Crown of Vengeance

CHAPTER FIVE

THE WAY OF THE SWORD

A commander is often faced with two bad choices and no good ones. One gains the victory by concealing that truth from the enemy.

—Arilcarion War-Maker,

Of the Sword Road

For days Vieliessar’s dreams had been troubled, filled with the clash of swords, the screams of the dying, images of a vast battlefield upon which thousands fought. When she drifted from sleep to waking, it took her long moments to realize that the sounds had followed her into wakefulness.

No battle should come here! she thought, scrambling through the narrow tunnel of her sleeping-place into the clearing. But that was custom, not law. Only the Sanctuary itself was sacrosanct. She kilted up the skirts of her green robe and ran toward the sound. She must see.

When she reached the edge of the Forest and looked out over the winter-bare fields of Rosemoss Farm, she saw that the fields were as yet unplowed and the snow that lay on them was patchy and thin. Empty. The sky was clouded, the air was heavy and wet, and she could smell woodsmoke. Somewhere a dog barked.

There is no battle, she told herself in exasperation. I have mistaken dreams for Farseeing, nothing more.

She was about to turn back into the trees when she saw a bright flash in the distance: pale sunlight on armor. She heard shouting and the mellow, demanding call of warhorns. A moment later she felt the faint trembling of the ground as it resounded to the beat of hooves. Destriers. Many of them.

The first of the riders thundered into view. She saw the white-and-silver of Penenjil—the grey stallions marking their riders as the feared Silver Swords of Penenjil, never defeated in battle—the tawny and gold of Enerchelimier, the tawny and marron of Calwas.

But the Silver Swords of Penenjil never ride to battle outside Penenjil’s lands—and Calwas has never made alliance with Enerchelimier in all the history of the Hundred Houses!

She barely had time to form her thought before their pursuers became visible. Purple and gold: Haldil, its House colors almost indistinguishable from the tawny and marron of Calwas. Deep blue and green: Bethros, barely distinguishable at this distance from Hallorad’s green on green. She knew the colors and blazons of all the Hundred—and she knew Haldil and Bethros to be enemies as often as allies.

There were perhaps a dozen who fled, and twice that number pursuing. When they reached the open field, the fleeing komen wheeled their destriers and stood to battle.

Vieliessar had read hundreds of songs of great battles but had never seen one. As if she were a songsmith, she marked how the bright blood slicked the silver blades, how droplets seemed to trail in the air after a blow. She heard the hard dull sound, like an axe upon wood, as a sword struck through armor into flesh, the high, ringing bell sound when it struck shield or blade instead. She saw destriers, mortally wounded, unhorse enemy knights and batter them to death upon the frozen ground, then fall, screaming in rage and pain as they disemboweled themselves in their frantic attempts to stand. Steam curled skyward from open wounds, as if the battlefield was afire. Blood pooled upon the earth and the thick metal scent of it filled the air.

Against all expectation, more wearing the colors of Bethros and Haldil fell than those they sought to slay, for the knights of Penenjil, Enerchelimier, and Calwas fought as if they were demented, drunk on the very blood they spilled. Vieliessar saw a knight of Calwas fling himself from his destrier’s saddle as it fell, grab the tack of a riderless mount caparisoned in Penenjil colors, and drag himself to its back.

This is what you were born for, she thought, even as she flinched at the screams of the wounded. This implacable conviction was a terrible, aching weight in her chest, the sight before her both horrible and exciting. Once she had dreamed of fighting upon such a battlefield. Then she had been trained to care for its survivors. There will be no survivors today, she thought. This was no formal combat, where the injured could throw down their swords and ride back to their own lines if they could not fight on. The knights upon the field before her would fight until they died.

And this—even this—might be some trick to lure me out of hiding, she thought furiously, for the time I have left with Lady Arevethmonion grows short, and Hamphuliadiel must be more subtle when I am in the sight of all.

As if her thoughts had the power to command reality, the Calwas knight she had marked turned his Penenjil mount from the field. The blood-maddened destrier reared and fought, desperate to rejoin the battle though it was bleeding from a dozen wounds. At last its rider prevailed, and the grey warhorse flung itself from the field.

Directly toward Vieliessar’s hiding place.

She stood her ground. Half in disbelief, half with the desperate need to Heal at least one of the injured. The grey’s rider had dropped his sword as he fought for control of his mount, and his armor was so slicked with blood that the bright metal looked as if it had been enameled.

Arevethmonion would be safety. Arevethmonion would hide him.

But when he was no more than a bowshot’s distance from where she stood, she heard a sound like the crack of an ice-laden tree limb. The destrier went down as if it had struck a tripwire, crashing to the earth so hard that it lay stunned for a moment, and Vieliessar could see the ruin of its shattered foreleg. Once more the knight managed to jump clear as the animal floundered desperately, trying to rise. He staggered to his feet, hesitated, then turned back to the destrier. He flung himself upon its neck, pinning it to the earth as he slashed its windpipe, and the great beast at last lay still.

But that stroke of mercy seemed to have taken all the knight’s strength. He tried to get to his feet, staggered, fell full-length against the frozen earth, and began to crawl.

Vieliessar was running toward him before she thought. “Down,” she gasped, falling to her knees beside him. “Be still. I will Heal you and they will not see us.” Concealment was a simple spell. She cast it without thought.

Every Healer in the Sanctuary knew how to remove the complex armor of the komen, for an injury could not be Healed if it was still transfixed by the metal that had caused it. Beneath the blood-sodden surcoat she could sense the spearhead that had slipped beneath the armored chestplate. Her hands slipped in blood as she worked the intricate fastenings to allow her to lift his helmet free.

His hair was shorn close to his head.

She knew him. Anginach. Anginach Lightbrother of Calwas had been a Candidate in her Service Year. He’d Called Fire one night in the Common Room—terrifying all of them, including himself. He’d become a Postulant, taken the Green Robe, and returned home years before.

How had he come to be here, in armor, bearing a sword?

“Vielle—Vieliessar. P—praise the Silver Hooves…” He reached toward her, wincing as fresh blood forced itself between the plates of his armor, but he was too weak to complete the gesture.

“Be still,” she repeated. She could not take the time to feel her shock at seeing him in armor—she could already sense him dying.

“Healer … too,” he gasped. He coughed, spattering her with his blood. “Lost— The proof— Ah, Farcarinon, forgive— Forgive—”

“You have never harmed me,” she said. “Please. You must try!” With all her skill, she willed her energy to him, willing Anginach the seconds she needed to save him. But the deeper she knew his body, the more she realized it was hopeless. She could not Heal him.

No one could.

He had poisoned himself.

His body told her a tale of days and nights of no food and little sleep, of riding madly across a frozen landscape to reach the Sanctuary of the Star. There were cordials one could take to force the flesh to burn its store of future years in a sennight or a moonturn, to give impossible strength and endurance. They were dangerous at one dose, fatal at two or more. All Lightborn knew the recipes. Anginach had used it.

“Lost,” he repeated. He fought to say more, to tell her what urgency had sent him to the Sanctuary in disguise when he might have come openly in safety, what had caused Calwas and Penenjil to ally themselves …

Why he had begged her forgiveness, for he had never stood her enemy.

It was too late. Anginach drew a deep breath. And did not draw another.

He called me Farcarinon. The words she had left unheard in her desperate fight against time sounded in her mind like the mortal beat of the war drum. Why? Why? Why? Her hands at last freed the catches of his armor. She pulled it from his body with reckless haste, throwing each piece as far as she could. Collet, besages, rerebrace, vambraces, breastplate, greaves, pollyns, cuisses … I shall not let them see my Lightbrother in this falsehood! When he wore nothing more than chain shirt and aketon, he was light enough for her to move.

The battlefield was quiet. She dared to glance back at it. Haldil and Bethros had won, though they had paid a high price. Two knights in purple and blood-spattered gold stood over a kneeling Penenjil Silver Sword with drawn blades. The other two victors were searching among the dead.

