“I’ve told Elis she should talk to Duke Mahieran,” Kieri said when they had moved away. “She can reassure him about Pargun’s intentions. And she will need to know the Tsaians and deal with them as well as us.”
“Has Pargun ever had an ambassador to Tsaia?”
“Not in years. The Verrakaien used to claim they had contact with the Pargunese—fine fellows, they’d say—but the Pargunese claimed they were afraid of assassination if they sent anyone of consequence, and Mikeli’s father would not accept anyone trivial. He had lost his own father to the Pargunese and had little patience with them. Elis is the right person to change Tsaian minds, and I’m sure the Pargunese are no threat to them at this time.”
“Ganlin?”
“Her father’s accepted that she wants to be a Knight of Falk—I suspect that means he’s accepted she won’t find a husband in Kostandan; her brother tells me that they hope she makes a good marriage alliance here or in Tsaia. If you look over there—” Arian followed his glance and saw Ganlin, flushed and pretty, listening to Rothlin Mahieran. “—she’s already found one handsome young man in line for a throne. Her brother would rather she met Mikeli and wants my advice on how to arrange it.”
“What about Dorrin? And isn’t Beclan really—?”
“That’s a ticklish business just now. Duke Mahieran gave me a précis—apparently an earlier letter didn’t get through. Dorrin had to adopt Beclan as her heir—he had to change his name—to ensure he was out of the succession for the Tsaian throne and had close supervision of his magery.”
“Beclan? Magery?”
“Through his mother, Mahieran’s wife, they think. It’s too complicated to explain fully now. We’ll talk to Dorrin after the wedding. Sonder’s staying a full tenday; there will be time. Beclan’s upset about the adoption—and no wonder—but I see he’s already attracted his own following.”
Sure enough, several Siers’ daughters were clustered around Beclan, who no longer looked tense or miserable. In fact, he looked quite happy.
“New faces,” Kieri said in her ear. “Always more interesting than someone’s brother whose faults you’ve heard about from his sister. And he’s now heir to the Verrakai title and estates … quite eligible.”
“That’s what I told him.” Dorrin had come up on Kieri’s other side. She was grinning. “I’m glad he’s enjoying himself. He was an idiot, but he didn’t deserve much of what happened. But that’s for another day’s discussion. I applaud Mikeli for allowing us both to come and for sending Sonder and Rothlin.”
“That doesn’t make it harder?” Kieri asked.
“No. Here, Beclan can meet with his father and brother. In Tsaia, anyone in the line of succession is barred from Beclan and he from them. When I’m summoned to court, he must come with me to Vérella, but cannot attend court or visit his family. Besides, he can see for himself that Roth has just one girl showing interest and he has several. That never hurts a young man’s mood.”
By the end of the evening, Arian was exhausted and longing for her bed. She fell asleep quickly, and the dreams that came to her—though she could not remember them in the morning—left her with a vague melancholy, not the mood she had expected on her wedding morning.
“That’s a solemn look,” Kieri said. She opened her eyes. In the early light she could not see the scars that he had feared would frighten or repel a bride. She ran her hand down his side.
“I dreamed something,” Arian said. “I’m not sure what the dream was. Do you think the Lady will come?”
“The one thing I know—and the only thing I care about—is that when this day ends, we will be formally wed and you will be a queen in name as you are now in truth. Does that please you?”
“Yes,” Arian said. “Absolutely.” Her earlier feelings of insecurity, of concern about her ability to be queen as well as wife, had dissipated in the quarter-year since Midwinter. Now she looked forward to her planned trip to Tsaia. Besides her Squires, she would travel with Sier Davonin, the only woman Sier, and Duke Mahieran of Tsaia and his son and escort. She had hoped Dorrin would travel with them, but now it could be only as far as the border. Still—an adventure. She stretched and grinned at Kieri. “We will make good dreams together, Kieri.”
“I think so, too,” he said. “But at the moment, we had best make good figureheads … alas that there is no more time for dreaming on this wedding morn. You to your bath and dressing, my queen, and I to mine.”
