Not that reading would have done anyone any good. This was a direct translation, exactly as Lady Merisel had dictated it—but lacking the little markers that indicated lies. Anyone attempting to cast a spell or concoct a potion using this version of the Star Scroll would be sadly disappointed.
The accurate copy resided in Andry’s chambers. He supposed Maarken knew about that one, as well. Today Andry would show him the uses to which he had put it.
He knew how Urival had used the other copy—an accurate one, Goddess damn the old man. When he’d died late last winter, Andry had almost asked for its return along with the few things of Andrade’s sent back to the archives after Urival’s death.
What he’d really wanted, though, were the rest of her rings—or what remained of them. Maarken had reset the chunk of amber into his wedding necklet; Sioned sometimes wore the emerald on a chain around her neck; the ruby now graced Tobin’s coronet. Chadric had inherited the sapphire, given to old Prince Lleyn who had been Andrade’s friend. Chay, Rohan, and Pol had the other stones—the last being the most irksome to Andry. Pol wore the moonstone as unsubtle reminder that he was a Sunrunner, even though he hadn’t been trained at Goddess Keep.
Andry sometimes took out the garnet Urival had given him after Andrade’s death, but had never quite been able to bring himself to wear it. The old man had left the tenth ring on Andrade’s finger, token of the wedding ring he would have put there himself if they had been ordinary folk. But the chains that had connected all the rings to bracelets on Andrade’s wrists had been fashioned into a delicate, unobtrusive necklet worn for the rest of Urival’s life, and burned with him in the Desert.
Andry wanted those rings back. Years of studying the Star Scroll and the histories unearthed with it on Dorval had convinced him that there was more to the symbolism of gemstones than pretty tradition. But to ask for them would alert Pol to their possible significance, and this he refused to do.
And then there were the mirrors, the most frustrating of all Merisel’s enigmatic little hints. “If you find a sorcerer who possesses a mirror, exile the sorcerer—but shatter the mirror.” Just that one sentence. No explanation, no elaboration. Andry, who had fallen a little in love with Merisel through her vivid writings, had long since decided that at several hundred years’ remove, she was fascinating—but that face-to-face she must have been several hundred different kinds of Hell to deal with.
Nialdan waited placidly beside him for Torien to come up and announce that everyone was assembled and all was in readiness. Anyone else would have been fidgeting by now; Nialdan merely planted both big feet on the floor and stood as motionless and patient as a pine. Andry found the man’s solidity soothing, especially after the long night behind him and in view of the tough work ahead.
Valeda had given him a daughter just before dawn. Hollis, here with Maarken on a visit all hoped would help heal the troubles no one ever talked about, had assisted in the birthing room. Andry had seen her holding the new baby earlier today, and his heart filled with compassion. One of her reasons for coming to Goddess Keep was to consult the Mother Tree. Her twins, Chayla and Rohannon, were five winters old and there were no signs of more children. But, judging by her determinedly cheerful expression after a brief disappearance the other day, the tree circle had not shown her what she wished to see. Andry still remembered being shown what he wished to forget.
He shut his eyes and let the visions form behind his lids, dyed red with the sunlight streaming onto his face, awash in the color of blood.
The day of the ceremony that would make him Lord of Goddess Keep (Oh, Sweet Lady, let me be strong and worthy—), he went to the tree circle. Naked, shivering a little in the crisp autumn air, he knelt before the pool below the rock cairn and plucked a hair from his head to float on the Water, symbol of the Earth of which he was made. He’d always considered this a gentle, harmless ritual—a minor use of power, a quaint little ceremony reminding him of his origins in and kinship with the Elements. He called Air and the Water ruffled; he summoned a fingerflame and set it dancing atop the rocks. Lovely in the morning sun, warm and bright–First the children—faces in rapid succession, vanishing too quickly for him to receive more than the vague impression that they all had his blue eyes.
Then the chaos. Swords, steel-tipped arrows, horses gutted and dying, men and women warriors scythed down like harvested wheat. Battle. Blood. Radzyn demolished, Stronghold in ruins. His parents and brothers and all his family destroyed. Goddess Keep a smoldering wreck of shattered stone clinging to the sea cliffs, Sunrunners never to ride the light again.
And finally the stars. Uncounted pinpricks of blinding light, like daggers thrusting straight up from the bottom of a deadfall. He hurtled toward them in an endless plunge into darkness punctuated by stars. The sorcerers’ stars.
It was Sorin who woke him, running headlong into the circle where no one not faradhi was allowed. “Andry! Andry, wake up!” He was shaken roughly, opened his eyes, and saw his brother’s fear-paled face. He clung to Sorin, grateful for the warm strong arms around him and the presence that, but for the one vital gift, was twin to his own.
How Sorin had felt it was a mystery to them both. They had heard of how Maarken, after his own twin died of Plague, wandered Radzyn lost and haunted, calling for the second self always there and now gone. But what they shared was stronger—perhaps because they were older, or because Andry was a Sunrunner even more powerful than Maarken.
Since then, Andry dreamed occasionally of what the Goddess had shown him. Once it happened while Sorin was at Goddess Keep, on a quick visit before sailing for Kierst to supervise the making of tiles for Feruche. Andry had been shaken from the dream as he’d been from the vision, his brother’s hands frantic on his shoulders and his brother’s voice crying out his name.
“What does it feel like?” Andry had asked as they waited for dawn beside the hearth, wrapped in blankets and gulping mulled wine.
“Like when we were little, and one of us had a bad dream.” Sorin’s brows arched speculatively. “You never told me the details then—”
“Neither did you. We were a prideful little pair, weren’t we? Never could admit to being that scared.” Andry smiled.
“—and I don’t suppose you’re going to talk about it now, are you?” Sorin finished as if he hadn’t been interrupted.
“No. Sorry. It’s bad enough that I see—what I see. If I told you, you might start dreaming the same thing. And it might bounce between us all the way to Feruche and back—and neither of us would ever get any sleep.”
Andrade had always emphasized that the Goddess showed what might come to pass. “Nothing is written in stone—and even if it were, stones can be broken.” He wondered sometimes what she had seen of the future. Did the Goddess tell her to marry her sister off to Zehava? Or was that to change a future she didn’t happen to like? Did she ever see Pol? Or me? Did she realize what work I have in front of me? Is that why she chose me as her successor? Or did she see someone else, and pick me by default?
Not what he ought to be thinking right now. As for what everyone else would think—he couldn’t bring himself to care about any of them but Maarken and Hollis. They had to understand. The Sunrunners here could be frightened, horrified, shocked, or awestruck. It didn’t much matter which. His brother had to understand and explain it to Rohan and Sioned and Pol.
But he admitted to himself that he didn’t much care what they thought, either. If Rohan considered him power-hungry, and Sioned was affronted by his uses of power, and Pol felt threatened—too bad. They can look on this as they like, so long as they don’t hinder me. I can keep that vision from becoming real. This is my work to do, my warning from the Goddess. Only—please, Gentle Lady, let Maarken understand.