The Silver Sword removed her helmet. The Haldil sword swept down. The blow did not sever her head from her neck, but it killed her.

Vieliessar dragged Anginach’s body into the trees. Hide me, Lady Arevethmonion! she begged. Hide us!

The veils of misdirection and invisibility that had shielded her before—half of her making, half the will of Arevethmonion—held fast.

Would the knights mark the absence of one of their foes? Would they search the Flower Forest? What she had seen had been no proper war. Early spring was not War Season. And even if it were, Haldil and Bethros, like Penenjil and Calwas and Enerchelimier, were Houses of the Grand Windsward. Why travel so far from home to do battle?

She dragged Anginach through the forest until she was out of breath. She knew she was leaving a track behind her that a blind hikuliasa could follow, but she would not leave him in his shame.

There were no sounds of pursuit.

In a deep clearing beside another pool, she pulled chain and aketon from his body, drew the point of the broken spear from between his ribs. His flesh was inscribed with the tale of his desperate flight: raw flesh and open sores, bruising and broken bones, a gauntness clearly due to starvation. Beneath the aketon, a length of filthy, blood-sodden parchment was pressed to his chest. She carefully lifted the parchment free and set it aside, then used handfuls of water to wash his flesh clean. As she did, she realized that the knotted flaxen cord he should be wearing—that all the Lightborn wore beneath their robes—was missing.

I will not send you to Tildorangelor unknown.

It was the work of a moment to untie her own cord and knot it about his waist. But what now? Those who went to ride upon the night wind—princes, nobles, komen, and Lightborn—gave their bodies up to unchanging Fire. Only the Landbond and the cursed went into the earth. She would not summon Fire within Arevethmonion’s sacred precincts, nor bury Anginach as if he were Landbond.

In the end, she left him in Arevethmonion’s keeping and simply walked away. She did not look back. She never returned to the place where she had left him to his journey.

She took the parchment with her.

She stopped beside the stream near her sleeping place to wash the blood from her hands and clothing. The parchment she had taken from Anginach’s body was a length such as might have been used for a scroll. It was torn at one end and glued closed with drying blood. Carefully, she immersed it in the stream, rinsing it clean, then unfolded it gently. The interior surface was covered in tiny, precise writing. Vieliessar’s eyes widened. She recognized the hand.

Celelioniel of Enerchelimier.

Celelioniel Astromancer.

“I never meant to turn my hand to The Song of Amrethion. My interest was in Mosirinde’s Covenant. Many have said that it was her enchantments which caused the Flower Forests to be. Today we draw upon them to work our Magery, as the Covenant commands us. But Mosirinde taught more of what we must not do than what we must: of the dangers of necromancy and blood magic, of taking so much energy from Life that we leave Death in our wake. How came she, I wondered, to know so intimately the perils that might befall us?”

As Vieliessar read, it was as if she heard Celelioniel’s living voice. Not the ravings of the mad Astromancer whom all now mocked, but the careful researches of the scholar, for like so many of the Lightborn, Celelioniel was first a researcher and historian. Vieliessar decided that she held the preface Celelioniel had written for her annotated copy of The Song of Amrethion and assumed that the rest of the scroll was now the spoil of those who had harried Anginach and his escort to their deaths.

Celelioniel must have taken it away with her when she returned to Enerchelimier, Vieliessar realized. Did she realize Hamphuliadiel meant to betray her when it was too late for her to stop him? Or could she not bear to give it up?

There was no way to know.

Celelioniel’s preface broke off in the middle of a sentence—Anginach must have torn it loose and hidden it when he’d realized they were pursued—but Vieliessar had enough to draw conclusions about the whole. Celelioniel had begun by attempting to fix one moment in time: the birth of the Flower Forests and the inception of the Covenant the Lightborn swore to husband the land. Celelioniel wanted to know how this knowledge had been gained, for no child fears the fire who hasn’t been burned. And so she had learned of a Darkness—hungry, implacable, biding its time and gathering its armies until it rode forth from its obsidian halls to slake its unslakable hunger on all that was. An enemy as real and malign as any Beastling army—but an army whose first attack upon the Hundred Houses lay not in the primordial past, but in the future.

Vieliessar would never know what steps had led Celelioniel to The Song of Amrethion, and what hints gleaned from ancient histories had made her realize Amrethion’s Curse was not gibberish. But by the time Celelioniel Astromancer traced the ancient history of the Darkness back to the beginning of Lightborn Magery, Serenthon’s feet were already set upon the road of the High Kingship.

How came this to Anginach’s hand? How came he to seek me?

She realized then that it had not been Vieliessar Lightsister whom Anginach sought, nor even Vieliessar Farcarinon.

Anginach had sought the Child of the Prophecy.

Her.

To warn her.

Darkness comes! Vieliessar thought in horror, as Celioniel’s words fell into place in her mind. As Amrethion foretold!

Farcarinon’s fall was the last of Amrethion’s forewarnings.

It comes in my lifetime. This is why Celelioniel placed Peacebond upon me so long ago. She feared to hasten its coming by so much as a sennight.

The Hundred Houses must be warned.

But even as that thought came to her, despair thrust it aside. What could she say? Who could she tell? Proofs might be found in the Library of Arevethmonion—if Hamphuliadiel had not locked them all away, perhaps even destroyed the priceless scrolls.

Hamphuliadiel had sought to kill her. He would not do that if he thought the Prophecy was false. He believed, just as Celelioniel had.

He believes, and conceals the books of prophecy so no one can duplicate Celelioniel’s work. He seeks to keep the events Amrethion foretold from coming true by killing me. He cannot seek my life openly, lest in doing so he gives others proof that I am indeed what Celelioniel named me: Child of the Prophecy, the Curse and Doom of the Hundred Houses.

She did not wish to claim that destiny. She didn’t even know what it was.

What am I to do? What?

She could find no answer.

“I have no right to ask your forgiveness.”

In the heart of Arevethmonion, Vieliessar dreamed.

The chamber was filled with light. It was airy and inviting, the white stone of its walls little more than punctuation for the enormous panes of leaded glass that took the summer sunlight and turned it into a thousand many-hued sparks of fire. The one who sat at the delicate table in the center of the pool of sunlight was both familiar and unknown. His long black hair was caught back by a thin band of moonsilver about his brow. Its intricate braids were similar to those worn by the komen, but instead of being woven into a knot at the base of his neck, the long braids hung free.

He was writing. The rhythmic measured movement of the pen across the surface of the vellum made the rings he wore cast a changing pattern of bright sparks on the vellum and the surface of the table.

“And it would be unseemly of me to do so. I suppose it would. But I can hope for your understanding. Hatred and fear are heavy chains. I know this. Or I will know it.”

The place was one Vieliessar had never seen, yet somehow she knew it. Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor, the Lost City. The royal city, from which Amrethion Aradruiniel had reigned.

He stopped writing and looked up, meeting her gaze. She was startled to see that his eyes were not the black of the eyes of every person she’d ever seen. This one’s eyes were the darkest shade of gold.

“Believe this: I would not have set so heavy a task upon you if there had been any other way. I can only hope … But that is foolishness. I may tell myself you will prevail. I will never know.”

“What…?” Her voice emerged in a rusty croak, as if long unused, and the fact that she had spoken at all held her suddenly paralyzed. She had studied the ways of prophecy and Foretelling for many years. No one who had left any record had ever been anything more than an invisible watcher, swept along by the logic of the vision.

“I … I do not yet know if I shall,” she said. She could speak, she could move, and to do those things filled her with an awe not far removed from dread.

“Nor do I,” he answered, meeting her gaze as if she stood before him in flesh. “I do not know, spirit of future days, if you are male or female, great prince or humble servant. I know only that the land needs your strength.”

“Can you— Will you— What enemy? What—”

He raised a slender hand, and Vieliessar fell silent.

“I cannot answer you, spirit. I do not have the answers you seek. Today my beloved, my queen, my Pelashia, presented me with our firstborn. A son. To secure his safety and that of my kingdom, she has set upon me a great spell, that I may prophesy of things yet to come.”

