Crown of Vengeance

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WAR MAGIC

The world itself must bow to the will of the Lightborn. If we choose, we can drain the life from every leaf and flower, take the beasts of the fields, the birds of the air, the fishes of Great Sea Ocean itself. For the good of the Land Itself, we pledge we will never draw so much power from the land that it sickens and dies, nor will we draw power from the shedding of blood, nor from death, nor from any breathing thing.

—Mosirinde Astromancer,

The Covenant of the Light

Ablenariel and his Lady walked ahead of Vieliessar across the inner close. Fighting was still going on, but here, its sounds were muted.

“You will die, Ablenariel,” Vieliessar said, “but I wish to show you to Araphant’s meisne before you do. If you had surrendered, you might have saved your life.”

“Laeldor does not surrender!” Ladyholder Gemmaire said. “Laeldor will fight until the last komen is dead!”

“Then Laeldor shall be erased,” Vieliessar answered. As Farcarinon was.

She led them into the keep. Its chambers and corridors were filled with trampled bodies, shattered furniture, and horse dung. Ladyholder Gemmaire wailed at the sight, as if the condition of the keep was still a thing that could matter to her. As Vieliessar led her prisoners through the Great Hall, Thoromarth overtook her, holding a prisoner by the hair.

“Well met!” he said, as cheerfully as if the two of them did not stand in the midst of an abattoir. “Here is Ablenariel’s heir, Prince Avirnesse. We’ll have the rest of them soon enough.”

“Curse you!” Avirnesse howled, seeing his parents. “Why could you not fight! Why could you not fight!”

He was still struggling and shouting as Thoromarth dragged him away.

Vieliessar’s warhorns sounded the victory, and the long, slow process of searching the castel began. Some of Laeldor’s Household knights had been taken prisoner; most had been slain. Some had been in the castel stables when Laeldor’s defenses were breached, and when the outer court cleared, they chose to ride out and die in battle. Prince Avirnesse’s older siblings and their households had used the concealed passageway to make their escape. But Nadalforo had discovered the horses waiting at the exit from the tunnel, and took Ablenariel’s children and the rest prisoner when they arrived to claim them.

Vieliessar learned these things piece by piece as the day unfolded, as messengers reached her and her captains made their reports. I must be grateful the casualties were no greater than they are, she told herself. A keep was not a battlefield, and for every lawful target presented to Vieliessar’s knights, there were a hundred that were not. Servants, craftworkers, Lightborn, the noble companions of the Lord and Lady of the keep—none of them wore armor or carried a sword. Most had not been injured, and those who were had escaped with minor injuries.

And my Lightborn are here to Heal them, and to Heal the Laeldor knights who have given their parole, and if we wished, we might all fight again tomorrow as if this battle had never taken place, she thought bitterly.

Tonight there would be a banquet, and she would play her part in the time-honored ritual, taking formal possession of the castel and the domain of the War Prince she had defeated in battle. She would give, if not justice, judgment, and celebrate her victory, such as it was. Every Lightborn here, whether hers or Laeldor’s, knew the Light had been used to breach the castel’s defenses.

Soon enough I shall learn whether today has been victory or defeat.

She stood upon the ramparts of the castel, watching the last glimmerings of sunset kindle in the sky. For now, this keep was Oronviel’s.

Hers.

“My lord.”

She turned at the quiet greeting. Ambrant stood at the top of the steps. The ruddy evening light turned the green of his robes to a dull no-color. She gestured to him to approach. “Did they send you to find me?” she asked.

“I sent myself,” he answered. “I would speak with you, but I do not know who my words may reach: the War Prince of Oronviel, or Vieliessar Lightsister.”

She closed her eyes a moment in weariness. “Both. Neither. Either. Say what you will, Ambrant. I swear that you will take no harm from your words.”

“It was you who breached these walls,” he said. Though his words were an accusation, there was no anger in his voice. “Some thought Celeharth Lightbrother had set the spell, for he lies now near to death, and there are those who thought it might have been his Great Spell.”

“I am sorry that he has taken such hurt. And I wish with all my heart Luthilion yet lived. But I will not evade nor set aside the purpose on which you have come to have speech of me. Yes, Ambrant. It was I who used the Light upon the field of battle, to gain advantage in war.”

Ambrant looked down at his hands, holding them out before him as if they were bloodstained. “I fought today, Lord Vieliessar. I used no Light, but … I fought.”

“You saved my life,” she answered. She did not know if that was true. But it was true enough.

Ambrant shook his head as if the act of thinking pained him. “It is forbidden. What I have done. What you have done. I … If it were right, if it were permitted, would I not have cast spells to save my Idronadan, who fell upon the field of battle? I let her die, when I might have turned the blade that took her life.”

Vieliessar crossed the space between them in two steps and took his hands in hers. “You did not let her die!” she said fiercely. “The Code of Battle, which sets the Hundred Houses to fight as if it is a game—that let her die! Hear me, Ambrant. Hear well. I will set into your hands a secret with which you can destroy me, if that is your wish.”

He looked up, and his eyes were wild and staring.

“The Song of Amrethion—Amrethion’s Curse. You know it. All who train at the Sanctuary know it. It speaks of a Child of the Prophecy. I am the one Amrethion foretold,” she said. “I.”

His hands tightened in hers. His mouth worked, but he could not force himself to speak.

Quickly—as if this were a thing she had told many times, instead of only once to one other—she told him of Celelioniel’s decipherment of the Prophecy, her trust in Hamphuliadiel, and Hamphuliadiel’s betrayal.

“So I must become High King, or Amrethion Aradruiniel’s warning will be for nothing. Against the peril of which he warns, all must fight—komen, Lightborn, and commons alike. But I do not violate the Covenant. I never will. Not even to save my life.”

She would have withdrawn her hands then, but Ambrant was clutching them tightly. “But this, if, if what you have said—what you promised.… Peace and justice, an end to Houses High and Low, to Lords and to Landbond—is it only so they will fight for you, so we will fight for you, when the day of the Prophecy comes?” He was stammering and the touch of skin upon skin opened his mind to hers without her willing it.

She saw a storm of images, a lifetime stretching back centuries before her birth, the injustice, petty cruelty, and lies Ambrant had been powerless against. He had faith in her—she was stunned and awed, humbled at the passionate intensity of his belief—and he had known, without truly knowing, that she was not merely War Prince and Serenthon’s daughter. He had seen her, and he had hoped.

“No. I have not lied. I promise justice always, and an end to High House and Low. I promise an end to war between House and House. But when the Darkness comes, we must fight or die. If we win, then—I promise you, Ambrant—peace forever. If we do not, that, too, is peace of a sort.”

His breath caught upon a ragged sob, and now she could slip her hands free and take him in her arms. She could feel him shaking.

“I do not know, I do not know,” he muttered to himself as if in delirium. “How can you make such vows? How can I believe?”

She could not ask for his trust, when she had violated it so utterly. She did not know how to comfort him, for no one had comforted her since she was a small child. Any whom she’d dared to love, or even trust, had been taken from her—by death, by betrayal, or simply by the destiny she could not avert. When she trusted now it was as if she gave up hostages upon a battlefield: it was done because she must, because it was the path to victory, not out of love or kindness.

