Alasen frowned. “Not Rezeld’s colors.”
“Indeed not. Cunaxan orange. And Merida brown and yellow.”
She stared at him. He gave her a tight smile and bent to kiss her.
“Why would one need so vast a quantity of silk? Summer tunics, of course. For an army. Moreover, an army heading for the lower Desert. Cunaxan wool would kill them quicker than Desert swords.”
Alasen found her voice again. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Because none of it fit before now.” He hesitated as he pulled on his gloves. “Even after nine years with you, I suppose I’m still in the habit of fretting on my own. Forgive me.”
She nodded, and that was the end of the issue. “Go have the horses saddled. I’ll find Donato and while he’s getting dressed I’ll have the kitchens put together a meal.”
Ostvel took her waist in his hands. “Have I told you recently—”
“That I’m wonderful?” She smiled. “Just bring yourself back in one piece, my lord, or I’ll have your teeth for tunic buttons.”
Ostvel had spent his early youth at Goddess Keep and his first wife had been faradhi, so he was as intimately familiar with the process of weaving sunlight as anyone not gifted could be. He knew what kind of light was needed, and how much, and for how long. So when Donato would have stopped halfway up Whitespur to risk a Sunrunning, Ostvel forbade it.
“That cloud over there would trap you before you’d gone past Castle Crag. Don’t be an idiot.”
“The more I think about all this, the more I want to hurry and the more nervous I get.”
“Which is precisely why you need a nice, strong fall of sunlight.”
Donato squinted at the snowfield ahead. “You’re going to make me ride through that muck, aren’t you?” He sighed and stroked the neck of the sturdy little mountain pony beneath him. “At least we’re not on those great fire-eaters Lord Chaynal gave you.”
The uncertain gray light muted the brilliance of the snowy peak rising up before him. What had been torrential winter rains in the lowlands had covered the Veresch in the heaviest snow within living memory. Castle Crag had become a glistening fantasy in ice, silent until the children had discovered that this strange frozen stuff they usually saw only on mountaintops was tremendous if chilly fun. But all was eerily quiet now, except for the crunch of broad hooves on snow and soft exhalations that sent clouds into the frosty air.
It was noon and they were nearly at the top of Whitespur before both Ostvel and Donato were satisfied with the sunshine. They refreshed themselves with a bite to eat and some wine, huddling beside their ponies for warmth. Then Donato faced east, toward Rezeld Manor.
Ostvel saw his eyes go blank, unfocused. How many hundreds of times had he watched a Sunrunner at work? Chances were that he himself possessed a glimmer of the gift; his elder son was a faradhi trained and skilled, and whereas eight years old was young to show the signs, last summer Jeni had flatly refused to join a sailing party on the Faolain. Ostvel was pleased that at least two of his children were gifted. He had always wondered what it might be like to weave light, to fly without dragon wings, to revel in the flush of power through body and heart and mind. But he had also seen what possession of the gift had done to Alasen, the pain and terror that had taken years to fade. And he had also seen Sionell’s anguish that her lack had rendered her an unsuitable match for Pol, even if he had ever noticed her as a woman. Ostvel had always honored and valued faradhi powers in his youth; ambivalence about them had crept slowly into his mind, beginning the night Sioned had almost killed Ianthe using those powers.
Donato stumbled suddenly against the pony’s shoulder. Ostvel steadied him, knowing better than to distract him with questions before he had fully returned. In a moment the Sunrunner had caught his breath. He chafed his gloved fingers, looking stunned.
“They’re all gone! It’s like nothing was ever there!”
“You mean they’ve marched.”
“I mean there’s no sign of the encampment I saw last night! No scars of cookfires on the ground, no hoofprints, no evidence.” He shook his head. “Ostvel, I saw what I saw last night.”
“Look again,” was the grim reply.
It took a few moments. Meeting Ostvel’s gaze again, he kneaded his laced fingers together to warm them. His voice was expressionless as he said, “Lord Morlen’s lady is in the courtyard with her daughter. They’re standing in front of a mirror combing their hair dry. The servant holding the mirror steady is Fironese. The little boy holding the hair ornaments is trying not to drop them—it’s all bloody nothingl” he spat. “What I saw last night is gone!”
Ostvel paced a few stiff steps away in the snow. All at once he looked back over his shoulder. “Why are you rubbing your hands?”
“It’s cold.”
“Not that cold. What’s wrong with your hands, Donato?”
The Sunrunner pulled off one glove with his teeth. His fingers were shaking. “Sweet Goddess,” he whispered. “They feel burned.”
“Sorcery.” The word hissed in the white quiet of the mountainside. “You slammed right into it. Faradh’im work with sunlight by day—no need for this by night, not with all the clouds and the moons rising so short a time.” He kicked one booted foot into the snow. “But there’s sun over Rezeld today.”
“It’s impossible. They couldn’t hide a whole army—”
“Then perhaps you were only dreaming last night,” Ostvel growled, knowing very well Donato had not. “How do we know what they can and can’t do? Andry himself admits that Lady Merisel didn’t tell everything she knew in the scrolls. The point is, we’ve got to get word to Rohan. From Rezeld to Dragon’s Rest—”
Donato interrupted. “Pol is his own Sunrunner. He’s at Stronghold. There’s nobody at Dragon’s Rest to warn.”
“They’ll have to send a messenger through the mountains, then. And a, small troop with him to see that the news gets there. Contact Sioned at once.”
While Donato obeyed, Ostvel paced. He could not imagine life without faradh’im, but in the end they were useless against those who understood their limitations.
Donato was pale and drawn by the time he returned from Stronghold. But he was also angry. “I couldn’t find her. Andry was the one who answered. He said she’s otherwise occupied. But I told him everything.” His lips twisted. “He assured me he’ll inform Sioned—but I know he didn’t believe a word.”
Ostvel nodded slowly. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” Donato was one of the old guard, like Morwenna, who had chosen service elsewhere rather than continue residence at Goddess Keep and watch faradhi traditions shatter. It was no secret that Andry wanted his own representatives at all courts. Several years ago he’d sent a young woman to be Donato’s second; though pleasant in her person and quite skilled, she was so obviously loyal to Andry that Ostvel had wasted no time in packing her back to Goddess Keep with a polite but firm refusal of the offer. The episode had insulted Donato, irritated Ostvel, mortified the rejected Sunrunner, and infuriated Andry.
“I saw what I saw,” Donato repeated stubbornly.
“Perhaps he did believe you, and chose not to indicate it,” Ostvel mused.
Donato’s jaw dropped slightly. “Wherever else his ambitions might lead him, he could hardly want the destruction of Dragon’s Rest!”
Ostvel only grunted.
The Sunrunner thumbed one of his rings nervously. “Are you going to tell me about these? Why they hurt?”
“Not now. But thank the Goddess for it, my old friend,” he said more gently, trying to ease Donato’s eventual shock when he learned he, too, had diarmadhi blood.
After helping Donato onto his pony, he mounted and they rode down the mountain, back into the fog that still blanketed Castle Crag. He saw the faradhi to his chambers for a well-earned rest, then climbed up to the oratory and stared out at the gray mist. Eventually he almost smiled. Sorcery might have disguised whatever was happening or had happened at Rezeld, but Ostvel would need no magic to hide what he was about to do.