His queen. Pelashia Celenthodiel, who had given Light to the Lightborn.

She was gazing upon Amrethion Aradruiniel. The last High King.

“She will die. You will die,” Vieliessar blurted. “Your lords will rise up against your children. There has been war from your day to mine.”

She saw Amrethion’s golden eyes darken with grief. “It is well I shall remember nothing of this when I wake,” he said softly. “I could not bear it.”

“You must remember!” Vieliessar said urgently. “If it has not yet happened, you can change it. You can save your Queen and your realm—write plainly of the danger so your children will know, and fear, and prepare—”

“It cannot be,” he said sadly. “When my beloved came from Tildorangelor to become my bride, she knew even then the doom that lay over our race. To name it plainly would be to summon it before we could defend ourselves against it.”

“How can you say that?” Vieliessar demanded. She forgot she dreamed, she forgot she argued with one millennia dead. All that mattered to her in this moment was making him understand. “We aren’t ready! You name me Child of the Prophecy, and I have never held a sword! There is no High King, just a hundred jealous princes quarreling among themselves! If the danger is as terrible as you say, we will not prevail. We will die. If you love us—your people, your children—please! Tell me what comes!”

“Darkness,” Amrethion said. “Darkness. I have done—I will do—all I can. My queen’s power binds the coming ages in chains of prophecy. These words will be a beacon of Magery that gains power with the passing of centuries, spirit, until at last you are summoned forth.”

“You’re afraid of it,” Vieliessar said, in a voice that trembled with fury. “Whatever it is—whatever you say I must face—you’re so afraid of it you want to hide behind cryptic poetry and hope—hope!—that I can do what you cannot.”

“I do hope,” Amrethion answered. “I—we—hope we have made the right choices.” He gazed into her eyes, and there was no hint of apology in his expression. “If Pelashia named Darkness to me—if I remembered this moment out of time and acted upon my knowledge—the alfaljodthi would be destroyed. And so she remains silent. And you have long years in which to grow strong. You will understand when you confront Darkness.”

She took a step forward—unwilling to listen to his arguments, unwilling to think they might hold truth—but as she did so, the beautiful room with its strange delicate furniture, its king who had never worn armor nor held a sword, seemed to dwindle in every direction at once. As she fell from dreaming into true sleep, she had the strange sourceless insight that often accompanied dreams. She saw herself for an instant as Amrethion would have seen her: a barbarian coarsened by generations of war, born out of violence and murder and carrying them with her into whatever future she could create.

She thrashed herself into wakefulness, gasping for breath. For a moment she could not remember why grief was a cold and terrible weight in her throat.

Then she remembered her vision of Amrethion, and wept.

What am I to do? What am I to do?

A fortnight later, the weather turned soft, and spring plowing began at Rosemoss Farm. The first caravan of the season passed through the Flower Forest on the way to the Sanctuary of the Star.

It was time to return.

Her steps were slow with reluctance. She would be returning to live beneath the roof of her enemy, just as she had in childhood—but she had not known Caerthalien was her enemy until the moment she left it. She meant to go before Hamphuliadiel in the rags and dirt of her banishment, for they would give her the semblance of humility and penitence he required. It would be a hard thing to endure, but she had done harder. Perhaps—with enough time—she might win his approval. His help. She could not imagine herself as the agent of the Prophecy, destroying the Fortunate Lands and all who lived within its bounds. She would die first.

As she stepped onto the path that led through Arevethmonion, she heard the jingle of harness in the distance and the earth beneath her feet vibrated to the slow thud of draft oxen’s feet. She stopped and waited.

“I greet you in the name of the Sanctuary of the Star, Prince Anarolodh,” she said.

It had been a simple matter to cast True Speech to Hear the lead rider’s name, and she had not needed it to know his house or rank, for he wore the scarlet and sable of Gerchiliael, with the wheat-sheaf of lesser cadency below the crossed swords of its device.

Anarolodh inclined his head. “Lightsister,” he said. “In the name of Dondialoch Gerchiliael, I thank you for the Sanctuary’s care of us. Will you ride?” he asked.

“I will walk,” she answered, and took her place at his side. He touched his spurs to his palfrey’s flanks, and the procession moved slowly forward once again. If Prince Anarolodh found her disheveled condition odd, the thought of it did not trouble the surface of his mind.

Dilvalos Lightsister joined them half a candlemark later. She had not been at the Sanctuary when Vieliessar had been banished, so the Caerthalien Candidates must have been the first along this road this season. She gave Vieliessar a startled look—clearly she knew of the banishment—but said merely: “There is a great disarray before you, for everyone seems to have set forth the moment the roads were dry. Caerthalien arrived at yesterday’s dawn, and before its wagons were half unloaded, Cirandeiron and Telthorelandor came as well. We shall have all the Seven here together, for Mangiralas and Rolumienion are expected today, and Inglethendragir and Ullilion tomorrow.”

And Hamphuliadiel will be much occupied with their envoys, for all but Ullilion are High Houses, Vieliessar thought. “It will be much work for Mistress Hamonglachele to care for them all,” she answered, keeping her voice low so that Anarolodh did not hear two Lightborn speaking of such homely things.

Dilvalos frowned. “That is—” she began, and stopped, as if she had been lured into speaking of things she must not.

Pavilions were spread out all across the fields surrounding the Sanctuary. Vieliessar let Dilvalos lead Prince Anarolodh and the new Candidates into the Sanctuary antechamber, while she went with the wagons into the courtyard as if this were her assigned task. The stableyard was chaotic, for Radanding Stablemaster’s staff had been sharply winnowed as Candidates rejoined their Houses or passed on to the Postulancy, and there was another wagon train already here, bearing a banner in the violet and silver of Inglethendragir.

Inglethendragir had risen from Low to High upon Farcarinon’s bones.

“Mistress Morgaenel greets—” A boy in the grey livery of the Sanctuary servants came rushing up to the wagons and stopped, his eyes going wide with consternation at his inability to identify the device before him.

“Greets Gerchiliael and bids them welcome,” Vieliessar prompted gently. She kept her face smooth, but she was puzzled. Mistress Morgaenel’s place was the kitchens, not the guesthouse.

“—and says I am to show you where you may set your pavilions, for the guesthouse is full.”

“Are we to wallow in mud as if we were Windsward rabble?” Komen Thalien demanded. She was the leader of Prince Anarolodh’s Twelve. “Make room—or shall I do it for you?”

“Komen Thalien, it is our great sorrow that we have so little space for guests,” Vieliessar said quickly. “But Inglethendragir will bear you company.” She gestured toward the field, hidden now by the buildings of the outer courtyard. Her Green Robe might be stained and tattered, but it still marked her as Lightborn: at last Komen Thalien nodded.

“Very well, brat. I will look at your mudhole.”

The boy hurried off and Komen Thalien followed. Now Radanding Stablemaster approached, with two of his assistants in tow. He was as shocked to see Vieliessar as Dilvalos Lightsister had been—but his gaze held something more than mere surprise.

Grief.

And warning.

“You are needed in the guesthouse, Lightsister,” he said brusquely, before turning to walk quickly down the line of wagons to see what must be unloaded.

If Hamphuliadiel did not know already that she was here, he would within a quartermark, and to tarry would only give him new fuel for his discontent.

But only a fool disregarded a warning given by a friend.

The guesthouse was an odd building—a manor house wing with no manor attached. It was long and narrow, set behind the stables and across a broad courtyard paved with smooth river stones. Its ground floor held a bathhouse, a refectory, the workroom of Mistress Guesthouse, and a storage room for those things used in the guesthouse alone—blankets and linens, perfumes for the bath, and wines and strong cordials. On its second floor lay the sleeping chambers. Depending upon the demands of its guests, it could accommodate up to sixteen visitors, but the interior walls were designed to fold back to create larger rooms, and if Caerthalien and Cirandeiron were both in occupancy, their princes would both insist on great state. Battle might be forbidden upon the Sanctuary grounds, but there were other ways of challenging a rival than with a swordblade.