“My father wished to be High King,” she said at last. “He scattered promises like seed at sowing time. To his favorites he offered power, and vengeance upon their enemies. And those enemies were afraid of what he might do, and even those who were neither enemy nor friend feared to have a High King who would let his favorites do as they wished. I am not my father. From the day I am crowned, I shall have no favorites. My justice will fall evenly upon the necks of those who are now great lords and upon the necks of those who are now Landbond. And my justice will fall like the rain that wears away the stone, and in the end there will remain only my people.” She took a deep breath and stepped back. “Speak to the other Lightborn and say that any who wish to leave me may do so, and I will not take vengeance upon any they may leave behind. But say to those who wish to stay that we must set the old ways aside, for this is not a time of peace.”

She didn’t wait for his answer, but stepped past him and walked back along the rampart.

Lord Luthilion’s body had already been laid upon its funeral pyre. The heads of all the castel guardsmen would be burned with him, their bodies buried so that they might never ride with the Starry Hunt. With Lord Luthilion’s death, Araphant passed to Vieliessar. Vieliessar confirmed each of lords of Araphant who had come to fight for Oronviel in their lands and their rank, and took their oaths of fealty.

Aradreleg Lightsister was the only Lightborn present in the Hall. It was she who set the spell of Heart-Seeing upon Oronviel’s new lords, but her eyes were dark and quiet upon Vieliessar when she thought herself unwatched.

It was customary to bring the prisoners in halfway through the victory banquet and make their fate an entertainment for the victors. Vieliessar refused to do that. There would be a banquet in Laeldor’s Great Hall tonight, but she would give her judgments before it.

Lord Ablenariel, Ladyholder Gemmaire, and their children were led into the Great Hall in chains. “You have lost,” Vieliessar said to War Prince Ablenariel. “Your lands are mine and your life is forfeit. Do you choose the Challenge Circle or the executioner’s sword?”

Ablenariel did not answer. The chains clinked with his trembling, and he seemed both old and ill, though he had looked hale enough when she had taken him prisoner.

“Come, my lord. Silence will gain you nothing. You must choose, or I shall choose for you,” Vieliessar said, as gently as she could.

“I had thought to withstand a siege and so save my honor,” Ablenariel answered, his voice weary.

“Be silent!” Ladyholder Gemmaire cried. “If you must die, do not shame us in your death!”

Her words seemed to have some effect, though undoubtedly not the effect she had hoped for. Ablenariel pulled himself upright and faced Vieliessar squarely.

“You have wondered, perhaps, why I did not meet you on the field, when you sent an envoy to challenge me,” he said. “You have wondered why I did not send your envoy back to you to offer parley.”

Vieliessar nodded slowly. No answer he could make would change his fate, for she could not trust him, and she could not hold Araphant if she pardoned him. But she would not deny him his last words.

“I could not,” he said, and now anger lent strength to his voice. “I could not! I summoned my levy knights—my lords—my great meisne—and they did not come!”

There was a long moment of silence, and then someone in the hall laughed.

“Silence!” Vieliessar shouted. “Is betrayal a cause for laughter?”

“But they took your side, Lord Vieliessar!” The hall was dark, for the Lightborn had not come to fill it with Silverlight, and she could not see who spoke.

“Each swordblade has two edges,” she said. “If the nobles of Laeldor have taken my side, then I shall be pleased to accept their fealty. But in doing so, they have betrayed their sworn lord, and that is a sad thing.” She returned her attention to Ablenariel. “My lord, how will you die?” she asked again.

“I would die at your hands, Lord Vieliessar,” Lord Ablenariel said. “It is how I should have died.” He knelt stiffly, made awkward by the weight of the chain that bound his hands, and gazed up at her.

“A sword,” Vieliessar said, getting to her feet.

It took an awkward time to bring one, for no one in the Great Hall had come armed to the victory feast, and when Avedana arrived at last, the sword the arming page carried was not Vieliessar’s. The quillons were wrought of gold and ornamented with moonstones, white sapphires, and diamonds as clear and bright as winter moonlight. The pommel stone was made of two half-spheres of clear crystal, and between them was laid a thin leaf of moonsilver cut into the shape of a rearing Unicorn, its detail as elaborate and delicate as lace. But it was the hilt itself that was the true marvel, for it was a soft, iridescent white, as if it were made of shell-nacre. It had a twisted spiral to its shape to provide a firm grip for the hand that held it, but it seemed, when she took it, that it was no carving of stone or shell or ivory, but a thing placed upon the sword hilt nearly as it had grown.

It was Ablenariel’s sword. Vieliessar knew this the moment she saw it.

“I shall carry this blade always,” Vieliessar told him, taking it up. “In memory of loyalty—and betrayal.”

Lord Ablenariel bowed his head, saying nothing. And she struck.

“Alas, you have spoiled your gown,” Ladyholder Gemmaire said into the silence that followed. “But perhaps you do not care for fine things.”

“I know that you do not,” Vieliessar answered, handing the sword back to Avedana, “for you have spoiled something finer than any jewels you own.” She did not step back, but forward, and her long skirts trailed through the spreading pool of blood. “Tell me, Lady-Abeyant Gemmaire, do you swear fealty to me?” she asked, her voice soft and cold.

“My husband is dead. I demand to be returned to my father’s house,” Gemmaire said. Her eyes flickered from side to side as she sought allies, and for the first time, there was fear in her voice.

“Your father’s house lies in Caerthalien, does it not?” Vieliessar asked. She knew it did. Everyone here knew it did. The pedigrees and marriage-alliances of the War Princes were as well known as the bloodlines of a favored horse or hound.

Servants had come to roll Lord Ablenariel’s body into a cloth to carry it out and to sprinkle sand over the blood on the floor. Vieliessar stepped past them and resumed her chair.

“My father is Lord Mordrogen, brother to Lord Bolecthindial,” Lady-Abeyant Gemmaire answered.

“Then I see no reason to deprive Caerthalien of your presence. Lord Rithdeliel, assist Aradreleg to remove the lady’s chains. You may go.”

Rithdeliel stepped forward, a thousand questions on his face, but he held his tongue as Aradreleg reached out to touch the shackles. Lady Gemmaire shook the manacles from her wrists, lifted her chin, and turned away from Vieliessar, moving toward the archway that led into the keep. Vieliessar raised her hand, and Rithdeliel stepped forward to take the Lady’s arm, halting her.

“You said I could go to Caerthalien!” Gemmaire said, turning back to face Vieliessar.

“So I did,” Vieliessar said. “Lord Rithdeliel will conduct you to the horselines and have a palfrey saddled for you, and I shall provide you a warm cloak, for the night is cool.”

“I have cloaks and palfreys of my own!” Ladyholder Gemmaire said. “What of my servants, my jewels, my clothes, my—”

“Everything that was yours is now mine,” Vieliessar said. “I give you your life. And a horse. And a cloak. It is only a few days’ ride to the border. Ask for hospitality along your way, and you may receive it. I shall order a safe-conduct sealed for you, so all whom you meet know you ride free by my will. I am sure you would find it inconvenient to be taken prisoner and returned here.”

Gemmaire looked around again seeking someone who would take her part. At last she stepped away from Rithdeliel, shaking her skirts out as if the touch of his hand had soiled her, and began to walk toward the outer doors. There was a moment of even more profound silence, as if everyone there awaited some defiant words from her, but none came.

“Now, Prince Avirnesse, will you swear fealty to me? Or will you die?” Vieliessar asked, turning to the next prisoner.

“I always find a few executions sets a tone for a banquet,” Thoromarth said, pouring wine into two goblets.

“I am surprised you have managed to stay awake through any of mine, in that case,” Vieliessar answered tartly.

Executions were something any castel’s servants knew how to deal with. Some were bringing out tables even while other were clearing the bodies away, and soon after that the first dishes were carried in, just as if Laeldor Keep hadn’t fallen that day.