After that the day rushed on; Arian bathed and ate a little breakfast in her own chamber, before her Squires and Siers’ ladies and Estil Halveric came to dress her. Kieri had insisted she have mail and go armed even for the ceremony and had given her a baldric of the finest leather, dyed green and stamped with the royal insignia in gold to wear instead of her sword belt.
When she was ready and the fussiest of the Siers’ ladies had finally quit moving a tendril of hair from this place to that, she went out into the passage; Kieri emerged from his chamber at almost the same instant. The perfume of spring flowers filled the air; Arian was aware of the scent and of the Lady’s glamour at the same moment. She and Kieri went down together, and she was not surprised to find the Lady waiting for them, along with other elves of her court. But her father stood with them … and that was a complete surprise.
“Blessings of the Singer on this day of joy,” the Lady said. Arian could feel the flood of enchantment but was not overwhelmed … others, she saw, were deep in awe, almost drowning in the Lady’s power. Behind the elves stood one who was not: Dorrin Verrakai, like Duke Mahieran, wore formal court dress but unlike him was not gazing at the Lady in rapt adoration. Instead, she had a speculative expression, as if about to test what the Lady could do. She gave Arian a sharp look, then a tiny nod. Arian wondered if Dorrin’s taig-sense had strengthened over the winter.
As a path opened before them and they came out the palace entrance to the courtyard, more flowers appeared, this time out of the air, drifting like colored snowflakes. Among them were butterflies, the small wind of their wings keeping the flowers aloft.
The wedding itself meant repeating some of the same vows as at their betrothal, with mention of the child engendered in the betrothal. Arian’s father and the Lady spoke the elven Witnessing together—another surprise—and the Captain-General of Falk invoked Falk’s Oath and the High Lord.
The courtyard was packed with people—many of the same who had attended Kieri’s coronation the year before. Beyond the Lady’s glamour, Arian felt the taig’s wholehearted joy and the joy of the crowd—they had not needed the Lady’s glamour to force them to celebrate.
As the ceremony ended, a gust of warm wind swirled the flowers and butterflies into a tower of color … and then the flowers fell on heads and shoulders and the butterflies flew away. The Lady turned to Kieri and Arian. “I have made up my quarrel with your father, king and queen of Lyonya, and he his with me. Set your mind at rest about that.”
Arian’s father had a quirk to the corner of his mouth that Kieri knew of old—but he said nothing to contradict the Lady.
“I am happy to hear that,” Kieri said.
“And I,” Arian said. She was not sure the quarrel was over—elves were known for long-held grudges—but having her father at her wedding was worth taking their words at face value. She turned to her father. “Thank you for my wedding gown.”
His smile this time was genuine. “It was my delight to provide it, Arian. And you are even more beautiful than I remembered.”
Next morning, the palace was still nowhere near back to normal. Kieri and Arian went to the salle as usual, but Kieri left when a servant brought word that Duke Mahieran wanted to talk to him again.
“Every ambassador will want time with me today,” he said.
Arian sparred with one of her Squires and with Aliam Halveric when he showed up, then went to breakfast with Aliam and Estil. To her surprise, Dorrin was there, with Beclan at her side, and—a greater surprise—Arian’s father Dameroth also
attended.
“You have heard of my difficulty,” Dorrin said without preamble.
“I don’t understand it,” Aliam said. “You saved the king’s life—how can he be so ungrateful?”
“I saved his life by what, under Tsaian law, is the most heinous of crimes: killing by magery,” Dorrin said. “And to make it worse, in the eyes of some, the man I killed had been invaded—his own life taken—by my father. So I killed his body and my father’s mind and spirit, and all by magery.”
“They had rather their king died because you didn’t?” Aliam asked.
“They had rather I had used another method,” Dorrin said. “I do not blame them, Aliam. I know enough of my family’s history to understand their suspicions of me. They trusted me with their children to be my squires, and two of them were put in peril in my service. Not through my intent, of course, but it happened nonetheless.”
