“You find us in the midst of councils of war.” The King motioned Sindérian and Ruan to be as they were before, likewise taking a seat for himself. “Otherwise, you would never have been kept waiting so long.
My second son, Prince Kivik, is trying to hold a perilous position at Tirfang in the Drakenskaller Mountains, and we have been mustering a great host to ride to his rescue. It leaves tomorrow at first light.”
At the names “Tirfang” and “Drakenskaller” Sindérian sat bolt upright in her chair. A series of images burned in her brain like cold fire: A long white road. A fortress with high, glittering walls. A cache of deadly jewels. Yet how could the mention of things she had never seen, places she had never been, conjure up such vivid and terrifying pictures?
“I have been told your names, and who you are,” King Ristil went on. “But I can only guess what brings you so far in such perilous times.”
Sindérian took in a deep breath and came straight to the point. “Nineteen years ago a wizard of my order was travelling in the north with an infant in his care. Both were lost. Yet we have reason to believe they may have come here.”
A frown touched the King’s face and then was gone. “I have been expecting you, or messengers like you, ever since Aethon of Sibri was here last autumn. But of course I have known for much longer that someday someone from Thäerie or Leal would come asking questions about a wizard and a child.”
“Then Éireamhóine was here?” A glance flashed between Sindérian and her father. “Then how…That is, why did no one know? Wizards have been searching for him all these years. The Nine Masters themselves have concentrated so much of their thought and will on finding him that any mention of his name, were it only a whisper, should have reached them long ago.”
“But in this case he came late at night and few people knew of it.” Ristil was silent for a time, creasing his brow, perhaps dredging up memories that would have grown dim after so much time. Finally he spoke.
“Nineteen years ago, we admitted visitors far more readily. The wizard arrived one night between midnight and dawn. Only the guards who had escorted him in knew that he had come, and I swore both men to secrecy afterward. To me, Éireamhóine was already well known, for he had visited here often when I was a boy, and I was shocked to find him so changed. In truth, I hardly recognized him at first, he appeared so wild and strange. And what the guards did not know, because he revealed it to me alone, was that he had carried an infant in with him, hidden under his cloak.
“When the guards left us,” the King continued, “he allowed me a glimpse of the child: a tiny but most beautiful little girl. He was confused in his mind and rambling in his speech, so that it was a long time before I had the whole story from him or heard how he had been separated from the nursemaid in the Cadmin Aernan, how difficult it had been caring for the child afterward.”
Leaning forward in her chair, Sindérian opened her mouth to ask about Luenil, but then thought better of it and subsided. Prince Ruan, who had finally settled on a bench by the windows, shifted his jewel-bright gaze in her direction, as if he were aware of things unsaid though unable to divine their meaning.
After another pause, the King took up the story again. “Éireamhóine told me that his powers were waning, were almost spent. When the last spark was gone, he knew he would not be able to protect the child. Even worse, he was unsure if any of the Furiádhin had survived the avalanche, afraid that one or two might be following him, still intent on destroying Nimenoë’s daughter. He thought that his company endangered the child, as even a ruined wizard must attract Ouriána’s attention sooner or later. And so he had made up his mind to leave her with some trustworthy person, then lose himself in some distant part of the world. Pehlidor he said, or perhaps he might travel south, where the Dark Lady and her servants would never expect him to go. He asked me to take the child under my protection, and after thinking the matter over I consented.”
“That was generous—but very dangerous!” Sindérian could only marvel at the courage that had prompted him to accept such a perilous charge for the sake of people half a world away.
He gave a slight shrug of his broad shoulders. “I had my own reasons for doing so. We remember the Old Alliance here in the north even if we no longer honor it. And of course, Ouriána of Phaôrax is nobody’s friend. But most of all, I agreed to take the child because—by a coincidence so great as to be miraculous—my own sister had just given birth to twins only hours before, under this very roof.”
As he spoke, Ristil began idly shuffling through the stacks of parchment. “You will understand that it was necessary to bring my sister into our confidence. When Éireamhóine told her his tale, she sat up in bed and cried out that we should not turn the baby away—no, not if it were the spawn of dragons!”
“But by that time Guenloie would have been older than the other two children by many months,” said Sindérian, her dark eyebrows twitching together. “How could anyone mistake her for a newborn infant?”
“Éireamhóine thought there was some strong magic protecting the child, keeping her small—easily hidden, easily overlooked—while the journey and the danger continued. She grew as the other children grew after she came here.
“And it was not many months,” the King added, with a faint smile, “before people began to notice that Winloki, as we named her, was a most precocious infant, walking and talking at a very early age, long before her supposed brother and sister.”
“And Éireamhóine? Have you seen him since?” Sindérian asked eagerly. “Do you know where he is now?”
“No,” said the King. “But your wizards should be looking for a bewildered old man, not the Éireamhóine of former days.”
Ristil sighed, put down the papers he had been handling. A pair of lines between his eyes deepened. “The child that he left behind came to be as dear to me as my own daughters. Yet I have always known, my sister has always known, that a higher destiny awaited her elsewhere, and that someday she would leave us.”
Sindérian’s hands closed on the arms of the chair; she leaned forward in her seat. “Then as you are already resigned to losing the Princess, may we see her? May we tell her how sorely she is needed in the south?”
Again the shadow of a frown passed over the King’s fair, strong-featured face. “I wish that I could grant you that favor, but Winloki is not here,” he said gravely.
Stunned, Sindérian sat back in the chair—fearing the worst, fearing they had come too late. She forced words out from a suddenly dry throat. “Not here? But where—”
“She is, or was, at Tirfang with my son and his men. But the messages we received from the Drakenskallers are now many days old. The Old Fortress may already be under attack, may already have fallen. I can’t even tell you if she is still alive.”
Sindérian and the Prince sat rigid and speechless with shock and disappointment, absorbing the news.
Faolein fluttered down from his perch and landed on the back of his daughter’s chair. Although she was aware of him, no thoughts passed between them; it seemed that he had no words either. Up on the mantelpiece the last few grains of sand slipped through the neck of the hourglass.
Prince Ruan was the first to break the silence. “I’ve heard tales of the Old Fortress at Tirfang. They call it invincible; they say that it never has and never could be taken by force.”
“So they say,” the King answered grimly. “But they also say that the fortress itself is perilous and unchancy, that those who have tried to defend it have always failed. It’s as if the place breeds treasons and misfortunes like a disease.” Then his shoulders went back and his chin came up; his light eyes blazed.