Or he could urge the flames higher, hotter, and in them be consumed. “Pol?”
He swung around, livid with fury that someone had dared intrude. “Get out!” he snarled before he even recognized the young woman who stood beside the drunkenly tilting door. Her dark red hair was already thick with sweat that sheened her skin. “Leave me alone!”
Sionell hesitated, then moved inside and managed to wrench the door shut behind her. She leaned back against it as he had done, her voice almost casual as she said, “You’re lucky I’m the only one still about at this hour to see you tear through the hallways like an avenging dragon.” Small solace that no one had witnessed his flight. Sionell had. And he would never forgive her for it. “I don’t have to answer to anyone—least of all you!”
“Now, that sounds just like the arrogant little boy I used to know. The one who found me such a nuisance. You still do, I take it.”
“Don’t make me order you out of here, Sionell. Just go!”
Her brows arched. “Once when I was about eleven winters old, your mother interrupted one of our constant arguments. She told you that a prince who has to remind others of his rank isn’t much of a prince.”
His whole body stiffened at mention of his mother. Not his mother. His mother was Princess Ianthe, dead the night of his birth.
“What is it, Pol?” Sionell asked, more softly now. She raked damp hair from her face, blue eyes shadowed by a concerned frown, and took a step toward him. “We’ve known each other a long time. You can talk to me, you know.”
“Really?” he asked in cutting tones. “I can talk to you, tell you anything, no matter what, and you’ll love me just the same?” Some vicious part of him wanted to hurt someone else as deeply as he’d been hurt. It was Sionell’s misfortune that she happened to be handy. “Do you think I haven’t known all these years?”
That struck home. All the natural color drained from her face, leaving ugly red patches on cheeks and forehead where the fire’s heat blazed against white skin.
“Go back to the husband you Chose because you couldn’t have me,” he taunted. “Go back to him and leave me alone.”
“You bastard,” she breathed.
Laughter scraped his throat raw. “Truer than you know, my lady! My father the prince and my mother the princess—only not the one everyone thinks!”
Stark bewilderment replaced mortal hurt in her eyes.
“Ianthe!” he shouted. “My real mother was Princess Ianthe!”
“No—that’s not possible—”
Her shock confirmed his worst fears. He would see it in everyone from now on, everyone. They would know whose son he was, and whose grandson.
“It’s true. They told me tonight—finally told me the truth of who I am!”
Sionell rallied with infuriating swiftness. “What of it? What about your own truths? Are you defined by a woman dead for—”
“For the length of my life, less one day! Now you know—so get out!”
“No,” she said quietly, and stepped closer to the fire.
“Don’t you understand? You’re supposed to be clever, aren’t you? I’m Roelstra’s grandson, just like the man I’m supposed to kill! He’s my brother!”
“And what of it?” she repeated.
“You haven’t heard the best part yet! Can you guess, Sionell?” he jeered. “Does your cleverness extend to it? Have you figured out that I’m sorcerer’s blood, just like my brother?”
“So is Riyan. So was Lord Urival. What of it?” she cried for a third time. “Does this makes any difference in what you choose to be?” Long fingers again pushed sweat-soaked hair from blazing blue eyes. “Will you choose your own life or trap yourself into what you think your ancestry makes you?”
“Leave me alone!” he shouted. “You can’t possibly understand!”
“I understand you perfectly,” she replied with a serenity that enraged him. “I always have. I just never knew it until I stopped loving you and started seeing you for what you are.”
Stopped loving him? There was a sudden hollowness inside him that he never would have believed possible.
“You’re arrogant and insufferable and self-centered,” she continued icily. “The natural result of too much pride in too many gifts. And too damned smart for your own good.”
“Thank you for that comforting list of my virtues,” he snapped.
“Incomplete,” she shot back. “But that’s not important right now. What matters is that you’re also strong enough to live as your intelligence and your heart say you must. Not as you think two dead people wanted.”
“My whole life is a lie, Sionell! I’m not me, I’m—”
Her temper suddenly ignited. “You’re a fool! Maybe you’re right. Maybe being Roelstra’s grandson is enough to overcome all you are, all you’ve been taught, all the love and guidance lavished on you from the day you were born! Maybe you’ll forsake all that when you face Ruval, turn into some vicious—Goddess knows I’ve seen cruelty enough in you tonight! You didn’t spare me much.” She paused, sudden suspicion tightening her features. “And you didn’t spare your mother either, did you? Pol, how could you?”
“She’s not my mother!”
Sionell crossed the distance between them and struck him across the face. “Damn you,” she hissed, breathing hard. “Cruelty and disloyalty make a fine start! You’re right, Pol, you’re just like your grandsire! Why don’t you let Ruval kill you? That way you won’t have to spend your life proving to everyone else what a monster you really are—the way you proved it to me tonight!”
She wrenched open the door and the gush of air snagged at the flames. The next instant she was gone.
Rohan stood alone, unnoticed and unremarked in an alcove near the main stairs. He wasn’t exactly hiding, but he did want to observe without being assaulted with endless questions while at his order every room in the keep was emptied.
It was considerably past midnight. The general tone of conversation was therefore querulous if not downright irritable as servants, squires, guards, and highborns alike descended the stairs. Muttering and complaining, they crowded into the foyer, which was dimly lit by four tall standing branches of candles. To pass the time while he waited for the castle to clear, Rohan wagered with himself that he could guess what they’d say. Most of it was fairly predictable.
“What’s going on?”
“How do I know?”
“We already searched from Flametower to the cellars—”
“It’s the High Prince’s order. Just do it!” This from an underchamberlain to a group of drowsy-eyed maids he was herding downstairs.
“But why order everyone out?”
Rialt, taking the last steps two at a time, said, “Whatever the reason, look lively. It’s bad practice to keep a prince waiting.”
Hollis and Maarken, carrying their sleepy children, said nothing. Morwenna came downstairs with bedrobe askew, grumbling under her breath about an honest day’s work deserving an honest night’s slumber. The duty guards were polite but firm as they ushered castlefolk and Miyon’s servants out to the courtyard.
“This is an outrage!” announced Lord Barig. His Giladan lawyers agreed with him. Rohan mouthed the next, inevitable words along with his lordship: “I demand to know the meaning of this!”
Nodding to himself, Rohan saw Barig waylay Arlis, who stood in the foyer encouraging people to assemble swiftly in the courtyard. The young man listened with grave politeness, shrugged an apology, and gestured to the doors.
Andry was predictably silent, but Nialdan rumbled, “It’s the middle of the night! Why are we being rousted out of bed?” To which Andry replied softly, “Doubtless to witness something both entertaining and instructive. Aren’t you glad we were given three days to leave?”
Sionell came down the stairs wrapped in a thick robe, her hair dripping. Rohan’s brows shot up; it was a little late at night for a bath. Tallain was waiting for her in the foyer. Rohan could not hear the words they exchanged, but as she huddled into the curve of his arm his protective tenderness was eloquent. Rohan tried to puzzle it out as noisy squires and young servants trooped past. Something had hurt Sionell. More than that, he realized, something had made her feel unclean. He had felt the same impulse himself at times, a need for cool cleansing water. But the cause of her distress was a mystery. Pol’s infatuation with Meiglan, perhaps? No, Ell was too sensible for that. Come to think of it, where was Meiglan?