In all her years at the Sanctuary, Vieliessar had never crossed the courtyard to the guesthouse, for it lay beyond the bounds where her life was sacrosanct. Now she hurried past the refectory, where loud talk and laughter proclaimed the guests at their morning meal, and closeted herself quickly in Hamonglachele’s workroom, sliding the door closed behind her.

It had much the look of Maeredhiel’s workroom in the Sanctuary—the same litter of scrolls and wax tablets upon the broad table, the same low stool. On the wall behind the worktable, instead of a collection of keys, stood a slateboard upon which was painted the plan of the sleeping chambers. Within each square was a cryptic notation in chalk, saying who occupied each one. Above the worktable itself hung a suspended grid of sixteen silver bells, each engraved with the design of the flower for which each guesthouse chamber was named.

Vieliessar seated herself upon the stool, wondering how long she would have to wait and more conscious than ever of her unkempt appearance. Her feet were bare, and they and her hands were callused with moonturns of hard work. Her hair was longer than it should be, and her robe, though clean, was ragged and stained.

She had barely finished her catalogue of the chamber and her person when the door slid back. Vieliessar tensed, but it was Morgaenel who entered. She slid the door quickly shut behind her, and latched it.

“Praise Pelashia! You’re alive!” Morgaenel gasped. “The winter was so hard!”

“I came as Radanding meant I should, but I know not why. ’Ilthel, why are you here? Where is ’Chele?”

“She is now Mistress of Servants,” Morgaenel said softly. “Maeredhiel has gone to the Vale of Celenthodiel. It was the lung-fever. She took ill just after Midwinter. Hamphuliadiel even sent Momioniarch Lightsister to attend her. No one thought it was serious—even Momioniarch said it might be repaired better by rest than by a Healing. When ’Chele went to look in on her one morning … it was too late for Healing.”

“May she find happiness in the Vale of Celenthodiel,” Vieliessar said quietly. If the spirit truly survived as more than a hungry ghost, Vieliessar prayed Maeredhiel and Aradrothiach would find each other and at last complete their Bond.

This was Hamphuliadiel’s work. Vieliessar knew it beyond doubt. He’d worked to erase all trace of Celelioniel’s scholarship from the land … but there had been one who had been Celelioniel’s confidante. Who had been present upon the night of Vieliessar’s birth.

Maeredhiel.

If she had thought— If she had known what Hamphuliadiel would do—

“I suppose she did not think it was more than a cough that could be banished with time and rest,” Vieliessar answered steadily.

“I am sure you are right,” Morgaenel answered. “What else could it have been?”

Go. Go now before you lose your courage.

It was deep night on the day she had returned to the Shrine.

She had not gone before Hamphuliadiel.

She had thought his enmity was a thing that fell upon her alone, a thing that might be reasoned with. Now she knew it was not. Maeredhiel had died of it. Anyone might be next.

Of a surety, Hamphuliadiel’s next attempt upon her would be something more certain than a winter’s banishment. She’d already placed her friends in danger enough by giving them the secret of her return to hold. I shall never again offer up hostages to a madman’s will, she vowed grimly.

She wore a heavy cloak, boots, and the grey tunic and trousers of a Candidate. Over her shoulder was slung a leather bag holding knife, waterskin, bread, and cheese, gifts of Morgaenel. It had been a risk to involve her even that much, but Vieliessar had little choice. She could Shield herself in the guesthouse workroom and so escape discovery, but to move about the Sanctuary would guarantee exposure. Even if Hamphuliadiel discovered she had returned and departed again, it would probably not occur to him to question the Sanctuary servants.

And even if he did …

Vieliessar was Lightborn. Servants did not question orders the Lightborn gave. Indeed, Morgaenel had asked no questions.

Go now, Vieliessar told herself.

She eased open the door of the workroom. The guesthouse was dark and silent. She crossed the floor on silent feet and eased open the outer door. Across the courtyard, the Sanctuary of the Star was dark and quiet. The only light came from the lanterns hung upon its gate.

She closed the door behind her and walked into Arevethmonion.

She did not look back.

He had not expected to end his days in a forest cottage on Caerthalien land. If—by the grace of the Silver Hooves—he had lived into old age, Gunedwaen had expected a place of honor at his lord’s table, quiet days spent imparting the lore of his long life to the children who would grow to become komen—the strong defense of his noble house.

Of Farcarinon.

The shutter rattled. It was autumn, and old bones and old injuries ached in the cold. Striker raised her head, gazing about the room for a moment before returning to sleep. The hikuliasa was good company, though Gunedwaen had never decided what purpose had lain in Bolecthindial’s mind when he had presented the animal as a gift. Perhaps to mock Gunedwaen’s own state, for the beast had been lamed and half wild.

Each winter Gunedwaen thought of letting his fire die, of walking out into the snow and laying his bones down for the last time. Freezing was said to be a gentle death, far more so than the deaths he had dealt. And each year he told himself: Next year. Not this year. Next year. Perhaps it was curiosity that kept him living. Perhaps it was the wish to fight one last battle. The Silver Hooves would not take him if he died peacefully, and he had no taste for wandering as a homeless ghost till the stars grew dark.

The shutter rattled again,

“You should show yourself,” Gunedwaen said calmly. “If you have come to kill me, I must say you are some years too late.”

“You cannot have known I was here,” a voice said.

“Had I not learned the skill to see the unseen, I would have perished long since,” Gunedwaen answered. He had not been truly certain of her presence until she spoke. Striker raised her head from her paws again, gazing curiously in the direction of the voice. She seemed puzzled. “I would have you show yourself, stranger.”

“Are you truly so eager to die?” the voice asked.

“Are you truly so dangerous?” Gunedwaen answered.

There was a moment of silence, then: “Once I would have said I wished no harm to any. I would know who your fealty is pledged to, old man.”

“What Landbond pledges to any lord but the next harvest?” Gunedwaen answered mockingly.

There was a snort of contempt from behind him. Striker made a soft sound in her throat.

“I have known Landbonds in plenty, old man. You are not one.”

“You are well traveled for one of the Night Brotherhood. If not well informed,” Gunedwaen observed.

“Well informed enough to know I have never seen one of the Children of Night, nor have you. I come to ask your House and your fealty. I already know your name.”

“If you know my name, you know all there is to know,” Gunedwaen answered. With laborious care, he shifted in his seat enough so he could turn his head to see the doorway.

He saw no one there.

Suddenly there was a ripple in the air, and where there had been nothingness stood a figure in a grey cloak, its deep hood doing as much to conceal her face as her spell had done. Striker got to her feet, uttering a low bark of warning. The woman pushed back the hood of her cloak and Gunedwaen saw what he’d expected to see: the shorn hair of one of the Lightborn.

“I do not know who you claim as your lord, for all that you live as Caerthalien’s supplicant,” the Lightborn said stubbornly.

“A dead house and a failed cause,” Gunedwaen said, sighing. “Come, Lightsister, tell me your purpose here.” He turned back to gaze into the fire. Her footsteps were soft as she crossed the room to the woodpile, chose a length of wood, and added it to the coals.

“I seek one named Gunedwaen, once Swordmaster to War Prince Serenthon Farcarinon. I have need of him.”

The rekindled fire cast its amber light on her face. He had never seen her before. But he knew her.

“Lady Nataranweiya’s child lived,” he said slowly.

“Yes,” the woman answered. “Nataranweiya fled to the Sanctuary of the Star. There I was born. There I returned.”

“Then return there again and live still,” Gunedwaen said. “Farcarinon is gone, its children scattered to the seven winds. You cannot claim your father’s house from its ashes.”

“It took me long to find you,” she said, deflecting his words. “I have come to learn all you can teach me of knighthood and war.”

