Perhaps—if I become Lightborn—she will look kindly upon me. Perhaps, if she is not betrothed already …
In the castel, as on the farms which made up the estates which made up the domain of Caerthalien, betrothals came early, for what better way to seal a contract or to plan for the future? One might set aside a betrothal in the name of greater fortune, or if those promised to it disliked the idea enough to win their parents’ agreement. But the most certain way to break a promise, a handfasting, or even marriage itself, was a Bonding. Not even a Lord of the Line Direct could stand against the magic that bound Bondmates together for the rest of their lives. Such unions were deeply blessed, but the sorcery that tied soul and soul together created a binding so deep and true that one heart could not continue to beat if the other was stilled. Thurion well recalled the day when Henion (Bonded, as all knew, to Aglahir) had been plowing the field with a new team and had fallen and been trampled by the young, skittish beasts. Though Thurion had only been a child, he remembered how Aglahir had run screaming from the main house to the field and found Henion, though the fields were far and only the Bond had given her knowing. Henion had not survived to see the next day’s dawn, and Aglahir had been dead by the following nightfall.
So though the first time he saw Varuthir Thurion thought he had seen his heart’s twin, his destined Bondmate, he was grateful to realize he had not. This did not keep him from adoring her in silence and secret.
When at last the great day came for their departure, there were wonders enough to distract Thurion from the contemplation of his love. Not only were they to travel with a company of knights—a thing he had known already—but Caerthalien’s heir, Prince Runacar, was to escort them. The prince was a glorious figure in Caerthalien livery, with armor enameled just the shade of his surcoat and a great black destrier who pawed the flagstones and snorted steam from his nostrils. Thurion was just as glad to be riding the gentle mare Filioniel Horsemaster had chosen for him, for he had grown fond of her, and he could tell she liked him as well.
On the journey to Caerthalien he and Komen Radanir had stopped each night at a farmstead or manor, but on the journey to the Sanctuary of the Star they would sleep in pavilions, just as the knights did when they went off to war. On the road, the four Candidates were much in one another’s company and Thurion fell even more deeply into love with Varuthir, though she spoke few words to anyone and seemed to wear grief like a heavy weight.
Ten days’ travel saw the convoy deep in the Unclaimed Lands that bordered the forests surrounding the Sanctuary. Runacarendalur had escorted four previous groups of Candidates to the Sanctuary of the Star: even in the depths of war, Candidates from every House made the journey, for nowhere else could those with the Light receive training, and without the Lightborn there would be no one to Heal the sick and the injured. To make the fields bear fruitfully, to enchant stone and wood and cloth to endure, to do all the thousand tasks that required Magery. For that reason, even when House and warring House met upon the road to the Sanctuary gates, they nearly always passed one another in peace.
And in the gap between “nearly” and “always” fell reason enough for Caerthalien to send Runacarendalur forth a full moonturn early. He would gladly have brought an escort of a hundred, but to do so would be to reveal the thing Caerthalien needed to hide—that Farcarinon’s last daughter traveled with them.
She was too tempting a prize.
Knowing it was only a fantasy, Vieliessar spent the days of her journey hoping for some reprieve from the future she saw before her. There’d been a hundred chances on the journey to run. But the problem remained: where would she go, and how would she gain vengeance on Caerthalien?
Again and again she’d come to the very edge of wishing Ladyholder Glorthiachiel had never told her who she was—but to wish that would be to deny her father, her mother, her House. And she could not. House and kin were sacred. Vengeance was sacred. She would have learned that same lesson in Aramenthiali. In Vondaimieriel. In Sarmiorion.
In Farcarinon.
Even if she managed to escape to another House and persuade its lord to grant her knightly training, the outcome would be much the same as if she remained in the Sanctuary of the Star: if and when she fought, she would fight for the House to which she had pledged her fealty. Not for Farcarinon. Farcarinon would still be unavenged.
No. She must watch, and wait, and plan. No matter how much she loathed the thought, her best—her only—chance to be avenged on her parents’ murderers was to continue to the Sanctuary of the Star.
Four more days of travel would see them at the Sanctuary, and the last of them would be spent in the Flower Forest that surrounded the Sanctuary of the Star. Thurion had stretched his eyes at the thought of a Flower Forest so large it would take a whole day to ride through it, and the prince had laughed and said Caerthalien’s eastern reaches held Flower Forests greater than that.
Thurion had looked to Varuthir to see if she thought this as great a wonder as he, yet she seemed not to have heard Prince Runacarendalur’s words. She stared off into the distance and her face was still with grief.
He knew she walked the bounds of the camp each night until the spell-lamps were covered and all composed themselves for sleep. In the first days he had been too tired to do anything but seek his bed after the meal, but when that exhaustion had passed, he’d often spent those candlemarks in games or in hearing story-songs of great deeds, for even though Helecanth was very grand, she said she was happy to have the telling of them to fresh ears. But Varuthir had never joined them. It did not seem good to him that something so joyous as this journey should make one so beautiful so sad, and so, this night, he left Athrothir and Berthon to their amusements and sought her out.
Thurion had become accustomed to the sounds of the camp at night—the faint grunts of tethered horses, the grinding sound of grain being chewed, the long sighs of the oxen, the jingle of bridle and clink of stirrup as the sentries rode the bounds. Tonight there was a new scent upon the wind, for one might smell the blooms of a Flower Forest even from so far away. He soon found Varuthir, a dim figure in the darkness, only the silver embroidery on her cloak gleaming in the light from the pavilions.
“You should be happy,” Thurion blurted out when he reached her. It was not what he’d meant to say. He had intended to say he cared for her, and worried about her, and had seen her sadness. He might even have asked if she missed her friends from the castel, for he felt certain she’d had many.
“I?” she asked, turning. The distant glow of the lanterns fell full upon her face, framed in the white fur of her cloak’s hood, and she twined one long ebony braid between her fingers. “I was not born to be happy,” she said in a low voice.
“I don’t know why,” Thurion answered, his tongue stumbling over the words. “To be Called to the Sanctuary of the Star—I always hoped to be summoned there, even if it is only for a year, as it might be, you know, and … Berthon will be made a knight, if he is not found to be Lightborn, but such as I—to become one with the Light is a great honor—” At last he managed to stop talking, cursing his clumsy tongue, for he had meant to offer comfort, and instead he saw Varuthir’s eyes glitter now with tears.
“It is an honor I never sought, nor is it one I shall gain,” she said flatly.
“Have you Seen this?” he blurted. “The dreams that come—if you have Light—they do not matter unless—until—”
But she held up her hand to stop him. “The dreams I held were not of this. I thank you, Thurion, for your kindness,” she added after a pause. “You do not know me, and so it does you honor.”