Dragon Prince 01 - Dragon Prince Read online

  She was tired, and the ornate silver pins holding her veil in place were giving her a headache. Yet when everyone went down to the copious supper laid out in the main hall, Palila did not join them. Neither did she seek her bed. She returned to the oratory and picked her way carefully through the moonlit chamber to the outer curve of crystal. Crigo would be here soon, to ride the moonlight to Stronghold. He often performed such small services for her without Roelstra’s knowledge, for it was Palila from whom Roelstra got the supply of dranath.

  The muted whisper of the opening door made her turn, the Sunrunner’s name hovering on her lips. But it was not Crigo who entered. It was Pandsala.

  Palila covered her startlement and hoped Crigo had the sense to listen outside before opening the door. She smiled sweetly at the princess and asked, “Why, whatever are you doing here?”

  “I might ask the same thing of you.” A little smile played about Pandsala’s mouth, visible even in the dimness. It made Palila nervous. The princess walked forward with stately grace along the white carpet, almost as if she came here in her wedding procession. “It certainly isn’t grief for the old prince that brought us back. Actually, I don’t know why you came and I don’t care, except for the fact that we’re alone. A rare circumstance, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But why do you want to talk to me alone, Pandsala?” Her mind seethed and she raked the girl’s gown with her gaze. Knife? Vial of poison? Who would suspect a princess of murder? The son Palila was sure she carried was a threat to all the daughters. Perhaps Pandsala had been delegated to remove the threat. There were enough strangers at Castle Crag to blame it on, enough people who hated her to make the list of suspects practically endless.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Palila invited, reasoning that a seated enemy would be easier to outrun than a standing one.

  “Stop playing lady of the castle, Palila,” the other woman snapped. “I am the princess here, not you—no matter what state my father keeps you in. I don’t like you any more than you like me, but we can be of use to each other.”

  “In what way, my dear?” She put amusement into her voice, but sensed that control of this had gone beyond her grasp, and was frightened.

  Pandsala’s long fingers trailed over the chairbacks as she approached, the smile pale on her face. “First let us discuss how you may help me,” she suggested. “I’m not a fool, as you well know. I have ears and a brain. And my ears have heard interesting things which my brain tells me can be worked to my advantage.”

  Palila began to understand, and relaxed slightly. “Prince Rohan requires a wife, and you intend to be the chosen lady.”

  “Make Father see me,” the princess urged. “You can do it, Palila.”

  “Why should I?” she responded with a carelessness she was far from feeling. “Ianthe would be the best choice.”

  “Could Father be certain of controlling her? Ianthe cares only for Ianthe.”

  “While you are the perfect, loving, loyal daughter,” Palila sneered.

  “Gently, gently,” Pandsala murmured, her smile gone and her dark eyes sunk in shadows. “Begin thinking of me fondly, I warn you.”

  “Why should I?” Palila was beginning to enjoy this.

  “Because I can save your life.”

  She burst out laughing, but inside she fought sudden fear. Had Pandsala come here to kill her? She cursed herself for all the years she had thought the princess less dangerous than Ianthe.

  “You believe you carry my father’s heir,” Pandsala went on. “Perhaps you do. But if you do not—must I give the details? Another mistress, younger and more beautiful, will supplant you. A woman who might give him a son. You’ve had four chances, Palila. This one is your last, and you know it.”

  She gave up all pretenses and sank into a chair, gesturing wordlessly for Pandsala to continue. The princess sat just across the aisle, smiling again.

  “If you have a son, there’s nothing for you to worry about. Father will marry you and your position will be secure. But if you have another girl, one might say it would be the end of your life, don’t you agree?”

  Palila rallied enough for an answering smile. “No, my dear. He is not what one would call indifferent to my bed.”

  “But when that younger, more beautiful girl comes along—how do you know she won’t be just like you, and get rid of you the way you disposed of Surya?”

  She betrayed herself with a gasp, and cursed. The princess laughed and stretched her arms wide as if to gather in the moment of triumph.

