Brave words, cousin. Did you think the same while you let my brother die?
Andry! The swift assault of angry color, only slightly paled from being woven with moonlight, startled him. Andry’s fine control, his sleek subtlety, were things Pol only aspired to. But the Lord of Goddess Keep, daily practitioner of skills Pol used only occasionally, already possessed an easy grace in the use of power that Pol both admired and resented. He riposted quickly, keeping his emotions hidden, telling himself he should have been prepared for this. I thought you might be here tonight.
The only way I could be, considering your haste to see my brother burned. Andry’s grief and fury were almost palpable. You couldn’t wait for me to be there, could you? I’ve been in the saddle since I felt him die—
You’re too many days from Feruche. With deliberate and slightly guilty cruelty he added, Would you have your brother’s flesh corrupted by days of waiting, rather than cleanly burned by fire?
There was a vast silence for some moments. I felt it when he died. Like half my soul had been ripped from me. You can never understand.
I share your grief, Andry. You can’t blame me any more bitterly than I blame myself. But I’ll promise you what I promised him. Ruval will die for this. Ruval and Marron both.
Tell me about them, Andry said—and before Pol could form words he felt his memories fingered, examined, and discarded as casually as he might have picked through a pile of fruit. So. I see.
Pol shook with anger at the invasion. How dare you! Sorin asked me to go gently with you, try to understand you—Tobin asked me to forgive you for blaming me. But now I’ll be damned if I’ll—
Forgive me? Don’t make me laugh, cousin! How could you possibly understand me? You’ve never even set foot in Goddess Keep, you don’t know the first thing about it or our traditions or being a real Sunrunner! Urival may have been fool enough to teach you a few tricks and give you one of Andrade’s jewels, but as for real power—stick to political nitpicking and prettying up your palace. You’re simply not in my class.
No?
He knew he should not do this. He did it anyway. Using an obscure spell learned from the Star Scroll, he closed his eyes and flicked a knife of thin, bright Fire toward Andry—not strong enough or sharp enough to sever the moonweaving but sufficient to give fair warning. He sensed Andry’s gasp of startlement, his angry suspicion, sudden certainty—and hasty retreat.
Pol glanced at his mother where she stood beside Tobin, knowing she would not relish the mistake he’d just made. He was ashamed of himself for giving in to the taunting. He should be above such things. He must be, in order to function as a prince.
Or a Sunrunner. Andry’s words had lanced his pride. He was as much a faradhi as Maarken or Hollis or Riyan. Urival himself had trained him, Morwenna continued to give him lessons when he was at Stronghold. But unlike the others, he had never been to Goddess Keep, never lived there in the Sunrunner community, absorbing its atmosphere of long tradition and ancient honor. The rest of the faradh’im in his immediate circle had known that union, discipline, fellowship. Not even Sioned had entirely rejected it, though she had long ago removed her rings and chosen to be a princess first and a Sunrunner second. Pol knew that Maarken feared having to make the same choice one day, rendered even worse by the fact that his brother was Lord of Goddess Keep. What if Andry one day asked something of Maarken as a faradhi that conflicted with his duties as a vassal?
And that was bound to happen very soon, Pol realized. This business of the Sunrunner in Gilad was sure to have Andry claiming Maarken’s support—and that of Hollis and Riyan as well. He would not bother with Sioned; challenging the Sunrunner loyalties of the High Princess was something not even Andrade had dared do. But because Pol was not officially faradhi, Andry would use the matter to delineate even more sharply the rift between Princemarch and the Desert on one side and Goddess Keep on the other. Pol hated to think what the other princes would make of this, especially Miyon, Cabar, Velden, and Halian.
He couldn’t win. If he supported Andry, he would be untrue to laws he believed in. If he supported Cabar as he intended, the princes would be reassured about his commitment to the law—and worry even more about his refusal to come under traditional faradhi discipline. Few approved of Andry’s power. Which would be the stronger—satisfaction that Andry could not influence him, or fear of a Sunrunner prince without loyalty to Goddess Keep?
It had been wisdom on the part of Lady Merisel and the other long-ago faradh’im to discourage the mating of Sunrunners with princes; the potential conflict was a terrible one. Andrade had taken the chance with Sioned—and, by her lights, failed. Pol had been trained without ties to Goddess Keep except the powerful one of blood-kin. He wondered suddenly if Andrade had planned that, too, chosen Andry to succeed her for just that reason.
Pol and Maarken both would be caught up in this. And both of them would lose. The only thing Pol could put his hopes on was Andry’s abiding love and respect for his eldest and now only brother. But that was placing the entire burden on Maarken—and as a prince, Pol knew the responsibility must be his.
And his father’s. Relief swept through him, swiftly followed by guilt. He had no right to dump all this on his father. Rohan was High Prince, and the matter of the Sunrunner would be taken to him for judgment. To wish he could leave everything to his father was a coward’s way, and he was ashamed of himself for even thinking it. Nearly as ashamed as he was that while he had been caught up in the dragon’s colors, Sorin had died by Marron’s hand.
He felt knowledge run through him like a spark down his spine. That was the answer: the diarmadhi threat would be his leverage with Andry. For if Pol was defeated, Andry would be next.
Join with me in destroying Roelstra’s grandsons, cousin, or fear for your own power. You can have Marron, since he was the one who killed your brother. But Ruval is mine. But he despaired that he should have to bargain from Andry’s cooperation with promises of vengeance and death.
Sorin had been wrong. Pol did understand Andry, and he wasn’t sure this was to his credit. His promise to be tender of Andry’s feelings and position would be difficult to keep. As he watched the flames consume the flesh and bone that had been his cousin, he knew that perhaps the most important link between Andry and himself would soon be ashes.
“Father. ...”
Rohan glanced around from the windows. It was early morning, and he had been watching Feruche by sunrise. It was a lovely castle, very different from the one that had clung to the cliffs twenty-four years ago. But he would not enter its precincts. Ever. Not even if his life depended on it. Looking now at the life that had resulted from time spent at Feruche, he turned away from the castle and his memories. “What is it, Pol?”
They were alone in the commander’s rooms at the garrison built by Rohan’s great-grandfather, Prince Zagroy. A squat, functional, inelegant barracks, it had guarded the pass through the mountains to Princemarch for more than a hundred years. Sioned, Chay, Tobin, and the others had returned to the comforts of Feruche, but Pol had accompanied his father back here. For some time now Rohan had been waiting to hear whatever it was Pol wanted to say, reflecting that if age had brought him nothing else, it has supplied patience.
Not a quality Pol possessed yet; he had been prowling the long, narrow room, obviously trying to find the right words. He opted for directness, as usual. “Why is it that we always have to wait for something to happen before we can do anything?”