Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire (58 page)

“Why?” he challenged. “Are you afraid of it?”

“Of what it does to people. Your mother and Morwenna and Maarken and Hollis—they have such joy in what they can do. Such delight in the chance to fly. Andry doesn’t. He might have had, once. But not anymore. You can see it in his eyes. He’s learned how to use his gifts to kill.” The blue eyes became piercing. “What about you, Pol? How much joy will you take in your powers once you’ve used them to kill your own brother?”

“What else can I do? Why are you making this worse for me? To pay me back?”

“Do you think I’m like that?” she flared. “That I’d deliberately—” She stopped, calmed herself with visible effort, and finished, “I said it because I don’t want to see you become like Andry. With no joy left in your eyes.”

That stung. “Ell—”

“I owe my first loyalty to your father as my prince, but you’ll be in his position one day—High Prince and Sunrunner both. I want to see you become what you
can
be, not what events bludgeon you into becoming.” She looked as if she would have said more, but ended only with a little shrug.

“So your worry is for what kind of prince you’ll have to deal with in the future,” he said bitterly, and the hollow where certainty of her love had been ached anew. He was a political reality to her now, not a man. And it was his own fault; he had destroyed anything she might still feel for him.

A wiser part of him whispered that it was better so. Tallain deserved all of her heart. But it hurt; Goddess, how it hurt to know that his own words had cost him Sionell’s caring, lost him that part of her he had always thought of as his alone.

He got to his feet, more drained now than even the strain of a powerful Sunrunning had made him. “Thank you for your honesty. What was it Mother told you when we were little? That a prince who reminds others of it isn’t much of a prince? How much less a prince he is if others have to remind
him!
If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have preparations to make for my coming act of fratricide.”

“Stop it, Pol!”

But he strode away from her, seeking the shaded silence of a little grove near the grotto from which she had come. She did not come after him. And perhaps that hurt most of all.

 

 

“So,” Miyon drawled. “My little hothouse rose, so carefully nurtured, has grown thorns.”

Meiglan froze. Miyon smiled down at her where she sat on a flat rock near the grotto pool. His quiet, silken approach had terrified her more than if he’d come here roaring out his rage. Good.

“You have few usable wits, but enough to understand that this has not endeared you to me. Had you thought about what will happen once you have no highborn allies to protect you?”

She looked sick, her skin turning slightly green.

“At Castle Pine there will be no one to rescue you when I whip the skin from your bones.”

“I won’t go. I’m staying here.”

The defiance infuriated him, but he made himself laugh. “By the Goddess, it has a brain after all! Yes, you
will
stay here! Can you guess why?”

“Stay—?” she whispered. “You will let me stay?”

Miyon loomed over her, and menace replaced the laughter. “Until the
Rialla
at Dragon’s Rest. After that, you will
stay
there. As Pol’s wife.”

Meiglan stared up at him dumbly. Breath rasped in her lungs and she trembled like a captive wild thing.

“He can’t keep his eyes from you. It should be fairly easy for you to trap him into a formal Choice. Use these newfound wits of yours. Because only when you are his wife will you be safe.”

Her mute anguish ignited his temper at last. Plucking her up by the shoulders, he shook her until her bones rattled. But she did not cry out, which angered him even more.

“Do you understand? Do you hear what I’m telling you, daughter of a whore? Your mother schemed to become a princess. You will be
High Princess
once that dragon-spawn who sired Pol is dead. It’s the only way to save your own life.”

“And yours,” she breathed, and light came back into her eyes.

Miyon dropped her to the ground, where she crumpled like a rag doll. “I was afraid I’d have to use words of one syllable,” he snapped. “You’re quite right, my precious jewel. Rohan can scarcely execute the father of his son’s wife.”

“No.” But it was not agreement with his analysis; rather, defiance.

“You will do it,” he said. “Wed him and bed him and make him the perfect little princess. Goddess help him!” He managed a real laugh this time. “A mouse has more spirit, a plow-elk more intelligence! You have beauty and music, and that’s all. No use to a prince. He’ll rule alone. You’ll never be any worth to him except in breeding his heirs and playing him to sleep with your lute.”

