Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince (75 page)

The baby’s hands groped up toward the threaded colors and Sioned allowed him to touch it for an instant. Then she lifted the Air and Water and Earth all spun together with Fire from the stars, and flung it out to the Desert below. The weave spread out like an unfurled tapestry, strands of color augmented now by Sioned’s own, and she spoke her child’s name for the first time.

“Pol,” she whispered. “Born of starfire. That is your name, my son, and it is your mother who gives you all these things.”

Lifting him in her arms, she turned him to face the expanding fabric of light over the Desert, vibrating now like sparks from a windswept hearth or a carpet of multicolored flowers shimmering in the breeze. It slid along the curves and hollows of the dunes below, wrapped around the rocks, glowed blue and crimson and green and gold, all shot through with glittering points like diamonds. At last the weaving sank slowly into the sand, and all was starlit silence once more.

After a moment Sioned murmured the traditional ending of the Naming ritual. “It is the duty of a mother to Name her child. So I have done. His name is Pol.”

The familiarity of the final words did not release Tobin from the enchantment. She knew she had witnessed something never before seen, never even dreamed of. Yet there was something else familiar here, the feeling that spread through her head and heart. She had felt it on the night of her father’s ritual, when the
faradh’im
had ridden the moonlight and taken her with them. Yet no sun or moons shone, no light to weave into pathways through the sky—nothing except the stars and their delicate Fire. Fragile, almost transparent lanes of light trembled around her, routes opened by Sioned, who knelt beside her clutching the child, her eyes glazed over. Tobin knew she was no longer here, but traveling on those ribbons of starfire. And Tobin, closing her eyes, followed.

She had no consciousness of the flight, swift and sure as it took her to the battlefield. By the glow of Fire she saw the dead being gathered and the wounded being tended, and shivered. Where were her husband, her son, her brother? She could feel Sioned’s colors ahead of her, searching as frantically as she. And then they were together, gliding down a single filament of starlight now, beyond the silent field and over small hills that cradled shadowy valleys between them like the slight hollows between the muscles of a powerful man’s back.

She saw then, and knew the two groups of riders who faced each other in a broad valley. She saw her husband, tall and tense as he sat his horse in perfect stillness, more carving of warrior’s beauty than living man. She saw her brother, golden hair turned to silver, poised, waiting, as motionless as Chay. She saw Andrade, pale hair streaming down her back, strangely helpless as she spoke urgent words that Rohan and Chay ignored. There were others, but Tobin did not look at them—for the star-thread drew her across the emptiness between to Roelstra.

The High Prince gestured sharply, and a slender young woman rode forward. Chay went to meet her. They exchanged words Tobin could not hear, wore expressions the shadows did not allow her to read. But she saw her husband nod slowly, and when the woman straightened from her slight bow of acceptance, Tobin saw that it was Pandsala. The pair returned to their princes, and Rohan and Roelstra each dismounted.

Confused and frightened, Tobin quivered in the grip of the starlight. Andrade held up both hands, rings shining, her mouth contorted as she cried out words that would forbid, her face terrible as she flung her head back. Roelstra shouted, Rohan shook his head. Not even Andrade could stop this now.

The two princes stripped off battle harness and clothes until they were down to trousers and boots, nothing more. There was a bandage wrapped around Rohan’s right shoulder, blood seeping through in an ominous stain. Chay spoke with swift urgency, gesturing, warning; Rohan nodded absently and unsheathed his sword. Tobin heard in imagination its angry hiss from the scabbard, the blade a long gleam of steel in the night, lean and pale as its owner.

Andrade at last submitted, withdrawing in response to Urival’s hand on her sleeve. The two
faradh’im
moved apart and dismounted. Urival walked to the other end of the line of Rohan’s soldiers. Both Sunrunners paused a moment before their lifted hands conjured two small spheres of Fire. Rohan’s people formed a loose arc on one side, Roelstra’s on the other. The
faradh’im
and the Fire hovered between to complete the circle and give the princes light to see by, light in which to kill each other. Andrade stood with head bowed and shoulders bent like an old woman’s; Tobin saw, and grieved, but knew that whatever the Lady had planned for Rohan and Roelstra, this was the only possible conclusion.