Deep in the embers of what he once was, Gunedwaen felt a stirring of old instincts. He remembered the terrible day when Serenthon had received word of Caerthalien’s betrayal. Gunedwaen had begged him to sue for terms, knowing Farcarinon could not stand alone against a High House alliance, and for a moment he had seen Serenthon hesitate, about to agree. Then he had looked upon his lady, already great with child, and his face had grown cold and resolute. He shook his head, and spoke the words that sealed their fates.

“I shall not surrender all that I love to Darkness.”

Gunedwaen had followed his liege-lord to the battlefield, and saw him fall, and was struck down in his turn. He would have—should have—died there beside him, but his apprentices had carried him from the field and into hiding. Gunedwaen remembered standing in Caerthalien’s great hall, weak from fever, his garments torn and stained with the sennights of illness, injuries, hiding. He remembered the moment Ivrulion Light-Prince had bespelled him so he could never be whole again, how the fever for revenge had burned hotter than the wound-sickness that had cost him his arm and the use of his leg, how in that moment all his hopes of vengeance were shattered.

And he laughed. “My lord, are you disordered in your mind? And even if you are mad, what teaching do you think you can gain from a lame, one-armed man? Abandon your thoughts of revenge, I beg you.”

He saw her eyes flash with a prince’s temper, saw her set her jaw. “I have not come for revenge,” she said, and her voice was hard. “I have come to be made Knight by your hand.”

Gunedwaen stared at her in sudden doubt, too taken aback to speak. The komen began their training in childhood—Serenthon’s daughter was decades past her childhood. Even if he wished to try, he did not possess the resources of a War Prince’s castel with which to school her. “Go back to the Sanctuary,” he said at last. “Go anywhere. My lord, I cannot aid you.”

“You must!” she answered fiercely. “Do you think I wish for this, Gunedwaen Swordmaster? I wish nothing more than to live out my life as a child of the Light. But I may not. And to say to you more than this will bring about your death as surely as if I stabbed you through the heart myself.”

“My life is not so glorious that I would regret leaving it,” Gunedwaen said. “But I would be nine times a fool to give you that which you ask only because you ask it.”

“Then swear to me you are Farcarinon’s still,” she whispered, and even in the dim firelight he could see tears glitter in her eyes.

“I am Farcarinon’s until the stars grow cold,” he answered steadily. “I beg your forgiveness, my prince. I was borne from the field against my will. I gave no parole to Caerthalien.”

None had been needed, after Ivrulion Light-Prince’s working.

Farcarinon—what name she bore he did not know—took a step toward him, so swift that Striker got to her feet. But she merely knelt beside his chair and took his hand in hers. Her fingers were soft, her hands those of one who had never held a sword. “There is no need to ask, Master Gunedwaen. You preserved your life until I came for you. And I beg your forgiveness in turn, for I must have your knowledge and skill. Teach me as you taught my father.”

“My lady,” he said helplessly, “Farcarinon is gone.”

She smiled at him, and her smile was brilliant with grief. “So I believed for long years. But I do not seek to raise Farcarinon from its ashes.”

“Then … what?” he asked. “My lord, if any of Prince Serenthon’s komentai’a survived, they have pledged fealty elsewhere. Or they are useless, as I am.”

“Not useless to me, Master Gunedwaen,” she answered. “I call you back to service now.”

“And I come,” Gunedwaen answered steadily. “But you must tell me what brings you here, for I cannot aid you without that knowledge.”

“I will be the death of you,” Farcarinon answered softly. “Nor shall I tell you all, and you must content yourself with that. But I shall tell you this: I was born Vieliessar Farcarinon, War Prince of Farcarinon, in the Sanctuary of the Star. Celelioniel Astromancer named me Child of the Prophecy, but I would not hear. I beg you: hear all I would not, for our time grows short. High King Amrethion Aradruiniel spoke a Foretelling on the day he fell from the Unicorn Throne, giving warning of the day the Hundred would face an enemy who did not wish to take their lands and wealth, but their lives—all life, to the least blade of grass in the humblest field. It is foretold that this Darkness will strip the flesh from the bones of the world, and none of the War Princes knows—or cares!”

“How came you to know these things?” Gunedwaen asked. How came you to know Aramenthiali’s plan? Is this count you bring us of Caerthalien’s knights accurate? You say Oronviel will not fight this day—who has said this where you might hear? The ghost of what he once was rose up in his question.

The words his liege-lord and prince had spoken already were near to madness, but that madness was compounded by the words she spoke next. She told of Celelioniel Astromancer’s quest, of Celelioniel’s discovery of the truth and meaning of the ancient Prophecy, of her own place within its web.

Vieliessar stroked Striker’s head absently as she knelt beside Gunedwaen’s chair. “I might say to you Serenthon-my-father received a Foretelling of Celelioniel of the failure of his ambition, of his death, my mother’s death, my birth—but who can know what happened that day save those who were there, and they are all gone to the night winds,” she said, her voice quiet. “I could say to you all my words are proven in scrolls hidden away by Hamphuliadiel, in Foretellings given by generations of Astromancers, in histories too dry for any but scholars—but such words will not sway princes and knights.” She laughed bitterly. “They don’t even persuade scholars, for Hamphuliadiel thinks the evil day can be averted by destroying the warning of it. I know one thing only: the Darkness comes, and it comes soon, and if the Hundred Houses are not united against it, then we shall all perish as if we never were. I must do what my father could not do—and if you will not help me, I shall fail.”

Years of patient alliances, gifts and promises, and secret treaties had brought Serenthon close to making himself High King—so close the Hundred Houses had not been content with merely humbling Farcarinon, but had destroyed its castels and keeps, slaughtered its komen, and carried its vassals off to live out their lives on alien ground. And now Serenthon’s daughter sought him out, saying she must succeed at the task that had broken Farcarinon.

“You might fail even with my aid,” Gunedwaen said gently. “I cannot give you all the skills you seek. I cannot give you victory.”

“The Hundred will not follow a Green Robe,” Vieliessar said flatly. “Give me your swordcraft, Master Gunedwaen, and I will put off that robe for a knight’s armor. I can see no other way. But if you will not aid me,” Vieliessar said quietly, “I will go.”

“‘Haste gives a thousand knights to the enemy,’” Gunedwaen answered absently. Whether it was madness or a sanity that transcended sense, he would follow Farcarinon’s last prince. “Come, my lord. Build up the fire. It is late and the room grows cold. And we have much to speak of before we begin.”

The message had been sent from the Sanctuary of the Star in Flower Moon, but hadn’t reached Thurion until the end of Harvest, for he had been in the field with the army. The seneschal at Caerthalien Keep had sent the scroll onward, of course, but scrollcase had been left behind to save weight and space in the dispatch rider’s bags.

Thurion had thought nothing of it at the time—messages came from the Sanctuary to its former students now and then. In the scroll Momioniarch Lightsister had asked if Caerthalien would permit him to return to the Sanctuary to teach for a year. Thurion had not needed to consult Lord Bolecthindial to know the answer to that: he had sent his regrets by spellbird and forgotten the matter completely until the day he returned, at long last, to his rooms in Caerthalien Keep to find the Sanctuary’s green-and-silver scrollcase sitting atop a chest.

He’d picked it up absently, thinking that he could not return it to the Sanctuary until the Candidates went in the spring. When he touched the scrollcase, the Sanctuary’s true message was revealed, unrolling in his mind in Hamphuliadiel’s voice.

“To Thurion Lightbrother, greetings. I send you this message in secret not to set you at odds with Caerthalien, but in warning—” Thurion dropped the scrollcase in surprise. He could not imagine why the Astromancer would send him a message at all, much less by secret means. The case hit the floor and rolled under his bed, and it took him several minutes to retrieve it. Then he knelt on the floor, clutching the silver-stamped leather case tightly as the voice echoed through his mind.

