“Very well. Let’s go upstairs to the gatehouse. We can be private there.” He sent a caustic message with his eyes that acknowledged Maarken’s need to express his rage. A gaze like gray winter ice met his, and for the first time he wondered if he’d miscalculated.
Hollis followed them. She shut the door and leaned on it, trembling a little. Before Maarken could say anything she gave a choked gasp. “Andry! The wine—you didn’t—”
He went to the table and picked up the piece of folded parchment Sioned had given Andrade eight years earlier. “I did. And I’d like you to ask Pol if he’d send some more. This is the last.”
She flattened her spine against the door, eyes wide. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you know the risk?”
“Calm yourself,” he said, biting back impatience. “There’s no danger in small amounts, rarely taken. Besides, it’s necessary.”
Maarken’s voice was silk-soft now. “You can’t work a diarmadhi spell without it?”
“It works better with the added power. We’re not here to discuss dranath.”
“No.”
The brothers squared off with the table between them. Andry knew he should stay silent until he could judge what form Maarken’s fury would take, but he had to make him see, had to convince him.
“Everything I said was true. You know how helpless we’d be here if it came to war. I’m kin to the High Prince and his heir—and I’m the Lord of Radzyn’s son. Somebody like Miyon or Chiana or even Pimantal of Fessenden would know exactly how to paralyze you in the field with a threat to Goddess Keep.”
“Go on.”
Andry realized abruptly that he’d been wrong about Maarken’s anger. It wasn’t Tobin’s—volatile, incandescent. This was Chay at his cold, hard, implacable worst.
“We must be able to defend ourselves. Not just against the threats we can anticipate, but—” He broke off and eased his stance, taking his hands from the table and extending them palms up to his brother. “I’ve seen things, Maarken—”
“Oh, yes.” Dismissively. “Sorin says you have odd dreams.”
Andry felt his own temper begin to ignite. “Not just dreams—visions. Of a future that terrifies me. Maarken, you don’t have any idea of the blood—”
“I saw none today,” the older man said quietly. “What I saw was terror. And what I would have seen was madness, if that wall hadn’t collapsed.”
“That was the damned idea!” Andry exclaimed, frustrated. “The ros’salath doesn’t kill—not in this form, anyway—”
Hollis caught her breath. “ ‘In this form’? Andry, what have you done?”
“Broken more rules,” Maarken snapped. “Taken the traditions and laws of Goddess Keep and thrown them into the middens!”
He made a last try. “Andrade saw things. Sweet Goddess, Maarken, you and I exist because of what she saw—and what she did about it! I’m telling you that what I’ve seen is destruction you can’t imagine! I can’t let it happen—and the only weapon I have against it—”
“Is Sunrunners learning the ways of sorcerers! Why haven’t you said anything about these visions before, Andry? Why keep them such a secret? You have an uncle and a cousin who are princes with armies to command—why do you need an army of your own?”
“You mean the uncle who trusts me so much he sent his faradhi son to me for training? The cousin who sees me as a threat to his own Sunrunner powers? Is that who you’re talking about, Maarken?”
“Andry—” Hollis came forward, still trembling. “Andry, please, you don’t see what you’re doing. Will they trust you more when they learn of this?”
“I’ve seen death,” he snapped. “What’s more important, Hollis? Pol’s conceit or hundreds and hundreds of people? Rohan’s trust or R—” He choked off the name of his birthplace, the ravaged waste of it swirling in his mind.
Maarken slammed his hands flat on the table. “What’s more important, Andry—your might-be vision or the reality of Sunrunners learning how to kill?”
There would be no understanding. He had been a fool to expect it. His brother belonged to Rohan. To Pol.
Andry pulled his clenched fists in to his sides. “I ought to have known. You’re a Sunrunner, trained at Goddess Keep, owing duty to Goddess Keep—and to me. But you’re also an athri, loyal to your prince. One day they might not live so comfortably together within you. One day you might have to choose.”
The skin around those gray eyes tightened just a little, and he knew he’d struck home.
“But not today,” Andry finished softly. “Not today, my brother. Go back to the Desert. Tell Rohan what you like. It won’t make any difference. If war comes—any war—then it will come. But I’ll be ready for it, Maarken. Tell Rohan that, too.”
“Andry, wait—”
He left the room feeling incredibly old, incredibly tired. Not even the lingering dranath could warm his blood.
Torien waited for him outside near the well, dark Fironese face creased with worry. Andry summoned up a tiny smile.
“Order my brother’s horses made ready for him tomorrow morning.”
The Chief Steward was rubbing his fingers absently, as if a chill had seeped into them. “I thought they’d be staying another eight or ten days.”
“No. And I don’t think they’ll be staying here again.”
Part Two
Year 728
8
Near Elktrap Manor: 3 Spring
The dragon was dying. He lay on his belly, wings nailed to enormous trees felled for the purpose, spread like a skin left to dry in the sun. Spikes of the kind used for mountain climbing in the Veresch had been driven through the bones of his wings. Blood had crusted around these wounds and where his talons had been gouged out. There were a few sword slashes on his blue-gray hide, but not deep enough to let him bleed his life out quickly. Whoever was responsible for this intended a slow, slow death: the great amber eyes were dulled with long agony.
The sword dropped from Sorin’s shaking hand. He gulped back nausea and glanced at Riyan’s stricken face. A short time ago their horses had refused to go any farther, shying and rearing when the two young men urged them on. So they had left their mounts tied in the forest, unsheathed their swords, and warily proceeded. To find this.
“Sweet Goddess,” Sorin whispered, or tried to. His mouth was dry and tasted of the foulness of this deed; his throat was too tight for speech. Who had done this? Through his shock he felt a savage anger beginning, an incoherent vow to give the murderer a death that matched the cruelty done to this dragon.
Riyan put a hand on his arm. He had to clear his throat several times before he managed, “Sorin, we have to do something—”
He nodded. But he knew how helpless they were. “Water. That’s all we can do for him.”
Riyan let his own sword fall to the grass. “I’ll get the extra from my pack.”
While he was gone, Sorin moved a little closer to the dying dragon. Amber eyes saw him, sparked faintly with rage, then glazed over again. A man had done this to him, but he lacked the strength even to glare his hatred for long. Sorin circled the huge, pain-rigid body, fists clenched. The spikes were new steel, shining in the morning sun above the bloody wounds they had inflicted; they marched in a perfectly straight line down the felled trees, stretching the dragon’s broken wings to their full span. Sorin fought back mind-numbing fury and took careful note of the circumstances of the dragon’s agony. Whoever had done this had taken all the time in the world to make his crime a grisly work of art.
Riyan came back as Sorin knelt beside the dragon’s head. “Careful,” he warned as neck muscles rippled and the head shifted sluggishly.