“You may not blame them, but I do,” Aliam said. “I’ve known you long enough, seen you in battle, which they have not, to know that you are utterly honorable. Kieri told them—I know he told them—about you.”
“Yes, but they did not know me. And Kieri had enemies in Tsaia beyond just my relatives—though I think my relatives were the reason he had enemies.”
“You flatter your family,” Aliam said, this time with a smile. “Kieri is quite capable of making enemies on his own.”
Dorrin chuckled. “I have seen that in the South. Still, it’s a reason for some to be less trusting of his opinion. And what happened to my squires would anger any parent.”
“Squires are young fools as often as not,” Aliam said. “And yours didn’t die …”
“No, but neither of them is what he was. Daryan will be all right, especially if his heart-thumb grows.”
“Wait—I hadn’t heard about that.” Aliam leaned forward.
“A Kuakgan, a Master Ashwind, healed him but had the strength only to mend both heel-strings and one thumb. Apparently, there’s a chance that the—” Dorrin glanced at the elf, whose brows had risen. Arian knew her father was startled and a little distressed. “My pardon,” she said. “I know you elves do not like Kuakkgani.”
“I dislike them less than many elves,” Arian’s father said. “The only one I ever really talked to has a Grove in southern Tsaia, near the border. Master Oakhallow.”
“You know Oakhallow?” Dorrin said. “I met him after the battle last year, when Kieri was attacked on his way here.”
“Do you know why he left his Grove?” Arian’s father asked.
“He had word that Paksenarrion wanted him to raise the taig for Kieri.”
“That young woman,” Arian’s father said, “has changed the world in ways we do not yet understand.”
“For Sinyi as well?” Arian asked.
“Indeed. Freeing the banast taig alone would have changed them; finding the lost prince changed them. And what else may come … tell me, lord Duke, was it not at the paladin’s instigation that your mage powers were freed?”
“Yes.”
“And I heard that you also have the power of water, which no magelord has had since Gird’s day, when the Sier of Grahlin died at the Battle of Greenfields.”
“If you mean that I healed a cursed well, that was the gods …”
“Lord Duke, if you will accept the word of one who was alive to see your ancestors arrive in Aarenis, it is wise to accept reality … and you may think that strange from a Sinyi. After all, we are known for enchantments that fool men. But beyond all enchantments is the world the Singer sang into being—or if it suits you better, that the Namer made by naming it, or the Maker made by hammering it out like iron on an anvil, as the dasksinyi believe. In that reality, lord Duke, your powers are as real as mine, and if you do not admit what you are, you will bring more trouble into the world, which I deem you do not wish.”
“Indeed,” Dorrin said, “the world has troubles enough without my adding to them. I do not wish to cause harm, sir elf, but I am not all-wise—”
“Which to know is good, but to excuse inaction is not good. We Sinyi are not accounted wise by any our enchantments do not fool, so I cannot guide you except to share my own experience. My daughter Arian here—who has never known her whole name because her mother forbade it—has met Wisdom itself. She has met Dragon and flown with him.”
“You did not tell me that,” Dorrin said to Arian.
“I met the dragon after I left you,” Arian said. “The night the dragon’s young burned tracks across Lyonya. He asked if I were wise and named me Half-Song, then bade me touch my tongue to his.”
“You touched a dragon’s tongue! Isn’t it fire?”
“It is what the dragon wills it to be,” Arian’s father said. “A dragon’s nature is fire, and fire transforms. So Dragon can be in the shape of anything with a mind.”
“It did not even sting my tongue,” Arian said. “And I felt safe inside it.”
“And so you were … as safe as with me, or safer,” her father said. “But lord Duke, when you seek wisdom, it is to Dragon you must go if human wisdom will not serve. You must learn and master your powers, for though I am no foreteller, yet I do foretell this: what the paladin wakened in you has wakened more than you know and will bring either good or ill depending on you yourself.”
