Crown of Vengeance

Alone together, Thurion and Ivrulion visited all the Flower Forests within a day’s ride—Rimroheth, Angoratorei, Alqualanya, Valmenandlae, Rolliondale—for the Flower Forests resonated to the Light, and if Vieliessar had entered Caerthalien and used Magery here, some trace should be left. Ivrulion’s conversation always seemed idle, but it returned, again and again, to Vieliessar. Thurion had the sense that much of what he said in answer Ivrulion already knew, and while Thurion was careful to tell all of what he knew, he was equally carefull to tell little of what he guessed. Ivrulion spoke of Vieliessar’s childhood in the Great Keep and of his hope that she would come to Caerthalien so he could extend to her his personal assurance of protection.

“—of course there must never be any children, but that is a simple Binding to craft, and were she wed to my Huthiel, her position would be assured. And she would be most welcome here, for I have heard that her Healing skill is great. Indeed, Warlord Amlunan boasted of it when we met Aramenthiali upon the field this summer—he would not have lived without her art.”

“The Light has indeed blessed her,” Thurion answered, taking care to speak as if he believed Ivrulion’s words to be true.

At first they rode out every day, but soon days and even sennights passed before Ivrulion proposed another expedition, for they found neither presence nor trace of Vieliessar, no matter now closely they searched the Flower Forests. No further message came from Hamphuliadiel, and at last Ivrulion, bored, pronounced himself satisfied that Vieliessar had never come to Caerthalien. Thurion did not know whether he was satisfied of Vielle’s absence or Thurion’s loyalty: all he knew for certain was that when he begged permission from Lord Bolecthindial to visit Sweethallow Farm and his family, it was granted as easily as it had always been.

Wherever you have gone, Vielle, I hope you are safe and happy there. And free.

* * *

Her footsteps crunched through the crust of new-fallen snow as she ran. The winter air was a sharp knife in her throat; her breath smoked on the chill air. This is the domain that should have been mine. And if it were—oh, Silver Hooves defend!—for how long should I have been able to hold it against the Darkness?

She ran on. One league out. One league back. She ran this course every day, at Gunedwaen’s command.

The journey to Farcarinon had taken them from Rade to Woods. She could have brought Gunedwaen and Striker through a Mage Door and stepped from Rimroheth to Eldanwarasse in a heartbeat—and the power she would have woven to make her door would have been as palpable to every Green Robe as if she stood beside each one and shouted aloud. Instead she had Called a horse to carry Gunedwaen and Striker. They’d all been surprised when the animal who answered was a lively young mare. Gunedwaen had promptly named her Trouble, but under Vieliessar’s spells of control she’d been biddable enough. And—like Vieliessar—Trouble had gone where Gunedwaen commanded her.

First to the place where Farcarinon’s Keep had once stood, a wasteland of scattered stone, and then to Eldanwarasse Flower Forest. Farcarninon’s domain had become Wild Lands, Gunedwaen said, and were occupied by outlaws and sellswords, but those would avoid the Flower Forests. To feed them and keep them, Vieliessar had scavenged among the ruins of burnt-out steadings for things abandoned or overlooked when their people had been stolen, and the home she made for them was comfortable enough.

During the day she toiled at Gunedwaen’s direction: chopping wood, setting snares, and toughening a body which had been accustomed to the soft living of the Sanctuary of the Star. Each night, Vieliessar would sit with Gunedwaen over gan or xaique, absorbing his lessons on strategy, on the disposition of troops, of acceptable losses, and of tactics. She had read of wars and battles in Arevethmonion’s scrolls—now she heard tales of war from one who had fought them.

