This was not lost on Andry, though he was used to it. His whole family was like that: steel wrapped in velvet. Nialdan and Oclel were as awestruck as Rohan obviously intended them to be. It vaguely irritated Andry. Still, he had the family pride in the family seat, and his sense of humor allowed a private salute to Rohan’s instincts. Anyone would think more than twice about opposing the High Prince in anything after seeing Stronghold at its most impressive.
And, too, he knew that the display was not merely for his two Sunrunners. It was practice for Miyon of Cunaxa’s expected arrival.
Sioned told him as much flat out. “Tallain isn’t having much luck with him at Tiglath. So I suppose Miyon will be here fairly soon.” She made a face. “And as a good, dutiful princess, I’ll have to dance with the snake.”
They were more or less isolated at the high table. After the meal Rohan had left his wife’s side to confer with Feylin about, inevitably, dragons; Maarken and Pol were trying to master the art of juggling greased sticks as demonstrated by a pair of traveling entertainers who had shown off their skills between courses. Tobin and Hollis were laughing at their frustrations. Of the others, Walvis endeavored to convince Chay regarding some finer point of estate management, with pretty Ruala of Elktrap listening avidly. Morwenna, displaced from the usual Sunrunner’s seat by the presence of faradh’im more high-ranking than she, watched the whole with a gaze that for all its dark Fironese tilt reminded Andry forcibly of Andrade’s shrewd blue eyes. He could sense her even when he was not looking at her, watching and judging, ignoring Nialdan’s and Oclel’s attempts at conversation. “What do you think he wants?” Andry asked in response to Sioned’s last remark. “You’re Desert-bred, you know exactly what he wants.”
“Preferably Radzyn Port,” Andry acknowledged with a little smile. “Will he settle for anything less while he lives?”
“He’ll have to. But you’re right, of course. It’s damned irksome to have him always sneaking around up north.”
“At least he’ll be here for a while where you can watch him.”
“Mmm. Sometimes I think his merchants are even worse than he is.”
“They’re only trying to survive, Sioned.”
“I have no objection to that. Where I begin to get irritated is when they equate their survival with our destruction.” She gave a comical grimace. “Not an entirely new experience.”
Andry sipped his wine, then said, “I’ve been wondering when you’d get around to mentioning the dragon-killer.”
“I’ve been wondering if I dared.” She met his gaze forthrightly. “I admire your self-command.”
It was recognition of his unexpectedly placid manner thus far, and suspicion of it. His easy manner and his quiet entrance into Stronghold had not gone unnoticed—he hadn’t thought it would. He nodded noncommittally.
“You were always honest with me as a little boy,” she murmured.
“You may have noticed that I’ve grown up.”
“Don’t spar with me, Andry.”
“Why not? Do you fear you’d lose?”
Looking for a frown, he received a smile—and remembered that Sioned had had far more years of training under Andrade than he. “You speak as if there were some matter of contention between us, nephew.”
“Isn’t there?”
“Are you determined to make it so?”
He desperately wanted to abandon his pose and was within a breath of doing so when she spoke again.
“Have you ever counted up the times I’ve lost?”
Though his body remained motionless, his spine went rigid.
“Come, Andry. We’re on the same side, you know,” she told him in quiet tones.
Her green eyes captured his in a trick Andrade had taught all her senior Sunrunners. Andry had learned it on his own—and how to escape it. He did not look away, but instead concentrated everything he was in his eyes. All his knowledge, all his gifts, all his will bored into her. In the space of a few heartbeats she ought to have wavered. But her gaze stayed level and calm.
“You have indeed grown up,” she said at last.
He was the one who broke contact then, understanding at least a part of her strength. This fiercely passionate woman had learned in the course of her life that passion unleashed was passion that destroyed its user. The things that drove her might be much the same as those driving him—but she knew patience, and careful power. There was in her a centered place where passion and restless intellect alike were stilled and calm. It was the same quality often sensed in Rohan, and he wondered suddenly who had taught it to whom.
And just as quickly it occurred to him that Pol did not possess this quiet center. He had not yet been tested as his parents had been. He had not yet been hurt.
Relenting a little, he said with a slight smile, “It always takes a long time for one’s family to stop seeing one as a little boy playing at dragons.”
“So your father said with much bewilderment this afternoon. I think you startled him, Andry. He also made a very disgruntled remark about getting old.”
“Him? Never.”
Her expression softened again. “That’s the first honest reaction I’ve had from you all night. My dear, I confess that sometimes I haven’t dared feel things for fear they would overcome me. But we’re your family. Sorin’s family. We grieve for him just as you do.” Sensitive fingers rested on his arm. “We need your comfort and you need ours.”
Tempting. But betraying in the end. If he gave in to what he felt it would overcome him, as she had said. If he rendered himself vulnerable in one area, he would be defenseless in others. It should not have been such a shock to realize he didn’t trust his own family not to take advantage of any weakness. After all, they didn’t trust him, either.
In her eyes was so accurate an analysis of his private thoughts that he cursed silently; he was not as unreadable as he’d thought himself schooled to be by now. Sorrow flickered in her expression. She removed her hand from his arm and gestured a squire over.
“Arlis, more wine for Lord Andry.”
“At once, your grace.”
More than anything else, the titles underscored a moment lost, perhaps forever. They were not family anymore, but Lord of Goddess Keep and High Princess. Andry took refuge in asking the young man if he would be knighted at the Rialla this summer, and a brief conversation about Arlis’ grandfathers Saumer and Volog ensued. But he could not shake the feeling of desolation, of being isolated within the home of his ancestors.
“So you see we have to do something to increase the number of available caves, and this year if possible,” Feylin concluded, and sat back in her chair. “Otherwise. . . .”
“I understand.” Rohan gave an irritated hiss of a sigh. “I haven’t time for all this,” he muttered.
“Sunrunners, sorcerers, and dragons,” she summed up. “Plus that Merida-loving bastard of Cunaxa. Almost makes you wish somebody else wore that circlet, doesn’t it?”
He rubbed automatically at the silver crossing his forehead and she smiled wry sympathy. “Better me than you, is that it?” he suggested.
“Infinitely better. I only worry about dragons. And Remagev. And my son and daughter and grandchild—” She grinned at him. “But I’m curious. Which problem are you going to address first, and what are you going to do about it?”
“Andry. I’m going to invite him for a private chat.”
Gray eyes narrowed as she glanced to the center of the high table. “Sioned already tried that. It doesn’t look as if she got anywhere.”
“I didn’t really expect her to,” he admitted. “Have you any suggestions?”
Feylin only shrugged.
“Out with it,” he ordered with a half-smile.
“I was just remembering the siege of Tiglath.”