Alasen, please! You must help me! You, your children, Pol, everyone is at risk! No one would be safe! Get me the names. Help me to prevent them from slaughtering us—because they will, given half a chance. They killed Sorin—look how close they came to killing Pol!
She leaped to her feet and ran from the sunlight, leaving the soft lace on the floor.
At the Rialla late that summer, Ostvel had come to him privately, grim-faced. “You spoke to her because you thought she’d listen. And she heard, all right—a plan for wholesale murder!”
“I never said that. I want them found and taken care of.”
“Killed is what you mean! You’d ‘take care’ of my son if you could!”
“You’re imagining things. You’ve always hated me, Ostvel. And we both know why.”
A long finger stabbed toward his face. “Hold your tongue and listen to me, boy. I know what you think of me and I know what you can do about it—precisely nothing. You’d get at me through Riyan if he didn’t have the protection of his rank and Pol’s friendship. But there are hundreds who don’t have that direct protection. Even if you didn’t intend to kill them all, don’t you see the danger? How could you tell guilt of sorcery from vicious rumor or spiteful lies?”
Andry condescended to smile. “You’re to be their protection, I take it.”
“You can have that written in stone,” Ostvel assured him.
“What makes you think you could stop me, whatever I decide to do?”
“Alasen.”
He hid his fury as her very name was used against him. “You set too high a value on your wife’s influence with me.”
“We both know differently, don’t we?”
“Get out!”
“Not until I’ve said two things more.”
“Make them brief. You’re boring me.”
“They’re so simple even you’ll understand. Neither Alasen nor I nor anyone else with a conscience will be a party to such butchery.” Ostvel’s eyes were the cold silver-gray of steel. “And if you ever approach my wife again, for any reason, in any way, then Lord or no Lord of Goddess Keep, I’ll take you apart with my bare hands.”
But Ostvel himself had given Andry what he wanted. Each of those from Princemarch who had come south to join Chiana at Mireva’s command had been questioned by Ostvel’s order. Though little was learned beyond the fact that she had bade them fight, each interrogation had a name and a location attached. It had been so easy to set Nialdan to read and memorize those names on parchment by the light of moons or sun.
He chafed more warmth into his fingers and smiled down at the butterfly pattern of the brazier. Ostvel’s protection was worthless. And even if Alasen found out about all this—he had lost her long ago. It didn’t matter anymore.
Pol himself had dealt with the traitorous Lord Morlen. The execution had taken place before the Rialla—a stupid move in Andry’s opinion. Morlen should have been killed in front of the other princes as a warning, the way Kiele and Lyell had died for similar treachery. But he ultimately approved Pol’s foolishness; not only did the execution have less of an impact for being carried out with no royal witnesses, but the cost to Pol of having to commit legal murder with his own sword had been dear—or so rumor had it. His cousin was no warrior. He lacked Rohan’s ruthless practicality. Andry had more than once heard the story of how his uncle had ordered the severed right hands of Merida enemies flung at the feet of their masters. Pol would never do anything of the sort. Pol was civilized.
He did not punish the others who had risen against him with more than a few confiscations of property as examples to others within the princedom. For his wisdom and his mercy he was lauded—publicly at least. And that had been the end of it insofar as Pol was concerned.
But Andry had the names, the places. He had already discovered the sorcerers within his own ranks. Torien, his Chief Steward, was distantly related to Ostvel’s first wife, Camgiwen—from whom Riyan had received his other gifts. Andry’s guess was correct; a simple sorcerer’s spell worked by Andry himself in Torien’s presence confirmed it. Throughout the summer the two of them tested others slowly, carefully, and without arousing suspicion. Those thirty-four whose reactions indicated diarmadhi blood were told that the specific spell caused their rings to burn—not a lie, but not the whole truth, either. None of them were banished; they were valuable. They would never rise to important positions, and certainly none but Torien would ever learn the craft of the devr’im.
Thus he had set his own house in order. He trusted Torien completely—the man’s horror on learning what his reaction really meant had been proof enough of his loyalties, even if Andry had not been sure of him before. The others, equally ignorant of their mixed heritage, were not even watched for signs of treachery. But Andry had to know. Still, it wasn’t his Sunrunners but those unknown hundreds in the Veresch who concerned him. Pol was criminally negligent in not seeking them out. He didn’t know the favor Andry was doing him—and wouldn’t have thanked him if he had.
But that didn’t matter, either. Nothing mattered but the eradication of key diarmadh’im. Mireva was gone, and Ianthe’s sons, but there must be others who were capable of mounting attacks that would be discovered too late.
And after his vision in dreams tonight, he knew why they must be found. The sorcerers had long used the Merida; it was written in Lady Merisel’s scrolls, and Mireva had confirmed it. The men he had seen bore the telltale chin scar. If there were no sorcerers to command them, then perhaps that vision would not come to pass.
And yet—these new details, the encompassing new scene of tonight’s dream. . . . Something Chay had said nagged at him in odd moments—an implication that by working so hard to prevent his visions, perhaps he was helping them to come true. Fulfilling their prophecy, endangering the whole continent. But his father was no Sunrunner. He saw only with his eyes, not his soul. Andry had to believe that his efforts would help turn aside the horror, or he would go mad.
Five days ago he had skirted the route that led to Dragon’s Rest. Yesterday he had found and dealt with a man high on Ostvel’s list of those who had led the rebellion against Pol. Mindful of Mireva’s words about only one diarmadhi parent being necessary to produce gifted offspring, Andry had moved against the entire family. And in case someone missed the point, on the door of the remote woodland dwelling Nialdan had carved a sunburst radiating Sunrunner’s Fire.
He couldn’t deal with them all. He wished he could, but the hope was unrealistic. He could only remove as many as possible before the winter rains began and he must return to Goddess Keep. Next spring he would begin anew with those who had eluded him this time.
A scratch at his door tore him from contemplation and he whirled. “Who’s there?” he snapped.
“It’s only me,” said Valeda in hesitant tones quite unlike her usual brisk confidence. “May I come in, please?”
He opened the door. She, too, was wrapped in her cloak. No nightdress swept below the voluminous gray folds, and she was barefoot. He arched a brow.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, shrugging. “Neither could you, by the looks of things.”
“I dreamed again.”
She nodded. Several times over the last few years she had been in his bed when the nightmares came. He never told her even the broadest outline of them. He had never told anyone about his visions except his brother, who was dead, and his father—who could never understand.
“And what’s your excuse for being awake?” Andry went on with a slight smile. “Bedbugs?”
“Worse. My room is next to Nialdan’s, and he snores like a dragon with a stuffy nose.”