  “Not even Ianthe knows that I know about it. I was only fifteen, but I remember every detail—how you stood in the trellis garden one morning and paid off the servant who’d helped you. Lucky for you, Father was so furious that he had the woman executed before she could accuse you.”

  “Roelstra would never believe this ridiculous story!”

  “Perhaps not. But all he’ll want is an excuse to get rid of you if you have another girl. He’s not unkind, when it suits him. He might just send you away. But when I tell him about Lady Surya, I’ll add the name of the man who put the poison in Lady Karayan’s wine.”

  “Father of Storms!” Palila cried. “You bitch!” The penalty for murder was execution—and she had a sudden, terrifying memory of Roelstra’s words about changing his methods to fire.

  “How nice that you’ve stopped pretending,” the princess observed. “Now we may do business. I want Prince Rohan. I’m sick of living in this nursery and I want a rich, powerful husband. I’m told he’s quite good-looking as well. He’ll do very nicely for me. And now that you know what I know, you’d love to see me gone, wouldn’t you? What better place for me than far away in the Desert?”

  Palila gathered herself. “How do you know I won’t do to you what I did to them?” she hissed.

  “Because I know something else, Palila, which really could mean your life. Well? What do you say? Shall we make a bargain of it?”

  Palila pushed herself to her feet and went to the long table where silver candle-branches winked in the dim moonlight. Between them was an intricately etched gold plate. She tilted it up and saw her own reflection crossed with tiny lines—a vision of old age when her looks and her power would vanish and she would have only her son to keep her in luxury. It must be a son. Roelstra must make her his wife. She must do whatever Pandsala asked.

  “I will promote you as Prince Rohan’s bride,” she said tonelessly, still staring at herself in the flat golden plate. “I’ll do everything I can to ruin Ianthe’s chances. But I can’t promise, Pandsala. You know your father.”

  “All I ask is your influence—subtly, if you please. For my side of the bargain, I won’t tell Father what I know. Nor will I run to Ianthe with tales. I knew you’d be nervous about that,” the princess added slyly, and Palila hated her. “She’s attempted your life, you know.”

  “More than once,” Palila said, and put the plate down. She turned. “My servants are loyal.”

  “I’m counting on it. Will they say what you tell them to say, even if they find iron burning in front of their eyes?”

  Fire—Palila repressed a shudder. “They know I will do worse to them if they disobey me.”

  “Excellent. Now listen to me, Palila. Ianthe’s plan is complex, and you must understand completely if we’re to turn it to our advantage.” Pandsala laughed suddenly, a sound that frayed Palila’s nerves. “You’re going to have a son, Palila—one way or another!”

  Crigo paused outside the entrance to the oratory—not from any caution, but because his heart was always caught by the beauty of the wooden doors. Panels of equal size spread vertically below the stone arch, showing in sequence the Water of the sea, whitecaps picked out in silver; Air rippling across a golden wheat field; the majestic Earth of the Veresch Mountains topped in silver snow; and the Fire of a sunburst carved deep into the wood and lavishly gilded. Yet even as his spirit sang with the beauty, he cringed inside at knowing how little he deserved entry into this place.

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bsp; He sneered at his own scruples. The Goddess had surely abandoned this oratory long ago in disgust at the man who had ordered it built. He would not feel her presence within, disapproving and perhaps a little sorrowful. No, not that; the only sadness was his own self-pity. His lip curled and he reached out to push the doors open. But then he heard the faint sound of laughter from within. Not Lady Palila’s voice, though it held much of her malicious amusement. This laughter was deeper, more full-throated. Crigo cracked the door open just wide enough to see, and peered into the dimness.

  Two women were seated on either side of the aisle in the first row of chairs. He recognized Palila from the silver pins that held her veil at the crown of her head, but had trouble identifying the taller woman. Yet a turn of her head showed him the profile that boasted the High Prince’s fine, proud nose and brow. Crigo swallowed a gasp of shock. Princess Pandsala loathed her father’s mistress as much as the rest of the daughters did. What was she doing here having a private talk with Palila?

