I love you, Tol thought fervently, framing each word with such care he had to clench his jaw to keep them from escaping his lips. I love you, Valaran.
Time dragged, slow as resin oozing from a wounded pine. The ache in Tol’s knees was nothing compared to the longing in his heart. He prayed for dawn, for release from this torture, but the heavens would not hurry to suit him.
A faint sound interrupted his long torment. Valaran had sighed. She rolled back her sleeves, baring her arms to her elbows. Her fingers were long and tapering, a lyrist’s hands, though Val disdained idle pastimes like music. With her fingers spread, she could hold a manuscript open with one hand while holding her tea, or taking notes, with the other-no mean feat. Those hands had also gripped the back of Tol’s neck with desperate strength when she’d feared he might leave her too soon. Not trifling things, those hands. He had been held by them often enough to revere them.
Again he caught her sneaking a glance at him over the bier. Was it his own wishful thinking, or had her expression softened? It wasn’t love, but something other than anger flickering in her eyes. From her expression, it seemed to Tol she desired to ask him a question but couldn’t quite frame the words.
He returned her gaze calmly, concealing his own inner turmoil with great effort. They studied each other, both perspiring in the stifling dimness. It came to resemble a contest to see who would look away first. Tol never wanted to look away ever. Solin’s rays could harden him to stone right here, forever beholding the woman he loved.
When light did at last slant in, graying the high dome, it took some time before either of them recognized the dawn. Still they did not turn away.
Footfalls announced the entry of two members of the White Robe order. They halted at the foot of the bier. The younger bore a tray with a slender pitcher and two clay cups. The older wizard made the sign of Draco Paladin in the air, ending the vigil.
“Good morrow to you, Highness,” he said. “Welcome the day, my lord. I am Perogen.”
In unison, they turned away from each other to face the newcomers. Tol’s tongue was thick, his throat parched. Coughing a bit, he said, “It was a long, hot night.”
He got to his feet. His legs roared with pain as blood rushed back to long-folded muscles. Perogen extended a hand to help Valaran rise, but she ignored it and staggered upright unaided.
The younger wizard presented the tray of refreshments. He was about Tol’s age, clean shaven, and with dark skin like Felryn. Perogen poured two measures of amber liquid from the slender pitcher. Silvanesti nectar. An ironic choice, Tol thought, given the events of Pakin III’s life.
A cup was offered first to Valaran, who took precedence over Tol. She downed the nectar in a single long swallow.
Tol watched her slender throat work and swallowed hard himself. This vigil had been worse than some battles he’d been in. Well, not worse perhaps, but certainly hard to bear. He sipped his own nectar gingerly, letting it trickle down his dry throat.
Valaran set the cup back on the tray then carefully adjusted her gown, closing the neck and unrolling the sleeves. “Thank you,” she said to the wizards, her only words all night. With a swirl of silk, she turned and walked swiftly out of the tower.
The young wizard frowned slightly at the obvious tension in the air. “Did the vigil pass well?” he asked.
“Well enough. I owe much to the late emperor. It was hard to say farewell to him,” Tol murmured.
“We were told you were most devoted to him,” said Perogen. “That’s why you were given this duty.”
“I’m honored.” The import of the fellow’s words suddenly occurred to him. “Who told you I was specially devoted to the late emperor?”
“Consort Valaran, my lord. It was her request that brought you here.”
Tol smiled all the way back to the Quarry district. Upon his return, Miya made ribald comments about where he’d been, scoffing at the notion of a holy vigil. She knew that look, she teased. He’d been with a woman.
And so he had.
Mandes the Mist-Maker yawned and stretched. It had been a long night and a boring one. He could not use his magic to spy upon the dead emperor’s vigil; the Tower of High Sorcery was well shielded against such intrusions. He was forced to rely on a more old-fashioned method to gain information about Lord Tolandruth’s activities-he bribed a young Red Robe to act as his spy.
“They did nothing, master,” his hireling reported. “They remained kneeling by the bier all night and never spoke.”
Mandes smiled and readily gave the young wizard the promised six gold pieces. His informer seemed puzzled by his pleasure.
“Nothing happens for many days after a seed is planted,” Mandes told him. “To expect a sprout the first night would be unnatural.”
He dismissed the spy, reminding himself to ask Prince Nazramin to have the fellow killed. Anyone who could be so easily bought was a liability to their scheme.
Chapter 11
More vigils followed. Each night two people with close ties to the late emperor stood watch over his remains. When the rites ended, Pakin III was completely transformed into stone, and then it was time for the coronation and funeral. Traditionally, the two ceremonies were performed sequentially. Only when the old emperor had been consigned to the gods could the new emperor be crowned. Because Pakin III’s preservation depended on the natural course of Solin through the sky, the petrification process occupied several days.
In her rooms deep within the palace, Valaran felt half turned to stone herself. She’d known that after Pakin III’s death the warlords of the empire would gather from all over to put their old master to rest and see a new emperor crowned. She knew that Tol would be one of those lords, of course he would. That was perfectly logical, and she prided herself on her logical and ordered mind. Unlike the featherbrained consorts and ladies-in-waiting who populated the palace, Valaran was well read, intelligent, rational-
She threw aside the roll of parchment on which she’d been writing. This was her fifth book, a history of the cadet branches of the Ackal dynasty. Five years she’d spent compiling genealogies, reading dry old chronicles from every corner of the realm where the many descendants of Ackal Ergot had spread, seeking to understand the impulses and motives behind the history. Now the sight of one man in the Tower of High Sorcery was driving all sensible thoughts from her head.
What was his gift? Why did this son of a peasant farmer hold such a grip on her heart and mind? He wasn’t the smartest man in Ergoth, nor the strongest, nor the bravest. Tol wasn’t even the best-looking man around. He was short, broad shouldered and thick necked, with a coarse, loud voice. And yet-
Valaran went to the window. She could see the wall of the Inner City, a patch of the wizards’ garden, and the pallid glow of the Tower of High Sorcery beyond. White banners flipped slowly in the night breeze. Beyond the wall, the lamps of Daltigoth were lit.
Tol was real. When he took her out the first time through the streets of the capital to that noisy, dirty tavern, he was in his element and she was out of hers. The true world of sweat, dirt, and blood-that was the realm where Tol of Juramona stood tall and commanded respect. Not in the shadowed halls of power. Not in the scented courts of devious nobility and pampered consorts.
Damn him to the fires of all Chaos! She struck the heel of her hand against the wall, succeeding only in making her wrist hurt. Like an old scar, Tol brought with him an ache she had thought long healed. No, not a scar-more like a severed limb. Everyone knew that warriors or workmen who lost hands, arms, or legs experienced pain in the missing part long after the stump healed. Learned healers wrote treatises on why this was so. The Silvanesti sage Coralethian believed the soul of a living being was shaped like their flesh. When an arm was chopped off, the flesh passed away, but the soul of the limb still lived. It ached, as any limb of blood and bone would, when the phantom extremity felt cold or was tired or strained.