“Ah, my lord, in your case it’s never been the executions as much as the possibility of being executed by your many enemies that lent spice to your banquets,” Thoromarth said blandly. “Here. Drink. We won today, you know. Drink. Or everyone watching will think we have lost and that they’re to be dead by morning.”

Vieliessar sipped her wine. She’d never managed to get used to the taste—wine was either thin and sour or thick and over-sweet. You won’t be dead by morning. But I might be, she thought grimly. It had not escaped her notice that Aradreleg had vanished once there was no more need for her Magery. Lightborn were often absent from victory banquets, performing Healings, but most of Oronviel had not even drawn sword today. There was not so much work for the Lightborn that they could not have been here, if they had chosen to be. Aradreleg certainly. Ambrant, perhaps—Komen Mathoriel was his mother, one of Vieliessar’s commanders, and Mathoriel was here.

Ambrant, if the Lightborn gather to speak of what I have done here this day, be my voice, and say to them all I have said to you. For what I have said must be. I can see no way to avoid it—no komen leaves his sharpest sword in the armory.

But there was nothing Vieliessar could do now to change what would be. And thinking of swords only made her think of Lord Ablenariel’s sword, and of his death. So she drank wine, and did her best to present an untroubled face to her commanders, as if this had truly been a day of triumph and joy.

Caerthalien ran and left behind / Bread and meat and silk and wine / Horses, hawks, and huntsmen bold / Chains of silver and chains of gold / Swords of price and armor bright / Left behind there in the night / Caerthalien ran and left behind …

It was late, and the wine had gone around many times, but as much of the rowdiness from those present in the hall came as much from relief at finding themselves still alive as from wine. “Not bad,” Gunedwaen said, gesturing toward the Storysinger. “Almost accurate, too. For a change.”

“The comic songs usually have more truth to them than the everlasting praise-singing,” Rithdeliel said judiciously. “They’ll have to work to turn the conquest of Laeldor into something high and heroic, you know.”

As the Storysinger went on, the list of things Caerthalien left behind as it ran from Oronviel’s knights became more and more outrageous and unlikely. A bake-oven. Three hundred live chickens. A bedstead with a feather mattress and blankets. Left behind, left behind, left behind …

“As long as they’re singing this nonsense, at least we don’t have to hear ‘The Conquest of Oronviel’ again,” Princess Nothrediel said. “I like a song where you know what’s going on. You can’t tell who you’re supposed to cheer for in that one.” She wrinkled her nose.

“You’re supposed to appreciate their artistry,” her brother pointed out, throwing a piece of bread at her. “They can’t exactly say Father is the blackest monster ever whelped and that Lord Vieliessar did us all a favor by conquering us. Since she didn’t execute him, it would be rude.”

“I appreciate the depth of feeling possessed by both my children,” Thoromarth said. “It occurs to me that our beloved lord and prince executed the wrong members of my family.”

“I swore fealty,” Prince Monbrauel said loftily. “And so did my annoying sister, here.”

“Oh, who cares who rules Oronviel, since it wouldn’t have been me,” Princess Nothrediel said. “We’re going to conquer Mangiralas next! Think of all the horses we can take as spoils of victory!” She leaned across her father and her brother. “When we take Mangiralas, you’ll let Father and me advise you on the horses, won’t you, Lord Vieliessar? Because I know Aranviorch Mangiralas will try to hide all the best bloodstock, and he knows a thousand ways to make a beast look better than it is—or worse!”

But Vieliessar wasn’t listening. She was staring across the hall, into the dimness, with an intent expression on her face. She saw the reflection of the blue-white nimbus on the wall a moment before the cloud of Silverlight drifted through the doorway. If Laeldor’s proper High Table had been here, she might have been able to see who came, but without it her angle of vision—even if she were to stand—was too low.

She waited.

A pool of silence seemed to grow outward from all those touched by the Silverlight, but even such a pool was not enough to quiet the cacophony of the hall. She knew someone was talking to her, trying to get her attention, but the words were meaningless. She only had eyes for the slow procession of the Lightborn.

At last the procession drew level with the high table. Now that Vieliessar could see who had come, her hands gripped each other beneath the fine white cloth and polished wood of the banquet table. Celeharth. It was Celeharth Lightbrother who came.

He did not have the strength to walk unaided. Ambrant supported him on one side, and on the other, a Lightborn Vieliessar did not recognize.

The hall fell silent by degrees. First Edyenias Storysinger stopped, so the singers stopped, and then those talking among themselves slowly fell silent, as if silence were the ripples from a stone dropped into a pond of still water.

“A chair,” Vieliessar said, and though she did not raise her voice, Nothrediel and Monbrauel rose to their feet, stepping back to the wall, and Thoromarth moved aside to leave two empty places beside her. Vieliessar stood as well, waiting, as with agonizing slowness the two Lightborn carried Celeharth to her. She had been one of the greatest Healers the Sanctuary had known in a thousand years, yet Vieliessar knew even she could not Heal Celeharth Lightbrother of that which ailed him.

Three things the Light cannot Heal: age, death, and fate.

At last those with him lowered Celeharth carefully into the chair beside her. His head lolled back against the high back of the chair and his legs splayed out as if he was a child’s doll, made of rags.

“You should have summoned me,” Vieliessar said, taking his hand. “I would have come.” His hand was icy in hers.

She did not expect an answer. She was not certain what she expected. But Celeharth drew a deep breath and lifted his head. “There are things … which must be done in the sight of all.” There were pauses between each word, as if they were heavy stones he must roll into hearing, and she could hear the rattle of his breath in his throat between each. “I saw … You broke … the seals and locks.”

“Yes,” Vieliessar said. She dared not look away from his face. She felt as if her gaze was the only thing that gave him the power to go on.

“Celelioniel.” The name seemed to take much of his strength. For a moment Vieliessar thought he would stop breathing. Each breath he took seemed to take all the life he had left. “Did you think … she was … the first? She was … my student.”

Celelioniel had been full of years when she was Astromancer. Celeharth was older still. Old enough to have been Celelioniel’s first teacher. Old enough to have set her feet upon the road that led to the unriddling of Amrethion Aradruiniel’s Curse.

Celeharth’s voice was harsh now, a terrible thing to hear, such a whisper as the dead might make if they were given voice. “Promise … The Covenant…”

“I will always honor and keep the Covenant,” she said. She spoke forcefully, not for the ears of any others here, but because she had the sense that Celeharth was going farther from her with every moment and so she must call out loudly so her voice might reach him.

“The rest does not matter,” he said. For a moment the sudden strength in his voice made her hope he would recover, that exacting her promise could Heal him where the Light could not. But then his eyes closed and his hand did not tighten on hers. Celeharth still breathed, but soon he would walk the Vale of Celenthodiel.

“I told him,” Ambrant said, his voice shaking. “I said to him all as you said it to me, Lord Vieliessar, I swear it! But he said he must come himself—”

“There are things which must be done in the sight of all,” she said, echoing Celeharth’s words. “Come. We will take him to the War Prince’s chambers here.”

“No,” the second Lightbrother said. “He would wish to die in his master’s pavilion. We will carry him there.”

Ambrant gathered the frail body into his arms as easily as he might lift a child. He and the other Lightbrother walked smoothly away, taking Celeharth to Luthilion’s pavilion.

Vieliessar turned back toward the hall. The servants are about to bring out the last courses, she thought despairingly. And what will I say afterward?