Gunedwaen did not speak of treaty or alliance or of the thousand matters War Prince and Warlord and Lightborn emissary might settle among them before a House’s meisne rode out beneath its banners. He spoke of the sights, sounds, and smells of war—of failing to hear an enemy’s approach for the frenzied screaming of disemboweled horses, of fighting for candlemarks when hunger and thirst were two more enemies, of the heavy heat of armor, of battlefields turned to mud by the blood spilled upon them. He spoke of komen crushed beneath the bodies of their mounts or trampled by careless hooves as they lay helpless on the field, of slow death when Healers could not reach them, of drowning in a shallow stream, imprisoned by their armor and exhaustion. He spoke of battles fought beneath the terrible sun of high summer and through the bitter cold of late autumn, of being captured, powerless to ransom one’s freedom—and being offered a choice between lifelong immurement in some dungeon or ending one’s own life with a swift dagger.

He spoke of the ugliness and futility of war, for by war the Houses of the Hundred might rise or fall in power for a season or a hundred seasons, but in the end, they gained nothing but the chance to go on fighting. He spoke of war as the sport of princes and lords, xaique played with living counters.

Each night she fell exhausted to her sleeping mat, but Vieliessar’s nights were as full as her days, for Gunedwaen was not her only teacher.

* * *

“Lady Indinathiel! Githonel and Kamirbanath have returned from Tildorangelor!”

She raised a hand to her hair. Her head felt strangely bare without its dressing of veil and jewels, but she had no time for such fripperies these days. “What have they found?” she asked sharply.

“Nothing.” Zenderian’s face was a study in anger. The emotion sat strangely upon his gilded and begemmed face, the backdrop of elaborate costume and mannered gesture. Zenderian, of all the Court, kept himself as if Amrethion Aradruiniel had not betrayed them all. “Arwath and Calebre still elude us.”

“Once Pelashia Celenthodiel’s spawn are dead, we will be safe.” She spoke with confidence, but she did not hold such faith and belief within her heart. Once the queen had died, it had been moonturns before Indinathiel had realized the king was no longer fit to rule; moonturns more before she had been able to convince the other courtiers he was not tainted but mad. By then it was too late to call the Council together to choose a legitimate successor and force Amrethion to abdicate, to gain the warrants necessary to purge the kingdom of the defiled.

Indinathiel did not know whose hand had finally struck Amrethion down in secrecy and darkness, only that it was not hers. It did not matter. The rot ran deep. Pelashia’s children had fled the moment their true heritage was known, but their sons and daughters had formed an alliance and sworn that one of them would be Amrethion’s successor.

Not while I breathe, Indinathiel thought grimly. She had loved her mad, foolish liege—she would not see the kingdom he had made given over to rabble and monsters.…

Vieliessar’s dreams were not of the future. Since the day she had walked from the Sanctuary of the Star for the last time, she had dreamed of the death of Amrethion Aradruiniel …

And of the of war that had followed.

Amrethion had prophesied her birth and sealed her fate. But any Lightborn knew a prophecy wasn’t a spell. Prophecy did not compel. Prophecy predicted, telling a true tale of things that had not yet happened. But Amrethion’s Prophecy had not contained a place for her, as she had once thought. It had contained a shape into which she must be fitted by a force as monstrous and uncaring as winter’s cold or forge’s heat. From the moment she had claimed the mantle of Child of the Prophecy, she’d felt the terrible appetite of fate devouring all that had been Vieliessar and leaving behind the tool that would serve its need.

And so the lost and forgotten nobles of Amrethion’s Court quarreled beneath her skin, showing her a thousand ways to fall short of the goal she must reach. Success or failure on the battlefield was the least of them. In her dreams, Vieliessar learned a thousand ways to fail. A thousand things she must not do. The consequence of every action, based on a dozen—a hundred—possible deeds of her allies, her enemies, and those who did not wish to choose a side.

Zenderian had lost the whole of his army crossing the Mystrals when the weather had turned and he had not. Githonel had burned the standing crops to force the enemy to capitulate, and when the tide of battle had turned, his own forces had faced starvation. Kamirbanath had believed the enemy general would honor a truce. Melicano had taken useless hostages. Indinathiel lost a third of her forces when an amnesty extended by an alliance of Western lords caused them to desert. Nelpanar had refused to bring her cavalry to Tengolin’s aid because of an ancient feud