She flinched, but there was something in her eyes—something. He must not lose his advantage of terror over her, lest she see his own fear. His life was in the hands of the daughter he despised. She held the whip now; he could not let her feel it in her fingers.

“No,” she said again, this time with more voice in it. “I won’t do this. Sionell will protect me—she’s my friend, she said so just now—”

“Brave try,” he sneered. “There’s only one problem. You want Pol. Don’t you, sweet little flower? Don’t you!”

He had her now. It didn’t much matter why she obeyed him—through fear of him or love of Pol—as long as she did obey. And she would, or lose the dragon’s son forever. She bent her head to her knees and quivered, but the sound that came from her was not a moan. It was “Yes.”

Satisfied, Miyon gazed down at her for a moment more. Then he hauled her up by the shoulders again. “Future High Princesses do not bury their faces in the dirt,” he mocked, “not even to their fathers.”

She looked up at him, dark eyes sparking with some of the courage of that morning. He slapped her across the face, snapping her head to one side and nearly breaking her nose.

“Remember that,” he growled, and released her. She staggered but managed to keep her feet. With a last contemptuous glance that hid his relief, Miyon turned on his heel and strode away.

 

 

Meiglan’s ankle stabbed painfully as she limped to the pool. She knelt to wash her face, crying out softly when her scraped and bloody hands contacted the cold. The water she splashed on her face dripped dark. Her cheek was on fire, her nose not quite numb. With movements which after a time became automatic, she kept rinsing her face until the bleeding stopped.

For the second time that day she was startled by a voice behind her. But this one—soft, worried, weary—caught her heart. “My lady? Are you all right?”

Frantically she sluiced more water onto her burning face. Though there was no more blood, she could feel the bruises swelling her cheek and nose. Yet she could not avoid him. So she stood, trying not to favor her injured ankle, and met his gaze with what she hoped was pride enough.

His reaction was immediate and frightening. His eyes kindled with fury, lips thinned to a lethal slash, it was a face she had never seen him wear. “Your father?” he demanded.

She nodded helplessly. “I don’t want to go back to Castle Pine! Ever!”

He came toward her, mist from the waterfall gathering in his hair. As he passed from shadow into a shaft of sunlight through the trees, the droplets shone like a crown of tiny rainbows. “Ah, Meggie,” he whispered, brushing the curls from her brow. “You needn’t be afraid of him ever again. I promise.”

The sound of her childhood name was so piercing sweet that tears came to her eyes. And again she surprised herself, for she had not wept in front of her father, not even when he had slapped her. But now—now a sob strangled her breathing. It escaped as a soft moan and she turned away.

“You don’t believe me?” he asked.

She made herself answer. “If you say it, then it must be true.”

His hands rested on her shoulders, light and tender over the bruises her father had given her. “It helps me, knowing you trust me. That seems to be in rather short supply.”

She risked a glance over her shoulder. His face was pensive, solemn. “How could anyone
not
trust you?”

Her honest amazement made him smile, and he turned her to face him. “You are the most wondrously innocent person I’ve ever met. There’s no subterfuge in you, is there? None of that proud cleverness that surrounds me—that I flatter myself I possess.”

She remembered her father’s mockery, and flushed.

“That’s the difference between me and my father,” he went on, more to himself than to her. “He has a patience I envy but will never possess. It’s the patience of cunning—but I’m not comfortable with it. I can’t emulate him.”

She struggled for understanding. “You have your own way of doing things, my lord.”

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I think what it must be is that he feels things more deeply than I do. He takes them personally. Not in the sense of being offended, but—as if he’s responsible even when he isn’t. I don’t have the courage to inflict that on myself. I don’t know how he does it, quite frankly—or why. I don’t have patience or strength to fight the way he does.”

“But not everything that goes wrong is your responsibility,” she ventured, trying to comprehend him. “Your way is better than his.”

“Do you think so?” He was truly concerned with her reply. She gave it without hesitation.

“Yes, my lord. You are not your father. Your battles are not his.”