Suddenly Gunedwaen slammed his cup down on the table hard enough to make plates and eating-knives jump. “You! Edyenias! Give us The Conquest of Oronviel!” he shouted, in a voice that had been trained to project across the din of a battlefield. “You have not sung that this evening!”

Edyenias Storysinger stared at him for one stunned moment, then began to play.

After the banquet had drawn to its end, Vieliessar made her way through the camp to the Healing Tents. She would not intrude upon any of the Lightborn in their own pavilions, for she was still War Prince of Oronviel and they could not refuse to allow her entrance. But any might come to the Healing Tents to see how the wounded fared.

The place where those tents were set, in the center of the camp, was unnaturally spacious, for when camp had been set a day ago, they had expected the usual number of wounded. The tents that had not been filled by the end of the battle had been taken down again by the efficient camp servants, for anything they could pack before the camp prepared to move meant less work for them later. Each tent was lit from within by Silverlight, for they glowed in the dimness like the paper lanterns of the kite-flying festival. She lifted the flap of the door and stepped inside.

The wounded lay in cloth slings suspended on poles laid between two trestles, the same mechanism of cloth and poles the workers used to carry the dead from the field. If any in the Healing Tents died, their beds became transport to their funeral pyre. It was not possible, Vieliessar had learned, to immediately and completely Heal all the injured a great battle might produce. The attempt would drain the life from the land—if one were lucky. If one were not, the attempt would drain the life from the living, setting the Lightborn who had done it on an inexorable spiral to madness and death. For that reason, the injured were Healed in degrees—save for those who must be Healed entirely lest they die, or the great lords, who were unwilling to endure pain a moment longer than they must.

She had visited a Healing Tent for the first time in the aftermath of Caerthalien’s raid. Before that day she had seen injury and death, and had even dealt death, but the sheer magnitude of injury that had met her eyes had stunned her. Tens upon hundreds of bodies, all living, cut and crushed and broken in every way a battle could devise. It is no wonder the Lightborn support my cause, if I promise to put an end to this, she had thought then. Now she wasn’t sure if even that promise was enough.

There were six Lightborn in the tent, all persons she knew. They moved among the wounded, pausing to inspect a bandage here, gauge the progress of a Healing there. Servants moved among the beds as well, and offered water or medicine or changed a bandage at the direction of one of the Lightborn. Isilla Lightsister was the first to acknowledge Vieliessar’s presence. She finished her work at one bedside, paused to speak to her assistant, then walked across the tent.

“Lord Vieliessar?” she said, her voice low.

“I would…” Suddenly it was an effort to shape the question. I have grown haughty and over-proud in these last moonturns, if I cannot speak to a sister of the Light as an equal! she told herself contemptuously. “I would not take you from your work. But I would also know if I yet have Lightborn to command.”

“Ah,” Isilla said. “I do not think we should speak here. Leuse will finish my work. We await Dinias Lightbrother, so we may draw on the farther Flower Forests.”

Vieliessar nodded and stepped from the tent. She did not say anything further. She had asked her question. Let Isilla answer it in her own time. When Isilla came to join her, they walked in silence for several minutes before Isilla ventured to speak.

“We had thought, my lord, that you had set aside your Light to rule Oronviel, as did Ternas Lightbrother of Celebros when he became War Prince. Aradreleg had said this was so,” Isilla said.

Vieliessar could feel Isilla’s fear at speaking to a War Prince so boldly, her confusion at not being certain whether she was speaking to one who held the rank and power of a lord of the Hundred Houses, or to a sister of the Light.

“It was what I meant you to believe,” Vieliessar answered. “I had also meant to come to you with my arguments of necessity, to speak to you and hear your thoughts, before doing what I did today.”

“Yet you would still have done it,” Isilla said, a questioning note beneath what seemed to be a flat statement.

“I cannot know now,” Vieliessar answered. “Perhaps. I cannot know what you would have said.”

“Ambrant Lightbrother says you will not void Mosirinde’s Covenant. Celeharth Lightbrother had the same words of you before all in the Great Hall. It may be that you hope you would not, and then a day would come where you saw no path to victory but that.”

“Where is the victory in madness and death?” Vieliessar answered. “Or in ruling over a desert? If the princes swear to hold their domain’s welfare as dear as they hold their lives, shall a High King hold the whole of the land less dear?”

“And see what care our prince has of her people, who give their bodies to be broken in war,” Isilla said bitterly. “You take from the people, and you will take from the land. Kill me if you wish for speaking so. It is nothing to me. I have no family left.”

“I am sorry for that,” Vieliessar said quietly. “I have no family either. And I would do … better … than has been done before.”

“All say the High King will give justice,” Isilla said. “And will end Lord and Landbond, High House and Low, and bring peace. But you are not High King yet.”

“Nor will I be without the Lightborn beside me,” Vieliessar said. “I cannot become High King by saying I am. I cannot cause the Hundred Houses to acknowledge my claim and submit to my rule except by war. I cannot do all I have said I will do as High King until I am High King.”

“Easy enough to say you will do it then, when you have no more need of our aid to help you to your throne,” Isilla said.

“I cannot show you the future until it comes. I must ask you to believe that what I say, I will do. I have begun it in Oronviel. The Lightborn are not kept from their homes. They are free to use their Magery as they choose. My knights respect each steading and Farmhold, taking nothing save what is freely offered. Yet I cannot say to Aramenthiali, to Caerthalien, to Daroldan: do this. I am not High King.”

“You fled the Sanctuary,” Isilla said, after a pause.

“I could not become High King from the Sanctuary,” Vieliessar answered dryly, and Isilla was startled into laughter. She sobered quickly.

“You ask us to ride to war. I have no skill with a sword, nor am I interested in gaining such.” Isilla hesitated, then continued, “the Covenant can be hard to keep.”

“Then help one another to keep it,” Vieliessar answered. “Help me to keep it. I do not think I shall be tempted, but I cannot know. What I will ask of you is more than you have done. But I will not ask you to impoverish the land, to take your power from the living, to do anything which—were I to die in the next moment—would leave the land or the Lightborn less than they were.”

“We are less than we were for knowing you, I think,” Isilla said, sounding disgruntled. “What, then, would you ask?”

“That I cannot say. I can only say the sort of thing I might ask. Spells to give fair weather for battle. Seeking and Finding to locate my enemies. Should my foe attempt to force me to besiege him, as Laeldor did, I require the siege broken. A thousand things I cannot now name, for who can know how a battle will run before it is fought?”

“Were we to Overshadow your enemies, you might be High King tomorrow, for they would all swear fealty at once,” Isilla said.

Vieliessar had wondered what Isilla Lightsister’s Keystone Gift was. Now she knew. “And will you Overshadow every lord and prince of every domain for all the years of their lives? For that is what it would require. I might have Overshadowed any of the princes who now ride in my meisne whenever I chose. I might have Overshadowed Lord Ablenariel. And I did not, for an oath forced by spellcraft does not bind.”

“You would have the War Princes give up their power willingly!” Isilla said scornfully.

“You have seen that some will do so,” Vieliessar answered. “Others I must conquer and slay.” She only heard her own glib words after she had uttered them, and suddenly it was too much. She remembered being a child on her way to the Sanctuary of the Star, promising herself that someday—someday—she would return to Caerthalien and slaughter everyone within the Great Keep. She remembered being a Lightsister of the Sanctuary, a healer, a scholar, remembered fighting Death as if Lord Death were her dearest enemy. And now Death had become nothing more than a tool. “And so I end as I began, in asking: are my Lightborn yet mine to command?”

