Crown of Vengeance

Vieliessar turned away, dropping her cloak and her gloves to the bed.

“You will hear me,” Maeredhiel said, and her voice rang with such iron authority that Vieliessar looked up in surprise.

“None knows better than I how Caerthalien breaks hearts and lives, child. Six hundred years gone, my brother slew Aradrothiach of Cirandeiron, who would have been my Bondmate. War Prince Palierlaniel Caerthalien did not like the thought of a Caerthalien daughter going to Cirandeiron—and so she summoned Aradrothiach to the betrothal feast, and my brother slew him.”

“But you aren’t dead!” Vieliessar blurted, and Maeredhiel smiled sardonically.

“I knew Aradrothiach for my destined Bondmate, but our Bond was not yet made. Haramarthien could slay my beloved without risk to me—and so he did. But that night I fled to the Sanctuary of the Star, and here I have remained. And I say to you, Vieliessar Farcarinon: patience is the true sword of vengeance. If you can keep Caerthalien uneasy in its bed for century upon century, knowing you are alive and well, it will be a vengeance well crafted.”

“That is not vengeance enough for me!” Vieliessar protested hotly.

“Ah, well, Celelioniel swore you were the Child of the Prophecy,” Maeredhiel said mildly. “Undoubtedly you will think of something better. Now, dress yourself, for we have spent too long in idle chatter.”

Before Vieliessar could ask the dozen questions Maeredhiel had put into her mind, the Mistress of Servants swept from the room and closed the door behind her.

Child of the Prophecy, Vieliessar thought dazedly. What Prophecy? Why should Celelioniel Astromancer have set a Peacebond upon me if the Hundred Houses chose to erase Farcarinon?

Sighing, she leaned over to pull off her boots. She did not know what she should do now—but the one thing she had gained from Maeredhiel’s words was the knowledge the Sanctuary meant time.

She would wait.

And plan.

The dormitory wing echoed emptily at first, for the day before the first caravan train arrived, the Candidates now finishing their Service Year had been sent to sleep in a vast windowless chamber in the other wing of the third floor. The new Candidates saw them only in passing, for it was the Sanctuary servants themselves who oversaw the training of those entering their Service Year.

Spring meant not only the arrival of the Candidates, but of great lords coming to make luck-sacrifices at the Shrine for fortune in the coming War Season, and Lightborn returning to the Sanctuary for counsel. Rare was the day when no tribute caravan arrived—and then two, three, five each day. Each, when it departed, carried away with it those who had ended their Service Year without being called to the Light as well as those newly come to the Green Robe.

In the first days, Vieliessar found herself too weary each night to even think of escape, for each day began before sunrise with the sound of Mage-conjured bells. Those who were to serve at table or in the kitchens hurried through their washing and dressing and hastened off to begin their tasks while their fellows savored a few moments of leisure before being summoned to the first meal by more bells. When the meal was done, the Postulants went to their lessons, the Lightborn to their still-mysterious tasks, and the Candidates to their work. Few of the Candidates were accustomed to their labors, for few of them had been Called from families in service to a Great Keep or manor house. Mistress Hamonglachele, in whose keeping lay the Sanctuary guesthouse and the duty of hospitality to visitors, had claimed many of them for her work, while Pandorgrad Mastergardener, who managed the gardens, claimed more.

Waking and sleeping, the days of the Candidates were governed by the sound of magical bells that chimed sourcelessly in empty air: bells to wake them, bells to send them to their meals, bells to send them to their scant candlemarks of leisure and from there to their beds. Each third fortnight their sleeping rooms were changed, and that was all to the good: if you misliked your bedchamber companions, six sennights would see you with different ones. The prohibition against naming their Houses was heeded by almost no one, but at least Vieliessar was not the only one to refuse to name her House. She felt daring enough in claiming her name.

Spring became high summer, then dwindled away into autumn. Vieliessar’s body hardened to her new work and her mind grew quick to find the best and easiest way to accomplish each task she was set. Though she began to find leisure in the evening, she kept from the Common Room, where Candidates and Postulants alike gathered for games of xaique and gan and narshir. She wanted no friends among those who had slain her family—for the destruction of Farcarinon had not been Caerthalien’s alone, but the work of many Houses—nor did she wish to befriend those she would some day be called upon to serve. No, she would use her free time to plan her future—her true future, not the one Caerthalien meant her to have.

But somehow her plans of escape and vengeance grew no further.

Winter stalked the bounds of the Sanctuary like a great white wolf. Each day was much like the next—no feast day celebrating a House’s triumph nor Festival to mark the turn of the year was celebrated here. And then, it was spring and the first new Candidates were soon to arrive to begin their Service Year.

Now it was Vieliessar and her fellow-Candidates who were sent to the Long Chamber. They would sleep there until their final fates were revealed, as the caravans of their Houses arrived, and the new Candidates would occupy the familiar dormitory rooms. There was excitement and confusion when they arrived, as for the first time in a full Wheel of the Seasons they were free to choose where they might sleep, and among whom. And each contemplated the future to be so soon revealed with both excitement and dread. None of them knew—even now— who would stay and who would go, and while the shared year of toil had forged many strong friendships, the next time many of them met might be when the battle lines of their House’s armies clashed.

This is why we were told not to name our Houses, so those of us who go on to become komentai’a might be spared the knowledge they had slain those who once were friends, Vieliessar thought, surprising herself. None of them had understood that until it was too late.

And each night the Long Chamber held fewer tenants than the night before. Some departed with the caravans. Some donned the green tabard of a Postulant. There seemed to be no metric for knowing who would go or who would stay.

Baramrin and Eradrin and Feinel had shown no hint of the Light in all the moonturns they’d been Candidates —or nothing more than any other had, since all save Vieliessar had been sent here by the word of the Lightborn— yet now they were Called.

But they never tested us! They never asked! Vieliessar thought, half indignant, half disturbed. They never even taught us anything.…

But in looking back on the matter-of-fact spellcraft she’d seen in the last fourteen moonturns—Silverlight and Silversight, Healing, Calling Fire with a snap of the fingers, speaking with beasts and awakening the soil with a touch, Vieliessar realized that wasn’t true. They’d all learned without realizing they were being taught: When and how the Magery was used. The cost of using it. The things it could do.

Perhaps the teaching itself is the test.

Vieliessar knew that true understanding of what it meant to be one of the Lightborn could only come if one were Called. The Postulants had all been willing—even eager—to talk with the Candidates about what they learned, but much of it was like one who was blind attempting to understand what sight was.

It’s like flying, some said. Like running before the wind and knowing every current in the ocean beneath you, said others. Like dancing. Like riding a fast horse.

Like a hundred other things that only one of the Lightborn could understand.

It was a full moonturn before the last of the Candidate caravans came and went. This year Hallorad was the last: a Less House so far to the east that beyond its eastern border lay nothing but leagues of windswept grassland and Graythunder Glairyrill itself. Hallorad left no new Candidates, but bore away Inadan, Thadaniach, Gaen, and Dirthir—the last four who’d shared the now-echoing Long Chamber with Vieliessar.

Her Service Year was over, and she had not been Called.

In the refectory everyone ate together, the servants at one end of the chamber and Hamphuliadiel