And then she was herself again, Vieliessar, staring at the Unicorn Sword where it lay upon the grass, its hilt and pommel shattered, its unhoused blade blood-bright.
“Run,” Thurion said.
He grabbed Vieliessar’s arm and yanked her away from the cliff face. Vieliessar stumbled, then ran with him. Around her she could see the other Lightborn running, shouting warnings to the camp beyond. The ground shook as if at the charge of ten thousand komen, a hundred thousand, of all the komen who had ever lived. The shaking became a rolling that made them trip and stagger as they ran; the ice beneath Vieliessar’s feet cracked, shattered, sprayed up before her. As if a door had opened, she could feel the radiant upwelling of power. Not the familiar and finite power of Janglanipaikharain, but power a thousand times greater—fresh, untapped …
She felt the uprush of spellcraft—someone had managed to cast Shield—and stopped. She yanked her arm from Thurion’s grasp and turned.
A shimmering wall of Shield stood between them and the cliff face. Mounded against it, halfway up its height, was a hill of sand-fine grey dust. The blood mark she had set upon the stone was gone. And where it had been …
Vieliessar ran back until the violet wall of Shield was a cool slickness beneath her hands. Unaccustomed tears prickled at her eyes, and despite everything, she wanted to laugh out loud.
They will all believe I planned this.…
Dargariel Dorankalaliel—the Fireheart Gate—was open for the first time since the Fall of Celephrandullias-Tildorangelor.
Its walls were even and straight, just as the cliff itself had been, but not smooth and unmarked. As far along the passage as she could see they were carved with the images of Unicorns, a herd of Unicorns all running toward the plain.
She fell to her knees, laughing in relief, in joy, in homecoming, knowing this was not the end of Amrethion’s Prophecy but finally, at last, its beginning. The night was filled with shouting and the sounds of warhorns as her people armed and rallied against an unknown foe. She could hear hoofbeats as the first komen rode toward the cliff shouting questions, the babble of voices as the Lightborn answered. Silverlight flared, turning the face of the Shield-wall to a bright mirror, hiding what lay behind.
She got to her feet and turned to face the camp. Komen were riding toward her. Behind them, the camp itself was alive with light and movement.
“What have you done?” Thoromarth bellowed as he reached her, his voice a battlefield shout.
I have found the Unicorn Throne.
“I claim this place—it is mine—and yours. All of you—go through it—everyone—” Her tongue tripped and stuttered over a thousand commands. “Clear the rock—set my marker stones—!”
Pelashia’s Children had come home at last.
A sennight ago, the victory song had been in every throat. The Alliance scouts had brought the same word for a fortnight: Vieliessar drove her army directly toward an unbroken cliff wall. She would be trapped against it, unable to retreat, and when they held her at bay, they would drain the Southern Flower Forest—it did not truly matter which army accomplished that—and then the Alliance would drive the rebel’s army of losels and rabble down into dust.
Then, astonishingly, instead of preparing for battle, Vieliessar had set a wall twelve cubits high around the whole of her encampment—and to mock them, set such doors in its gate as might grace any High House Great Hall.
“Siege,” Bolecthindial growled. “She can’t be serious.”
“You keep saying that,” Runacarendalur said. His smile was bitter. “She has always done exactly what she says she will.”
Bolecthindial gazed into the distance. Behind him, the Alliance camp spread over miles of this desolate plain. Shield shimmered above and around them, a constant unwelcome reminder that this was a war of Magery and not of honest skill. In the distance, the last light of day turned the silver gates of Vieliessar’s encampment to fire and blood.
“Once the Light fails, we can starve them out,” Bolecthindial said.
“If we have, oh … ten times their supplies,” Runacarendalur answered lightly. “I trust our Lightborn are moved to prepare such bounty? Or does the War Council mean us to die here in the moment of our victory?”
“That is hardly your concern,” Bolecthindial said repressively.
“No,” Runacarendalur said quietly. “It won’t be.”
Bolecthindial regarded his son narrowly. Since the retreat from Jaeglenhend Keep, the Heir-Prince had been in a strange humor, by turns rebellious and reckless. He sees the disaster this war has brought, and what it has cost us, Bolecthindial thought grimly. Half a year ago the War Princes had made grand promises to one another—of setting aside old grievances, of unifying in the face of a grave threat, of increased wealth and dominion and security for them all. And at first it had seemed an easy thing, a possible thing, to strike down Serenthon’s mad whelp and thus secure their safety and prosperity forever.
But disaster had followed disaster. In Jaeglenhend she gained victories where she should have suffered defeats. The Alliance might have turned back then, awaiting a more fortunate moment to smash Vieliessar’s ambitions., but the secret the High Houses held silent in their throats was that Windsward Rebellion was too recent, too nearly successful, for them to permit Vieliessar even the illusion of victory.
And so the Alliance had followed Vieliessar beyond the edge of the world.
We were fools, Bolecthindial Caerthalien thought bleakly. Better to have let her claim the Uradabhur, the Arzhana, the Grand Windsward. Such a “kingdom” would never endure. We could have crossed the Mystrals in spring, taken the Uradabhur back domain by domain, gaining wealth and provisions and sending a vast sea of commonfolk running to their “High King.” If she rejected them, her claim of being their savior would vanish. If she claimed them, she would be forced to feed them in their thousands and ten thousands, and thus render herself vulnerable.
The thoughts were bitter, for they were not his own words Bolecthindial called to mind, but his son’s. His Runacarendalur, the flower of the Caerthalien Line—the glorious prince who could have made Caerthalien’s long-held dream a reality and claimed the Unicorn Throne for himself. From the time Vieliessar had gained Oronviel, Runacarendalur had warned and pleaded and badgered him, until Bolecthindial had shut his councils from his ears and his son from his sight.
But he’d been right.
“We shall not gain the victory by gazing upon the foe,” Bolecthindial said. “I shall take my leave. You are expected, of course, to dine with us.”
“Of course,” Runacarendalur said. But he did not look away from the distant walls.
That night, the Alliance War Council debated long into the night. The strategy was clear: drain the Southern Flower Forest so it could not be used, then besiege Vieliessar and take her fortress by traditional means. In the end, the Alliance would triumph. The War Council had even agreed that they would question Vieliessar before executing her, to see if Celelioniel had told the truth about being able to interpret the prophecy contained within The Song of Amrethion. Once Vieliessar was dead and her Lightborn reclaimed or executed, the Twelve could set to work discovering the source of this “Darkness” and deciding—if it existed at all—how best to crush it.
Implementation of this simple plan, however, was a matter for endless debate. What spells should they order their Lightborn to cast to achieve this? What stockpiles should they conjure? How would their injured be tended, if only Lightless healing could be offered to them?