“Coren—” She covered her eyes with her fingers, feeling them cold. “I told Drede—”
“You are not made of stone.”
“No. I am made of ice.” She whirled away from the fire, stopped beside a gleaming table, her hands splayed on it. “You know my mind. You know it better than any man alive. I have made difficult choices, but always my own freedom to use my power serving my own desires, harming no one, has been my first choice. Why can he not see that?”
“You loved Tam. Why can you not love Coren of Sirle? You are capable of love. It is a dangerous quality.”
“I do not love Coren!”
He stepped away from the fire toward her, his eyes unblinking, unreadable on her face. “And Drede? Do you love him? He would make a queen of you.”
Blood rose in her face. She stared unseeing at goblets of moon-colored silver on the table. “I was drawn to him a little… But I will not sit meekly beside him, dispensing my power as he sees fit, drawing Sirle to its doom—I will not!”
The calm, sinewy voice pursued her, inflexible. “I am paid to render you to him so meek.”
Her hands slipped from the wood. She turned to him, the blood slipping from her face, her eyes narrowed as though she were listening to words of a strange spell. “Drede—wants—”
“He wants you obedient to him. He wants you to know he can love you, trust you without question, as he can trust no one else in the world. He knows you somewhat. And he thinks there is but one way to achieve this. He hired me to do it.”
A fear such as she had never known began to stir deep in her, send chill, thin roots through her blood, her mind. “How?” she breathed, and felt tears run swift across her face.
“You know, I think. Sybel. How much that name means to you—memory, knowledge, experience. There is not one possession more truly, irrevocably yours. Drede has hired me to take that name from you for a while, then give it back to another woman, who will smile and accept it, and then give to Drede, without question, forever, what he asks.”
A sound came out of her, so sharp and grating she did not recognize her voice. It came again; she slid to her knees on the skins, the hot tears catching between her fingers. She groped for breath, words wrenching from her, “Help me—I am torn out of myself—”
“Have you never wept so before? You are fortunate. It will pass.”
She caught the sobbing between her clenched teeth, her hands clenched on the wool. She turned her head, looked up at him, her face glittering in the firelight.
“Let me see him. I will—I will do whatever he wants. Only do not take my will from me. I will marry him. I will walk meekly beside him—only let me choose to do so!”
The green eyes gazed down at her, inscrutable. The wizard moved after a moment, stooped beside her. He touched her face; tears winked like stars on his fingertips.
“I wept so once…” he whispered. “Many years ago, even with the ashes of years of loving and hating cold in my heart. I wept at the flight of the Liralen and the knowledge that though I might have power over all the earth that one thing of flawless beauty was lost to me… I never thought another thing of such white beauty would fall into my keeping. The King requires that it pass from my hands to his… And he such a small man to tame such freedom…”
“Will you let me talk to him?”
“How could he trust you? He trusted Rianna once, and she betrayed him in secret. He wants no betrayal this time. He is afraid of you and jealous of Coren. Yet your face burned once under his hand, and the young prince loves you. So he would take you to him—not powerless, but controlled.
“What is he paying you?”
The still eyes lined faintly in a smile. “All this—riches, leisurely hours in luxurious privacy, your animals, if I break the power of the Sirle family forever. I have not yet decided to do that.”
“Why is he not afraid of you?” she whispered. “I am.”
“Because when he first spoke to me, he had nothing else I wanted. Now, I am not sure of that.”
“What else do you want?”
“Do you seek to buy your freedom from me?”
“I cannot buy it from you! You must give it freely, if at all, out of pity.”
He shook his head slowly from side to side. “I have no pity. I have only awe of you… You have a powerful mind, lonely in its knowledge, for the experience of the mind is secret, unsharable. I have been in wastelands beneath the moon’s eye, in rich lords’ courts with the sound of pipe and heartbeat of drum… I have been in high mountains, in hot, small witches’ huts watching their mad eyes and fire-burned faces; I have spoken with the owl and the snow-white falcon and the black crow; I have spoken to the fools that dwell by thousands in crowded cities, men and women; I have spoken to cool-voiced queens. But never in all my wanderings did I dream there existed one such as you…” His hand lifted, the ringed finger touching a strand of her hair. She drew back a little, her eyes wide on his face.
“Please. Let me talk to Drede.”
“Perhaps…” He rose, stepped away from her. “Get up. Take your wet cloak off and warm yourself. I have hot food and wine. There is a bed for you with rich hangings behind that curtain and something else that belongs to you.”
She got up slowly, and drew back the white curtain. Ter Falcon perched on a stand of gold; his glittering eyes stared at her indifferently. She groped for his mind, speaking his name silently, but nothing of him answered her, and he did not move. She turned wearily.
“You are strong, Mithran… It is strange that I should be here at your mercy because I chose to love a helpless baby twelve years ago. I am afraid of you and Drede, but fear will not save me, and I do not think anything might save me except you.”
The black-robed wizard poured her wine. At the windows, the curtains were growing pale with morning. “I told you, I have no pity. Eat. Then rest awhile, and I will bring Drede to you. Perhaps he has some pity left in him, but a man afraid in the core of his mind has little room for compassion.”
Drede came at noon. The draw of the bolt on the door woke Sybel; she heard his low voice.
“Is it done?”
“No.”
“I told you I did not wish to speak to her until it was done!”
The wizard’s voice came, cold. “I have never done this before. It goes against me. You will flaw her beyond repair; she will be beautiful, docile, powerful only at your command.”
“You told her that—”
“Yes. It is nothing. She will forget. But she wished to speak to you—beg you—”
“I will not listen!”
“I have told you: I have turned against myself to do this thing. If I must bear the guilt for it, so must you, or I will not do it.”
Drede was silent. Sybel rose and drew back the curtain. The King’s eyes leaped to her face; she saw shame in them, torment, and beneath them the icy glaze of fear. She stood still a moment, her hand on the curtain. Then she went to him and knelt at his feet.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please. I will do whatever you ask. I will marry you. I will put the Sirle Lords under your power. I will raise Tam, and I will bear you sons. I will never argue with you; I will obey you without question. But do not let him take my will from me. Do not let him change my mind. It is a terrible thing, more terrible than if you killed me here, now. I would rather you do that. There is a part of me, like a white-winged falcon, free, proud, wild, a soaring thing that goes its own way seeking the bright stars and the sun. If you kill that white bird, I will be earthbound, bound in the patterns of men, with no words of my own, no actions of my own. I will take that bird for you, cage it. Only let it live.”
Drede lifted one hand, covered his eyes. Then he knelt before Sybel and took her hands in his hands, holding them tightly. “Sybel, I am helpless in this matter. I want you, but I am afraid of you—afraid of that white bird.”