They stalked each other warily, moving with elaborate care. All advantages of youth, strength, and swiftness that should have been Rohan’s were negated by the wound in his shoulder that would slow and weaken him the longer the fight went on. Roelstra was heavier of body and motion, and it had been a long time since he had used his warrior’s training. But that the muscles beneath his flesh were strong and that his instincts were intact became obvious with the first swing of his sword.

Tobin did not hear the clang of blades, nor the grunt wrung from her brother’s throat as the impact shuddered up to his wounded shoulder. She did not hear whatever taunting words Roelstra flung into the space between them. But she could see—and there was a spark, a narrow gleam of steel far back among Roelstra’s people. They shifted. A pathway cleared. The starlight spun around Tobin and her colors seethed with panic, twining, merging with Sioned’s—and Urival’s, and Andrade’s—and someone else, someone trained but not perfected in the
faradhi
arts. Suddenly there was yet another, a tiny, raw gift that surged up in answer to Sioned’s need. Light and shadow skittered around Tobin, through her, and she lost her own colors to the greater whirl of power borne on Fire from the stars.

Andrade was too stunned by the assault on her senses to begin defending herself until it was too late. Caught up in the threads of starlight, she saw in an instant the treachery of the upraised knife—and for the first time since the tenth ring had been placed on her finger she found herself subordinate to the powers of another Sunrunner.

Chill silvery flames sprang up around the two princes, a circle of dangerous starlight that rose, met, created a shining dome that enclosed Rohan and Roelstra in shivering Fire. Colors flashed as each
faradhi
pattern was woven more deeply into the structure: her own colors, Urival’s, Tobin’s, Sioned’s—and those of two others whose presence shocked Andrade to her soul. Realizing too late that Sioned had trapped her, she fought panic and tried to gain control of the starlight. But this weaving was Sioned’s, and Andrade could do nothing but feel her strength given as Sioned demanded.

Rohan drew back, dazzled by the cold Fire that arched up around him. Roelstra cursed frantically as a flare of diamond-bright light hit the dome with a sound like a great glass bell being rung, echoing deeply from curve to curve of the dome. Rohan took advantage of his enemy’s distraction and lunged in, sword ready to take Roelstra’s head. But the High Prince moved just in time, escaping with a only gash cut into his left arm.

“So Andrade has closed us in,” he rasped. “That’s too bad—I wanted everyone to see you die.”

Rohan wasted no breath on a reply. His shoulder had not warmed to the exercise as he had hoped; there was no battle fever to counter his weariness, and the anticipation that had burned along his veins during the ride was gone. He had spent too much of himself this long day, and his only hope was to finish Roelstra quickly—if he could.

The High Prince laughed as if knowing Rohan’s thoughts. “Tired, princeling?” He drove in, without finesse but with a great deal of strength, and Rohan sidestepped out of his way.

Steel clashed again and again, resounding off the star-spun dome until Rohan’s ears rang. Neither man indulged in elegant swordplay; each was after blood. Cold sweat ran into Rohan’s eyes, sheathed his body in ice. Lunge, parry, evade, thrust, dodge, lunge again. His right arm was fast becoming incapable of hefting the sword that was heavier each instant. He heard Roelstra’s harsh gasping breaths, smelled the sweat sheening the fleshy body, saw the welts leaking blood where his blade had cut the High Prince. But he would not have wagered right then on his own victory. For all Roelstra’s years and excesses, he seemed inexhaustible.

Angling his sword as Roelstra brought his own back for a powerful thrust, he tried to cut the man’s legs from under him. The tip of his blade caught just behind the knee, and steel flawed in the day’s battle snagged in the High Prince’s soft leather boot. In the attempt to free himself, he drove the sharp tip into his flesh, growling with pain. Rohan wrenched the blade away and tried to follow up, but his arm chose that moment to falter. The sword slid from his hand. Balance lost, he fell hard to his knees, gasping at the impact.

“Excellent position,” Roelstra taunted, “one you should have adopted long ago. I’ll teach it to your Sunrunner princess before I teach her to forget you in my bed—the way you forgot her in my daughter’s!”