  He did not want to know. He knew too many secrets already, things that would mean his death if Roelstra ever lost faith in the powers of dranath. Yet the temptation was almost overwhelming. He owed Palila for the “gift” of dranath; should he overhear something useful, he might have his vengeance on her at last. He opened the door a little wider and strained to listen.

  Pandsala spoke in a low, earnest voice, leaning forward in her chair. “. . . make the change . . . four of them . . . surely a boy in the lot . . .” Crigo heard only a few words, none of which made sense to him. But Palila suddenly sat bolt upright, her posture one of rapt attention and no small amount of fear.

  “But the risk!” she gasped out. “It’s insane!”

  “Be quiet!” the princess exclaimed. “Do you want the whole castle to hear?” Her tone dropped again and Crigo frowned in concentration. “Ianthe plans very well . . . should work . . . but fool my clever sister . . . save your neck . . . Father gets his son at last . . . trust your servants with this?”

  Crigo bit down hard on his lower lip as the meaning of the princess’ words nearly shattered his composure. He shut the door soundlessly and crept back down the hall, barely breathing until he had reached his own chamber and the door was firmly locked behind him. He turned at once to the drugged wine.

  Goblet in hand, he lay back in a soft chair and drank deeply, gulping down the liquid as much for liquor’s customary effect as to get the dranath quickly into his system. The first sign of its presence was a headache that made him grit his teeth. It soon vanished, as he had known it would, replaced by a delicate haze that lasted little longer than it took to identify its warmth floating through his arms and legs. During the first year or so of his addiction, this feeling had been superseded by a strong need for a woman, but for a very long time now his only lover had been the dranath. He waited for the real effect of the drug, the one he wanted tonight, and eventually felt his senses sharpen to almost painful clarity. He had left almost half the wine for later, when he would need the blessed unconsciousness of a large dose.

  Opening his eyes, he stared up at the carved beams of the ceiling and assessed what he had seen and heard in the oratory. He thought he understood what Pandsala was offering Palila—and wished he did not—but what could the princess hope to gain in return?

  The answer was so obvious that he choked on laughter, not knowing if he was more amused or appalled. The daughters had been fluttering for days, ever since realizing that some of them were likely candidates to be Prince Rohan’s bride. He wished he could attend the Rialla this year and be entertained by their graceless maneuverings—especially the little dance Ianthe and Pandsala would do. Crigo had so few diversions; this was one Lady Andrade would appreciate, he told himself, wishing he had the courage to inform her on the moonlight. Palila would be just as amusing to observe, especially if she and Pandsala really thought she could influence Roelstra’s decisions. Her role would evidently be to aid Pandsala’s cause in payment for the plot outlined tonight, but Crigo did not underestimate Ianthe’s powers of scheming—not with such a prize at stake. That was the appalling part of it, the thought of the young prince wedded to any of Roelstra’s spawn. Crigo knew the High Prince’s daughters. As the spring was poisoned, so flowed its streams.

  He turned his winecup around and around in his hands. He wondered whether or not he would tell Roelstra about what he had heard. A thin smile stretched his mouth. It might be difficult to choose between ruining Palila and cherishing the secret knowledge that Roelstra’s son was not in fact his own. Both offered satisfactions.

  Crigo set the goblet aside and rose, slightly unsteady on his feet. He went to the windows that had been left open to the moonlight. The rocks opposite Castle Crag were stark and cold, the river invisible far below. But he could hear its muted thunder from the north, where it crashed over a cliff and foamed into rapids before settling into a smoother flow past the keep. Closing his eyes, he listened and shivered. He could never escape that sound, and longed for an absolute silence he found only in dranath-induced sleep.

  It would be silent now in the Desert as they watched Prince Zehava’s corpse burn. Lady Andrade would be there, with many faradh’im to attend her. The old prince had chosen a fine time to die, with so many there to do him honor. Crigo would receive a full account tomorrow from the spies at Stronghold, but they would have watched the ritual through cynical eyes. He felt the whispery chill of moonlight on his face, the spurious strength of the drug in his veins, and decided that he dared look with his own eyes. He longed to commune with his own kind again, to belong again. He could not, and knew it—but neither could he resist this chance to watch their work, even if he could not join with them on the clean, pale light.

