Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll (70 page)

Alasen’s fingers moved convulsively in his own, then went limp. Ostvel waited until he was sure she slept, then rose tiredly to his feet. Joints at knee and shoulder hurt a little in the damp climate of Waes, so different from the hot, dry Desert around Skybowl. The dull aches reminded him of his age, fully twice that of the girl who lay on the couch, resting at last but not at peace. Another small hurt centered in his chest as he gazed down at her youth, her pale, strained face.

He turned to Volog. “She’ll be all right once she’s had a good long sleep, your grace.”

“You must be getting bored by my expressions of thanks,” the prince said wryly. “May I offer you some wine, my lord? We could both use it.”

“At any other time I would accept gladly. But I really ought to go see about my son.”

“Of course. Another time, then.” He escorted Ostvel to the en tryway. “I hate to ask it, but what do you think will happen tomorrow? Andrade is dead, the question of Masul is still unresolved, and I see no way out of this.”

“The High Prince will find one. He always does.” Ostvel thought of the Sunrunner Masul had undoubtedly killed; if it could be proven against him, he would die—pretender to Princemarch or not. “Good night, your grace.”

He met Chay outside the perimeter of Rohan’s tents. “I’ve been checking on our sons,” the older man said. “All serene—though they’ll not be fit to live with tomorrow, if I know
faradh’im.
”

“My diagnosis exactly. I’ve just been with Volog. Alasen was stricken more than the others. She’s had no training.”

Chay looked grim. “Someone must have known her colors. Otherwise Sioned would never been able to find and separate her from the other Sunrunners, and we would have lost her to the shadows.”

Ostvel wondered who it might have been who had touched and remembered Alasen’s unique pattern of light. Then he shrugged; it was enough that someone had. “How does Tobin?”

“Well enough. She knew what was happening the entire time. She’s stronger than she knows, and even stronger than she pretends to be,” he added with a rueful shrug. Then he sobered. “I can’t believe Andrade is gone.”

“Nor I,” Ostvel murmured.

“I can usually guess the workings of Rohan’s mind—though I’m just that half-step behind him much of the time. But I’m damned if I know what he’s going to do now.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe she’s gone,” he repeated.

Ostvel thought it best to change the subject. “Riyan is with Davvi right now?”

“What? Oh—no, he’s with Andry at the Sunrunner tents. Sorin’s going to stay the night with them. Maarken’s holed up in his own tent pretending to be asleep.” Chay grimaced. “I wish I knew what was going on with him. That girl of his is lovely, of course, and Andry tells us she’s perfect for Maarken. But if she’s in love with him,
I
haven’t seen anything of it. Ah, well. They’ll work it out themselves, I suppose.” He squinted at the eastern sky. “Not much left of tonight.”

“I wish there were. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.”

“Will the burning be here, do you think, or at Goddess Keep?”

“I don’t know. Urival will have to decide, but I don’t think he’s in any state to make plans.” He gripped Chay’s arm lightly. “We won’t be, either, unless we at least try to get some sleep.”

“Ostvel, I can’t even begin to think what plans to make—except ones for war.”

 

 

Andry lay sleepless and afraid in the small white tent, not comforted even by his twin’s presence nearby. He had been the one to delineate Alasen’s colors—and Sioned had not been the one to separate her from the rest. Andry had done it himself. Through the shock and agony threatening to tear his mind apart, he had seen the luminous pattern that was Alasen begin to splinter. Panic had shoved aside all else. He had sensed the method used by Sioned to extract Pol from the chaos; instinct had taken over from there. The effort to calm Alasen’s terror and keep her whole had wrung all the strength from him. The next thing he knew he was being helped down the knoll, led by Sorin’s worried, soothing voice.

He could hear his twin’s soft breathing nearby, the rhythm one of wakefulness, not sleep as Riyan’s was in the other bed. Andry sat up slowly, holding his throbbing head between his hands.