Rohan dove for his sword and forced his two hands to close around it, good hand locked over the strengthless one. Roelstra sliced almost contemptuously into his back as Rohan rolled away and came up on one knee. He barely felt the new rent in his skin, but for the trickle of blood that mingled with the renewed flow from his right shoulder. Roelstra gave a short burst of breathless laughter and closed in. Twisting around, Rohan caught the hilt of his sword against Roelstra’s, struggling to keep the blades locked even as the High Prince struggled to separate them. With a groan of agony as the effort tore his shoulder completely open, Rohan felt Roelstra finally give way. The suddenness of it flashed suspicion through his mind that it was deliberate—but the High Prince stumbled down onto the grass, cursing.

Rohan gasped, each breath a stab of fire. It was beyond him to use the sword now, its weight insupportable. He went for his boot knife and heaved himself onto the sweating body. Powerful fingers closed over his wrist, wrenched his arm back, nearly tearing it from the socket. He realized that in another moment he would black out, and writhed from Roelstra’s grip.

The High Prince grunted with pain as he heaved to his feet, swaying, blood dripping from his knee. Rohan went for the other knife and had his ribs kicked for his trouble. Body curling in anguish, breath sobbed in his throat and for the first time he was cold with the fear that he was going to die.

Roelstra stood over him, panting. Sword retrieved, he leaned on it, the tip imbedded in the soil. The jeweled hilt shone in the silvery surrounding Fire.

“I’ll teach your son to kneel,” Roelstra hissed.

There was a sudden roaring in his ears, salt bitterness on his lips. Fury came to him at long last, a killing rage that had nothing to do with clean battle or even with vengeance.
My son.
The words echoed over and over in time to the vicious pounding rhythm of his blood:
My son
—

“Kneel to me, princeling,” Roelstra demanded, his voice thick with hate. “Kneel!”

Rohan moved very slowly. He pushed himself up, holding his ribs with his good hand, groped out with the other as though seeking support that would get him to his knees.
My son.
There was a burning in his flesh and something cold and dew-moist in his hand. One foot under him, leaning heavily on the other knee, he looked up through a stinging mist at the grandfather of his son.

Roelstra was smiling. He continued to smile even as Rohan surged upward and shoved a knife he could barely hold into the soft flesh of Roelstra’s throat. The long blade stabbed through the underside of the chin and Rohan thrust it deeper, through tongue and mouth all the way to the base of the brain.

The High Prince toppled to one side. Rohan watched him fall, knowing Roelstra was dead. And then the wet grass slicked with blood came up to meet him, and he knew nothing more.

Only the frightened rasp of Chay’s voice made Andrade recall that she had an existence apart from the raging cold starfire that by now had bled all color into its pallor. She heard him, and painfully gathered into coherence the splintered pattern that was herself. The others, less powerful than she, were still caught in the glowing dome. She labored with all her strength to separate them, to rebuild the shimmer of each distinctive mind.

Urival was first, his deep sapphire and pale moonstone and shining amber forming once more into the familiar design. Truth, wisdom, protection against danger—all these things were Urival, and she wept with relief that he was whole. He helped her with the others, unraveling the chaotic weave that was comprised of Sioned and Tobin and the two startling, shocking others. The two princesses, known to them, were swiftly separated and reformed, cherished patterns not lost to shadows lurking in the night. The last pair—Andrade left the familiar one to Urival and explored the new and unexpected presence herself. Topaz for sharp intelligence; emerald for hope; iridescent pearl for purity; all lit by a diamond brightness that was beauty and cleverness. She knew who he was, this brilliant pattern of green and white and gold. The Sunrunner Prince. Rohan’s son.

“Andrade!” Chay was almost sobbing now, and she opened her eyes to see his stricken face above her. She was vaguely curious about how she had come to be lying on the ground with her head cradled in his arm. When she moved, bruises told her of a hard fall. “Sweet merciful Goddess,” Chay whispered. “I thought you shadow-lost.”

“No,” she said, and coughed. “It’d take more than this to kill me.” She pushed herself up. “Urival?”

“Here,” came his voice from nearby, where Pandsala lay senseless on the grass. “Do you know what happened, and what she did?” he asked softly, his eyes sunk into hollows. “And why?”

Andrade swallowed and nodded. “Yes. Is she—”