Vieliessar had left—fled—the Sanctuary of the Star sometime in the spring. “I believe she means to break the Covenant in order to take revenge in Farcarinon’s name against Caerthalien and the other houses of the Grand Alliance…” Warning was being sent to the senior Lightborn of those Houses—Caerthalien, Aramenthiali, Cirandeiron, and Telthorelandor—which had been crucial to Farcarinon’s fall. “I do not charge any of you with silence. You may tell whom you choose what I have conveyed to you, yet know that I believe it would not be well to make the matter of a disobedient Lightborn too public a matter, lest it seem to involve the Sanctuary of the Star in matters from which it has always stood apart. That Vieliessar is Farcarinon is unfortunate, for reasons you well understand…”

The information was stunning, but not so stunning that Thurion’s mind did not race on ahead of it. “Senior” Lightborn. That can mean oldest, or of highest rank. Perhaps Carangil Lightbrother, as Ladyholder Glorthiachiel uses him to spy on everyone here. Ivrulion Light-Prince must have received this news, whether from Carangil or from the Sanctuary—and some time ago, for I know he has returned here several times since Flower. Thurion did his best to still his questions, for the message was still unspooling in his mind, and once it had run its course, he suspected the spell would unravel and vanish.

“I am a humble servant of the Light which shines for all whether of High House or Low, and I uphold the justice of the great lords of the Fortunate Lands. I have hunted the rebel Vieliessar from the moment I discovered her gone. My search has been fruitless, and so I send to you, Thurion of Caerthalien, as once—perhaps unwisely—you held yourself her friend. If she comes to you, I charge you by the Light we both serve to take her prisoner by any means you can, and be aware that any tale she tells you is merely trickery and lies that serve her insane desire. Be a strong defender of your noble house, Thurion of Caerthalien, and repay the love and care your Prince has always had for you…”

The voice stopped, and Thurion felt a tingle beneath his fingertips as the message-spell unmade itself.

Hamphuliadiel, you are indeed a fool, he thought in annoyance. It will be a great day for the Lightborn when your reign as Astromancer is over. Words Thurion had never thought to think, but how could Hamphuliadiel—how could anyone who had been at the Sanctuary during Thurion’s training—believe lies could deceive him? He did not need to set a spell of Heart-Seeing on someone to know the truth: all he had to do was listen to their thoughts.…

The Astromancer’s message was a lie. How could Hamphuliadiel know what Vielle meant to do? Unless she’d told him—and Thurion could not believe that. He could believe that she had vanished from the Sanctuary and that they had not found her, but anything beyond those two facts could be nothing other than conjecture. He rose slowly to his feet, still clutching the now-inert scrollcase, and tried to decide what to do next. Go to Ivrulion and tell him he’d received a spell-message from the Sanctuary? Wait for Ivrulion to speak first? He felt a clutch of angry fear at being forced to decide how deep his loyalty to Caerthalien ran, and suddenly words he’d once said to Vielle crowded into memory, the words as sharp and clear as if they, too, were a spell-message.

“Prisoner, hostage, I care not if you are Farcarinon, or Caerthalien, or the Child of the Prophecy. My family does not even own the roof above our heads. A third of what we harvest each year goes to pay Menenel Farmholder for our shelter and our seed grain. All we have ever asked is that the great lords do not ride across our fields and spoil our work—and if they do, or even fight across them, there is nothing we can say without punishment. Do you think the quarrels of the Hundred Houses matter to me? How has your life been harder than mine?”

He heard the hall door creak as it swung inward and turned toward the sound. He was so convinced it would be Denerarth—returned from the tasks attendant upon settling the two of them back into their usual quarters—that he stared at the figure in the doorway for a long moment in utter silence.

Ivrulion Light-Prince tapped the scrollcase he held gently on the doorframe. “It seems that we have both been favored by a message from the Astromancer,” he said, nodding toward the scrollcase in Thurion’s hand.

“It only just reached me, Lord Ivrulion,” Thurion said. “I suppose they both said much the same thing.”

“Why not tell me what yours says, and we shall see?” Ivrulion replied pleasantly. The pleasantry was a fraud: Thurion had long known Ivrulion to be as coldly ambitious as his father.

“Vieliessar of— Of nowhere, I suppose, Lord Ivrulion,” he answered, stumbling slightly over the words, for to name someone without being able to name their House was nearly unthinkable. “Vieliessar Lightsister left the Sanctuary of the Star in the spring. Hamphuliadiel does not know where she is. At least, he didn’t when he sent to me.”

“Did you not find it curious he would send to you? Oh, but I forget—you and she were friends at the Sanctuary.”

“We were in the same Service Year.” Thurion chose his words carefully; he knew Ivrulion had forgotten nothing. “I suppose we were friends as much as anyone is there.” He shrugged. “She was not Chosen when I was, as you know. Later, of course, the Light kindled in her. She took the Green Robe, but I had left long before. Hamphuliadiel thinks she may come here—and charges me to take her prisoner if she does.”

“When she does?” Ivrulion said, his tone making it clear it was a question.

“My lord, I do not know.” Thurion’s gaze was clear and untroubled as he met Ivrulion’s eyes. His True Speech was far stronger than anyone else’s in the castel; the stronger the Gift, the less that same Gift could be used against one. Ivrulion could not hear his thoughts. “The Astromancer believes she left the Sanctuary in order to exact revenge. I suppose he is correct. He has known her far longer than I.” He’d told Vieliessar once that each House was like any other. He would not betray Caerthalien to an enemy, but he would not take its causes as his own.

After a moment Ivrulion stepped away from the doorframe and smiled faintly. “I think if she meant to come for vengeance, she would have done it moonturns ago, don’t you? Perhaps she became disordered in her wits and simply fled the Sanctuary, but it will do no harm to search for her, and it might even be amusing. I am sure you will wish to accompany me.”

“Of course,” Thurion answered automatically, and Ivrulion’s smile widened slightly.

“Then I will leave you to become reacquainted with a dry roof and your own bed. I shall see you on the morrow.”

That following day was the first of many Thurion spent in Ivrulion’s company. It was uncomfortable, for Thurion knew the War Prince’s son still held him in suspicion. Better that, Thurion thought, than that he seek me as an ally. Thurion had never boasted of the strength of his Keystone Gift, though he knew full well that Ivrulion was aware of it. It was why Thurion ate at the High Table, why Lord Bolecthindial called upon him more often than any others to stand beside him at Court and set a spell of Heart-Seeing upon those whom Lord Bolecthindial deemed to be less than forthcoming.

Alone together, Thurion and Ivrulion visited all the Flower Forests within a day’s ride—Rimroheth, Angoratorei, Alqualanya, Valmenandlae, Rolliondale—for the Flower Forests resonated to the Light, and if Vieliessar had entered Caerthalien and used Magery here, some trace should be left. Ivrulion’s conversation always seemed idle, but it returned, again and again, to Vieliessar. Thurion had the sense that much of what he said in answer Ivrulion already knew, and while Thurion was careful to tell all of what he knew, he was equally carefull to tell little of what he guessed. Ivrulion spoke of Vieliessar’s childhood in the Great Keep and of his hope that she would come to Caerthalien so he could extend to her his personal assurance of protection.

“—of course there must never be any children, but that is a simple Binding to craft, and were she wed to my Huthiel, her position would be assured. And she would be most welcome here, for I have heard that her Healing skill is great. Indeed, Warlord Amlunan boasted of it when we met Aramenthiali upon the field this summer—he would not have lived without her art.”

“The Light has indeed blessed her,” Thurion answered, taking care to speak as if he believed Ivrulion’s words to be true.

At first they rode out every day, but soon days and even sennights passed before Ivrulion proposed another expedition, for they found neither presence nor trace of Vieliessar, no matter now closely they searched the Flower Forests. No further message came from Hamphuliadiel, and at last Ivrulion, bored, pronounced himself satisfied that Vieliessar had never come to Caerthalien. Thurion did not know whether he was satisfied of Vielle’s absence or Thurion’s loyalty: all he knew for certain was that when he begged permission from Lord Bolecthindial to visit Sweethallow Farm and his family, it was granted as easily as it had always been.

Wherever you have gone, Vielle, I hope you are safe and happy there. And free.