Dorrin grimaced. “It has chosen a poor vessel—”
“Nonsense. It has chosen a magelord of the purest blood, and one free of evil taint by her own choices and the gods’ aid. Just as the gods chose that raw country girl as paladin when she had shown herself able … so you. That is why I wanted to meet you and speak with you. I have knowledge you may need.”
“Do you know what that crown really is?” Dorrin asked.
“Really is?” Arian’s father looked away then back at her. “I know something about it but not everything. You will have heard by now, I suspect, that the dasksinyi say the jewels came from no source they know, and disclaim any part in its making—as do we Sinyi. It was made by men—perhaps with aid I do not know—and men of your blood: magelords.”
“It speaks to me,” Dorrin said. “I told the king and the Marshal-General that: they could hear nothing. Do you know if it has a demon in it, or one of my family’s mind, to speak?”
“I do not know all its nature,” Arian’s father said. “What I do know is that it has chosen you, by all accounts, and yet it is possible that another could find and abuse its powers.”
“They tell me not even Paksenarrion can now move it from the treasury in Vérella,” Dorrin said. “If she can’t, who else could?”
“So I also heard,” he said. “However, one other might do so. Part of the set was stolen from Fin Panir and is now in the hands of the man you knew as Alured the Black, now calling himself the Duke of Immer.”
“I met him in Siniava’s War. I did not know he had the necklace,” Dorrin said. “Why does that give him the power to move the other pieces if he can reach them?”
“I am not sure,” he said. “But I know it might if he shares your bloodline. He badly wants to prove himself descended from the kings of Old Aare, and it might be so … I did not memorize the pedigree of every human in Aare and Aarenis from the migration until now.” He sounded resentful. “Then he need only kill you, and the crown might yield to him.”
“Oh.” Dorrin looked as startled as Arian felt. “You think he knows that?”
“I think he sees you as his rival, because he knows where the jewels were for so long. He must suspect that you inherited the power to use them.”
“Is it possible that he has spread lies about Dorrin in Tsaia?” Arian asked.
“It is certain,” he said. “She became Constable, and she warned Tsaia’s king of danger from this fellow—he would see her as a personal enemy, anyway. And he has met you, has he not?”
“Yes,” Dorrin said. “The last year of Siniava’s War, Kieri allied with him—we thought he was just another half-civilized brigand.”
“At heart he is all br
igand. My point is that he knows your face; he can send his assassins after you. That crown in Alured’s hands could ruin not just the south but the north as well.”
“You were there, you say, when my ancestors came to Aarenis … from Old Aare?”
“Yes. We had left Aare—”
“Elves were in Old Aare?” She had not considered that they existed anywhere but where they were now.
“Yes. And it is something we do not talk about with anyone else: it involves the Severance. Then we came to the north, and a few humans were there already—they sailed over, and some farmed and some fished. We moved on to the forests, which we prefer, and found the mountains already inhabited by dasksinyi. They let us live in the forests but said we would be happier over the mountains, so most of us came—and all, in the end. We told the dasksinyi about the magelords of Aare, and they helped us set wards to keep them back if they ever came so far north.”
“I never knew that,” Dorrin said.
“Nor I,” said Aliam.
“And you would not, if I were not minded to save my daughter great grief, and the world as well. Listen, then: when the magelords came, with those things you found, they used that power to break the wards we set and reset them for their own purposes. The Sinyi were evil, they said.”
“Why?”
“Why did they say that? An old quarrel. Some elves mistook all humans for Kuakkgani, for one thing. For another … the rise of the magelords seemed to mean a loss of our power, and we had been proud of it a long, long time.”
“The dragon told me that you asked dragons to limit their children.”
“We did, since they could not control them, and each clutch a dragon laid could produce hundreds. Neither we nor any other creature could survive if they bred freely. Dragon saw the sense of this and agreed to limit their young to those they could train.”
“Will you tell me what you know of my family?” Dorrin said.
“I do not know how much to tell,” Dameroth said. “And some of it I did not see myself but heard from others, and not Sinyi alone. I cannot tell you what the jewels are, only that they are unlike all others known to me and full of power. We believe they were made by magelords.”