“Perhaps,” Isilla said, and in her voice Vieliessar heard wonder that she might speak to a War Prince so. Trust that such boldness would not bring her harm. And—perhaps—the beginnings of hope. “I do not speak for all. It is no easy thing to set aside a lifetime’s teaching.”

“It is not,” Vieliessar agreed. “Yet I must have one answer before this day ends. I must know if I may send a Lightborn as my envoy to Mangiralas, for I wish Aranviorch to surrender to me.”

“I do not speak for all,” Isilla repeated. “But I will ask.” She bowed, hesitated as if she might ask leave to go, then turned away without asking.

And were I not prepared to receive such an answer, better I had not asked such a question, Vieliessar told herself.

“What?” Vieliessar looked up. The table within her pavilion was covered with maps of Mangiralas, marked over in charcoal with lines of march, the sites of watchtowers and great keeps. Mangiralas was a land of hills and valleys in which it would be easy to hide an army. Mangiralas’s Great Keep stood at the top of a hill, so an army fighting beneath the shadow of its walls would be at a great disadvantage and an army fighting on the flat ground beyond would be in range of archers. If Mangiralas thought to use them.

“My lord,” Virry said, bowing sharply. She had been born a Farmholder and was now a commander of archers. “The commons gather beyond the edge of our encampment. They wish to see you. No more than that, but they wish to be able to say they have seen the High King with their own eyes.”

“I am not yet High King,” Vieliessar answered. “But tell them I shall come as soon as I may.”

“My lord,” Virry said, with another sharp bow, then turned and walked from the pavilion. Vieliessar heard Thoromarth snort in amusement at the breach of protocol any War Prince would have slain her for.

“They’d better be satisfied with a look. You can’t take them with you,” Rithdeliel said, waving a hand as if dismissing the entire problem.

“Can I not?” Vieliessar answered mildly.

Rithdeliel frowned. “You’d never be able to feed them. Send them to Caerthalien. Or Aramenthiali, if you prefer. Let them go forth and carry word of the High King’s greatness.”

“Stop it,” Vieliessar said, without heat.

“I’m serious,” Rithdeliel said, though he didn’t look serious. He was smiling, as if this were a great joke. “Don’t you know this is planting season?”

“I’m surprised you do,” she answered. She gave up on the map and sat down, certain she wouldn’t be left to study it in peace until Rithdeliel had said what he wanted to.

“Of course I know,” he said reprovingly. “When you’ve planned as many campaigns as I have based on whose lands I had to avoid lest I disturb their fields and had them run shrieking to my lord about how I was attempting to destroy them, you’d know too. If your army of commons can convince their fellows to flock to your standard, there won’t be anyone left to get the crop into the ground.”

“It could work,” Gunedwaen said.

Yes, she thought, looking around the pavilion. It could work. It would not merely strip my conquered domains of the laborers who allow the princes to make war, but all the lands.

“They’ll be killed,” Vieliessar said. “Bolecthindial and Manderechiel will send their meisnes to turn them back, and kill them if they do not.”

“If they kill them, the planting still won’t get done,” Rithdeliel said unsympathetically. “And this winter, there will be starvation. More than usual, that is.”

“Because the lords won’t open their granaries, or suspend the teinds and tithes,” Vieliessar said in disgust. Her own storehouses—those of Laeldor, Araphant, Ivrithir, and Oronviel—could feed her army for a handful of years. Or feed all the folk of those lands through one winter. Perhaps. If my war continues more than a full wheel of the seasons, I have lost, she reminded herself. She had already sent forth knights-herald to summon Laeldor’s absent lords to the keep, sending each messenger with a grand-taille of warriors in case her new vassals thought to rebel. To muster all of Laeldor’s knight levies would require a moonturn or more, and she did not have the time; she would take fealty of her new lords and hope for the best. She knew everyone was waiting to hear whom she would leave in charge of Laeldor Great Keep; she must make time to speak with her senior commanders to tell them what she intended.

When Vieliessar is High King there will be a Code of Peace. One justice for all, be they highborn or low, and all voices heard.

When Vieliessar is High King, domain will not war with domain, for all domains will be one.

When Vieliessar is High King, lords will not steal from vassals, from craftworkers, from Landbonds—

When Vieliessar is High King …

She would send the commons throughout the west to preach rebellion. She did not like it. But it would work.

“I shall ask this of them,” she said reluctantly. “But now it is time to share with you another thing that is in my mind.”

Quickly she explained. To conquer a domain did not strengthen the force she could bring to the field, for to hold what she had taken, she must leave a garrison force and a castellan. Should an enemy attack lands she held, she must retreat to defend them, or lose not only land, but reputation.

“Lord Rithdeliel has already said I should send the commons across the West to spread the word that I shall welcome them all to my banner, and his word is a good one. Now I say I shall do more: I shall strip my domains of every living thing. Let there be nothing for the War Princes to seize upon but empty keeps and deserted farms. Atholfol Ivrithir, I charge you to support me in this, and strip Ivrithir as I shall strip Oronviel.”

The meeting exploded into loud argument, as all those in the room began talking at once, arguing vehemently against Vieliessar’s plan.

“And put them all where?” Thoromarth demanded, winning out over the others through sheer insistence on being heard. “You’re talking about four domains—five, if you take Mangiralas!”

“I have been paying attention,” Vieliessar said dryly. “I shall send them east.”

“East!” Rithdeliel burst out. “You don’t hold any lands east of Oronviel!”

“But I shall,” Vieliessar said. “And I tell you now: I shall strip each domain I take of all it holds and weld my folk into one great army. Every domain I can take and strip before the Mystral passes close for winter weakens the Twelve.”

“Winter’s going to come no matter what Lord Vieliessar has conquered,” Dirwan said logically. “And I’d hate to try to get a flock of sheep over the Mystrals in winter, true enough.”

“And eleven of the Twelve are west of the Mystrals,” Gunedwaen said, a feral smile on his face as he began to understand the whole of what she intended.

“The Uradabhur is rich, wealthy, and fertile,” Diorthiel said. He now commanded all the Araphant meisne. “If you are there and the Twelve are not, I believe much of the region will quickly fall to you.”

“It is madness,” Prince Culence of Laeldor said. “But Laeldor follows your command, Lord Vieliessar, and gladly.”

Vieliessar inclined her head, acknowledging his loyalty. “Many Landbond and Farmfolk crossed the Mystrals to reach Oronviel. If my army were closer, I think even more of them would join me.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Rithdeliel said flatly, “but … it could work. If you’re on their doorstep with an army and their commons are running off to join it—well, the lords don’t have to know the commons are useless in a fight.”

“They’ll remember the Windsward Rebellion,” Nadalforo said. “The Twelve stripped the Uradabhur bare as their armies passed through. They won’t want to face that again.”

Gunedwaen, Rithdeliel, Thoromarth, and even Dirwan were staring at her in disbelief, but Nadalforo was nodding.

“You will make of yourself a landless joke!” Thoromarth burst out.

“How so, when all this land is mine?” Vieliessar answered. “I do not care who shall ride over it for a handful of moonturns making a brave noise of dominion. It is mine, and it will be mine.”

“It’s going to be a cold winter,” Gunedwaen muttered. “With no domain to return to.”

“You and I, Gunedwaen, have both spent colder winters than we’ll spend in warm tents with stoves to heat them. Did you think I meant to go back to some Great Keep and sit by the fire when Harvest Moon or Rade Moon came? I cannot. I fight until I win,” Vieliessar answered. It was time she let them know this part of her plan, for if she waited until Harvest to tell them they were not to retreat somewhere to rest through the cold moons, they would be angry, feeling tricked. But everyone here was still so disturbed about the idea of carrying all the folk of her conquered lands with them that this new and outrageous statement passed almost unnoticed.