“And there’s a battle coming tonight for me that he can have no part in.” Pol touched her hair again. “Meggie—afterward, if I survive this—”

“Of course you will survive! You must!” She could not conceive of what might happen if he did not; the very idea terrified her.

A smile came to his face again, softening his expression. “Thank you. Whether you said that because you know it’s what I needed to hear, or whether you truly believe it, thank you.”

“I trust in you, my lord. You will win.”

He must.

Pol leaned down and kissed her mouth: gently at first, quietly, but with a growing passion that not even an inexperienced virgin could mistake. As his lips traveled slowly down her throat, she gave a tiny, shivering sigh.

She was confused when he lifted his head and looked into her eyes again. Had she done something wrong? Was she supposed to say something, do something?

“So innocent,” he whispered, “you
are
innocent, Meggie.”

Her cheeks burned anew. Of course he was used to women who knew how to kiss a man. He was her first. It humiliated her that this was so obvious to him.

He was smiling at her now, a wistful smile that melted away all emotion but newly discovered love for him. He was powerful; he would protect her with his cleverness and his strength; she would be safe. The notion was as foreign to her as the love, as the sudden desire that trembled through her while looking up at the sweet curve of his mouth.

“May I watch tonight, my lord, when you take the battle to your enemy?” Surprise flickered over his face. “I want to see you win.”

“You really do believe it, don’t you?” he mused.

“Yes, my lord.”

He smiled again. “Meggie, my name is Pol. Say it for me.”

She did so, shyly. Feminine instinct roused for the first time in her life and she knew as she said his name that he would kiss her again.

R
uval pressed his back to the ragged wall of the cave, breathing hard. He had just used hated sunlight for the fifth time that day, trying to find Mireva. There had been nothing from her, not the slightest whisper. He had been about to search on the noonday sun when Pol’s acceptance had come to him, a declamation powerful as a storm wind through pines. The satisfaction of having an affirmative answer at last had not survived his failure to find Mireva. Now it was getting on toward sunset. Soon the sky would blacken and the stars, would pock the night. He must accept that he would face Pol alone.

Alone.

He whipped back rising panic with pride in his lineage, his powers, and his training. He would win. Mireva had chosen him as her instrument of vengeance against all Sunrunners. He would confirm Mireva’s choice, avenge his mother, sit in his grandfather’s place as prince at Castle Crag. Roelstra had failed, and Ianthe, to break Rohan’s power. They had been cunning—but Ruval possessed knowledge they had not. He knew how to kill Pol, and in a way no one would ever suspect.

So he scoffed away trepidation and settled once more on a little shelf of stone at the cavern mouth, eating the last of his meager provisions as the shadows lengthened. He didn’t much like the canyon, though it would be a magnificent arena for his victory. The shadows carved deep into the rock walls were black and silent, like eyes disguising secrets. The cave he rested in was littered with the leavings of countless dragon generations—skulls with staring sockets where eyes should have been, shattered shells half-blackened by fire. A stiff, leathery bit of wing had fluttered in the afternoon up-draft that swept through the canyon, startling him into a cry that echoed from wall to wall outside. He set himself to planning the eradication of every dragon now living—he’d discovered they were fine sport, and old Prince Zehava had had the right idea about proving prowess by killing the great beasts. But, more than those things, he disliked the feeling he got in this place where dragons had been. It was their place, not his; he intended that every grain of sand in the Desert and every handspan of soil on the continent belong to him alone.

Just before the sun vanished, he sifted
dranath
into his wineskin and drank it down. The drug bolstered his courage, gave new strength to his blood. Very softly, Ruval began to laugh. The sensuous haze of the drug rippled through his body, and then the welcome sensation of power. He clenched sand in his fists, let it trickle through his fingers, admiring the sparkle of golden dust visible even in the dimness. This, too, was power. Ruval decided to let Rohan live for a time, to feel the agony of loss and failure Ianthe had known. Then he would die, and all his family with him. Princemarch, the Desert, the gold—everything would be Ruval’s.
And
the title of High Prince.