Sunrunner's Fire

Melanie Rawn Sunrunner’s Fire

Part One

1 719: Stronghold

The immense emerald caught and concentrated the fire of the setting sun into a fierce glow alive with green-gold light. Sunrunner though High Princess Sioned was, and skilled in the arts of the faradh’im, the other rings that would signify her rank among them were missing from her hands. For many years she had worn only her husband’s ring, the emerald he had given her half their lifetimes ago. But tonight she could feel the rest still on her hands, as she’d told Lady Andrade: like scars.

There were others with her in the evening hush who wore faradhi rings. The three circling the fingers of her sister-by-marriage, Princess Tobin, were honorary; nonetheless they betokened considerable if informally trained power. Tobin’s eldest son Maarken and his wife Hollis each wore six rings; Riyan, only son of Sioned’s old friend Ostvel, had four. Had Sioned still worn hers, they would have numbered seven—but she knew quite honestly that her talents and her powers would have merited eighth and ninth rings by now. That she chose not to claim them was indication enough of where her loyalties lay.

She lifted her head and met her husband’s solemn expression. He knelt directly across from her on a broad blue carpet flung over dry grass. A golden brazier rested in the center of the rug. Its wide, empty dish, supported by four carved dragon claws, was polished to a mirror’s gleam. Before Sioned was a golden pitcher and a small matching wine cup. She did not look at the latter very long; she gazed into Rohan’s face and, as always, drew strength from what she saw there.

Rohan was flanked by Maarken and Riyan; Hollis and Ostvel sat on Sioned’s right, Tobin and her husband Chaynal to her left. She thought of the absent others, and the reasons why they were not here. Her son, Pol, was back at Graypearl, safe on Prince Lleyn’s island under the watchful guardianship of another Sunrunner and old friend, Meath. Alasen, Sioned’s kinswoman and Ostvel’s young wife, was at Stronghold, but she would have nothing to do with faradhi ways. Although she possessed gifts in generous measure, Sunrunner workings terrified her. Sorin, Chay and Tobin’s third son, was far away, the only family witness to ceremonies that would tonight create his twin brother Lord of Goddess Keep in Andrade’s place.

The gardens of Stronghold were silent. Princess Milar’s fountain ran dry in autumn. Servants and retainers were within the great keep or the courtyards, making ready for departures on the morrow. Tobin and Chay were going home to Radzyn, Maarken and Hollis to their manor at Whitecliff. Ostvel and Alasen would stay the winter with Riyan at Skybowl to the north before traveling to Castle Crag, where Ostvel would assume his duties as new regent of Princemarch. By tomorrow evening Rohan and Sioned would again be alone at Stronghold, linked to family and friends only by her weavings of light.

A glance at the shadows told her it was time. She rested her open hands on her knees, staring down at the emerald. “According to ritual, Andry will call Fire in front of the senior Sunrunners, and Urival will give him the first ring. Then Air, and the second ring. They’ll pause while Water and Earth are honored, and then he’ll have to prove that he can conjure in Fire. At that point he’ll receive the third ring. Just before dusk he’ll weave sunlight to summon the faradh’im resident at Goddess Keep who wear fewer than seven rings. Once he’s done that, the fourth and fifth will be given. With moonrise he’ll demonstrate his ability to weave moonlight, and that will be the sixth ring. Up until that time, the ritual will be as it has always been.”

Chay shifted and frowned, knowing what she was about to say and unable to hide his disapproval of his son’s plans. Sioned gave him a sympathetic look. They had gotten over the initial shock of Andry’s departure from tradition, but acceptance was something else again. It had been several days since Urival had spoken with Sioned on sunlight, his colors flaring with outrage at Andry’s presumption. Certain other important Sunrunners, who would also be watching tonight from great distances, had been similarly informed so their startlement would not disrupt the proceedings. But Sioned wondered what the reaction would be at Goddess Keep itself when the resident faradh’im actually participated in the new ceremony.

“It won’t be sunset there for a little while,” Rohan said. “Chay, you’ve obviously got something on your mind. Say it.”

The Lord of Radzyn shrugged, an attempt at casualness. “Maybe I’m just getting conservative in my old age. Change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And he seems to have his reasons.”

“But why couldn’t he have waited?” Tobin burst out. “He’s moving too fast. The tradition of hundreds of years can’t be wiped out in a single night!”

Rohan looked pensive. “You’re both right, of course. But consider Andry’s motives. He needs to do something to indicate how different his rule will be from Andrade’s.”

“She’s been dead forty days,” Sioned murmured. “Why does it seem so much longer?”

Ostvel used one finger to smooth a ripple in the carpet. “You’ve told me she was uneasy about Andry. But Urival is there, and knows him well. Urival will guide him.”

“But not control him,” Sioned replied.

“And did Andrade ever really control you?” Ostvel smiled faintly. “Andry’s not a fool, Sioned, nor is he venal or grasping. He’s a very young man thrust into a position of great power before being prepared for it. I think there are those among us who can understand his feelings and his needs.”

Rohan nodded. “Oh, yes. I understand him very well. I’ve been the architect of a few departures from tradition myself, many of them in my first year as a ruling prince. And this is Andry we’re talking about here—a boy you and I played dragons with, Ostvel. Nephew, son, and brother.” His gaze moved around the circle.

Sioned cleared her throat and looked down at the wine cup. Slowly she filled it from the golden pitcher. Then she reached into a pocket and took out a small cloth pouch.

“Sioned—is that truly needed?” Tobin asked worriedly. “I don’t like the idea any more than you do. But Urival was quite specific. And it will only be a little bit. Not enough to do me any harm.” Loosening the drawstrings, she took out a pinch of powdery gray-green substance. “Enough to fit inside a thumb ring,” she murmured, quoting Urival. “The Star Scroll advises caution, but this amount is safe enough.”

“According to a half-translated book hundreds of years old!” Maarken shook his head and glanced at his wife. Hollis did not shrink back from the sight of the dranath in Sioned’s fingers, but her eyes were haunted. She had spent the journey from Waes to Stronghold freeing herself of addiction to the drug; even though she no longer craved it, the anguish of withdrawal was still evident in her pale lips and bruised eyelids.

“The conjure I’m working tonight is difficult enough to sustain under ordinary circumstances,” Sioned reminded them. “This one will take all night. Urival says dranath can increase powers. And he sanctioned its use.”

Before anyone could say anything else, she sifted dranath into the wine and swirled the cup to mix it in before drinking off half the contents.

“I remember how it felt,” she murmured into the silence. “Dizziness for a moment, then warmth. ...” Her cheeks flushed. There was another effect of dranath: sexual desire. Or perhaps, she thought suddenly as she sensed her gifts expand within her, perhaps the power was all-inclusive, and every aspect of body and mind was touched by the drug. She began to sway gently back and forth in response to the humming sensuality compounded of physical and faradhi power. There was a hunger in her, not only for the touch of her husband’s flesh but for the unleashing of her talents. She understood the seduction of the drug. She had always been too afraid of it to analyze its effect, but this time she was going to work with the dranath, not against it—glorious and terrifying and impossible to resist. The demands of her body slowly faded, subsumed into an urge to ride the last sunlight and dare the shadows, to summon a torrent of Air, to call down Fire and in it conjure fateful visions. Sioned told herself she chose to succumb. Her disciplined Sunrunner mind brought forth a gout of Fire into the empty brazier. The polished bowl seemed to ignite. And in cool flames half the height of a man there formed clear, detailed pictures.