“Followed by an ever-growing army of Landbond who will be missing their pigs and their mud,” Thoromarth grumbled. “And which can hardly defend itself if attacked.”

“The War Princes will not attack an army of commons,” Vieliessar said. “They will take my abandoned domains—and thereby lose a portion of their armies guarding them against one another—and will think only of reclaiming the servants and workers needed to make the land fruitful. Let it be done. And let word be carried across all land I now hold and all I shall take—a domain, a kingdom, is not earth and stone, but people.”

Despite the thousand calls upon her time, Vieliessar visited Luthilion Araphant’s pavilion, where Celeharth Lightbrother lay dying in the War Prince’s own bed. That he was dying was something no one could doubt. He had not awakened from the swoon he had fallen into in the Great Hall. Lightborn of Laeldor and Oronviel came and went, as did the lords of Araphant, seeming stunned by the death—and the dying—of the two who had been Araphant since the time of their greatfathers. Vieliessar sat at Celeharth’s bedside for as long as she could manage, but could never decide what she felt. Was it good fortune that Celeharth would not long outlive his friend and his lord? Was it bad fortune because his death could be twisted into a dagger for her back? Or was it merely unlucky that she should lose the good counsel of a Lightborn who had lived long and seen much? It was almost a relief when, as she returned to Luthilion’s pavilion just at dusk, she was met in the doorway by Komen Diorthiel, who told her Celeharth Lightbrother was gone. She could see that a body yet remained in the chamber, with a Lightborn beside it, but it seemed to her that body was made tiny by death, as if the greater part of Celeharth had been summoned away.

“I would see him honored in death as highly as the prince he served,” she said, and something in Diorthiel’s face eased at the words.

“It shall be done, Lord Vieliessar,” he answered. “To Celeharth Lightbrother, all honor.”

That evening, Vieliessar once again dined in Laeldor’s Great Hall among her commanders, and her thoughts were unsettled, for no Lightborn had come to the feast, even Aradreleg. But she was on display, and she knew it, and so forced herself to behave as if this were any ordinary meal. It was not, for there was a constant churning of bodies moving in and out at the back of the Great Hall. She had sent a message to Virry, saying that the commons might come to the Great Hall in the evening, providing they made no disturbance. She suspected Virry of arranging the matter so that each was only permitted a short time within the Hall, but for the Landbond to see their prince’s Great Keep was a liberty of which few of them had ever dreamed.

Tomorrow the first third of her army would depart for Mangiralas. Whether Lightborn rode with them or not.

The first course of the meal had just been served to the High Table and servants were still moving through the hall when she realized someone was approaching her from behind.

“I am here, Lord Vieliessar.” Aradreleg spoke softly from behind the chair. “I am sorry for my lateness. It was not possible to enter through the main gates.”

“Will you sit?” Vieliessar said. “I shall have a chair brought.” Aradreleg’s words might be simple truth, or they might be a convenient lie. There was no way to tell. The noise of so many minds would be deafening if Vieliessar tried to listen for one mind alone. But she thought Aradreleg seemed surprised to be asked.

“If it pleases you, then I will sit,” she answered.

I shall be sad to lose your friendship if you withdraw it, Vieliessar thought as Aradreleg settled herself beside her. There were few to whom she could speak her mind and she valued Aradreleg’s bravery and wry humor. In her first days as War Prince of Oronviel, Aradreleg’s acceptance of her rule had given Vieliessar hope that she could find consent among the people of the Fortunate Lands to the things she must do.

“We send Celeharth to the Vale of Celenthodiel tonight,” Aradreleg said, leaning over to speak softly in Vieliessar’s ear. “Will you come?”

The Lightless went forth on their last journey by dawn’s light, for they had no Light within them to show them their road. But the Lightborn walked the road to Celenthodiel by night, so that the Light of its flowers and leaves would show them the path.

“I will be honored,” Vieliessar answered.

By the time the last course had been set out, there was no table that did not have two or three Lightborn present.

The pyre had been built down at the bottom of the orchard, upon the ashes of Lord Luthilion’s. Vieliessar walked there with Aradreleg and the rest of the Lightborn who had been in the banquet hall. Other Lightborn were already there, in a ragged circle around the pyre. Vieliessar took her place among them. The blue gown she had worn to the banquet shone in the moonlight while the green of the Lightborn’s robes blended with the darkness. None of those present paid any more attention to her than if she wore Lightborn Green as well.

Celeharth’s body lay upon a green silk cloth spread over a pyre of aromatic woods and fragrant resins. A funeral pyre might be made of anything that would burn, but great lords surrounded themselves in death, as in life, with rare perfumes and costly essences, and she had given the order for Celeharth’s going-forth to be conducted with all honor. His name would survive nowhere but in the rolls at the Sanctuary of the Star, for he had left behind him—so he had told her once—no Line to remember him. But in the moment of his death, he would be splendid, for the night air brought the scent of applewood and spicebark, the deep sweet notes of amber and the sharp green odor of pine resin.

They stood quietly in the darkness until the last Lightborn arrived. Araphant and Ivrithir, Oronviel and Laeldor, all were present.

“We come to celebrate the leave-taking of one of Pelashia’s children.” Pharadas Lightsister was the most senior of Araphant’s surviving Lightborn. “Celeharth of Araphant, you have served long in the Cold World. Go now to the Warm World, where it is always summer, and go with joy.”

Vieliessar knew to close her eyes against what came, and—greatly daring—added her own power to it. A flash brighter than the noonday sun, a wash of furnace heat.…

Then nothing remained behind but night’s blackness and a small drifting of fine white ash. In that instant of intense spell-kindled fire, the pyre and the body upon it had been consumed utterly. The going-forth of one of the Lightborn was swift.

“You said you needed an answer before the day ended,” Isilla said, walking over to Vieliessar. “The day is not yet run.”

“Nor will I presume I have my answer until you give it,” Vieliessar answered.

“Just as you like,” Isilla said easily. “Who will you wish to send to Mangiralas? Ambrant? He has skill.”

“It is my place to say to the War Prince who has skill as an envoy, not yours,” Aradreleg said sharply. “But she is right,” she added reluctantly. Aradreleg glanced at Isilla, and an unspoken message owing nothing to the Light passed between the two women.

“It is in my mind to let Ambrant rest a while yet,” Vieliessar said, “for his adventure here in Laeldor was … taxing.”

“Then if you will not send Ambrant Lightbrother, Lord Vieliessar, I would say to you Isilla Lightsister is no bad choice,” Aradreleg said. “She is clever enough—if overbold in her speech and manner.”

“Says the gentle craftworker’s daughter,” Isilla jeered.

“Have you yet washed the mud out of your hair, Landbond brat?” Aradreleg instantly responded. A moment later she looked toward Vieliessar with wide, horrified eyes, and Vieliessar knew that for an instant Aradreleg had forgotten who—what—she was.

Vieliessar laughed—it was funny—and Aradreleg’s expression eased. But if she laughed, the moment held much sadness, too, for it showed her more sharply than gowns and jewels and the deference of great lords what a vast gulf there now was between her and those she had once thought of as her peers. Somewhere, in the back of her thoughts, had been the hope that when her great work was done she could simply walk from the High King’s palace and be merely Vieliessar once more.

And now she knew that day would never come.