Her footsteps crunched through the crust of new-fallen snow as she ran. The winter air was a sharp knife in her throat; her breath smoked on the chill air. This is the domain that should have been mine. And if it were—oh, Silver Hooves defend!—for how long should I have been able to hold it against the Darkness?

She ran on. One league out. One league back. She ran this course every day, at Gunedwaen’s command.

The journey to Farcarinon had taken them from Rade to Woods. She could have brought Gunedwaen and Striker through a Mage Door and stepped from Rimroheth to Eldanwarasse in a heartbeat—and the power she would have woven to make her door would have been as palpable to every Green Robe as if she stood beside each one and shouted aloud. Instead she had Called a horse to carry Gunedwaen and Striker. They’d all been surprised when the animal who answered was a lively young mare. Gunedwaen had promptly named her Trouble, but under Vieliessar’s spells of control she’d been biddable enough. And—like Vieliessar—Trouble had gone where Gunedwaen commanded her.

First to the place where Farcarinon’s Keep had once stood, a wasteland of scattered stone, and then to Eldanwarasse Flower Forest. Farcarninon’s domain had become Wild Lands, Gunedwaen said, and were occupied by outlaws and sellswords, but those would avoid the Flower Forests. To feed them and keep them, Vieliessar had scavenged among the ruins of burnt-out steadings for things abandoned or overlooked when their people had been stolen, and the home she made for them was comfortable enough.

During the day she toiled at Gunedwaen’s direction: chopping wood, setting snares, and toughening a body which had been accustomed to the soft living of the Sanctuary of the Star. Each night, Vieliessar would sit with Gunedwaen over gan or xaique, absorbing his lessons on strategy, on the disposition of troops, of acceptable losses, and of tactics. She had read of wars and battles in Arevethmonion’s scrolls—now she heard tales of war from one who had fought them.

Gunedwaen did not speak of treaty or alliance or of the thousand matters War Prince and Warlord and Lightborn emissary might settle among them before a House’s meisne rode out beneath its banners. He spoke of the sights, sounds, and smells of war—of failing to hear an enemy’s approach for the frenzied screaming of disemboweled horses, of fighting for candlemarks when hunger and thirst were two more enemies, of the heavy heat of armor, of battlefields turned to mud by the blood spilled upon them. He spoke of komen crushed beneath the bodies of their mounts or trampled by careless hooves as they lay helpless on the field, of slow death when Healers could not reach them, of drowning in a shallow stream, imprisoned by their armor and exhaustion. He spoke of battles fought beneath the terrible sun of high summer and through the bitter cold of late autumn, of being captured, powerless to ransom one’s freedom—and being offered a choice between lifelong immurement in some dungeon or ending one’s own life with a swift dagger.

He spoke of the ugliness and futility of war, for by war the Houses of the Hundred might rise or fall in power for a season or a hundred seasons, but in the end, they gained nothing but the chance to go on fighting. He spoke of war as the sport of princes and lords, xaique played with living counters.

Each night she fell exhausted to her sleeping mat, but Vieliessar’s nights were as full as her days, for Gunedwaen was not her only teacher.

“Lady Indinathiel! Githonel and Kamirbanath have returned from Tildorangelor!”

She raised a hand to her hair. Her head felt strangely bare without its dressing of veil and jewels, but she had no time for such fripperies these days. “What have they found?” she asked sharply.

“Nothing.” Zenderian’s face was a study in anger. The emotion sat strangely upon his gilded and begemmed face, the backdrop of elaborate costume and mannered gesture. Zenderian, of all the Court, kept himself as if Amrethion Aradruiniel had not betrayed them all. “Arwath and Calebre still elude us.”

“Once Pelashia Celenthodiel’s spawn are dead, we will be safe.” She spoke with confidence, but she did not hold such faith and belief within her heart. Once the queen had died, it had been moonturns before Indinathiel had realized the king was no longer fit to rule; moonturns more before she had been able to convince the other courtiers he was not tainted but mad. By then it was too late to call the Council together to choose a legitimate successor and force Amrethion to abdicate, to gain the warrants necessary to purge the kingdom of the defiled.

Indinathiel did not know whose hand had finally struck Amrethion down in secrecy and darkness, only that it was not hers. It did not matter. The rot ran deep. Pelashia’s children had fled the moment their true heritage was known, but their sons and daughters had formed an alliance and sworn that one of them would be Amrethion’s successor.

Not while I breathe, Indinathiel thought grimly. She had loved her mad, foolish liege—she would not see the kingdom he had made given over to rabble and monsters.…

Vieliessar’s dreams were not of the future. Since the day she had walked from the Sanctuary of the Star for the last time, she had dreamed of the death of Amrethion Aradruiniel …

And of the of war that had followed.

Amrethion had prophesied her birth and sealed her fate. But any Lightborn knew a prophecy wasn’t a spell. Prophecy did not compel. Prophecy predicted, telling a true tale of things that had not yet happened. But Amrethion’s Prophecy had not contained a place for her, as she had once thought. It had contained a shape into which she must be fitted by a force as monstrous and uncaring as winter’s cold or forge’s heat. From the moment she had claimed the mantle of Child of the Prophecy, she’d felt the terrible appetite of fate devouring all that had been Vieliessar and leaving behind the tool that would serve its need.

And so the lost and forgotten nobles of Amrethion’s Court quarreled beneath her skin, showing her a thousand ways to fall short of the goal she must reach. Success or failure on the battlefield was the least of them. In her dreams, Vieliessar learned a thousand ways to fail. A thousand things she must not do. The consequence of every action, based on a dozen—a hundred—possible deeds of her allies, her enemies, and those who did not wish to choose a side.

Zenderian had lost the whole of his army crossing the Mystrals when the weather had turned and he had not. Githonel had burned the standing crops to force the enemy to capitulate, and when the tide of battle had turned, his own forces had faced starvation. Kamirbanath had believed the enemy general would honor a truce. Melicano had taken useless hostages. Indinathiel lost a third of her forces when an amnesty extended by an alliance of Western lords caused them to desert. Nelpanar had refused to bring her cavalry to Tengolin’s aid because of an ancient feud between them, and so the day was lost.

The vast and terrible wisdom that spilled through Vieliessar’s dreams and into her waking candlemarks was a yoke for her neck, a weight upon her shoulders. Ignorance of the enemy. Ignorance of events. Failure to make alliances. Failure to keep them. Plague, assassination, blockade, privation—each was a weapon that had broken in those long-dead courtiers’ hands. Knowing so many things she would otherwise have learned at the cost of defeats and deaths should have brought comfort. It only showed her that knowledge could not give security or victory. She could face a score of possibilities, knowing she must choose one, and see nothing but defeat at the end of every road.

Parmanaya had been tricked into leading her army through forests unclaimed by either side. Parmanaya and her army vanished without a trace.

Merrindale had two choices once his supply train was burned—stand and fight against a force four times the size of his own, or retreat across the High Hills without food or equipment.

Noremallin’s army mutinied. He could execute the ringleaders—and never trust their successors. He could meet their demands—and see his army in the hands of the enemy. He could slip away in the night with a handful of trusted advisors—and leave his army leaderless and vulnerable. He could flee to the enemy’s battle lines with information that would destroy his army—and be branded a traitor by all he loved.

Great Queen Pelashia Celenthodiel had died, slain in the forest of Tildorangelor, and High King Amrethion—her beloved, her Bondmate—had died of heartbreak. This was the history that everyone knew, the history Vieliessar had been taught all her life. But in her dreams there was no Bond, no quick and romantic death: Amrethion had survived, had gone mad and cruel: his own nobles had slain him before turning to fight among themselves.

The war begun with the death of Amrethion’s queen continued to this day.

Vieliessar did not want to believe it. She could fight to steel her sleeping mind against them, but the moment she dropped her defenses, the dreams returned. And so her nights were filled with the clash of sword upon sword, of the thunder of cavalry at the charge. With the screams of the dying, the shouts of the victors, and a mystery she could not comprehend. Why had the children of Amrethion and Pelashia been forced to flee? Why did those whose lives she spied upon in her sleep believe Pelashia’s children were tainted, unclean?

