“—but it’s different when he’s being asked to let an enemy army through,” she finished for him. “If the Silver Swords would like to conquer Nantirworiel on their way west, that would be very useful to me.”
“I’ll mention that to Master Kemmiaret,” Thurion answered dryly. “The Houses that have declared for you are all mustering their meisnes. Kerethant and Enerchelimier join Penenjil on the march. I think Artholor and Hallorad also plan to come at once, but they lie east of Penenjil and neither will risk a Windsward crossing or an ascent of the Feinolon Range in bad weather. And if the weather turns early, all of them will stay in the Windsward until spring rather than be forced to winter in the Arzhana.”
“And rather than ask their Lightborn to divert the storm—or open the passes,” Vieliessar said.
“Yes,” Thurion said regretfully. “It is much to ask of them.”
Vieliessar sighed in acceptance. “They will come when they will come. At least they are willing to try.” As much as she might rail against the indecisiveness of the Windsward Houses, she would not herself have chosen a course that would force her army to overwinter in a hostile place. As if I had any choice about it, she thought wryly.
“I would conjure summer myself, if it would get me to you faster,” Thurion said. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I, you,” she answered, swallowing hard. “I wish you were here now. I could use your wisdom.”
“Any aid I can give you from this distance, I give you gladly. You know that,” he answered.
“I hope I shall always know enough to value my true friends,” she replied impulsively. The grief and longing she heard in her words was so raw it made her wish she hadn’t spoken.
“I promise I will always be that,” Thurion answered quietly. “But come. Tell me what you need.”
She had tried to reach him on impulse, not truly believing she would manage it, and the pleasure in the contact had allowed her to forget the war for a few moments. But now—
“I need to find the Flower Forest of Tildorangelor,” she blurted. “And I have no idea where to look!”
There was a long, meditative pause.
“I don’t know where it is either, Vielle. But I could find it with enough time—and power,” Thurion answered.
“What are you saying?” Vieliessar asked sharply.
“You took the same lessons I did from Rondithiel Lightbrother, and I am sure he has not changed his lectures from one century to another,” Thurion said.
“Probably not,” Vieliessar said. “And since he is here, I can hear them again any time I wish to.”
Thurion laughed. “I would not dare dream of such great fortune! You are truly blessed. But listen. For spells such as Fetch and Send we must know exactly where we are touching with our Magery. But not to use Door,” Thurion continued, in the cheerful tones of a patient instructor. “Door is a spell that requires great power, and that is why we are taught to cast it only between Flower Forests. And why did Rondithiel Lightbrother say that was?”
“He said it is because within the Light there is only one Flower Forest, which makes no sense at all,” Vieliessar said. “But—”
“But it is true, at least in a sense,” Thurion said. “The Flower Forests all touch one another in the Light. Have you never reached through a nearer Flower Forest to a more distant one? Oh, no, of course you have not,” Thurion said hastily, sounding embarrassed and contrite. “You were not taught to Heal on the battlefield. If you had been, you would know. With enough time, power will flow into the Flower Forest you have tapped from those more distant, but often we cannot wait. So we reach for the distant ones directly. We can, because they all touch.”
“But you can only do that within a domain,” Vieliessar said slowly. That much she knew to be true.
“Yes,” Thurion answered patiently. “The boundaries of domains are bespelled so that one domain cannot drain the power from all the Flower Forests of the land. But that does not mean they are not all linked. If they were not, how could anyone use Door across domain boundaries?”
Vieliessar said nothing. Some of what Thurion spoke of—the philosophy that underlay Magery—made sense to her. Much, she suspected, had been laid down like traps and snares to keep the Lightborn from thinking beyond the rote proscriptions handed down from Mosirinde’s time.
“But that has nothing to do with the question you asked,” Thurion went on. “You can go from any Flower Forest to any other, and so you can go to Tildorangelor as well.”
“With enough time and power,” Vieliessar said. And neither is in great supply. Between us, we and the Alliance have already nearly drained Jaeglenhend’s Flower Forests. It did much to explain why, if the matter was as simple as Thurion said, Amrethion’s city had never yet been discovered. First one would have to believe it existed, and then, allow some powerful Lightborn the liberty to spend years seeking it. “I thank you for your counsel, my friend. I will speak with you again as soon as I may.”
“The Light go with you,” Thurion answered quietly, and the spell was sundered.
It was long before she could steel herself to reach for Aradreleg. Failure will mean nothing, she told herself firmly. Only that she is somewhere from which she may not answer. Not death. Celenthodial Flower Queen—say she still lives!
To her delight and relief, Aradaleg answered her at once. And when she had finished telling Vieliessar all that had happened in the last sennight, Vieliessar began to hope once more.
Rithdeliel had taken Jaeglenhend Keep.
She still had a chance to win.
At dawn two days later, Vieliessar mounted her destrier at the head of her party. From all Aradreleg had told her, the Alliance was well aware the keep had fallen. Since the Alliance hadn’t followed her to Oakstone Tower, Jaeglenhend Keep was its next logical target. Smash her army and they would be free to hunt her down at their leisure.
So they believe. But I am not prey to be hunted.
I am Vieliessar Farcarinon, and I will be High King.
By the time Runacarendalur and his sortie party crossed into Jaeglenhend’s manorial lands, he knew the Alliance was in trouble. Manor house and Farmhold alike were burnt out and stripped bare.
“A War Prince without lands is just another landless knight. Their komen will desert them and come begging for the scraps from our tables.…” Bolecthindial’s careless words echoed mockingly in Runacarendalur’s memory.
“It looks as if a battle was fought here,” Helecanth observed, reining in beside him.
“Not a battle,” Runacarendalur answered, hating the note of anguish in his voice. “A retreat.”
He’d left Vieliessar’s army without supplies and thought to starve it into surrender. The tactic should have worked: Vieliessar’s vassal War Princes were the leaders of her army. He’d counted on them to do as the Alliance War Princes would have done in their place: quarrel over precedence, demand terms of surrender, or simply abandon the rebel cause, taking their meisnes with them. He’d expected them to fall into disorder and strife. He’d counted on it. But somehow—even without Vieliessar—they’d kept order. And to provision themselves as they rode north, they’d ravaged the countryside with terrifying efficiency.
“You’ve executed their entire households, and the Lightborn will bear them word of that…”
Every Ladyholder or Consort-Prince the Alliance had taken captive, every Heir-Prince or Heir-Princess who hadn’t been on the field, every favorite servant … the War Princes of the Alliance, certain of victory, had taken revenge on all those in their power. It was little consolation to know the princes wouldn’t have listened to him if he’d warned them against it. But he’d been as blind and overconfident as anyone.