Riyan shrugged. “I was so furious I didn’t really know what I was saying.”
Ruala smiled at him. “Yes you did. I’ve come to know you, too, in the short time since we met at Elktrap.”
“And do I worry you as much Andry does?” he asked, inviting her to flirt with him.
She was in no mood for it; her look turned serious and she said, “He’s changing everything. All the traditions of Goddess Keep. I don’t know why anyone was surprised when he killed Marron using his gifts. I expected it.”
“I should have, too, I suppose. But Sunrunner training is so strong—it’s not something any of us can even consider, even if we’re threatened. And I really wasn’t thinking straight, you know. My rings had turned to fire. I keep wondering why that happens.”
Ruala hesitated. “If you promise not to interrupt, I can explain.”
He watched her face for a long moment, the dark green eyes shadowed to black, the strong lines of nose and cheek and jaw softened by starlight. Taking her arm, he walked with her down to the pathway again in silence.
“My family is very old and has lived very isolated,” she began. “In the Veresch, memories are long. The mountain folk still prefer their dialect of the old tongue. I speak it myself a little—one has to, in order to deal with them. And sometimes they treat the old ways as if the new did not exist. Things you Sunrunners are only now rediscovering through the scrolls, some people in the Veresch have always known.”
“What do you know about the scrolls?” he demanded.
She gave him a slight smile. “You weren’t to interrupt. But no matter. My grandfather despaired of my ever believing any of the family stories. But this spring has taught me how true they are. How else could Andry have defeated a diarmadhi if he hadn’t learned it from the scrolls? Oh, it’s not stated openly. You have to be as devious as Lady Merisel herself to discover the method.”
Riyan stared at her. “How do you know all this?”
“I might not have credited my grandfather’s tales, but I listened to them.”
“Lord Garic,” he said suddenly. “The same name as Lady Merisel’s husband.”
“It’s a rather common name in the Veresch,” she said easily. “Something else he told me was that the ceremony of giving the rings is a simple one, but potent. The very gold you faradh’im use is charged with power. Some say Lady Merisel cleaned out an entire mine on Kierst and had the gold brought to her at Goddess Keep to be imbued with power. Lord Gerik and Lord Rosseyn helped her as long as they could, but not even they had the strength to endure five days of it. She was more powerful than any of us can imagine. Rings made from this special gold are given to a Sunrunner rather casually—although I’m told Lord Andry makes it more of a ceremony these days. But it doesn’t matter. The spell is already in the gold. That’s Lady Merisel’s gift to Sunrunners. The warning when sorcery is nearby—if they possess sorcerer’s blood themselves.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she do that, if she spent her life working against diarmadh’im? Logically, the power in the rings would be a trap for those trying to pass themselves off as Sunrunners.”
“Tell me, my lord, does the fact that you have diarmadhi blood inevitably make you evil?”
“There are a lot of people who are going to be asking themselves exactly that,” he replied bitterly.
“The only answer that counts is yours.” She stopped walking and looked up into his eyes, her own strangely intense.
“My answer is ‘no.’ Of course it doesn’t. And I see your point, my lady—character determines how power will be used, not the source of that power.”
“Ah.” She sighed softly and continued on toward the grotto.
“You don’t agree?” he asked, confused.
“Certainly I agree. But how much easier it would be if one could say, ‘Here is a faradhi, who always does the good and right thing, and there is a diarmadhi, who cannot.’ People would prefer it so.”
“Andry would,” he mused. “He doesn’t dare touch me, but I’ve always felt that anyone else would be wise to hide it from him.” Ruala nodded sadly. Riyan pulled a branch of Sioned’s willow out of her way and said, “So the reaction was set into the gold rings as a warning. Wait a moment—the silver ones burn, too.”
“But not as much. Originally all Sunrunner rings were gold. Perhaps they changed some to silver when the supply began to dwindle, and mixed some of the spelled gold into the making. That would be sensible, but I don’t really know.” She glanced up. “Why do you think the rings of a Lord or Lady of Goddess Keep are always taken at death and melted down to make the successor’s rings?”
“You know a great deal for having lived—isolated,” he commented warily.
She ignored his rather obvious hint. “Not that it signifies with Lord Andry, that he had new rings made. The gold and silver are the same. And he has no Old Blood. But once the special gold runs out. ...”
Riyan saw that he would have to be blunt. “Why didn’t your grandfather say something, tell someone?”
“The sorcerers haven’t threatened in generations. But they’ve come into the open again, and Lady Merisel’s wisdom is serving you very well. They can’t work their spells around Sunrunners such as you without giving themselves away—and without their spells, they are relatively harmless.”
They came to the waterfall that tumbled down mossy rocks from the hidden spring and stood quietly for a time, listening to the night. Its sounds were very different at Skybowclass="underline" water surged gently there, did not dance and chatter like this. The stars reflected off slow ripples across the lake, did not dart and tease the eye with glinting swiftness off the spraying drops. At Feruche, Riyan thought suddenly, there was no open water at all. Strange that he’d been so unwilling to accept it from Pol this afternoon, and yet by evening was ready to risk his life to keep it.
“You know a lot about the diarmadh’im,” he said at last. “And about the Sunrunners. I’d like to hear Lord Garic’s stories sometime.”
“You’re welcome at Elktrap whenever you like, my lord. It would please my grandfather very much to see you again.”
Riyan looked down at her. He would risk it; somehow he had to risk it. “And would it please you? Would you welcome me, Ruala?”
She met his gaze steadily, and it seemed all the stars concentrated their brilliant light in her eyes.
When a playful night breeze tossed water at them like handfuls of diamonds, they were much too busy kissing each other to notice.
Pol dismissed Edrel as soon as he entered his own chambers and let his clothes fall where they would, careful only of the gold belt buckle given at his knighting. Restless, sickened by the night’s events, he paced a carpet made of thin, nubby Fessenden wool and tried to find some center of calm within himself.
He hadn’t felt equal to staying with his family as they heard Andry out. He knew how the conversation would go—Andry would say again what he had said when the Fire had died and Marron with it: “He killed Sorin. He deserved to die.” No Sunrunner ethic, no consideration of orderly process of law, no argument in the world would ever convince Andry that he had done something terribly wrong. And beneath the angry frustration he knew the others shared, Pol was afraid.
He could not have endured being near his cousin another instant. So he had left with Rialt on the pretext of finding and confining the rest of Miyon’s suite so Riyan and Morwenna could test for the presence of sorcery. But Riyan had disappeared. Considering the jittery state of Pol’s own nerves after this night’s business, he didn’t have the heart to track him down.
He doubted anything else would occur before tomorrow, anyway. Long ruminations about the brothers and what Ruval said the day Sorin died had convinced Pol that Marron’s action was unexpected, not part of the master plot. Ruval was the elder, and his would be the serious challenge. Pol had been waiting for it. Tomorrow, next day, the day after—it would come soon enough. But not tonight.