So we’ve each passed the first test,” he told her. I’ve restrained myself from binding you to me with
dranath,
and you’ve confirmed on the sunlight something I already knew.” He lifted his cup to her. “Shall we drink to mutual trust, my dear?”

The noon sun beat down on Rohan’s unprotected head and back. He knew they had to stop soon and find shelter from the worst of the day’s heat. The morning had passed in absolute silence as they rode past the empty garrison below Ferache and out into the Desert, keeping close to the hills where they could find a little shade. He led the way, shamed by his gratitude that he did not have to look at his wife.

Usually when he was confused or troubled, a ride through the stark beauty of his lands soothed him. Where others saw only arid emptiness, he saw freedom. The vast golden sands and endless sky reassured him that there were answers to be found if only he searched, the way one had to search for water in the Desert. There were no limits here, not to the land or to his dreams. A man could find liberty here to think, to feel, to live.

The Desert threatened him now. The Long Sand was too great, the skies too huge, all of it looming around him, over him, alternating cries to preserve their freedom with shrieks that he was alone, alone, with no hope of answers. The dreams were gone like water into the sand. He could find no strength here and he had no right to seek strength in Sioned.

Rohan turned the horse to the hills, eyes scouring them for cool shelter. He heard the soft shussh of hooves behind him, the muted jingle of the bridle as the horse tossed its head. He could not look around, could not look at his wife. He squinted up at the sky instead, where a dark shape had taken wing.

Dragon.

He caught his breath, heard Sioned’s small murmur of surprise behind him. One dragon, wings beating against the blue, flying toward the near dunes. Sweet Goddess, Rohan thought, how could anything be so beautiful?

But when another dragon soared into view and screamed out a challenge to the first, he realized what was about to happen. “Sioned! Hurry!”

He kicked the mare forward, heading for a shallow cave made by an overhang of streaked brownish rock. Once inside, they stayed on their horses, trying to calm the terrified animals as dragon shrieks split the air. Sioned huddled low on her horse’s neck, reins drawn so tight that the gelding’s chin was against its chest. Rohan struggled to control his own horse, turning it around and around in the narrow space with the reins gripped nearly at the bridle bit.

Sioned cried out as her gelding reared and she hit her head against the low ceiling. Rohan made a wild grab and missed, nearly toppling from his own horse. Sioned fell, one booted foot twisting as it caught in the stirrup, then slid to the ground and lay still. The gelding, free now of any restraints, galloped headlong from the shelter.

Rohan leaped down, reins wound around his hand as his own horse plunged, wanting to follow the frantic flight of the gelding. “Sioned—” He bent down, touched her face with his free hand, battling the mare all the while. “Sioned!” Screams of dragons and horse echoed off the rock and the mare nearly broke his wrist in her desperation to be free. He groaned in pain and let her bolt.

Sioned’s eyes opened as his arms went around her, glassy with pain. “Hush,” he told her. “You’ve got a bump on the head and a wrenched ankle. Don’t move.”

She took his hand, inspecting the leather burns, then glanced out at the sand. Very softly, she said, “It doesn’t matter.”

The words enraged him for reasons he did not comprehend. He sprang to his feet, glaring at her. “It doesn’t matter!” he shouted, shaking with fury. “Nothing matters, does it? Not a damned thing! Look at us!” he roared, lost to all control for the first time in his life. “Do
we
matter?”

She gazed up at him with a terrible calm, and said nothing. He swung around, braced his trembling body against the rocks, and stared out at the Desert where the dragons stood, wings spread, bellowing with a fury to match his own. They lunged for each other and the battle began.

Rohan stood transfixed. It was his hellish dream again, only this time the dragons were outside. The scenes stitched into the tapestries came alive. One dragon greenish-bronze, the other brown with patches of iridescent black on his head and flanks, both with jaws wide and dripping blood. The undersides of their spread wings shimmered in the heat. They came at each other again and again, drawing more blood, the stink of it and their maleness thick on the sand-heavy air. They reared up, slashed at each other, aroused and obscene and primal—and beautiful. The violence of their screams and thrusts quivered through him, spread down his arms and thighs, heated his blood. He made a guttural sound low in his throat and dug his fingers into the rocks, eyes slitted.

The touch on his arm went through him like a swordstroke. He stared into her green eyes, so quiet and cool, but as a tremor shot through him it found its answer in her and she stepped back, afraid.

“Rohan—”

He crushed her to his chest. For an instant she sobbed and clung to him, and the savagery ran like wildfire through them both. He bent her backward, curving her spine, forcing her head back, and took her lips as he intended to take her body.

She wrenched away from him panting. “No!” she spat, eyes blazing, and he slapped her so hard her head snapped around and blood trickled from her lip.

“You will not rut with me the way you did with her!” she screamed.

A dragon’s death howl poured into his brain and he staggered. There was hate in Sioned’s eyes, her fingers curling into claws that would rip his eyes out if he touched her again. Rohan choked and stumbled away from her, out onto the sand, to his knees. Nearby the victorious dragonsire beat his great, bloodied wings and soared away, leaving a broken corpse in the sand.

I am worse than a barbarian. I am a savage.
All his pretenses of civilization, rationality, honor—they were nothing. He had spared Ianthe when he should have killed her, when everything demanded that he kill her—and why? For the son Sioned would never give him. He was a savage with a taste for rape, lusting to reclaim what was his, what others had taken. Lust, possession, jealousy, rape. What had he become? Only what he had been all along but had never had the courage to admit.

The hill shadows gradually stole over him, cooled the sunburned skin of his back and shoulders. He sat up, dully noting that it was only a little while after noon, with a long time to wait before starting across the Desert again. On foot. At night. When they would have a chance to survive.

He laughed then, a harsh and grating sound that snagged in his throat. Survival. What a splendid joke. He could think these things, feel these things, do these things, and still his stubborn fool of a brain told him what was necessary in order to survive. It really was hilarious. He clasped his knees to his chest and laughed, rocked back and forth, threw his head back and shouted his mirth to the sky.

Sioned huddled in the mouth of the cave, hands over her ears to shut out the horrible laughter. She ought to go to him, knew she should, but could not. He terrified her.

When she heard silence again, she forced her aching body to rise, steadying herself against the rock walls. He was pulled in around himself, head on his knees, the wound at his shoulder weeping blood in a thin, trickle down his back. Shadows pooled around him, lengthened as she watched for she knew not how long.

Finally she moved, limped across the sand. He was shaking, muscles rippling in spasms beneath his skin. She knelt, unable to speak or touch, and his head lifted. His eyes had gone dark and blank.

“We’re not going to die, you know.”

She nodded wordlessly, not understanding.

“I wanted to. But I’m too much of a coward.” A long breath shuddered out of him. “I have to live, so I can kill.
There’s
irony for you.”