“Lie back down, you idiot,” Sorin whispered, instantly at his side. Andry groped for his brother’s warm hand. “What is it, Andry? Are you all right?”

He could not seem to stop the sudden shivering that invaded his bones. “I-I just can’t get warm,” he stammered.

Sorin pulled another blanket from the foot of the bed. “Here, get this wrapped around you. Better?”

“Yes,” he lied.

Sorin crouched beside him as he lay back. “I sent a squire to ask after the others. Everyone’s all right, more or less. But the consensus is that you Sunrunners will be feeling tomorrow as if you’d had a four-day voyage on the open sea.” He pressed Andry’s fingers hard. “Goddess, you scared me!”

He let himself drink in his brother’s solid, sane presence. Gradually the visions faded from his conscious mind, sinking into a locked place where only nightmares would have the key. “Are you going to stay here?” he asked, unashamed of his pleading tone.

“Of course. For one thing, Father ordered it. And for another, do you think I’d leave you when you’re hurt like this?”

Andry remembered a time long ago when they’d both been very small, and the sunlight had suddenly assaulted his mind and gifts with brutal insistence. Frantic, Sorin had stuck to Andry’s side for days thereafter. And there had been a winter when Sorin had sickened with a high fever, and Andry had defied his mother’s prohibition and stayed with him, taking care of him until he was well again. It had been like that all their lives. He pitied those who had no twin, no second self to be there always—but even more, he pitied his brother Maarken for what he must have endured when his twin Jahni had died of Plague.

Sorin squeezed his hands again. “Do you think you can get some sleep now?”

“Yes—no. Andrade’s dead, isn’t she?”

Sorin nodded. “Urival’s with her, and Lleyn, too, I think.” “Be thankful you can’t see and feel what I do, brother,” Andry whispered. “It was like a window of stained glass all in motion, pictures shifting and backlit by Fire—but then it shattered into a million pieces and I had to find the right ones, put the pictures back together again—Sioned did the work, but—I could feel all of them, all of us, the fear of the shadows—”

“It’s all over,” Sorin murmured. “Relax now, Andry. Just close your eyes. I’ll be here.”

He smiled faintly. “I’ve missed you, you know.”

“Me, too. Listen, what if I ask Father if I can come visit you at Goddess Keep for the winter? He and Rohan have to figure out something for me now that I’ve been knighted, after all. That’ll give them some time to think up what they want to do with me.”

“What about what
you
want to do with you?”

“I never really thought about it,” Sorin replied easily. “They won’t set me to the account books at Radzyn Port or anything boring like that, you know.”

He chuckled. “A good thing, too. You never could add without counting on your fingers.”

Sorin grinned, and Andry realized that sibling magic had worked again: his brother had made him laugh.

“It’d be interesting to help with the new port on the Faolain, thought,” Sorin went on. “I like building things. Volog’s got a little manor house that he’s reworking just in case Alasen marries somebody who doesn’t have a place suitable for a princess. I’ve had a great time there—” He broked off suddenly, whispering, “Andry?”

He cursed himself for letting it show on his face. “What?” he asked, trying to imitate Maarken’s most forbidding tone. But evidently his older brother had been the only one to inherit that particular inflection from their father. Sorin simply stared.

“You—and Alasen?” he got out at last. “Oh, Goddess!”

“What’s wrong with me and Alasen?” Andry challenged. “I may not be a prince and I don’t have any lands, but I’m the grandson of a prince and son of the Lord of Radzyn and nephew of—”

“Oh, stop waving your credentials like a trade ambassador,” Sorin chided. “It’s just a surprise, that’s all. I can’t think of her as anything but a pest who grew up sort of pretty. But if you love her—”

“As if there’s a chance,” Andry muttered.

“Why shouldn’t there be? Your lineage is just as good as hers. What’s more, she’s kin to Sioned and Pol. It’d be in the family. I think it’s a great idea. Really.”