“I shall go and compose fair and clever words for you to take to War Prince Aranviorch, and perhaps, if they are fair enough, or clever enough, we shall not have to fight at all,” she said.

A fortnight after Laeldor fell by Magery, Vieliessar set forth with the last of her army.

Much had changed.

Iardalaith had come to the Sanctuary the year after she did. He had already been in training to become a knight when his Light was discovered. Now she learned he was a cousin to Damulothir Daroldan, for he had come to her in Laeldor both as Daroldan’s Envoy and to pledge his own person to her cause. He discovered immediately that she meant to use Lightborn Magery upon the field, and to her great surprise, came to her with a proposal.

He would train her Lightborn to fight. She agreed to allow it.

Roughly a third of those Lightborn who followed Vieliessar, Iardalaith said, had the combination of temperament and talent to become what he named Warhunt Mages. She didn’t know the criteria he meant to use in choosing his people, nor did she know, then or ever, if he asked anyone who refused. She left the organization of the Warhunt entirely to Iardalaith.

By the time they reached Mangiralas, the Warhunt had begun to train. Instead of robes, they wore tunic, trews, and boots of Lightborn green. On the field, they would wear chain mail and cervelière cap. Iardalaith mounted them on Thoromarth’s swift, cherry-black racers so they could move speedily across the battle.

Some of those who followed Iardalaith were surprising: she hadn’t expected Rondithiel Lightbrother to join the Warhunt, but moonturns ago he had left the Sanctuary of the Star and sought her out. She did not know—had never sought to discover—his reasons, but whatever they had been, he had chosen to aid her in her fight.

But if Rondithiel’s membership in the Warhunt was a thing unexpected, still more was that of the three from Caerthalien: Bramandrin Lightsister, Pantaradet Lightsister, and Jorganroch Lightbrother, for Caerthalien had the most cause of any of the Twelve to hold itself insulted by her actions. But Iardalaith’s Lightborn had quickly abandoned identification with this House or that, becoming merely Pelashia’s Children again, as they had all been in the Sanctuary. In the cool twilight, when camp had been set for the day, she watched them drilling upon the field, their spells flickering like summer lightning.

And in the back of her mind was this thought: if the Lightborn could learn new ways and set aside old loyalties, the rest of her people could as well.

Isilla returned to Vieliessar when the army was halfway across Ivrithir to say War Prince Aranviorch rejected her terms, but offered others: a thousand horses, and a hundred of them to be chosen by her or by her envoy, to defer the battle for two years.

“The horse fair is next year,” Rithdeliel said. “He couldn’t fight then, anyway.”

Vieliessar sat at the table in her pavilion, her senior commanders around her. They had eaten while discussing Aranviorch’s offer, and now the maps were out.

“He thinks we’ll be somebody else’s problem by then,” Thoromarth said.

“Normally he’d be right,” Rithdeliel said.

“Still, a thousand Mangiralas horses,” Thoromarth said.

“When we’ve won, we’ll take all, not some,” Vieliessar said. “Tomorrow I send Isilla to reject his offer and call upon him to fight or to surrender. But I wish to know what is in his mind.”

“You need Lightborn for that, not warriors,” Nadalforo said. “I can guess at his strategy, though. Mangiralas is a Less House, but a wealthy one. They go to war rarely—they have what they want, and what everyone else wants, too.”

“Horses,” Princess Nothrediel said.

Nadalforo inclined her head. “And they have the Summer Truce, to which War Princes come and where tongues wag freely. Aranviorch probably knows more about what’s going on among the Hundred Houses—your pardon, my lord, the Ninety-and-Nine—than anyone else.”

“No,” Vieliessar said slowly. “The Astromancer knows at least as much. The commonfolk from every domain come to the Sanctuary. I grant you, children know little of the treaties and alliances their War Princes may enact, but they know if it has been a good year or a bad.”

“On their farms,” Rithdeliel said, with heavy emphasis.

“The farms tithe,” Vieliessar said. “And the nobles come to the Sanctuary for Healing, and they, too, speak unguardedly.”

“We aren’t fighting the Sanctuary,” Gunedwaen said.

“Not today,” Vieliessar agreed. “So. Aranviorch knows much. And of his knowledge, he wishes to delay battle, thinking I shall not be here in two years’ time. I refuse. What next?”

“If he meant to surrender on your terms, he would just have accepted them and been done,” Rithdeliel said. “You’re already nearly on his border. He doesn’t have time to send for help. And Mangiralas isn’t client of any of the High Houses anyway.”

“And no one attacks them,” Nadalforo said, “because of the horses. No one wants to risk offending its War Prince and being shut out of the Horse Fair.”

“Since we’re going to attack, where will they meet us?” Vieliessar asked.

“Here,” Nadalforo said, pointing to an area on the map. “The Plains of Naralkhimar, where the Fair is held. Flat, good for fighting, and a sennight from the keep. He’ll want to keep the fighting as far from there as possible.”

“Defeat him there and push him back toward his keep. The closer he gets to it, the more likely he is to surrender,” Rithdeliel said.

“A good plan,” Vieliessar said.

“It isn’t what you plan to do, is it?” Nadalforo said. She’d lingered after the others had left. “Sit on the Plains and let him hammer you while he waits for reinforcements?”

“As a matter of fact, it isn’t,” Vieliessar said. “While he’s fighting my army on the Plains, I’m going to take his keep and his horses. And then we’ll see if he’s willing to be reasonable.”

“If you can perform such a miracle, he’d be a fool not to be,” Nadalforo said.

“I shall require your help,” Vieliessar said, and Nadalforo smiled.

Three sennights later, Heir-Princess Maerengiel and Ladyholder Faurilduin, who was also Aranviorch’s Chief Warlord, met Vieliessar’s army on the Plains of Naralkhimar. Mangiralas must be very confident of the victory, Vieliessar thought, seeing the Heir-Princess’s banner, for only two children had been born of Aranviorch’s and Faurilduin’s long marriage: twins, a boy and a girl. The girl, younger by a score of heartbeats, was heir.

Virry and her archers stood unseen between the destriers awaiting the charge of the enemy knights. When the horns rang out and the drums thundered, the knights of Oronviel did not move.

The enemy charged anyway. Their center was mounted on black horses, all as alike as grains of wheat, and their coats were dark as shadows in the dawn light.

Let them stand, let them stand, Vieliessar thought, her thoughts almost a prayer, for stillness in the face of an enemy’s charge went against every instinct of the komen. And let my infantry survive as well, she added, for there was no place for them to stand save in the ranks of mounted knights, and no direction for them to retreat but between the galloping destriers when her own line moved.

Closer came the enemy, and closer, and the ground shook with the pounding of hooves. Then, just as Vieliessar began to fear that Virry had left it too late, she heard a shrill whistle and the archers stepped forward, moving as one. Moving with quiet precision, they nocked arrows, loosed them, drew more arrows from their quivers, nocked, aimed, and loosed again.

The first rank of Mangiralas’s charge dissolved into chaos. Horses fell, dead or wounded, flinging knights from the saddle with as much force as if the animals had hit an invisible wall. The banner of the Heir-Princess fell to the ground.

The riders in the ranks immediately behind the lead knights collided with the downed animals. More horses fell, more knights were unhorsed. Some riders tried to jump the tangle of bodies and a few made it. Most did not. Virry and her archers turned their attention to the knights. Anyone afoot became an immediate target. Through an eye-slit, above the armored collet, through the narrow flexible plates of armor which protected the midsection, under the arm—anywhere the armor was weak, an arrow from the walking bow could pierce it to wound or kill.