  He lifted his face to the three glowing circles rising in the night sky, and wove the thin light into a fabric of delicate beauty. He flung it like an unrolling carpet to the east and south, exhilarated as he sped along it to the sands outside Stronghold. So free, this feeling, and so much like flying that his shoulders shifted as if he possessed dragon wings. There was a pinpoint of light below him, like a golden star earthbound, and as he descended toward it he saw the gray figures standing nearby. Crigo yearned to call out to them, to feel the brilliant colors of their minds. But he held himself back, the shame burning anew as he watched them honor the dead prince with Sunrunner’s Fire that freed Zehava’s spirit to ride the Desert winds.

  Tobin held her sons’ hands as the moons rose above her. Jahni and Maarken were exhausted, having gone with their father and Maeta to assist in moving the dragon’s carcass from Rivenrock. Their faces were hidden by gray hoods and despite their weariness they carried themselves like the young lords they were, but their palms were moist and they shifted restlessly as the assembly waited for Rohan to begin the ritual.

  Along with the family and more than two hundred others, they had followed him in silence the three measures to the Goddess’ Apronful, a scattering of huge boulders that took on strange, fearsome shapes in the moonlight shadows. Legend had it that the stones had dropped from the sky when the mountains had been built, to lie here forgotten in the sand. Maarken and Jahni had active imaginations even for five-year-olds, and Tobin knew they would be seeing monsters lurking behind every stone. She wished she could whisper a few soothing words to them, but silence was the rule.

  Rohan stood apart and alone, holding a torch in his hand. The flame turned his hair to molten gold and sank his eyes into darkness. He was a stranger tonight. For almost the first time, Tobin could see their father in him; the Desert had claimed him for its prince. Zehava, too, had had this look about him, for despite the comforts Milar had brought to Stronghold, the sand and the wind had been bred into him. The dragon that had killed the old prince sprawled between the largest boulders. There was a long, hollow wound in the sand, the path made as the great corpse was dragged to this place. Nearby on a flat stone that had been the final bed of fifteen generations of princes, Zehava lay beneath a silvery cloak tha
t concealed his body from neck to feet. Torchlight picked out the sharp profile and black beard, so different from his son’s finely drawn features and clean-shaven cheeks. Yet they were alike, Desert-bred and dragon-born.

  Rohan turned at last to Princess Milar, who walked forward to the funeral stone with the steps of an old woman. The shining scars of tears were on her cheeks, and she stood for a long time at her husband’s side, stroking back his hair and letting the Water of her grief fall onto his face. Andrade came forward to trickle a handful of sand onto Zehava’s motionless chest, the Earth from which he had been made. Anthoula, faradhi to the dead prince for many years, limped to his bier and spread her hands wide. The cloak’s hem stirred as she called Air to touch him lightly in farewell. Then she bent her head in homage for a moment, and returned with Andrade to the place where the other Sunrunners stood cloaked, hooded, apart.

  At last Rohan approached his father, carrying Fire. He lifted it high, his right arm a little stiff from his wound. The light was painted over Zehava’s body and on the great bulk of the dragon behind him, dripping down to the sand. Rohan touched the flame to the four corners of the cloak. The material caught and flared, beginning the blaze that would liberate Zehava’s spirit from the elements of which his physical form had been made.

  Then Rohan did a shocking thing. He went to the dragon and took a small waterskin from his belt, pouring the contents over the beast’s wing. A handful of sand was scooped up and flung atop the water, and a fiery breeze created with a sweep of the torch over the dragon’s head. At last he set fire to the carcass and stepped back, his shoulders set defiantly.

  Tobin was stunned. She had known he intended to burn the dragon, but honoring the creature as Zehava had been honored was unthinkable. Yet as she looked at her brother’s face, she thought she understood. Enemies killed in battle were accorded decent burning; so, too, the dragon.