“Do you?” He sighed. “Now I just have to convince her, and her father, and her mother, and—”

“You sound like Maarken. You Sunrunners—always finding shadows where there aren’t any. Why shouldn’t she accept you? You’re fairly presentable, you don’t eat with your fingers, you’re smarter than the average plow-elk, and you wash regularly.”

Andry couldn’t help grinning again. “Thanks for building up my confidence!”

Sorin patted his shoulder. “Only too glad to help.” But after a moment he grew serious. “But do you think you could give up being at Goddess Keep? It’s all you’ve ever wanted, Andry. The manor on Kierst is beautiful, and it’d be more than enough for any man to run—and having Allie there would make it perfect for you. And you’d still be a Sunrunner, of course, probably attached to Volog’s court. Actually, it’d be an excellent move politically. If you were their assigned Sunrunner, then when Arlis grows up and inherits the whole island—”

“I’d do it, for her,” Andry said slowly. “But I won’t have to leave Goddess Keep. Alasen will come there, and be trained as a
faradhi.
”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Sorin—I can’t imagine anyone who has the gifts not wanting to use them, to learn everything they can about being a Sunrunner. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world. It’s—”

“I could set that speech to music by now, I’ve heard it so often,” Sorin interrupted, grinning again. “All right, then—take her to Goddess Keep and make a Sunrunner of her.” He wagged a monitory finger in Andry’s face. “But I’ll come along this winter to make sure your intentions toward her stay honorable!”

“Sorin!” Andry protested, outraged until he saw the teasing gleam in his twin’s eyes. He took a playful swing at Sorin in retaliation, but sudden movement jostled the ache in his skull to new and inventive pain. He lay back and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Easy,” Sorin advised, worried again. “You really should try to sleep.”

“Not for the next little while, I’m afraid,” said a quiet voice behind them. They turned, startled, and beheld Prince Lleyn silhouetted in the doorway. “It’s nearly dawn—not enough time for a decent sleep. Lord Andry, if you feel up to it, Lord Urival asks that you attend him. I suggest,” he added dryly, “that you feel up to it.”

Andry hurried into his clothes and exchanged a single bewildered glance with his twin. Following Lleyn from the tent, he asked, “Your grace, do you know why Lord Urival wishes to see me?”

The old man cast him a sidelong look. “You don’t know? Good.”

The words did nothing for Andry’s peace of mind. He entered the huge white pavilion alone, almost trembling with unformed apprehensions. Urival stood before the tapestry partition that hid the sleeping area where Andrade lay. His hands were clasped behind his back, his face utterly still and expressionless but for the sorrow that dulled his golden-brown eyes.

“My lord?” Andry asked hesitantly.

Urival took the few steps that separated them, extending his hands. Andry looked uncomprehendingly at the two bracelets held out to him.

“My Lord,” Urival said quietly.

And then he knew, and there was a roaring in his mind like a storm of Fire. Agony and exultation, grief and joy, terror and desire—Andry took the bracelets, clasped them about his wrists.

“My Lord,” Urival said again, and bowed low to him.

F
ar away in the mountains, Mireva paced and fretted. “Why do they do nothing?” she demanded for the fifth time of Ruval, who lounged near the open door of her dwelling, his chair tilted back and his feet propped against the wall. “This whole day long, nothing but baking in their damned tents like dragons in hatching caves, when they could be—”

Ruval laughed and she rounded on him furiously. He held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Forgive me,” he said, still smiling. “But what else can they do? You saw how they scuttled from tent to tent last night. Today they wait. By sunset they’ll have made the pyre, and before the first star is out they’ll gather to burn the old witch.” He shrugged. “I still don’t understand why you killed her, though.”

“Could there ever be a better time? And when would I get another chance?” She poured wine from a bottle kept cool on the table. “She was vulnerable as she’d never been before. In any case, with her gone and her senile lover distraught, Segev will find it that much easier to steal the scrolls.”