The forward momentum of Mangiralas had been halted. Now Vieliessar gave the signal and Bethaerian blew her horn. The call was taken up by other knights-herald throughout Vieliessar’s army, and Virry’s infantry used those few precious seconds to begin their escape.

Then the army charged.

The Oronviel cavalry split immediately, galloping around the tangled mass of dead and wounded. If everything went perfectly, Oronviel would attack from behind before Mangiralas recovered from the shock of its disrupted charge.

But even as Vieliessar’s knights galloped forward, the Mangiralas forces were retreating and reforming with fluid grace.

It was the beginning of a long day of fighting. Vieliessar’s forces suffered brutal casualties, for the Mangiralas komen were brilliant riders, and fought with the fury of those who had suddenly discovered war was a costly and terrible event. Destrier and knight moved as one creature, and each taille seemed to know the thoughts of all its members without need for warhorn or signal call. Vieliessar had advantage in numbers, which was all that kept her casualties from being heavier than they were, for exhausted companies of her knights could leave the field for a candlemark or two of rest. But when Mangiralas sounded the retreat a candlemark before sunset, she was glad enough to signal the nearest knight-herald to echo it.

That was not Bethaerian. She had not seen the captain of her guard for a long time. Her banner was now carried by Janondiel.

She took reports from her captains as Avedana helped her out of her armor. How many dead, how many wounded, how many horses killed, how many knights could fight again tomorrow. She’d barely pulled off the last piece of her armor when one of the sentries came to tell her Mangiralas had sent a messenger. She dropped into a chair, barefoot, filthy, still in her aketon and mail shirt.

“By the Light, I hope they come to offer Mangiralas’s surrender,” she groaned to Aradreleg. “Let the messenger of Mangiralas enter,” she said.

The messenger who entered wore, as she expected, the green robe of a Lightborn.

“I am Camaibien Lightbrother,” he said. “I come from Faurilduin Warlord, who is wife to the War Prince of Mangiralas.”

“Greetings to you, Lightbrother,” Vieliessar said. “I am sorry you see us in such disarray, but the battle is but recently over, as you know. Tea? Cider? No? Then I would hear your words at once.”

“Ladyholder Faurilduin demands you withdraw from Mangiralas at once, that you deliver to her to do with as she chooses those who unlawfully slew our knights with arrows as if they were beasts of the forest, that you pay to Mangiralas such teind as War Prince Aranviorch shall choose to assess, and that you acknowledge you have offered battle in bad faith, outside the Code of Battle.”

“No,” Vieliessar said.

There was a moment of silence. Camaibien Lightbrother looked very much as if he wanted to ask her if she actually meant that, but restrained himself. “Have you any further message for Lady Faurilduin?” he asked at last, his voice crisp with anger.

“Say to her that Mangiralas is still welcome to surrender, on the terms I have previously offered. And tell her if she has slain any prisoners she holds, I shall kill her whether she surrenders or not,” Vieliessar said.

“I … shall give her your words, Lord Vieliessar,” Camaibien said tonelessly.

She waved her hand, giving him leave to go.

Komen Bethaerian was not found among the living, or the wounded, or among the dead on the field, nor did Mangiralas send a further message to say it surrendered.

On the second day of fighting, Vieliessar stationed Virry’s archers at the deosil edge of the field, among several companies of knights positioned as if they were a relief force. This time the infantry had palfreys waiting behind the companies of knights, for the archers were far from the camp. When the call to charge was given, the knights of Mangiralas moved forward at a sedate—even cautious—walk.

When the archers began firing on their flank, Vieliessar and her knights charged Mangiralas at a full gallop. They struck for the tuathal side of the ranks of horsemen, out of range of the archers. Mangiralas’s center tried to take advantage of that, thinking they could strike Oronviel’s midsection while it was unprepared for battle, but the rear ranks of the Oronviel cavalry weren’t just blindly charging after the knights ahead of them. At the signal, they wheeled and struck the center of Mangiralas’s line head-on. And as soon as the archers were away and safe, the “reserve” companies took the field, butchering their way through Mangiralas’s deosil flank.

That evening, Mangiralas fought all the way to dusk. They did not send an envoy.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Aradreleg said that night, when Avedana had finished removing Vieliessar’s armor. “We can’t!”

“How many wounded?” Vieliessar asked, wincing as she felt her ribs. They’d been bruised yesterday and she’d been hit in the same place today. She was only lucky her armor had held.

“Too many,” Aradreleg said grimly. “Here, let me—”

“I’m fine,” Vieliessar said.

“If you’ve learned to Heal yourself, I’m Queen of the Starry Hunt,” Aradreleg snapped.

“You’re exhausted,” Vieliessar protested, but let Aradreleg have her way. She had to fight again tomorrow. “How many of our wounded have died?”

“None—so far,” Aradreleg said. “But everyone injured, stays injured. We don’t have enough Lightborn for anything else.”

“It will be over soon, one way or the other,” Vieliessar said wearily.

“You’re right about that,” Aradreleg said. “Because in another day or two, you’ll be outnumbered.”

On the third day, when the call to charge was given, the two lines of knights faced each other and nobody moved. Then someone in the Oronviel lines laughed and Mangiralas charged. Their line was ragged, and their knights startled at shadows, jerking at their destrier’s reins so the animals danced sideways, but this time no archers attacked them.

Today Mangiralas devoted all its energy to the banner of Oronviel and the War Prince in silver armor who fought beneath it. Three times in the first candlemarks of fighting Vieliessar was unhorsed as her destrier was slain beneath her—she lost Sorodiarn, Grillet, and another whose name she never learned. Each time a horse fell beneath her, one of her guard gave up a mount so she might ride. Each time, Vieliessar could see Ladyholder Faurilduin only a few yards distant, fighting desperately to reach her and end her life before she could gain the saddle again.

Near midday, when the fighting was at its heaviest, Vieliessar heard a flurry of signal calls. Mangiralas, calling for a new attack. They’ve figured it out, she thought, already too exhausted for anything but determination. Any prisoners they’d taken—and she must hope Mangiralas held prisoners, for both Princess Nothrediel and Prince Monbrauel were missing—could have given up the bit of information that would have let Faurilduin learn that Oronviel’s camp held many wounded, and few Lightborn to tend them.

But Vieliessar had known her secret would eventually be guessed, and so today she had held back two hundred horse and all her infantry and kept them close beside her camp.

She hoped they would be enough.

The press of the fighting was so heavy no messenger could reach her to tell her what had happened. When Mangiralas next signaled, she was so dazed with fatigue that at first all she could think was that she’d failed, that Mangiralas was signaling for a parley-halt to discuss the terms of her surrender. But as the call repeated over and over again, she finally made sense of it.

They’re retreating.

We’ve won.

As they rode back to the camp, she saw the bodies of those who died defending the camp—and attacking it.

Horses—some dead, some panting pitifully as they lay dying from an archer’s arrow. Knights dead of sword cuts, or crushed beneath a horse, or battered to death by a destrier’s hooves.

And among them, bodies that were not clad in bright armor.

“Ah … no,” Vieliessar said, sighing. The infantry were to have retreated once they’d taken their toll of Mangiralas’s knights. But some had not. They’d stayed, continuing to loose their deadly arrows at the enemy as the moments in which they could escape trickled away. Then, even when their arrows were gone, they had not run, for Vieliessar saw none clad in the chain mail and surcoat of infantry who had died with their back to the enemy.

“All honor to them,” Orannet said quietly.

“All honor,” Vieliessar echoed.

When she reached it, she saw that her camp was untouched.