Pol ignored the taunt. “What about dranath?”
“What about it?”
“Do you need it?”
“Do you?”
For answer, Pol unhooked his father’s wineskin from his belt, unstoppered it, and deliberately upended it. The dark liquid charged with power-enhancing drug spilled onto the sand.
He heard a soft gasp behind him—his mother, probably. Perhaps it was a foolish gesture, but it was one he had to make. Ruval was responding quite nicely so far. Rejection of dranath would not only further encourage belief in his weakness and stupidity, but it would also signify something more important: he was Sunrunner, not sorcerer. The stray thought teased at him that Andry would approve. Grudgingly.
“That leaves only the shielding,” he said.
“Impossible. Tradition calls for three on each side. I have no one but myself. I need no one but myself to kill you.”
“My mother, the High Princess, constructed one before.”
“She knows nothing,” Ruval scoffed.
“Yet she managed it.”
“No. I do not agree.”
Pol made his shrug one of disappointment; he hadn’t really expected to win that point. “Yet I expect you will agree to the use of the Unreal.”
“Oh, so you think to terrify me with horrible visions?” Ruval’s good humor returned. “By all means! It should be interesting. If we’re agreed, then call forward witnesses. Your father, Miyon, and Barig will do.”
Pol did so, as if submitting to Ruval’s authority. When the three stood near him, he listed the conditions of battle in a slightly hoarse voice. Rohan’s carefully composed expression was belied by the dark concern in his eyes; Miyon seethed with a silent, angry demand that Ruval emerge the victor; Barig simply stared, understanding perhaps four words in ten. But he hadn’t the temerity to ask for a lengthy explanation.
“The conditions are acceptable to both of us,” Pol said at last. “If any of them are broken, the violator’s claim is forefeit. Punishment is your responsibility, as witnesses.”
“Understood,” Miyon snapped. “Get on with it.”
Ruval grinned at him. “Why, your grace! So eager to see your guards recruit win? Or do you expect me to lose?”
The Cunaxan looked ready to strangle him. He turned on his heel and strode back to his horse.
Barig said nervously, “As my prince’s cousin and representative, I’ll keep a damned sharp eye on the proceedings.”
Pol appreciated his situation—and his bluster that tried to hide almost total incomprehension. “We thank your lordship for the assurances.”
“And trust in your perceptions,” Ruval added mockingly.
Rohan said nothing until Barig had returned to the group. Then he murmured, “You’ll die tonight, Ruval—one way or another.”
“Have you the stomach to kill the son of the woman who bore your child?”
Pol tensed in spite of himself. Rohan only lifted one brow.
“I saw him that night,” Ruval went on. “Just after he was born. My last brother in his cradle where he burned to death.”
“Such touching family sentiment is rather unexpected,” Pol made himself remark.
“When I’ve finished with you, I’ll settle with your mother—who killed mine.” He glared at Rohan. “You I’ll leave alive long enough to watch the death of the faradhi bitch who also murdered your son.”
“Had Ianthe raised him, he would not have been my son,” Rohan replied.
Pol swallowed hard. There was the center of it, he thought. And he was passionately grateful for Sioned’s courage. He no longer cared whether or not she had been the one to kill Ianthe. He’d have to live through this, if only to tell his mother how deeply he loved her.
Rohan left them. Pol turned to Ruval and drew in a deep breath. He reached into his pocket, fingering a little golden talisman, remembering the wise old Sunrunner who had given it to him. The Star Scroll had taught him many things today—most of which he hoped he wouldn’t have to use. He must defeat Ruval as a Sunrunner, not a sorcerer. Not just for symbolism’s sake, but for his own. He was the son of Rohan and Sioned, not the scion of diarmadh’im. Yet the techniques perfected by his ancestors chattered in his mind, as if words written on parchment were speaking to him. They advised this spell or that, debated the merits of each, proposed new variations to fit the circumstances. But in a worried undertone a woman warned of danger. Her voice was his mother’s and Lady Andrade’s and Tobin’s, and nervous fancy told him that some part of it was Lady Merisel who had written the words of the Star Scroll. She had preserved perilous knowledge and then hidden it away. Why? The scholar’s fatal reluctance to let any learning disappear? Or something else?
Likely he would soon use that learning to kill his own half-brother. He looked into Ruval’s eyes, and it was no blood-bond or sentiment between siblings that revulsed him from the inevitable. It was a terrible, will-destroying sadness. His princedom, his place, even his life, had been won with other people’s bloody deaths: Ianthe and Roelstra, the pretender Masul, Segev, Marron, and now Ruval. What made him worth so much killing?
But then he remembered Sorin, and the anger swelled in him. Those others had died mortal enemies; Sorin had been murdered defending him. For Sorin he would win this battle. For his mother, who had risked everything for him. And for his father.
He held Ruval’s gaze with his own, seeing not his brother but the Enemy, all Enemies. “We begin,” he said.
28
Stronghold: 35 Spring
Andry stood on the top step, looking down into the cellars. He told himself he was not afraid of Mireva. He also knew this was at least a partial lie. It wasn’t what she might do—Rohan’s gambit with the steel wire had all but removed that fear. It was what he might learn from her.
Secrets more deadly than those of the Star Scroll. Ways of power that, once learned, could pollute everything he was. Truths that might mean his eventual defeat.
Knowledge of any kind being power, he finally descended the stairs into the cool dimness. In chambers to his left were the enormous cisterns that held Stronghold’s water supply—nearly overflowing this year, ensuring plenty of water for years to come. The grotto spring provided the main supply, but Andry could remember times in his childhood when it had nearly dried up. Even if it turned to sand for several years, Stronghold would still be awash in water, kept fresh by the addition of herbs that also gave it a clean, distinctive taste. It was one of the small things he missed at Goddess Keep, the subtle tingle of this water on his tongue.
He paused in a doorway to view the massive cisterns for what he fully expected would be the last time, then continued through the maze of crates, excess furniture, rolled-up carpets, and other stored items to Mireva’s cell. Along the way part of his mind busied itself with contingency plans: how many of Radzyn’s people could be housed at Stronghold when—and if—the castle fell? How many could the cisterns keep alive, and for how long? If Stronghold was taken as well, was there a way to deprive the invaders of this precious bounty of water in the Desert?
He believed in his vision as if it was already historical fact. He had thought that perhaps it would come to pass this spring. But Radzyn still stood. He would detour there on his way out of his uncle’s princedom. He desperately needed to see it whole and proud on its seaside cliffs. One last time.
There was a cellar below this one, so protected from the blazing heat that ice could be made within it. He remembered sneaking in with Sorin when they were children, scraping enough dry frost for good approximations of snowballs. He remembered so much . . . playing at dragons, learning to ride, trying bows that drew too much weight for little boys, causing dreadful mischief and never being able to talk their way out of it, taking seriously old Myrdal’s bedtime tales of secret passageways and turning half the castle inside out before Chay caught them, and Sorin being unable to talk them out of that one, too. . . .