She did not need to ask who they were. That much she knew. The dishonorable, the tainted, the unworthy lords whom Indinathiel and so many others fought through her dreams …

… were her ancestors.

Her time was running out.

It was past time for Gunedwaen to begin her knightly training, but that would not be possible without a Healing. She’d long known Farcarinon’s Swordmaster followed her only out of old loyalty, not because he believed she could unite the Hundred Houses. That didn’t trouble her, since she could see no way to do it herself. But Gunedwaen did not even believe she could break Ivrulion Light-Prince’s binding. He would not let her try because he thought she would fail—just as he thought she would fail to bring the Hundred Houses to heel.

But I will not fail.

She knew this as she knew her own name, yet the knowledge gave her no comfort. Her spells had never worked as she’d been told they should—or worse, worked when they should not have. She had learned to dissemble, to pretend she saw the Light as her teachers did, to pretend she grew slowly into the power to Heal those for whom all hope had been lost. Most of all, she had learned to pretend that Healing was her sole strong Gift, for the Sanctuary prized its Healers and there was always work for them within its walls.

But since she had fled the Sanctuary, she had become truly aware of the power she wielded. Healing, True Speech, Overshadow … each Gift she tested was as strong as the next, stronger than anything she’d read of in the records.

They said that Thurion would become one of the great ones. My power is greater still.

She wanted to believe all this was because the Light had not been Called in her, but instead had come in its own time. Even before the dreams had come to challenge what she knew of history, she had wanted to believe any of the Lightborn could do all that she could, if they only had the years she’d been given in which to listen for the Light Within.

For one moment, sharp and painful, Vieliessar wished she was back in the Sanctuary, sitting in the Common Room surrounded by her friends and fellow scholars. She could have taken her questions to them. Only she’d never told any of them the truth when she had the chance. And if she had a second chance, she still would not. Maeredhiel had laid upon her the weight of a destiny she could neither embrace nor escape, making her a creature from a storysong: Child of the Prophecy, a hero for whom her House had died, and who must somehow save the whole world. She’d hidden from it for as long as she could, hoping to find allies, hoping to be proven wrong, hoping the weight of war and death she carried by simply being Serenthon’s heir could be set aside …

Her thoughts so occupied her that her attention was only summoned back to the here-and-now as her boots crunched through a crust of half-rotted snow. She blinked, looking around herself. She had reached the edge of Eldanwarasse without noticing. The young trees of its outermost edge lay several yards behind her, and even so, the air around her was soft with promise, warm enough to melt the drifts of winter.

It was spring outside Eldanwarasse as well as in.

There was no more time.

“You’ve become amazingly fleet of foot if you are back so soon,” Gunedwaen said without turning away from the hearth.

“You have always told me a warrior must have two strong arms and two sound legs to wield a blade—or teach the wielding of it,” Vieliessar answered.

“So I have,” Gunedwaen answered evenly. He spoke to the flames, not to her.

“And so it is time for you to become my teacher in all things,” she said.

“My lord prince—”

The words were humble. The tone was not. Gunedwaen reached out toward the stick that helped him walk and Vieliessar knocked it away. She was done with arguing.

She closed her eyes. To her inward sight, Gunedwaen’s body was caged within a web of Magery: kin to the spells that preserved fruit and grain and meat in timeless suspension until they were needed. If she had not spent so many years as a Sanctuary Healer, she would not have known where to begin, but every spell, every enchantment, had a beginning, no matter how well hidden.

“Stop! Damn you, foolish child, I said—” Gunedwaen roared in pain as she began to attack the Binding; Vieliessar had always known that to lift it would cause as much pain as setting it had.

Striker lifted her head at Gunedwaen’s shout, then pushed herself to her feet, growling in fear before starting to bark. Gunedwaen struggled to his feet, only to fall in the next moment, cursing Vieliessar between ragged breaths. Striker backed away until the corner of the hut stopped her, whining as Gunedwaen scrabbled upon the floor, flailing helplessly. His hand found the walking-stick and he tried to use it to stand. When he could not, he struck at her with it. The blow was weak, with no strength behind it. His speech became a breathless gabble of argument and entreaty: what she meant to do could not be done; he would be useless to her even if she could break the Binding; his life was hers to take but he begged she would be swift and merciful.

And then there were no words, only screams.

Once, long ago, she would have ceased working out of belief that such a spell could not be broken. Out of pity. Out of mercy. She had wrapped herself in the lie that she could feel these things from the moment Glorthiachiel had spoken her true name, had clutched it to her through all her years at the Sanctuary. She’d wished to be like the others—like Celelioniel, like Maeredhiel, like Thurion—for to admit the truth would be to accept a freedom that was terrifying.

This was the truth she had spent so long running from: there was no pity in her, no mercy.

And no fear.

Distantly she was aware that the screaming had stopped, but it was of little importance. She had worked her way into the heart of the spell. She could trace each elaborate web of power, its interlacing, its intention, until it was as if she had set the spell herself. Thus far she had done no more than a Healing Mage of skill and power could do, though in all the Fortunate Lands there were less than a hundred who could do as she had done, and none of them would have been willing to try. What she did next was a thing none of those others could have done: she Unbound the weaving, thread by thread, line by line, layer by layer, until it was gone.

And then she did a thing no Lightborn had ever thought of doing.

She reached into Gunedwaen’s body with her magic. Once it had been whole, and deep within it, the body remembered its true shape, as a seed knew the shape of the plant it would someday become. From that seedling-self she drew the pattern she must follow; from Eldanwarasse she drew the power to knit up withered muscle, to summon bone and skin and flesh from nothingness, as if she forced a tree from seed to wide-branched tree in candlemarks instead of years. The power she Called to her need roared through her limbs and her senses like the storm whose winds the Starry Hunt rode, until its intoxication filled her body and mind. She knew she could not merely Heal Gunedwaen, but roll back the centuries he carried, until all the skill of his long life was held within the body of a warrior in his prime. She could build herself an army of such knights, bind their wills to her as if they were extensions of her own limbs. With such an army at her command, she could be unstoppable.

But at what cost?

Gasping with the effort, she released Eldanwarasse’s power. The loss of it made her cry out in protest, and almost—almost—she reached for it again, to hold it close, to grant herself such ascendancy that she would need to do nothing more than stretch out her hand and say: my will be done, and all the Hundred Houses would bow, would kneel.…

No! I will not!

But without it, she felt small and cold.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. The fire on the hearth had burned down to ash and ember, and the only illumination was the glow of Silverlight from the spell-lanterns, for morning had become evening as she had worked. Her body was stiff with long stillness and her muscles protested as she moved.

She walked to the woodpile, laid sticks and logs on the hearth-grid, then kindled them with a thought. Gunedwaen was unconscious, gripped by the exhaustion that followed any Healing. There was blood on his face, though she had Healed the injuries he’d done to himself in his agony.

When Vieliessar had first left the Sanctuary of the Star she would not have been able to lift him to his feet, but the moonturns of training had served her well. On their journey to Eldanwarasse she had aided him to mount his horse many times, but now his body felt oddly unbalanced, the new presence of the once-missing limb making him seem like a stranger. When she laid him on his bed, she undressed him, as much from a need to see her handiwork as for his comfort.

His arm had been cut away a handspan below the shoulder by the farmers who had sheltered him after the downfall of Farcarinon. The stump had been seared—such Lightless mock-Healings were commonplace among those who only saw one of the Green Robes at their lord’s whim—but there was no mark anywhere now to show that had ever happened. Joint and tendon, muscle and sinew, all reborn. She traced her fingers lightly over the skin. The ugly knotted scar in his thigh was gone as well. The limb, withered from years of disuse, was whole again.

She felt nothing. Not triumph, not fear. It was merely a thing which must be done so that she could become what she must be.